Edinburgh Festival fringe round-up: Thea Vidale

Texan titan Thea Vidale is back in town after a break of four years and, boy, are her audiences sweating. She's big, she's black and she's gonna tan your white ass if you so much as twitch an eyelid when she charges into the crowd, hunting down hapless victims to interrogate. Last Friday she spotted a small 13-year-old boy who will doubtless spend the rest of his days in psychiatric care after Vidale bore down on him, flashing her four-inch scarlet talons and lowering her immense tattooed bust into his line of vision, before questioning him on his use of pornographic material in front of his family and 300 agog punters. For sheer energy and raunch, there's no one to touch Vidale; certainly she makes our homegrown women comedians, bar Jenny Eclair, look tame and toothless. "I just hate buulllllshit," she purrs. And when Vidale is not so much in yer face as down yer throat and out the other end, you can't help but agree.

n Starr Tent. To 31 Aug