The Festival approaches...

... and already we are hearing about unusual productions:

THE TRAVERSE Theatre claimed the title last night for the fastest sell-out of a Fringe show - but rival venues cried foul.

The Traverse confirmed yesterday that every £15 ticket for A Mobile Thriller has been snapped up, less than a week after the theatre unveiled its Fringe brochure.

But there is a catch.

The show is staged in a Maserati Quattroporte being driven through the streets of Edinburgh, and has room for an audience of just three.

That's nothing. I propose to take festival goers around the city in a superior Italian vehicle: my vintage Alfa 75 which costs almost as much to insure each year as the car is supposedly worth. While driving past the grave of Adam Smith, the statue of David Hume and all of the numerous Scottish Parliament sites as well as the Scottish Executive's own grim Lubyanka, I shall recite the complete works of Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich von Hayek and Murray Rothbard while the audience partakes of a small dram. The cost for this veritable extravaganza will be one ounce of gold per customer.