With a capacity of 90, the building remains the United Kingdom's oldest student-run theatre, hosting around 40 EUTC productions each year as well as up to eight shows a day during the Edinburgh Fringe.

It forms an important part of the Old Town cityscape, terminating the view south along George IV Bridge.

[7] In 1852, the congregation assumed responsibility for a Free Church mission in the Cowgate, which, from the following year, met at Mary's Chapel.

[8] The church's district (equivalent to a parish) was thereafter moved to cover the Bristo and, in 1880, the congregation purchased a former dance hall on Marshall Street to serve as mission premises.

[17] After the completion of a purpose-built space within the Potterrow Student Centre in 1973, the chaplaincy vacated the former New North Church two years later and the university used the building as a store.

[20] After the chaplaincy vacated the building, it was occasionally used for student dramatic performances and as an overspill venue for the Traverse Theatre during the annual Edinburgh Fringe.

[21] One notable production in this period was Bradford University Dramatic Society's Satan's Ball (an adaptation of Mikhail Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita) at the 1977 Fringe.

[21][22] The university supported a project to convert the building into a thrust stage theatre named in memory of Tyrone Guthrie.

[27][28] In March 2002, the council rejected revised hotel plans, which would have excluded Bedlam while involving the demolition of a collection of 18th-century buildings to its rear.

[31] Work commenced in 2012 with the cleaning and restoration of the external stonework and the reintroduction of railings around the building, the originals having been removed for scrap during the Second World War.

[34] The building is the United Kingdom's oldest fully student-run theatre and one of Edinburgh's leading smaller venues.

[35] Since 2012, the theatre has been part of Creative Carbon Scotland's Green Arts Initiative and has promoted awareness of environmental issues through shows as well as using sustainable practices.

At the exterior side walls, heavy buttresses divide the nave's five bays while a shallow parapet runs along the top.

The front elevation at the northern end consists of twin, two-storey, semi-octagonal stair towers on either side of a projecting porch.

The interior retains its gallery, supported on cast iron columns; while the apse still contains the organ loft and Gothic screens.

[37] Nevertheless, the building forms an important part of the Old Town's cityscape, terminating the view south along George IV Bridge.

[12][40] Two decades prior to the opening of the New North Free Church, Hamilton had, along with William Burn, led the design of civic improvements in the Old Town.

Hamilton's plans were not executed in their entirety but they included both the George IV Bridge and the triangular block formed by Teviot Row, Bristo Place, and Forrest Road at whose northern point the Bedlam Theatre now stands.