From our point of view, we think Only Connect fulfils, more than most other quizzes, the ideal balance of seeming to baffle - but then being surprisingly accessible. It is play-along mental exercise and it feels enormously good to get a question right. Because of the huge range of subjects, it’s quite possible that a viewer at home will know a question which completely bamboozles the teams.

I also think that Only Connect questions can contain something beautiful, and viewers can often see the effort and the artistry that’s gone into them, and they like that. 

How many people write for the show?

JWC: There are 27 different credited writers for series 13, though well over half of the questions have been written by the Question Editors and the Senior Writers (6 people in total).

Victoria occasionally contributes entire questions, though more often her involvement is in some fine-tuning. She is particularly good at envisaging how a question might play out in studio and she often makes suggestions for how we can mitigate something potentially tricky cropping up, or increase the chances of something exciting happening.

We’re always amazed by the intellect behind the connections, but what makes a good question and do you always know when you’ve written a good one?

DM: The ideal connection brings together things that seem utterly random, from totally different areas, to all make sense in the end. We love crossover of subject matter in a question. But, equally, a great question can sometimes be something pretty simple about numbers, or songs, or people. 

I’m not sure I actually do know when I’ve written a good question. I often get excited about a question idea I’ve had which, on closer inspection, is shown not to work at all. And sometimes a question which seems mundane can be elevated to a whole new level with a very minor tweak. That’s why it’s good to work on things together. 

JWC: Only Connect is famous for being hard – really hard – but the very best questions, in my view, are the ones which everyone feels they could have got. In other words, much of the subject matter of the question is familiar, but it’s the making the connection which is the difficult bit. The clip below shows a good example, in a question from series 1, which asks what comes fourth after: Wheat, Sett, Cease…

What different considerations are there for each question?

DM: Order is of the utmost importance. It can be a little counterintuitive. Rather than putting the most “obscure” clue first, it often works better to start with one that gives less away, or is more ambiguous or mysterious. Something obscure, if recognised, can be a big giveaway.

Precise wording and punctuation can also make a huge difference e.g. if a clue says something like 2000 Olympics, Olympics: 2000, Olympics in 2000 etc. it’s surprising how those little differences can be vital

Changes to layout can come quite late, when we see what the questions are going to look like on the screens in the studio and at home.

Sometimes font size and colour can play a part too, even the number of lines that the clues are displayed on. We’re working on the experience being fair for the player and accessible for the viewer.

JWC: We talk quite a bit about the question answering “journey” – we want different clues to give little nudges here and there, we try very hard to avoid too many situations where it is “either you know it or you don’t”: that isn’t really what Only Connect is about.

How many questions get written in total to edit it down to the number used for each series?

JWC: Questions get pitched before they are written up in full form for the show. For series 13, we looked at pitches for about 1600 questions, of which about 550 were written up, and 444 were used (this is just for Round 1 and Round 2).

Is there much editing between writing the question and it appearing on screen?

JWC: The process is pretty detailed. Question writers send in their pitches; David and I review the pitches to form a shortlist; Jenny Hawker, the series Producer, reviews the shortlist; we send back the survivors from those initial reviews to the question writers who give them the full treatment (checking sources, finding supporting information etc.); these are then submitted for us to check again; then they are reviewed by the team of verifiers who triple check all the facts; questions come back from the verifiers and are assembled into sets for each show.

Then the fun really begins with our day long question meetings when David and I, along with Jenny and Chris Stuart, the Executive Producer, go through every question together, making tweaks, and sometimes rejecting questions that we’re not convinced about. Once all that is done, Victoria looks at every question and provides her thoughts.

Every question gets several final sets of eyes on it on studio day from the graphics team, the producers, the question editors, and the host.

What are the OC team’s favourite questions of all time?

DM: Well, my favourite question was written by someone else – one of our new writers – and is in this year’s final. I can’t give anything away, though it will involve some physical activity by a contestant.

As for my own questions, I’m very satisfied when I can use different areas of my knowledge to first bamboozle people, only for them to get there in the end.

Then again, I submitted a music question which was in the closing stages of the last series which had songs by acts featuring the four husbands of Patsy Kensit. That went down very well.

