The Fringe Survival Guide part one

It's Sunday, it's early August and that can only mean one thing: The Edinburgh International Festival opens today. Rejoice! The rest of the country may be headed for the beaches, but the prospect of three weeks of non-stop comedy, theatre and general cultural hi-jinks renders The Distractor so excitable that it borders on the embarrassing. And anyway, the sun hurts our skin.

So, as part of the build-up to actually going up there (at which time things may well go quiet on this page - well, there are other things to do), we present some top tips for making your Festival experience as rewarding as possible. Starting with:

1. Avoid the big names.

It goes against the whole ethos of the festival. Surely it's better to see an eager newcomer with plenty to prove in an intimate dark room, rather than someone coasting to the converted in a cavernous, atmosphere-free enormo-venue? What would you rather tell people - that you paid seven quid to see a star of tomorrow in a sweaty bar, or that you paid thirty-seven quid to see a past-it fat bloke trot out his "ironic" unpleasantries in a castle? Yes Gervais, I'm looking at you.

The thought process goes something like this: "Do I really need to write a whole new show and flog it for the whole three weeks to forty people a night - or can I get away with three shows of recycled old stuff at the EICC?" If their answer is yes, then they've lost all respect for their audience and they have officially lost it. From that point on, you can easily catch them fronting TV panel shows, developing their sitcom or appearing in building society adverts, so don't bother wasting an hour on them at the Fringe. Your time is precious enough.