title: Bruce Grobbelaar

text: Allegations that Grobbelar had been match-fixing first appeared in November 1994. Nevertheless, in his next game, at home to Arsenal, he managed to keep a clean sheet despite the media frenzy that surrounded the game. The "Southern Daily Echo" reported that Grobbelaar was "swept along on a tidal wave of emotion, to emerge triumphant from the toughest match of his life".


title: Bruce Grobbelaar

text: In the 1995–96 season, Grobbelaar only managed two games for the Saints, before moving on to Plymouth Argyle.


title: Bruce Grobbelaar

text: Grobbelaar spent the 1996–97 season with Plymouth, after which he spent short spells at Oxford United, Sheffield Wednesday, Oldham Athletic, Chesham United, Bury, Lincoln City and Northwich Victoria over the next 2 years before returning to his native country.


title: Bruce Grobbelaar

text: Grobbelaar was born in Durban, South Africa to ethnic Afrikaner parents. When he was two months old he emigrated to Rhodesia with his mother and sister to join his father, who had got a job on the railways there.


title: Bruce Grobbelaar

text: Grobbelaar grew up and learnt his football in Rhodesia. He made his international debut for Rhodesia as a 19-year-old in a friendly versus South Africa in 1977. Grobbelaar played for Zimbabwe in both of their 1982 World Cup qualifying matches versus Cameroon. He also appeared for his country in a qualifying match for the 1986 World Cup versus Egypt.


title: Bruce Grobbelaar

text: In 1992, he returned to the national team after an absence of several years. With a team including Grobbelaar and Adam and Peter Ndlovu, Zimbabwe came just a victory short of qualification for the 1994 World Cup under the guidance of manager Reinhard Fabisch. Grobbelaar earned 32 caps for Zimbabwe between 1980 and 1998.


title: Bruce Grobbelaar

text: On 7 June 2018, Grobbelaar played a one-off game for Matabeleland in the ConIFA World Cup against the Chagos Islands, playing 30 minutes.


title: Bruce Grobbelaar

text: On 10 November 1994, Grobbelaar was accused by the British tabloid newspaper "The Sun" of match fixing during his time at Liverpool to benefit a betting syndicate, after being caught on videotape discussing match-fixing. He was charged with conspiracy to corrupt, along with the Wimbledon goalkeeper Hans Segers and Aston Villa striker John Fashanu (only recently signed from Wimbledon), and a Malaysian businessman, Heng Suan Lim.


title: Bruce Grobbelaar

text: Despite these allegations, Grobbelaar and Segers were allowed to continue playing, while Fashanu retired from playing less than a year after being charged. Grobbelaar pleaded not guilty, claiming he was only gathering evidence with the intent of taking it to the police. After two successive trials, in both of which the jury could not agree on a verdict, he and his co-defendants were cleared in November 1997. Grobbelaar later sued "The Sun" for libel and was awarded £85,000. "The Sun" appealed, and the case was eventually taken to the House of Lords where it was found that, though the specific allegations had not been proved, there was adequate evidence of dishonesty. The Lords slashed his award to £1, the lowest libel damages possible under English law, and ordered him to pay "The Sun"'s legal costs, estimated at £500,000. In his judgement, Lord Bingham of Cornhill observed:


title: Bruce Grobbelaar

text: "The tort of defamation protects those whose reputations have been unlawfully injured. It affords little or no protection to those who have, or deserve to have, no reputation deserving of legal protection. Until 9 November 1994 when the newspaper published its first articles about him, the appellant's public reputation was unblemished. But he had in fact acted in a way in which no decent or honest footballer would act and in a way which could, if not exposed and stamped on, undermine the integrity of a game which earns the loyalty and support of millions."


title: Bruce Grobbelaar

text: Grobbelaar was unable to pay the costs and was declared bankrupt. He and Segers did not retire from playing until some time after being cleared of their involvement in the alleged match fixing.


title: Bruce Grobbelaar

text: Grobbelaar moved back to South Africa, his place of birth, where he coached a number of teams with various degrees of success. He managed Seven Stars in 1999 and took the team from the relegation zone to finish fourth in the final league table. In 2001, he took over struggling Hellenic. While at the club, he saved them from relegation, and played in their last match of the season, against Kaizer Chiefs, starting the game, and substituting himself after 20 minutes after cracking his ribs. He was the oldest player ever to have played in the South African league, at 44 years old, until his record was beaten in 2013 by fellow keeper Andre Arendse. He also spent time coaching Supersport United, Manning Rangers (2004) and Umtata Bush Bucks (2004), as well as in Zimbabwe, where he was twice briefly player-manager of Zimbabwe's national team in 1997 and 1998.


title: Bruce Grobbelaar

text: Grobbelaar came back to the United Kingdom briefly to help coach a number of clubs. Grobbelaar has recently stated that he "hopes to one day return to Anfield as the manager of Liverpool FC."


title: Bruce Grobbelaar

text: Grobbelaar returned to England in 2006 to play in a replay of the 1986 FA cup final against Everton for the Marina Dalglish Appeal, a charity for Cancer research set up by former team-mate and manager Kenny Dalglish and his wife, Marina, a cancer survivor. Liverpool won the match 1–0.


title: Bruce Grobbelaar

text: Grobbelaar played in the Sky One's "The Match" in 2004 and "The Match 3" in 2006, keeping a clean sheet in both games.


title: Bruce Grobbelaar

text: Grobbelaar, also known as "Brucie", is still a firm favourite amongst the Anfield faithful, and was voted as No.17 in a poll 100 Players Who Shook The Kop conducted in mid-2006 by the official Liverpool Football Club website. Over 110,000 worldwide voted for their best 10 players in the Anfield club's history, with Grobbelaar finishing 2nd in the goalkeeping stakes.


title: Bruce Grobbelaar

text: In March 2007, Liverpool's official website announced that Grobbelaar would come out of retirement for a one-off game and play for non-league Castleford side Glasshoughton Welfare to help them in their fight for survival. He played against Maltby Main on 14 April 2007, helping Glasshoughton to a 2–1 win.


title: Bruce Grobbelaar

text: On a 16 April 2009 episode of ITV's "Hell's Kitchen", Grobbelaar wore a black armband on his left arm in remembrance of the 20th Anniversary of the Hillsborough disaster. On 22 April, he left the show citing a need to be reunited with his wife.


title: Bruce Grobbelaar

text: He was persuaded to play for Winterbourne United in their Gloucestershire FA Trophy game against Patchway Town on 5 December 2009 but in the end did not make an appearance. Winterbourne at that time were managed by Nicky Tanner, who was a teammate of Grobbelaar at Liverpool.


title: Bruce Grobbelaar

text: As of 2012, Grobbelaar resided in Corner Brook, Newfoundland, Canada, where he was active in the local soccer scene, playing keeper for Corner Brook Men's Soccer League team West Side Monarchs, and occasionally lending his expertise to the Corner Brook Minor Soccer Association as a coach.


title: Bruce Grobbelaar

text: From July 2014 to January 2018, he was the goalkeeping coach for Ottawa Fury FC of the North American Soccer League and subsequently the United Soccer League.


title: Bruce Grobbelaar

text: In May 2018, he became goalkeeping coach for the Matabeleland football team, and on 1 June it was announced that he would join the playing roster for their remaining group games. It was subsequently announced by head coach Justin Walley that he would start in goal against Chagos Islands on 7 June 2018. He later became the goalkeeping coach with Norwegian club Øygarden FK.


title: Geoffrey Zakarian

text: Geoffrey Zakarian (born July 25, 1959) is an American chef, restaurateur, television personality and author. He is the executive chef of several restaurants in New York City, Atlantic City and Miami. He is featured on several television programs on the Food Network, including "Chopped" and "The Next Iron Chef" on which, in 2011, he won the right to join "Iron Chef America".


title: Geoffrey Zakarian

text: Zakarian was born July 25, 1959, in Worcester, Massachusetts, to an Armenian-American father, musician George Zakarian, and a Polish-American mother, Viola (née Hekowicz). He has a sister, Virginia, and brother, George. He graduated from Burncoat High School in 1977. He earned a degree in economics from Worcester State University, and then went to France, where he decided to be a chef.


title: Geoffrey Zakarian

text: He began his culinary career with an associate degree from the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, New York. As an apprentice chef, he began his work under chef Daniel Boulud at "Le Cirque", where he was named "Chef de Cuisine" from 1982 to 1987.


title: Geoffrey Zakarian

text: In 1990, he became the executive chef at "44", a restaurant described by "The New York Times" as "trendy" and "chic", located at the Royalton Hotel in midtown Manhattan. William Grimes, also of "The New York Times", described Zakarian as "the reason that "44" in the Royalton Hotel was always a lot better than it needed to be" in 2001. Previously, in 1992, "44" had received only 2 stars from "The New York Times" columnist Bryan Miller.


title: Geoffrey Zakarian

text: In 1996, he was hired to oversee Old Navy's ill-fated coffee bar and coffee cart division with David Brody of Z100 WHTZ. He then went on to work for the "Blue Door" of the Delano Hotel in South Beach, Miami. In 1998, he became the executive chef at "Patroon" in Manhattan, which was awarded 3 stars (excellent) by "New York Times" critic Ruth Reichl. In the spring of 2000, Zakarian worked with Alain Passard, a renowned French chef at the three-Michelin star restaurant "Arpège" in Paris.


title: Geoffrey Zakarian

text: His style is described as "modern" with roots in French cuisine, or as he describes it, "dynamic American." Zakarian owned two restaurants, "Town" and "Country", both of which are in Manhattan. They have been rated with 3 stars by "The New York Times". His restaurant "Town" was located in the East Side of Midtown Manhattan in the "Chambers Hotel" and opened in Spring 2001 but closed in 2009. "Country" is located in the "Carlton Hotel" near Madison Square Park and opened in 2005. The restaurant has earned a Michelin Star. Zakarian is now a consultant at the Water Club in Atlantic City and executive chef at the Lamb's Club in New York City. The Lambs Club restaurant is not connected in any way to the historical theatre club The Lambs (known as The Lambs Club since 1874).


title: Geoffrey Zakarian

text: In the spring of 2006, Zakarian released his first book, "Geoffrey Zakarian's Town / Country". It was quoted as being "one of the best of 2006" by "The New York Times" columnist Amanda Hesser. The book features 150 recipes for family, friends and "Life Around the Table."


title: Geoffrey Zakarian

text: He is Chairman of the City Harvest Food Council, a food rescue organization dedicated to fighting hunger in New York City.


title: Geoffrey Zakarian

text: In spring 2011, Zakarian filed for personal bankruptcy in response to a class action lawsuit against him by his former employees. The employees alleged he engaged in violations of labor laws and sued for back pay. Two of Zakarian's partners in the related restaurant supported the workers' claims, but Zakarian's publicist denied the claims. The matter was settled out of court.


