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Lalita Augustine

Our last show today saw us off quite nicely. In spite of the heavy rain and thunder claps, we were packed out to the rafters audience wise (maybe they just wanted to get inside the tent away from the rain?) and we had a really good collection of guests, as always.

I was looking after the "Operation Adelmo team". We had a great discussion about opera and how the show was helping to bring the genre to the masses. Adelmo agreed that indeed, back in the day, opera was the pop music of its time and wasn't just a pastime for the elite. He then serenaded me with the song from a certain ice cream commercial...

We also had comedian turned crime writer Mark Billingham, "So You Think You're Funny" winner Tommy Rowson (who had just got to his bed at 6am that morning and claimed to still be wearing last nights clothes, rock and roll!) and comedy cabaret from the musical duo, Frisky and Mannish, who wowed us with their N-Dubz esque rendition of the Carpenter's "Top of the World".

There were a few thunder claps throughout the programme but luckily they couldn't be heard when we listened back to the programme, that's live radio for you folks.

Well, what can I say? We've finished our last show and that means that us runners will be bidding you guys a fond farewell. It's been a manic two weeks and I would say I have never been busier but it's been so much fun.

I've met so many different and interesting people and had some good adventures (like when Annabel and I went drinking with acapella band FORK, who appeared back on our very first show) and I also saw some really good shows while I've been here in Edinburgh. As Greenday would say - It's all said and done, it's real, and it's been fun.

Joanne Smithers

Can it be true that we have completed our two week run of Festival Cafes? Why it seemed only the other day that we arrived on shaky legs, stumbling uncertainly towards the show's guests, nervously trying to figure out the security wristbands.

Now look at us, an efficient crack team of runners walking, nay striding towards 'the talent' with a glint in our eyes, and a unifying desire -

That we, runners of Ö÷²¥´óÐã Radio Scotland Festival Café, will cater to your every need while simultaneously ensuring you are shepherded on to the stage at the appropriate times.

And yet... all the guests have now departed and we are left redundant, our desires to feed and water the great and good of the Edinburgh Festival must now go unsatisfied. We anxiously still look at our clocks to check the time, but there is no running order to dictate our movements. We are runners no more.

And, as if to feel our pain, the Festival Gods threw back their heads and howled during our last show. Their cries of anguish rolled like thunder, their tears fell like rain, letting us fulfil one last task for our 'talent'- the act of ensuring them a dry passage to their awaiting cars. Then finally, umbrellas folded, it was over. The Gods had shared in our pain and moved on. I believe it is called closure.

So we hand back in our t-shirts, pass over our fobs (two between four, your licence fees are definitely not being wasted here) and say adieu, adieu to you and you and you. It's great to get the chance to thank you individually, o-loyal readers of ours.

Next year there will be new runners finding their feet, be kind to them and remember us,
Your faithful friends

Annabel Cooper

It's what the Festival would have wanted.

Such was the abject sense of loss that I experienced at the close of the show on Friday that I have been unable to write the final instalment of the backstage blog I have enjoyed writing so much, until now. I'm sure the blog's three avid readers (me, my mum, and my mum again sober) will have been quivering with anticipation over the last five days and starkly aware of that sense of loss themselves. But now I must (if only for them) risk opening up the wounds of bereavement and gallantly put pen to paper...or fingers to keyboard, gallantly.

That may sound a bit dramatic but this is the Festival after all daaahling and I am bereft, truly. We all know this kind of thing can't sustain itself 365 days of the year (there aren't enough well hung cows in the world to feed my burger habit for starters) but the period of adjustment at the end of the Festival (and equally the Festival Café) is frankly inhuman. From the centre of the creative and cultural world with fun and excitement at every cobbled corner one minute; to the drizzly day job drudgery the next, it's a shock I doubt anyone could handle anything less than dramatically.

But no, this must stop! The Festival wouldn't want us to be like this, snivelling and pining over it on the cutting room floor. No, the Festival would want us to remember and laugh and toast all the good times, and have a bloody big knees up to celebrate what it was alive, not mourn its death. So, in recognition of the last will and testament of the Edinburgh Festival 2011, join me in remembering the best of times with the best of friends, as I record mine and you tell me your 'best of the fest(ival Café 2011)'. After all, it's what the Festival would have wanted.

Best Theatre

Annabel: The cast and crew of '' proved that you don't need to go halfway round the world to find world class theatre, and leave everyone balling after a heart wrenching taster from their much-lauded show.

You:

Best Comedy

Annabel: 's pitch perfect revival of Tommy Cooper was an absolute treat for me, having grown up watching the great comic magician on tele...and sharing favourite Cooperisms with Mr Mantle was pretty magic too.

You:

Best Music

Annabel: for their irresistibly catchy beats and the best decorated tuba I've ever seen.

You:

Best Male Guest

Annabel: Henry Rollins for his wisdom, kindness and zest for life...and invaluable tips on how to get the most out of a dead lift. And I must also mention for being one of the nicest men you'll ever hope to meet despite suffering from crushing jet lag and Gooner-itis.

You:

Best Female Guest

Annabel: . OK not strictly a lady but I challenge any woman to look that good in silver sequinned lame.

You:

Best Male Performance

Annabel: This is nearly impossible to choose but I have to go for Beardyman. Anyone who knocks up four minutes of human-radio (especially for us!) in the greenroom a matter of minutes before the show deserves a special mention.

You:

Best Female Performance

Annabel: Frisky from or ? I can't choose, so I'm taking them both. You surely don't need me to explain that, right?

You:

Best Group Performance

Annabel: Eh, , obviously. If you disagree just and come back to me then.

You: Fork.

Best Overall Show

Annabel: Day five...or Day eight....or maybe the last. No, I can't do it, rather I must mention (too much fun and the biggest boozer on the guest roster), and Art Malik (swoon) and and and ....complete cop out sorry.

You:

Best Moment

Annabel: How can I possibly whittle the two weeks, eight hours, 100 guests and lifetime of memories down to just a single moment? But for sake of the Festival's final epitaph I suppose I must...Phew, here goes:

Of the all the wonderful Festival Café moments I had the honour of sharing over the last wonderful two weeks the one that sticks out most in my mind was one played out behind the scenes in the green room. Coming off stage after a rousing debate about nearly everything - and with Le Gateau Chocolat's stunning rendition of 'I Dreamed a Dream' ringing in their ears - Henry Rollins, and continued their discussion of right wing American politics down the stage ramp and into the greenroom, all the time the three - and presenter Clare English - fixing their new Le Gateau Chocolat badges to their lapels. I regrettably didn't take a picture at the time but the image of those three great thinkers proudly displaying their new found drag-opera fandom will stay with me forever...or until next year at least. God bless you Festival 2011 and all that have sailed in you. You will be sorely missed and most fondly remembered.