Edinburgh Festival Fringe
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40 free Edinburgh Festival Fringe trivia questions with answers — pop culture quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Every summer the Edinburgh Festival Fringe turns Scotland's capital into the biggest stage on earth. It is the world's largest performing arts festival, a place where a student revue can share a street with a household name, and where a show seen by a handful of people in a pub back room can end up on television a few years later. This quiz covers the whole story: how the Fringe began on the edges of an official festival in 1947, the venues and landmarks every festival-goer knows, the comedy prize that has crowned future stars for more than four decades, and the plays, musicals and stand-up hours that started small here before going global. It is written for Fringe regulars, comedy fans and first-time visitors planning a trip. Some questions are gentle warm-ups and a few are for people who have queued in the rain for a late-night show. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so you will leave with a story or two worth retelling.
30 of 40 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which hit BBC comedy began as Phoebe Waller-Bridge's one-woman show at the 2013 Edinburgh Fringe?
Fleabag
Fleabag won a Fringe First award on its Edinburgh debut, and its creator was named the first-ever President of the Fringe Society in 2021.
Q 02Which Netflix drama did Richard Gadd adapt from the one-man show he premiered at the 2019 Edinburgh Fringe?
Baby Reindeer
Baby Reindeer went on to win six Emmys, with Gadd winning for both his writing and his lead performance.
Q 03Which TV game show did comedian Alex Horne first stage as a live show at the 2010 Edinburgh Fringe?
Taskmaster
Taskmaster grew out of Horne's envy of his close friend Tim Key, who had won the Edinburgh Comedy Award the year before.
Q 04Which hit pop musical was first staged by Cambridge University students at the 2017 Edinburgh Fringe?
Six
Six, the pop musical about Henry VIII's wives, sold out its student run and went on to the West End and Broadway, despite winning no major awards at the Fringe.
Q 05Underbelly's best-known Edinburgh Fringe venue is a giant purple inflatable shaped like which upside-down animal?
A cow
A cow is the mascot of every Underbelly venue, and the upside-down tent, the Udderbelly, later lent its name to a festival on London's South Bank.
Q 06Which French mineral water brand sponsored the Edinburgh Fringe's top comedy prize from 1981 until 2005?
Perrier
Perrier created the award to support young talent, with a first prize of £1,000; past winners are now often said to have won 'the Eddie'.
Q 07Which future double Oscar winner was in the Cambridge Footlights cast that won the first Edinburgh Comedy Award in 1981?
Emma Thompson
Emma Thompson shared that first award with castmates Stephen Fry, Hugh Laurie and Tony Slattery for a revue called The Cellar Tapes.
Q 08The Edinburgh Fringe began in 1947 when eight theatre companies did what at the first Edinburgh International Festival?
Turned up uninvited
Turned up uninvited sums it up: with the city's major venues taken by the official festival, the eight troupes took over smaller, alternative halls.
Q 09Which American talk show host inspired a hit 2002 Edinburgh Fringe musical co-written by comedian Stewart Lee?
Jerry Springer
Jerry Springer saw the opera bearing his name in Edinburgh and said he wished he had thought of it himself; it later won four Olivier Awards.
Q 10Which historic Edinburgh street, home to the Fringe Shop, fills with buskers and flyering performers during the Fringe?
The Royal Mile
The Royal Mile hosts the Fringe's daily Street Events, and the stretch beside St Giles' Cathedral is where casts hand out flyers and perform scenes.
Q 11In which month does the Edinburgh Festival Fringe fill the Scottish capital with thousands of shows every year?
August
August is also when the International Festival and the Military Tattoo take place, and since 1983 they have jointly promoted Edinburgh as 'The Festival City'.
Q 12What does it mean that the Edinburgh Fringe is an 'unjuried' festival, a principle dating from its 1947 origins?
Anyone may take part
Anyone may take part because there is no selection committee: the Fringe Society's founding constitution set out a policy of not vetting or censoring shows.
Q 13Which playwright's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead had its first full staging at the 1966 Edinburgh Fringe?
Tom Stoppard
Q 21Which newspaper has handed out Fringe First awards for new plays at the Edinburgh Fringe since 1973?
The Scotsman
The Scotsman launched the awards through its arts editor Allen Wright to encourage new theatre writing, and once aimed to review every show on the Fringe.
