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SHANGHAI ENCORE – European debut at Edinburgh Festival

By: P Hayward 9th June 2026

In a historic leap for China’s live improv comedy scene, Shanghai Encore! – Shanghai’s one and only musical improvisation group – has announced its debut across the globe at the 2026 Edinburgh Festival Fringe and will take over The Haldane Theatre at Space UK in Edinburgh’s historic festival district from August 7 to August 12, (6.15pm) The move marks a major milestone for the city’s underground performing arts community and places Encore! on a global stage alongside the world’s most innovative theatre companies.

Since forming in 2022, Shanghai Encore! has cultivated a fiercely loyal following in Shanghai, selling out venues across the city with a high-wire act that defies repetition: fully improvised musical created from thin air each night. Now, the collective of wildly talented musical improvisers is packing its portable keyboard and its even more portable scripts (that is, none at all) and heading to the United Kingdom for six unmissable performances at one of the most prestigious theatre festivals on the planet. 

Reflecting the cosmopolitan spirit of Shanghai itself, Encore!’s cast is an all-international lineup of seasoned improvisers and musicians hailing from France, the United States, China, Italy, and the United Kingdom. This cultural cross-pollination is central to the group’s creative alchemy, allowing for multilingual wordplay, diverse comedic sensibilities, and a rich tapestry of musical influences rarely seen in improvised theatre.

The cast includes Jennel Jin (China), a bilingual actor and improviser, dedicated improv artist since 2009, who has performed all over the world. She currently leads ZMACK Improv. Fulvio Bartolucci (Italy), one of the founding godfathers of Encore! discovered improv during the COVID lockdowns of 2020 and performed at Manila Improv Festival. Eddie Jordan III (USA), honed his craft at some of the world’s most respected improv training grounds, including The Second City in Chicago, The Groundlings in Los Angeles, and Zmack Improv in Shanghai. Stacey Anne Pedder (UK), after 12 years as a West End publicist, she moved to Asia where she rediscovered her talent and love for performing Musical Theatre. She most recently starred as ‘Florinda’ in ‘Into The Woods’ and has been creating songs from scratch with Encore! for the last two years, Bastien Bousquet (France) is the musical engine of Encore!, a Shanghai-based keyboardist, composer, and producer whose repertoire crosses soul, jazz, disco funk, electronic music, French chanson, Chinese pop, and international pop standards.

While Shanghai has long been known for its polished, large-scale theatrical productions and government-funded spectacles, Encore!’s Edinburgh debut represents something rarer: the international emergence of the city’s grassroots, independent improv community. Unlike scripted theatre or comedy, musical improv requires years of trust, vulnerability, and split-second collaboration – skills that Encore! has been quietly honing in theatre spaces and bars,across Shanghai for nearly half a decade.

What can ticket-holders expect? That’s the thrill – nobody knows, not even the cast. On any given evening, the ensemble might spin up a film-noir musical set in a Shanghai noodle shop, a high-stakes singing competition between rival alien pop stars, or a full-blown improvised Broadway-style two-acter about a love triangle inside a vending machine. Backed by a live musician who shifts effortlessly between funk, jazz, hip-hop, pop, R&B, and classic musical theatre styles, Encore! builds melodies, harmonies, lyrics, choreography, and narrative arcs entirely on the spot.