How do you deal with nerves or bad reviews? What if you don’t sell any tickets? For debutants, the list of potential worries is huge. So we paired a few up with veterans to talk past mistakes, coping strategies – and the odd celebrity encounter

• Binge on the fringe: the must-see shows at Edinburgh 2026

• Explore the rest of our coverage of the Edinburgh festival 2026

Everyone has to start somewhere – even at the Edinburgh festival fringe. But what made Smack the Pony actor Fiona Allen take up standup in her 50s? Why is veteran TV entertainer Joe Pasquale making his fringe debut in his 60s in an ensemble comic play? How many taboos will newcomer Sepideh Kaav, a Berlin-based Iranian comic in her early 30s, break by talking about sex? And what will the 78-year-old, seven-time Edinburgh veteran Gyles Brandreth make of debutant Brandy Bex, a 50-year-old NHS nurse performing in drag? We paired six fringe stalwarts with relative newcomers to compare their hopes, fears and survival tactics for this year.

After being on the brink of divorce, Antonia and Rob have experienced a radical revival of their sex life

• How do you do it? Share the story of your sex life, anonymously

The perfect storm of work stress, menopause and raising kids meant our sex life slowly slipped out of view

Black people are more prominent than ever in the UK’s politics and culture. But are they overwhelmingly from the middle class, as Brown argues in his new book? And if so, why isn’t anyone talking about it?

Symeon Brown and David Lammy went to the same primary school in Tottenham, north London. One went on to a selective secondary school, and became the second black person to hold one of Britain’s great offices of state. The other became a journalist who would go on to survey the country’s black professional class more thoroughly than anyone ever had – and who remembers being told by Lammy that he could “never become prime minister, because you sound like where you come from”.

It was 2010, and Brown, interested in politics, was interning for the then Labour backbencher. “And he was right, certainly at the time,” Brown says now.

Whitehall wants to triple their number in the UK. Yet in Slough, I saw the impact they’re having on communities

Amid headlines about the UK’s drought, Europe’s wildfires and impossible global temperatures, it was 28C when I arrived in Slough last Monday. I was there to look around Slough Trading Estate, a place that might once have conjured up images of the TV comedy The Office, many of whose laughs came at the expense of this overgrown patch of suburbia, 20-odd miles west of London.

But these days, this area of town – an incongruous mixture of old-school businesses such as Mr Clutch and Angling Direct, and vast, metal-clad leviathans that look like something pulled from JG Ballard – has become a byword for the constant expansion of datacentres, those hulking symbols of the vast computing power that big tech now requires, not least because of the ever-more complex workings of artificial intelligence.

Bombus dahlbomii, a giant ginger bumblebee fondly known as the flying mouse, is in decline in its native Patagonia due to commercial farming

• Revealed: the top 10 invertebrates of the year

We all love bumblebees. Not only are they beautiful, busy and social, they perform pollination services that are crucial for plants, crops and human civilisation.

Any bumblebee would be a worthy winner of invertebrate of the year but a gorgeous giant ginger bumblebee fondly known as the flying mouse? Come on!

US-Iran war has stranded up to 20,000 seafarers, mostly Indian and Filipino crews, with none knowing when the nightmare will end

The panicked crew of a cargo ship broadcast a distress signal late on Monday night from their location in the strait of Hormuz. About 20 nautical miles north of the coast of Oman, the Minoan Pioneer bulk carrier was hit by an unknown projectile, causing a blackout in the engine room and a fire in the accommodation area.

The crew scrambled to put out the blaze and called for help from nearby vessels. When they managed to disembark from the Greek-owned, Liberian-flagged ship on Tuesday morning, they realised the third engineer was missing. Days later, he is yet to be found.

Exclusive: Hamish Falconer wants ‘sense of renewed pace’ in post-Brexit talks while staying within Labour’s red lines

The UK will move faster and be more ambitious on achieving closer ties with Europe under Andy Burnham’s government, his new chief post-Brexit negotiator has said.

Hamish Falconer, the new cabinet minister in charge of the EU reset talks, said there was “room to be ambitious” within Labour’s red lines on Europe, which exclude reopening discussions on the single market and customs union, and he would look at the “art of the possible”.

In rare public break with Trump, Israel’s prime minister says IDF will not withdraw until Hamas is disarmed

• Middle East crisis live – latest updates

Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has rejected a US-backed 15-point peace plan for Gaza in a rare public break with Donald Trump.

In a statement on Sunday, Netanyahu said that he was confronting a “wave of rumours about Israeli weakness and Israeli withdrawals on all fronts” and rebuked US pressure to end wars in Gaza, Lebanon, and Iran without Israel’s buy-in.

PM expected to announce policies to tackle cost of living and indicate intent to help improve country’s high streets

Andy Burnham is to undertake a national tour this coming week as he aims to improve the government’s connection with the British public during his premiership.

The prime minister is expected to announce a set of policies that will help people financially as many struggle with the cost of living, as well as indicate his intent to improve high streets across the country.

Kinahan built boxing empire while in exile in Dubai but now faces trial in Dublin charged with directing organised crime

A decade after escaping assassination and fleeing into exile, Daniel Kinahan is back in Ireland – but it is not the homecoming he wanted.

The alleged leader of the Kinahan organised crime group was extradited from Dubai in an Irish government jet on Sunday and headed to a huge security operation in Dublin, marking the end of a global game of cat-and-mouse with European, US and Gulf authorities.