Edinburgh Fringe 2025 reviews - Lily Phillips / Ayoade Bamgboye

Giving birth laid bare & a memorable debut

Lily Phillips, Monkey Barrel ★★★★

Lily Phillips is keen to tell us at the top of her show that she’s not that Lily Phillips. There’s no OnlyFans content in Crying but, dealing as it does with her experience of having a baby, it’s graphic in a different way. So strap in.

Edinburgh Fringe 2025 reviews - Rob Auton / Saaniya Abbas

A motivational speaker's tale; one woman’s vision of Hell

Rob Auton, Assembly Roxy  

The stage is littered with 30-odd large white cards bearing words such as “love”, “believe” and “push”. Rob Auton comes on stage and tells us he’s CAN, a former motivational speaker, and in the following 60 minutes of CAN (An Hour-Long Story) we hear his tale.

Edinburgh Fringe 2025 reviews: Lost Lear / Consumed

EDINBURGH FRINGE 2025  Lost Lear /  Consumed - Traverse Theatre

Twists in the tail bring revelations in two fine shows at the Traverse Theatre

Lost Lear, Traverse Theatre

A rehearsal room; a tense preparation session for a production of King Lear, provocatively gender-swapped; a troublesome diva in the title role; and a near-silent understudy barely able to contribute.

Edinburgh Fringe 2025 reviews - Alison Spittle / Christopher Macarthur-Boyd

A weighty debate; and observations about this and that

Alison Spittle, Monkey Barrel ★★★

Alison Spittle is fat, she tells us at the top of the show. But not as fat as she used to be. And that’s the premise of BIG, in which she describes why she has been overweight since she was eight years old and what led to the recent weight loss – “about an XL Bully’s-worth”.

Edinburgh Fringe 2025 reviews - Rhys Darby / Alex Stringer

A fantastical journey into the age of AI, and one woman's search for sobriety

Rhys Darby, Pleasance Courtyard ★★★★

Rhys Darby, the New Zealand actor and comic best known as Murray Hewitt in Flight of the Conchords, is back at the Fringe after nearly a decade away with The Legend Returns.