Updated Tues 24th June It's coming up to that time of the year again. Officially the dates of this year's Edinburgh Festival Fringe are 3rd - 25th August 2008, although there are preview seasons for some shows. They're taking bookings for shows now. [link] The breakaway Comedy Festival being run by the the four biggest venues on the Fringe – Underbelly, Pleasance, Gilded Balloon and Assembly Rooms – is looking strong, although it's ruffling some feathers on the Fringe Committee. So far, acts at these four venues are still on the official Fringe website, but who knows whether they still will be next week? (Update: edcomfest.com has now gone live listing the shows (and offering bookings) at the four venues above [link] - thanks Sarah for the news! Beware - the search function is pedantic - if you miss a comma it will say "no data was returned") Here are the results of a search of the various Edinburgh Fringe websites for Australian performers - the performers below are appearing in some of the largest rooms in Edinburgh and some of the smallest, from stand-up to cabaret and back again (I've included expats and immigrants! (update: and now on special request, even a few Kiwis)). If you're going to be in Scotland for those 3 weeks and want to catch some shows that sound like home I suggest you do a search using the names of the shows below :… Continue reading

June is when most comedy tours finish up here in Oz for a few months as flocks of comedians head north for the comedy festivals of Edinburgh, Montreal and various smaller summer comedy festivals in the northern hemisphere. So the next few weeks are your best chance to catch top comics putting those finishing touches to the shows they've been working on all this year. (Of course their absence in July/August means that our winters are the best months to go to your local comedy room to see emerging talent alongside the veterans who've done their festival rounds years ago.) Update: The QPAC In Stitches Comedy Festival 17-29 June at the Queensland Performing Arts Festival - see new post with full details.

Touring now: