Spoken Word at the Edinburgh Fringe — Friday 21 August 2026

Spoken word gathers poetry, storytelling, monologue and performed essays — writing delivered straight to the room rather than staged at a distance. Shows are typically single-voice and intensely personal, which makes them some of the most direct encounters the festival offers. Expect work that swings between very funny and quietly devastating, sometimes within the same hour.

1,229 listings across the run · data updated 2026-09-12 07:01:02 (London time).