Kate Copstick's Festival Diary: 'None of this really matters'

It is lovely, in a way, but as I wander around Edinburgh, knee deep in flyers, I think how right Don Alhambra was in The Gondoliers when he presciently declared: “When everyone is somebodeee, then no one's anybodeee."

In comedy, certainly, it seems everyone is, if not a prize winner, then certainly a nominee (which is, surely, a loser?) and if not a niche competition winner then a finalist (ditto).

Then there are the “Ones to Watch”, the “Hot Picks” and the “Must Sees”, as chosen by the Chronic Nail-biters Quarterly. But everyone cannot be special. None of the arts (and I include comedy as both art and craft) can truly be objectively scored – it is all just a matter of taste with perhaps a little bit of knowledge thrown in.

I hear that one of the big award judges spent a large amount of Phil Ellis's show on her phone so what does her opinion matter?

What strikes me, at the end of week two in the artistic bubble, is that none of this really matters. Increasingly the arts are largely a self-serving entity. They change nothing but themselves. If the Fringe disappeared, nothing life-changingly bad would happen in the outside world, because ultimately, it is not real.

Since I arrived in Edinburgh, Mama Biashara (my tiny charity) has rescued 52 underage girls sold into sex slavery by their fathers. Now that is real. So you will understand why your getting three stars and not the five you think you deserve really doesn't overly bother me.

I am, arguably hypocritically, on the judging panel of the Malcolm Hardee Awards, created in memory of the extraordinary genius that was Malcolm Hardee. They celebrate the weird, anarchic and quite frankly incomprehensible in comedy. Even here, increasingly, in desperate pursuit of a prize, many comics are attempting – to paraphrase the Bard - to “achieve weirdness”.

Resort to a Gaulier training is often involved. Mistake. You have to be born weird. And the ones who are, are a (largely undiscovered) treasure chest of laughter. Possibly because many of their venues don't have a phone signal.

Yes, Edinburgh at the Fringe is obscenely expensive. So give yourself an experience to remember. In the words of the late great Malcolm Hardee “might be good, might be sh*t”. But you will never forget it!

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