Bigger, brighter and bolder than ever: the Fringe is back

A PLAY performed on board an Edinburgh-to-Glasgow train is one of the more unusual highlights among the record-breaking 2,542 shows unveiled ahead of the 2011 Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

Defying fears the event would plateau or even shrink following years of rapid growth, the Fringe programme yesterday delivered a more than 3 per cent rise on last year's 2,453 shows in the biggest Fringe to date, chief executive Kath Mainland said.

The programme includes 1,319 world premieres. The theatre line up is particularly strong, Ms Mainland said, while cabaret shows its strength with a new separate category of its own.

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For the first time people will be able to buy tickets using smartphone apps as the Fringe explores ways to help Festival-goers navigate the vast event.

In one departure from the normal venue set up, actress Ishbel McFarlane will meet her audiences at Waverley Station, satisfying the Fringe rules that shows are hosted from an Edinburgh postcode. She will perform Even in Glasgow/Edinburgh, based on the poetry of Liz Lochhead, over 90 minutes on the platform and on board a ScotRail train before leaving her audience in Glasgow.

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"It's a show about the differences between the two cities, and how they are considered as people in both cities and also by the artistic world," said Ms McFarlane, a recent graduate of the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, who moved from Edinburgh to Glasgow last year.

"That more people than ever see this as a valuable place to bring their work to show off to the world is a very good sign of the vitality of the Festival," she said. The Fringe is concentrated heavily on the south side of the city this year following the closure of the Assembly Rooms on George Street.

BBC Potterow, a new venue opened at Edinburgh University, offers a tent space that will house all the BBC shows broadcasting from the festival.

It is expected to boost vital media coverage of the event, with Radio 1, 2, 4, 5 Live and 6 Music airing an expanded array of shows. Radio 1's Scott Mills and Nick Grimshaw will be hosting, while Office star Ricky Gervais discusses his new comedy series Life's Too Short.

Speaking about the shift southward, Ms Mainland said: "It will be more concentrated up there, and that will make it a different dynamic, but I genuinely think as an audience member, if you see a show that's interesting, you will go to the venue that it's on. None of them are far away, it's not like an enormous city. The Fringe audience is desperate to discover things."

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Several big names at the Fringe this year have already emerged, from actors Simon Callow and Hollywood star John Malkovich to comic Phil Jupitus.

The Traverse Theatre, traditionally the first call for edgy new drama on the Fringe, unveiled its programme yesterday. It features The Dark Philosophers, a National Theatre of Wales production exploring the valleys in the 1940s through performance and song, in the British Council showcase of top new work.

Futureproof is the last Traverse show by departing artistic director Dominic Hill, focusing on a travelling freak show which hits hard times.

Also notable are the dramas that break out of the traditional theatre play using interactive multi-media.

You Wouldn't Know Her, She Lives in Edinburgh / You Wouldn't Know Him, He Lives in Texas is a show that links audiences and performers in Scotland and Texas live by Skype in a tale of trans-Atlantic lovers.

The show (g)Host city offers downloadable virtual adventures for people walking the streets of Edinburgh on their smartphones or MP3 players, from its "virtual venue".

In Invisible Show II, by Red Shift theatre, audience members with wireless headphones are in a crowd, uncertain where the play is happening or who are actors and who is not.

The new Summerhall venue, housed in the university's former Dick Vet veterinary building, was touted yesterday as a free-ranging centre for theatre and art, backed by London's prestigious Battersea Arts Centre and veteran impresario Ricky DeMarco.

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It ranges from theatrical ghost story Hotel Methusaleh to experimental work that does not appear in the programme. Amid the usual list of bizarre show titles, there were a few that stand out: Killing Bill Gates, The Oh F**k Moment, about the e-mails or messages regretted the moment they're sent, or Scottish Sperm. "What's so great about Scottish sperm?" the play asks. "Come find out in this new dark comedy."

The Edge rock festival also unveiled its full programme yesterday, as part of the Edinburgh Comedy Festival for the first time.

Highlights include Example, on course for his first number one hit this weekend, and Tim Booth, best known as lead singer of the band James, to Steve-O, star of Jackass.

Promoter Dave Corbet said the line-up of shows, with an audience of about 30,000, may be finally helping woo Glaswegians to the Fringe.

"The Edge festival brings people into the Festival who wouldn't otherwise do it. It wouldn't surprise me if between five and 10,000 of those are coming from the West Coast into Edinburgh. We are doing one-off shows that are not played anywhere else."

The 5 Fringe, launched in 2009 to offer a list of cheap shows, is not in the programme this year. But the number of free shows has now increased to more than 600. The Free Fringe organiser Peter Buckley Hill has 30 venues including two in disused shopfronts in Princes Mall.They are dedicated to theatre, from Charles Dicken's Great Expectations to Welcome to the Kerryman, about a "group of losers" who meet in an Irish pub.

The Pleasance director Anthony Alderson said: "I'm just pleased that there's more theatre. I love the fact that we have a programme that's balanced, and isn't completely dominated by comedy."

The tickets

The Fringe Box Office at 180 High Street opens at 8am today. Tickets can be bought in person, over the telephone on 0131 226 0000, or online at www.edfringe.com.

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In August an Android or iPhone app will enable users to buy tickets on their smartphones. Tickets can be picked up at the High Street or in August at two new collection centres: the University of Edinburgh Visitor Centre in Charles Street or the Virgin Money Half Price Hut on the Mound Precinct.