Edinburgh Festival

Drama Desk Award nominee and YouTube sensation Christina Bianco and cabaret star Velma Celli make their Edinburgh Festival Fringe debut in Divallusion at Assembly Checkpoint from Thursday 31st July - Thursday 21st August at 19.25 (20.25 ends).

The Arches is thrilled to announce that Greg Sinclair's I Do, Do I will be presented at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2014. How much power could you entrust in a group of children? Would you let them tell you what to wear? Compose music for you to perform? Greg Sinclair would.

Amy is a sex worker. Her sister, Rosana, is a radical lesbian. They are both feminists. Together, they reveal everything in this powerful and joyous performance, exploring female sexual identity, feminism and choice.

Big Difference Productions, creators of innovative comedy events and concepts and organisers of the annual Dave's Leicester Comedy Festival, today announced its programme of events for this year's Edinburgh Festival Fringe. From seasoned stand-ups showing that life experience breeds laughs, expert analysis on comedy and contemporary culture, and unbridled laughter with the lights off, the shows provide a unique flavour of comedy.

Diane Ripstein presents Move on the Cha-Cha's June 13th & 14th at Arsenal Centre for the Arts as a preview for her performance run at Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Scotland August 1-23rd. A matinee performance has been added on Saturday 14th June at 3pm.

In a first for the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, a new daily, series of hour long performances, called Hibrow Hour, will stream each show LIVE and uninterrupted online from the magnificent Summerhall venue.

Edinburgh Fringe 2014 will welcome BIANCA BAGATOURIAN AND FRINGE MANAGEMENT's THE TIME OF OUR LIES: The Life and Times of Howard Zinn by Bianca Bagatourian. Performances will play the Gilded Balloon Teviot - DINING ROOM, July 30 - August 25th.

2b theatre company has announced the launch of a tour that will bring two award-winning 2b productions, The God That Comes and When It Rains, to Canada & to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, the world's largest performing arts festival.

Love. Guts. High School. written by Jeanette Bonner and developed with Desperately Seeking The Exit writer and performer Peter Michael Marino, was inspired by a question posed by American playwright Matt Hoverman, who asked Jeanette Bonner, 'What one thing, if it hadn't happened in your life, would have left you a different person than the one you are today?'

Printworthy stars conspicuously absent in new comedy: 'Learn to Laugh with: Keep Calm and Improv' at the Etcetera Theatre, London: 13-14 June 2014 and C Nova Studios, Edinburgh: 31 July-25 August 2014.

Direct from Limerick City! Rubberbandits, the plastic-bag wearing musical comedy duo - the Chortle Award winners responsible for YouTube sensation 'Horse Outside' - bring their brand new musical CONTINENTAL FISTFIGHT to the Edinburgh Fringe in 2014, straight from its critically-acclaimed, sold-out London season at Soho Theatre. CONTINENTAL FISTFIGHT, which they also recently performed to a packed crowd at Shakespeare's Globe (the first ever comedy gig to play the intimate, candle lit surroundings of the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse) is packed with dazzling new songs, great big hits and at least one celebrity puppet.

The VOCA PEOPLE will make their UK debut at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2014, with a thrilling and original musical comedy sensation already seen by over 1 million viewers worldwide. The show will play 30 July - 25 August 2014 at 6 p.m. at the Pleasance Courtyard, The Grand.

More than 200 New Zealand artists will be coming over to Edinburgh this August; the largest group of leading New Zealand actors, dancers, musicians, writers, Maori performing artists, spoken word and visual artists to have ever performed together outside New Zealand. Eight leading companies will be taking part in the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, appearing mainly at Assembly Festival and Summerhall.

Fergus Linehan, Director Designate of Edinburgh International Festival, succeeds the current Festival Director Jonathan Mills on 1 October 2014, and is currently planning the 2015 to 2019 Festivals. Fergus will maintain and build on the Festival's leading position as a multi-artform Festival, bringing major international orchestras, classical artists and opera, dance and theatre companies to Edinburgh.

Today, at a press conference in Edinburgh, Director Jonathan Mills revealed the artists, companies and work from around the world which will fill the stages of Edinburgh's annual cultural celebration. Over 2,400 artists from 43 nations have been invited to Edinburgh to perform in the annual showcase of the world's great performing artists.

Oscar nominated and Golden Globe winning actress Anne Archer will make her Edinburgh Festival debut starring as 'Jane Fonda' in the world premiere of THE TRIAL OF JANE FONDA, written and directed by seven-time Emmy award-winner Terry Jastrow.

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.