title: Geoffrey Zakarian

text: In July 2015, Zakarian withdrew from a planned American-style concept restaurant called The National in the Trump International Hotel Washington, D.C., in the wake of controversial comments made by Donald Trump about undocumented immigrants. Trump's statements "do not in any way align with my personal core values," Zakarian said. "We are a nation built from immigrants, my family included." Zakarian was expected to lose a $500,000 lease deposit. Trump sued Zakarian in August 2015 for a sum "in excess of $10 million" for lost rent and other damages. The matter was settled out of court in April 2017.


title: Geoffrey Zakarian

text: He has appeared numerous times on Food Network's "Chopped" series as a judge with fellow restaurateurs Scott Conant, Chris Santos, Aarón Sánchez, Amanda Freitag, Marcus Samuelsson, Marc Murphy, Maneet Chauhan and Alex Guarnaschelli since the show began, and has also appeared in the Food Network's series "24 Hour Restaurant Battle", also as a judge. He has also been on Top Chef as a judge and has appeared in Hell's Kitchen. Zakarian competed as well as a challenger on Iron Chef America in May 2010 where he faced Masaharu Morimoto and lost with a score of 57 to 43. Zakarian was named the winner of The Next Iron Chef in December 2011, defeating Elizabeth Falkner in the season finale. In January 2014, Zakarian became a co-host on the Food Network's series "The Kitchen" along with Jeff Mauro, Katie Lee, Marcela Valladolid and Sunny Anderson. Zakarian has also appeared on "Cutthroat Kitchen" as a judge ("Well, Hot Clam!") and contestant ("Judging Judges"). In 2016, he began hosted the Food Network series "Cooks vs. Cons", where judges try to determine if a winning dish was done by a professional chef or a home cook.


title: Geoffrey Zakarian

text: Zakarian married Margaret Anne Williams, a marketing executive, in 2005. They have two daughters, Anna and Madeline, and one son, George. He was previously married to Heather Karaman for approximately 10 years.


title: Edinburgh Festival Fringe

text: The Edinburgh Festival Fringe (also referred to as The Fringe, Edinburgh Fringe, or Edinburgh Fringe Festival) is the world's largest arts and media festival, which in 2019 spanned 25 days and featured more than 59,600 performances of 3,841 different shows in 322 venues. Established in 1947 as an alternative to (and on the fringe of) the Edinburgh International Festival, it takes place in Edinburgh every August. The Edinburgh Festival Fringe has become a world-leading celebration of arts and culture, surpassed only by the Olympics and the World Cup in terms of global ticketed events. As an event it "has done more to place Edinburgh in the forefront of world cities than anything else" according to historian and former chairman of the board, Michael Dale.


title: Edinburgh Festival Fringe

text: It is an open access (or "unjuried") performing arts festival, meaning there is no selection committee, and anyone may participate, with any type of performance. The official Fringe Programme categorises shows into sections for theatre, comedy, dance, physical theatre, circus, cabaret, children's shows, musicals, opera, music, spoken word, exhibitions, and events. Comedy is the largest section, making up over one-third of the programme, and the one that in modern times has the highest public profile, due in part to the Edinburgh Comedy Awards.


title: Edinburgh Festival Fringe

text: The Festival is supported by the Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society, which publishes the programme, sells tickets to all events from a central physical box office and website, and offers year-round advice and support to performers. The Society's permanent location is at the Fringe Shop on the Royal Mile, and in August they also manage Fringe Central, a separate collection of spaces dedicated to providing support for Fringe participants during their time at the festival.


title: Edinburgh Festival Fringe

text: The Fringe board of directors is drawn from members of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society, many of whom are Fringe participants themselves – performers or venue operators. Elections are held once a year, in August, and Board members serve a term of four years. The Board appoints the Fringe Society's Chief Executive (formerly known as the Fringe Administrator or Director), currently Shona McCarthy who assumed the role in March 2016. The Chief Executive operates under the chair, currently Benny Higgins.


title: Edinburgh Festival Fringe

text: Phoebe Waller-Bridge, whose show Fleabag was performed at the Fringe in 2013, was named President of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society in 2021.


title: Edinburgh Festival Fringe

text: The 2020 Fringe Festival did not go ahead as planned, along with all of the city's other major summer festivals. This came as a result of the COVID-19 outbreak in the early months of the year, with concerns of spreading the virus any further. However, one live show was performed at the 2020 Festival and this was Nathan Cassidy with his stand-up show 'Observational'.


title: Edinburgh Festival Fringe

text: The 2021 festival took place during 6–30 August 2021, though it was much reduced in size, with 528 shows in person and 414 online. The 2022 festival took place from 5–29 August 2022 and marked a return to pre-pandemic levels, with 3,334 shows. Fifty of which were livestreamed for the first time ever since the founding of The Fringe by NextUp Comedy in an effort to stay true to The Fringe Society's 2022 vision of equality and inclusiveness. The 2023 festival will take place from 4–28 August 2023.


title: Edinburgh Festival Fringe

text: The Fringe started life when eight theatre companies turned up uninvited to the inaugural Edinburgh International Festival in 1947. With the International Festival using the city's major venues, these companies took over smaller, alternative venues for their productions. Seven performed in Edinburgh, and one undertook a version of the medieval morality play "Everyman" in Dunfermline Abbey, about 20 miles north, across the River Forth in Fife. These groups aimed to take advantage of the large assembled theatre crowds to showcase their own alternative theatre. Although at the time it was not recognised as such, this was the first Edinburgh Festival Fringe.


title: Edinburgh Festival Fringe

text: This meant that two defining features of the future Fringe were established at the very beginning – the lack of official invitations to perform and the use of unconventional venues. Originally, these groups referred to themselves as the "Festival Adjuncts" and were also referred to as the "semi-official" festival. It was not until the following year, 1948, that Robert Kemp, a Scottish playwright and journalist, is credited with coining the title "Fringe" when he wrote during the second Edinburgh International Festival:


title: Edinburgh Festival Fringe

text: Round the fringe of official Festival drama, there seems to be more private enterprise than before ... I am afraid some of us are not going to be at home during the evenings!


title: Edinburgh Festival Fringe

text: The word "fringe" had in fact been used in a review of "Everyman" in 1947, when a critic remarked it was a shame the show was so far out "on the fringe of the Festival". In 1950, it was still being referred to in similar terms, with a small 'f':


title: Edinburgh Festival Fringe

text: On the fringe of the official Festival there are many praiseworthy "extras," including presentations by the Scottish Community Drama Association and Edinburgh University Dramatic Society – "Dundee Courier", 24 August 1950


title: Edinburgh Festival Fringe

text: Since it was not yet fully developed, much of the early years of the Fringe has gone unrecorded, except through anecdote. It did not benefit from any official organisation until 1951, when students of the University of Edinburgh set up a drop-in centre in the YMCA, where cheap food and a bed for the night were made available to participating groups.


title: Edinburgh Festival Fringe

text: Late night revues, which would become a feature of Fringes, began to appear in the early 50s. The first one was the New Drama Group's "After The Show", a series of sketches taking place after Donald Pleasence's "Ebb Tide", in 1952. Among the talent to appear in early Fringe revues were Ned Sherrin in 1955, and Ken Loach and Dudley Moore with the Oxford Theatre Group in 1958. Due to many reviewers only being able to attend Fringe events late night after the official festival was finished, the Fringe came to be seen as being about revues.


title: Edinburgh Festival Fringe

text: It was a few years before an official programme for the Fringe was created. John Menzies compiled a list of shows under the title "Other Events" in their omnibus festival brochure, but it was printer C.J. Cousland who was the first to publish a listings guide, in 1954. This was funded by participating companies and was entitled "Additional Entertainments", since the name "Fringe" was still not yet in regular usage.


title: Edinburgh Festival Fringe

text: By that year, the Fringe was attracting around a dozen companies, and a meeting was held to discuss creating "a small organisation to act as a brain for the Fringe", or what "The Scotsman" called an "official unofficial festival". A first attempt was made to provide a central booking service in 1955 by students from the university, although it lost money, which was blamed on those who had not taken part.


title: Edinburgh Festival Fringe

text: In 1956, the famous actor Donald Wolfit performed the solo show "The Strong Are Lonely". This was not part of the International Festival, yet nor was it in the Fringe Programme, leading him to question the value of the 'Fringe': "Away with the Fringe. To an artist in the theatre there is no such thing as a fringe of art."


title: Edinburgh Festival Fringe

text: Formal organisation progressed in 1959, with the formation of the Festival Fringe Society. The push for such an organisation was led by Michael Imison, director of Oxford Theatre Group. A constitution was drawn up, in which the policy of not vetting or censoring shows was set out, and the Society produced the first guide to Fringe shows. Nineteen companies participated in the Fringe in that year. By that time it provided a "complete... counter-festival programme" although efforts were still being made to gain publicity through the International Festival programme. The YMCA became established as the first central Fringe ticket office.


title: Edinburgh Festival Fringe

text: Not long after came the first complaints that the Fringe had become too big. Director Gerard Slevin claimed in 1961 that "it would be much better if only ten halls were licensed".


title: Edinburgh Festival Fringe

text: In the 60s and 70s, the Fringe began to establish its reputation for size and variety and the tension between it and the more formal International Festival became of mutual benefit.


title: Edinburgh Festival Fringe

text: The artistic credentials of the Fringe were established by the creators of the Traverse Theatre, John Calder, Jim Haynes and Richard Demarco, in 1963. While their original objective was to maintain something of the Festival atmosphere in Edinburgh all year round, the Traverse Theatre quickly and regularly presented cutting-edge drama to an international audience at both the Edinburgh International Festival and the Fringe during August. It set a standard to which other companies on the Fringe aspired. The Traverse is occasionally referred to as "The Fringe venue that got away", reflecting its current status as a permanent and integral part of the Edinburgh arts scene.


title: Edinburgh Festival Fringe

text: The Pleasance, a venue since the first year of the Fringe, was also important in setting the artistic tone. Christopher Richardson, founder of the Pleasance Theatre Trust, became a major Fringe figure.


title: Edinburgh Festival Fringe

text: John Cairney is credited with pioneering the one-man Fringe show with his show based on Robert Burns, "There Was A Man", in 1965, although Elspeth Douglas Reid had done her "One Woman Theatre" as early as 1955. American Nancy Cole played Gertrude Stein in 1969 and continued to do so until 1985.


title: Edinburgh Festival Fringe

text: Over the first two decades of the Fringe, each performing group used its own performing space, or venue. However, by the late 1960s, the concept of sharing a venue became popular, principally as a means of cutting costs. It soon became common for halls to host up to six or seven different shows per day. The obvious next step was to partition a venue into two or more performing spaces; the majority of today's major venues fit into this category.


