Edinburgh Fringe

The Edinburgh International Festival may have come first, but generally it's the Fringe that Edinburgh is best-known for. There's really nothing quite like it: "the largest show on Earth" they say. The latest stats seem to bear that out: the Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2009 saw 34,265 performances of 2,098 shows at 265 venues. It's a sprawling, anarchic, sleepless month of live performances.

Once again, I must admit to being drawn to a band largely on the strength of their name. Carolina Liar - where did that one come from? Well, a little research revealed that lead singer and guitarist - and while we're on the subject of names - the almost impossibly named Chad Wolf, originally hails from Charleson, South Carolina, so we're starting to see a connection here.

They don't do "Shot By Both Sides". There are looks of dismay on certain audience members faces as the lights go up at the end of Magazine's first Edinburgh show in almost thirty years and they haven't played their debut single and most famous song. Clearly, there is no room for nostalgic, ageing punks tonight.

Three of the "most innovative theatre makers" at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe this year were announced as winners of the Edinburgh International Festival Fringe Prize 2009 today. The three are The River People, David Leddy (pictured), and Inspector Sands.

At any other time of the year it would have looked an odd sight - a snake of folk in Thistle Street carrying champagne flutes, trouping into Henderson's Restaurant.

Although not listed in the Fringe programme, the Cowgate Cartoon music show makes perfect Fringe entertainment. Run by Will Pickvance, in the intimate atmosphere of the Underground Café in the Cowgate, each night is a different line-up of musicians and poets. And it's all free (a bucket is passed around).

The nineteen strong choir of St Andrew’s and St George’s under its director, Brigitte Harris, included four soloists for a delightful lunch time concert playing three pieces, by Handel, Haydn and Mozart.

Over the years Anglicans have become used to a weekly diet of Choral Eucharist which bit by bit has replaced Choral Matins. So the 9.30am service at the Church of St John the Evangelist, the only church on Princes Street, brought back happy memories.

It's not yet 3am on Christmas morning, 1977 - everyone is still sleeping.  We are about to share Charlie Chaplin's last hour.

As he take us through his life and work we will discover that the cult of celebrity is nothing new.  It's a rags to riches story

It is unfortunate that the life and work of political cartoonist, and man of many other talents, Harry Horse is overshadowed by the horrific circumstances surrounding his death in January 2007. Perhaps this is why Tam Dean Burn takes the unusual step of providing an introduction to this evening, softly informing us that the visual backdrop will display the cartoons Horse supplied to the Sunday Herald in the two years prior to the bodies of he and his wife being discovered at their home on West Burra.

I walked into the darkened theatre.  The atmosphere hit me like a slug from a .45.  I dropped into my seat.  OK, bring on the action.

The play takes as its starting point the screening of Orson Welles' 1958 film A Touch of Evil

The Winner of long-running Fringe comedy newcomer's award So You Think You're Funny? 2009 is 18 year old, Eton-educated Ivo Graham.

Earlier this year, I had the pleasure of seeing a French production of Molière's play Le Malade Imaginaire by the Paris company Ecla Théâtre. It was done in period, and was updated linguistically to encompass modern vernacular French.

This comedy drama about a Fringe theatre company is actually based on real events which took place during the Edinburgh Festival each August between 2005 to 2008. A programme giving plot storyline and cast list is available (so do ask for one as they are not readily offered) which may prove invaluable.

Chronicles of Long Kesh is one of the best shows on the Fringe this year.  A powerful two-hour drama, it is about the infamous prison in Northern Ireland in which members of the IRA were interned without trial - never knowing their release date.

To watch Mario Pirovano introduce a very responsive audience to the journey into the world of the mediaeval storyteller was in itself an enjoyable experience.

It is usual in a review to give a synopsis of the performance and some detail of the show, but in order not to spoil the many surprises of the spectacular Ringside, it seems best to say as little as possible beyond what is already in the programme.

You just can't go wrong with zombies, can you? They are both scary and funny in equal measure. Pure entertainment! And that is probably the best way to describe Opening Night Of The Living Dead. Absolute pure entertainment.

Soothed by the soporific tones of a home loving song about Kansas, the audience is shown pictures of two of the characters from Portugese Telenovela on a loop on the large screen on stage. The show starts with a film of a woman rushing home through narrow streets then smoothly, magically appearing on stage as though she had merely stepped though the screen.

The Queen's Hall may seem like an unlikely venue to get hot and sweaty in, but on a very dreich and damp Thursday night towards the end of the Edinburgh Fringe, that's exactly what Shooglenifty man