Edinburgh festivals diary: the divided Fringe means we must celebrate the weird and wonderful grassroots
Guest diarist Kate Copstick is exasperated at the divided Fringe but eventually finds her happy place
More than ever the Fringe is, it seems to me, dividing. I only have to take a stroll along Infirmary Street, past the imposing edifice that will soon become several hundred thousand pounds’ worth of new Fringe Society headquarters, to see exactly what is going wrong. And it is angering and depressing in equal measure. However, down on the Cowgate, I am flyered by an absolutely charming elderly man who encourages me to “come and see my daughter's Shit Show”, points me at the venue and hands me one of the Free Fringe's Wee Blue Books. And I am at the Fringe again. Talking of which, by the time you read this the Fringe Society's AGM will have considered Peter Buckley Hill's motion to level the playing field by making the £2000 grants which they award (for the reasons only known to their chosen team of adjudicators) means tested in some way. Fingers crossed.
But it is great to see that, despite everything against them, to say nothing of on top of them, grassroots manage to keep growing and the weird and the wonderful keep weirding and filling us with wonder.
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The tome of the brochure doesn't really tell their story – you have to go native and even talk to strangers in strange places, something which might be a new experience to Londoners, but it works. And it is the Fringe, where you really should be seeing more than 'him off the telly' doing work in progress.
I have found that avoiding any show with the word “journey” in the description helps narrow the field considerably this year. Similarly the self-diagnosed victims of acronymic conditions and anyone predicating their comedy hour on their “struggle”. The rest of my year is spent in Kenya rescuing women and girls from unimaginable abuse, and so my bar for “struggle” is set quite high.
As I sit writing this in a pleasant venue cafe, however, I am given a stark lesson in quite how fragile the soul of a comedian can be, as I am informed that the performer I have come to review “would not be comfortable” with me in his audience because I gave him a bad review last year.
But, such is the Fringe, there are always other shows.
Pay What You Want does not make you a second-class comedy fan
The advent of Pay What You Want in some places which now also offer normal ticketed seats, while the word “Free” in still in the title of the organisation running the venue, is messy at best. Those of us in the PWYW queue are frequently treated very much like second-class comedy fans on the way in and instructed by the comedian that “this show is worth £15” (I am quoting from one particular show) on the way out. The PBH Free Fringe is, of course, still free.
En route to some shows, I re-discover the joys of Leith and highly recommend walking Leith Walk to get there. The very antithesis of the atmosphere of Bristo or George Square, as is my latest 'happy place', the wee grassy garden under the shade of the huge tree outside Zoo Playground on High School Yards. Peace and quiet at the Fringe? Whatever next?
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