Edinburgh Editor Fee Orr writes… This is a record-breaking year for new musical theatre work at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Our small army of reviewers are all set to tackle the offerings for 2026.
If there are trends, it would seem to lean towards the fantasy of storytelling with whimsy and fairy tales jostling alongside reimagined classical tales and visions of the future.
Please follow our reviews online as we work towards a shortlist of nominees for our Edinburgh Festival Fringe Best Musical 2026.
Have a great Fringe!
Delphi: The Musical
Auditorium at Bedlam Theatre (49); 7-30 August, 15:30 (no shows on 17, 24)
Theatre Movement Bazaar returns with a modern Ancient Greek musical comedy set backstage at the Oracle of Delphi. Once the preeminent oracle, Delphi has lost patronage and needs money.
Hope arrives with Imperial Secretaries from Rome, but the nefarious plans of the authoritarian Emperor throw the existence of the Oracle, and its retinue, into question.
Will Delphi’s team bend the knee? Will loyalties fracture as fame and fortune beckon? Singing, dancing and mysterious vapours tell all.
From the creators of Tiny Little Town, Musical Theatre Review’s award-winning company makes a welcome return!
Theatre Movement Bazaar
Bliss
Grand at Pleasance Courtyard (33); 5-31 August, 13:00 (no shows on 12, 18, 25)
Billed as the biggest new musical of this year’s Fringe, from the Olivier Award-winning producers behind Cabaret at the Kit Kat Klub and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.
Bliss will have a pop-rock punch. Directed by Tony Award nominee Sheryl Kaller, with a book, music and lyrics by Emma Lively and Tyler Beattie, and with choreography by Olivier Award nominated Josh Prince.
Four sisters escape their tower and collide with the outside world. Where fairy godfathers rule and happy endings come at a cost, this razor-sharp tale rewrites the concept of happily ever after.
Susan Edelstein Productions, ATG Productions, Gavin Kalin Productions
Legendary
Friesian at Underbelly Bristo Square (302); 5-31 August, 15:35 (no show on 17)
A solo musical by Cheeyang Ng, an award-winning NY-based Singaporean singer-songwriter.
Legendary is a beautiful retelling of Chinese mythologies, but through circle singing and from a queer perspective – in the world of Yin and Yang, what happens for those in between?
Cheeyang Ng/Everything is Maya, Communal Practice, Jennifer Leigh
Goodbye Dandelion
Belly Dancer at Underbelly Cowgate (61); 5-30 August, 16:10 (no show on 18)
This is the story of an unlikely friendship with a 50-year age gap. Oh, and death!
Told by real-life siblings Maddie Rice (on the mic) and Marcus Rice (on the keys), this poignant and sharply funny new work follows the final years of 87-year-old Darcy seen through the eyes of a new friend, bound by an extraordinary 50-year age gap. What unfolds is an unlikely friendship that is as life-affirming as it is heart-breaking.
Maddie and Marcus Rice, Charlotte Pleasants, Underbelly
The Singer
Traverse 1 at Traverse Theatre (15); 4-30 Aug, times vary (no shows on 5, 6, 7, 10, 17, 24)
Written and directed by the immensely talented Cora Bissett, with music and lyrics written by the multi-award-winning KT Tunstall, The Singer is a powerful story of music, identity and connection, and the fight for a deaf artist to be truly seen and heard.
Performed in spoken English and British Sign Language, with captioning, this show follows the unlikely partnership between Joe (Jamie Rea), a deaf artist, who “sings” with his hands, and Andy (Dylan Wood), a washed-up musician hungry for a comeback. Joe experiences music viscerally and physically, feeling rhythm through his body and crafting lyrics that pulse with life and exhilarating originality.
As their connection ignites something extraordinary, ambition and belonging collide. But as prejudice and the music industry’s ableist blind spots close in, their bond is pushed to breaking point.
Dundee Rep Theatre, Solar Bear, Aberdeen Performing Arts
The Ballad of Isobel Gunn
Annexe at theSpace @ Symposium Hall (43): 7-29 August, times vary (no shows on 16, 23, 30)
A new Scottish-Canadian musical recounting the extraordinary true tale of Isobel Gunn, a Scottish Orcadian woman who explored Canada in 1806, living as a man and working for the Hudson Bay Company.
After journeying from the remote Orkney Islands, Isobel travels 1,800 miles across the Canadian wilderness as John Fubbister, a labourer in the fur trade. But when she unexpectedly gives birth, Isobel’s identity is revealed.
A celebration of a long-forgotten hero who had the courage to live freely and the tenacity to follow her dreams.
Melanie Gall
Midnight Train to Nowhere
Upper Theatre at theSpace @ Niddry St (9); 7-22 August, 22:30 (no shows on 16)
Farah Price never expected visitors. Not on the Northern line – and certainly not at midnight. But strange things can happen on empty carriages.
When Farah finds herself surrounded by peculiar-looking passengers, all of them oddly fascinated by the world around them, she wonders if she’s fallen into a dream.
The truth, however, may be far more revealing. Time, love and humanity are wound up in this paranormal concept musical, which explores how six separate lives might all add up to one.
As previous award winners, it’s always a treat to see what the Cambridge University Musical Theatre Society brings to Edinburgh.
Cambridge University Musical Theatre Society
Heracles: Of Men and Beasts
Upper Theatre at theSpace @ Niddry St (9); 17-29 August, 12:30 (no show on 25)
Acclaimed Kiwi theatre company The Barden Party’s international premiere of this powerful, original folk musical shedding new light on untouched aspects of one of mythology’s greatest figures: his struggle with his darker self, his fraught relationship with Hera, Queen of the Gods.
Four characters explore a timeless question. Who are we when no one is watching: hero, man, beast or god? Greek folklore blended with 1940s Hollywood aesthetic through a highly innovative live-looping musical landscape where one musician creates the sound of a full band.
Cast album featuring ten original songs on all main streaming platforms.
The Barden Party
The Bob Ross Effect
Piccolo Tent at Assembly George Square Gardens (3): 5-31 August, 16:05 (no show on 18)
Artist, animal lover and unlikely sex symbol Bob Ross brought art into the living rooms of millions with The Joy of Painting, one the most watched TV art shows in history and now an online phenomenon still getting millions of views decades later.
With his instantly recognisable big perm and soft-spoken encouragement to paint “happy little trees”, Bob Ross has taught generation after generation to embrace their creativity.
Directed by Ali James and with original music composed with Jordan Paul Clarke. The pair have also collaborated with Showstopper! The Improvised Musical and Mischief. Songs written by Sarah-Louise Young and Jordan. Sarah-Louise Young is always great to see – an Edinburgh favourite.
Sarah-Louise Young/Suzanna Rosenthal Productions
Mayflies
Rear Warehouse (Tower Street Entrance) at Brown’s of Leith (320); 7-30 August, 16:00 (no shows on 11, 18, 25)
In celebration of its 30th anniversary, the award-winning Fringe favourites Grid Iron present the world premiere of Mayflies, a site-specific adaptation of Andrew O’Hagan’s best-selling novel.
Everyone has a Tully Dawson: the friend that defines your life. This tale of 1980s youth and facing mortality in middle age is a joyous and heart-breaking elegy to the young people we still carry within us.
With an epic soundtrack forged straight from the heart of the ’80s, a former metalworks in Leith echoes the iconic venues of Manchester’s music scene, providing an ideal setting for this love letter to friendship, and a pledge: go at life differently.
Grid Iron
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