'There is a sense of loss': reflections on this year's cancelled Edinburgh festival

Edinburgh festival | The Guardian: Polly MacFarlane always feels nerves and excitement building in her stomach as the train pulls into Edinburgh during the festival, clutching her hula-hoops and spangly leotards as she hurries towards the Royal Mile.

MacFarlane is a street performer and cabaret act known as Polly Hoops, and August in Edinburgh was her biggest month of the year. “It’s always exciting and you get the butterflies coming into Waverley,” she said. “It’s so beautiful and quite nerve-wracking doing the fringe but it’s always wonderfully familiar as well.”