Edinburgh Book and Fringe Festival. Friday 28th August, 2026

 

My final trip to Edinburgh this August. 

I mistimed my departure, so I arrived in Edinburgh later than intended. Heading directly to the Caley Picture House Wetherspoons from the West End tram stop, I had 40 minutes to order and eat my lunch if I were to reach the Book Festival site in time.

It was close, but I made it, ending up drenched in sweat and having to use my shirt sleeve to wipe away the sheen from my scalp. I must have looked disgusting to the kids waiting with me in the queue for Katherine Rundell.

Impossible Creatures Made Real with Katherine Rundell, 13:30 - 14:30

Event Brochure Entry

Dragons, griffins, sphinxes, centaurs – on a cluster of magical islands called the Archipelago, creatures of myth still live. Katherine Rundell’s multi-award-winning Impossible Creatures series tells the story of how an ordinary boy and a flying girl get swept up in adventures they’ll never forget. Today, Katherine shares the epic third book, The Neverfear – how did she create such a richly imagined world? And what tips does she have for budding young writers with wild imaginations?

Ticket Price: £8

I adore Katherine's fiction. Her middle-grade fantasy fiction is so vivid and imaginative. She was really the driving force to visit the capital again. This would be my first experience seeing her in person. 

Upon entry, the front section filled up quickly; lots of kids were desperate to get as close to the front as possible. I chose a seat at the end of the front row of the raked seating away from everyone else, conscious that I was still sweating profusely.

Katherine's event felt like a TED Talk given by the best primary school teacher in the world. Armed with her clicker, she stood on the stage below her giant screen and addressed us with passion and enthusiasm, introducing us to her process. Her worldbuilding often begins with the foods. The rich tastes and smells help immerse the reader in her world. In real life, she likes to research her characters' experiences as much as possible, so she learned to fly a biplane, kayaked up the Amazon, met huskies and even practised walking a tightrope.  

One story involved her characters eating a tarantula. She didn't get to taste one on her Amazon trip, so, in her book, she used the description the natives related, that it tasted of fish or prawn. Much later, she happened upon a supplier of ethically sourced tinned tarantula and tried it. Yuck! It tasted horrible, like burnt hair. She didn't amend the description in the book, though, because it was possible that fresh tarantula tasted nicer than the tinned variety.

She often incorporates a young creature into her stories, as they represent life continuing. All her book creatures are based on actual folklore creatures from around the world. When she describes them, she bases the creatures on real-world alternatives, so unicorns are like horses and gaganas are like crows.  

She asked the audience lots of questions, and the kids were all keen to answer, raising their arms straight into the air. What was especially amazing was how Katherine could take their What If? ideas and spin them off in five or six directions off the top of her head. Katherine's humour shone throughout the talk, as did her passion for writing. It was inspiring to listen to her. 

Afterwards, the kids rushed to the bookshop like a fast-moving river. The oldies, like me, couldn't keep up, walking at a more dignified pace. I ended up about halfway back in the book signing queue. It took forty minutes to reach the front, despite Waterstones' slick operation of writing the name in advance on a Post-It and sticking it like a bookmark onto the signing page. So many of the kids had questions to ask her, and nearly all of them wanted a picture. A lucky few received a card featuring one of the Impossible Creatures. They weren't handed out to adults, though. When it was my turn to get my book signed, I clammed up, content to receive her autograph and a smile.   

Writing the Darkness with Patrick Ness, 15:30 - 16:30

Event Brochure Entry

Patrick Ness is a titan of Young Adult literature. Author of modern classic, The Knife of Never Letting Go, he returns to the world of the bestselling Chaos Walking trilogy with Piper at the Gates of Dusk. Blending sci-fi, speculative fiction, and adventure, it’s a story of power, division, and hope. Hear Patrick talk about going back to a world he created nearly 20 years ago and what it takes to write award-winning science fiction.

Ticket Price £15.50

Donations: Support our Schools Programme  £2.00

The queue for Patrick Ness was not too long when I joined it at 3.10 pm. The rain was spitting again, so I was glad to be under the cover of the Courtyard tent. Patrick's audience skews older, more YA, but there were as many adults as teens present. As we filtered in, I ended up with a seat in the front-row aisle. At the very end of the row was a man holding a sleeping, four-month-old baby, which turned out to be Patrick's. 

Patrick is gay, American and remarkably urbane. He grew up closeted in a small Christian conservative town. His writing helped him form his identity. He believes spite and defiance will take you a long way in the publishing world, and even when people reject you, write anyway.

As he writes both YA and adult fiction, he was asked what the difference was. He said in YA, the protagonists push the boundaries, discovering where they lie, while adult fiction is often more about being trapped within those boundaries.

He's funny but painfully frank in his replies, admitting he's bitter about how the Chaos Walking film was handled and noting that Tom Holland never once mentioned the project's name during the press junket. He had a far better experience working with Spielberg on "A Monster Calls".

