If you’ve got friends in the area who are happy to accommodate you for a few days, here’s what you can enjoy in Edinburgh this August. Tickets for Haribo Kimchi at the main festival are hard to get, but it will be worth it: the performance in London two years ago was intimate, conversational and very rewarding. At the Fringe, there’s stand-up, dance, music and theatrical productions. In the list below we’ve included Korea-themed productions even where there are no Korean performers involved.
1. International Festival
Haribo Kimchi
Performers: Jaha Koo, with Gona, Haribo & Eel
Venue: Studio Theatre, 22 Potterrow, EH8 9BL
Thu 20 – Mon 24 Aug | 1 hour 10 mins | post show talk on Sun 23 August | Get tickets
Take a seat at theatre-maker Jaha Koo’s snack bar to discover the delights of Korean cuisine and the difficulties of cultural assimilation.
Theatremaker Jaha Koo invites you to to his pojangmacha, a late-night snack bar found on the streets of South Korea. Koo doesn’t serve sleep-deprived humans, instead, his customers are a robotic eel, a snail and a gummy bear, who take the audience on a culinary and cultural journey peppered with intimate and absurd anecdotes.
Koo has lived in Europe since 2011 and now often feels like a tourist when he visits Korea. In Haribo Kimchi, food and culture are endlessly intertwined. One moment he may cook up a sublime seaweed soup, and the next, reflect on painful racist experiences and his deep longing for home.
Koo’s 2019 production Cuckoo was described as a ‘powerfully affecting work’ (The Herald), and Haribo Kimchi promises a show that zigzags between cultural appreciation and the realities of cultural alienation. Combining music, video and robots, Koo’s performance plays on all the senses while serving up his personal stories with a dash of melancholy and a sprinkle of wit.
2. Fringe
Plastic
Genre: Music | Immersive
Performer: Minyoung Kim
Venue 26: Anatomy Lecture Theatre at Summerhall
6 – 31 Aug | 20:45 | 1 hour | Book tickets
Minyoung Kim is a composer and soloist from Seoul, who combines geomungo – a traditional Korean string instrument – with jeongga – traditional Korean singing based on poetry and electronic music. PLASTIC is her solo project first presented in 2025, in which she explores the contradictions of human beings: their fragility and, at the same time, their immense potential, offering a modern and updated version of traditional Korean music with accompanying psychedelic projection.
DeRuWa / Hazy
Genre: Dance
Performance company: The Busan International Dance Festival Organizing Committee
Venue 22a: DB1 at Assembly @ Dance Base
26 – 30 Aug | 13:15 | 1 hour | Book tickets
Busan International Dance Festival presents the next generation of Korean choreographers in a double bill featuring Kim Hyung-min’s DeRuWa, where five dancers are propelled by an accelerating beat, and Hwang Jungeun’s Hazy, a captivating, visceral and intimate solo.
Kimchi Comedy: A Spicy Korean Stand-Up Show
Genre: Comedy
Performers: Seo Seohee (Seo Heejeong) / Seong-eun Jeong / Free Festival
Venue 650: Basement Bar at Laughing Horse @ Boston Bar (New Town)
17 – 27 Aug | 19:00 | 1 hour | Book tickets
No more K-pop. Welcome to K-comedy. Two Korean comedians bring the spicy, chaotic and brutally honest side of Korean life to the stage. From dating disasters and family expectations to the bizarre rules of Korean society, nothing is off-limits. Sharp jokes, cultural chaos and the occasional emotional punch – this is Korean comedy without filters. If you think you know Korea from K-pop and K-drama, it’s time to taste the real thing.
Giuseppe Verdi and his 19th-Century Contempories – Celebrating Verdi’s 125th Anniversary (1901-2026)
Genre: Classical music | Song
Performers: Sungho Kim tenor, Llyr Williams piano
Venue 111 The Nave at Edinburgh New Town Church
Saturday 15 August 14:30, 1 hour | Book tickets
Starring the wonderful South Korean operatic tenor Sungho Kim, winner of BBC Cardiff Singer of the World Song Prize 2023, accompanied by his Cardiff pianist, the virtuoso Llyr Williams, this uniquely anniversarial recital celebrates the 125th anniversary (1901-2026) of Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901), the foremost composer of 19th-century opera, with Verdi’s greatest music for tenor contrasted by the music of Verdi’s contemporaries.
