Critics’ choice - Nick Awde

Who are you?

Long-time reviewer and feature writer for The Stage, who also has two plays on this festival - Unnatural Acts (co-written with Chris Bartlett, Gilded Balloon) and Blood Confession (Assembly@Hill Street). I have also written Pete and Dud - Come Again with Chris, which has just finished a 90-date UK tour and was launched at the Assembly Rooms, 2005. It’ll be a busy year on both sides of the writing divide.

What is your favourite type of performance?

Musicals, as they seem to be getting bigger and better at Edinburgh every year, and cabaret isn’t doing so badly either.

What are you looking forward to the most this year?

As with every August, catching up with everyone, from fellow critics to regular performers, to familiar faces in the audiences.

What are you least looking forward to?

The drizzle, of course.

What is your best piece of advice for visitors?

Ask everybody you meet about what they’ve seen - in the streets, queues, pubs, cafes or public conveniences! It’s amazing what nuggets you’ll stumble across in the most unlikely of venues.

Nick’s top five shows

• Exits and Entrances - Athol Fugard (Assembly@George Street). Hot from New York, Fugard’s latest play is a powerful, yet poignant, semi-autobiographical account of one of South Africa’s foremost actors working with a young playwright, set against a fifties backdrop.
• Eurobeat - Almost Eurovision (Pleasance Courtyard). Well, it does precisely what it says on the tin, a 12-points mini-version from down under of the uber song competition. Bring an appropriate national flag to wave as you vote.
• Shappi Khorsandi - Carry on Shappi (Pleasance Dome). Gently incisive, the stand-up has been mining her own personal lode of humour which just gets funnier and slicker each year.
• The Battle of Stalingrad (Assembly Aurora Nova). It’s done the rounds before, but consistently sells out. Find out for yourself as Rezo Gabriadzea’s funny-sad marionette epic tells the human (and animal) story behind the horrific Second World War siege.
• Marlene Dietrich (Assembly Universal Arts, Freemason’s Hall). The sort of wildcard ticket that perfectly sums up that elusive fringe spirit - a 90-minute musical drama about the ageing silver screen icon reminiscing with her psychoanalyst. With subtitles. In Georgian.