The Fringe show with a 'splash zone' warning and the actress appearing 61 years after her debut

Natalie Palamides is performing her show Weer at the Traverse Theatre. | Contributed

It wasn't planned this way but my Fringe has been book-ended by two stories of star-crossed lovers which begin to unfold on the eve of the millennium. Both are being staged in the two very different rooms at the Traverse Theatre and are about as far removed from each other as it is possible to imagine.

A History of Paper, the Fringe First-winning musical by composer Gareth Williams and the late playwright Oliver Emanuel, has been breaking the hearts of audiences who are blissfully unaware of its sudden gear-change.

Nearly three weeks later, Federation of Scottish Theatre chief executive Fiona Sturgeon Shea admitted at its festival reception that she is still being recognised across Edinburgh as the "woman who was crying in Traverse 2."

Natalie Palamides is performing her show Weer at the Traverse Theatre. | Contributed

Traverse 1 was almost at capacity when I arrived after a dash across town to catch a show which introduced me to the phrase "romantic dramedy" when it was first announced for this year's Fringe.

I could see that my favourite spot on the front row were still free, but it was only when I took my seat that I noticed a rather ominous warning sign that the first four rows were in a "splash zone."

After somehow managing to miss the blizzard of rave views for the latest show from Los Angeles-based actress, comic and clown Natalie Palamides, the main thing I had heard was that she spits herself down the middle to play her two characters without leaving the stage, despite multiple costume changes.

David Pollock’s review for The Scotsman described her show Weer as "unlike anything else on the Fringe” and I’ve not seen anything quite like it after 30 years of shows.

Nothing can really prepare audiences for the chaos that unfolds on an increasingly cluttered stage, as furniture, a bed, a shower and a deer arrive out of nowhere.

There was no mention of the "splash zone" in the Traverse's content warning, which does flag the prospect of audience interaction, nudity and "comic depiction of violence and death."

But be prepared for the sudden arrival of rain, coffee and various body fluids if you sit anywhere near the front for Palamides’ show, one of the contenders for the main Edinburgh Comedy Awards prize. .

Ventriloquist Nina Conti, one of the special guests at the Scotsman Fringe Awards, has become one of the most familiar and popular performers at the festival since making her debut in 1981.

But she has a long way to go to surpass her mother, who is appearing at the Fringe a staggering 61 years after making her festival debut.

Kara Wilson is performing the latest in a series of plays about the late British painter Beryl Cook at the Pleasance, the venue where her daughter is also appearing.

The Glasgow-born actress, who is married to actor Tom Conti, turned 80 a few weeks before the Fringe, where she last appeared at in the 1990s.

Wilson, who first performed with a group of fellow Glasgow University students, said: “For the last 20 years I’ve done the babysitting throughout the Fringe for Nina as she grew into the ventriloquist star she is today.

“Now, as her boys are grown up, it’s grandmother’s turn to have a go. Turning 80 has got to be celebrated somehow.”