Beyond Time – Othello Part II
Genre: Theatre | Adaptation | Film
Performance company: Han Theatre Company
Digital screening available until 31 Aug | 1 hour 15 minutes | get access
After death, Othello and Desdemona meet again. In a quiet, intimate dialogue, love, doubt and memory collide revealing what remains after the tragedy, and what was never understood.
Harry Jun: Inside Jokes, Outside Voice
Genre: Comedy | Stand-up
Performer: Harry Jun
Venue 33: Bunker Three at Pleasance Courtyard
5 – 30 Aug | 20:30 | 1 hour | Book tickets
Harry debuts an hour of comedy full of frenetic storytelling. Inside jokes or “in-jokes” are jokes that are only understandable to people of a particular social group. The social groups for this show: Fans of Korea (North and South) and K-pop (North and South); people with and without real jobs; fans of travelling and fans of bed rotting; people seeking connection (non-WiFi related). ‘A real firecracker of a comedian who is on track for a stellar career’ (TheatreMatters.com.au).
Tether
Genre: Theatre | International
Performance company: Wonder Fools x Theatre SAN
Venue 26: Main Hall at Summerhall
6 – 31 Aug | 16:30 | 1 hour | Book tickets
Part ceilidh, part play, and a good night out, Tether is a bold new collaboration between Scotland’s Wonder Fools and South Korea’s Theatre SAN. Spanning 60 years and three generations, the piece weaves folk songs, love letters and war stories into a shared experience of music and memory. Beginning as a joyous communal gathering, it gradually reveals an intimate love story shaped by migration, oppression and time. Playful, powerful and deeply human, Tether invites audiences to collectively dance, laugh, listen and remember – tracing the invisible threads that bind two nations together.
Korean Tightrope Walking (now cancelled)
Genre: Dance | Physical Theatre | Circus
Performance company: Namchangdong Jultagi Team
Venue 363: Meeting Point at Meeting Point at The Meadows
8 – 12 Aug | 14:00 | 30 minutes | Book tickets
Step onto the edge of balance and freedom in this thrilling Korean tightrope performance. Jultagi is a living theatrical form inscribed on the UNESCO Representative List – blending breathtaking acrobatics, music and wit. Nam Chang-dong and ensemble Ajae bring this ancient heritage to life through dynamic movement and spontaneous humour. Experience the vivid flow of tradition as tension and laughter intersect high above the ground. Don’t miss this spectacular, free outdoor cultural experience at the meadows!
Truth Warrior Network… Live!
Genre: Comedy | Satire | Historical
Performance company: Little Green Men
Venue 53: Stephenson Theatre at theSpace @ Surgeons’ Hall | Venue 9: Studio at theSpace @ Niddry St
7 – 22 Aug | Various times | 55 minutes | Book tickets
An incompetent CIA station chief, his new British-Korean interpreter, and an immortal Korean guerrilla find themselves entangled in reckless covert ops and secret psychedelic brainwashing experiments in 1952 Seoul. Flash forward to the present day where conspiracy king Andy Payne has been banned from every major platform and now takes his underground broadcast live, ranting about the lizard people and government mind control. History as hallucination, disinformation as fact, and conspiracy theories on acid.
The Spy Who Came in from the Park
Genre: Musical Theatre | Dark Comedy
Performance company: Five Days More Production Team
Venue 236: Forest Theatre at Greenside @ George Street
17 – 22 Aug | 15:00 | 50 minutes | Book tickets
A loyal North Korean sleeper agent in Japan receives a surreal mission: escorting the regime’s headstrong heir through a capitalist theme park. Inside this “dream factory,” his ideological devotion cracks. He realises both the park and his motherland are hierarchies built on manufactured delusions. Forsaking grand narratives, the agent discovers the value of ordinary individuals. Yet, as the agent finds his heart, the child finds his hunger. Atop the fairytale castle, the heir rejects toys for something far more addictive: the intoxicating power of looking down upon the world.