JWC: I have far too many favourite questions. One that I like from series 13, mainly because it lives up to the archetype of “four seemingly random clues” (but also because of it starting with one of the easiest clues in the history of Only Connect) is:

Answer: Milk drinkers. It starts with a clue that any human in the world of almost any age would know, then follows it with three quite specific references. So we’re inviting the team to get the points as soon as they know one of the other cultural references (because of how easy clue 1 is). And the last clue is quite amusing.

Stats please…how many contestants have competed over the show’s 13 series and what are the highest and lowest scores?

JWC: There have been 218 teams on in total. One team name – Geocachers -  has been used by two separate teams, several years apart.

The highest ever score is 41, achieved by the Epicureans (the next highest score is 36). The lowest ever score was 4, by the (first) Geocachers. Honestly though, 4 is nothing to be ashamed of. Most people at home are punching the air in delight - and boasting about it on Twitter - if they get a single question correct.

How do you decide which episode to put a question in - do you always look out for a good subject spread?

JWC: It’s an art rather than a science. We try to place less difficult questions within episodes early in the series, and the harder ones towards the end to create a difficulty gradient throughout the series. But it is important for each episode to have a bit of variation in question difficulty – though in many ways that sorts itself out by ensuring there is a wide range of subjects covered in each episode.

You want each episode to have a good balance of puzzle-type questions, fact based questions, and different types of sequences from the more straightforward to the more lateral thinking. Additionally, we try to make sure that the questions “look different” to each other within a show as well. By that we mean trying to avoid both picture questions in a show being all pictures of people, or two number questions within a round that might look quite similar on screen.

Do contestants really dislike/perform worse the music questions?

JWC: Stats time again. In the history of Only Connect, the average score across all Round 1 questions is 1.25 points. The average score for music questions only is 1.15 points, and the average for picture questions only is 1.12. Compare these two then to the average score for the plain text based questions which is 1.32.

So yes, people do slightly worse on music questions, and the picture questions, with picture questions having a tiny bit lower of an average score. I think with music questions it is more a case of either loving them or hating them, but it is definitely a “thing” to at least appear to dislike the music question.

By comparison, on Round 2, the averages are:

• Overall: 1.35,
• Music only: 1.52 (though bear in mind that there have only ever been 36 Round 2 Music Questions),
• Pictures only: 1.27,
• Text questions only: 1.35

Do you ever worry you’ll run out of new material?

DM: I believe David Bodycombe, the first Question Editor, expressed understandable concerns that we’d run out after a few series. Yet the questions keep coming. It is generally agreed that Round 2 is the hardest one to find good, original material for, but the writers keep on coming up with the goods. 

As question setters, do you have to know everything about everything?

JWC: We wish. But I would say that knowing a little about a lot is very helpful in setting Only Connect questions, as it helps open up new avenues for research and finding perfect clues in unexpected places.

DM: Yes. Of course.

• The Only Connect Final airs on BBC Two on Monday 30 April  at 8pm and will be available to watch on BBC iPlayer for 30days after broadcast
  
• Follow @OnlyConnectQuiz on twitter
• Have a go at some of the 'Walls' from previous series of the show

Len Goodman is a Strictly legend for many reasons: his encyclopaedic knowledge of dance first and foremost but also his one-liners. After this, Len’s final Strictly season we wanted to revisit some of our favourite Len pearls of wisdom this series.

On Judge Rinder:

“You put the boy in flamboyant… if entertainment’s a crime you’re guilty”

“You put the camp into boot camp… that was as tight as a bugle boy”

“It was like a Mary Berry soufflé, light and fluffy and no soggy bottom”

On Anastacia:

“You’re a bit like marmalade: tangy and slightly fruity”

“It was a bit like a meatloaf: there were some tasty bits in there, there there’s always things you’re not really sure about”

On Claudia:

“Don’t worry about Claudia, the outlook is sunny”

“It was a mix of frisky and risky: frisky movement and risky lifts but you pulled them all off”

"You've gone from gymnastic to fantastic"

On Greg:

 “It was like the candyfloss: tasty mostly but a little bit sticky in the footwork.”

