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World-famous gay writer Armistead Maupin admits that the small scale of the production was one of the reasons he agreed to allow tiny Scottish touring theatre company Clyde Unity to bring one of his Tales of the City novels to the stage. He reasoned that he would not have to worry about venomous London, England, critics. Maupin also explains that he liked the way in which Clyde Unity's artistic director John Binnie seemed very gentle-hearted and thoroughly out of the closet when he spoke to him on the phone. Maupin confesses that he was amazed to find 'Tales of the City' at number 64 on Waterstone's list of top 100 books.

It is universally agreed that there are too many orchestras in Scotland but no-one can agree on what to do about it. In the meantime, the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, the Scottish Opera's orchestra and the Scottish Ballet's orchestra are fighting each other for survival. Scottish minister for the arts Lord Lindsay favours a merger between the Scottish Opera and Ballet orchestras while BBC Scotland is seeking 'a long term partner' for its orchestra.

Funding for the Edinburgh International Festival is significantly larger than that for the Fringe productions associated with this event. Some influential local people still tend to have a negative opinion of the Fringe.