First Edinburgh Fringe tickets go on sale

The first handful of comedy shows have gone on sale for this year's Edinburgh Fringe.

Among them are Tape Face, who will be playing the Pleasance Grand, and Daniel Sloss and Jimeoin, who will both be playing the EICC.

Showstopper! The Improvised Musical is also returning to the Pleasance for a full run, following its Olivier Award-winning run in the West End while Michele Durante, a retired New York City detective turned stand-up, announced just two shows.

The other shows confirmed today are Absolute Improv!, the compilation shows Afterhours Comedy and The Lunchtime Special, and the finals of the two Amused Moose Awards. While in the cabaret section, magician Colin Cloud is returning to the Pleasance.

The Fringe - now celebrating its 70th birthday – runs from August 4 to 28, and tickets are available here.

To mark the anniversary, the Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society ha launched a promotional video featuring the likes of Rory Bremner, Susan Calman, Daniel Sloss, Arthur Smith, Mark Thomas:

Calman said: 'For a comedian, the Fringe is like Christmas. We plan our entire year around it'; Smith branded the Fringe 'the great playground of the imagination; and Nicholas Parsons, who attended the inaugural Fringe in 1947, said: 'It's a joy to be part of it, I just love it.'

The Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society published their 2016 Annual Review this week, saying that the 2016 Fringe which featured 50,266 performances of 3,269 shows in 294 venues across Edinburgh.

The report says 2,475,143 tickets were issued last year, representing a 7.7 per cent increase on 2015 – although the explosion of free shows means that precise-looking number can only be an estimate.

Shona McCarthy, chief executive of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society said: '2017 promises to be one of the most exciting years in the history of the Fringe. The Fringe continues to provide the world's largest platform for artistic freedom, attracting artists and audiences from all over the world, who come together every year for a truly international celebration of arts and culture.'

Published: 2 Feb 2017