Glasgow Comedy Festival

Maybe it's an East Coast thing: lump all your cultural eggs in one basket and call it the biggest arts festival in the world, then spend the rest of the year engaged in extended thumb-twiddling. Over west exists a city that knows how to stagger its artistic happenings and maybe knock a digit off the entrance fee in the process. The Magners Glasgow International Comedy Festival is now four years old and, therefore, all grown up. It also claims (somewhat spuriously) to be the largest comedy festival in Europe (just don't mention that other E word).

Ok, so most of the acts appearing debuted their shows at Ed*****gh 2006 but you can't possibly have seen them all in August anyway. Most importantly, the organisers have put together a varied and exciting line-up, with every taste catered for. Superstar spotters will note the appearance of numerous television luminaries, notably the rare foray of 'Fr Dougal' - Ardal O'Hanlon - to live stand-up. Others whose pus you'll recognise from the box include Paul Merton, Jimmy Carr, Cannon and Ball, Russell Brand and caustic New-Yorker, Joan Rivers.

Maybe celebrity worship isn't your thing. Bill Hicks once said television was like taking black spray paint to your third eye. The spirit of Hicks lives on in the decidedly prime-time unfriendly guise of Brendon Burns and Jerry Sadowitz. Joining this irreverent duo will be blue-chip performers from the comedy cicuit, incuding We Are Klang, Phil Kay, Daniel Kitson, Simon Munnery, Jim Jeffries, Janey Godley, Glenn Wool, David O'Doherty and Des Clarke. The stand-up schedule is complemented by a range of shows specifically for kids, a theatre programme which includes Noel Coward's comedy of manners Hay Fever and a series of late night comedy classics at the Grosvenor cinema.