Camden Fringe 2026 is upon us, and with over 400 shows to see, there is a lot to get stuck into. Check out my picks for the Fringe below!

Theatre

Dünyada: A man arrives with a suitcase, a camera, and a voice that seems sad somehow. He speaks of homeland, parents, lost loves, strange customs… the narrative unravels into a mosaic of unfinished thoughts and philosophical detours; A microphone picks up his distorted speech; A camera captures his eyes, lips, old photos, debris, and you… too. Images appear behind him: what it means to be seen? Tickets are available here.

Controlled Burn: How much leverage do we have over our fate, and how much do our burdens and trauma determine our destiny? Controlled Burn is about two sisters who are very different daughters living under the shadow of their controlling mother. Family myth-making and the flames of competing truths threaten to smother this caustic love. But, perhaps from the scorched earth, real freedom and compassion may grow. Tickets are available here.

Deliver Us From Evil: Elizabeth Clarke has been scorned and feared by her neighbours ever since her mother was executed as a witch. When unexplainable misfortune strikes Manningtree, Elizabeth is herself accused and arrested for witchcraft. Matthew Hopkins is a young man who has yet to escape the shadow of his deceased minister father. Suspecting Satan may walk the Essex countryside, and seeing this as a chance to prove himself, Hopkins volunteers to interrogate the witch. The events that follow that fateful night would lead to the executions of as many as 100 innocent people. Tickets are available here.

The Lads Play: Blending sharp tension with deep vulnerability, The Lads interrogates toxic masculinity, the bonds of male friendship, and the devastating cost of silence. It is a powerful call for truth, allyship, and the urgency of standing up for women’s safety. Tickets are available here.

Wilder!: Welcome to Newport, a picture-perfect slice of suburbia where appearances are everything, and the Newport Village Garden Club, a community of housewives, fiercely rules the town. At the centre of it all are the Wilders, a young, glamorous couple with a deadly secret who seem to have it all. But when one of them begins to question their most… unconventional hobby, their carefully balanced marriage starts to unravel, spiralling into chaos that threatens to pull everyone down with it. Tickets are available here.

Take Care: Who needs therapy when you’ve got a best friend? Meet two best pals, Jo and Izzy, whose romantic endeavours are as disastrous as their morals are questionable. At least their hearts are in the right place, most of the time. Watch the duo of codependent flatmates as they attempt live, laugh, love their way through the confusing loneliness of being in their twenties. Tickets are available here.

Some Of It Might Be True: During a drug-induced haze, Evie posts a shocking picture to her company’s social media, destroying the carefully curated persona she’s built online. As the lies begin to reveal themselves, a misstep into an animal rights activist meeting and a pig-saving mission force her to face the lie that has been holding her captive. Tickets are available here.

Killing Swine: A powerful new stage production is set to captivate audiences with a dark and atmospheric story inspired by Shakespeare’s Macbeth. Combining psychological tension, mystery, and emotional drama, the production follows a group of reluctant drama students as they attempt to stage the famous tragedy for their end-of-term project. Tickets are available here.

We Love and Then We Drown: 2075. Half the UK is underwater. Defeated and dejected, former climate scientist Catherine Hardy broods bitterly on her past. But when an unexpected visitor arrives, Catherine realises that there might yet be a final chance for love – and hope – to prevail. Tickets are available here.

Killer Career: Would you kill for a good HR package? Kaya does. She was ready to end it all, then a newspaper ad lands on her face—a call to adventure. Killer Career follows one woman’s accidental entry into professional assassination: the clients, the targets, the surprisingly stellar company welfare. Tickets are available here.

Abigail: Abigail is a one-act monologue play by Nelma Vapaa-Jää that reimagines the relationship between Abigail Williams and John Proctor from Arthur Miller’s The Crucible. The play offers a raw and unflinching exploration of Abigail’s inner world. Through a series of confessions, reflections, and justifications, Abigail confronts the complex emotions and traumatic experiences that shaped her actions during the Salem witch trials. Tickets are available here.

