Listings: After 12pm

Grab your top tickets to talent-spot this year's stellar crop of industry approved breakthrough comedians, plus some who are already rather famous! Every showcase is different, so keep coming back.

Unbelievably slick troupe who make a brand new musical each night based on audience suggestions.

With caller Ken Gourlay and ceilidh bands Flaming Heather, HLI, Scott Leslie, Willie Fraser and piper. All dances walked through and called. Cheap bar. Hall has air-conditioning! Fringe groups welcome. www.edinburghceilidhs.co.uk.

Just A Minute/One Show Gyles won multiple five stars for his last Edinburgh sell-out. Now the award-winning raconteur and ex MP explores the secrets of How to Be Happy. 'Incredibly funny, wildly indiscreet' (Daily Mail).

Songs, sketches, falsetto and violence, laced with a sci-fi theme from the ever popular Sock Puppets.

Scroobius Pip presents a unique mix of humour and heart-wrenching explorations of the human condition as he performs his astonishingly successful spoken word show one last time at the Fringe. Also, there's a bar. Splendid.

When Father Christmas finishes his rounds he realises that he's forgotten to do something rather important and he really needs a WEE! A brilliantly bouncy musical adaptation of Nicholas Allan's much loved book.

The Godfather of Funk and Soul and musical director of the James Brown Band during its heyday, Fred Wesley is Mr Funky. Trombonist of distinction, collaborator with the best, and sophisticated arranger, but when it comes to partying, no-one does it better. He always delivers a funky good time. Especially when he’s…

Bach to Berio, Lutoslawski to Puttin’ on the Ritz performed by Iain Archibald and Andrew Connell-Smith (trumpet), Martin Murphy (horn), Gordon Seith (trombone) and Fraser Russell (tuba).

Peter Abrahams, Professor of Clinical Anatomy at Warwick University, explores the value of Leonardo’s anatomical drawings as a tool for understanding the human body, and how closely the artist anticipated the range of imagery used by the medical profession today.

An evening of thrilling 20th century classics from the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra under its chief guest conductor, Ilan Volkov, who is widely renowned for the passion and intensity of his music making. Sinfonia by Luciano Berio is a virtuoso work full of colour and humour that poses profound questions about what a…

Leonardo’s early anatomical studies were intended to help his work as a painter, but his researches took on a life of their own, becoming the most important strand of his scientific work. Exhibition curator Martin Clayton examines the relationship between these two major aspects of Leonardo’s activity.

Lady banjo players extraordinaire tour their bluegrass ballads.

Seven performers tantalisingly blend of circus, cabaret and vaudeville as Circa come back to the Fringe for the first time in four years.

Philip Glass is joined by Patti Smith to discuss their cross-art form collaboration The Poet Speaks with writer and broadcaster Richard Coles.

Observational humour from the Dublin-stand-up and actor about reaching middle age.

Adaptation of an early Beckett novella about a man, cast out from the family home, who hooks up with a woman, with darkly comic consequences.

Exuberant and fast thinking regular on the ol' Scottish circuit, entertaining with another bizarrely titled show.

Beckett on Film: Ohio Impromptu: Directed by Charles Sturridge and starring Jeremy Irons. Rough for Theatre I: Directed by Kieron J Walsh and starring David Kelly and Milo O’Shea. Not I: Directed by Neil Jordan and starring Julianne Moore.

Amsterdam’s Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra is one of the world’s truly great ensembles, famed for the nobility and sophistication of its orchestral sound, its velvety strings, golden brass and gleaming woodwind. The orchestra performs one of the greatest symphonic achievements in the repertoire. Gustav Mahler never lived…

Typically subversive humour from Lee as he works on material for the latest series of Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle. Please note: this is a work in progress show.

An extraordinary dog, an extraordinary City. Let us tell you the fascinating story that lies behind the Disney romance of the wee faithful dog and the city that wee Bobby called home.

• Directed by: Nicolai Khalezin
• Written by: Belarus Free Theatre

Belarus Free Theatre presents a thought-provoking and often disturbing drama which questions the use of capital punishment and recounts real-life stories told by executioners, human rights lawyers and prison inmates. Contains nudity.

The Festival’s Usher Hall concerts come to an epic conclusion with Verdi’s powerful Requiem, its theatricality and gripping emotions making it as suited to the opera house or concert hall as to any church. From music of hushed restraint and transcendent hope through to the thunderclap-like drums that depict the day of…