This article appears as part of the Herald Arts newsletter.

Although there are guiding hands at work curating the cultural offerings available in the Edinburgh Festival, at the personal level it’s a self-curated experience.

You pick what you like the look of and what your budget (and the time of the last train home) will allow. So as you rush from a circus show by heavily-pierced Australian acrobats to a live recording of a podcast about fly-fishing, you can often be struck by the absurdity of the juxtapositions.

Your next thought then is: ‘Only in Edinburgh in August, eh?’ It’s like the whole of the internet has grown arms and legs, printed flyers, and turned up in town with a suitcase on wheels.

My Festival 2024 experience begins on Monday with a trip to see former UK Prime Minister Liz Truss. She’s due to give her tuppence-worth as part of the All Talk series of political interviews hosted by broadcaster and commentator Iain Dale.

Hang on, though, isn’t that Ms Truss I see standing outside the venue as I saunter down Morrison Street, trademark blue dress matching the summer sky to a tee? Er, no. It’s comedienne and noted Truss impersonator Nerine Skinner, who has taken this opportunity to hand out flyers for her Truss-themed show.

Will she pose for a photograph? Of course she will. Is it true she killed the Queen, as Private Eye is fond of saying? “I only shook her hand,” she tells me. “But I do have quite a strong grip.” And what does she think of Suella Braverman, the woman she appointed to the role of Home........

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