Jonathan Mills, director of the Edinburgh International Festival, has accused the media of being lazy in the way they cover the combined Edinburgh Festivals, and says this is what accounts for the fact that the public don't really understand the difference between the seven different events.

Mills told The Stage: "A lot of people are confused because [the media does not] help us articulate to the extent that [it] ought to the differences between these festivals. In many other countries, anything as varied and as popular in every part of it, let alone its collective part, would be a cause for national jubilation". He added that the media  "don’t speak clearly and passionately and articulately enough about the different parts of Edinburgh's festivals", and are "very lazy" about the way they communicate on the subject.

I have to say, it's not something one could accuse us of, nor our sister publication, ThreeWeeks: the passionate, articulate, complete guide to Edinburgh's festivals. So there.

That Boris Johnson, Mayor of London, yesterday launched Big Dance 2010, which is set to commence on 3 July, and runs until 11 July. More than eight hundred events will take place as part of the festival, including Big World Dance, which will, it's hoped, see many thousands of Londoners taking to the streets to take part in a dance routine choreographed by Luca Silvestrini.

Johnson, who inflicted the sight of his own dancing on the amused spectators, was joined at the launch by 'Strictly Come Dancing' star Camilla Dallerup, West End type Sheridan Smith, and choreographer Jerry Mitchell as well as those involved in organising the various Big Dance events. The Mayor told his audience that dance "not only gives people exercise but of course it teaches people to break down their inhibitions and form relationships with people they might not otherwise become so friendly with. We have a magnificent example of a great coalition waltz by Nick Clegg and David Cameron, followed by William Hague break-dancing down Whitehall".

The Big Dance was founded in 2006 by the Mayor and Arts Council England, and is supported by English National Ballet. As previously reported, organisers of the biennial event have big plans for the 2012 festival, which will tie in with, and take place just ahead of, the 2012 Olympics. For more information, see www.bigdance2010.com.

The programme for this year's Edinburgh Festival Fringe has been launched, and organisers have announced an increase of 17% in the number of events set to take place. 2453 productions will appear at the Fringe this year, 355 up on last year; plus, the figure means that the number of shows has nearly doubled in the ten years since 2000, when there were a mere 1354 productions. The Fringe Society are pleased. If I were them, I would be concerned that there won't be enough audience to go around, but hey, I'm a born worrier. 

There are three big new venues this year – which has no doubt helped with the increase – The Pleasance at Ghillie Dhu, Assembly at Princes Street Gardens, and the Mary Of Guise Barge at The Shore in Leith. The majority of the productions are from the UK, and almost a quarter come from within Scotland, but there has also been an increase in the number of shows from North America and Australasia. Comedy, meanwhile, continues to be the biggest programme section (this wasn't always the case, it used to be theatre that made up the bulk of Fringe) with around 850 shows. Though the biggest news, if you're a Fringe aficionado, is surely that the layout of the programme has changed completely after being basically the same for the last 900 or so years.

Some might say that the fact big names like Dizzee Rascal, Alan Cumming, 'The Wire's Clark Peters, 'Cheers' star George Wendt and K-list c'leb Abi Titmus are to grace Edinburgh with their presence this August is bigger news. Which it possibly is, if you're not an Edinburgh Fringe aficionado but might be persuaded to go up North come August by the lure of celebrity. If that's the case, you might also want to take note that Emma Thompson is funding a show about drug trafficking (though she doesn't appear in it), and that the likes of Paul Merton, Barry Cryer and Gyles Brandreth will be back this year.

Meanwhile, here's what Kath Mainland, Chief Executive of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society, said at the launch of the programme today: "I am delighted to unveil the 2010 Edinburgh Festival Fringe programme which yet again exemplifies why the Fringe is the world's leading arts festival. As you'll see from this year's programme, Edinburgh in August will be bursting with the most talented artists from every area of the arts world. Nowhere else can you see such a variety of world class talent and range of shows that are guaranteed to engage, enthral, excite and delight".

Well, she would say that wouldn't she? But then again, it IS the biggest arts festival on the planet, and all that, so what she says there is actually true. So you should probably get out of London and up to Edinburgh in August. Then again we publish the biggest review media at the Edinburgh Fringe, so we would say that, wouldn't we?

