Quebec EdFests showcase presents an exciting and varied programme

Québec’s annual Edinburgh Festivals showcase once again brings the best of circus, comedy, dance and music to the world’s biggest celebration of performing arts in 2025.

Article Source: Québec@EdFests
Last Updated: 11 June 2025 14:09

Supporting some of the best and most popular shows at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe over the past 16 years, the Québec Government Office in London is once again bringing a brilliant selection of performing artists from ‘la belle province’ to Edinburgh’s Festivals in 2025.

The annual Québec@EdFests showcase presents an exciting and varied programme including circus, comedy, dance, music and theatre, from returning favourites to world premieres. With appearances across both the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and the Edinburgh International Festival, Québec artists are once again set to make a major impact in the Scottish capital this summer.

After a hugely successful runs in 2023 and 2024, Cirque Kalabanté return to Edinburgh with their brand-new show, WOW (World of Words), an immersive show that blurs the lines between tradition and modernity. Through three main characters: the boubou, the stick, and the white hair, it explores the transmission of knowledge. An artistic odyssey where the poetic fusion of two opposing groups leaves the audience amazed. This artistic odyssey will amaze audiences throughout its run in the Main Hall at Assembly Hall, 31 July – 25 August.

Dion Owen, winner of the Panel Prize at the Jones Bootmaker (ISH) Edinburgh Fringe Comedy Awards 2024, returns with his show Cyclopath: Stand-up and Songs, featuring classic stand-up and improvised, heartfelt (and silly) musical moments. He’ll also premiere a brand-new hour, Late Night in Canada, a stand-up compilation show in a late-night format. Catch him in The Lounge at Laughing Horse @ The Counting House, 31 July – 24 August. In addition to performing, Owen will continue his Cyclopath Bike Program, which offers free bikes to fellow artists throughout the festival to help them get about town, repaired and distributed by Owen himself.

Uma Gahd, from Canada’s Drag Race Season 5, brings her hilarious and heartfelt one-woman drag show Are You There Margaret? It’s Me, Gahd to the Temple at C ARTS, C Venues, C Aquila from 11–24 August. The show blends small talk and big issues; fame, family, feminism, and failed marriages! Stuffed with stand-up, lip-sync, and plenty of hysterical pathos, Uma tells the story of her life - from sneaking into bars with her childhood best friend, Margaret, to breaking into showbusiness with her growing family. Part environmental theatre, part cabaret, and part drag show. Come hear the word of Gahd!

Roger White and Helen Simard are returning to Edinburgh’s Festival Fringe with their new show Because You Never Asked after a hugely successful Fringe debut in 2023. Because You Never Asked is an interdisciplinary piece blending dance, music and storytelling to chronicle a poignant moment of intergenerational exchange. At its core is a series of conversations between creator Roger White and his grandmother, Marianna Clark (née Goldmann), about a hidden life lived under the Nazi regime. The performance blends a haunting soundscape, featuring recorded conversations, with evocative choreography that serves to embody memory. This poignant work will be presented at Summerhall’s main hall from 31 July – 24 August.

In a show that will have you close to tears one moment and laughing the next, Bremner Fletcher returns to the Fringe with his one-man show, Singing Into The Dark, back by popular demand after ten years. Inspired by events in Berlin in 1933 when Hitler came to power and ordered the repression of theatres, with performers arrested and sent to the first concentration camps. A man realises he’s late to the party and must choose: run and hide, or perform every part himself. Moving and darkly funny, this must-see show runs 2–9 August in Sanctuary at Paradise in Augustines.

FLIP Fabrique bring their acclaimed acrobatic comedy Six° to Edinburgh for the first time. When five strangers are summoned to a mysterious house deep in the woods, a surreal, high-energy adventure unfolds. With breathtaking acrobatics, slapstick humour, and a house that speaks, Six° is a family-friendly show that explores identity, connection, and the strange ways we’re all linked, maybe just six degrees apart. Set to a vibrant soundtrack from funk to Leonard Cohen, this inventive, laugh-out-loud show runs at The Lafayette at Underbelly’s Circus Hub on the Meadows from 2–23 August.

Pull up your leg warmers and hold on to your neon socks! Men Without Hats are coming to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival for one night only at the main room of La Belle Angele on Friday 22 August as part of their first European tour in nearly a decade. They will be sharing their iconic, synth pop smash hits and fan favourites, “Safety Dance”, “Pop Goes the World”, “Antarctica” and “I Like”.

Once again, the well-known Performing Arts market CINARS will be accompanying a delegation of Québec artists, companies and cultural professionals to attend the Edinburgh Festival Fringe this August. They will have the opportunity to meet key participants, take part in professional events, and familiarise themselves with the festival. The attending companies are Les Illusionnistes, Cirque Éloize, Circul'r and Le gros orteil.

At Edinburgh International Festival, Québec artists include the phenomenal pianist Bruce Liu performing with China’s NCPA orchestra, and soprano Sarah Dufresne starring in Puccini’s opera Suor Angelica.

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