Edinburgh Festival

James I, James II and James III - are a new cycle of history plays by award-winning playwright Rona Munro and directed by Laurie Sansom, Artistic Director of the National Theatre of Scotland, which are to be presented in an unprecedented co-production by the National Theatre of Scotland, Edinburgh International Festival and the National Theatre of Great Britain, during the Edinburgh International Festival in August and at the National Theatre in London from September to October.

Bernard Labadie will return to the New York Philharmonic to conduct Mozart's Requiem; J.S. Bach's Cantata No. 51, Jauchzet Gott in allen Landen!; and Handel's 'Let the Bright Seraphim' from Samson. The program's soloists will include soprano Miah Persson, mezzo- soprano Stephanie Blythe, tenor Frédéric Antoun in his Philharmonic debut, bass Andrew Foster- Williams, Philharmonic Principal Trumpet Philip Smith, and the New York Choral Artists directed by Joseph Flummerfelt. The concerts will take place Thursday, November 7, 2013, at 7:30 p.m.; Friday, November 8 at 8:00 p.m.; and Saturday, November 9 at 8:00 p.m.

The 67th Edinburgh International Festival draws to a close tonight with the Virgin Money Fireworks Concert gathering approximately 250,000 Edinburgh residents and visitors across the city to share in the annual spectacular performed live by the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and Pyrovision.

So, we won a Herald Angel Award!

There was some fantastic variety on show at Edinburgh. There were definite disappointments but also some really impressive and innovative attempts. Although it's always tough to pick just a few shows to mention - here are my awards for Edinburgh 2013:

My Fringe was a bit of a mixed bag... I had high hopes for some shows that I felt quite let down by in the end and I was also pleasantly surprised by others, as detailed here.

Following 5* reviews and critical acclaim at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, multi award winning Sell a Door Theatre Company have announced a transfer of their new musical 'Sincerely, Mr Toad' to London's Greenwich Theatre from 10th September to 14th September.

Best known as one third of Australian musical comedy group Axis of Awesome, performers of the famous "Four Chords Song", Benny Davis takes to the Fringe this year in a solo outing. Combining a sarcastic wit with excellent musicianship, "The Human Jukebox" centres around Davis' ability to pick up on musical patterns, with examples from every area of music strung together in amusingly odd combinations.

The Stella Adler Studio of Acting's Harold Clurman Laboratory Theater Company has announced that Michael Milligan's Mercy Killers is the recipient of The Scotsman Fringe First Award at the 2013 Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Milligan's one-man play is inspired by America's horror stories of the uninsured, many of whom suffer financial tragedies on top of chronic illnesses. The festival performance featured the debut of Mercy Killers outside of the U.S.

The Carol Tambor Theatrical Foundation has announced the winner of this year's The Carol Tambor Best of Edinburgh Award, the highest honor at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. The winner of The Carol Tambor Best of Edinburgh Award was announced at the closing ceremonies of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe on Friday, August 23 at 10:45 AM BST (5:45 AM EST).

We ask all the tough questions...

BWW Review Natalie O'Donoghue's pick of the 2013 Edinburgh Fringe festival.

Scotland's most distinctive writers and musicians and you: a nation, awake in the dark, waiting for the light to come.

It's a magical place, The Fringe. Everyone's in the same boat, albeit different sections of the same boat. Everyone's working a bit harder, drinking a bit more, sleeping a bit less, aching a little deeper, and everyone's truly in it, it's difficult to stay on the fringe of The Fringe.

Rave Generation has been nominated for the National Students Drama Award for new writing. It is a black comedy based around 4 fictional characters who inadvertently take Class A drugs. They experience a unifying and liberating journey and are united in an unlikely setting, a primary school classroom.

There is a kind of musical I've started to call plinky-plonk (the name is a work in progress). They're invariably set in New York, and they always involve a perky group of young twentysomethings and a piano. And I find them supremely irritating, and [title of show] is definitely one of them.

I didn't know what to expect other than 'Howie the Rookie' is a one-man show set in Dublin. Or at least it's a one-man show now. It's comprised of two monologues from two young Dubliners, first The Howie and then The Rookie. Previously, these roles were portrayed by different actors, but in this production directed by writer Mark O' Rowe, both are played by Tom Vaughan-Lawlor, recently seen in the acclaimed Irish crime drama 'Love/Hate' on Channel 5.

You get the impression that resistance is futile: from the dimly-lit entrance of Le Gat (that's what I'm calling him), certain corners of the audience are filled with yelps of delight, gleeful whoops and just general joy at his arrival.

In the post-ANTM age (if that doesn't make immediate sense, I won't explain it for fear of embarrassment), the word fierce has become a bit overused but it's the only description for the five 'Starlets' in this new production by Theatre Ad Infinitum, darlings of the Fringe after their previous show, the quietly devastating 'Translunar Paradise'. This group of immensely talented physical performers has energy for days, and they are just hugely watchable for the entire running time, thanks in no small part to the twitchy, spiky choreography of Orian Michaeli (one of the five).

A cast of young people performing in a Fringe musical that isn't 'Spring Awakening' is a thing to treasure, and when it's in fact Stephen Sondheim's glorious 'Merrily We Roll Along', it's an even greater cause for celebration. The programme is scant on information on where this company, The Red Oak Theatre, originates, but nobody in the cast looks anywhere near their mid-twenties, which makes the fact that they've tackled this decades-spanning piece all the more interesting - not to mention admirable.

At the end of this performance of 'Bath Time', the actor/writer Ruaraidh Murray (it's a one-man show) shook hands with everyone in the front row, and very sincerely thanked everyone for coming - the venue is called the Wee Room so there was plenty of scope to make eye contact with the whole audience, and all in all, he came across as a genuinely lovely and grateful chap.

I don't know much about Shakespeare, and I knew even less about Titus Andronicus before seeing this version by Smooth Faced Gentlemen, the UK's only all-female Shakespeare company. But one would hope the work of 'the Bard' should be accessible without much prior knowledge, and it's to the company's credit that this production very much is.

'Blood Ties', by cast members Anika Johnson and Barbara Johnston, seems to have had quite a journey pre-Fringe. Written when the two were at theatre school, the musical has since featured in various festivals and five years later, its fourth draft arrives in Edinburgh in what appears to be a final hurrah for the show.

'Between' is packing them in. Its poster design is a fine example of how to attract your intended audience, with two nubile young men in a topless clinch. And indeed, the audience is almost exclusively male, and it's a capacity crowd, so full marks to the marketing.

A magic show with a twist, "Morgan And West: A Grand Adventure" features a duo of Victorian magicians on an epic quest in an era of hot air balloons, gentleman thieves and fantastic facial hair. Morgan and West make an endearing double act, adding plenty of personality to even the most classic of tricks, and it is their personalities that drive the story around which the show is structured.