“It’s Fireworks Night and you’ve come back with a bang”

On Will:

“You’ve come to Borehamwood to do Hollywood and we got Bollywood”

On Ed:

“What’s great is the anticipation when you are coming out…”

 “I don’t know about holding out for a hero, I was holding out for a paso”

“This is the trouble with hitchhiking, you always get a dodgy lift”

“Talk about super natural – it wasn’t super and it wasn’t all that natural – but it was so much fun”

“There aren’t words in the dictionary”

“Ed Balls, you’re like lottery balls – ou never know what’s going to come out next”

On Ore:

“Wolly Wonka it’s a stonker”

“A show-stopping, jaw-dropping, eve-popping jive”

“It had flare, it had fun, it had flamboyance… I had a blimming good look at your bum and I tell you your hips were hypnotic”

On Daisy:

“You are not lazy Daisy, you have worked hard.”

“Who better to give us a bit of flower power than Daisy?”

On Louise:

“I don’t know about the Deadwood Stage but I think you could go on the West End Stage”

 “It was a dance in France and getting an Eiffel was delightful”

“This morning I walked here and I was blown away on the sea front, and I was blown away by that tonight”

 "As Brucey would say: didn't she do well"

On Laura:

“Zipedidoda – there was plenty of zip and hardly any doo da”

On Danny:

"It was a bit like my breakfast porridge: hot and steamy with an Oti flavour"

“I don’t know about long tall Sally, that was fast foot Danny… Danny Mac you’re back”

Find out more about Strictly and watch more clips on the Strictly Come Dancing website

Christopher Nundy explains why, how and what challenges were involved in Strictly Come Dancing becoming the first BBC TV entertainment show to use immersive technology to create a 360 degree viewing experience.

Take a hugely successful, shiny floor Saturday night BBC show and inject just enough chaos in the spirit of innovation to deliver a new perspective for its audience with a full 360 degree view from the heart of the dance floor.

So how did we introduce the latest capture technology into the magical world of Strictly Come Dancing, in order to deliver a special, one off experience?

From the more traditional camera formats through to wearable technologies, I'm always looking for new and exciting technology we can introduce into our programme making.

When I began looking into Immersive, 360 content, there were rumblings about a substantial purchase of a kickstarter company by a certain social network site and at that point it was clear things were going to get interesting.

There seemed to be an ever growing list of content being made which just wanted to be first out of the gate; where content was filmed in the same way as traditional camera formats with nothing bespoke to best utilise the 360 degree aspect. It also didn’t deliver a repeat viewing experience.

I wanted to produce a piece of content which genuinely tested the parameters of what could be achieved currently with 360 immersive capture and also allow the BBC to test the workflows and requirements to answer the question. Can we produce 360 degree content which delivers to the same high standards of our broadcast output?

WATCH THE OPENING NUMBER FROM STRICTLY IN 360 VIEW

So why Strictly? Other than wanting to aim high and work with an award winning programme, the content lends itself readily to a 360 piece; amazing visuals made up of high energy movement and numerous points of interest throughout.

Working with the digital production studio, Rewind, we met with the Strictly production team early in the series pre-production stage. Director of Choreography, Jason Gilkison saw the potential of the format and in sharing our enthusiasm; he has put together a stunning routine for the professional dancers, giving points of interest in all areas of the dancefloor.

The routine plays to the strengths of 360 whilst always keeping the viewers in the studio and at home as the main focus. A bespoke rig of micro cameras was positioned in such a way to not cause too much of an obstruction to the audience or impede on the dancers performance.

During the pre-production process we had to overcome numerous challenges now generally taken for granted in our traditional recording and delivery format. 

• How best to position the 360 degree camera rig to capture as much of the action as possible whilst remaining at the optimum distance to allow for perfect multi camera stitching. 
• Striking a balance between capturing a credible 360 viewing experience whilst not taking anything away from the core viewers watching via the primary broadcast experience on TV.
• Delivering the content to a wide as possible audience - with the technology being so new, there are few outlets for delivering the content which is accessible to a mass market without creating bespoke applications for downloads.

While there’s a lot of work still to be undertaken in this area, this project is one of the first trials for the BBC and will form a part for the organisation in its learning and approach to immersive content production, over the coming months.

With high-resolution devices due for launch later this year, there is the potential for future use for this experimental content. The BBC will retain the master source files which would allow us to recreate and deliver to those platforms if necessary.

Nevertheless, I’m extremely proud of our achievement. We have delivered a fantastic piece of content which will appeal to a wide audience as it offers a never seen before view at the heart of the dance floor.

The project is a true example of collaboration, from the knowledge and technical skill of the teams at Rewind, BBC Technology and, of course, the Strictly production team, who understood what we wanted to achieve and worked with us to deliver a potential landmark moment for the series as it becomes the first BBC show to use this technology to this level.

