Edinburgh Festival 2024

Two years on, one year off: that's the rule for my Edinburgh Festival trips, though in recent years it's been disrupted by that tedious global pandemic, while 2023 was a year off for wholly delightful reasons. But we're back now for 2024, ready to get into that regular festival groove with nothing to stop us from...

...oh, how ironic. Well, are we doing this anyway?

We've been doing this since 1998 (though personally I've been doing it even longer than that), so you must know the drill by now. A bunch of Spank's Pals accompany me to Edinburgh during a week in August when all the festivals are running: International, Fringe, Film and Book. (We've forgiven Film by now for its years in the wilderness of June rather than August.) We go and see loads of stuff. I get up at crack of sparrowfart every morning to write and publish a review of what I saw the previous day. The Pals write about their highlights once we're all done - those days when I issued them all with notebooks and pens on day one and invited them to keep up with me are behind us now, we're all getting on a bit.

Any major news to report? I suppose the one thing that's made us all a bit happier is that the refuse collector's strike that made our 2022 visit a bit of a mare was looking like it was going to repeat itself, but ultimately hasn't. Hooray! And the one disappointment is that once again, Network Rail have decided that the last weekend of the Edinburgh Festival is the perfect time to close down part of the line between Edinburgh and London. Boooo! (Though, you know, it could be worse.)

Other than that, it's the usual thing. There's a festival. We'll have adventures there. This year, 'we' consists of Alan, The Belated Birthday Girl, Charmian, Diane, Lesley, Nick, Noelle, Pam, Stephen, Teresa and yours truly, with hopefully a guest appearance or two by Rhian along the way. We'll be telling you what's good and bad on a daily basis, and a pox on anyone or anything that tries to stop us. Watch this space.

• Sunday August 18th - "Judith!" (me, in my imagination, several hours after the Cat Power show finished)
• Monday August 19th - "I'm thinking, therefore I'm amming" (Ray O'Leary)
• Tuesday August 20th -"For a venue called Assembly, it's pretty widely spread out" (Jenny Tian)
• Wednesday August 21st - "Life’s a lot like the Somme, just slower" (Simon Munnery)
• Thursday August 22nd - "Powdered coriander from the supermarket tastes of despair" (Rukmini Iyer)
• Friday August 23rd - "Iranian women don’t cook. We’re too busy being successful" (Isabella Nefar)
• Saturday August 24th - "This show is dedicated to all those with teaching difficulties" (John Hegley)
• Sunday August 25th -"Well, at least that's the worst bit of the journey over with" (me, standing on the platform of Luton Airport Parkway station, like an IDIOT)
• Spank's Pals Postscript 2024 - final thoughts from the usual crew, coming soon