Early Edinburgh nights take toll on Irish wits

What has appened to the Edinburgh Festival? At a party on the Fringe the other night, a performer was thrown out for snorting cocaine in the bathroom. It wasn't that many years ago that you would have been thrown out of parties here for not snorting cocaine.

There's been a bit of a rearrangement of the socialising this year with the Pleasance venue opening up a new late-night club, run by BBC's The Stand-Up Show, to rival the traditional early-morning high jinks of the Gilded Balloon's infamous Late and Live event.

Down in the cavernous Pleasance Dome late on Wednesday night, there was an impromptu celebration for Dublin comedian Jason Byrne, who earlier that day had been nominated for a Perrier Award. Suffice to say that the sponsor's bottled water wasn't exactly the drink of choice for most of those in attendance.

Dara ╙ Briain was there, hobbling on a broken ankle, the result of some unlikely disco-dancing exploits the previous night. "Four in the morning, disco music and me don't really mix," he observed ruefully.

We're not saying ╙ Briain is partying hard this Edinburgh, but at his show that night he asked an audience member to guess his age. "You're 45," replied the punter. ╙ Briain is actually 29.

Deirdre O'Kane and Tara Flynn were also present and correct. They are both doing two shows a night at the Fringe, which, for Flynn at least, means getting some early nights to protect her singing voice. "I'm home by about three in the morning each night, which is an early night for here," she said.

Tommy Tiernan has just arrived in town and his week-long run of shows have sold out so quickly that he's had to add on another five. "A lot of the ex-Perrier winners don't come back," he said. "But I love it here."

A super-slim Graham Norton is also here for a Stonewall benefit concert; he is virtually unrecognisable due to his weight loss. We advise him to partake of some of the delicious deep-fried Mars bars on offer in the city's chip shops. Norton is bemoaning the fact that people are now saying to him "that's so Brian Dowling" all the time.