High roads and low lead to Edinburgh

ArtScape:It's the end of July and anyone interested in theatre, comedy, literature, film or jazz must be thinking about heading towards Edinburgh next month for the largest arts festival (in fact, several simultaneous festivals) in this part of the world.

And many brave pioneering souls are preparing to pick up sticks and bring their art to Edinburgh, taking the chance of a showcase to the world.

Some of the larger theatre and dance companies are bringing shows supported by Culture Ireland (Druid's production of Enda Walsh's Walworth Farce, Pasodos Dance Company's Sorry, Love!, Ransom's This Piece of Earth, Playgroup's The Art of Swimming and Rough Magic's production of Christian O'Reilly's new play, Is This About Sex?. But there are other ways of getting there.

Calipo Theatre Company have teamed up with a British group, Down to Earth Theatre Productions, to bring Wunderkind to Edinburgh and then to London early next year, both firsts for the Drogheda company. Members of Down to Earth saw the show in the Project last year and the company is backing the production for both runs. Writer/director Darren Thornton (who also worked on RTÉ's Love is the Drug) is in London rehearsing the show - a comic fable about the mad movie-marketing machine "and a guy in a hotel room caught between the  real and the reel" - with actor Owen McDonnell before Thursday's opening.

Meanwhile, the unique selling point of the sketch comedy show, Diet of Worms On (Melted) Ice, is that the five comics perform the show in a swimming pool.

They learnt about the need to stand out from the crowd when they spent a week at the Fringe last year, so they donned the swimming caps. The 50-minute site-specific comedy incorporates puppetry, music and dance for sketches set in, on, or around water.

New Galway theatre company Moonfish will offer "a swashbuckling tale of piracy and derring-do", Bonny & Read, charting the amazing-but-true adventures of notorious pirates Mary Read and Anne Bonny, with two actors playing multiple characters, accompanied by buccaneer musicians.

Other Irish shows in the Fringe, which features more than 2,050 shows in some 250 venues, include Absinthe Without Leave, which offers amid-afternoon comedy tipple for those hardy enough for the mystical green drink. Chanteuse Camille O'Sullivan returns to the festival in Camille, la Fille du Cirque, while Dublin-based singer/songwriter June Caresse performs in White Tuxedo.

Lots of Irish comics are heading to the Fringe, including Jason Byrne, bringing two shows, Shy Pigs, With Wigs, Hidden in the Twigs and the commission-friendly Telly Idea Which May Also Work on the Radio Show!. Also returning is Abie Philbin Bowman's Jesus: The Guantanamo Years. Inspired by its recent Stateside forays, the Trinity College Dublin sketch group, Mercer Island Rodeo, will be at the Fringe, as will a new face of Irish comedy, Jarlath Regan. Ian Coppinger and Brendan Dempsey have a Young, Gifted and Green show and Caimh McDonnell's ID tells of a comic journey through his wallet.

Eleanor Tiernan - Help keeps things in the family. Written by comedian Tommy Tiernan, his sister Eleanor and cousin Niamh, it is directed by Tommy and acted by Eleanor and Niamh, playing aspiring performers.

Irish interest at the Edinburgh International Book Festival includes Colm Tóibín reading his stories from Mothers and Sons, Joseph O'Connor (Redemption Falls), Anne Enright (The Gathering), short-story writer Clare Keegan and writer and broadcaster Manchán Magan.

The film festival features the world premiere of Paddy Breathnach's horror movie, Shrooms, and John Carney's modern-day musical, Once.

For those planning a trip, details can be found on www.visitscotland.com/eventsandfestivalsas well as on the individual festival sites. Information about accommodation is on www.visitscotland.com/citybreaks.

The Firkin Crane revival

Despite all the forebodings, the loss of the Arts Council's €317,000 grant and the departure of director Mary Brady from the Institute of Choreography and Dance in early 2006 did not herald the end of the Firkin Crane in Cork, writes Mary Leland.

With the institute dissolved, technical manager Paul McCarthy was asked to take over as interim general manager of the building and, since then, it is as a resource centre that the Firkin Crane has been reborn, servicing the needs of contemporary dance in Ireland. Its clients now include Fidget Feet and Movita Dance Theatre (which has moved over from New York), joining an existing list of users ranging from Cork Ballet Company to acrobats and African dancers, from salsa to experimental and inter-community movement groups.

Another important tenant is Crux Dance Theatre, which will be at the Dancehouse in Dublin in September.

A recent development has been the involvement of the Croi Glan Integrated Dance Company, led by Tara Brandel and Rhona Coughlan. Croi Glan is creating a professional touring group in which dancers with physical handicaps perform with more able-bodied partners. While the company will be at the Dancehouse as part of the Dublin Fringe Festival from September 14th to 16th, its requirements are also behind the first in a series of proposed changes at the Firkin Crane, the installation of a lift, to be completed in the coming weeks. Funded by the Department of Arts, Sport and Tourism, the lift installation will be followed by the creation of a new studio and a new production office for visiting companies.

The Firkin Crane, which also provides the space for the VEC diploma course in the performance arts, is at the heart of the Shandon area, built around the ancient Shandon Castle from which Sir Walter Raleigh once rained down fire on the city below. Its two theatres, four studios, dressing-rooms and offices are now throbbing with summer courses, although McCarthy says he intends to begin promoting the building as a venue as soon as possible.

Plans are also evolving at City Hall, which is intent on realising the tourism potential of the area. In the meantime, the new Arts Council grant of €100,000 is keeping the Firkin Crane not just alive but kicking.

Fleadh funding 'derisory'

When former arts minister Michael D Higgins wrote a €200 cheque for Galway Film Fleadh this week, managing director Miriam Allen was almost lost for words, writes Lorna Siggins. She is still upset over Failte Ireland West's decision to award €3,000 in grant aid to the annual fleadh, which ended a fortnight ago, and has decided against drawing down the money on the basis that it is "derisory".

The week-long international event kicks off Galway's festival month and attracts up to 15,000 people, among them producers, directors, financiers and other movers and shakers in the film business.

Allen's stance has attracted a positive response from the likes of Higgins, the Galway West Labour TD, who advised her to use his cheque to "start a campaign to replace the funding".

"Failte Ireland told us that we were catering for a 'niche market', yet almost all films at this year's event were sold out, and we booked out the entire Radisson and filled other hotels in the city," Allen says. "We had to put in an enormous amount of work to apply for that funding, and one of the conditions is that it has to be matched."

Failte Ireland West's product development and market manager Brian Quinn defended the level of funding, and said there was always heavy demand for its annual festival budget, currently €190,000. Funds awarded had to be matched, and could only be spent on marketing at national and international level, he confirmed. Applications seeking €25,000 and over, such as that for Galway Arts Festival, were handled by Failte Ireland's head office, he said.

The film fleadh had been identified as serving a "niche market" and had been notified of its allocation in January, Quinn said. A contract had been signed, and the tourism body was unaware until last week that the money was to be returned. It was "very unusual" for this to happen, he said.

•Last week we ascribed a longevity to the Dublin Theatre Festival that was not entirely accurate. It may be celebrating its 50th birthday, but it is not the oldest arts festival in the country (though it is regarded as the oldest established specialist theatre festival in Europe) on at least two counts, namely Wexford Opera Festival (1951) and Cork Choral Festival (1954).