The Association Of Independent Music's recently staged an event that discussed the lack of women, and diversity in general, in the music industry, especially at the higher executive level. Now the PRS For Music Foundation has confirmed it is involved in an event which will "explore why women are outnumbered six to one amongst registered music creators and songwriters".

The panel debate is being staged as part of the Sound & Silents programme - a series of events staged by Bird's Eye View featuring live scores for films all written by cutting edge female artists - and will feature contributions by Speech Debelle, Mira Calix, Rachel Portman and Janis Susskind. Miranda Sawyer will chair.

Confirming their support for the event, PRS Foundation Co-Director Vanessa Reed told CMU: "If we want women to maximise their creative talent, we need to work across the creative industries so that we can understand the barriers and to raise awareness of the current status quo".

The panel takes place on 24 May at 7pm at Kings Place in London.

That Jay-Z will be in the UK again to play some of those live shows that everyone seems to enjoy so much, including one at that Wireless Festival in the park thing. We already knew that of course, but now he's announced that he'll be joined by Drake and Mr Hudson at his London show, who will also be doing live performing things. But before Jay-Z does. Jay-Z will be on last out of all of them, because he is the most famous, and the shows were all his idea anyway. Jay plays Wireless in Hyde Park on 4 Jul.

Booker-prize winning writer Hilary Mantel and journalist turned novelist Robert Harris are amongst the literary stars set to appear at the seventh Borders Book Festival in Melrose this summer.

Also appearing at the event, which takes place from 17 – 20 June, are the likes of Douglas Hurd, Rory Bremner, Victoria Wood, Kathy Kette, Fergal Keane, Michael Morpurgo and James Naughtie. Two major literary prizes will be announced during the festival: Scotland's biggest literary prize,  the Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust/Scottish Arts Council Book of the Year, worth £30k, and the inaugural £25k Walter Scott prize for historical fiction, sponsored by the Duke and Duchess of Buccleuch.

Festival director Alistair Moffat commented that "this is possibly our most glittering programme to date", whilst Paul Bush, chief operating officer at EventScotland, which funds the event, added: "The Borders Book Festival continues to grow year on year and, with the introduction of the inaugural Walter Scott Prize this year, it will without doubt retain its position in the cultural events spotlight for many more to come".

The London International Festival of Theatre is to return to London with a full, large scale programme for the first time in almost a decade. The event was staged in 2008 in a smaller form, following a break of 7 years, but will in 2010 be as big as it was back in 2001. It's expected to be held biennially from now on.

The festival will take place from 23 June to 17 July at a number of London venues, and feature work chosen by new artistic director Mark Ball, who was previously head of events and exhibitions at the RSC. Talking about taking on the festival a year ago, he told The Stage: "I think the challenge was that LIFT had been a glorious festival in the eighties and nineties and everyone acknowledged for various reasons it had run out of steam a little bit. It changed its operation model. It was interesting but it meant it lost a lot of attention, it started to work in a lot more community-focused way and the challenge was how you could recapture that sense of zeitgeist, that energy, those extraordinary moments people had going to LIFT festivals in the eighties and nineties. It was very clear to me that we needed to be bold and ambitious".

This year's programme will include seven UK premieres, taking place at such locations as the National Theatre and the Southbank Centre, and including work from the likes of Nalaga'at, from Israel, the world's only professional company of deaf-blind performers, and Mammalian Diving Reflex, from Canada. See www.liftfestival.com/home for more information.

Ridley Scott's new 'Robin Hood' film, starring Russell Crowe and Cate Blanchett, is to open this year's Cannes Film Festival. The movie, which also stars William Hurt, is the director's fourth collaboration with Crowe, star of such films as 'Gladiator' and 'LA Confidential'.

'Robin Hood' will be screened out of competition on the first night of the festival, which falls on 12 May. It will also go on general release in the rest of France the same day, and will screen globally from 14 May.

Novelist Iain Banks – aka Iain M Banks – is to give a preview of his yet-to-be-published new science fiction book when he appears at the Ullapool Book Festival in May. Which is very exciting, because he's brill. I'd probably be there, were it not for the fact that it's so far away from where I will be in May. But if you can, do. Take in an island or two whilst you're up there.

Other guests announced for the UK's most northerly literary festival include Ann Donovan, Kevin MacNeil and Guatemalan poet Umberto Ak'abal. It all takes place from 7 – 9 May.

