Fireworks

Sunday night's Firework concert in Princes Street Gardens was a spectacular event for the thousands present watching... and the thousands of others who were startled/woken up/otherwise roused by the tremendous explosions from the sky!

The highlight was undoubtedly the incredible heart-shaped fireworks which you can see here:

http://flickr.com/photos/redlex/234774685/

There you can also listen to a bit of the concert (with all the bangs) which someone has sneakily recorded...

Troilus and Cressida

Rating:	★★★★
Category:	Other

The Royal Shakespeare Company and EIF's trouble-hit collaboration turned out to be something of a triumph, bringing one of The Great Bard's more, um, "difficult" works to the Festival with bags of epic grandeur and fake-tanned flesh.

Outstanding performances, especially, I thought, Ian Hughes as the parasitic Thersites, Paul Jesson as Pandarus and the ever-sonorous David Yelland as Ulysses.

At over three and a half hours, this could have been a real endurance test, but the excellent cast kept the action moving along swiftly throughout, and especially during the action-packed second half, never allowing the audience to become complacent.

Some utterly unnecessary nudity did detract slightly, as did the overly-camp portrayal of Achilles. I was especially impressed with the excellent scenery (there were no hitches this time) and the superb Julian Lewis Jones as Ajax who all-but stole the show.

Given the fiasco that had led to the cancelling of the previous night's performance during the interval, it was unsurprising that there was a palpable sigh of relief when the actors came out for the second half. I was very glad they did.

Greedy

Start:	Aug 13, '06 5:30p
End:	Aug 13, '06 6:30p
Location:	Smirnoff Underbelly, Cowgate, Edinburgh

An antidote to seriousness.

After causing quite a stir at the festival in 2005, selling out show after show, Greedy is returning to the fringe in 2006.

This left field, slick, sexy and innovative sketch show has been leaving audiences in stitches for over a year now and has attracted a lot of TV interest.

“I laughed so much, I forgot to kill myself” Si Spencer (BBC)