Fight like the stars with stage combat lessons

EVER fancied swashing your buckle? Well, now you too can be like Errol Flynn and Captain Jack Sparrow. Professional fight director Ian Stapleton is offering stage fighting lessons as part of the Fringe programme at Rocket @ Roxburgh Hotel. Learn to cut and thrust, to punch like Rocky and kick like Van Damme, with the man who taught 'The Fonz', aka Henry Winkler, and Paul Michael Glaser of Starsky and Hutch fame to fight like pirates. For more details visit www.theatrecombat.co.uk

Get inside the Festival thanks to new blog
THE senior service of the festivals, the Edinburgh International Festival has proved more than capable of keeping up with the young whippersnappers that have grown around it. Now the EIF has launched Festival Insider, the official Edinburgh International Festival blog. Check out behind-the-scenes audio clips and a weekly interview with the event's director Jonathan Mills at www.eif.co.uk

'Eddies' judges ready to start their work
THE 2008 Intelligent Finance Comedy Awards – or the Eddies if you prefer – have announced the judges set to see more than 350 festival comedy shows. They are Bruce Dessau of the London Evening Standard, Tim Arthur of Time Out Magazine, Julian Hall of The Independent, Victoria Payne of TalkbackThames, Karen Rosie of BBC TV comedy, Paul Schlesinger of BBC radio comedy, Jonathan Trew, Rosanna Bond, Alison Leitch and Jude Stone. The if.comedy shortlist will be announced on August 20, and the winner announced three days later, at the Jamhouse on Queen Street.

Quick Fest: e-mail your diary pieces to fringe@edinburghnews. com with the word DIARY in the subject line.