I'd like to be in three places at once this Thursday evening.

Carelessly, spendthriftily, I bought a ticket weeks ago for a preview of SmallWar at the Traverse. My first Fringe foray.

On Monday, I got an email from the Head of Communications at the International Festival saying that Eve (thank you, Eve!) at the NTS had suggested she invite me to an event they're running, presumably for journalists but they're also inviting bloggers, previewing their Festival programme. Would I like to come? It's on Thursday evening. I wanted to weep. But wrote back parsimoniously explaining my existing ticket situation and thanking her but reluctantly declining.

On Tuesday, I got an invite from the NTS inviting Five Minute Theatre Makers and a guest to the Tin Forest in Glasgow. Puppets. Regular people. Graham McLaren. Kieran Hurley. Some wonderful disused building - the South Rotunda I think which even somehow sounds romantic. I've been following this great and glorious endeavour on twitter and it looks exquisite and extraordinary. It's on Thursday night. I could have wept again.

I haven't received Wednesday's invite to something rare and remarkable (I'm not sure if The List party counts) but no doubt, it's on its way to torment me.

I'm properly excited about the Fringe now. And a little fluttery with anticipation about the first time in years that I shall attend the Book Festival. 

I'm reviewing again - again, with interest and anticipation. Liam Rudden changed the strategy last year from 'we pick' to 'he picks' and I saw all sorts of stuff that I would never in one million years have chosen. We're back to 'we pick' (subject to his approval) this year but I've sent him a wish list and a maybe list in the hopes that he'll send me to see some stuff that will surprise and amaze me as The Shawshank Redemption did last year. So we shall see.

I'm excited about Richard Dawkins and the Letters of Note man (hopefully complete with Benedict Cumberbatch) in the Book Festival. I'm champing at the bit to see Letters Home which comes book-festival-site-specifically from Grid Iron, directed by Zinnie Harris. I hope it's as fun as it could be.

In the Fringe, I have tickets booked for a preview of something at the Traverse, the name of which I've shamefully forgotten. I have a full price ticket for a play called Lippy which - at a slightly gulp inducing £19 - I hope will be good. I cannot wait for Huff as I missed it last time around. I have a ticket for a thing called Forgotten Voices, the 'play' though it'll surely be more verbatim theatre of the Imperial War Museum collection of books of first-hand testimonials from World War One 'participants'. Obviously I eagerly await my dear friend Ross' (Antony Neilson's) Wonderful World Of Dissocia and SJ's Malfi. And my most prized Fringe ticket is for Light, the very eagerly anticipated (by me) new production from Theatre Ad Infinitum. 

Finally, I have tickets for the James Plays by Rona Munro with the NTS in the International Festival. Which I hope will be as good as they should be. There's some pretty special looking dance on too, though I rashly haven't booked any of that.

All in all, it's fluttery exciting. I shall take a brief holiday to prepare myself for the onslaught. And then August, here we come.

Aha! We (they) are uploaded to the Five Minute Theatre blog.

And they look great.

View us - view white - here.

Two days after Five Minute Theatre was done, (one day after it aired), I held the first audition (sweep up) for Festen. Real auditions start on Thursday.

So I'm sucking up the script. Hoovering. Gobbling. He's such a great writer, Mr David Eldridge. I very much admire how he's grasped the nettle of the original film, condensed character and plot horror into something like an hour and a half and simultaneously managed to create something very funny.

(Which the film sort of does too but the laughs are mostly choked in slow misery so don't have quite the same cathartic properties.)

I'm aware that I should be studying the script, exploring nuances, character peccadillos, quirks. But I keep getting sucked in to the story and marvelling at his clever staging rather than having more intellectual thoughts.

It's not one of the most beautiful scripts I've ever worked with but man, it is elegant. I'm looking forward to diving in.