Karen Koren: Comedy in song at the Fringe

MY TV series has come to an end, but for those of you who missed it, BBC iPlayer will be showing it for a while yet – just look up Late ’n’ Live Guide to Comedy.

I’m sure it will also be shown again before the Festival, just to remind everyone what the Edinburgh Fringe is all about. It was fun to do, but now it’s time to look to forward to my next task, finalising the Gilded Balloon programme for this August - it’s looking really good and I am feeling excited about it already.

I have a good feeling about this Festival, with a few new faces to be discovered it’s going to be great. Sharon, the Gilded Balloon’s hard-working general manager, is in Adelaide just now, mixing with Australian Fringe-goers, although I think most of the Edinburgh Fringe glitterati have decamped to Adelaide too. I must have a word with myself about that - how come everyone else can go but me?

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Still, with a bit of luck I will be off to Melbourne in April where I hope to discover the next wannabe. There are certainly plenty of performers to go around. At the moment I could fill another building with the acts that want to come to Edinburgh. This is a good thing.

I’ve been offered a lot of musical acts this year and I don’t think I am letting the cat out of the bag when I tell you that The Blanks are coming to the Gilded Balloon.

Who on Earth are they? you ask yourselves - just as I did. Actually, they are the guys who perform acappella in Scrubs. They’ve caused a bit of a sensation and obviously you will now be scrambling for tickets when they go on sale at the start of March.

Early? Well, the Fringe has decided, that this being an Olympic year will affect ticket sales. Of course it won’t. We will be as busy as ever.

As I said, I have a good feeling about this year.

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