The 2017 lastminute.com Edinburgh Comedy Awards Best Newcomer winner Natalie Palamides (pictured) returns to Pleasance with her show Nate, while 2014 winner Alex Edelman comes to Pleasance’s Cabaret Bar with his third solo show Just For Us. Newcomer nominee Chris Washington returns with his brand new show You Beauty! about the best year of his life when he used all his annual leave to bring a show to the world's biggest arts festival.

Fellow nominee Darren Harriott returns with Visceral while also-nominated Kwame Asante is back with Teenage Heartblob, reflecting on his personal and professional experiences of weighing more than you’d like to. In 2017, not only was Lauren Pattison’s show the best reviewed at the Fringe but she was also a Best Newcomer nominee. Following a whirlwind year she’s back with Peachy, delivering some new home truths with her wicked, warm and authentic brand of humour. Jordan Brookes, the Edinburgh Comedy Award Best Show 2017 nominee, returns with more loosely-justified nonsense in Bleed.

Pleasance’s incredible range of world-class comedians are essential must-sees, whatever your brand of humour. Angela Barnes’s Rose-Tinted offers stand-up and stories that look back on the bright side of life. Ivo Graham brings us Motion Sickness, a feisty new hour about facing the future. After a sell-out national tour in 2017, Ed Gamble is back with another bracing flurry of idiocy in Blizzard. Lolly 3 is the hotly anticipated new show from the multi-award-winning character comedian, Lolly Adefope. Highly acclaimed, amazing, stand-up Marcus Brigstocke returns determined that, for once and for all, it’s time to establish what is good and what is bad in Devil May Care.

Last year, Brett Goldstein, award winning comic, actor and writer, fell in love but he wouldn’t recommend it and he’s going to tell us why in What Is Love Baby Don't Hurt Me. Felicity Ward returns to bust a nutful of jokes in Felicity Ward is Busting a Nut. Pass It On is a brand new stand-up show from the perennial Fringe favourite, Lucy Porter. Following four sell-out Edinburgh Fringe runs and marking 30 years of Section 28, Margaret Thatcher Queen of Soho returns in her original 80s drag cabaret extravaganza! When you feel alienated by life, mock it vigorously – well that’s what Pierre Novellie suggests in See Novellie, Hear Novellie, Speak Novellie. Rose Matafeo (pictured) has kissed nearly 10 men in her life so doesn’t that make her a Horndog?! Suzi Ruffell returns after last year's smash-hit, sell- out show with Nocturnal, a new hour of hilarious comedy. And, cult idiot William Andrews (Alan Partridge, Broadchurch, Him & Her) returns to present Willy.

Double Edinburgh Comedy Award nominee Kieran Hodgson (pictured) joins the Pleasance programme, having previously performed on the Free Fringe, with Making Your Mind Up - the epic tale of how Britain joined Europe in the first place. Best Newcomer nominee Adam Hess brings his high-quality gags to life in Socks and Skies while critically-acclaimed musical comedy sisters Flo & Joan present an hour of dark and witty songs in Alive on Stage. Award-winning Rob Carter’s cult-hit creation, Christopher Bliss, is back in the very best of character comedy with I Spy With My Little Eye Something Beginning With Why Have You Been Sleeping With My Wife: A Play By Christopher Bliss. Pleasance excitedly welcome back Sheeps with open arms for Live & Loud Sex Selfie Harry Potter, an hour of (hopefully) new sketches. Fin Taylor’s finger is still on the pulse - he’s done race and politics and now he’s getting stuck into the War of the Sexes in When Harassy Met Sally. Remember the band Super Furry Animals? Well in Resist Phony Encores! Gruff Rhys plays selections from his forty-year career and explores how he overcame chronic shyness, stoner culture and communicative dysfunction, by placing commands on cue cards to whip audiences into a frenzy.

This year also sees loads of international newcomers grace Pleasance’s stages including: Venezuelan comic Ivan Aristeguieta - Winner Best Newcomer 2016 Sydney Comedy Festival and Best Comedy Adelaide Fringe 2017, Finland’s number one comedian Ismo Leikola, New Zealand’s amazing Alice Snedden, Anuvab Pal – one of India’s top comics, Dutch rising star Micky Overman and Russian legend, Amused Moose Comedy Award Finalist, Olga Koch.