title: Edinburgh Festival Fringe

text: For many years, the Fringe Club (variously in the High Street from 1971 and at Teviot Row House from 1981) provided nightly showcases of Fringe fare to allow audiences to sample shows. In its earlier years the club also provided a significant space for after-hours socialising at a time when Edinburgh's strict licensing laws meant a 10pm pub closing time. For a time, the main ticket office was in the University Chaplaincy Centre, and then in the Royal Mile Centre on the High Street. Although the Fringe was now associated with the High Street, areas like the New Town, West End and Morningside were also prominent in this period.


title: Edinburgh Festival Fringe

text: Problems then began to arise as the Fringe became too big for students and volunteers to deal with. Eventually in 1969, the Fringe Society became a constituted body, and in 1970 it employed its first administrator, John Milligan. He started work in January 1971, originally on a part-time basis, but it became clear after a few weeks that the role would have to be permanent. Milligan was responsible for a number of innovations which remain in place today, such as the numbering system for venues and the Fringe map in the brochure, and he was also credited with establishing the co-operative spirit of the Fringe. He left in 1976.


title: Edinburgh Festival Fringe

text: Between 1976 and 1981, under the direction of Alistair Moffat, the number of companies performing rose from 182 to 494, and new venues such as St Columba's in Newington came on board. Moffat also expanded the street performance aspect and brought in sponsorship deals, particularly local breweries. In this way, the Fringe ascended to its current position as the largest arts festival in the world. This was a deliberate policy by Moffat, who found it difficult to promote the Fringe on merit given the Society's position of neutrality. Increasing show numbers was therefore a way of attracting more attention. At this point, the Fringe operated on only two full-time members of staff. In 1977, the office moved to a converted shop and basement at 170 High Street.


title: Edinburgh Festival Fringe

text: The International Festival, now under the direction of John Drummond, became more accommodating towards the Fringe in the late 70s and some successful Fringe performers transferred to perform works at the Festival. These included Richard Crane and Faynia Williams who in 1981 produced a sell-out version of The Brothers Karamazov for the Festival, after having been successful in the Fringe during the 70s.


title: Edinburgh Festival Fringe

text: The early 1980s saw the arrival of the "super-venue" – locations that contained multiple performing spaces. By 1981 when William Burdett-Coutts set up the Assembly Theatre in the empty Georgian building Assembly Rooms on George Street (formerly the EIF Festival Club), the investment in staging, lighting and sound meant that the original amateur or student theatricals were left behind. In the same year, the YMCA in South St Andrew Street, which had been an important venue since the early days, closed. However, the subsequent rise in prominence of the Assembly Rooms meant there was now a balance in the Fringe between the Old Town and the New Town, with Princes Street in the middle.


title: Edinburgh Festival Fringe

text: Fringe Sunday started in the High Street in 1981 and moved, through pressure of popularity, to Holyrood Park in 1983. Fringe Sunday was held on the second Sunday of the Fringe when companies performed for free. Having outgrown even Holyrood Park, this showcase took place on The Meadows and continued until 2008.


title: Edinburgh Festival Fringe

text: 1981 was a watershed for comedy at the Fringe too. It was the first year of the Perrier Awards, which ran until 2005 and are now known as the Edinburgh Comedy Awards. The alternative comedy scene was also beginning to take shape. Previously, comedy at the Fringe had taken the form of student revues. Now stand-up was becoming a feature. According to Alexei Sayle, "The Fringe then was entirely University revues and plays; there was not a single piece of stand-up comedy until me and Tony [Allen] arrived." Comedy began an ascent which would see it become the biggest section of the programme by 2008.


title: Edinburgh Festival Fringe

text: Moffat resigned as the Fringe Society Administrator in 1981 and was succeeded by Michael Dale, who changed the programme layout and helped the Fringe consolidate.


title: Edinburgh Festival Fringe

text: The following year, 1982, The Circuit became a prominent venue. Run by the Actors Touring Company, it had operated in the south side of the city in 1980 and 1981, but in 1982 expanded into a piece of empty ground popularly known as "The Hole in The Ground" near the Usher Hall. This was once the site of a church building (Poole's Synod Hall), which was converted to a cinema, and where the Saltire complex was subsequently built in the early 1990s. The new Traverse Theatre opened here in 1993. It had a 700-seat marquee auditorium, which hosted, among other things, opera, even though the organisers had been told it was no such place for the artform. The venue also took over the nearby Heriot-Watt Students' Association and the Little Lyceum. In total, it hosted 38 companies. The next year it became a "tented village", with several smaller tents. Malcolm Hardee made his debut here as part of The Greatest Show On Legs. In 1982 the enterprise lost £28,000, and in 1983 there were further criticisms related to over-charging, over-crowding and inadequate facilities. The Circuit was not repeated, but it had demonstrated the potential for temporary venues at the Fringe, which are now a familiar sight.


title: Edinburgh Festival Fringe

text: Even with the rise of super venues, there was still theatre done on a shoestring, but several cultural entrepreneurs had raised the stakes to the point where a venue like Aurora (St Stephen's Church, Stockbridge) could hold its head up in any major world festival. However, in 1982, 24% of the Fringe was housed in The Circuit/Assembly, both of which were being commercially marketed, and this attracted complaints, including from Traverse Theatre founder, Richard Demarco, who felt the Fringe should not have allowed either venue. By 1988, there was, according to former Fringe Administrator Michael Dale, a feeling that "smaller venues may lose out, but this case may be overstated... The episode of the super-venues, the Assembly Rooms in particular, has some way to go yet".


title: Edinburgh Festival Fringe

text: Student shows continued to thrive with the National Student Theatre Company, National Youth Music Theatre, Cambridge Mummers, Oxford Theatre Group and Bradford University producing well-received new work. Among professional companies, the Almeida Theatre, ATC, Cheek By Jowl, Cherub, Cliff Hanger, Entertainment Machine, Hull Truck, Kick Theatre, Lumiere and Son, Medieval Players and Trickster were regulars.


title: Edinburgh Festival Fringe

text: In 1983, the Fringe joined with the International Festival, Edinburgh Tattoo and the Film Festival to promote Edinburgh as 'The Festival City' for the first time.


title: Edinburgh Festival Fringe

text: Moffatt believed the growth of the Fringe would stop due to a lack of venues, but just as that limit seemed to be being reached, groups began to find more efficient ways of sharing spaces. Venues could be fully utilised from 10am to 2am, with up to seven different groups throughout the day. The sharing led to the rise of bigger, more centralised venues. Rents increased too, with a venue like Heriot-Watt Students' Union doubling their rent in three years.


title: Edinburgh Festival Fringe

text: In 1986, promoter Karen Koren established The Gilded Balloon as a comedy venue in the former J. & R. Allan's department store on Cowgate. A 3am late licence made it a home for late night socialising for comedians and the raucous late night show "Late 'n' Live" was started there.


title: Edinburgh Festival Fringe

text: In 1988 the Society moved from 170 High Street to expanded headquarters at 158 - 166 High Street on the Royal Mile, with an extension leading back towards the former Wireworks Building. The basement became the new ticket office. Its current headquarters are at 180 High Street.


title: Edinburgh Festival Fringe

text: The Fringe Club ceased operation in 2004, but various venues still provide "the Best of the Fest" and similar.


title: Edinburgh Festival Fringe

text: A computerised booking system was first installed in the early 1990s, allowing tickets to be bought at a number of locations around the city. The internet began to have an impact in 2000 with the launch of the Fringe's official website, which sold over half a million tickets online by 2005. The following year, a Half Price Ticket Tent, run in association with "Metro" newspaper, started offering special ticket prices for different shows each day. This sold 45,000 tickets in its first year.


title: Edinburgh Festival Fringe

text: In 2008, the Fringe faced its biggest crisis so far when the computerised ticketing system failed. The events surrounding the failed box office software led to the resignation of Fringe Director Jon Morgan after only one full year in post. The resultant financial loss suffered by the Fringe Society was estimated at £300,000, which it was forced to meet from its reserves, although other sources report this at £900,000. These events attracted much comment from the UK and world media. More debts emerged as the year went on, and an independent report criticised the Board and the current and previous Fringe Directors for a failure of management and an inability to provide the basic service.


title: Edinburgh Festival Fringe

text: The Board eventually decided that the post of "Director" (instituted in 1992 in lieu of "Fringe Administrator") would be abolished and replaced by a Chief Executive, to reinforce the Fringe head's basic administrative function. A report into the failure was commissioned from accountancy firm Scott-Moncrieff. Several venues now use their own ticketing systems; this is partly due to issues of commissions and how ticket revenue is distributed, but was reinforced by this 2008 failure of the main box office.


title: Edinburgh Festival Fringe

text: The same year, other incidents conspired to add to the negative publicity. Fringe Sunday – a vast free showcase of events held on The Meadows – was cancelled when a sponsor could not be secured. The "Big Four" venues - Assembly, Gilded Balloon, The Pleasance and Underbelly - also decided to market themselves as Edinburgh Comedy Festival, which drew criticism from some quarters.


title: Edinburgh Festival Fringe

text: After an interim period, during which Tim Hawkins, formerly general manager of Brighton Komedia took charge, the established Edinburgh Book Festival and Fringe manager Kath Mainland was appointed in February 2009 to stabilise the situation, becoming the Fringe's first Chief Executive.


title: Edinburgh Festival Fringe

text: Comedy finally surpassed theatre as the biggest section of the programme in 2008, with 660 comedy entries to 599.


title: Edinburgh Festival Fringe

text: In 2009, theSpaceUK launched their multi-space complex at the Royal College of Surgeons. In 2011, a new all-year-round multi-arts festival venue, containing ten performance spaces, opened in the former Royal (Dick) Veterinary School under the name Summerhall.


title: Edinburgh Festival Fringe

text: In 2018, an initiative called Fringe of Colour was founded by Jess Brough in response to what they termed the "overwhelming whiteness" of the Edinburgh Festivals.


title: Edinburgh Festival Fringe

text: In 2016, Shona McCarthy, who had led Derry's term as UK City of Culture, took over from Kath Mainland as Chief Executive.


title: Edinburgh Festival Fringe

text: Along with the other Edinburgh festivals, the Fringe could not go ahead as planned in 2020 due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. The Fringe returned in 2021 with fewer shows and restrictions due to Covid-19 pandemic.


title: Edinburgh Festival Fringe

text: Fringe venues come in all shapes and sizes, with use being made of nearly any viable space that is available, from regular theatres (e.g. the Traverse or Bedlam Theatre), function rooms (e.g. the Assembly Rooms), churches and church halls (e.g. the Quaker Meeting House, Paradise in Augustines), lecture theatres (including the notable George Square Theatre), conference centres, other university rooms and spaces, bars and pubs, temporary structures (The Famous Spiegeltent and the Udderbelly), schools, a public toilet, the back of a taxi, a double-decker bus and even in the audience's own homes.


