Female Rage Finds Its Voice on the Fringe Stage

As the curtain rises on another Edinburgh Festival Fringe, a quiet revolution is rumbling beneath the surface — and it’s anything but polite. In 2025, among the sprawling catalogue of sketch, satire, and spoken word, one theme cuts through with fury and focus: female rage. This year’s most vital shows don’t just ask for attention — they seize it. From surreal dystopias and sharp satire to multimedia-led breakdowns of identity and control, these productions are charged with urgency. They interrogate systems, expose hypocrisies, and ask uncomfortable questions — often with a wink, sometimes with a war cry. These are not stories that simmer. They boil.

Here, we round up six shows that speak to the raw, unfiltered experience of modern womanhood, each one fierce, inventive, and wholly unforgettable.

BITCH

Pleasance Dome, Jack Dome, 30 July - 25 Aug (not 4, 11 & 18), 2:45 (15:50)

Irish theatremaker and intimacy co-ordinator Marty Breen explores blame culture, resenting your identity, and questions of complicity through a blend of stand-up, cabaret and theatre in a show of two halves. Two characters, both performed by Marty and known only as Stand Up Guy and Bitch, duke it out through an open-mic battle: him through his red-flag laden set, and her through acerbic original songs at the piano. But one is not as entertaining - she is a dogged, drunk and self-destructive mess, ripe for a roasting by her male counterpart. When the set is over and we are left with only our Bitch, we come to understand the depths of her fury as she begins to implode - but if she’s going down, she’s taking everyone with her. BITCH is a raw and provocative piece that challenges societal norms, making the audience reconsider what makes a ‘bad guy’ and a ‘good victim’, and our own complicity in what we all allow to happen.

Dyke Systems Ltd

Pleasance Courtyard, Cellar , 30 July – 25 Aug 2025 (not 6 & 12 ), 15 .00 (16 .00)

Set in the 1990s at the height of multi-level marketing expansion but before the rise of the internet, this two-handed comedy satire delves into the collision of repressed queerness and corporate feminism and looks at how modern technology and finance have weaponised them both. American suburban business women Sally and Susan are on the hunt for new recruits for their very lucrative business opportunity that is definitely not a pyramid scheme. But as they dive deeper into the shiny world of multi-level marketing, they become caught up in climbing the cut-throat corporate ladder and cracks begin to appear in their pastel-perfect lives, unravelling long-buried tensions and unspoken desires as the lies they’ve built everything on start to catch up with them. With Fag Packet’s signature blend of drag, comedy, physical theatre and audience interaction, the audience will be guided through the DYKE programme (Dynamic, Young, Knowledgeable, Entrepreneur) which explores the intersections of queerness and feminism in a capitalist world that is coming for us all.

FATAL FLOWER

Summerhall Arts, Main Hall, 31 July – 25 Aug 2025 (not 12 & 19), 21:05 (22:20)

Rooted in female rage — explosive, absurd and over-the-top — this multi-disciplinary theatre show blends cabaret and comedy with opera, musical theatre and classical music to deconstruct the image of women in society. Drawing on creator and performer Valentina Tóth’s own experiences with body image, the pressures of being a child piano prodigy, and a complex relationship with her mother, the show moves through a series of bold, grotesque female archetypes. From the Queen of the Night inThe Magic Flute to a vengeful bride-to-be and a tyrannical Russian piano teacher, each character channels a rage that is both personal and political. One spark behind that fury is the Dutch childcare benefits scandal, where thousands of parents — many of them women — were falsely accused of fraud. FATAL FLOWER offers a space where female anger unfolds on stage in all its complexity.

The Ode Islands

Pleasance at EICC, Lammermuir Theatre, 31 July –  16 Aug 2025 (not 4, 5, 11 & 12), 16.00 (16.45)

Blending live performance with responsive virtual reality, this new one-woman show unfolds in a fully digital environment that shifts in real time with the performer’s movement and emotional state. At its centre is a woman, Ornagh, caught in a storm and cast adrift across a chain of surreal islands—each representing a different facet of her identity, from domestic roles to sexuality, gender, and body image. As she journeys through these shifting landscapes, she confronts the societal expectations that have shaped her, seeking to shed them and rediscover who she truly is. With a supporting cast of digital characters also performed by Ornagh, the narrative is carried entirely through the artist’s body, voice, and the digital worlds that surround her. Motion capture brings to life a series of fantastical characters she meets along the way, AI manipulation shapes their voices, and satellite data – provided by ArtEO.earth, Imperative Space, European Space Agency, Copernicus and NASA – forms the striking virtual terrain. The result is a fragmented yet visceral exploration of memory, myth, and the boundaries of self.

What If They Ate The Baby?

the SpaceUK @ Niddry St (Upper), 1 – 23 Aug 2025 (not 10 & 17), see press release for timings

What If They Ate The Baby? is an absurd and dystopian take on the 1950's American housewife, where audiences are put into the position of surveillant. Created largely in response to the changing laws surrounding reproductive rights in America, the show explores the same menial conversations between neighbours in the context of surveillance, cannibalism, and queerness, all during an idealised period in American history that was marked by paranoia. Playing two post-war suburban housewives, Xhloe and Natasha use double entendre, green spaghetti and a soundtrack complete with Vaudeville to Rap to interrogate gender expectations and the relationship between surveillance and bodily autonomy.  

Lolo's Boyfriend Show

theSpaceUK @ Surgeons Hall, Haldane Theatre, 1 – 16 Aug 2025 (not 10), 20:30 (21:30)

A high-energy solo performance blending sharp character work, physical comedy, and quickfire costume changes follows Lolo – daughter of a hardworking single mother and raised by TV – as she recounts past dates to see where she went wrong. With no father figure and a head full of silver-screen love stories, she’s stumbled from one romantic disaster to the next. Set in Lolo’s childhood bedroom after a failed career move, performer Lauren O’Brien takes on 18 characters, drawing from real, imagined, and exaggerated dating stories. Winner of the Audience Choice Award at the NYC Fringe Festival 2024, Lolo’s Boyfriend Show uses minimal set and maximum versatility – featuring projections, music, and fast-paced transitions – to explore identity, love, and self-worth through the lens of a modern woman navigating romance.  

Across these six shows, what emerges is not just a through-line of anger — but a refusal to apologise for it. In a world still more comfortable with women staying quiet, smiling politely, or asking nicely, these artists are rewriting the terms. Rage, in their hands, becomes a creative force — by turns witty, unruly, poetic and explosive. Whether in pastel suburbs or surreal digital landscapes, their work invites us to confront what has been suppressed and what we’ve allowed to slide for too long. This isn’t just theatre — it’s reckoning.

And at this year’s Fringe, it’s a must-watch.