Can anyone tell me what dates the Comedy Festival is on in Edinburgh, I know its August sometime but only want to go to the Comedy Festival not any other part of the Festival. Have emailed the 'Fringe' but have never had a response.

As you probably know, the fringe starts Aug 8 and runs the whole month. There are comedy performances during the entire run of the festival.

Also would suggest getting a place to stay by april. It gets extremely difficult.

Comedy comprises part of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, which this year runs officially from Sunday 7th to Monday 29th August; but there will be quite a number of shows previewing for a few days beforehand. The Fringe is itself one of 7 Edinburgh festivals, most of which overlap to a greater or lesser degree.

Some of the big venues like the Assembly Rooms try to con people into thinking they are 'The Comedy Festival', but they are just a few amongst very many Fringe venues.

You won't get a response from the Fringe office at this time of year as there'll be nobody there. The Fringe programme is launched in June.

I don't know why you are so set against going to anything other than comedy, though : IMO you will be really missing out. Last year I went to 50 shows of which 4 were comedy, and they were nowhere near the most memorable.

Err.. I also just go there for the comedy. I love stand-up comedy and the variety you get at the Edin. Fringe is just AMAZING!

I also went to some plays two years ago - apart from "he died with a felafel in his hand" (which I consider comedy anyway), there wasn't really anything so memorable.

And no, not a fan at all of the Edin. Tattoo.