title: Edinburgh Festival Fringe

text: The groups that operate the venues are also diverse: some are commercial and others not-for-profit; some operate year-round, while others exist only to run venues at the Fringe. Some are local, others are based in London and elsewhere and transfer to Edinburgh for August.


title: Edinburgh Festival Fringe

text: From the performers' perspective, the decision on where to perform is typically based on a mixture of cost, location (close proximity to the main Fringe hubs around the University is seen as an advantage), and the philosophy of the venue – some of whom specialise in amateur, school or college productions, some of whom are semi or wholly professional.


title: Edinburgh Festival Fringe

text: In 2019 there were more than 3,800 shows registered in the programme taking place in 322 different venues.


title: Edinburgh Festival Fringe

text: There also continue to be single, independent venues, sometimes only hosting one show, sometimes only for a limited period.


title: Edinburgh Festival Fringe

text: During the Fringe the pedestrianised area of the High Street around St Giles' Cathedral and the Fringe Office becomes the focal point for theatre companies to hand out flyers, perform scenes from their shows, and attempt to sell tickets. These performances run alongside the Fringe Street Events which feature more than 200 street performers and thousands of buskers on the High Street and Mound Precinct. Many shows are "2 for 1" on the first Monday and Tuesday of the festival and different venues operate independent ticket offers throughout the festival.


title: Edinburgh Festival Fringe

text: Many notable original shows originated at the Fringe and it has helped establish the careers of many writers and performers, including Rowan Atkinson, Steven Berkoff, Jo Brand, Billy Connolly, Ben Elton, Eddie Izzard, Stephen Fry, Stewart Lee, Tim Minchin, and Tadeusz Kantor.


title: Edinburgh Festival Fringe

text: In 1960, Alan Bennett, Dudley Moore, Peter Cook and Jonathan Miller performed at the Royal Lyceum Theatre in "Beyond the Fringe", introducing a new wave of British satire and heralding a change in attitudes towards politicians and the establishment. Ironically, this show was put together by the Edinburgh International Festival as a rebuff to the emerging Fringe. But its title alone helped publicise "the Fringe", especially when it went on to London's West End and New York's Broadway for the next 12 months.


title: Edinburgh Festival Fringe

text: Tom Stoppard's play, "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead" was first performed in its full version at the 1966 Fringe. Noted actor Derek Jacobi starred in a sixth-form production of "Hamlet," which was very well regarded.


title: Edinburgh Festival Fringe

text: During the 1980s, the Fringe attracted a number of major touring companies. Joint Stock Theatre Company, a leading innovative touring company at that time, brought two productions to the Fringe – "The Great Celestial Cow" by Sue Townsend and "Fire in the Lake" by Karim Alrawi.


title: Edinburgh Festival Fringe

text: In 1986, the Fringe saw the break-out performance of Craig Ferguson as "Bing Hitler", a "parody of all the über-patriotic native folk singers who seemed to infect every public performance in Scotland".


title: Edinburgh Festival Fringe

text: In the 21st century, shows that have debuted at the Fringe and then gone on to wider fame (or notoriety) include "Stomp" (theatrical show), "Black Watch" by the National Theatre of Scotland, and "".


title: Edinburgh Festival Fringe

text: 2003 saw a production of "12 Angry Men" staged at the Assembly Rooms using established comedians in the roles of the twelve jurors. Directed and produced by Guy Masterson, it starred Owen O'Neill in the role made famous by Henry Fonda, Juror number eight. Stephen Frost, Phil Nichol and Bill Bailey also featured.


title: Edinburgh Festival Fringe

text: A 2004 version of "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" was beset by problems, including the lead actor Christian Slater contracting chicken pox and the original director, Guy Masterson, quitting the project before it opened. Masterson was replaced by Terry Johnson.


title: Edinburgh Festival Fringe

text: In 2005, a production of Neil Simon's "The Odd Couple" starring Bill Bailey and Alan Davies also directed by Guy Masterson was staged at the Assembly Hall, the meeting place on the Mound of the Church of Scotland. This had been taken over by Assembly Theatre and transformed into an 840-seat theatre.


title: Edinburgh Festival Fringe

text: The Tattoo set-up at Edinburgh Castle served as the 6,000-seat venue for a one-off performance by Ricky Gervais of his stand-up show "Fame" in 2007. Gervais was accused of greed and taking audiences away from smaller shows. Gervais donated the profits from the show to Macmillan Cancer Support.


title: Edinburgh Festival Fringe

text: "Fleabag", which Phoebe Waller-Bridge first performed as a solo show at Underbelly in 2013, later became a TV series. Phoebe Waller-Bridge was later announced as President of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society in 2021.


title: Edinburgh Festival Fringe

text: In 2015, the Sherman/Nicholls original musical production of "Love Birds" made its premiere at The Pleasance.


title: Edinburgh Festival Fringe

text: Hannah Gadsby's show "Nanette" won the 2017 Edinburgh Comedy Award and was credited with challenging stand-up comedy convention. It subsequently developed a worldwide audience via Netflix.


title: Edinburgh Festival Fringe

text: In 2017, Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss’s "Six the Musical" debuted at the Fringe, ahead of a national tour. The show would later go to the West End, then Broadway in 2020.


title: Edinburgh Festival Fringe

text: Arthur Smith, Paul Merton, Barry Cryer and Richard Herring are among the comedians who have performed at more Edinburgh Fringe festivals than anyone else. Arthur Smith has performed regularly at the Festival for over 40 years (since 1977), Paul Merton has been performing regularly at the festival since 1985. Barry Cryer performed at about 25 Edinburgh Fringes (since the 90s) and Richard Herring has performed at 25 Fringes (since 1987). Nicholas Parsons attended the very first Fringe as a 23-year-old in 1947 and hosted his long-standing "Happy Hour" show until his death, aged 96.


title: Edinburgh Festival Fringe

text: The first chair of the board of directors was Lord Grant, a High Court judge, who gave way in 1970 to the actor Andrew Cruickshank. He was succeeded in 1983 by Jonathan Miller, and then by Elizabeth Smith, Baroness Smith (widow of former Labour Leader John Smith). The current chair is Benny Higgins, who succeeded Professor Sir Timothy O'Shea in 2021.


title: Edinburgh Festival Fringe

text: The first full-time Fringe chief was John Milligan, who had worked for the Arts Council and been a researcher with BBC Scotland. He left in 1976 to run the Craigmillar Festival, and was succeeded by Alistair Moffat, who had been involved in running the first St Andrews Festival in 1971 and had organised a small festival in his hometown of Kelso in 1972.


title: Edinburgh Festival Fringe

text: Moffat left in 1981 to become Head of Arts at Scottish Television. He was replaced by Michael Dale, who had worked with Moffat at the St Andrews Festival and was recommended to apply by him. He had worked at the Cambridge Arts Theatre and Young Vic.


title: Edinburgh Festival Fringe

text: Dale departed in 1986 to become Head of Events for the Glasgow Garden Festival and was succeeded by his deputy, Mhairi Mackenzie-Robinson, who left in 1993 to pursue a career in business. Hilary Strong served in the position until 1999, when she then became director of the Greenwich Theatre. She was followed by Paul Gudgin (2000–2007), Jon Morgan (2007–2008) and Kath Mainland (2008–2016). In November 2015, Mainland announced her decision to step down as Chief Executive to take on the role of Executive Director of the Melbourne Festival, and in early 2016 it was announced that her successor would be Shona McCarthy, who had headed up the 2013 Derry-Londonderry UK City of Culture. She took up the position in March 2016.


title: Edinburgh Festival Fringe

text: The Fringe has made the careers of many on the artistic and organisational side of the Fringe. William Burdett-Coutts, Karen Koren, Anthony Alderson and Charlie Wood and Ed Bartlam, the directors of the so-called "Big Four" venues have become well known on the cultural scene.


title: Edinburgh Festival Fringe

text: The Fringe is an open access festival. The role of the Fringe Society is solely to facilitate the festival, concentrating mainly on the challenging logistics of organising such a large event. Alistair Moffat (Fringe administrator 1976–1981) summarised the role of the Society when he said, "As a direct result of the wishes of the participants, the Society had been set up to help the performers that come to Edinburgh and to promote them collectively to the public. It did not come together so that groups could be invited, or in some way artistically vetted. What was performed and how it was done was left entirely to each Fringe group". This approach is now sometimes referred to as an "unjuried festival", "open access arts festival" or a "fringe festival."


title: Edinburgh Festival Fringe

text: Over the years, this approach has led to adverse criticism about the quality of the Fringe. Much of this criticism comes from individual arts critics in national newspapers, hard-line aficionados of the Edinburgh International Festival, and occasionally from the Edinburgh International Festival itself.


title: Edinburgh Festival Fringe

text: The Fringe's own position on this debate may be summed up by Michael Dale (Fringe Administrator 1982–1986) in his book "Sore Throats & Overdrafts", "No-one can say what the quality will be like overall. It does not much matter, actually, for that is not the point of the Fringe ... The Fringe is a forum for ideas and achievement unique in the UK, and in the whole world ... Where else could all this be attempted, let alone work?". Views from the middle ground of this perennial debate point out that the Fringe is not complete artistic anarchy. Some venues do influence or decide on the content of their programme, such as the Traverse and Aurora Nova, who used to run their own venue but are now just a production group.


title: Edinburgh Festival Fringe

text: The Fringe itself at times sprouts a fringe. While the festival is unjuried, participating in the Fringe requires registration, payment of a registration fee,


title: Edinburgh Festival Fringe

text: Thus some artists perform outside the auspices of the Fringe, either individually or as part of a festival or in association with a venue, either outdoors or in non-Fringe venues.


title: Edinburgh Festival Fringe

text: Started by Deborah Pearson in 2007, and continuing in 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2011, under the co-directorship of Andy Field and Pearson, a primary "Fringe of the Fringe" festival was held,


title: Edinburgh Festival Fringe

text: at The Forest, with support from 2008 to 2010 by the Battersea Arts Centre (BAC) and support from several organisations including the Jerwood Foundation and Queen's University in Canada. Its aim was to encourage experimentation by reducing costs to performers – not charging for space, and providing accommodation. The same applied to audiences: all shows being "pay what you can".


title: Edinburgh Festival Fringe

text: In 2022, the festival’s 75th anniversary year, the Fringe Society consulted with stakeholders from across the festival – from artists to venues, residents to government bodies – to create a shared vision and set of values. The vision was “to give anyone a stage and everyone a seat”. Rooted in equality and inclusiveness, it was designed inspire all Fringe stakeholders to pull in the same direction.


