Edinburgh Festival

Three shows impossible to stage in conventional theatres are waiting in the wings as the 2012 Royal Highland Show draws to a close at the Royal Highland Centre, Ingliston.

This film deliberately tricks its audience. It starts out as an erotic romantic comedy, passes through political thriller and ends as a philosophical personal drama. What you realise at the end of the film, however, is that it was a personal drama all along: each set of genre conventions reflects the shifting perceptions of the main character, Frankie, a sassy aerospace engineer who works for the government designing drone planes.

Sexposition, the technique of making boring dialogue interesting by putting characters in a sexual situation, is subverted in an interesting way for one of the scenes of Either Way, an Icelanic film making its UK Premiere this week at the Edinburgh International Film Festival.

After an award-winning run in 2011, Casual Violence return to the Edinburgh Fringe to spin new yarns of tragicomedy sketch terror with CASUAL VIOLENCE: A KICK IN THE TEETH, at Just The Tonic @ The Caves - The Fancy Room, 2nd - 26th August 2012, 22:00 (not 14th or 21st).

The Traverse will bring together two of Scotland's mos famous playwrights, David Greig and David Harrower, in a special double bill as one of the Theatre's flagship shows for its 2012 Festival Programme this August. Presented back to back, David Greig's The Letter of Last Resort and David Harrower's Good With People take us from London to Helensburgh, tracing the paths of personal and political destruction in two highly-charged stories.

The Edinburgh International Book Festival today announced its programme for 2012. Charlotte Square Gardens will welcome Nobel Laureates, Booker and Pulitzer Prize winners and Poets Laureate as well as a stellar line up of the world's leading writers, poets, thinkers and commentators. With Guest Selectors, the Anobii First Book Award, the Edinburgh World Writers' Conference, the gamut of outstanding authors from Ali Smith to Zadie Smith, and a third year of the late night Unbound events, the Book Festival promises a summer of contemplation, inspiration and entertainment.

With just over six weeks to go until the start of the 2012 Edinburgh Festival Fringe, the Fringe Society have released their updated mobile apps for iPhone and Android.

'Learn Me Right' - an original song featuring British-born singer and songwriter Birdy, will be featured on the upcoming soundtrack to the animated Disney*Pixar film Brave, which will be released by Walt Disney Records on June 19th. The track was written, arranged, and produced by Grammy-nominated British folk-rock group Mumford & Sons.

Forest Fringe has announced Paper Stages, a beautifully designed free book co-authored by over twenty Forest Fringe artists, each page of which will be a different instruction-based performance for the reader or readers to perform themselves. Paper Stages will be launches on the 11th of August with a raucus party at an as-yet secret location. Featured writers include Kieran Hurley, writer-performer of the CATS Award-winning Beats.

Today the Edinburgh International Film Festival (EIFF) announced 2012's Michael Powell Award Competition Jury and the four other juries who will deliberate over the Festival's seven awards. Two of the jurors will also be the subjects of In-Person events that have been newly added to the EIFF programme. Jim Broadbent, Elliott Gould, Gerald Peary and Ewen Bremner are among those chosen to judge awards.

Soho Theatre has announced a full summer season of theatre, comedy and cabaret to be presented both at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and in London. In theatre, the group presents new work from Phil Porter, Will Eno and Joel Horwood. In Edinburgh and in London Soho presents acts from across the globe, including Barry Award Winner Doctor Brown and the joint Best Newcomer Winners from the Melbourne Comedy Festival Matt Okine and Ronny Chieng. Plus the return of the Soho Literary Festival.

A simple love story between a librarian and a young English teacher is the excuse for a twenty minute jukebox opera, inflicted on unsuspecting Edinburgh library goers all this week. The show will be performed in various Edinburgh City Libraries and the Scottish Poetry Library until Saturday the 16th. The exact times and locations will be advertised on Twitter and Facebook a half-day before each performance.

