The Edinburgh Fringe, which officially begins on Friday, will this year see 2,871 shows performed by 24,107 artists in 273 venues across Scotland's capital city.
It is easy to assume the Fringe is all about comedy. Or at least, focused on fun and frivolity.
But this year, there's been a drop in comedy (from 36% to 33%) and there's a marked increase in the number of theatre shows - from 751 to 824. Among them, some of the most gritty real subject matters the festival has ever tackled. (...)
The Lockerbie Bomber raises questions about the events leading up to the explosion of Pan Am Flight 103 in 1988. [RB: And questions about the conviction of Abdelbaset Megrahi for bombing the aircraft.] Playwright Alan Clark has staged the play elsewhere - it will be performed in Malta later this year - but he says it was important to bring it to the fringe.
"I've got two hopes. One is that it makes compelling theatre and that it makes people think again about what happened that terrible night. 25 years on we still don't know what happened.
"What we do know is that there's been a cover up and sooner or later I hope the truth will come out and that my play in a very small way helps that come about."
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