Final Fringe First 2016 winners announced

As the festival approaches its final weekend, we are delighted to announce our final Fringe First winners of 2016 – all of whom will receive their prizes at the Scotsman Fringe Awards this morning – to find out how to claim your free tickets, look left.

The Scotsman Fringe Firsts are the longest-running theatre prizes at the festival, respected across the world. Many congratulations to our winners, and a huge thank you to our judging panel: Joyce McMillan, Mark Fisher, Fiona Shepherd, Susan Mansfield, David Pollock, Jackie McGlone, and Sally Stott.

Our other Fringe First winners of 2016 are: Counting Sheep, Heads Up, World Without Us, Two Man Show, Us/Them (all at Summerhall), The Interference (C Venues), Angel (Gilded Balloon), Tank (Pleasance), Fabric (Underbelly), Expensive Shit, Mark Thomas: The Red Shed, and Daffodils (all at Traverse).

One Hundred Homes  What makes you feel at home? Yinka Kuitenbrouwer has  visited more than 100 to find out. In an age when people travel more than ever – out of choice or not – the question is more pertinent than ever, and her stories (told in a cosy hut with blankets at Summerhall )are full of drama and pathos.

Letters To Windsor House Windsor House in London is a bleak block of 1970s council flats, and now the setting for Sh!t Theatre’s new show at Summerhall, in which Louise Mothersole and Rebecca Biscuit set out to track down former residents whose mail they keep receiving - and discover other transient victims of the city’s housing crisis. It’s an angry, hilarious show, with great songs.

JOAN There are a lot of drag kings this year, but Lucy Jane Parkinson’s powerful and irreverent show at Underbelly is something special. As Joan of Arc grows from alienated adolescent into a military leader, she uses male clothing first as a vehicle for satire, then a path to  glory, and then, perhaps, an expression of who she always was in the first place.

Growth Luke Norris’s play at Summerhall is about Tobes, a young man already in the midst of an existential crisis when he discovers a growth on his testicle. What follows is a journey into tragedy and possible redemption, delivered in a way that is laugh out loud funny but with an unerring connection to its characters, particularly the self-centred but well-meaning manchild at the heart of the story.

The Duke  Shon Dale Jones emerges from his Hugh Hughes alter-ego with a show at the Pleasance that combines three stories – about his granny, a film script, and the refugee crisis – into one thoughtful, quietly powerful whole.

Scorch

Inspired by recent court cases, Stacey Gregg’s beautifully observed play, at Summerhall, follows a sweet and vulnerable transgender teenager who, as a result of not outing themselves to a partner, ends up accused of sexual assault.