Festival Diary: How Mr Bates put the tent into tent-ertainment

SPIEGELtents - mirrored tents - have blossomed on the Fringe this year, vying in a kind of polite tented rivalry for the Fringe hordes. Over at Charlotte Square, the Edinburgh International Book Festival has been hosting its "Unbound" late-night free events in one.

The Assembly's new Princes Street Gardens has a version, the newcomer in town, where the venue hosted The Scotsman's Fringe First show yesterday. The atmosphere of intimacy and entertainment they create is catching.

The granddaddy of them all, however, is the Famous Spiegeltent of David Bates. He rented, ran and then bought the tent, nearly a century old, and took it to George Square, where it became an institution. He proudly relates that it is the one in which Marlene Dietrich herself sang.

Yesterday, Bates won the Total Theatre Award for his "significant contribution" to the Fringe. The Fringe chief executive Kath Mainland paid a personal tribute.

"This man has changed the face, not only of the Fringe, but of festivals in the UK and other places in the world," she said, as "an artist motivated by much more than money".

"As a theatrical producer and accomplished musician, David Bates is responsible for bringing many artists to the Fringe, including Meow Meow, Camille O'Sullivan and Ali MacGregor. He has played a significant role in the resurgence of circus, cabaret, burlesque, contemporary vaudeville and new variety."

Sitting pretty

SSegewa-ssekintu Kiwanuka is making his operatic debut as Puck in Shadwell Opera's Fringe production of A Midsummer Night's Dream at Rosslyn Chapel.

He's better used to entertaining crowds as the local vocalist and MC of Clean Bandit, a band mixing a string quartet with synth drummer, which has headlined festivals.

The rest of the cast in the Cambridge University company are typically choral scholars and trained singers. Kiwanuka is a PHD student in chemical engineer and biotechnology, but he is also current captain of the university's boxing team. "I've never knocked a guy out before," he said after downing a recent opponent "but I've gotta look pretty for this opera".