“It really has helped to create one of the most memorable moments in Strictly history," said Jason Gilkison, Director of Choreography, Strictly Come Dancing.

Christopher Nundy is Innovation Manager, Comedy, Entertainment & Events.

• Experience the Strictly dance floor in 360 degrees on the Strictly Come Dancing website.
  

The movie Strictly Ballroom is about an ugly duckling who becomes a swan through dance. The dancing isn’t Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire, it’s regional Australian ballroom dancing. Its big song wasn’t even a Number One. The lead actor was a roofer. It shouldn’t have worked. No one should have seen it. And yet...

May 2004: “Glitter balls, sequins, scantily clad dancers – it doesn’t get more public service than this!” was how I introduced the BBC’s new entertainment show at its press launch. A launch that was met by total derision in newspapers, radio and even on Have I Got News For You. Another example of a terrible idea from BBC Entertainment. A programme that would not work. And yet, like the film from which we nabbed the title, it was an ugly duckling that became a swan.

Ten years ago, BBC Entertainment was in pretty bad shape. The launch of reality television caught the BBC out: whilst we were making Big Break, others were making Big Brother. When I inherited BBC Entertainment, I knew that we had to respond; we needed ideas that could compete in a changing landscape, ideas that were bold, loud and entertaining.

The spark for Strictly came from Jane Lush’s commissioning team. Jane deserves enormous credit for starting a golden age of entertainment on the BBC: Strictly, The Apprentice, Dragons’ Den, still hits almost a decade on, all commissioned by her. She was having a brainstorm with her team, discussing old formats, when Fenia Vardanis suggested a celebrity version of Come Dancing. But could the BBC make an entertainment show that had celebrities in it? Could we deliver it?

Jane passed the idea on to Richard Hopkins. Richard was the first person I brought in to kick-start the Entertainment department. I got lucky with Richard, he had been behind some of Endemol’s most recent successes and brought a different energy and perspective. A development team under Amanda Wilson, no more than a bunch of kids, people like Karl Warner, Nick Mather, Chris Sussman, all highly regarded now. And a new Executive Producer, Karen Smith.

Karen joined us in October 2003. Driven, tenacious, with a great eye for detail, she remains the best live entertainment producer I have ever worked with. Karen got the idea immediately. She had just overseen The Games for Channel 4 and she understood that this new show had to be a sporting competition; rigorous, true and authentic. The starting point was never Come Dancing – I don’t think anyone even watched the old show – the starting point was ballroom dancing as a competitive event infused with glamour and celebrities.

Karen and her series producer Izzie Pick started to learn everything they could about the ballroom dancing scene. There was scepticism and even hostility from many in the ballroom world. Surely we were just going to take the piss? There are probably a few dancers and judges out there who now regret refusing to return calls. Some of the characters the nation now loves were in from the start, especially Anton du Beke and Brendan Cole, who bawled out Karen at their first meeting: “They’re not sequins, they’re rhinestones!” But it was the dancers’ insistence that there had to be proper judging, that it couldn’t just be a popularity contest, which got Karen to design the 50:50 voting system.

Karen and Izzy wanted a staircase at the back of the set, because of a shared fantasy they had about standing at the top with their prince waiting below. They claimed lots of women did.

Originally there were going to be three judges. There was some push back against our fourth, mostly because of his age, but we needed proper ballroom expertise and that is how Len Goodman got on to the panel. Mind you, I don’t think any of us thought he would become an international household name.

To pitch the show to the then BBC One Controller Lorraine Heggessey we had to come up with something different. So we hired a small outside studio. Lorraine was ushered into a totally dark room. Lights came on, music blasted and two near naked dancers, glistening in baby oil, writhed inches away from her. I wouldn’t suggest this in any way affected Lorraine’s professional judgement – but put it this way, it didn’t do any harm. There was a slot in the summer available, let’s give it a go.

Casting the first series strained everyone. People weren’t exactly throwing themselves at us. We struggled to get eight celebrities. The hardest of all was Natasha Kaplinsky. We were desperate for Natasha. Natasha wasn’t sure it was the thing a BBC newsreader should do. There were meetings, lots of them. Somehow we got her over the line.