Q 22Which National Theatre of Scotland play about soldiers in Iraq premiered in a drill hall at the 2006 Edinburgh Fringe?
Black Watch
Black Watch was built by writer Gregory Burke from interviews with former soldiers of the regiment, and went on to win four Olivier Awards.
Q 23Which Australian musical comedian won Best Newcomer at the 2005 Edinburgh Fringe, before composing Matilda the Musical?
Tim Minchin
Tom Stoppard wrote it around two minor courtiers from Shakespeare's Hamlet, and the Oxford Theatre Group gave the expanded version its debut.
Q 14Which percussion show played on everyday objects premiered at the Assembly Rooms during the 1991 Edinburgh Fringe?
Stomp
Stomp was created in Brighton by Luke Cresswell and Steve McNicholas, and it won a Best of the Fringe award on its Edinburgh premiere.
Q 15Which character comedian won the Edinburgh Comedy Award in 1999 after three straight years as a losing nominee?
Al Murray
Al Murray first played his Pub Landlord character at the 1994 Fringe, in a show called Pub Internationale.
Q 16Which future Phoenix Nights star won So You Think You're Funny, the Edinburgh Fringe's new-act contest, in 1997?
Peter Kay
Peter Kay came back a year later for his first proper stand-up run at the Fringe and was nominated for its top comedy award.
Q 17Which Noel Fielding and Julian Barratt stage show won Best Newcomer at the 1998 Edinburgh Fringe?
The Mighty Boosh
The Mighty Boosh was followed to Edinburgh by Arctic Boosh and Autoboosh, and the pair had first performed together in a Stewart Lee show at the 1997 Fringe.
Q 18Which future US late-night host broke through at the 1986 Edinburgh Fringe as a character called Bing Hitler?
Craig Ferguson
Craig Ferguson devised the act as a send-up of over-patriotic Scottish folk singers, borrowing the stage name from Peter Capaldi.
Q 19Which Australian comedian shared the 2017 Edinburgh Comedy Award for Nanette, a show later filmed for Netflix?
Hannah Gadsby
Hannah Gadsby tied with John Robins, the first time the main prize had ever been split between two shows.
Q 20Which New Zealand comedian won the 2018 Edinburgh Comedy Award for Horndog, three years before her romcom Starstruck?
Rose Matafeo
Rose Matafeo was the first New Zealander to win the award, which came with a £10,000 prize.
Tim Minchin won with Darkside, the show that had already made his name at that year's Melbourne International Comedy Festival.
Q 24Which Hollywood actor caught chickenpox while starring in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest at the 2004 Edinburgh Fringe?
Christian Slater
Christian Slater's illness was only one setback: the production's original director quit before it opened, yet the show still moved on to London's West End.
Q 25Which legal drama was staged at the 2003 Edinburgh Fringe with stand-up comedians such as Bill Bailey in the cast?
12 Angry Men
12 Angry Men cast Irish comic Owen O'Neill in the Henry Fonda role of Juror number eight, alongside Stephen Frost and Phil Nichol.
Q 26Which Grumpy Old Women star became the first solo woman to win the Edinburgh Fringe's top comedy award, in 1995?
Jenny Eclair
Jenny Eclair won with a show called Prozac and Tantrums, and no other solo woman took the prize for another ten years.
Q 27Which Edinburgh Fringe comedy venue, founded by Karen Koren in 1986, lost its original Cowgate home to a fire in 2002?
Gilded Balloon
Gilded Balloon moved its Fringe base to Teviot Row House after the blaze; a 3am licence had made the old site the comedians' late-night haunt.
Q 28Which Edinburgh Fringe arts venue opened in 2011 in the former home of the city's Royal (Dick) veterinary school?
Summerhall
Summerhall stands on a site first used by a family brewery in the 1710s; the vet college moved in two centuries later, in 1916.
Q 29Which landmark hosted a one-off 6,000-seat Ricky Gervais stand-up show during the 2007 Fringe?
Edinburgh Castle
Edinburgh Castle already had the Tattoo's seating in place; Gervais was accused of drawing audiences away from smaller shows and gave the profits to a cancer charity.
Q 30Which former doctor won the very first Best Newcomer prize at the Edinburgh Comedy Awards, in 1992?
Harry Hill
Harry Hill's win was his breakthrough, and the radio series Harry Hill's Fruit Corner followed a year later.