COMEDY

Ricky Gervais parachutes in to play one night at the actual castle (Aug 26). Almost as a counterpoint, we have plenty of sterling stand-ups getting more personal: Stephen K Amos (Pleasance), who came out to the public last year, promises to reveal more; Richard Herring is at the Underbelly with Oh F***, I’m 40!; Lucy Porter tries to find love in her Love-In (Pleasance); Simon Amstell reveals a darker side fuelled by Buddhist teachings in No Self (Pleasance). Indeed, philosophy seems hip this year. Mark Watson (Pleasance)asks if he can Briefly Talk to You About the Point of Life. He will also be pulling off another Watson – or extremely long comedy gig with a theme – in this case a 24-hour walk around town. From local to global, this year sees three second-generation Iranian comics: the lovely Shappi Khorsandi (Pleasance), newbie Jody Kamali, with Back-packer, and Patrick Monahan (whose Dad is Irish), working on themes of global unity and knob gags at the Underbelly. The Phoenix has the rest of the world covered with the Johnny Foreigner Comedy Show, featuring stand-ups from Somalia, Finland, Ireland and, with Manos the Greek, er, Greece. If that all sounds too PC, there are plenty of middle-class boys saying nasty, shocking things. Jim Jeffries (Udderbelly) is probably king of this crew, but Jason John Whitehead (Assembly) and Brendon Burns (Pleasance) both like to tell audiences how edgy they are. For those who like a proper bit of sardonic agit-com, there’s Stewart Lee (Udderbelly), named 41st-best stand-up ever on Channel 4 this year, which inspired his show; and the novelist turned stand-up AL Kennedy, with Terror: the Pocket-Sized Guide (Stand). For something quieter, hunt out Alex Horne(Pleasance). Rather like a rare bird – his ostensible subject – he is a fragile delight, covering any subject with a daft, surreal charm. Add to this spoof the hosp jock Ivan Brackenbury and his Hospital Radio Roadshow (Pleasance), and the effervescent Josie Long, with Trying Is Good (Pleasance), and you have the Fringe at its most joyous. SA

CLASSICAL

In his first year as EIF director, Jonathan Mills rings a change by putting preclassical music (baroque and earlier) at the centre. Monteverdi’s Orfeo, celebrating the 400th anniversary of its first performance, comes in a production from Barcelona under the direction of Jordi Savall and his famed Hesperion XXI (Aug 11, 13, 14). Around Orfeo, Mills has planned dramatic renderings of Orpheus, Poppea and La Didone, while highlights from Monteverdi’s Madrigal Books take up the early-evening slot, performed by Rinaldo Alessandrini’s Concerto Italiano (11, 13, 15, 16, 17). In a concert series,Harmony and Humanity,the ensembles are a roll call of the early-music-making elite: Anonymous 4 (Aug 20), Orlando Consort (21), La Venexiana (28), Huelgas Ensemble (29), Tallis Scholars (30) and Cantus Cölln (Sept 1). Usher Hall concerts include Vivaldi’s opera Orlando Furioso (Aug 12), Hesperion XXI in Monteverdi’s Vespers (16), Andreas Scholl singing Vivaldi with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra (24) and the vaudeville Tiger Lillies in “A Tribute (of Sorts) to Monteverdi”. Another theatrical-musical cross-over is Theatre Cryptic’s collaboration with the T’ang Quartet, Optical Identity. Mills’s other operatic coup is to have the Cologne Opera unveil a production of Richard Strauss’s Capriccio, starring Gabriele Fontana (Aug 28 and 30, Sept 1). He hasn’t neglected mainstream music-making, with Alfred Brendelheading the lineup in recital (Aug 15), the Bavarian Radio Symphonyunder Mariss Jansons and the San Francisco Symphony under Michael Tilson Thomas (27-30). At the Queen’s Hall morning concerts, the peerless Mark Padmore sings Bach and Buxtehude (14), Kate Royal and Christine Rice duet (20), and Christine Brewer sings Berg, Britten and Strauss (28). The opening concert celebrates the “best of all possible worlds”, with Bernstein’s Candide (10) offering vocal pyrotechnics to match the festival’s closing fireworks. HC