He is a staunch advocate for LGBTQ+ rights. One of the new heroes in his latest work is a trans man. He felt it was important to explore that experience. In answer to one of the interviewer's questions, he refused to use Harry Potter as the example he had used in the past, as he now regards JK as the Evil One, thanks to her using her wealth to push an anti-trans agenda.

During the Q&A, an older woman with a prim-sounding voice began her question: "In Edinburgh, we are a polite people, so I think you should apologise for those comments you made about JK-" That's as far as she got. Patrick snapped, "I'll cut you off right there." His temper boiled, and he explained to her passionately why JK's views are so harmful, especially to his readers. He stopped short of having her removed from the room, but did joke at the end that everyone was welcome to join him at the bookshop to get their books signed, "Except you", pointing to the woman in question. He apologised multiple times for losing his cool, but we understood why.

I didn't have a book to get signed, so afterwards I exited the Book Festival site to look for something for my dinner, buying a meal deal from the nearby Tesco Local.

Patrick hates doing book readings

My next show wasn't for a few hours, so I bought an ice cream (two scoops, one of lemon drizzle and one of passionfruit) and wandered over to the Pleasance to see if there was anything available starting soon that took my fancy. There wasn't. I sat on a wall, ate my wrap, used the on-site toilet facilities, and headed across to Cab Vol 1.

Felicity Ward was chatting with a pal in the booth behind me. I didn't eavesdrop; instead, I read my Kindle and scrolled through social media.

Edinburgh Fringe

18:40 (1hr) Dan Rath: Help Me Please

Cab Vol 1. Ticket Price: £14 (& 1.50 BF) = £15.50

Blurb:

You probably already know me from reading the news. In 2018, I dressed up as a sewing needle and hid inside a strawberry. There should be a French word for the moment you realize a bald dude actually has a ponytail. I'm so used to failure that success represents an existential threat. 'His mind works like no other' ***** (Chortle.co.uk). 'The speed and frequency of his jokes is dizzying… Buckle up' **** (Guardian). 'Book yesterday' **** (Age). New Faces of Comedy, Just For Laughs Montreal, 2025 Winner: Best of the Fest Sydney Comedy Festival.

Dan died on his arse tonight. The room was less than half full. The audience had largely ignored the ushers' attempts to wrangle us to the front, so we were spread out across the space, leaving many empty seats. The crowd on one side of the room laughed loudly and heartily, but it sounded forced. On my side of the room, there was mostly silence with occasional titters, creating an odd imbalance.

This threw Dan, who never managed to make his material flow. Normally, he pauses to ride the laughter, but tonight those silent pauses turned awkward. He worked hard to laugh off the bombs, mentioning how "that one usually gets a laugh". He did have some good lines, but I felt he sometimes rambled on too much after the joke, diminishing its effect, like a gymnast stumbling a couple of steps after landing. Compared to last year's brilliant show, this one felt like it was composed of castoffs that didn't fit. 

You know it isn't going well when the comedian pauses to ask an audience member where they heard about the show, and this develops into an audience survey as he randomly picks person after person to tell him, none of it eliciting any laughs.

Ouch!     

20:00 (1hr) Li Jin Hao: Falling From a Moon

Pleasance Courtyard Above.  Ticket Price: £15 (& £1.50 BF) = £16.50 

Blurb:

I'm addicted to time travel. I keep thinking of the past. I want to go back. Not too far though. Not Pangea. Remember Pangea? It was the first Brexit. This was when T-rexes were playing scissors scissors scissors. Before they added rock and paper to the game. That's when the game got heavy. Everything's heavy now. I feel the gravity. Back then things felt lighter, like being on the moon. Let's go there. Meet me on the moon. Edinburgh Comedy Awards Best Newcomer nominee 2024. ***** (Telegraph). ***** (Skinny). **** (Scotsman). **** (Observer).

I nipped out sharply from Cab Vol 1 as I only had twenty minutes before my next show at Pleasance Above. The queue had started but wasn't too long, despite the show being a sellout (and nominated for the Edinburgh Award). I ended up with a seat in the middle of the second row. 

I've seen Li a few times now. When he started out, his opening ten-minute set established his USP as a soft-spoken, otherworldly comedian with well-hidden, left-field punchlines. His debut hour expanded on this, but was still a little rough. This show brings everything together beautifully, blending the mystical with the mundane, playful and funny in equal measure. He remains in the moment, responding to the sound and movement of the audience, stepping out of the routine to comment on someone scratching their nose, sometimes copying someone's cough or a stray laugh before returning to the material. That keeps the atmosphere electric.

I liked how he used the large full-moon prop, lit in different ways, subliminally creating the effect of passing time. 

A genuinely funny and illuminating show.  

