Eight Australian shows will be travelling to Edinburgh in August, including the prestigious Edinburgh International Festival and the world’s oldest and largest Fringe festival, the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, thanks to philanthropic organisation, House of Oz.
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The award-winning House of Oz, whose founding patron is Georgie Black, is dedicated to promoting Australian creative arts on international stages. By offering funding for production, marketing, and PR resources as well as covering travel and accommodation costs, the support of House of Oz reduces financial barriers for artists and in doing so, enables Australian performers to showcase their talents globally, thus fostering cultural exchange and elevating Australia’s artistic presence worldwide.
Without such support, playing a major international festival like the Edinburgh Fringe can be prohibitively expensive for independent artists.
Read: Edinburgh Festival Fringe: blood, sweat, tears and a truckload of money
The 2025 selection by House of Oz sees a mix of popular companies and artists returning to the Scottish capital, including Adelaide circus powerhouse Gravity and Other Myths, kids’ comedy duo The Listies, and Lewis Major Projects, all of which are appearing in the Edinburgh Fringe. Joining them are the winners of the 2025 House of Oz Purse Prize, Crash Theatre Co and Mad Nun Productions; both productions were discovered at the 2025 Adelaide Fringe.
Brisbane’s contemporary circus troupe Circa (performing with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and a chorus from Scottish Opera) has been programmed in the Edinburgh Festival.
Which eight productions were selected?
The eight shows travelling to Edinburgh this year are:
- Darkly funny thriller, FLICK, by Mad Nun Productions (Vic);
- Triptych Redux by Lewis Major Projects (SA), a reworking of the former sheep shearer turned award-winning choreographer and director’s Triptych;
- Ten Thousand Hours, an acclaimed acrobatic performance by Gravity and Other Myths (SA), described as ‘meta circus with a positive message about trying, failing, picking each other up and having a lot of fun along the way‘ in our five star review;
- A cabaret about society’s toxic obsession with dieting, Skinny, by Michelle Pearson (SA);
- Kids’ show Make Some Noise by The Listies aka Richard Higgins and Matthew Kelly (Vic), praised by our reviewer as ‘high-quality children’s comedy, which will amuse and entertain the whole family’;
- Musical science experiment, You’re An Instrument by The Sonicrats (Vic);
- Girl-power musical comedy Lady Macbeth Played Wing Defence by Crash Theatre Co (WA); and,
- Orpheus and Eurydice by Circa, in collaboration with Opera Australia (production by Opera Queensland), which received a five star review from ArtsHub‘s Miriam Cosic at its Sydney Festival season. Cosic described the production as featuring, “the most aesthetically beautiful circus performance. Exquisite celestial composition evokes the song of angels, while the performers’ movement had all the grace, poise and strength of ballet dancers”.
Read: Circa’s Yaron Lifschitz receives ISPA Distinguished Artist Award
“What links all these shows, apart from being Australian, is they all have ground-breaking, genre-busting, ceiling-smashing spirit,” says House of Oz founding patron and Creative Director, Georgie Black. “They are all, in their own way, Australian cultural pioneers with pluck, depth and damn fine entertainment value.”
This will be the first Edinburgh gig for Lady Macbeth Played Wing Defence, who are House of Oz’s first ever WA act. The show, which is set in the cut-throat world of competitive netball, explores the consequences of unchecked ambition and the fierce determination of teenage girls.
Edinburgh International Festival runs from 1-24 August 2025; check out the program. Edinburgh Festival Fringe runs from 1-25 August 2025.