ART

For years, the visual arts were overlooked by the official festival. Now an exciting and almost coherent programme has been shaped. Picassois the subject of two shows – Picasso: Fired with Passion (National Museum of Scotland, until Oct 28) and Picasso on Paper (Dean Gallery, until Sept 23). The Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art stages an important Richard Longexhibition, Walking and Marking (until Oct 21). The Naked Portrait is a daring subject for the prim and proper neogothic Scottish National Portrait Gallery (until Sept 2). At the City Art Centre, Hand, Heart and Soul examines the Scottish Arts and Crafts movement(until Sept 23), while Beyond Appearances (until Sept 23) offers Scottish paintings from the past 100 years. At the National Gallery, there’s Andy Warhol: A Celebration of Life ... and Death (until Oct 7). David Batchelor (Talbot Rice Gallery, until Sept 29) has created a forest-like environment using things bought from pound shops. Other attractions include the South African William Kentridge at Edinburgh Print-makers (until Sept 8), photographs depicting life in Memphis by William Eggleston at Inverleith House (until Oct 14) and, at the Ingleby, the intriguing Rachel Whiteread & Robert Burns’ Breakfast Table(until Aug 9). FW

DANCE

The cover of this year’s EIF brochure depicts an elephant, apparently in midair, dancing on a mat held by human attendants. This visual trickery is typical of the stage fantasies created by France’s Compagnie Montalvo-Hervieu, who mix multi-style dance with video and computer animation. Their festival debut, On Danse(Aug 11-13), is an extravaganza inspired byRameau’s operas. The Royal Ballet of Flanders (18-20) gives the first UK performances (in its entirety) of William Forsythe’s Impressing the Czar. The centrepiece is the virtuoso classical-deconstruction In the Middle Somewhat Elevated. Scottish Ballet returns for the third successive year (18-20), with a triple bill exemplifying the thrusting modern image fostered by Ashley Page’s directorship. And the Trisha Brown Dance Company makes its Edinburgh debut (24-26). DD

FILM

The new director, Hannah McGill, has adopted a literary theme. David Mackenzie’s opening film, Hallam Foe (Aug 15), adapts Peter Jinks’s novel about an Edinburgh voyeur, and is followed by Anand Tucker’s dramatisation of Blake Morrison’s memoir And When Did You Last See Your Father?(23, 25), with Colin Firth. Tilda Swinton joins the director Bela Tarr to tackle Georges Simenon’s noirish The Man from London (16, 18), while Angelina Jolie lends star power to Michael Winterbottom’s A Mighty Heart (18, 19), as the wife of kidnapped journalist Daniel Pearl. The festival honours its documentary tradition with a new award and a gala screening for In the Shadow of the Moon(17, 20), about the Apollo astronauts. British film is represented by the Joy Division biopic Control (17, 19). Oldboy director Park Chan-Wook’s I’m a Cyborg, but That’s OK (19, 22) promises musical romance and Alpine yodelling; mainstream American weirdos Quentin Tarantino and Gus Van Sant indulge their foibles in Death Proof (18, 20) and Paranoid Park (21, 23). The festival closes with Julie Delpy’s warm-hearted, Woody Allenesque Two Days in Paris(25). JE

POP

Dramamine may be the drug of choice at the Liquid Room, where Isobel Campbell and Mark Lanegan’s bumpy voyage through Ballad of the Broken Seas (Aug 6) is followed by the old-school blues of Seasick Steve(14). Settle your stomachs with the very modern Kate Nash(23) or the resilient noise of the reformed Dinosaur Jr(27). At the Corn Exchange, Kanye West(Aug 16) provides slick hip-hop and Guillemots(20) offer ambitious pop. Interpol(22) arrive with songs from a strong new album; power-poppers the Shins (23) are a guaranteed good time; Happy Mondays (24) are a higher-risk proposition. In the mood for stadium rock? Meadowbank has the pop-grunge of Foo Fighters (Aug 21) and the hook-ridden Kaiser Chiefs(24). ME

THEATRE

Attempts to predict hits come with a caveat. Theatrical Nostradamuses occasionally stray into the wrong side of the prophet-and-loss account. That said, first impressions are of a meatier programme than for years. At the EIF, the Wooster Group’s B-movie take on La Didone is a coup for the new director, Jonathan Mills. David Greig adapts Euripides’ The Bacchae (with Alan Cumming) and Mabou Mines Doll-housesets Ibsen in a doll’s house with tall women and short men. Conceptual brilliance or reductive tosh? Your call.

