Thirty years after first navigating the chaos of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe as a young musician, KT Tunstall is back with something entirely unexpected. She hasn't returned simply to play a nostalgia set of acoustic hits. Instead, the Grammy-nominated artist has teamed up with writer and director Cora Bissett to create The Singer, a vibrant piece of gig theatre running at the Traverse Theatre during the 2026 Fringe.
If you think this is just another celebrity vanity project, you've got it completely wrong. Tunstall isn't on stage performing. She wrote the music and lyrics for a narrative that challenges how we think about sound, disability, and collaboration.
What The Singer Is Actually About
The story follows two distinct characters whose lives crash together in Glasgow. Joe is a Deaf artist who experiences musical rhythm as a whole-body sensation, crafting sharp lyrics and driving beats. Andy is a struggling, washed-up musician desperate for any kind of professional comeback.
When Andy crashes at Joe's flat after a brutal pub gig, he discovers a treasure trove of lyrics and electronic beats. An unlikely creative partnership sparks. They combine forces—Joe brings the structural vision, beats, and poetry, while Andy adds guitar melodies. But the music industry soon enters the picture, bringing exploitation and prejudice that threaten to tear their alliance apart.
It is performed in both spoken English and British Sign Language (BSL), featuring dynamic performances from Jamie Rea as Joe and Dylan Wood as Andy.
The Sound of Massive Hozier
Writing music for a character who experiences sound differently forced Tunstall to completely rethink her usual creative process. She didn't just lean on her classic folk-pop guitar styling. Instead, she chased an eclectic sonic identity that blended raw singer-songwriter sensibilities with heavy electronic rhythms.
Tunstall jokingly described the target genre during early rehearsals as a collision between two massive forces: Hozier and Massive Attack. The resulting soundtrack acts as the emotional heartbeat of the entire production, driving the narrative forward without overshadowing the linguistic and physical poetry of BSL.
Why This Matters Right Now
Most theatrical attempts at representing deaf culture tend to lean heavily into tired narratives of limitation or tragedy. The Singer rejects that entirely. It treats its protagonist as a creative powerhouse rather than a passive symbol.
For Bissett and Tunstall, the production also serves as an indictment of the music industry's historical blind spots regarding access and authorship. How value is assigned to art, who gets the credit on a track, and how gatekeepers decide who gets to be heard are central themes baked right into the plot.
Performances run at the Traverse Theatre through August 30, before heading out on a wider Scottish tour. If you are heading to Edinburgh this month, skip the standard stand-up comedy lineups and catch a show that actually pushes live performance somewhere new.
