The final Bank of Scotland Herald Angel Awards for 2008 are putting the emphasis on encouraging new talent. For the first time, the usual line-up of trophies - the Angels for excellence in any field of artistic endeavour, the Archangel for a sustained contribution to the festival in Edinburgh and the Little Devil for demonstrating resilience and invention in the face of difficulties - has been joined by the Wee Cherub. This baby Angel makes the link between The Herald's Angel awards and the Young Critics project which the newspaper has run in partnership with the Edinburgh International Festival since 2003.

Each year, after the festival programme is announced, Herald critics visit Edinburgh schools for workshops with senior pupils on review writing. Then, during the festival, groups of students attend festival shows and submit their critiques to a deadline. One from each school group is selected for publication in the following day's Herald. This year, groups from Royal High, Holyrood High, Boroughmuir and Broughton saw performances, and reviews by Eleanor Morton, Scott Clair, Kyna Bowers and Joanna Ramasawmy appeared alongside those of your usual Herald critics. This morning one of the them will take home the inaugural Wee Cherub award.

Our Archangel winner is also a talent-encourager. For the past nine Fringes, Eleanor O'Reilly has been the great matchmaker of Edinburgh, introducing promoters to productions, actors, writers and directors, and making the shop-window business of the Fringe run more smoothly. Previously a producer herself, notably with the work of another of this year's Archangels, playwright Enda Walsh, O'Reilly is a behind-the-scenes powerhouse in Edinburgh, helping fresh talent find more work to recoup the investment made in coming to Edinburgh, and spreading the word of the Fringe nationally and internationally.

Matthew Bourne's Dorian Gray has been one of the must-see shows of the last week of the festival, the hottest ticket since the box office opened and the biggest selling dance show in the festival's history. A company of superb dancers, many with first-hand knowledge of the world of celebrity through dancing with top pop stars, bring Bourne's vision to life in a gloriously slick show, fast-moving and full of humour, that is a feast for the eyes and ears. Bourne's Angel is joined by two to the music programme of the festival. The residency of conductor Valery Gergiev with his Mariinsky Opera company and the London Symphony Orchestra was the foundation stone of this year's music programme. His musicianship is astonishing and the performances he produces from his players and singers from the very top drawer. The second is further recognition for the Budapest Festival Orchestra and its founder and conductor Ivan Fischer. When they first visited Edinburgh in 1997, they won one of our early Angels. Their concerts this year included virtuosic folk soloists and chamber music in the Queen's Hall.

That venue gives us this week's Little Devil winner, in the shape of veteran usher at the venue Vera Alexander. Shortly before the start of Monday morning's performance by violinist Irvine Arditti and the group Lyriarte, a would-be robber accosted Vera at her usual stand and attempted to make off with the programme and cloakroom money. With half a century of front of house experience, she wasn't having that, and tackled the footpad and reclaimed the cash he had stuffed into his shirt, before he decided to cut his losses and sprint off.

Two superb exhibitions at the Edinburgh Art Festival also win Bank of Scotland Herald Angels. One has been running at the temporary Grey Gallery in garage space off Barony Street. There the sculpture Hot Dog Roll sits alongside four remarkable films by Richard Wilson, shown with their storyboards and photographs, one of which documents his well-known Liverpool Biennale piece Turning the Place Over, in which he removed and articulated a precise section of a building facade in that city. That space closes after tomorrow, but the Fruitmarket show The House of Books Has No Windows runs until the end of September. The work of Canadians Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller are automated performances as much as installation art, and have been drawing huge numbers to the gallery, with attendances up almost 30% on recent years. The narratives of works such as The Killing Machine and Opera for a Small Room are without parallel and this retrospective, curated by gallery director Fiona Bradley, is joined by the specially-made title work.