Mick Perrin Worldwide in association with PBJ Management presents
Elf Lyons Is The Woman On The Edge
Pleasance Courtyard – Beyond: 5th – 31st August: 21:30pm
Chortle Comedian’s Comedian 2026 – Winner
Sky Arts Award for Comedy 2025 – Winner
ISH Comedy Award 2024 – Winner
Comedians Choice Award 2024 – Winner
Mervyn Stutter’s Spirit of the Fringe Awards 2024 – Winner
Adelaide Fringe Best Comedy & Pick of the Fringe 2024 – Winner
Edinburgh Comedy Award Best Show 2017 – Nominee
ONE OF THE 50 FUNNIEST COMEDIANS OF THE 21ST CENTURY – THE TELEGRAPH, 2023
★★★★★ The Telegraph ★★★★ The Guardian ★★★★ Chortle ★★★★ The Skinny
Sky Arts Award-winning comedian Elf Lyons returns to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe this summer with her new show The Woman on the Edge.
In this latest hour, Elf presents a completely normal, autobiographical (and in no way complex) observational stand-up show about love, blending her distinctive theatrical style with sharp comedic instincts as it leans into the absurd, the emotional and the unpredictable. Inspired by events, where Elf’s engagement ended whilst performing her last show, Horses on tour in Australia, the Woman on the Edge sees that Elf cannot make the show herself, but in her absence, one of her clown characters performs everything on her behalf.
With nods to Vertigo, Apollo 13 and the opera Pagliacci, continuing her reputation for creating work that is both multi-genre and crosses between the boundaries of comedy, theatre and live art. Expect a collision of forms. Mime, opera, stand-up, character and verbatim theatre sit side by side alongside audio recordings, bouncy castles and a fragmented mind that won’t stay in one place.
This is Lyons’ most personal work to date. It explores heartbreak, dissociation and resilience, holding them up against the idea of the “successful failure”, the Apollo 13 mission, and the Japanese concept of kintsugi, becoming more beautiful for having been broken. It asks what constitutes failure, what constitutes success, and what it takes to keep going when both are unclear.
Elf Lyons is an award-winning comedian, theatre maker, director, comedy writer and voice artist. She has gained a cult reputation as one of the most innovative performers on the UK comedy and theatre scene. Her work has included re-enactments of classical ballets, musicals about the economy, immersive horror shows, or performing as a horse and lectures at venues including the Barbican on the Surrealist movement.
Since 2017 Elf has been nominated for the Edinburgh Comedy Award for Best Show, the Malcolm Hardee Award for Comic Originality and Fringe World Perth’s Best Comedy Show. In 2018 she won Pick of the Fringe at the Adelaide Fringe. In 2023 she was listed in The Telegraph as one of the Top 50 Funniest Comedians of the 21st Century and in 2025 she won the Sky Arts Award for Comedy and in 2026 she won Chortle’s Comedian’s Comedian Award.
Her television and radio credits include Comedians Giving Lectures (Dave), Comedians Against Living Miserably (Dave), The A to Z of Horror Movies (Sky Original), Unexpected Fluids (BBC Radio 1), Evil Genius (BBC Sounds) and BBC World Service’s Stand Up Show – London. She wrote and starred in her own BBC Three short Top Ten Things I Have Brought Whilst Drunk and has been a regular on The Stand Up Sketch Show (ITV2), The Colin Murray Show (BBC Radio 5) and The Dog Ate My Homework (CBBC).
Lyons is a Sky Arts Award winner and has been named one of The Telegraph’s 50 Funniest Comedians of the 21st Century. Known for her unique approach to performance, and as a respected teacher and director and writer for many performers, in the UK and internationally performing at the fringe, she has built a strong reputation as one of the most original voices in contemporary comedy.
What the press have said about Horses
“Utterly captivating. The precision with which Lyons embodies each moment of the show is remarkable” ★★★★★ Time Out Melbourne
“She’s a comedy triple threat: clown, clever and crowd-work, all wrapped up in an air of confidence with an underlying fragility that is irresistible.” ★★★★★ The List
“… I adored every silly-filly bit of it and I can’t think of many performers who combine such bravura comic invention with such livewire pluck.”★★★★★ The Telegraph
“Elf Lyons’ new show is powered by a beautiful intention: to re-connect with the spirit of play.”
★★★★ The Skinny
“Part-clown, part-mime and part overgrown child, Lyons leads us through mythic history to reconnect with a lost world of imagination” ★★★★ The Guardian
“Elf Lyons is one of the finest physical comedians in the world right now. They blend an incredible and athletic physical presence with a strange sense of fun and near-perfect clowning.”
★★★★★ Starburst Magazine
“Elf Lyons: Horses is a mesmerising blend of clowning, mime, comedy, and theatre.”
★★★★★ Quintissential Review
“Clown queen Elf Lyons has been making some well-deserved waves with her new, extremely Elfy show, in which she examines her family history through the lens of equine history” ★★★★ Chortle
What the press have said about Elf:
“Praise her genius – and go” ★★★★★ The Telegraph
“This is comedy as enchantment, a show so beguiling that you don’t just love it, you somehow fall in love with it.” ★★★★The Scotsman
“Expert clowning that’s by turns charming, silly, touching and catastrophic” ★★★★ Sunday Times
“If you prefer your comedy going to the edge then toppling right off that edge try Lyons.” ★★★★Evening Standard
“Elf Lyons can’t be accused of treading the conventional career path since none of her shows ever remotely resembles the next. She bites fiercely back… if lovable takes you so far, terrifying takes you further” ★★★★ The Guardian
“Hits the stage like a tornado” ★★★★★ The Skinny
“Let go and let Lyons be your vessel.” ★★★★ The List
“It does indeed take someone who’s a little bit unique to don a bottomless parrot costume and a pair of knickers” ★★★★ Fest Magazine
“Clever, spontaneous, outrageous and frenetic” ★★★★ The Advertiser, Australia
Listings Information
Show: Elf Lyons: Is The Woman On Edge
Dates: 5th – 31st August (not 17th)
Time: 21:30
Venue: Pleasance Courtyard, Beyond
Address: 60 Pleasance, Edinburgh, EH8 9TJ
Price: Previews: £10 Weekdays: £16/£15: Weekends: £18/ £17
Box Office: https://www.edfringe.com/ / https://www.pleasance.co.uk/
Love Books Tours 