DON'T follow the Yellow Brick Road. Follow the Tykes Green path instead, a carpet strip that will be rolled out all along Parliament Street to St Sampson's Square for the "weird, wise and very wonderful ten days" of the first Great Yorkshire Fringe.

From today until August 2, festival director Martin Witts will present more than 120 shows in the biggest celebration of comedy, music, theatre, cabaret and family entertainment since Jude Kelly directed the 1988 York Festival.

Parliament Street will be transformed from the city centre's main thoroughfare into a village green with the White Rose Rotunda, a 400-seat mirrored spiegeltent at the Pavement end. The Tea Pot, the smallest performance tent, and the box office will stand on one side of the dormant fountain, the Barn Pot on the other with its five bars and street food curated by the New Ebor Street Feast. St Sampson's Square will accommodate The Turn Pot, the second spiegeltent.

The festival, confirmed already for three years with the possibility of two more to follow, will play host to star names such as Al Murray and Paul Merton; multiple Fringe acts; a Free Fringe every night with 20 shows in The Tea Pot; the 2015 Great Yorkshire Fringe New Comedian of the Year heats and final; the Say Owt Slam poetry championship and much more besides. Even Margaret Thatcher will be making an appearance...in drag as the Queen of Soho.

Have fun.