It's that time again...

The Fringe is the same age as me.

Eight theatre companies turned up uninvited to the inaugural Edinburgh Festival in 1947 to present alternative theatre, and the Fringe was born.

In 2009 the Fringe sold 1,859,235 tickets for 34,265 performances of 2,098 shows in 265 venues, over 25 days, for an average of over 74,000 admissions and 1,300 performances per day. There were an estimated 18,901 performers, from 60 countries.

The programme for this year has now been published. I suffer from the sad Edinburgh syndrome which means that people from the city know the Fringe is coming, know that it has arrived, and then suddenly are thinking - "Oh, the Fringe is over - and I never got to a single show!" Every year.....