Silence will be broken by gentle song and hearts set fluttering among the dust jackets as Edinburgh International Festival's new series of guerrilla operas is set to get pulses racing in Edinburgh's libraries next week. From Monday 11 June to Saturday 16 June daily performances of Love in a Library will take place in (where else!) the romance section of libraries across the city as part of Edinburgh International Festival's year round outreach programme.

Following a limited season at the Menier Chocolate Factory and a UK Tour Educating Rita, the Olivier Award-winning comedy by Willy Russell, will play at the Assembly George Square Theatre this summer from Wednesday 1st - Sunday 26th August 2012 as part of the 2012 Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Claire Sweeney plays Rita and Matthew Kelly is Dr Frank Bryant in a production directed by Tamara Harvey.

Chocolate Factory Productions have announced a production of ANTHONY RAPP -WITHOUT YOU, based on Anthony Rapp's bestseller Without You: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and the Musical Rent, to begin performances in Boston on Tuesday, June 19th. The show, which is directed by Steve Maler, will continue at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe this August and London's Menier Chocolate Factory until Septemeber 15.

The Arches makes its return to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe to present the most daring, death defying show on earth, Bullet Catch by Rob Drummond, which will open at the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh from Friday 3 - Sunday 26 August 2012.

Writer, director and performer Kieran Hurley brings early 90s rave tale BEATS to the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh from 14 - 26 August 2012 as part of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2012 complete with live DJ Johnny Whoop and accompanied by psychedelic, rave inspired visuals for a full club atmosphere.

59E59 Theaters has announced the 2012 line up for the 8th annual EAST TO EDINBURGH festival, beginning on Tuesday, July 10 for a limited engagement through Sunday, July 29. Each July, 59E59 Theaters hosts a plethora of innovative US productions en route to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, the largest arts festival in the world. Created as a way to help shows get on their feet before flying off to Scotland, EAST TO EDINBURGH simulates the same production constraints that all shows experience during the Festival, while giving them a clean, comfortable and nurturing space to fine-tune their productions. This whirlwind three-week festival, featuring 16 productions, reflects some of the most adventurous theater from NY and across the US.

The Traverse has announced its 2012 Festival programme. Over four weeks, the Traverse will host nineteen shows and events, with eight world premieres and two Scottish premieres, including a double bill of David Greig's THE LETTER OF LAST RESORT and David Harrower's GOOD WITH PEOPLE.

Artistic Director Steven Atkinson today announced two new HighTide productions premiering at the 2012 Edinburgh Festival Fringe, August 1-9 at Pleasance and Assembly Theatre respectively.

This year's Amused Moose Laugh Off and Amused Moose Laughter Award's introduces new talent to audiences during a series of showcases. Last year these included Sarah Millican, Andi Osho and Jack Whitehall.

This year's Edinburgh Fringe festival includes 2 world premières, 1 Scottish première and 1 musical revival including THE IDIOT AT THE WALL, AS YE SO, THE LONELY ONES, and DEPARTURE LOUNGE.

The 2012 Edinburgh Festival Fringe Programme will be available in the Fringe Shop, 180 High Street, Edinburgh from 10.00 on Thursday 31 May onwards, and in a variety of outlets from 15.00 on Thursday 31 May. The programme can also be viewed online as a PDF from the afternoon of 31 May at edfringe.com.

Pleasance London has announced the line up for its 2012 Edinburgh Preview Season. This year is bigger and better than ever featuring some of the freshest young talent alongside some of the most recognised names in theatre and comedy. Tickets are available from just £5.

All-male a capella vocal group Out of the Blue is formed entirely from students at Oxford and Oxford Brookes Universities. Known for their yearly visits to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, in 2011 they made the live semi-finals of Britain's Got Talent. BWW:UK spoke to Selali Fiamanya, second tenor for the group, ahead of Out of the Blue's theatrical concert on the 1-12th of June in Oxford, which will be the largest student-run a cappella event in the UK. Selali is a medical student who joined OOTB in 2010.