WITH over 3,000 shows it can be daunting trying to ensure your Fringe playlist is a successful one. Luckily, I hit gold with my first show of 2025, The End of the Line (★★★★★), performed by the Edinburgh University Theatre Company.

It’s a story about six strangers from different social classes are stuck on a train as the world is about to end. You could describe this as The Breakfast Club meets Le Carre, but that would be a disservice to the wildly original script from Alice Humphries. It’s a drama with a healthy dose of comedy that drew regular laughs from the audience but with a lightness of touch that ensured it never ventured too far into caricature or cheap gags.

This was a beautifully plotted script that started off gently (well, as gently as possible for a show about impending Armageddon) and continued to keep things visually interesting with surreal musical interludes and romantic subplots. There’s a well-crafted message here about nuclear weapons and political incompetence too. If you’re looking for original writing with new faces this is the perfect way to kick things off.

From the end of the world, to the start of a new one, I caught Echoes of Nuwa: The Last Human Project (★★★★) early (early for the Fringe) at 10am on Saturday morning and it was a great pick-me-up. Sometimes with productions from other countries, there is much that gets lost in translation, especially humour, which is why I was especially impressed by this Chinese/Taiwan production that embedded zest and wit into the script that had the local audience enthralled.

This fantasy reworks the ancient Chinese story of Nuwa, a goddess who has tasked her minions, the Three Muddy Lolos, with rebuilding a shattered Earth. But once the valleys, mountains and fragrant peach trees are put in place, they are faced with the biggest challenge of all: rebuilding humanity. The three Lolos experiment with various potions representing various aspects of humanity with unexpected results each time.

As the show came to its end, I wished it had a stronger, more forceful conclusion, but the stagecraft and charismatic physical performances of actors Chia-Yi Chan, Jinyu Dan and Qianyi Wang made this an incredibly watchable piece of whimsical theatre.

One thing I’ve noticed about the Fringe is just how hot things get. These stone-crafted Edinburgh buildings aren’t really made for an increasingly warmer climate, especially when you’re packed into a small room with 40 other people and stage lights. Many venues now are employing portable aircons or rigging up giant fans in an attempt to ventilate their audiences. I had these things in mind after attending A Most Pressing Issue (★★★★), which to my mind was a very clear allegory for the most important issue of our time.

If I tell you that the story was set in a prison that was slowly being consumed by a fire and the people in charge who failed to take it seriously, you may get the picture.

But this is primarily a farce in the great British tradition of Blackadder or Fawlty Towers, with prison warden Penton playing the cynical schemer and assistant Orly the gurning fool. The comedy is wry, bawdy, physical and thoroughly absurd and all four members of the cast took thorough ownership of their roles to make the script pop and generate plenty of laughs from the audience.

Perhaps the only criticism is that we needed just a tad more character development, which would have made the short meditation on complicity and human action hit much more strongly near the end.

Do Astronauts Masturbate in Outer Space? (★★★★) could win the award for the most misleading title at the Fringe, as it has little to do with astronauts or masturbation. Instead this is a social sci-fi in the style of Black Mirror, set in the near future where couples expecting a baby must go through a rigorous government regime of checks before being granted their licence for a baby, known as the “stork card.”

Written and performed by Briony Martha and Zak Reay-Barry, the play is a real labour of love — excuse the pun — and the two put on an impressive stage performance, charting the ups and downs of an everyday relationship under threat. There are some parts that felt a wee bit too twee — for example, the references to “Prime Minister Farage” — that interrupted the immersion and felt undercooked politically, especially as one of the main character’s jobs was working for the Labour Party who can hardly be seen as anti-bureaucratic these days.

But on this whole this was a very well-observed satire on governmentality and the growing surveillance state, with performances that won standing ovations.

I also managed to catch Alvin and Eva Break the Geneva Convention (★★★★). This double-header from two young working-class Scottish comics was definitely not one you’d enjoy if you’re a Tory or a fan of Keir Starmer. A fun half-hour of down-to-earth comedy with jokes on LGBTQ issues, being surrounded by posh students, and dodging tram fares. There’s even a joke about miners, Margaret Thatcher and Prince Andrew that probably can’t be repeated in print, so you’ll have to go down and see it for yourself!

My final show for the weekend was Mushroomification (Legs, Legs, Legs) (★★★★★), the tale of a mushroom who wishes to be more human and a human who wishes to be more mushroom. There’s a real charm to the script here that gave the humour an almost timeless quality, one elevated by the excellent physical presence of the three leads and the low-key but well-crafted costumes. A delightful piece of absurd comedy.

The End of the Line runs until August 10, Bedlam Theatre.
Echoes of Nuwa: The Last Human Project runs until August 23, the Space Triplex.
A Most Pressing Issue runs until August 16, The Space.
Do Astronauts Masturbate in Space runs until August 23, Greenside @ Riddles Court.
Alvin and Eva Break the Geneva Convention runs until August 25, Hoots @ Potterrow.
Mushroomification (Legs, Legs, Legs) runs until August 5, Just the Tonic at The Mash House.