Victor and Barry return to the festival fray and Miriam Margolyes defends Fringe critics

After three years at Edinburgh College of Art, it has flitted along Lauriston Place to the Edinburgh Futures Institute at the former Edinburgh Royal Infirmary, although its biggest events are on the other side of Middle Meadow Walk, at the McEwan Hall.

Bristo Square on a Saturday night in August was probably an unfamiliar world for many book festival devotees.

But the first event undoubtedly attracted more than a few Fringe veterans, with the return of Victor and Barry – 40 years after Alan Cumming and Forbes Masson brought their camp cabaret double act to Edinburgh for the first time.

Their new Kelvinside Compendium, just published to mark the landmark anniversary, includes the much-repeated anecdote about taking revenge on the then-unknown Andrew Marr for a less-than-flattering first review of Victor and Barry in The Scotsman, by writing and performing a song lampooning him.

Cumming and Masson were back in The Scotsman last month recalling how they poked fun at Marr with their parody of Lucky Stars, the 1978 hit by Dean Friedman. They revealed that Friedman has finally heard about all this after reading their recent interview in The Scotsman, posting on Instagram: “Still waiting for my royalties, Messrs Cumming and Masson!” accompanied by a winking emoji. Friedman might just have more to say when he turns up later this month for his own Fringe gig.

Keeping a watching eye on Cumming at the McEwan Hall was a more contemporary collaborator, actress Miriam Margolyes who was in another formidable double act with The Scotsman’s chief theatre critic, Joyce McMillan, as Fringe First Awards returned to the Pleasance Courtyard.

Recalling her first appearance in two different plays at the 1963 Fringe, Margolyes said: “I can’t remember what they were, but I was very good in both of them.”

Asked to reflect on the event before she departed, Margolyes declared: “It was f****** marvellous, oh my god. I’m so impressed and so in awe. It’s such a spur for encouragement for the future. That’s what the Fringe is all about and that’s what Joyce has spent her life doing. People think that critics are c*** but they’re not, if they can get to be as warm and appreciative as Joyce.”

Now there's a review.

One of the most thrilling elements of the new Nicola Benedetti era at the Edinburgh International Festival has been the reinvention of its headquarters at The Hub as an intimate concert setting, open-to-all green room and “oasis from the bustle on the Royal Mile.”

The line-ups for some shows have not even been revealed in advance, with Grammy-winning New Orleans trumpeter Wynton Marsalis holding court with the most recent surprise show.

Within 24 hours, the vibe at The Hub had gone from New Orleans jazz club to West Highland ceilidh courtesy of Gaelic supergroup Manran, who pretty much ordered the entire audience onto their feet and had many dancing in the aisles long before the end.