We learnt things along the way. Sports stars were good bookings: utterly competitive, used to training, they raise the commitment of everyone else. We underestimated the level of training the celebrities would have to do, we thought two to three sessions of two hours a week would do.

The first show went on air on 15 May 2004. Even then the critics weren’t kind. Karen had to go on Points of View and defend it from people who said, “This isn’t Come Dancing”. Typically combative, when she finished, Terry Wogan said, “So that’s told you lot”.

But as the series rolled out, so it began to grow. The highlight for me of that first season was the absolutely appalling, train wreck that was Chris Parker’s paso doble. But the moment when Strictly started its journey to cherished national icon was in the final.  Karen had created a “there are no lifts in ballroom” controversy throughout the series, but now, in the final dance, she had bad boy Brendan and Natasha do “The Time of My Life” with a big nobody-puts-baby-in-the-corner lift. The roof came off. We had our first winners and we felt we had a show that would probably get a second series.

Karen and Izzie packed their bags for a girls’ holiday to Ibiza. On the Monday I called them. Lorraine wanted a second series. But she wanted it for the autumn, we had less than four months, we thought we’d better start making some calls...

Wayne Garvie is Chief Creative Officer, International Production at Sony Pictures TV, formerly Head of BBC Entertainment.

The aim of many of our programmes is to bring the Nation together around their TV sets and get them talking, whether it’s to witness the first balcony kiss of Prince William and Kate or to watch astrologer Russell Grant being shot from a canon at Wembley.

Put simply, our work is everything from all things Royal and ceremonial, to a cha cha cha in a ballroom, to entrepreneurs going in front of fearsome businessmen to discover whether they're in or out of investing in a wiggly hot water bottle. No day is ever the same and life is far from dull.

My role as Controller is something akin to being the conductor of an orchestra staffed by very talented musicians. I've always believed in employing, and giving credit to, people who are brilliant at their own jobs. That leaves me time to do a lot more of the day to day strategy and forward planning, leaving the creative teams to get on with pursuing the talent we want to work with or making that running order or edit better.

It helps me that I've worked in various production roles for most of my career. I've worked at Channel 4 for many years and many ‘indies’ doing everything from Noel's House Party as a researcher, to Challenge Anneka, to Don't Forget Your Toothbrush and Comic Relief, so I understand the production issues.

I've also worked as a Commissioner on Graham Norton's chat show both at Channel 4 and at BBC. So I also understand the importance of talent. I am quite 'front of house' and I will do a lot of business with agents and talent talking about ideas, what they might want to do, and persuade them to come and work with BBC in-house. I see that my job is a bit of flag waving: “come and work with us, we're fun, you're going to have a nice time and do good work".

As I mentioned earlier, this weekend sees the return of one of the most popular of our in-house productions, Strictly Come Dancing. And it’s a milestone in the programme’s history too, with a new production team and a new studio location.

Logistically speaking, there have been months and months of planning leading up to this point, one of the biggest challenges being how to open each programme. Television Centre was such an iconic building, that the opening ‘topshot’ with the voiceover "Live from Television Centre" was an obvious introduction, but having moved out of TVC to studios in Borehamwood, we weren’t convinced that "Live from Elstree Studios" and a shot of a car park would have the same impact.

We had to think creatively of how we would address the challenge of launching the show at Elstree. Our new Executive Producer Louise Rainbow, came up with the idea of a 1940's Gatsby inspired, glitzy film premiere feel, with a red carpet and a vintage car for Bruce and Tess to arrive in. Influenced by the final from last year, the 2013 celebrities made their appearance in front of popping paparazzi, pyrotechnics, music and glitz. The end product felt a bit more of an occasion than our usual launches. It was a lot of logistics for around three minutes of telly, but it was all about spectacle for the opening of our new ballroom. Indeed it was the highest rating ‘launch’ show, since Strictly began.

Our new location at Elstree Studios presented some production challenges too. The studio is much bigger than TC1 (Strictly’s previous home at Television Centre) meaning we had the opportunity to design a bigger set (one which at Elstree we don’t need to dismantle at the end of every live show). Our challenge was to make the set look the same but include some enhancements. Our set designer Patrick Docherty was able to make some changes on a very tight budget, which in turn brought the live orchestra closer (we are one of the few live shows that has a live orchestra) led by the wonderful Dave Arch.

