Sikisa on the best and worst of the Edinburgh Fringe

Comedian Sikisa is back at the Edinburgh Fringe with a show about 'truth, identity, and what justice looks like in love and life'. Here she shares what she can't get enough of at the festival, her most embarrassing Edinburgh experience and the worst thing about the Fringe. Apart from the cost of accommodation, obviously…

Fringe binge

I’m known as the life of the party and therefore I’m a social butterfly of the Fringe, just with one wing falling off, running on chicken wings and chaos. 

My Fringe binge? Doing everything. Dodging jugglers on the Mile, getting to know all the best bar staff, and watching mad basement shows that smell like Damp ambition. 

This year, I just want to see more weird and messy shows and also more circus/theatre shows – I like watching something I haven’t seen before and that’s chaotic and unexpected. I want to laugh, shout, and maybe cry in a shipping container at 2pm. That’s what Fringe is. 

I’m here for the madness, the surprises—and the chance to disappear into someone else’s chaos for an hour.

Fringe cringe

I love a costume but in my last show, Hear Me Out, my stage outfit tried to sabotage my whole show like it was jealous of my main character energy.

I had a Beyoncé-style costume reveal planned—final moment, costume reveal, BAM! Sparkly bodysuit. Crowd goes wild. We are gonna end it on a crazy high… But halfway through the Fringe I had lost a bit of weight so my trousers are too big for me now. About 40 minutes into my show about emotionally unavailable men, my trousers just dropped. No warning. The audience was gagged as well as confused. 

Did I style it out? Of course. It’s me, but at least nothing else came off. Still did the final reveal with full drama – even if the audience had seen the surprise. They were cheering though. One thing about the Fringe is you gotta keep that energy, cause no show is ever the same.

Fringe whinge

Can I have two? I’m doing two. 

First is the constant hustle. Like, if you’re not flyering for six hours, doing three guest spots, a podcast, then dancing with a pint of Red Stripe till 3am, you’re ‘not doing it right’. Um no, that’s a health hazard. 

The second is flying itself. The psychological warfare of which should be studied.  Flyering is supposed to be simple: hand someone a flyer, smile, hope for the best. But somehow it’s become a full-body competitive sport. People are doing backflips on the Mile to get attention, dressing as clowns, ghosts, or both. One bloke had a puppet. The puppet had flyers.

 I once got elbowed in the ribs by a woman dressed as a Victorian candle. Why? For art, apparently. And there’s always someone you bump into that you then have to make awkward conversation with and when you realise you'd rather be flyering then you know there’s a problem.

• Sikisa: Serving Justice is on at 5.50pm at The Tron, Monkey Barrel during the Fringe.

Published: 31 Jul 2025