Opera

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.

As the clock ticks down to the Edinburgh Fringe, EG asks Fringe director Jon Morgan what we can expect this year. Morgan says, in spite of the credit crunch, and fears over a "breakaway" Comedy Festival, the Fringe appears to be appear in good health with around 2,000 shows coming to the city in August.