I suppose this sort of thing is going to inevitably become common eventually, given the fact that people of a certain age now refuse to stop going to festivals, and take the kids along with them instead. A new company has been set up to offer a childcare option to people attending two UK festivals.

Boutique Babysitting has been set up by Lisa Merrick-Lawless and Selina Cope, who say that parents will be able to take in the events on offer at the Latitude and Big Chill festivals whilst their children go off and have their own "mini festival" whilst in the care of professional minders. Organisers are planning to to house the scheme in two large climate controlled teepees, where parents may drop their children for one of two four hour sessions.

Merrick-Lawless explains: "Like every parent that’s ever taken their child to a festival, we know exactly what it is like: you love having your kids there but even the most dedicated parent needs a break sometimes".

Actor John Hurt has received a lifetime achievement award at the Bradford International Film Festival. He received the honour at the National Media Museum from the festival's artistic director Tony Earnshaw, who said of the actor: "John Hurt has been leading man, supporting player and scene-stealer. Always he has breathed vivid life into believable, plausible and credible characters, often against a backdrop of fancy, whimsy or plain bafflement. He appears in the final films in the Harry Potter franchise, thus enchanting an entirely new generation of admirers. It's what going to the cinema is all about."

Speaking ahead of the presentation, which was followed by a q&a and a screening of 'The Elephant Man', Hurt told reporters of his regard for independent films, and his wish that there was a more even balance between the number of such lower budget works and the number of big studio movies being made. "It's been my constant fight all my life," he said. “All you can do is prepare the ground. You can't just say this is how it ought to be because you've got to create a public that actually enjoys it - and therein lies the difficulties".

Later, asked if he would retire, he told his audience: "I can't see any other reason to be alive unless you're taking an active interest in your area of life. If life was to be just to stop and watch television - I couldn't contemplate that as being worthwhile at all".

The festival runs until 28 March.

Philip Pullman is expected to have special security when he appears at the Oxford Literary Festival next week. The writer is about to launch a new book about Jesus Christ, and has received angry letters accusing him of blasphemy.

The book, 'The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ' supposed that a man called Jesus did indeed live 2000 years ago, but that his status as the son of god was an invention of his disciple, Paul. Pullman recently explained to The Sunday Times that he has received threatening communications on account of the work, saying: "Many refer to the title itself, for which there is clearly a passionate objection from some out there. The letter writers essentially say that I am a wicked man, who deserves to be punished in hell. Luckily it’s not in their power to do anything like sending me there".

It's not the first of his books to prove upsetting for adherents of Christianity, of course. His 'Dark Materials' trilogy, written for younger readers, depicts alternative worlds in which god and his angels are not, in fact, deities.

A twelve week cultural festival will take place in the run up to the 2012 London Olympics, involving the BBC and various promoters from across the music business, it has been confirmed.

The festival, currently dubbed Festival 2012, will feature gigs in cities across the UK, as well as fashion and theatre related activities. There will also be four major events to mark the start and end of both the main Olympic Games and the Paralympics, plus there'll be a River Of Music staged on barges on the Thames from 21-22 Jun.

Sounds expensive. Sorry, I mean, sounds exciting.

Award winning Edinburgh based group Forest Fringe is planning a 'microfestival' at London's Battersea Arts Centre next month. The event, taking place from 2 – 3 April, will include the kind of innovative and interesting fare you'd expect from the collective, including one-on-one performances, installations, works in progress, and audio tours.

It's all part of a larger tour of the country: further 'microfestivals' will be staged at The Arches in Glasgow from 16 – 17 April, as part of National Theatre Wales' Assembly programme in Swansea from 24 – 25 April, and at the Old Vic in Bristol from 8 – 9 May.

London Burlesque Festival producer Chaz Royal has announced that the four year old event will be this year extended to a week, and suitably renamed the London Burlesque Week. It will take place from 20–25 Apr, and will feature more than a hundred performers, including the likes of Dusty Limits, Ivy Paige and Little Beau Peep.

Royal says this: "The London audience is a mix of regular cabaret enthusiasts and curious newcomers, who appreciate the finest in burlesque performers as well as sheer glamour and tastefully risque entertainment. We help develop the most talented new and established performers, right through from the avant garde to erotic, sexy circus artists, exposing them to an international stage and the acclaim of diverse audiences".