Edinburgh Fringe, Sunday 17th August 2025: Julia Masli, Cat Cohen, Dan Rath, Michelle Wolf, Simon Evans, Brooke Being Brooke.

An extra journey to the Fringe, on my own, in order to catch the shows I couldn't fit in on the other two visits. Six shows in one day: how was I going to cope?

I messed up one aspect of my planning. I thought free parking applied everywhere in Edinburgh on a Sunday, but this was not the case. The Central Zones had parking restrictions between 12.30 pm and 6.30 pm. My final show was due to finish after the last bus and tram had departed, so using the Park and Ride was not an option. Using a public car park was going to work out too expensive, and the nearby, cheaper Parkopedia sites were all sold out. Solution: Park outside the Central Zones and walk in.

I departed around 9 am, avoiding the Paisley 10k routes, and made it to Edinburgh by 10:20 am, finding the last space to park on a side street in a residential area off .     

The Brilliance of Broken Glass: Button (£13) 11:35 at Bunker Three at Pleasance Courtyard

My original choice for this timeslot, Ian Smith, sold out while I was thinking about it, so this was a punt. It ticked the box of being by an overseas performer, so I was unlikely to catch her locally. It fell under the Theatre listing, so I lowered my laugh expectations. Would I regret choosing this over my third choice, Stuart Goldsmith's WIP?

This is a show about Brooke's horrific ordeals, involving an amputation (unspecified), organ failure resulting in numerous operations and losing her identity. But Brooke, being Brooke, it's all told with perfect teeth, a broad smile and a show-must-go-on mentality. Her confidence is supreme, despite the room being less than half full. The only time she takes a breather from her tight script is for brief video montages from her childhood. 

Her excessive upbeatness grates against my cynical Scottish sensibilities. I say wallow in your misery. To be fair to her, she's had it hard. I'm happy that she's happy. She's living her dream, even when her life has been a nightmare. I just don't need a repeat performance.  

Simon Evans "Have We Met?" (£16) 14:10 at Just The Fancy Room at Just The Tonic at the Caves

This show didn't tick the overseas box. It was an old show from 2023 that Simon was giving another airing after a tour upgrade. It piqued my interest as I thought it was about Simon's personal descent into early-stage dementia. It wasn't. The closest that got was the standard 'old man walks into a room and forgets why' routine. 

Instead, the show dealt more with mortality. The number of comedy greats who died before they reached sixty, which Simon has now surpassed, troubles him. 'Sniper Alley', he calls it, the best being picked off before their time. He pays tribute to many of them, Benny Hill, Frankie Howerd, Tommy Cooper and Sean Lock, for whom he used to write. The latter, I felt, was a valid mention, but perhaps included more to paint Simon in a better light, given his right-wing views, aired semi-regularly on GB News, had resulted in his work being reappraised and called out for punching down rather than being ironic. Not quite cancelled, because he doesn't have a big enough career to take it away. He bemoans how Jimmy Carr and Ricky Gervais can convert their cancellations into viewing figures, ticket sales and, ultimately, cash.     

It is telling that the first big laugh in the room came after he declared, almost in passing, how much he doesn't like minorities. This audience was primarily older and English, bar the 21-year-old in the front row, who hadn't heard of any of the comedy greats, not even Little Britain. 

The hour suffered rather than benefited from being a recut of his tour show. Themes felt contracted rather than developed. The ending was poor, reciting from memory a section of the poem Ulysses, linking it to a previous Scissors bit. Good for you, mate!  

Michelle Wolf (£20) 16:00 at Pleasance One, Pleasance Courtyard 

One of the reasons I headed to Edinburgh today was to see Michelle Wolf. I expected an hour of biting satire, laying into both sides of American politics (but mainly Trump). While Trump did receive some bashing in the first five minutes, the rest of the hour delved more into man-bashing and babies, not surprising given she is eight months pregnant. Her jokes are good, but don't land well with a male demographic. The women in the audience were howling with laughter, but it's not as funny when you are the butt of the joke, no matter how true it is. 

Hopefully, after she pops out this new one, she'll get back to writing satire (by that, I mean a Netflix special - what did you think I meant?)

Dan Rath: "Tropical Depression" (£13) 18:40 Cab Vol 1 at Monkey Barrel Comedy

A five-star review from Chortle for his show at the Melbourne Comedy Festival spurred me to book a ticket for this one over other choices. I wasn't disappointed. 

Dan has an oblique, peculiar view of life, skewed through mental health issues. The material gets dark quickly, but clever at the same time. He sounds like an Antipodean Steven Wright, rolling out one-liners and short jokes, rarely making eye contact with the audience as he runs his fingers through his hair, rubbing his head as if to squeeze out another tortured funny.

It's laugh after laugh, with only an occasional dud, which he remarks about, making it funny, as if deliberate. Maybe it was. It was time well spent.

