Standups used to think they’d never make it if they didn’t play the festival. But it’s leaving many saddled with debt, stuck in squalid flats and even suicidal. Refuseniks tell us why they’re bowing outRose Johnson has spent eight Augusts at the Edinbu…
Continue ReadingThis August the Scottish capital is much quieter but performers and audiences at this modest jamboree are full of spiritOn the wall in my kitchen is a calendar made by Edinburgh theatre critic Thom Dibdin. This time last year, he and his photographer b…
Continue ReadingThis August the Scottish capital is much quieter but performers and audiences at this modest jamboree are full of spiritOn the wall in my kitchen is a calendar made by Edinburgh theatre critic Thom Dibdin. This time last year, he and his photographer b…
Continue ReadingFestival is part of world’s largest annual arts season which has been forced to curtail events due to CovidThe Edinburgh festival Fringe returns this weekend with a hybrid programme of nearly 800 in-person and online shows after its cancellation last y…
Continue ReadingThe festival has shrunk because of Covid but there are plenty of shows in person and online this summer – here’s our pick of the first to be announcedSex Education Xplorers (S.E.X.)What did they miss out in your sex ed at school? Mamoru Iriguchi fills …
Continue ReadingCovid-19 has cancelled the annual jamboree, leaving performers – and our comedy critic – bereft. What does the festival mean to them and how will it change?Meeting Flight of the Conchords and seeing the teenage Bo Burnham. Improvising a musical with Ti…
Continue ReadingI’ve been doing standup at the fringe almost every year since 2006. And despite the stress, lousy lodging and worse food there’s nothing I’d rather do It’s the last week of July and, like most comedians in the country, in any other year I’d be about to…
Continue ReadingOrganisers prepare for ‘weird’ visitor-free season including weekly variety performanceEdinburgh festival fringe is preparing for a “weird” visitor-free summer with a package of online initiatives including variety shows streamed every Friday.The world…
Continue ReadingThe late-night hub is replacing its cancelled fringe programme with new virtual offerings alongside archive footage The Gilded Balloon, Edinburgh’s uproarious palace of late-night comedy, has announced a season of work to replace its cancelled fringe p…
Continue ReadingFringe joins international, book and art festivals and military tattoo in pulling plugEdinburgh absence will be felt throughout arts worldCoronavirus – latest updatesSee all our coronavirus coverageEdinburgh’s five August festivals, which were due to w…
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