Three ghostly shows at the Edinburgh Festival 2025…

Ghost Stories By Candlight | theSpace @ Venue 45 | 18-22 Aug
I don’t really believe in ghosts but I have always loved hearing spooky tales, so I thought I’d try and pick some of that out of the programme. And I guess you don’t get more on the nose than this, a show that literally serves up ghost stories. “The flickering flames wake spectral shadows of the past. It’s almost the witching hour, dare to come into the candlelight?” Find the edfringe listing here. 

Aether | Summerhall | until 25 Aug
We now move into the territory of stretching the definition of ‘ghostly’, slightly, I think, but this is described as “part-Victorian seance” and involves a “medium with a secret”, so I think it qualifies. Especially as it’s very clearly a great show by a great company that explores faith, physics and magic, and why we “are desperate to know what happens behind the curtain”. Find the edfringe listing here. 

Crownless | C aquila | 18-24 Aug
Back to something that definitely has a ghost in it and this time it’s one you are probably all familiar with: it’s Hamlet’s dad. The similarities to a Shakespeare performance don’t end just there – this show fuses bardy text with contemporary poetry – but Hamlet Sr does end up haunting a coat. A solo show from Ashley Amodeo that “walks the line between comedy and heartbreak”. Find the edfringe listing here.