The musical Rent urged us to “remember the love”, and one original cast member, Anthony Rapp, is doing exactly that in this incredibly heartfelt and moving tribute to his best friend and to his mother. 

Amid the excited rustle of the complimentary ponchos in the ‘Splash Zone’, the show immediately bursts into a musical number and the energy from the cast radiates through the audience. The songs are pitch perfect and comedy lines, both musical and in dialogue, are delivered with perfect timing. The front rows are doused with fake blood and various other fluids throughout the show, and if you choose not to sit in the Splash Zone then you are severely missing out. The familiar macabre score from the 1985 film underlines the musical numbers, somehow fitting perfectly with dancing living-dead chorus lines, harrowing solos about the ideal basement and an impromptu decapitation tango. 

As well as starring in a stage adaptation of the 1980s horror film Re-Animator, George Wendt plans on taking some time out to sample Edinburgh's local brews. Words Mark Fisher

When  George Wendt says his role as the affable Norm Peterson in Cheers has left “an indelible mark”, it's impossible to disagree. For 11 series – and a staggering 275 episodes – he played the Boston pub's most loyal customer, and the one with the biggest bar tab. Described as a “sweet beer-guzzling lug” and invariably greeted by the regulars with an enthusiastic cry of “Norm!” he was the mainstay of the bar “where everybody knows your name”.

Everybody still knows that name today, even though it's nearly 20 years since the last episode was recorded. “I'd say it's a blessing, of course, but there are some drawbacks,” says the actor, 63, whose post-Cheers career has been substantial.

What are you expecting from this year’s Festival? I’m over the moon about coming to the festival this year, because I’m finally coming for the entire month and not just to work! I’ve rented a house with my husband, Neil Gaiman (who’s going to be taking part in the Book Festival) and I plan on drowning myself in music and theatre. It’s my idea of paradise.

In a round-the-world trip via New York and back again, Reel-to-Real delivers the sensational iconic 20th century sing-a-long hits of the great MGM and Warner movies with style, clarity and heaps of pizzazz. Slightly more intimate and contemporary in its production, with projected scenery acting as a sort of interactive prop repertoire, it breathes new life into time-honoured Broadway and movie hits.

Wonderland tells the true story of the relationship between Charles Dodgson, better known as Lewis Carroll, and Isa Bownman, the actress who played the part of Alice in the stage version of Alice in Wonderland.

You know in American sitcoms, when some previously unmentioned theatrical friend forces the lead characters to go to their dire musical, and it’s incredibly embarrassing and nothing makes sense and everyone prances about in shiny catsuits?

Ray Bradbury’s 2116 could be that musical.

"Porn plus musical plus late night antics = does it really get any better?" asks Kelly Rae Smith.

"I left dumbstruck, enraged and saddened," writes Hilary Donald.

Clarke Peters, star of HBO drama The Wire, brings his Laurence Olivier award-winning musical to the Edinburgh Festival, offering a toe-tapping night of jazz and blues music with impressive vocal and dance performances.

Spring Awakening is part of One Academy Productions’ Emergence Series at The Pleasance, showcasing graduating students from RSAMD. The musical itself is making its debut in Scotland after becoming a cult hit on Broadway and in the West End. Inspired by Frank Wedekind’s 1891 play, the musical explores the sexual awakening of three friends – rebellious student Melchior, his conflicted friend Moritz and Wendla, an example of pure feminine innocence. The source material is interesting, despite the exploration of religion, guilt and shame being somewhat outdated and clichéd. Obviously this is a popular musical (one girl in front of me sang along with every word) but the songs themselves are the only stars of this average production.

Clarke Peters is an accomplished actor, star of The Wire, playwright and singer. Now he’s returning to he stage with the musical he created two decades ago – Five Guys Named Moe.

“People like to rock ‘n’ roll and they like to party, and that’s what Louis Jordan was about,” says Clarke Peters. “As a jazz musician he was about a good time, and if you take a look at the state of the world right now, don’t you feel like you want to have a good time and forget about things for a minute?” he pauses. “I tell you, right now, I do.”

Peters is saying this at 5am in Albany Airport, New York. His wife has just missed her flight to their home in London. When he says that he “just wants the good times to roll,” he does so with understandable conviction.

Playwright Danielle Ward is currently pondering how to set a chainsaw to music for her new show Gutted: A Revenger’s Musical.

“Apparently, we’re hiring someone whose sole job is to mop up all the blood at the end of the show, then clean it out of the clothes!” exclaims Martin White of Gutted: A Revenger’s Musical, the gory, late-night comedy musical he’s penned with regular collaborator Danielle Ward. “The characters end up absolutely drenched, so there’ll be a lot of wipe-clean costumes. There’s a few beheadings.”

