A crowing flash-in-the-pan PM and Jimmy Carr’s life lessons from the Oompa Loompas
A tale of two powerful women as the Edinburgh fringe enters its opening week. Nica Burns is a West End producer and the impresario behind the Edinburgh comedy awards. The fringe launches each year with her state-of-the-comedy-nation address, which this year hymned the art form’s ongoing dominance of the festival. Fair enough: it needs the exposure. “I love this festival,” says Burns, because “there is nowhere else for comedians, but also comedy as genre, to get the full spotlight on them”.