PERFORMERS at the world’s largest arts festival have been putting the final touches to their acts ahead of the official opening tomorrow of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

A record-breaking line-up of 1,867 shows is spread across 261 venues in the city.

The 16,990 performers are having to undergo ever more bizarre contortions to fit their productions into the city’s theatres and other improvised venues. One show, a retelling of Ovid’s myths entitled Metamorphoses, will take place in an hotel swimming pool in the Grassmarket.

Other productions that have despaired of finding permanent venues have rented space in a retired Routemaster bus, parked in The Meadows, adjacent to Edinburgh University.

Bouncy Castle Hamlet will, as the name suggests, eschew a traditional setting in favour of an inflatable Elsinore outside the Demarco Roxy Arthouse.

A Midsummernights Tree will present acrobatics and cabaret in a tree in Belgrave Crescent Gardens. Wheelchair access is provided by prior arrangement.

The E4 Udderbelly, a giant inflatable cow lying on its back in Bristo Square, will host comedy from Demetri Martin, the Perrier Award-winning comic, and Into the Hoods, a hip-hop version of Stephen Sondheim’s musical Into the Woods.

Edinburgh University’s medical faculty will be the stage for Dr Ledbetter’s Experiment, an unconventional drama that bills itself as a gothic field trip about Charles Darwin.

The most mysterious venue is for Frank McGuinness’s play Someone Who’ll Watch Over Me. Ticket-holders will meet at C Venue on Chambers Street and be blindfolded before being led to the performance space.

Theatre makes up nearly a third of the programme, just ahead of comedy.

It would take five years, eleven months and sixteen days to see each performance back-to-back, at an approximate cost of £14,000.

There will be 28,014 performances in total, 94 per cent more than ten years ago.

PICK OF THE FRINGE

Rhod Gilbert - Knocking on Heaven’s Door Pleasance Courtyard, 7.30pm. Welsh whimsy from the Perrier Newcomer nominee of last year

Gamarjobat Gilded Balloon Teviot, 5pm. Japanese slapstick duo

Tim Minchin — So Rock Gilded Balloon Teviot, 9.30pm. Refreshingly sophisticated comedy from a slightly embittered musician

Talk Radio E4 Udderbelly, 5.15pm. Stewart Lee, the man behind Jerry Springer the Opera, makes his directorial debut with a cast of comedians

Midnight Cowboy Assembly Rooms, 11.15pm. Tim Fountain’s adaptation of the triple Oscar-winning film

This is So Not About the Simpsons Assembly Rooms, 7.50pm. Dissecting American democracy and cosmetic surgery

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