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OPENING EVENT: FIVE TELEGRAMS

Festival Square, 3 August, free

THE 2018 International Festival bursts into life with a free spectacular outdoor digital performance celebrating Scotland’s Year of Young People and reflecting on the centenary of the end of the Great War.

MUSIC: DJANGO DJANGO

Leith Theatre, Ferry Road, 10 August

THE genre-blurring band Django Django, formed from a group of friends, classmates and flatmates attending Edinburgh College of Art in the early-2000, play a one-off concert as part of the Light on the Shore with Edinburgh Gin Seaside series. Tickets on sale 4 May, 10am.

KIDS: HOCUS POCUS

The Studio, Potterrow, 10-12 August, £22(£11), suitable for 7+

THIS captivating spectacle for families brings together dance, theatre and visual art to tell a fantastical tale of bravery.

A spider’s web; a warrior in chainmail; a mysterious creature from the deep: all emerge from a magical window of light – to tell the story of two young men and their dream-like adventures together.

CLASSICAL: A BERNSTEIN CELEBRATION

Usher Hall, Lothian Road, 25 August, £15-£47

THE Baltimore Symphony Orchestra are joined by Nicola Benedetti to celebrate Leonard Bernstein on the centenary of his birth. Music includes the unforgettable melodies Maria, Somewhere and New York, New York from two of Bernstein’s greatest musicals, West Side Story and On the Town.

MUSIC: MOGWAI

Leith Theatre, Ferry Road, 22 & 23 August

SCOTLAND’S own post-rock titans Mogwai play two concerts following on from their epic show at the Hydro earlier this year. Part of the Light on the Shore series. Tickets on sale 4 May, 10am.

ADULTS ONLY: LA MALADIE DE LA MORT

Royal Lyceum, Grindlay Place, 16-19 August, £17-£35

MARGUERITE Duras’s 1982 novella about an unnamed man who hires a woman to spend several weeks with him in a hotel by the sea, hoping for love, comes to the stage.

Katie Mitchell’s reworking of the psychological thriller could prove the most controvesial piece of programming at this year’s EIF, carrying the warning: ‘Contains scenes of nudity, sexual and pornographic imagery.’ Adults only.

OPERA: THE BEGGAR’S OPERA

King’s Theatre, Leven Street, 16-19 August, £16-£55

THIS 18th-century opera is brought into the modern day in this brand new production swarming with highwaymen, thieves, jailors, pimps and prostitutes.

Satirical and entertaining, this ballad opera invites you into a world of greed, crime, poverty, inequality – and outrageous comedy.

THEATRE: MIDSUMMER

The Hub, Castle Hill, 2-26 August, £32

IT’S mid-summer weekend in the Capital and it’s raining. Two thirty-somethings sit in a New Town bar waiting for something to turn up...

This expanded version of David Greig and Gordon McIntyre’s 2008 streetwise romcom turns a midlife crisis into a dance of freedom, proving it’s never too late to change.

MUSIC: KARINE POLWART’S SCOTTISH SONGBOOK

Leith Theatre, Ferry Road, 16 August

KARINE Polwart performs a concert of Scottish pop songs from The Blue Nile, Deacon Blue, Chvrches and Annie Lennox and many more. Part of the Light on the Shore series. Tickets on sale 4 May, 10am.

VIRGIN MONEY FIREWORKS CONCERT

27 August, free

SET against the iconic backdrop of the Castle, the annual spectacular brings the EIF to a close. Last year, a quarter of a million people gathered across the city and beyond to share the annual grand festival season finale.

The Edinburgh International Festival 2018 runs from 3-27 August.

Tickets for all performances are available from

www.eif.co.uk in person at Hub Tickets, The Hub, Castlehill, or by calling 0131-473 2000

10 things not to miss at the 2018 Edinburgh International Festival