The Edinburgh Fringe comes to a close Monday, wrapping up the monthlong performing arts festival that has become a proving ground for some of theater's riskiest, weirdest and most original work. Sometimes, those experiments escape the festival entirely and go on to become global cultural phenomena. (Looking at you, Fleabag and Baby Reindeer .)
This year, more than 4,200 shows descended on Edinburgh, with artists hailing from 74 countries.
NPR did its research — making its way through roughly 40 of them.
That meant testing out theater in a 200 degree Fahrenheit sauna. A musical about a Nebraska-based butt plug wearing cult. And clowns. So many clowns. A surprising (or perhaps not so surprising?) number of them naked.
We've rounded up some of the best performances from this year's Fringe that are headed to the United States — plus a few more worth keeping on your radar.
Jake Brasch plays the keyboards and Nadja Leonard-Hopper controls the sound effects as the stars of the musical Hole! Chewboy hide caption
Garth, a rural Nebraska-based preacher, wakes up one day with a warning from God about an impending apocalypse known as "The Great Sucking" which risks sending his congregation "ass-first" into space to burn on the face of the sun. The only way to save themselves is to wear butt plugs at all times. Next thing we know, Garth has ordered 8,000 wooden butt plugs off Amazon and — as it turns out — he was smart to do so.
Because what sounds like a preposterous premise quickly turns into an incredibly charming and surprisingly thoughtful musical, following the preacher's teenage son, Luke, and his best friend, Conor — both closeted and struggling to find their place — as they escape their small conservative town and embark on a coming of age road trip that explores friendship, belonging, and the risks we take to be ourselves.
Jake Brasch and Nadja Leonhard-Hopper, the talented writers and stars, do a remarkable job of playing the show's many characters, with Brasch also on keyboards while Leonhard-Hopper handles the sound effects using an impressive array of props to take us through every swish and whoosh. If you're wondering how it all comes together, it is in large thanks to the incredible chemistry the pair share on stage — you can tell they are having fun, and in our experience, the audience is too.
Zach Zucker, aka the bad boy of clowning, hosts this raunchy, high energy variety show, built around an ensemble of improvising, slightly manic and frequently very offscript performers.
Zach Zucker leads Stamptown, a raunchy variety show with a new Netflix special. Jacinta Oaten/Jacinta Oaten hide caption
Fresh off a Netflix special that premiered earlier this month , Stamptown crams in a dizzying mix of acts — think fire breathing burlesque dancers, aerial pole acrobats spinning above you, and some of the sharpest, strangest clown comedy around.
Do some of the bits go on a bit too long? Absolutely. Does Zucker — seem capable of veering off in any direction at any moment? Also yes. But that unpredictability is the point. Half the fun is never quite knowing where the show is headed next.
Elf Lyons is not a household name in the United States — but that will hopefully change with her breathtaking show The Woman on the Edge , one of the most spectacular pieces of this year's Fringe.
Lyons, who started her career in standup before training as a clown at the École Philippe Gaulier in France, opens her show in character, wearing a red wig and speaking in a strange mid-Atlantic accent seemingly plucked straight out of old Hollywood, working her way across the stage on her tip-toes. "I am a woman on the edge!" she shouts.
FILE — Elf Lyons attends Sky Arts Awards 2025 at The Roundhouse on September 16, 2025 in London, England. Ben Montgomery/Getty Images Europe hide caption
For the first ten minutes, the audience seems a little unsure where any of this is going — something Lyons is self-aware enough to address. But by the end, we understand the full depth of what she means by being "on the edge." And boy, is it something.
As the manic character starts to chip away and the real Lyons begins to break through, the show reveals itself as something far more vulnerable. We learn about the collapse of her engagement just days before her wedding day, the subsequent heartbreak and the disappointment following a brief liaison with a 40-year-old unnamed man who seems to think a high step count is an adequate substitute for actual therapy.
Lyons uses her extraordinary physicality — slipping between a range of accents, mime, and endless amount of gestures to hold together a piece that could easily fall apart.
Where: PAX West in Seattle and ASYLUM in New York
When: Sept. 4 to 7 (Seattle) and Sept. 9-12 (New York)
Interactive shows are having a moment, but Australian comedian John Robertson can reasonably claim to have gotten there early. The Dark Room was born in 2012, from a 5-minute comedy routine about "how crap videogames were in the 1980s."
As the story goes, the audience, a room full of "delightful nerds" — started playing along with a game that did not exist. More than 3,000 shows and a sizable cult following later, T he Dark Room has evolved into a choose-your-own-adventure live action video game, presided over by Robertson as its obscene, merciless and incredibly quick-witted host.
View this post on Instagram A post shared by Mr John Robertson #TheDarkRoom (@mr_dark_room)
The premise is simple enough. The audience is, quite literally, trapped inside a dark room.
Robertson hand picks audience members and forces them to choose between four options flashed up on screen. Win...
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