🎭 Edinburgh Festival Minute: 22, 23 & 24 August 2025
Make the most of the final weekend: Free shows from 'So You Think You’re Funny' winner, busy weekend at the book fest + this weekend's hot tickets
🌤️ Good morning festival fans. It’s the final weekend of the Fringe. Lots happening. Thank you for supporting this daily newsletter. It’s been fun to curate! Thanks especially to the many readers who sent in tips.
📆 Links to the programmes:
🎭 Fringe. 🟡 International Festival. 📚 Book Festival. 🎬Film Festival. 🎨 Art Festival. 👍 Free Fringe. 👍 PBS Free Fringe.
👀 The most-visited links from the last newsletter:
- ⭐️ ‘Revealed: The review website secretly owned by a Fringe publicist’.
- 🎟️ Tickets for Edinburgh Comedy Award nominated Katie Norris: Go West, Old Maid.
- 🎟️ Tickets for Edinburgh Comedy Award nominated Sam Jay: We The People.
- 🎨 Who won the 2025 Comedy Poster Awards.
- 🏆 Finalists of this year’s So You Think You’re Funny contest.
🗞️ Talk of the town: Festival news
🏆 Last night Madeleine Brettingham won this year’s So You Think You’re Funny contest. Judges ranked more than 430 applications followed by a series of heats across the country. - Chortle.
⮑ There are two chances to see Madeleine this weekend for free. She’ll perform ‘Michael Made Me Do It (work-in-progress)’ at the Counting House Attic as part of the Free Festival, at the rock n’ roll time of 10.30am. - More details here. Just get in that famous West Nicolson Street queue early if you don’t want to miss out, as it’s first-come, first-served.
🎙️ Last night’s Edinburgh Comedy Awards Gala featuring all the nominees was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 and you can listen to it here. - The ECA winners will be announced on Saturday.
⮑ Meanwhile The List Festival Awards will be announced on Friday at 3pm. - The nominees are here.
⮑ Winners of the ISH Edinburgh Comedy Awards will also be announced today. - The shortlists for their five awards (including ‘best joke’) are here. Here’s one:
Danny Ward: 'A lot of people don't realise that 'Edinburgh Festival' is actually an acronym, and it stands for Expensive Digs Including Nasty Bathrooms Urgently Requiring God's Help... Fricking Extortionate Scottish Trip Invariably Valuing Artists Least.'
⭐️ Some Fringe reviews are generated using artificial intelligence technology, performers have claimed. - Alasdair Ferguson, The Herald.
⮑ Comedian Kieran Hodgson said:
"This year we have noticed AI reviewing coming in and it makes me sick. It's very clear what happens: someone sits there, presses record and at the end of it, they have generated a review." - There’s more coverage on this from Jane Bradley in The Scotsman.