Seve Bennett checks out some of the best offerings. In these early days of the Fringe, it's quite possible to blag enough free food and drink to last you the day. Yesterday was the launch of the Pleasance, Gilded Balloon and Stand programmes, and I never want to see another canapé again. But there's still the Assembly Rooms and Underbelly to come.
The Gilded Balloon do is legendary for its length. The showcase highlighting some of the venue's best offerings started a good 90 minutes after the official launch time, and extended well over two hours. Ironically, for a Press launch, there are very few journalists there as they can't spare that sort of time ¼ so performers are mainly playing to other performers. Those who survive the gruelling ordeal later describe it through the thousand-yard stare of Vietnam vets.
The pre-show drinkies, however, are a useful chance to catch up with those people you haven¸t yet bumped into in the street, though. Stephen K Amos, Stephen Grant, Mickey D, Shelley Cooper, Sol Bernstein (aka Steven Jameson), are among those fretting or quietly confident about their imminent opening nights.
Of course, mingling through the throng are the usual Edinburgh types. A man dressed as a toothbrush over here, a tiny Japanese woman with a gold-painted face striking intimidating poses with a sword over there ¼ and, of course, the flyerers. Nowhere is safe from those relentless in their push for self-publicity.
The Stand is a less formal event still. Some of the old hands who populate their programme give brief extracts, including Arnold Brown, Norman Lovett and, disconcertingly his young daughters. One publicist in the front row dares heckle the youngster ¼whose pricelessly sarcastic comeback is "Look at you, so big and clever, heckling a 12-year-old. Well done." As Eric Morecambe would say, there's no answer to that.
Head home before midnight, ready for an early night. But then I make the fatal mistake of just popping in to the Pleasance Dome bar to see who's around. I leave two hours later, having spent the intervening time debating the pros and cons of the New York comedy scene with Jo Caulfield, who has just returned from a stint there as a writer for Graham Norton, and her husband Kevin.
Well, 2 am's still an early night by Edinburgh standards, I tell myself unconvincingly.
Seve Bennett checks out some of the best offerings. 