There’s also home-grown talent appearing for the first time. Check out the Piccadilly Comedy Club New Comedian of the Year 2017 Ben Pope, the colourful sketches from Moon - the M6's favourite sons, the multi award-winning Welsh talents of Matt Rees, the highly anticipated debut show from BBC New Comedy Award finalist Sindhu Vee, Owen Roberts - one third of sketch legends Beasts, the Amused Moose Breakthrough Comic 2017 Rob Oldham, 8 Out Of 10 Cats’ very own Rosie Jones, Sarah Keyworth – Funny Women Runner Up, the masterful winner of BBC1’s Celebrity Mastermind George Lewis, the hotly anticipated debut from Leicester Comedy Festival Best Show nominee 2018 Jake Lambert, an hour of non-stop, razor-sharp, unadulterated show business from The Crooners and stars of award-winning Fringe favourites BattleActs (BBC Radio 1), EGG who bring us sketches inspired by fierce women in EGG: Richard Pictures.

Last year saw the birth of some incredible new comedy talent and, what’s more, they’re back to tickle our funny bones this summer. Critically-acclaimed comedy star Tom Houghton returns to Edinburgh to discover that true honour often lies where you’d least expect it. After a sell-out debut year, Tessa Coates (Massive Dad) is back with another show about how we got here and what on earth everyone thinks they're playing at. The award-winning Swedish stand-up Evelyn Mok explores responsibility, blame and cake in this much-anticipated second hour. Tom Lucy is one of the youngest professional comedians on the circuit, a millennial, and this blistering hour of new material explores why he just isn’t happy about it!

Also returning is the hilarious Daniel Cook, the sketch stylings of Briony Redman, critically acclaimed character comedian Emma Sidi and comical illustrator Richard Todd. Then there are the returning double acts providing a double whammy of fun for us – BBC Radio 4 favourite’s The Pin, the gloriously silly Great British Mysteries, debauched late night sketch comedy pair Norris & Parker, Beard – the best kept secrets in comedy (well, not any more) and innovative sketch duo Sisters.

The Pleasance Comedy Reserve is back for its 14th year at the Edinburgh Fringe with another four dazzling new acts – Chloe Petts, Helen Bauer, Jack Gleadow and Michael Odewale - handpicked by the Pleasance and supported by the Charlie Hartill Special Reserve Fund. This is your chance to see the freshest comedy talent of 2018 from the show that helped launch the careers of Jack Whitehall, Roisin Conaty, Joe Lycett, Simon Brodkin, Holly Walsh, Daniel Rigby and others!

If you’re looking for something a bit different later in the evening then Pleasance will have the answers. The Free Association returns with Jacuzzi, the hottest improv show on the Fringe where every night a special guest comedian will join an all-star team of improvisers. Or Comedians Against Humanity challenges the Fringe's best comedians to create material on the spot in this interactive, inappropriate and improvised show. Plus The Lampoons are back with their joyously absurd and furiously bizarre late-night reimagining of a Hollywood classic.

If your sides haven’t yet split open with laughter and your eyes aren’t yet watering then there’s still more... AAA Stand-Up returns with a brand-new line-up after incredible sell-outs from 2005-2017! And there’s a late-night version too! Clingfilm is the dark, sparkly world of Iza, Tuts & Lils - three socially anxious hipsters working it all out. Mervyn Stutter's Pick of the Fringe is a now legendary daily showcase offering an amazing mix of everything, carefully researched by Merv’s dedicated team. Murder She Didn't Write: The Improvised Murder Mystery is a classic murder mystery created on-the-spot in this ingenious show. Nicholas Parsons' Happy Hour is an unmissable comedy and chat show. The Cambridge Footlights International Tour Show 2018 offers free-flowing hilarity, excellent original writing and side-splitting character comedy.

Tickets for all shows here are now on sale here.

Click here for Theatre and Children's Shows