title: Edinburgh Festival Fringe

text: Three values were also established to guide the behaviours and decisions of everyone involved with the Fringe. The Fringe Society said they would “live by them, champion them and uphold them where necessary”. The three values are:


title: Edinburgh Festival Fringe

text: The concept of fringe theatre has been copied around the world. The largest and most celebrated of these spawned festivals are Adelaide Fringe (established 1960 and second biggest in the world), National Arts Festival in Machanda, formerly Grahamstown, South Africa (1973), and Edmonton International Fringe Festival (1982). The number of such events continues to grow, particularly in the US and Canada. (In the case of Edinburgh, the Fringe is an addition to the Festival proper, being officially known as the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Where there is no pre-existing Festival to be added to, such as New York International Fringe Festival (est. 1997), the word comes before the word "festival".)


title: Edinburgh Festival Fringe

text: In the field of drama, the Edinburgh Fringe has premièred several plays and musicals, most notably "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead" by Tom Stoppard (1966), "Moscow Stations" (1994), which starred Tom Courtenay, and most recently Six the Musical by Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss (2017). Over the years, it has attracted a number of companies that have made repeated visits to the Fringe, and in doing so helped to set high artistic standards. They have included: the London Club Theatre Group (1950s), Scotland (1970s), the Children's Music Theatre, later the National Youth Music Theatre under Jeremy James Taylor, the National Student Theatre Company (from the 1970s), Communicado (1980s and 1990s), Red Shift (1990s), Grid Iron and Fitchburg State University. The Fringe is also the staging ground of the American High School Theatre Festival.


title: Edinburgh Festival Fringe

text: In the field of comedy, the Fringe has provided a platform that has allowed the careers of many performers to bloom. In the 1960s, various members of the Monty Python team appeared in student productions, as subsequently did Rowan Atkinson, Stephen Fry, Hugh Laurie and Emma Thompson, the latter three with the 1981 Cambridge Footlights. Atkinson was at Oxford. Notable companies in the 1980s have included Complicite and the National Theatre of Brent. More recent comedy performers to have been 'discovered' include Rory Bremner, Fascinating Aïda, Reduced Shakespeare Company, Steve Coogan, Jenny Eclair, The League of Gentlemen, Flight of the Conchords, Al Murray and Rich Hall.


title: Edinburgh Festival Fringe

text: Many performers have spoken highly of the Fringe, and the effect it has had on their career. Magician Paul Daniels first appeared at the Fringe in the twilight of his career in 2013, and commented, 'I've become Edinburgh's publicity agent. I tell everybody, "You've got to be in it."'


title: Edinburgh Festival Fringe

text: The freedom to put on any show has led periodically to controversy when individual tastes in sexual explicitness or religion have been contravened. This has brought some into conflict with local city councillors. There have been occasional performing groups that have deliberately tried to provoke controversy as a means of advertising their shows, and this has led to censorship of sexual explicitness in such shows. Organisers continued to defend the festival's role as an open platform when they contacted controversial YouTuber Mark Meechan to request that he clarify the fact that he had not been banned, which ran contrary to the punch line of one of his jokes.


title: Edinburgh Festival Fringe

text: In the mid-1990s, only the occasional top show charged £10 per seat, while the average price was £5–£7; in 2006, prices were frequently over £10, and reached £20 for the first time in 2006, for a one-hour show. Reasons people put forward for the increases include: increasing costs of hiring large venues, theatre licences and related costs—and the price of accommodation, which is expensive for performers as well as for audiences.


title: Edinburgh Festival Fringe

text: In the early 21st century, two organisations — The Free Fringe and The Laughing Horse Free Edinburgh Fringe Festival — introduced free entry shows that collect donations at the end of each performance. 22 shows came under this banner in 2005, growing rapidly to over 600 in 2011. There was also the "pay what you can" model of the Forest Fringe, and "Pay What You Want" as introduced by Bob Slayer's Heroes of Fringe discussed above.


title: Edinburgh Festival Fringe

text: In 2012, Michael McIntyre was criticised for charging £31 per ticket for a self-described 'work-in-progress' show. In the same year similarly famous Harry Hill performed 'work-in-progress' shows at the Fringe for just £15 a ticket.


title: Edinburgh Festival Fringe

text: Putting on a show at the Fringe with the big venues can be costly to performers, due to registration fees, venue hire, cost of accommodation, and travel to Edinburgh. In recent years venue costs and the need for expensive marketing have been increasingly challenged by Free and other Independent venues. There is a change happening at the Fringe and performers can increasingly negotiate with the big venues. The festival is also a networking opportunity, training ground or springboard for future career advancement, and exciting and fun for performers as well as spectators.


title: Edinburgh Festival Fringe

text: Putting on shows is costly to venues as well, due to theatre licence fees which by 2009 had risen 800% in the preceding three years, and were eight times as high as fees in English cities, starting at £824 for a venue of up to 200 people and rising to £2,472 for a venue of up to 5,000 people. These fees have been cited as punitive to smaller venues and site-specific performances by such figures as Julian Caddy, which in 2009 featured site-specific shows in such venues as Inchcolm island and a swimming pool at the Apex International Hotel.


title: Edinburgh Festival Fringe

text: In 2012, there was criticism of the increasing commercialism of the Pay-To-Play fringe venues who charge acts to perform in advance of the Fringe. In many cases venue costs such as: venue rents / guarantees, compulsory marketing and various deductions mean that performers are being charged more than they can make back in ticket sales.


title: Edinburgh Festival Fringe

text: Stewart Lee stated in "The Guardian": "For decades, the Fringe has been a utopia for artists and performers – but now profit-obsessed promoters are tearing it to pieces." Heroes of Fringe (Previously called The Alternative Fringe) was set up by Bob Slayer as a statement against Pay-To-Play venues.


title: Edinburgh Festival Fringe

text: Some Fringe commentators agree that the Fringe will have to change and that the independent promoters are leading that change.


title: Edinburgh Festival Fringe

text: The comedy section has grown over recent decades to become the biggest section of the programme. The 2008 Fringe marked the first time that comedy has made up the largest category of entertainment. This has led to criticism that it has changed the nature of the Fringe, and separated it from its roots. Richard DeMarco has complained of "an infestation of stand-up comics... an epidemic for which there is no cure", which "overwhelms the possibility of serious theatre". Others have commented that a large proportion of newer audiences are drawn almost exclusively to stand-up comics (particularly to television comedy stars in famous venues), and that they are starting to regard non-comedy events as "peripheral".


title: Edinburgh Festival Fringe

text: In July 2017, a campaign was set up to raise awareness of and challenge alleged poor working conditions during the Fringe. The campaign received support from the City of Edinburgh Council and Unite the Union, among others. In February 2019, Shona McCarthy, chief executive of the Fringe Society, stated that "producers and promoters were being unfairly vilified [by the campaign]".


title: Edinburgh Festival Fringe

text: For many groups at the Fringe, the ultimate goal is a favourable review—which, apart from the welcome kudos, may help minimise financial losses from putting on the show.


title: Edinburgh Festival Fringe

text: Edinburgh based newspaper "The Scotsman" has been integral to the Fringe since the start, and has become known for its comprehensive festival coverage in August. Originally, it aimed to review every show on the Fringe. Now they are more selective, as there are simply too many shows to cover, although they do see almost every new play being staged as part of the Fringe's theatre programme, because of their Fringe First awards. For many years, the Scotsman's Arts Editor, Allen Wright was a familiar figure at the Fringe and today, the young critics' award is named in his honour.


title: Edinburgh Festival Fringe

text: Other Scottish media outlets that provide coverage include: "The Herald", "Scotland on Sunday", "Sunday Herald" and the Scottish edition of "Metro". Scottish arts and entertainment magazines "The List", "The Skinny" and "Fest Magazine" also provide extensive coverage.


title: Edinburgh Festival Fringe

text: From the 1990s onwards, Fringe-specific publications emerged. "ThreeWeeks" was founded in 1996, and "Fest" followed a few years later. After the turn of the millennium, these were joined by online publications, some of which specialised in the Fringe, some of which had a broader remit. These include "Chortle" (2000), "Broadway Baby" (2004), "Fringe Review" (2006), "Fringe Guru" (2007) and "The Wee Review" (2008 as "TV Bomb"). The latter two merged in 2019.


title: Edinburgh Festival Fringe

text: The now defunct Festival Media Network was founded in 2010 to act as a trade organisation for these independent media. Its members were "Broadway Baby", "Festival Previews", "Fringe Guru", "Fringe Review", "Hairline", "iFringe", "ThreeWeeks", "The Podcast Network", and "WhatsOnStage".


title: Edinburgh Festival Fringe

text: In 2012, the most prolific reviewers were Broadway Baby which published over 1900 reviews, "ThreeWeeks", which published 1000 reviews during August, and "The Scotsman" with 826 reviews. "The List" published 480 reviews. By 2019, "The Scotsman" was once again the most prolific reviewer, followed by "The Wee Review".


title: Edinburgh Festival Fringe

text: Most of the London-based broadsheets also review, in particular "The Guardian" and "The Independent", while arts industry weekly "The Stage" publish a large number of Edinburgh reviews, especially of the drama programme.


title: Edinburgh Festival Fringe

text: Since 2010, the British Comedy Guide has collated comedy reviews from as many publications as possible. In 2018, it gathered over 4,700 reviews from 135 publications, up from 4,300 from 83 different publications in 2014.


title: Edinburgh Festival Fringe

text: The first Fringe featured eight companies performing in five venues. By 1959, there were 19 companies; by 1969, 57; by 1979, 324. In 1981, there were 494, and the growth of the festival began to slow. But by 1999, there were over 600 companies giving 15,000 performances and in 2010, 1,900 giving 40,000.


title: Edinburgh Festival Fringe

text: Statistics for 2011 Edinburgh Festival Fringe concluded that it was the largest on record: there were over 40,000 performances of over 2,500 different shows in 258 venues. Ticket sales amounted to around 1.8 million. There are now 12 full-time members of staff.


title: Edinburgh Festival Fringe

text: Of the shows, theatre had been the largest genre in terms of number of shows until 2008, when it was overtaken by comedy, which has been the major growth area over the last 20 years. At the 2015 Fringe comedy was the biggest artform by number of shows, followed by theatre. The exact breakdown was: 34% comedy, 27% theatre, 14% music, 5% children's shows, 4% each cabaret/variety, dance/circus/physical theatre, spoken word, events, 3% musicals/opera, 2% exhibitions.


title: Edinburgh Festival Fringe

text: The 2015 Fringe issued an estimated 2,298,090 tickets for 50,459 performances of 3,314 shows in 313 venues over 25 days; the 2016 Fringe issued an estimated 2,475,143 tickets for 50,266 performances of 3,269 shows; and the 2017 Fringe 2,696,884 tickets for 53,232 performances of 3,398 shows.


