Kristen Schaal and Kurt Braunohler are nominees for the 2008 if.comedy award.

THERE ARE WORDS WHICH FEEL TIRED and over-used when employed to describe certain things, but in this case the term ‘quirky’ fits the bill exactly.  Kristen Schaal is still most familiar to British audiences as the sole fan and groupie in HBO series Flight of the Conchords, while her Fringe co-star Kurt Braunohler is likely to be completely unknown.  Both are veterans of the New York comedy scene, however, and bring their long-standing professional collaboration to Edinburgh.

THE EDGE FESTIVAL is the replacement for T on the Fringe, the Edinburgh Festival’s collection of rock and pop gigs - which promises commercial and leftfield acts from local and international sources. It was exciting to see that the organisers had picked up on the Broken Records, an Edinburgh-based seven-piece who make use of guitar, drums, bass, strings, brass, piano and accordion. They’ve been attracting a lot of attention in the last year, playing many shows and expanding their fan base at home and away.

The band was playing at the Liquid Room, one of Edinburgh’s best venues to see gigs.  Its sound production is consistently impressive and the interior leaves many other Edinburgh gig spots looking the worse for wear. And in a relatively large-capacity venue, the band had pulled in a formidable if not sold-out crowd.

IT'S ALL TOO FAMILIAR.  From the man who cycles to work to the minutiae of objects that decorate the desk or the sweet promise of a work romance, this is the very obvious territory of the office space.  The Scott Room at the Assembly @ George Street has been transformed into a workspace of sorts - for a bizarre, bite-sized piece of office paradise called 'Paperweight'.

It's a day in the life of Harold and Anthony, two minions who work shifts processing orders.  They beautifully and painfully recreate, down to the minute detail, the mindless processes inherent in office work.  Life for them is a succession of opening, reading, processing and filing, to the extent that paper really does begin to have weight - see the pile of read newspapers containing the day's horoscopes piling up.

AS A NEW ZEALANDER, it's not often I thank God for Australians, but I do thank God for the Australian dance company Chunky Move.  I've been waiting for a show that would take my breath away, and I didn't think I was going to experience it this Festival.  Then I saw Mortal Engine.

I sat on the edge of my seat, leaning slowly forward as if attempting to touch the beauty and grotesqueness before me.  Mortal Engine is only an hour long - but during this hour you get a glimpse of thrilling and heretofore hidden worlds of energy.  In a show that mixes movement and technology, motion begets light and sound; kinetic energy within and without the body is first given visibility, then weight and substance.