This article appears as part of the Herald Arts newsletter.

My two favourite stand-up gags ever came courtesy of the criminally under-rated American comic Emo Philips, and Glasgow accountant turned funny-man Arnold Brown.

Philips did a skit about a new invention – dried water – which ended with the line: ‘Great. But what would you add?’. Brown would come on stage and say ‘I like it here’, then take a step to the left and add: ‘I like it here too’.

Well I thought they were funny. Did you, though? And would either one of those jokes have won an audience award, had there been such a thing at the time those comics were performing? It’s impossible to say, humour being the slippery, subjective creature it is. All the more reason to treat the now-traditional Joke Of The Fringe award with a degree of scepticism, then. That said, it’s always fun to read through the gags and see if they raise a smile. They normally do and this year’s list is no different.

The 2024 champion is Mark Simmons, who regularly makes the final cut, though this is the first time he has taken home the (hideous) trophy. Here you can read his winning one-liner as well as all the others which made the grade.

But heated discussion of the merits (or otherwise) of the winning gag in the Joke Of The Fringe competition might be about the most contentious thing to go down at this year’s Edinburgh Festival.

Read more:

Herald Arts | Gigs at Edinburgh International Festival: An overdue idea or opportunistic?

Baillie Gifford and Fossil Free Books? All quiet on that front. Swivel-eyed Drag Queen Story Hour protesters with their stupid placards? Elsewhere this year, apparently. Bin strike? Didn’t happen. Even Liz Truss came and went with only a few half-hearted heckles – and they were well matched by vocal praise from the True Blue Tory fan boys in the audience (I know, I was there). Yes, comedian Reginald D Hunter brought trouble on his head with a joke about Israel, but he has since apologised and the official line from the boys in blue is: ‘Nothing to see here, please move along’. Other than that, it has been a surprisingly protest- and scandal-free festival, with only really the weather complain about.

There’s still yet time, though…

From Mozart to Dylan

As this year’s Edinburgh Festival passes the halfway mark, The Herald’s critics are still keeping pace with the action. We’ve yet to get the low-down on Jack Lowden’s Edinburgh International Festival debut – he stars in The Fifth Step, which opens at the Royal Lyceum Theatre on August 21 – but what we do know is that music critic Keith Bruce has been truly wowed by Komische Oper Berlin’s production of Mozart’s opera The Marriage Of Figaro.

Directed by exiled Russian Kirill Serebrennikov in his UK debut, it offers “a radical re-envisioning of the work” and a fair dose of anti-Putin satire. Keith was also bowled over by the Royal Scottish National Orchestra and trumpet player Alison Balsom under the baton of Principal Guest Conductor, Elim Chan.

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At the opposite end of the spectrum is The Alehouse Sessions, which saw the Usher Hall turned into something resembling a bawdy, mid-17th century tavern. On the menu: folk music and balladry. As for the audience, they were on beanbags as this was one of the EIF’s series of Beanbag Concerts, now an established favourite.

Elsewhere theatre critic Neil Cooper ran first eye and then pen over another EIF show, Nigamon/Tunai. It’s a collaboration by First Nation actors from North and South America, in this case Canada and Colombia. He also watched “an audacious re-imagining” of Hamlet by Peruvian company Teatro La Plaza. Dance critic Mary Brennan enjoyed the riot of colour, movement and music that was one-man show Songs Of The Bulbul, and with last Sunday’s Cat Power Sings Dylan ‘66 show at the Edinburgh Playhouse in mind, Russell Leadbetter has written about her song-by-song recreation of the legendary 1966 Royal Albert Hall gig as well as the original concert itself.

An image from Songs of the Bulbul (Image: Newsquest)
Fun fact: a week before the Albert Hall gig, Dylan was in Glasgow and Edinburgh for shows at the Odeon Theatre and the ABC Theatre respectively. In his entourage was photographer Barry Feinstein, who snapped him striding along the west end of Princes Street.

Finally, your correspondent took in the opening night gala of the Edinburgh International Film Festival, an adaptation of Amy Liptrot’s Orkney-set memoir The Outrun. It stars the always watchable Saoirse Ronan – or Mrs Jack Lowden as she almost certainly does not call herself.

Saoirse Ronan in The Outrun (Image: Newsquest)

Read more, think better

Noted bookworm and former First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has been in the presenter’s chair for a couple of Edinburgh International Book Festival events, the first a chat with Naomi Alderman, an American writer of speculative fiction, and the second a chin-wag with the Irish winner of the 2023 Booker Prize, Paul Lynch. His novel Prophet Song, is also speculative and is set in an alternative Ireland which has stumbled into totalitarianism. Couldn’t happen here, right?

Irish author Paul Lynch (Image: Richard Gilligan)
The Herald’s Jody Harrison was in the audience to hear Ms Sturgeon say she wished politicians would read more fiction (and write less, we might add, with Nadine Dorries in mind). Elsewhere, I have been talking to Irvine Welsh ahead of his appearance on August 23, while Dani Garavelli presents an illuminating interview with the incredible talent that is Jenni Fagan ahead of her two book festival events this week.