Brennan Reece on the best and the worst of the Edinburgh Fringe

As he returns to the Edinburgh Fringe, Brennan Reece talks about what he can't get enough of at the festival; recalls his most embarrassing Edinburgh experience and complains about the worst thing about the Fringe (apart from the cost of accommodation, obviously).

Edinburgh Binge

The best bit of the festival is seeing the mad stuff. The genuinely unorthodox, where you walk into a room and within two minutes think: ‘Well, I definitely couldn’t have watched this in Manchester on a Tuesday.’

I remember the first time I saw Nick Helm, yelling with that terrifying, beautiful intensity, while a man lay on a mattress tinkling a little bell. I remember seeing Furiozo at about 3am with maybe two other people in the room, feeling like I’d stumbled into someone’s fever dream with a lighting rig.

That’s what I want more of this year. Wild circus. Strange plays. Shows with not enough audience and too many props. Things where you’re not sure if it’s genius, a breakdown, or both. Edinburgh is at its best when it feels like the arts have been left alone in a cupboard too long and have started breeding.

Edinburgh Cringe

In 2018, the day before I went up to the Fringe, I was told I’d be doing Live At The Apollo (RIP) for the first time. Massive news. Life-changing news. But I wasn’t allowed to tell anyone. So I didn’t.

About two weeks into the festival, a fellow comic had a friend come to stay at our flat. She walked in and the first thing she said was: ‘CONGRATS ON APOLLO!’

I wanted the earth to open up and swallow me whole. Not a little crack either. A full biblical sinkhole.

My three housemates at the time were all brilliant comics and genuinely brilliant friends. But, understandably, they did not love discovering this information via a person they’d met thirty seconds earlier. One stormed out of the flat. One went to their room to cry. And one just said: ‘Yeah, well, I’ll be on that next year.’

So that was a lovely quiet night in.

Edinburgh Whinge

Aside from the cost of accommodation, it has to be the entitled posh uni students on the Mile. Every year there’s a fresh batch of them, lying in the street like Victorian vampires, holding a flyer for a sketch show called something like Milk Teeth or Daddy’s Boat.

They’re everywhere. Beatboxing at you. Doing a freeze-frame in chinos. Shouting ‘free comedy’ with the confidence of someone whose dad owns a vineyard and a moral blind spot.

I know flyering is horrible. I’ve done it. We’ve all done it. But there is a particular strain of Fringe theatre student who behaves like the Royal Mile is their personal gap-year assault course. You’ll be trying to get a meal deal and suddenly Sebastian from Balliol is blocking your path dressed as a depressed crab, asking if you like immersive clowning.

No, Sebastian. I like silence. And crisps.

• Brennan Reece: Live is on at PBH's Free Fringe @ Liquid Room at 4.30pm from Saturday.

Published: 6 Aug 2026