21 Days: The year is 2030. After a painful break-up, Jay hits the reset button on his life—but instead of healing, he spirals into a cycle of rage, isolation, and alcohol dependency. In a world increasingly disconnected by technology, his search for meaningful connection is overshadowed by his own self-destructive habits. Enter May: a strange and enigmatic new flatmate whose unexpected presence begins to challenge Jay’s worldview. As their uneasy cohabitation unfolds, truths are confronted and emotions unravel. Tickets are available here.

Call Me When You Get This: Two women meet by chance and fall deeply in love. There is only one problem: an ocean between them. Call Me When You Get This explores what it means to build a relationship when every moment together is borrowed time. Tender, funny and quietly devastating, Call Me When You Get This follows a South African woman and a British woman whose relationship unfolds across countries, cultures and time zones. Tickets are available here.

TAPE: When three high school friends reunite after a decade, old loyalties fracture and buried truths surface. What begins as a reunion quickly becomes a ruthless battle of memory, truth and power. Tickets are available here.

The Death of Hundun: A solo performance inspired by a parable by the ancient Chinese philosopher Zhuangzi, in which Hundun—an undivided whole, without orifices, embodying a wisdom beyond ordinary understanding—dies after seven apertures are forcibly carved into his body. This production reimagines the myth as a contemporary psychological allegory: a person who has “seen through everything” is driven to the brink as her inner world collapses into disillusionment. Tickets are available here.

Fat, Black and Single: A hysterical and heart-driven look at the Black British university experience, packed with sharp, sarcastic humour—a warm, witty love letter to the underdogs, the late-bloomers, and anyone who has ever wondered if they’re allowed to be the main character. Tickets are available here.

Julie Baby: Julie Baby is hungry. So hungry she might eat someone. A former star swimmer, she spends her days empty and alone, thinking about her past and missing her brother. That is until her new man gives her the name ‘Julie Baby’. Equipped with a new name and identity, she is determined to feel full again—no matter what it takes. Julie Baby is the story of obsession, loss and just how far we’ll go to feel whole. Tickets are available here.

A Girl Called Owl: It is the early 90s, South Africa, and ten-year-old Olivia moves to a small town in the Overberg with her policeman father. Her quiet curiosity attracts a mischievous friend: Kay, the girl with the scar, who gives her the nickname “Owl.” Kay’s rebelliousness soon leads them to uncharted waters. Jon Keevy’s A Girl Called Owl is an unflinching coming-of-age story that spotlights innocence lost, creativity stifled, and love misunderstood. Tickets are available here.

Control: Four friends. One séance. One terrible mistake. As a storm rages outside, a night of wine, laughter and revenge fantasies takes a deadly turn. A dark supernatural thriller about friendship, guilt, and the true cost of getting what you wished for. Tickets are available here.

Windchimes: What does life want from you? What’s your purpose? What now? As Son grapples with vulnerability following his suicide attempt, he is left with unanswered questions. Isolated from his family and surrounded by his friends’ toxic banter, he returns to his family home in an attempt to find his place in the world. But when he forms an emotional bond with his mother’s wind chimes, Son is forced to navigate his past and confront the fear that it has irrevocably altered him. Tickets are available here.

Marie Curie – Exposed: Discover the remarkable story of Marie Curie in this faithful and evocative play that celebrates one of the most groundbreaking minds in history. Performed by Abbe Lee and Mark Stratford, the play takes us on the journey from Marie’s early struggles as a young immigrant scholar to her rise as a pioneering scientist. Tickets are available here.

Mother Tongue: His Mother Tongue has raised and nurtured him, but now their power is waning in a land where they cannot be understood. In Mother Tongue’s place, a new voice tries to coax its way in. Welcome to the life of a migrant. Once a lyrical traveller using words to weave his way through his home country, his future path now stands silent as the two languages fight for space in his mind. Who will win? Tickets are available here.

