It is festival season and that means that in the next month there is so many great comedy festivals to look forward to! This month we are looking at some of the great shows that you can see at the Edinburgh Fringe. So take note because we are going to give you all the information you need for just a handful of some of the great shows happening this year!
How To Art
Location: Underbelly, Cowgate – Iron Belly (Venue 61)
Dates: Aug 5th-16th, 18th-23rd, 25th-30th
Time: 21:40
Price: £15 Concessions £12
Ticket Link: https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/how-to-art
Hello! Tell us all about your show!
‘How to Art’ is an award-winning, clown-fruit-mash-up from New Zealand about making art, surviving and chasing mass a-peel. We (Katie and Georgie) play two bananas who wake up duct-taped to the wall of a prestigious art gallery, meet our bunch (the audience), and embark on a post-post-post ironic journey of self-discovery, trying to understand what it means to be art in a world on sale. The show also features kiwi clown, Bronwyn Ensor, who plays a terrifying gallery attendant obsessed with selling everything. It’s art of the lowest brow. It’s personal, it’s political, it’s bananas.
Inspired by the controversy of Maurizio Cattelan’s ‘Comedian’, we made How to Art as a playful poke at the absurdity of the art world and a metaphor for living as independent artists in a world not made for us.
In a stroke of fate, Comedian resold for $6.2m USD days after the closing of our debut season in 2024. When we started touring the following year, bananas were being duct-taped to the back of buses around town, and Comedian exhibited at the NGV in Melbourne months before our arrival. We won the ‘Melbourne Fringe Tour Ready Award’ at NZ Fringe in ‘25 and were nominated for ‘Best in Theatre’ and ‘Spirit of Fringe’ at Melbourne Fringe ‘25.
So now the world has two sets of infamous bananas; one stuck behind red tape, unaffordable and out of reach, and two, larger-than-life ones, ready to bunch with UK audiences and dance for their dinner. We’re calling on all art benefactors to make their way to Cowgate this Fringe to witness the madness and tell us what you think we’re worth!
What other acts are you looking forward to seeing at the fringe?
We cannot WAIT to see To Be Frank (Michael Hockey) and Only Bones (Dan Nodder)-fellow clowns from Aotearoa. We’re all on at different times, so why not make your Fringe experience a trifecta of kiwi comedy and see all three of us?
Other clown-based works we’re nerding out for are: Creepy Boys: Slugs, CVNT, Love Hunt, Kisty Mann: CORPSE, and Elf Lyons is the Woman on the Edge.
The Sauna Theatre at Summerhall either looks like an excellent way to nurse our bruised post-show bodies or completely dehydrate us before a performance. Either way, we’re excited.
If this is your first time – what are you looking forward to?
We’re honestly still pinching ourselves about travelling all the way from Aotearoa to play bananas in the world’s biggest arts festival. We’re so excited to meet other artists from all over the world and see as many of their shows as possible!
Georgie left the UK when they were ten, and this will be the first time their extended family have seen them perform in 20 years. That will be pretty special, especially given Georgie will be dressed head to toe in Lycra. A fruity homecoming, if you will.
Talk us through your daily routine for a day at the Fringe:
Morning: We can’t really move for most of the morning after a night of How to Art, so after a considerable amount of horizontal time, we will hit the coffees and whatever food we can afford.
Afternoon: Some yoga/rehab to iron out the ever-growing backache will be helpful (if we don’t get too distracted seeing shows all day), then we’ll grab a billion flyers, don our ‘banana skins’ and hit the streets to rustle up some art connoisseurs before our 9:40 showtime.
Evening: This sounds gross, but we can’t fully wash our costumes daily because they’re fragile, so let’s just say our post-show routine will certainly involve some alcohol, sprayed not only into our mouths but also onto the crotches of our onesies.
If that doesn’t whet your appetite for our show, we don’t know what will.
Ok, where is your favourite place to eat at the Fringe?
We are a group of sensitive-gut-girlies who love to push ourselves to the limit onstage and off, so we will be looking for the best IBS-inducing pizza, pasta and ice cream in town, whatever the consequences.
Best thing about performing at the fringe?
There aren’t many opportunities to play a banana in a professional context, let alone for a full month. The Fringe offers us the opportunity to perform our show 24 times on the other side of the world. What more can we say?
Do you bring anything special from home to make it feel more special whilst you are away?
Last year, on our opening night in Melbourne, our NZ-based producer, Charlie, sent us an audio clip of herself laughing maniacally for 3 minutes.
It was weirdly special, and perhaps if we have no one in the audience on any given night in Edinburgh, we can play that to make ourselves feel better.
What are your best hacks to save money whilst at the Fringe?
We are just going to scream the GBP-NZD conversion rate in our heads every time we make a purchase, and hopefully that keeps us thrifty.
If people want to find out more about you, where can they follow you on social media?
You can follow Ratbags Theatre on FB and IG: @ratbagstheatre
And personally on Instagram at: @katieburson @georgie.llewellyn @bronniensor
And finally, in three words – Why should people come and see the show?
ART, SOLD, WOW
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