Competition to be the hardest-working playwright is tough. Ravenhill for Breakfast (Traverse) finds the Shopping and F***ing writer offering a freshly baked play daily. But the prize for authorial ubiquity goes to William Shakespeare . Look out for Filter’s high-volume Twelfth Night (Underbelly) and Aquila’s gender-bending, role-swapping Romeo and Juliet, at Assembly. The same venue hosts the UK premiere of Athol Fugard’s Exits and Entrances. At the Fruitmarket Gallery, meanwhile, Tim Crouch will try to strip theatre to its essentials in England.

Shows about sex can be a yawn, but I’ve high hopes for Christian O’Reilly’s Is This About Sex? (Traverse), from Dublin’s wonderful Rough Magic. Other exciting Irish offerings are This Piece of Earth (Underbelly), marking the return of Ransom, whose Hurricane blew away audiences in 2003, and Enda Walsh’s The Walworth Farce (Traverse), which views south London through Cork eyes.

For fans of visual theatre, Teatr Biuro Podrozy are back with the stilt-walking, pyrotechnic Macbeth: Who Is That Bloodied Man? (Old College Quad). The dazzling Vanishing Point’s Subway (Traverse) features a seven-piece Kosovan band, while Argentina’s spectacular Fuerzabruta (Black Tent) make a splash in Leith.

It’s not all about size, though. Jenni Wolfson’s solo RASH (Pleasance Dome) is a surprisingly funny portrait of life as a UN worker in Rwanda, and Poland’s Gabriela Muskala gives a remarkable performance as an old woman losing her memory in Trip to Buenos Aires(Assembly Universal Arts). Tam Dean Burn is a hot-handed Cupid in Venus as a Boy, the National Theatre of Scotland’s adaptation of Luke Sutherland’s novel. Will Adamsdale’s The Human Computer(Traverse) finds the Perrier winner morphing into a machine. Finally, no festival would be complete without a Georgian marionette version of The Battle of Stalingrad(Aurora Nova). I’m not pulling your strings. AT

ONLY ON THE FRINGE

If you didn’t see last year’s Bouncy Castle Hamlet, never mind. Macbeth (Rocket@Demarco) gets the inflatable treatment this year. Alternatively, you can find entertainment in a Portaloo (WC), a lorry (The Psychic Detective) or a cargo crate (The Container) all at the Underbelly. One for Da Vinci fans, Douglas Maxwell’s James IItakes place at Rosslyn Chapel. But if you’re too lazy to go out, you can always get a takeaway: This Sketch Group Belongs to Lionel Ritchie will be delivering free sketches from 11am to 2pm within the E4 and E5 postcodes. On August 25, they’re doing their entire set atop Arthur’s Seat. Scotland’s favourite sunbed socialist takes the George Galloway route to revolution in The Tommy Sheridan Chat Show(Gilded Balloon), while Nancy Murray, Dominican nun and sister of Bill, is performing a one-woman show about St Catherine of Siena (Old St Paul’s Church). Since the saint’s crucifixion inspired the catherine wheel, don’t expect a happy ending. AT

Where to find out more Edinburgh International Festival, Aug 10 to Sept 2, www.eif.co.uk. Fringe, Aug 5-27, www.edfringe.com. Film festival, Aug 15-26, www.edfilmfest.org.uk. Art festival, until Sept 2, www.edinburghartfestival.org

— Previews by Stephen Armstrong, Hugh Canning, Frank Whitford, David Dougill, James Esplin, Mark Edwards and Adrian Turpin