The good, the bad and the Elvis ... performers hand out flyers in Edinburgh. Photograph: Beth Elliott
Stand on Edinburgh's Royal Mile for even a minute and you are likely to find yourself swamped by an avalanche of flyers. So how on earth do you choose what to go and see? The obvious people to listen to would surely be the critics, right? After all, they see more of the Fringe than most and are presumably experienced enough to sort the inspired from the insipid.
Yet in recent years there has been an astonishing growth in the number of publications and websites keen to give you their opinion on what rocks and what sucks. So who to listen to?
Nationals (including the Guardian) aside, it's useful to have a local perspective on the action. In terms of Scottish coverage, the granddaddy is, of course, The Scotsman. Though the paper can no longer boast that it covers more shows than any other publication, their team of critics still make a pretty good go of seeing everything that might count as new work on the hunt for shows to which they can award a much-coveted Fringe First.
Also worth are look are the Scotsman's rival paper The Herald who dish out their own awards - The Herald Angels; The Stage which gives out gongs for acting (though while the winners are usually very worthy, some of the nominees can be extremely odd indeed); and The List - a glossy weekly magazine.
The problem with many of these publications is that they tend to stick to the same venues - providing acres of space to the Traverse, the Pleasance and the Assembly Rooms, and neglecting many of the smaller places. It is here that the plethora of free, student papers can come in handy.
Take Three Weeks, for instance. This is a weekly newspaper that has a staff of over a hundred student critics who aim to cover every show in the Fringe brochure. The trouble is that quantity in this case doesn't equal quality. After all, a teenager on their first visit to the Fringe is unlikely to able to match a professional's experience and expertise. Still what these writers might lack in judgment they make up for in enthusiasm - dishing out a milky way-full of stars to almost anything. A better-written student paper is The Skinny, which covers fewer shows but does so in more depth and with much snappier writing.
And then, of course, there are websites. These can be equally hit and miss. Culture Wars, Broadway Baby, Fringe Report and, for comedy, Chortle all cover a great deal of work - but your guess is as good as mine as to whether the person writing the review actually has a clue what they are talking about. Ignore the star rating - if the writer can string a good sentence together and makes their case well, they're probably worth listening to.
Maybe, in fact, Edinburgh is the one place where that much-discussed face-off between bloggers and critics, between professionals and amateurs, really comes into focus. Given the sheer size and variety of the Fringe, it's clear that one paper or site really doesn't have a hope of covering the lot - and if you're searching for the best shows to see, you're going to need all the help you can get. It's a strange thought that the oldest festival of its kind might offer a vision of the critical future, one where everyone has something to add to the debate.
In the end, though, as Lyn Gardner has argued, the best way to find out what's worth seeing is good old-fashioned word of mouth. Eavesdrop on the people at the table next to you, or strike up a conversation with the person in front of you in the queue for a show. You never know: you might end up getting to the gem of the festival before the critics do.
