And lo, the gospel according to Frankie Valli came to pass, in the summer of 2026, and Grease was the word, in Edinburgh at least. Is there a hotter, more sought-after celebrity sighting in Auld Reekie over this year’s festival season than the goddess that is Stockard Channing, aka Pink Ladies ringleader Rizzo? And is there anyone out there who’s yet to brush shoulders with her divine being on the Royal Mile, or rocking all over the Pleasance — other than me?

Given that this time last week, in these very pages, I was getting nostalgic about flyering Samuel Beckett plays at the Fringe back in my Arches theatre days, and given that Stockard (I like to think we could be on first name terms) is beating that same retreat as we speak — handing out promotional goods for her directorial debut, which is also a Beckett play — my blind old faith convinced me that the universe would bring us together, in a casual but powerful way.

Perhaps we’d cross paths while loitering round a busking harpist on the Canongate; or avoiding a man in a lurex catsuit spitting fire to a bagpipe techno reinvention of Freed From Desire; or musing upon a promising-looking chip van menu in Bristo Square.

Stockard Channing (Image: Stockard Channing)

This sadly hasn’t come to pass, so I’ve now bought tickets for her excellent-sounding show this week, starring David Westhead, so let’s see what gives at Krapp’s Last Tape. More on Stockard-watch (Channing-gate?) as I get it. The pink ladies were out in force elsewhere, though, thanks to the Gilded Balloon, back in a newly-reopened Teviot, which has long been their spiritual home. Where would we be without their fuchsia-clad artistic directors Karen and Katy Koren?

Well, we certainly wouldn’t be scaling the dizzying heights of the ice hockey romance craze with Heated Rivalry, A Musical Parody; nor cringing in delight at the all-too-familiar management and office bureaucracy nonsense called out in HR The Musical (the ever-present corporate mug was a particularly judicious touch). We wouldn’t be revelling in the wonder of Doris Day, Judy Garland and Dolly Parton (swathed in pink and rhinestones, naturally), thanks to Morag Fullarton’s typically sharp, warm and hilarious take on five legendary stars of stage and screen - all........

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