Drone
Drone is a show at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2026, performing at Pleasance Courtyard. It has 14 performances listed, running from Tue 18 Aug, 12:00 to Mon 31 Aug, 12:00. The run has finished — every listed performance has taken place.
About this show
Will machines take revenge on us? Featuring Alan Cox on Screen. Dimitry Melkin, playwright and director, unites storytelling, dance and neural network-driven visuals into a single, evolving score. Performed by rising star Gladstone Mahib, the piece follows a machine striving to rediscover the human image, offering a speculative yet incisive vision of the future. Language becomes soundscape, blending meaning, glitches, hypertext and layered quotations. Voices from Waters, Land, Catullus, Pushkin, Tennessee Williams, Philip Dick, Benjamin, Japanese poetry, ancient philosophy, the Bob and Alice bot dialogue, and the AlphaZero-Stockfish "immortal zugzwang", shape a contemporary cyberpunk lexicon.
Details
- Venue: Pleasance Courtyard
- Space: Pleasance Two
- Genre: THEATRE, Multimedia
- Country: GERMANY
- Running time: 60 minutes
- Room size: about 158 seats (Pleasance Two) — the Fringe box office sells a share of the room, not all of it
- Performances listed: 14, of which 0 still to come and on sale
Accessibility
- Wheelchair access: lift
- Access features: Step-free access, Accessible toilet, Hearing loop
- Venue notes: Accessible entry: Queue in cobbled courtyard. Access to space via locked lift, please notify venue ahead of your visit if you require use of the lift and ask at Info Shed upon arrival for access. Pleasance Two is on the ground floor however the audience enters the space from the back of the seating rake via an external enclosed staircase. Wheelchair access type:Lift (Building Lift) Stairs: 20+ Number of stairs is provided as guidance and is not in addition to any wheelchair access type (lift/ramp etc) stated above.
What the reviewers said
We have captured 3 published reviews and 2 audience reviews for this show from the Edinburgh Festival Fringe’s own listing. The excerpts below are the reviewers’ words, not ours — follow each link for the full review.
I came away from the show with questions, and it was still humming around my mind a while later. Any show that can do this, has been a success, as it stimulates, and encourages us to question our unknown future. In…
— Theatre Muse UK (4 out of 5 stars)
If a previous historical epoch had seen DRONE, it might have looked like magic. In 2026, it just feels like the future.
— Binge Fringe (4 out of 5 stars)
I came away from the show with questions, and it was still humming around my mind a while later. Any show that can do this, has been a success, as it stimulates, and encourages us to question our unknown future.
— North West End UK (4 out of 5 stars)
Performance dates and ticket availability
- Tue 18 Aug, 12:00 — Already performed — £14.00
- Wed 19 Aug, 12:00 — Already performed — £14.00
- Thu 20 Aug, 12:00 — Already performed — £14.00
- Fri 21 Aug, 12:00 — Already performed — £16.00
- Sat 22 Aug, 12:00 — Already performed — £16.00
- Sun 23 Aug, 12:00 — Already performed — £16.00
- Mon 24 Aug, 12:00 — Already performed — £14.00
- Tue 25 Aug, 12:00 — Already performed — £14.00
- Wed 26 Aug, 12:00 — Already performed — £14.00
- Thu 27 Aug, 12:00 — Already performed — £14.00
- Fri 28 Aug, 12:00 — Already performed — £16.00
- Sat 29 Aug, 12:00 — Already performed — £16.00
- Sun 30 Aug, 12:00 — Already performed — £16.00
- Mon 31 Aug, 12:00 — Cancelled — £14.00