Along with The Revenger’s Tragedy, the all-singing, all-dancing, all-decapitating musical has shades of Hamlet and, amusingly, Batman Begins. When young Sorrow witnesses her parents’ murder, she plots to become the killer’s ideal woman, marry him and then murder his entire family on the weekend of their wedding. Yet all is not as it seems.

Pleasance Dome
5-30 August (ex. 10, 17, 24), 22.00

Little Johnny’s life is one big failure, and he’s singing his heart out about it in a near-empty theatre. Which is a shame, because there’s a lot to love about this cheery tribute to sequins and show tunes.

The Space @ The Royal College of Surgeons
24–29 August, 17.40

As the audience filed up the stairs to be seated for ‘The Mikado’, we were gently berated by tuxedoed and bow-tied gentlemen about the state of our dress; on entering the auditorium, young ladies clad in black stalked the aisles carrying forbidding signs: ‘No Flirting’.

C Venue
17–22 August. 17.20

It was a time, observed Alexander Pope, when it was ‘ignominious (in this Age of Hope and Golden Mountains) not to Venture.’ What was ventured were huge sums of capital by the British public in the mania which surrounded the South Sea Company in the early eighteenth century.

Gilded Balloon Teviot
5-31 August (ex. 18) 17.30

Dumdumdum deedeedum… yes the cult 80’s show the A-Team has finally been resurrected in musical form and it is playing at the Gilded Balloon Teviot this Fringe.

Pleasance Dome
5-31 August. (ex. 12,19) 22.45

A show that references Prince, The Karate Kid, bullfighting and wildlife conservation might sound destined to crumble into a heap of disastrous confusion, but in the hands and hearts of a cast so talented, confident and practiced, these elements combine to create something utterly magical. And honestly, this is coming from one who really ain’t into musical theatre.

Sweet ECA
9-13 August 16.40
14-15 August 12.30

Buddy's pretty solid but as for Sweet ECA, that'll be the day. The show, adapted from the West End musical, begins with a hitch or three as the opening scene featuring the KDAV Sunday Party, where Buddy and the Crickets are said to have been first aired, has to stop and start over due to sudden venue blackouts: a technicality that the gang gracefully ignore for as long as they can before we're left to sit in darkness, however enjoying the sounds of Johnny Cash and Jimmy Swan.

C Venues (Chambers Street)
16-31 August 22.30

In an audience of young giggly teenagers I sat down to Facebook: the Musical not having a clue what to expect (although from the flyers it was supposed to be “not what you expect”). There was one wee boy who looked about 7 and was falling asleep before curtain came up – do kids that young really have Facebook accounts? – I wasn’t sure if he or I were going to last til after midnight.

Musical Theatre @ George Square
6–31 August (ex. 11,18,25) 11.15

What do William the Conqueror, Winston Churchill, the Duke of Wellington all have in common? It’s something Napoleon Bonaparte, Thomas Jefferson and George Washington also shared. Elizabeth the first too. All of them, of course were gingers.

Musical Theatre @ George Square Two
6-31st August, 15.45

‘Chat! - The Internet Musical’ turned out to have everything I thought it would lack: talent, insight, and scope for amusement. It’s an unconventional compliment, but a compliment none the less.

Musical Theatre @ George Square
12–31 August (ex.18, 24)  21.05

Why one would embark on composing a musical based around a string of dated sexual innuendoes is beyond me, but Indiscarf have attempted it and it shows this month on George Square. The cast are clearly enjoying themselves and revel in the scrappy nature of the production, but even so ‘Makeshift Man’ and other such admissions of haphazardness failed to win my heart.

Pleasance Courtyard
11-13 August, 22.30

Just as a few glasses of Pinot Grigio have made Scott Mills do some things against his better judgement, here I am with a glass in hand, thinking of giving Scott Mills: the Musical five stars.

As we took our seats, my colleague, having been jostled by over-excited female fans, decried it “almost hysteria,” and it was. It was like being at a Radio 1: One Big Sunday, waiting for Blue to appear in 2002 (though more on that later).

Augustine’s @ 41 George IV Bridge
9-15 August, 20:30

This year the Edinburgh University Savoy Opera Group bring a ‘new lease of life’ to this heart warming, piratical extravaganza, conveying a fringe-energy only felt in the presence of raw, youthful talent.

Pleasance Courtyard
5-31 August (ex. 11,18,25) 14.30

Two thirty is a ridiculous time for a cabaret, a fact Peter Straker himself admits, through one of his many on-stage alter egos. However, he gives the show his all, and really belts out his huge repertoire of show tunes (the showiness increases dramatically as the performance goes on).

What’s occurring?

Scott Mills has handed control of his musical over to his Radio One listeners, and what started as a prank has taken on a life of its own.

Club class

Dark times at a rundown disco are the setting for Been So Long, a musical with a heartbeat of soul and Motown.