It's one of those events on which you strain, every year, to find a new angle: it's too big, it's elitist, it's a rip-off, it's too conservative, it's not conservative enough. And really you should just shut up and enjoy. Because the Edinburgh Festival is the biggest cultural bash held anywhere in the world. In fact, the Fringe would win that title on its own.
There's a film festival, a jazz and blues festival, and a book festival as well, but the specialist festivals are not the real interest - the specialities are catered for, better, elsewhere, and it's the variety of the International Festival and the Fringe which are the pull.
This year's international festival (August 16th-September 5th) features a special programme of Verdi operas based on Schiller, for instance, the British premiere of Balanchine's ballet, A Midsummer Night's Dream, an adaptation from an unfinished manuscript by Eugene O'Neill called Unfinished Mansions by New York Theatre Workshop, music from pianist Alfred Brendel, baritone, Andras Schiff, Olaf Bar, the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, the Berlin Philharmonic, and more, more, more.
The Fringe (August 9th-31st) is so vast, so eclectic, and of course, so variable, that you can't really book before you get to Edinburgh and feel the vibes. Remember that venues like the Traverse, the Assembly Rooms and the Pleasance do assess their programmes by high artistic standards, and play host to distinctly unfringey companies, like the English Shakespeare Company and Communicado.
Comedy is a major ingredient of the Fringe programme, and the Irish comedy team is currently in high-altitude training for their biggest assault yet on the event. Apart from familiar names like Dylan Moran, Barry Murphy, Tommy Tiernan and Ed Byrne, other members of the squad include Jason Byrne, Michael Redmond, Mark Doherty, Martin PigBig, Kevin Gildea, Michael Smiley, Eddie Bannon, John Henderson, Kevin Hayes, Dara O'Briain, Ian Coppinger, Colm Murphy, Bob Riley and The Nualas. It's the biggest ever Irish contingent at the Fringe and of all the above names, the one to look out for in a potential award-winning scenario is the abundantly talented Dubliner Mark Doherty.
Other big names on this year fringe include many acts who first previewed their shows at this year's Cat Laughs festival, as in Paul Merton, Johnny Vegas, Bill Bailey, Rich Hall and John Shuttleworth. They're joined by TV's Fantasy Football League's pair of David Baddiel and Frank Skinner, Stewart Lee, Rich Herring, Rob Newman and a potential award-winner (and you'll get huge odds on him this early) in the shape of Hovis Presley.
For information on the Edinburgh Festival phone 0044-131- 4732001; for information on the Fringe phone 0044-131-2265138
