Cabbies offer tips while comics pop (or pip) Perrier

There's still a week to go and already I'm lying in a darkened room, only able to take food through a straw and having hallucinogenic episodes about gags, one-liners, double entendres, build-ups, innuendos and punch-lines. Every so often I wake from my fevered sleep, sit bolt upright in the bed and shout out the names of Gerry Sadowitz, Bill Bailey and Johnny Vegas. The nurses here understand and are very kind to me.

We'll start with the god-like Bill Bailey - and I'm not sure if you want to know that half way through his set I had to run for the fire exit because I thought I was going to vomit with the laughter - but there you have it. Bailey, from London, was desperately unlucky to miss out on the Perrier Prize last year (losing to Dylan Moran in the closest vote in the award's 16-year history) and now seems destined to join the elite group of Eddie Izzard, Jo Brand and Jack Dee who similarly were nominees but not overall winners. Looking like a sad old hippy, he does straight stand-up ("how can you tell a married Goth couple? They've got black garden furniture") alongside musical pastiches (the Dr Who theme music done in 1960s Belgian Jazz fashion and Bach done in Chas 'n' Dave cockney knees-up fashion) and devastatingly funny pastiches of Billy Bragg and Chris De Burgh. Bring this man to Dublin. Now.

Good news from the subversive, anarchic, Comedy of Hate camp is that legendary Scottish comic Gerry Sadowitz is back in action. His show this year was a remarkable example of transgressive comedy that made Lenny Bruce and Bill Hicks seem like Little 'n' Large. With material on ethnic minorities, women and bizarre sexual practices, Sadowitz is the most controversial performer working in comedy today. You either see him as a bitter, twisted and hateful comic or you see him as a creative artist shoving back the boundaries of socially acceptable discourse. Take your pick.

The audiences at this year's Fringe certainly knew which side they were on, for when it came to vote for the Polygram Video Act of the Fringe (a new award to rival the Perrier, which is not voted for by the critics but by the audience - imagine that!) Sadowitz came first out of the 220 eligible comedians. Expect to see the "cultural commentators" on BBC 2's Late Show have an attack of the liberal "shock horrors" when they come to debate Gerry Sadowitz in the near future.

Arriving in Edinburgh, even the customs control men at the airport were telling passengers that the hot tip for this year's Perrier was new Manchester comic, Johnny Vegas and doing what I was told, I took a cab straight to his venue and one hour later emerged punching the air, knowing that a new comedy great had just emerged. Vegas, a character comic played by 26-year-old Michael Pennington, is a disaffected ex-Butlins comic who hates "all this alternative nonsense" and wants to rehabilitate the showbiz staples of "Bingo and sing-alongs". The show is written in a series of metaphors - of his status as an entertainer, Vegas notes "I'm a satirical Swampy stuck in the tunnel of talent", on unrequited love he says "My love's a postman and you've got a vicious dog called Pride". Throw in some pottery (yes, real live pottery with a wheel and everything), some judicious observations on the nature of the Perrier prize ("The Perrier is a parent, how can it love one of its comedian children more than another") and you're talking about one of the best comedy shows this reviewer has ever seen.

Such was Vegas's sudden and dramatic impact this year that even before he was nominated for a Perrier, he had already been signed up by the BBC. Stand by for Johnny Vegas to make his Irish debut in November. Book now if you can.

Over in the Assembly Rooms, which are sponsored by a major beer company, Fermanagh comic Owen O'Neill is debuting his new one-man show which is a harrowing account of his battle with alcohol. The show, Off My Face, was supposed to be a shoe-in for a Perrier nomination but the panel, in their infinite wisdom, deemed Owen's efforts "too theatrical". The show is about alcoholism for chris-sake, what did they want: a red clown's nose and some juggling.

Last year's conquering duo of Tommy Tiernan and Jason Byrne shared a bill this year in an exhilarating and highly entertaining show. Tiernan was quite brilliant when talking about the reason he takes cocaine: "I take it just so I can walk down Navan high street in a pair of leather trousers on a Tuesday afternoon and when the old fogeys stare at me, I just think `you can't laugh at me, I'm on drugs'."

The talented Jason Byrne was perhaps the most original performer on this year's Fringe, getting his audience to fly around the room with him (you had to be there) after which he proceeded to melt into the stage. And this year's Young Gifted And Green team of John Henderson, Mark Doherty and Eddie Bannon acquitted themselves with more than a bit of aplomb, selling out their three-and-a-half-week run and making a lot of new friends.

If there is to be an unofficial "Ballygowan" award for the best Irish performer on the Fringe, and at risk of being invidious, it must go to Mark Doherty. Stardom awaits him, if he wants it.

Still flying the shamrock-shaped flag, Ed Byrne, The Nualas and Kevin Gildea got the all-important five star reviews in The Scotsman - a particular highlight was Kevin Gildea's gag about his best way to delay an orgasm: "I just think about the person I'm having sex with". Hats off to Cork comic Graham Norton for getting the Perrier nomination - Graham is a sort of Irish Dale Winton who camps his way through one hour of innuendo and double entendres. Barely known in his native country, his success this year should change that. He was good talking about the only gay bar near Bandon in Cork when he was growing up: "it was called The Altar Rail, they served red wine and bar snacks", and there was also some potently funny stuff about the British Labour Party's front bench, but sadly it's not printable.

Away from the stand-up, the big talking point at the Fringe was the return of Vaudeville, as the plethora of magicians, mind-readers, hypnotists and mimics brought an old-fashioned variety bill feel to the proceedings. This, however, is "new" Vaudeville, informed by the "alternative" ethos, thus the magicians such as Paul Zenon, Max Maven and Gerry Sadowitz (when he's not doing stand-up) are not of the white-gloved, top-hatted, lovely-assistant variety, but a bit more contemporary in style and content.

The variety part of the Fringe was hugely successful this year and it succeeded in bringing in a new sort of audience. The idea behind the magic acts was to break the "too arty" barrier and get people to dip their toes into the Fringe, rewarding them with laughter. After all, there are other ways of making people laugh than a single guy/gal talking into a microphone.

The other interesting trend (and where Edinburgh leads, others follow) was the amount (and box-office popularity) of the dramatic biography shows, or put simply the "tribute" shows. People as diverse as Kenneth Williams, Orson Welles and Ella Fitzgerald were subjected to the "tribute" format this year - but don't think this is a sad Stars In Their Eyes effort - this is not the dramatic equivalent of the rock music "tribute" scene. For example: the actress playing Ella Fitzgerald was Scottish and white.

And so, on to the Comedy Oscars, the Perrier night when this year's controversial short-list of Al Murray, The League Of Gentlemen, Johnny Vegas, Graham Norton and Milton Jones are assembled in the famous Spiegeltent to await their fate. The bookies have stopped taking bets on Johnny Vegas, The Guardian newspaper has already, albeit prematurely, announced him as the overall winner, but when Frank Skinner opens the envelope and reads out "The League Of Gentlemen" you could both see and hear jaws dropping. The League Of Gentlemen, by the way, are an English revue troupe (the first revue types to win the award since 1981) and there'll be more about them at a future date.

For the moment, though, it's over to commiserate with Johnny Vegas and later to join him in standing on top of a table singing New York, New York. Sing-alongs, as Johnny points out, "are the new rock 'n' roll".

The Edinburgh Festival runs until Sunday. Information on the International Festival on 0044 131 4732000 and the Fringe on 0044 131 2265257.