title: Edinburgh Festival Fringe

text: In addition to ticketed, programmed events, the Fringe Street Events is run each day of the festival, primarily on the Royal Mile and at the Mound Precinct.


title: ArcGIS

text: ArcGIS is a family of client, server and online geographic information system (GIS) software developed and maintained by Esri. ArcGIS was first released in 1999 and originally was released as ARC/INFO, a command line based GIS system for manipulating data. ARC/INFO was later merged into ArcGIS Desktop, which was eventually superseded by ArcGIS Pro in 2015. ArcGIS Pro works in 2D and 3D for cartography and visualization, and includes artificial Intelligence (AI).


title: ArcGIS

text: Prior to the ArcGIS suite, Esri had focused its software development on the command line Arc/INFO workstation program and several Graphical User Interface-based products such as the ArcView GIS 3.x desktop program. Other Esri products included MapObjects, a programming library for developers, and ArcSDE as a relational database management system. The various products had branched out into multiple source trees and did not integrate well with one another. In January 1997, Esri decided to revamp its GIS software platform, creating a single integrated software architecture.


title: ArcGIS

text: In late 1999, Esri released ArcMap 8.0, which ran on the Microsoft Windows operating system. ArcGIS combined the visual user-interface aspect of ArcView GIS 3.x interface with some of the power from the Arc/INFO version 7.2 workstation. This pairing resulted in a new software suite called ArcGIS including the command-line ArcInfo workstation (v8.0) and a new graphical user interface application called ArcMap (v8.0). This ArcMAP incorporating some of the functionality of ArcInfo with a more intuitive interface, as well as a file management application called ArcCatalog (v8.0). The release of the ArcMap constituted a major change in Esri's software offerings, aligning all their client and server products under one software architecture known as ArcGIS, developed using Microsoft Windows COM standards. While the interface and names of ArcMap 8.0 are similar to later versions of ArcGIS Desktop, they are different products. ArcGIS 8.1 replaced ArcMap 8.0 in the product line but was not an update to it.


title: ArcGIS

text: ArcGIS 8.1 was unveiled at the Esri International User Conference in 2000. ArcGIS 8.1 was officially released on April 24, 2001. This new application included three extensions: 3D Analyst, Spatial Analyst, and GeoStatistical Analyst. These three extension had become very powerful and popular in ArcView GIS 3.x product line. ArcGIS 8.1 also added the ability to access data online, directly from the Geography Network site or other ArcIMS map services. ArcGIS 8.3 was introduced in 2002, adding topology to geodatabases, which was a feature originally available only with ArcInfo coverages.


title: ArcGIS

text: One major difference is the programming (scripting) languages available to customize or extend the software to suit particular user needs. In the transition to ArcGIS, Esri dropped support of its application-specific scripting languages, Avenue and the ARC Macro Language (AML), in favour of Visual Basic for Applications scripting and open access to ArcGIS components using the Microsoft COM standards. ArcGIS is designed to store data in a proprietary RDBMS format, known as geodatabase. ArcGIS 8.x introduced other new features, including on-the-fly map projections, and annotation in the database.


title: ArcGIS

text: ArcGIS 9 was released in May 2004, which included ArcGIS Server and ArcGIS Engine for developers. The ArcGIS 9 release includes a "geoprocessing" environment that allows execution of traditional GIS processing tools (such as clipping, overlay, and spatial analysis) interactively or from any scripting language that supports COM standards. Although the most popular of these is Python, others have been used, especially Perl and VBScript. ArcGIS 9 includes a visual programming environment, similar to ERDAS IMAGINE's Model Maker (released in 1994, v8.0.2). The Esri version is called ModelBuilder and as does the ERDAS IMAGINE version allows users to graphically link geoprocessing tools into new tools called "models." These models can be executed directly or exported to scripting languages which can then execute in batch mode (launched from a command line), or they can undergo further editing to add branching or looping.


title: ArcGIS

text: On June 26, 2008, Esri released ArcGIS 9.3. The new version of ArcGIS Desktop has new modeling tools and geostatistical error tracking features, while ArcGIS Server has improved performance, and support for role-based security. There also are new JavaScript APIs that can be used to create mashups, and integrated with either Google Maps or Microsoft Virtual Earth.


title: ArcGIS

text: At the 2008 Esri Developers Summit, there was little emphasis on ArcIMS, except for one session on transitioning from ArcIMS to ArcGIS Server-based applications, indicating a change in focus for Esri with ArcGIS 9.3 for web-based mapping applications.


title: ArcGIS

text: In May 2009, Esri released ArcGIS 9.3.1, which improved the performance of dynamic map publishing and introduced better sharing of geographic information.


title: ArcGIS

text: In 2010, Esri announced that the prospective version 9.4 would become version 10 and would ship in the second quarter of 2010.


title: ArcGIS

text: On October 21, 2020 Esri publicly announced that this would be the last release of ArcGIS Desktop. Its products, including ArcMap, will be supported until March 1, 2026. This announcement confirmed predictions that ArcGIS Pro (and related products) was planned to be a complete replacement for ArcMap.


title: ArcGIS

text: ArcGIS Server 11 was released on June 23, 2022 just prior to the annual User Conference held in San Diego. ArcGIS Server 11.0 does not support any ArcGIS 10.x and older products and was also accompanied by the release of ArcGIS Pro 3.0.


title: ArcGIS

text: ArcGIS Pro is a 64-bit GIS software that is the more modern version of ArcGIS Desktop. Unlike ArcGIS Desktop, the ArcCatalog and ArcMap functionalities are accessed through the same application, most commonly through the Catalog pane. The graphics requirements for ArcGIS Pro are considerably higher than for ArcGIS Desktop in order to support the upgraded visualization. ArcGIS Pro also supports streamlined workflows that involve publishing and consuming feature layers using ArcGIS Online. With the release of ArcGIS Pro 3.0 in June, 2022 all *.aprx project files can be read by version 3.0; however, if the project is saved it will render the project file to be incompatible with version 2.9.x and earlier.


title: ArcGIS

text: Older Esri products, including ArcView 3.x, worked with data in the shapefile format. ArcInfo Workstation handled coverages, which stored topology information about the spatial data. Coverages, which were introduced in 1981 when ArcInfo was first released, have limitations in how they handle types of features. Some features, such as roads with street intersections or overpasses and underpasses, should be handled differently from other types of features.


title: ArcGIS

text: ArcGIS is built around a geodatabase, which uses an object–relational database approach for storing spatial data. A geodatabase is a "container" for holding datasets, tying together the spatial features with attributes. The geodatabase can also contain topology information, and can model behavior of features, such as road intersections, with rules on how features relate to one another. When working with geodatabases, it is important to understand feature classes which are a set of features, represented with points, lines, or polygons. With shapefiles, each file can only handle one type of feature. A geodatabase can store multiple feature classes or type of features within one file.


title: ArcGIS

text: Geodatabases in ArcGIS can be stored in three different ways – as a "file geodatabase", a "personal geodatabase", or an "enterprise geodatabase" (formerly known as an SDE or ArcSDE geodatabase). Introduced at 9.2, the file geodatabase stores information in a folder named with a .gdb extension. The insides look similar to that of a coverage but is not, in fact, a coverage. Similar to the personal geodatabase, the file geodatabase only supports a single editor. However, unlike the personal geodatabase, there is virtually no size limit. By default, any single table cannot exceed 1TB, but this can be changed. Personal geodatabases store data in Microsoft Access files, using a BLOB field to store the geometry data. The OGR library is able to handle this file type, to convert it to other file formats. Database administration tasks for personal geodatabases, such as managing users and creating backups, can be done through ArcCatalog and ArcGIS Pro. Personal geodatabases, which are based on Microsoft Access, run only on Microsoft Windows and have a 2 gigabyte size limit. Enterprise (multi-user) geodatabases sit on top of high-end DBMS such as PostgreSQL, Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server, IBM Db2 and Informix to handle database management aspects, while ArcGIS deals with spatial data management. Enterprise level geodatabases support database replication, versioning and transaction management, and are cross-platform compatible, able to run on Linux, Windows, and Solaris.


title: ArcGIS

text: Also released at 9.2 is the personal SDE database that operates with SQL Server Express. Personal SDE databases do not support multi-user editing, but do support versioning and disconnected editing. Microsoft limits SQL Server Express databases to 4GB.


title: ArcGIS

text: ArcGIS Pro (which is a 64-bit application) does not support the personal geodatabase format but can convert them into supported formats using geoprocessing tools.


title: ArcGIS

text: Other desktop GIS software include ArcGIS Explorer and ArcGIS Engine. ArcGIS Explorer is a GIS viewer which can work as a client for ArcGIS Server, ArcIMS, ArcWeb Services and Web Map Service (WMS).


title: ArcGIS

text: ArcGIS Desktop consists of several integrated applications, including ArcMap, ArcCatalog, ArcToolbox, ArcScene, ArcGlobe, and ArcGIS Pro. ArcCatalog is the data management application, used to browse datasets and files on one's computer, database, or other sources. In addition to showing what data is available, ArcCatalog also allows users to preview the data on a map. ArcCatalog also provides the ability to view and manage metadata for spatial datasets. ArcMap is the application used to view, edit and query geospatial data, and create maps. The ArcMap interface has two main sections, including a table of contents on the left and the data frames which display the map. Items in the table of contents correspond with layers on the map. ArcToolbox contains geoprocessing, data conversion, and analysis tools, along with much of the functionality in ArcInfo. It is also possible to use batch processing with ArcToolbox, for frequently repeated tasks. ArcScene is an application which allows the user to view their GIS data in 3-D and is available with the 3D Analyst License. In the layer properties of ArcScene there is an Extrusion function which allows the user to exaggerate features three dimension-ally. ArcGlobe is another one of ArcGIS's 3D visualization applications available with the 3D Analyst License. ArcGlobe is a 3D visualization application that allows you to view large amounts of GIS data on a globe surface. The ArcGIS Pro application was added to ArcGIS Desktop in 2015 February. It had the combined capabilities of the other integrated applications and was built as a fully 64-bit software application. ArcGIS Pro has ArcPy Python scripting for database programming.


title: ArcGIS

text: There are a number of software extensions that can be added to ArcGIS Desktop that provide added functionality, including 3D Analyst, Spatial Analyst, Network Analyst, Survey Analyst, Tracking Analyst, and Geostatistical Analyst. Advanced map labeling is available with the Maplex extension, as an add-on to ArcView and ArcEditor and is bundled with ArcInfo. Numerous extensions have also been developed by third parties, such as the MapSpeller spell-checker, ST-Links PgMap, XTools Pro and MAP2PDF for creating georeferenced pdfs (GeoPDF), ERDAS' Image Analysis and Stereo Analyst for ArcGIS, and ISM's PurVIEW, which converts Arc- desktops into precise stereo-viewing windows to work with geo-referenced stereoscopic image models for accurate geodatabase-direct editing or feature digitizing.


