Programme announced for the Free Edinburgh Fringe 2017

Today Laughing Horse Festivals launched it's 2017 Free Edinburgh Fringe Festival programme with a massive 392 free Fringe shows spread across 37 performance spaces in 23 venues - its largest ever programme.

There are will be 8,014 performances of these shows from July 30th to August 27th this year, with the first four days being the pre-Fringe Children's Festival, followed by the full run of shows form August 3rd onwards.

This year the Free Festival welcomes back the completely refurbished Counting House and Pear Tree venues, last year taken by a paid venue after 9 years of successfully hosting free shows, but who's owner has brought the venue back to the much more successful free platform. New venues joining the roster this year include The Mockingbird, Cuckoos' Nest, Southpour, Golf Tavern and a new pop-up venue Victoria Street Coffee Co.

Shows this year cover the full range of Fringe genres with Comedy, Cabaret, Spoken Word, Music, Theatre , Musicals, Children's shows. There's even a walking tour, two shows on a golf course

Some of the highlights include:

• Leading Scottish comedian Janey Godley returns following her massively popular shows in 2015 & 2016

• Fellow Scottish comedian Vladimir McTavish makes his free show debut with his new daily Fringe chat show

• Star of BBC3s impractical Jokers Paul McCaffrey returns to the free Festival

• Cult comic and Never mind the Buzzcocks star Joey Page returns to the Counting House after producing a paid show there last year

• Festival favourite Lewis Schaffer reads an unopened letter sent by his Mother before she died every day

• Hit show MMORPG also return to the Counting House after premiering there last year as a paid show

• Canadian comedian Mae Martin returns with two shows at the City Cafe

• A new late night Spanish holiday party, that's part cabaret, part comedy and part immersive experience

• The UK debut of blind Indian Comedian Sundeep Rao, and fellow world touring Indian comedian Papa CJ's new solo show

• The final Malcolm Hardee Awards show returns to its traditional home at the Counting House

• Puppet Fiction, Pulp fiction with marionettes returns, this time with the help of a giant movie screen

• Desperately Seeking the Exit writer Peter Michael Marino returns with a new Improvised Theatre show

• More top level comedy from Sean McLauchlin, Tom Toal, Ahir Shah, Stephen Carlin, Christian Schulte-Loh, Grainne Maguire, Olaf Falafel, Martin Mor, Jojo Smith, Matt Price, John Hastings, Ashlie Storrie, Ivor Dembina, Russel Hicks, Milo McCabe and many more.

The Free Festival is directed by Alex Petty and managed by Laughing Horse Festivals, it started in 2004 in a single venue. Now in its 14th year it has become one of the largest parts of the annual Fringe, with all shows being part of the official Edinburgh Fringe.

The Full programme is available now online at: www.freefestival.co.uk