I've had my first bowl of porridge, drunk my first (and only) can of Irn Bru of the festival and seen my first stilt walker, so as far as I'm concerned Edinburgh really has begun, although it doesn't officially kick off until tomorrow.
But if you're not going north, there's plenty to see over this weekend and week. The weekend kicks off with the Stockton International Riverside Festival, where there is a really classy programme of street arts and large-scale outdoor performances. While we'll talking about outdoor work, I reckon that if you enjoyed the Sultan's Elephant then you should pencil the weekend of September 5-7 into your diaries and book yourself train tickets and a hotel in Liverpool where something very surprising will be happening courtesy of Helen Marriage and Nicky Webb of Artichoke, the women who brought the Sultan's Elephant to London.
Also in the north, Mike Kenny's adaption of E. Nesbit's The Railway Children is a winner at the National Railway Museum in York, and Hay Fever has been extended until August 16 at the Royal Exchange in Manchester. I've never been in the Theatre by the Lake in Keswick, but I like the look of its programme, which besides the crowdpleasers also includes a revival of Kay Adshead's very fine refugee drama The Bogus Woman and Martin McDonagh's The Lonesome West.
Further south all eyes will be on Stratford on Tuesday when the premiere of the David Tennant Hamlet takes place. It must be hard enough playing Hamlet in any circumstances, but he must know that he is going to be under more scrutiny than any actor since Nicole Kidman in the Blue Room. At least he won't be taking his clothes off. If you haven't got tickets for Hamlet, then you can still have fun at Giffords Circus, whose Caravan - which pitches at Frampton on Severn over the weekend and then at Minchinhampton Common from Wednesday - is the only circus performance I've ever seen to include Ophelia's mad scene. Way down south, Complicite's A Disappearing Number is back at the Theatre Royal, Plymouth before heading back to the Barbican in the autumn.
In London, I'd opt for West Side Story over The Wizard of Oz; I can't recommend Brief Encounter too highly after a return visit with three generations of the family in tow, which everybody loved. The show you should really see in London this week is at the National's new Square2 outdoor stage which is situated by the stage door. It's a brilliant version of Macbeth, performed by Polish company Teatr Biuro Podrozy, which features blazing fire and motorcycles. Performances are at 9pm and midnight. See - it's not just in Edinburgh that you can go to the theatre in the middle of the night.