title: ArcGIS

text: An address locator is a dataset in ArcGIS that stores the address attributes, associated indexes, and rules that define the process for translating nonspatial descriptions of places, such as street addresses, into spatial data that can be displayed as features on a map. An address locator contains a snapshot of the reference data used for geocoding, and parameters for standardizing addresses, searching for match locations, and creating output. Address locator files have a .loc file extension. In ArcGIS 8.3 and previous versions, an address locator was called a geocoding service.


title: ArcGIS

text: ArcGIS Mobile and ArcPad are products designed for mobile devices. ArcGIS Mobile is a software development kit for developers to use to create applications for mobile devices, such as smartphones or tablet PCs. If connected to the Internet, mobile applications can connect to ArcGIS Server to access or update data. ArcGIS Mobile is only available at the Enterprise level.


title: ArcGIS

text: Server GIS products include ArcIMS (web mapping server), ArcGIS Server and ArcGIS Image Server. As with ArcGIS Desktop, ArcGIS Server is available at different product levels, including Basic, Standard, and Advanced Editions. ArcGIS Server comes with SQL Server Express DBMS embedded and can work with enterprise DBMS such as SQL Server Enterprise and Oracle. The Esri Developer Network (EDN) includes ArcObjects and other tools for building custom software applications, and ArcGIS Engine provides a programming interface for developers.


title: ArcGIS

text: The ArcGIS Engine is an ArcGIS software engine, a developer product for creating custom GIS desktop applications.


title: ArcGIS

text: ArcGIS Engine provides application programming interfaces (APIs) for COM, .NET, Java, and C++ for the Windows, Linux, and Solaris platforms. The APIs include documentation and a series of high-level visual components to ease building ArcGIS applications.


title: ArcGIS

text: ArcGIS Engine includes the core set of components, ArcObjects, from which ArcGIS Desktop products are built. With ArcGIS Engine one can build stand-alone applications or extend existing applications for both GIS and non-GIS users. The ArcGIS Engine distribution additionally includes utilities, samples, and documentation.


title: ArcGIS

text: ArcGIS Desktop products and ArcPad are available with a single-use license. Most products are also available with concurrent-use license, while development server licenses and other types of software licenses are available for other products. Single-use products can be purchased online from the Esri Store, while all ArcGIS products are available through a sales representative or reseller. Annual software maintenance and support is also available for ArcGIS. While there are alternative products available from vendors such as MapInfo, Maptitude, AutoCAD Map 3D and open-source QGIS, Esri has a dominant share of the GIS software market, estimated in 2015 at 43%.


title: ArcGIS

text: Issues with ArcGIS include perceived high prices for the products, proprietary formats, and difficulties of porting data between Esri and other GIS software.


title: ArcGIS

text: Esri's transition to the ArcGIS platform, starting with the 1999 release of ArcGIS 8.0, rendered incompatible an extensive range of user-developed and third-party add-on software and scripts. A minority user base resists migrating to ArcGIS because of changes in scripting capability, functionality, operating system (Esri developed ArcGIS Desktop software exclusively for the Microsoft Windows operating system), as well as the significantly larger system resources required by the ArcGIS software.


title: Kazuki Takahashi

text: , known professionally as , was a Japanese manga artist. He made his serial manga debut in 1986, and is best known as the author of "Yu-Gi-Oh!", published in "Weekly Shōnen Jump" from 1996 to 2004. The manga spawned a popular trading card game of the same name, which holds the Guinness World Record for the best-selling trading card game to date.


title: Kazuki Takahashi

text: In 1981, Takahashi's one-shot manga "Ing! Love Ball", submitted under the pen name , won the Shogakukan New Comic Award and was published in "Weekly Shōnen Sunday" in the same year. His serial debut was in 1986 with "Go-Q-Choji Ikkiman", an adaptation of the TV sports anime of the same name, published in Kodansha's "Weekly Shōnen Magazine". In 1990, his one-shot "Tokio no Taka" was published in Shueisha's "Weekly Shōnen Jump". Another manga, "Tennenshoku Danji Buray", was published in the magazine from 1991 to 1992. In a 2002 interview, Takahashi later called much of his early manga work a "total flop".


title: Kazuki Takahashi

text: In 1996, Takahashi launched "Yu-Gi-Oh!" under the pen name "Kazuki Takahashi" in "Weekly Shōnen Jump", where it was serialized until 2004. The series became a huge success and has sold more than 40 million copies. The series has also received several media adaptations, notably an anime television series and a trading card game developed by Konami, which holds the Guinness World Record for the best-selling trading card game in history, with more than 25.1 billion cards sold as of 2011. Takahashi continued to supervise the "Yu-Gi-Oh!" franchise following the end of the original manga's run.


title: Kazuki Takahashi

text: In 2013, his one-shot manga "Drump" was released in "Weekly Shōnen Jump". In 2015, Takahashi received the Inkpot Award from Comic-Con International for his outstanding contributions to comics. In 2018, Takahashi published the limited series "The Comiq" in "Weekly Shōnen Jump". Takahashi also wrote a two-part manga, titled "Secret Reverse", for the "Marvel × Shōnen Jump+ Super Collaboration", which was released on "Shōnen Jump+" in September 2019.


title: Kazuki Takahashi

text: Takahashi liked to play games such as shogi, mahjong, card games, and tabletop role-playing games. In an interview with "Shonen Jump", Takahashi stated that his favorite manga from other authors included "Akira" by Katsuhiro Otomo, "JoJo's Bizarre Adventure" by Hirohiko Araki, and "Dragon Ball" by Akira Toriyama. He also enjoyed reading American comics, with Hellboy being his favorite American comic book character. His pet dog, a shiba inu named , was the basis for the "Yu-Gi-Oh!" Trading Card Game monster card ; the card's artwork was personally drawn by Takahashi.


title: Kazuki Takahashi

text: He occasionally expressed political opinions with his art. For instance, he once posted a drawing on Instagram of "Yu-Gi-Oh!" characters criticizing the Shinzo Abe government and asking his followers to "vote for justice" in the 2019 House of Councillors election, for which he later apologized.


title: Kazuki Takahashi

text: On July 6, 2022, Takahashi was found dead in the water off the shore of Nago, Okinawa, by Japan Coast Guard officers following a civilian report from a passing boat. He was found wearing snorkeling gear, and his cause of death was determined to be drowning.


title: Kazuki Takahashi

text: It was subsequently reported, first in the American military newspaper "Stars and Stripes" on October 11, that Takahashi had died in the afternoon of July 4 while assisting in the rescue of three others who were caught in a rip current.


title: 1983 Beirut barracks bombings

text: Early on a Sunday morning, October 23, 1983, two truck bombs struck buildings in Beirut, Lebanon, housing American and French service members of the Multinational Force in Lebanon (MNF), a military peacekeeping operation during the Lebanese Civil War. The attack killed 307 people: 241 U.S. and 58 French military personnel, six civilians, and two attackers.


title: 1983 Beirut barracks bombings

text: The first suicide bomber detonated a truck bomb at the building serving as a barracks for the 1st Battalion 8th Marines (Battalion Landing Team – BLT 1/8) of the 2nd Marine Division, killing 220 marines, 18 sailors and three soldiers, making this incident the deadliest single-day death toll for the United States Marine Corps since the Battle of Iwo Jima in World War II and the deadliest single-day death toll for the United States Armed Forces since the first day of the Tet Offensive in the Vietnam War. Another 128 Americans were wounded in the blast; 13 later died of their injuries, and they are counted among the number who died. An elderly Lebanese man, a custodian/vendor who was known to work and sleep in his concession stand next to the building, was also killed in the first blast. The explosives used were later estimated to be equivalent to as much as 9,500 kg (21,000 pounds) of TNT.


title: 1983 Beirut barracks bombings

text: Minutes later, a second suicide bomber struck the nine-story "Drakkar" building, a few kilometers away, where the French contingent was stationed; 55 paratroopers from the 1st Parachute Chasseur Regiment and three paratroopers of the 9th Parachute Chasseur Regiment were killed and 15 injured. It was the single worst French military loss since the end of the Algerian War. The wife and four children of a Lebanese janitor at the French building were also killed, and more than twenty other Lebanese civilians were injured.


title: 1983 Beirut barracks bombings

text: A group called Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the bombings and said that the aim was to force the MNF out of Lebanon. According to Caspar Weinberger, then United States Secretary of Defense, there is no knowledge of who did the bombing. Some analysis highlights the role of Hezbollah and Iran, calling it "an Iranian operation from top to bottom". There is no consensus on whether Hezbollah existed at the time of bombing. The attacks eventually led to the withdrawal of the international peacekeeping force from Lebanon, where they had been stationed following the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) withdrawal in the aftermath of Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon.


title: 1983 Beirut barracks bombings

text: On June 6, 1982, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) initiated Operation "Peace for Galilee" and invaded Lebanon in order to create a 40 km buffer zone between the PLO and Syrian forces in Lebanon and Israel. The Israeli invasion was tacitly approved by the U.S., and the U.S. provided overt military support to Israel in the form of arms and materiel. The U.S.' support for Israel's invasion of Lebanon taken in conjunction with U.S. support for Lebanese President Bachir Gemayel and the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) alienated many. Bachir Gemayel was the legally elected president, but he was a partisan Maronite Christian and covert associate of Israel. These factors served to disaffect the Lebanese Muslim and Druze communities. This animosity was made worse by the Phalangist, a right-wing, largely Maronite-Lebanese militia force closely associated with President Gemayel. The Phalangist militia was responsible for multiple, bloody attacks against the Muslim and Druze communities in Lebanon and for the 1982 atrocities committed in the PLO refugee camps, Sabra and Shatila by Lebanese Forces (LF), while the IDF provided security and looked on. The Phalangist militia's attacks on Sabra and Shatila were purportedly a response to the September 14, 1982, assassination of President-elect Bachir Gemayel. Amine Gemayel, Bachir's brother, succeeded Bachir as the elected president of Lebanon, and Amine continued to represent and advance Maronite interests.


title: 1983 Beirut barracks bombings

text: All of this, according to British foreign correspondent Robert Fisk, served to generate ill will against the MNF among Lebanese Muslims and especially among the Shiites living in the slums of West Beirut. Lebanese Muslims believed the MNF, and the Americans in particular, were unfairly siding with the Maronite Christians in their attempt to dominate Lebanon. As a result, this led to artillery, mortar, and small arms fire being directed at MNF peacekeepers by Muslim factions. Operating under the peacetime rules of engagement, MNF peacekeepers – primarily U.S. and French forces – used minimum use of force as possible in order to avoid compromising their neutral status. Until October 23, 1983, there were ten guidelines issued for each U.S. marine member of the MNF:


title: 1983 Beirut barracks bombings

text: The perimeter guards at the U.S. Marine headquarters on the morning of October 23, 1983, were in full compliance with rules 1–3 and were unable to shoot fast enough to disable or stop the bomber (see below).