The larger studio also allowed us to bring in an extra 200 members of the audience and offer them raked seating as opposed to the ‘flat’ audience seating at TC1. What that means is it's a big enough scale for the dancers, performers and presenters to get a wall of sound back from the crowd without losing the intimacy which we know audiences have really loved in previous series.

Last year the standard of dance in the final was so high and we were keen to maintain that, so this series we have introduced a ‘dance captain’ or ‘master choreographer’ in the shape of Jason Gilkinson, who worked with us at the Wembley show last year. Our professional dancers are brilliant, and we have five fantastic new ones joining the line-up, but the run can be physically and emotionally draining, so Jason will be there to give them extra support, he will go into the training rooms in the week, see what the teams are planning and assist them if he can.

This year we’ll also be back at the Tower Ballroom in Blackpool part-way through the series. The ballroom is a beautiful venue with classic chandeliers, and importantly opens up the opportunity for 1000 members of the public across the north of England to be a part of the experience. At a time of tightening budgets, this outside broadcast is something Strictly’s exec Louise Rainbow really passionately fought for. "We have to take dance to the people," I remember her saying in early planning meetings. I really agree. The dancers and our Judges have all performed and judged competitions there, so it’s a very emotional experience for them when they step out onto the floor in the natural home of ballroom dancing. And for the competitors, there’s the challenge that "Oh, I must get to Blackpool - if I get there, I might be in with a chance of winning."

Strictly is a really warm piece of feel-good, escapist entertainment. I get a tingle when the music begins as I sit in the back of the gallery and I know that audiences feel the same way about the programme – a programme they rightly own because of the amount of time they’ve invested in the series over the years. There’s nothing better than striking up a conversation with someone, who when they learn I am involved in the programme, start to tell me what they like and what they don’t like. That a programme has that effect is an amazing thing and another reason why I feel incredibly proud to be a part of it.

Katie Taylor is Controller of Entertainment and Events at the BBC.

• The new series of Strictly Come Dancing begins on Friday Sep 27 at 9pm.
• Read about the couple First Steps together on the Strictly Come Dancing blog.
• Keep up with all the behind the scenes action in the series' sister show It Takes Two.

Over the course of the last fortnight over 100 hours of radio and 200 hours of TV and red button content has been produced from our temporary home at the Fringe with more than 10 BBC networks involved and over 20,000 fringe-goers visiting our venue. I'm very proud that we've had every nominee from the Comedy Awards on our stage at some point during the last fortnight including the winner Adam Riches.

This venue was something of a pilot for us as we look to join up our Fringe coverage as well as the BBC's overall Edinburgh Festivals programming.

As the person responsible for bringing all of the production teams together at this single venue it was great to see Radio 1's Fun and Filth Cabaret hosted by Scott Mills and Nick Grimshaw, with guest hosts Dappy from N-Dubz and The Hoff, crossing paths with the team from BBC Radio 4's Fringe favourite Just a Minute, chaired by the legendary performer Nicholas Parsons, who not only recorded radio shows at the BBC venue but also hosted his own daily chat show and appeared in a play at the Pleasance during the Festival.

Under the careful eye of Headmaster Arthur Smith, and new for 2011, the Comedy School at the Fringe included masterclasses with some of the most respected names in comedy including the team behind BBC Three's Mongrels, Miranda Hart and Ricky Gervais.

In addition, with a host of performance and comedy writing workshops and the BBC Three Funny in 15 seconds video booth, we hope to have found a few stars of the future.

For a taste of the last two weeks from the Edinburgh Festival Fringe our short film and website will, I hope, whet your appetite for Edinburgh 2012.

Sophie Taitt is Project Director, BBC at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2011

• The BBC Edinburgh Fringe 2011 website
• In Pictures: The best of the BBC at the Fringe
• Film: Planning a radio ob from the College of Production website

This evening's edition of Front Row, Radio 4's nightly arts review programme, comes from the BBC's new, purpose-built Edinburgh Festival 'pop-up' venue on the corner of Potterow and Marshall Street. We asked Front Row presenter John Wilson to talk to Caroline Raphael, Radio 4's Edinburgh Supremo, about the new venue, the highlights of the BBC's Edinburgh coverage and the history of the BBC's involvement with the festival.

Steve Bowbrick is editor of About the BBC

• All the details of the BBC's coverage of the festival are on the BBC's Edinburgh web site. Pictures of the the Potterow pop-up venue too.