Fringe Festival's colourful launch

The annual arts event is a colourful affair

The 57th Edinburgh Fringe Festival, the world's biggest arts event, is under way.

Thousands lined the route as the traditional opening cavalcade snaked past the castle walls in an eruption of colour.

The city's streets filled with festival goers, performers, celebrities, tourists and the media as the spectacular procession got into full swing.

This year's three-week programme offers more than 1,500 shows across the spectrum of the performing arts.

It is staging more than 20,000 individual performances, from madcap comedy to serious drama.

Fringe facts Runs 3-25 August 21,594 performances 1,541 shows 668 companies 207 venues

Shows will be performed in all manner of unusual places - including up a ladder, in a lift and a public toilet.

More traditional venues include the new 400-seater Pod on Festival Square, and the popular Gilded Balloon - reopening after being hit by fire.

The Fringe is open to all comers, without a selection process - and its unpredictable nature is hailed as one of its greatest strengths.

Among this year's most publicised shows is Aaron Barschak's Osama Likes it Hot at the Smirnoff Underbelly.

Barschak helped to promote his show by gatecrashing Prince William's 21st birthday party dressed as Osama Bin Laden in a peach dress.

The Fringe attracts all manner of paying customers

Other seasoned comic performers this year include Johnny Vegas, Jimmy Carr, Dave Gorman, Lee Hurst and Julian Clary.

Vegas will play two low-key stand up shows; at the Stand Comedy Club on 14 August and the Cafe Royal the following night.

A Parisian comedy troupe are putting on an hour-long Monty Python set - entirely in French.

Comic Jo Brand stars in Mental, a play about two women patients in a mental hospital.

Steven Berkoff performs a trilogy of plays at the Royal Lyceum Theatre, including his 9/11 monologue Requiem for Ground Zero.

Some of the comedy circuit's finest performers have been brought together for the courtroom drama 12 Angry Men at the Assembly Rooms.

Among the cast are Bill Bailey, Stephen Frost, Jeff Green, Kevin Eldon and Ed Byrne.

One Foot in the Grave sitcom star Richard Wilson has moved backstage to direct Playing the Victim.

This year also sees performances from award-winning Russian dance troupe Derevo and Italian company Materiali Resistenti .