Edinburgh Festival once again turned Scotland's Capital into the greatest city in the world for a month – Susan Dalgety

It’s all over for another year. The Royal Scottish National Orchestra, conducted by Sir Andrew Davis, played out the International Festival on Saturday night, and today is officially the last day of the Fringe.

A Fringe street entertainer gathers a crowd on the Royal Mile (Picture: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images)

Though in the interests of accuracy, I should point out that there are several performances scheduled for tomorrow and a lone drag artist, Miss DQ, is listed to perform at the Planet Bar on Wednesday night.

And then it really will be all over. The aspiring singers, dancers, actors, comics – and sometimes artistes who are all four – will pick up their backpacks and head back to where they came from.

Some with an agent’s contact details on their smartphone and the promise of a bright future, others with nothing but an overdraft and a monumental hangover.

The more famous performers, which this year included Jerry Sadowitz, notoriously banned by the Pleasance after one show, classic actor Ian McKellen and the First Minister’s BFF, Alan Cumming, have all left Edinburgh, no doubt onto their next big thing.

And the hundreds of thousands of visitors from across the world, who are the real stars of the Festival and Fringe, will disappear from our city centre streets, leaving only their rubbish behind.

To be fair, it is not their fault that Edinburgh is looking like a refuse tip during a force ten gale. The blame lies squarely with the bolshie trade unionists who were on strike, the Labour-led council who refused the bin workers a decent pay-rise, or the Scottish Government which has starved the council of funds for more than a decade, depending on your political allegiance.

But the overflowing detritus of meals eaten on the run couldn’t spoil the 2022 Festival and Fringe. It was as if the city had been reborn after two years in isolation. Even the crowds of confused tourists clogging up the bus stops couldn't dampen my enthusiasm.

I saw Basil Brush live for the first time in his 60-year career and he was as cheesy as I hoped he would be. I listened to writer Fintan O’Toole tell stories of his Dublin childhood with a lyricism unique to Irish story-tellers. And I was spellbound by Apphia Campbell’s acting and singing in Black is the Color of My Voice, her one-woman tribute to singer and civil rights activist Nina Simone.

And we ended our festival with the Queen of Soul. The Aretha Franklin Story, starring Cleopatra Higgins, backed by the Night Owl Shows live band, was breathtaking.

There have been many times over the last 40 years when I have complained about the festival. The ticket prices are too high – they are. There are too many people in the city. True, navigating the High Street in August can be quite dangerous.

Many of the shows are self-indulgent – and that includes some in the International Festival, as well as a few one-person shows at Underbelly. And Charlotte Square is a much better venue for the book festival than the art school.

But despite its shortcomings, or perhaps because of them, the magic of the festival, its fringe and its sister events make Edinburgh the greatest city in the world for a month every year – even without the fireworks.