This year's quirkiest Edinburgh Fringe venues

Published on Friday 24 July 2009 13:58

1 A toilet A "burst of early evening toilet humour" is promised as a teenage theatre company called nod/nod perform a "homage" to Beckett's Waiting for Godot in the loo at the St James Centre.

2 A bicycle More interactive experience than theatre, Blast Theory's show Rider Spoke puts its audience on bicycles and sends them off around the streets with headphones and a handheld computer that asks you nosy questions along the way.

3 A fudge shop Pop into the Fudge Kitchen on the Royal Mile to catch The Fudge Show, a comedy club featuring free fudge and a "multimedia exploration of what it takes to be a top fudgeman".

4 A barge An "insane aquatic misadventure", it says here, as Metra Theatre attempt to stage Chekhov's Three Sisters on a barge moored off Edinburgh Quay.

5 A pub In which Grid Iron, the Scottish theatre company famous for putting on shows in a swing park, a department store and, most ambitiously, Edinburgh Airport (old hands at this kind of thing, then) stage one in their local pub, the Barony on Broughton Street. Called Barflies, it's based on a semi-autobiographical film script about booze by Charles Bukowksi.

6 Someone's flat The someone in question is comedian Holly Burn, who is inviting audiences into her home on Albany Street, every day at 3:07pm. She may not be the best-known comic on the Fringe, but she's the only one to have an official Fringe venue named after her (Venue 277, Holly's House)

7 The Botanic Gardens Choose from Susurrus, a headphone drama by Sub Rosa writer David Leddy (you're given an iPod, you walk around, David tells you a story) and Power Plant, a visually spectacular series of sound and light installations that strike up as night falls over the glasshouses.

8 A cinema Theatre in a cinema? That'll be The Wrong Woman, a half-hour show in the Cameo about the making of Alfred Hitchcock's The 39 Steps. Go see it on 21 August and you can watch the film itself straight afterwards.

9 A mining museum The Scottish Mining Museum at Lady Victoria Colliery is, its blurb proudly boasts, "a five-star visitor attraction and one of the finest surviving examples of a Victorian colliery in Europe". Throughout August you can also watch a children's show, Treasure Island, and Ae Fond Kiss, a theatre show about the life of Robert Burns. If you get bored with either you can always wander off and learn about mining.

10 A "mystery island "A ticket to Sweet Venues' The Bitter Belief of Cotrone The Magician gets you a boat trip into the Firth of Forth to a mystery location, for a reimagining of Pirandello's story. Possible disadvantage: if you hate the show it might be tricky to leave...