Edinburgh Festival hit 'Showstopper! The Improvised Musical' – which is, as you might expect from the title, a show in which a new musical is improvised for every performance –  has announced two upcoming London seasons.

The award-winning cast will give five performances at The Drill Hall in the spring, and will also headline part of the Udderbelly's previously reported summer season on the South Bank. All dates as follows:  

1 Mar: Drill Hall, 7,30pm
8 Mar: Drill Hall, 7.30pm
15 Mar: Drill Hall, 7.30pm
22 Mar: Drill Hall, 7.30pm
29 Mar: Drill Hall, 7.30pm
16 May: Udderbelly at Southbank Centre, 7.00pm
23 May: Udderbelly at Southbank Centre, 7.00pm
30 May: Udderbelly at Southbank Centre, 7.00pm
6 Jun: Udderbelly at Southbank Centre, 7.00pm
13 Jun: Udderbelly at Southbank Centre, 7.00pm

Udderbelly, the upside down purple cow spin-off space of Edinburgh Fringe venue the Underbelly is to return to London's South Bank for a ten week period this summer, before it heads to the Scottish Capital for this year's August festival.

The 400 capacity tent will make its home at the Southbank Centre from 9 May – 18 July and offer a programme of, well, what you might expect, really: comedy, music, dance, theatre, children's shows, spoken word. 'Brazil, Brazil', which headlines the season from 15 Jun until 18 July, is also part of the Southbank's previously reported Festival Brazil.

Elsewhere in the line up are Fringe favourites such as The Magnets, David O'Doherty, Sarah Millican, and Frisky and Mannish. The Udderbelly will be located on the Hungerford Car Park close to the Royal Festival Hall and Jubilee Gardens.

Richard Thompson of Fairport Convention – one of the twenty greatest guitarists of all time if you believe Rolling Stone, and I don’t see why you wouldn't – has been announced as the curator of this year's Meltdown, the arty music festival that takes place around London's Southbank Centre each June. Past curators have included John Peel, Nick Cave, David Bowie, Patti Smith and Ornette Coleman.

Confirming he was taking on the role this year, Thompson told The Guardian this: "I am very excited to be hosting this year's Meltdown at Southbank Centre. The wide-ranging programme reflects many of my interests and influences across many musical, visual and literary styles, and should provide some unique moments, unusual collaborations and juxtapositions. All this in the place where I saw my first concert in 1961 – such an honour!"

Thompson's Meltdown programme will be announced soon, apparently.

Up and coming stand-up Josh Widdicombe - a former finalist in Edinburgh's So You Think You're Funny? contest and semi-finalist in both Amused Moose and Laughing Horse's new comedy competitions - this weekend took the prize of Leicester Mercury Comedian Of The Year on the penultimate day of this year's Leicester Comedy Festival. And despite him missing his allotted slot at festival's big stand-up competition thanks to the wonders of East Midland Trains, who did their very best to stop the stand-up contender from getting to Leicester in the first place.

Speaking to the award's sponsor, the Leicester Mercury, Widdicombe said this was the first award he had won since "a successful foray into a horticultural contest as a 10-year-old", on which he said: "We had to make an animal out of vegetables. But between you and me, I got my dad to make it, so even that doesn't really count". On the new prize, he remarked: "I'm really delighted with this... I swore I would never do another competition so I'm glad I changed my mind". As for the prize money, he said he'd probably use it for something boring, like funding his Edinburgh show.

The Leicester Comedy Festival reached its climax yesterday after two weeks of fine comedy in venues around the city. There is a wider competition element to the whole festival, and awards for things like Best Debut Show, Best Venue and Best Make Me Happy Project will be handed out next month.

Roman Polanski has won the Berlin Film Festival's Silver Bear for best director. He was not able to accept the award for his work on political thriller 'The Ghost Writer' because of his previously reported house arrest in Switzerland, but his producer said that he would be "very happy". Polanski, is, of course still waiting to find out if he will be extradited back to the US over his 1978 child sex conviction.

Elsewhere in the Festival's awards, Turkish film 'Bal', was a surprise winner of the top prize, the Golden Bear for best film. The runner up gong was taken by Romanian entry, 'Eu Cand Vreau Sa Fluier, Fluier'.