Wrap Party: Wrap Party lifts the hatch on life behind a film-set catering van. Harry and Ollie are lifelong friends and working-class caterers, trying to survive one last chaotic service before the wrap party begins. As A-list egos flare, inspections loom and impossible coffee orders stack up, their tiny van becomes a pressure cooker. Tickets are available here.

Falling Out: Following nuclear war, two estranged brothers are forced to co-exist in their father’s doomsday bunker—an option only slightly preferable to the bombs. While Miles grieves for the world, for art and culture, Connor’s just annoyed he didn’t get to see if Aston Villa equalised. As the months crawl by tensions build, old wounds are prodded and secrets struggle to stay secret. Their only grip on sanity is an old games console. More than entertainment, it’s a link to their shared childhood. After the console breaks, so does their fragile peace. They survived the bombs, but will they survive each other? Tickets are available here.

Sunrise for the Blind: A raw, naturalistic portrayal of life in a bleak North Manchester town centre, the play explores cycles of poverty, racism, and young adulthood. It follows a group of youths and families as their lives intersect around gossip, forbidden relationships, and a tragic escalation of tensions leading to violence. The story delves into lost potential, generational frustration, and the suffocating nature of small-town life. Tickets are available here.

Saint Loony: Come one, come all, to witness Saint Loony—and hear the confessions of a clown from the Crescent City. New Orleans, 1954. Petey “Loony” deLune—a Creole Catholic circus Pierrot driven by a monastic devotion to clowning and crippled by alienating addictions—breaks his trauma-induced mutism after years of hiding a terrible truth. He confesses the memories, mistakes, and misdeeds that drove him away from the Crescent City and into the Big Top as a pilgrim and penitent. Tickets are available here.

Musicals

Murder on the Allotment: Small Boats. Small Minds. Someone is bound to lose the plot. 17-year-old asylum seeker Karwan survived the Channel, but can he survive middle England? After being handed an allotment plot in the provinces, he finds himself trapped in a petty turf war with a bunch of “boring old age pensioners” who aren’t exactly rolling out the welcome mat. As polite masks slip, age-old prejudices take root and war breaks out over who truly belongs. Featuring eleven original songs and inspired by real-life stories from teenage asylum seekers, this funny and provocative debut exposes the absurdities of bigotry at work in the UK. Tickets are available here.

A Very Divine Election: This advert is a moral disgrace and so are you if you’re reading it. Vote WEE. Adam Arkell was convinced being promoted to Head of Political Campaigns at notorious advertising agency “The Knife” was a surefire way of securing control in his life, but all he’s gained so far are questions. Why is the CEO so disillusioned with her own company? Why do my co-workers act more like gremlins than human beings? And most importantly of all: why are we running the election campaign of a radical anti-advertising party whose only policy is to shut us down?? This horror-comedy is a sinister descent into the cult of symbolism and mindless consumerism. Tickets are available here.

The Dance Plague of 1518: Four struggling ‘Theatre In Education’ actors decide to cash in on the trend of musical events as musicals and stage a musical retelling of history’s weirdest event – “The Dance Plague of 1518”. The only catch: they know nothing about “The Dance Plague of 1518”. Featuring runaway princesses, medieval music festivals, maniacal high priests and more; don’t miss out on this contagious musical by Finn Tickel and Sam Trotman. Tickets are available here.

Please Don’t Die?: After the death of a close friend, twenty-two-year-old Evie appoints herself a trainee death doula at her cousin’s eccentric Death Café—guiding strangers through their final days with music, glitter, and questionable advice. But as she plans “perfect” deaths for others, Evie discovers that grief doesn’t follow a script—and neither does dying. Tickets are available here.

The Scale of Power: The Scale of Power is a bold new original musical set in a dystopian city where vocal pitch determines social status — and those who can sing highest hold the most power. The story follows Aiden, a baritone from the slums, and Lyra, a mezzo-soprano secretly passing as an elite soprano, as they attempt to climb the ruthless “High-Note Ladder.” In a world shaped by surveillance, artificial vocal enhancement, and the constant threat of the Auditor, both are forced to navigate a system that rewards perfection and punishes authenticity. Tickets are available here.