title: 1983 Beirut barracks bombings

text: In 1982, the Islamic Republic of Iran established a base in the Syrian-controlled Beqaa Valley in Lebanon. From that base, Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) "founded, financed, trained and equipped Hezbollah to operate as a proxy army" for Iran. Some analysts believe the newly formed Islamic Republic of Iran was heavily involved in the bomb attacks and that a major factor leading it to orchestrate the attacks on the barracks was America's support for Iraq in the Iran–Iraq War and its extending of $2.5 billion in trade credit to Iraq while halting the shipments of arms to Iran. A few weeks before the bombing, Iran warned that providing armaments to Iran's enemies would provoke retaliatory punishment. On September 26, 1983, "the National Security Agency (NSA) intercepted an Iranian diplomatic communications message from the Iranian intelligence agency, the Ministry of Information and Security (MOIS)," to its ambassador, Ali Akbar Mohtashemi, in Damascus. The message directed the ambassador to "take spectacular action against the American Marines." The intercepted message, dated September 26, would not be passed to the Marines until October 26: three days after the bombing.


title: 1983 Beirut barracks bombings

text: Much of what is now public knowledge of Iranian involvement, e.g., PETN purportedly supplied by Iran, the suicide bomber's name and nationality, etc., in the bombings was not revealed to the public until the 2003 trial, "Peterson, et al v. Islamic Republic, et al". Testimony by Admiral James "Ace" Lyon's, U.S.N. (Ret), and FBI forensic explosive investigator Danny A. Defenbaugh, plus a deposition by a Hezbollah operative named Mahmoud (a pseudonym) were particularly revealing.


title: 1983 Beirut barracks bombings

text: On July 14, 1983, a Lebanese Armed Forces patrol was ambushed by Lebanese Druze militia elements and from July 15–17, Lebanese troops engaged the Shia Amal militia in Beirut over a dispute involving the eviction of Shiite squatters from a schoolhouse. At the same time, fighting in the Shuf between the LAF and Druze militia escalated sharply. On July 22, Beirut International Airport (BIA), the headquarters of the U.S. 24th Marine Amphibious Unit (24th MAU), was shelled with Druze mortar and artillery fire, wounding three U.S. marines and causing the temporary closure of the airport.


title: 1983 Beirut barracks bombings

text: On July 23, Walid Jumblatt, leader of the predominantly Druze Progressive Socialist Party (PSP), announced the formation of a Syrian-backed "National Salvation Front" opposed to the May 17 Agreement. In anticipation of an IDF withdrawal from the Alayh and Shuf districts, fighting between the Druze and LF and between the Druze and LAF, intensified during the month of August. Druze artillery closed the BIA between 10 and 16 August, and the Druze made explicit their opposition to LAF deployment in the Shuf. The LAF also clashed with the Amal militia in Beirut's western and southern suburbs.


title: 1983 Beirut barracks bombings

text: As the security situation deteriorated, US positions at BIA were subjected to increased fire. On August 10 and 11, an estimated thirty-five rounds of mortar and rocket fire landed on US positions, wounding one marine. On August 28, in response to constant mortar and rocket fire upon US positions, US peacekeepers returned fire for the first time. On the following day, US artillery silenced a Druze battery after two marines were killed in a mortar attack. On August 31, the LAF swept through the Shia neighborhood of West Beirut, establishing temporary control over the area.


title: 1983 Beirut barracks bombings

text: On September 4, the IDF withdrew from the Alayh and Shuf Districts, falling back to the Awwali River. The LAF was not prepared to fill the void, moving instead to occupy the key junction at Khaldah, south of BIA. That same day, BIA was again shelled, killing two marines and wounding two others. No retaliation was given due to the ROE. As the LAF moved slowly eastward into the foothills of the Shuf, accounts of massacres, conducted by Christians and Druze alike, began to be reported. On September 5, a Druze force, reportedly reinforced by PLO elements, routed the Christian LF militia at Bhamdun and all but eliminated the LF as a military factor in the Alayh District. This defeat obliged the LAF to occupy Souk El Gharb to avoid conceding all of the high ground overlooking BIA to the Druze. U.S. positions were again subjected to constant indirect fire attacks; consequently, counterbattery fire based on target acquisition radar data was employed. F-14 tactical airborne reconnaissance (TARPS) missions were conducted for the first time on September 7. On September 8, naval gunfire from offshore destroyers was employed for the first time in defense of the U.S. Marines.


title: 1983 Beirut barracks bombings

text: On September 25, a ceasefire was instituted that same day and Beirut International Airport reopened five days later. On October 1, Walid Jumblatt announced a separate governmental administration for the Shuf and called for the mass defection of all Druze elements from the LAF. Nevertheless, on 14 October the leaders of Lebanon's key factions agreed to conduct reconciliation talks in Geneva, Switzerland. Although the ceasefire officially held into mid-October, factional clashes intensified and sniper attacks on MNF contingents became commonplace. On October 19, four marines were wounded when a US convoy was attacked by a remotely detonated car bomb parked along the convoy route.


title: 1983 Beirut barracks bombings

text: At around 06:22, a 19-ton yellow Mercedes-Benz stake-bed truck drove to the Beirut International Airport. The 1st Battalion 8th Marines (BLT), commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Larry Gerlach, was a subordinate element of the 24th MAU. The truck was not the water truck they had been expecting. Instead, it was a hijacked truck carrying explosives. The driver turned his truck onto an access road leading to the compound. He drove into and circled the parking lot, and then he accelerated to crash through a -high barrier of concertina wire separating the parking lot from the building. The wire popped "like somebody walking on twigs." The truck then passed between two sentry posts and through an open vehicle gate in the perimeter chain-link fence, crashed through a guard shack in front of the building and smashed into the lobby of the building serving as the barracks for the 1st Battalion 8th Marines (BLT). The sentries at the gate were operating under rules of engagement which made it very difficult to respond quickly to the truck. On the day of the bombing, the sentries were ordered to keep a loaded magazine inserted in their weapon, bolt closed, weapon on safe and no round in the chamber. Only one sentry, LCpl Eddie DiFranco, was able to chamber a round. However, by that time the truck was already crashing into the building's entryway.


title: 1983 Beirut barracks bombings

text: The suicide bomber, an Iranian national named Ismail Ascari, detonated his explosives, which were later estimated to be equivalent to approximately 9,525 kilograms (21,000 pounds) of TNT. The force of the explosion collapsed the four-story building into rubble, crushing to death 241 American servicemen. According to Eric Hammel in his history of the U.S. Marine landing force,


title: 1983 Beirut barracks bombings

text: The explosive mechanism was a gas-enhanced device consisting of compressed butane in canisters employed with pentaerythritol tetranitrate (PETN) to create a fuel-air explosive. The bomb was carried on a layer of concrete covered with a slab of marble to direct the blast upward. Despite the lack of sophistication and wide availability of its component parts, a gas-enhanced device can be a lethal weapon. These devices were similar to fuel-air or thermobaric weapons, explaining the large blast and damage. An after-action forensic investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) determined that the bomb was so powerful that it probably would have brought down the building even if the sentries had managed to stop the truck between the gate and the building.


title: 1983 Beirut barracks bombings

text: Less than ten minutes later, a similar attack occurred against the barracks of the French 3rd Company of the 1st Parachute Chasseur Regiment, 6 km away in the Ramlet al Baida area of West Beirut. As the suicide bomber drove his pickup truck toward the "Drakkar" building, French paratroopers began shooting at the truck and its driver. It is believed that the driver was killed and the truck was immobilized and rolled to stop about from the building. A few moments passed before the truck exploded, bringing down the nine-story building and killing 58 French paratroopers. It is believed that this bomb was detonated by remote control and that, though similarly constructed, it was smaller than and slightly less than half as powerful as the one used against the Marines. Many of the paratroopers had gathered on their balconies moments earlier to see what was happening at the airport. It was France's worst military loss since the end of the Algerian War in 1962.


title: 1983 Beirut barracks bombings

text: Organized rescue efforts began immediately – within three minutes of the bombing – and continued for days. Unit maintenance personnel were not billeted in the BLT building, and they rounded up pry bars, torches, jacks and other equipment from unit vehicles and maintenance shops and began rescue operations. Meanwhile, combat engineers and truck drivers began using their organic assets, i.e., trucks and engineering equipment, to help with the rescue operations. 24th MAU medical personnel, Navy dentists LT Gil Bigelow and LT Jim Ware, established two aid stations to triage and treat casualties. Medevac helicopters, CH-46s from Marine Medium Helicopter Squadron (HMM-162), were airborne by 6:45 AM. U.S. Navy medical personnel from nearby vessels of the U.S. Sixth Fleet went ashore to assist with treatment and medical evacuation of the injured, as did sailors and shipboard marines who volunteered to assist with the rescue effort. Lebanese, Italian, British, and even French troops, who had suffered their own loss, provided assistance.


title: 1983 Beirut barracks bombings

text: Many Lebanese civilians voluntarily joined the rescue effort. Especially important was a Lebanese construction contractor, Rafiq Hariri of the firm Oger-Liban, who provided heavy construction equipment, e.g., a 40-ton P & H crane, etc., from nearby BIA worksites. Hariri's construction equipment proved vitally necessary in lifting and removing heavy slabs of concrete debris at the barracks site just as it had been necessary in assisting with clearing debris after the April U.S. Embassy attack.


title: 1983 Beirut barracks bombings

text: While the rescuers were at times hindered by hostile sniper and artillery fire, several marine survivors were pulled from the rubble at the BLT 1/8 bomb site and airlifted by helicopter to the , located offshore. U.S. Navy, U.S. Air Force and Royal Air Force medevac planes transported the seriously wounded to the hospital at RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus and to U.S. and German hospitals in West Germany. A few survivors, including Lt. Col. Gerlach, were sent to the Italian MNF dispensary and to Lebanese hospitals in Beirut. Israel's offers to medevac the wounded to hospitals in Israel were rejected as politically unacceptable even though Israeli hospitals were known to provide excellent care and were considerably closer than hospitals in Germany.


title: 1983 Beirut barracks bombings

text: At about noon Sunday, October 23, the last survivor was pulled from the rubble; he was LTJG Danny G. Wheeler, Lutheran chaplain for BLT 1/8. Other men survived beyond Sunday, but they succumbed to their injuries before they could be extracted from the rubble. By Wednesday, the majority of the bodies and body parts had been recovered from the stricken barracks, and the recovery effort ended on Friday. After five days, the FBI came in to investigate, and the Marines returned to normal duties.