After this show, I moved the car to outside the Pleasance, then went to get some dinner, buying a banoffee crepe which I managed to spill down my t-shirt. Just as well my wife wasn't with me to roll her eyes and complain about not being able to take me anywhere. Fortunately, there wasn't much of a mark after I wiped it off.

 Cat Cohen: "Broad Strokes" (£20)  21:00 Pleasance One Pleasance Courtyard

I saw some of Cat Cohen's Netflix special and thought it was excruciating and unwatchable. Her over-the-top onstage Millennial personality was unfunny. However, this wasn't a live experience, so perhaps I should see for myself what she's like in person. She did win the Edinburgh Newcomer Award in 2019, after all. This show was about her stroke, so it might have some comedy depth to it.

Whoops. 

While a large section of the audience found her hilarious, with so much loud adulation over the most minor things - a flick of her hair or a pout - she left me cold.  Maybe my seating position affected the sound quality, but I occasionally struggled to make out what she was saying, and I couldn't follow some of the song lyrics. It could have been her accent, the pitch of the song or just my hearing. I don't think she deserved the huge guffaws and finger whistles in appreciation of her work. 

The story itself and its telling were funny, just not as amusing as some of the audience thought it was. Maybe I'm just the wrong age and demographic to understand the funny.    

Show description update

Julia Masli: ha ha ha ha ha ha ha (£20) was 23:15, now 23.30 at Queen Dome, Pleasance Dome

An award-winning, five-star show, originally from 2023, with audience participation. That was all I knew about it. I had to see it for myself.  

Boy, was this GREAT! 

(THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS!)

We pack the room. I choose to sit in the second row, then realise it's on the same flat level as the front row, and I can't see past the big unit in front of me. I skip back a row, taking the aisle seat. I witness others doing the same, a party of Americans joining me, others switching to the seating across the aisle. I then remember the audience participation bit. I'm on an aisle. Oh dear!

The lights go out. We're in almost total darkness. I detect light out of the corner of my eye coming from the top of the stairs behind me. Others turn around to see what's going on. Julia is at the top of the stairs, a torch on her wrist illuminating her face. "Ha", she barely whispers, repeating the word each time she takes another step down to the stage area, which is set up with a desk and curtains, and items hanging from the ceiling. One of her arms is a plastic mannequin leg, and she has unusual electronic headwear meshed into her costume. 

She approaches an audience member in the front row and says, "Ha". They are expected to repeat the word back in the same pitch and tone. When someone gets it wrong, she shouts, 'NO!!!!' in their face and floats away again to find someone new. When someone gets it wrong twice, they are removed from their seat, which she then smashes into pieces at the back of the stage, leaving them to crouch in place. And so it goes on...

When she moves onto the next phase of the show, it gets wild. With a microphone now taped to her plastic leg-arm, she approaches someone in the audience and says, "Praaaaaaw-blem?" They then have to tell her a problem they are experiencing. One person says they are tired. She takes them from their seat and leads them onto the stage, then pulls out a single bed for them to sleep upon, giving them a blindfold and a pair of headphones, over which she hears Julia's meditative chant of "We're all going to die". Another needs to pee, so he's sent away with a specimen bottle to fill and bring back. One cleverclogs declares he has no problems (which I was going to use if picked). She kicks him out. "This show is for people with problems. You have no problems. You must go," the words spoken softly with a faint Eastern European accent. He returns but is kicked out again. She only lets him stay a third time when he insists he paid to see the show. 

One woman has responded that her problem is her ability to move on from a recent breakup. She's commanded to let it go. Julia moves across to me. Her eyes are mesmerising as she comes closer, pointing the microphone close to my mouth. 

"You."

 I qualify what she wants me to tell her. "Do you mean what do I want to let go?"

"Yes".

I mutter quietly, "My breath?"

"Why do you say your breath?" she insists.

"Because I'm holding it. I'm nervous." A titter of recognition ripples around the room.

"Breeeaaath," she commands me, before moving on. As she does, she glances back at me with a slight smirk. "I have not heard that one before." 

I get off easy. One poor guy agrees to be washed clean of the world's evil, ending up naked in an actual shower, his dignity protected by frosted glass. It is then that I realise that some of the audience are probably stooges. But not every one. I know I'm not. 

The effect of the show is exhilarating. Julia has a powerful presence, intimidating yet playful. I would return to see this show again in a heartbeat, despite it finishing later than billed at 12:50 a.m. (from an 11:30 start). I want to know how much is staged.  

I get home at 2:20 am with no road issues on the way back. 

At 6 am, I hear Poppy moaning in distress. She needs an urgent poo. I let her out, well aware I need more sleep. An hour later, the alarm goes off. 

Monday is going to be a fun day.

Booking fee total £7.50 (two transactions)