Hello fellow information wonderers,
I have been busy preparing for the Edinburgh Fringe Festival this year. It is quite simply a form of financial violence that the average UK comedian’s year typically revolves around. Not the same way it once did, mind you… The gate keepers to the upper echelons of the entertainment world have realised other gates have been forged and manned by a bunch of anti-social mathematical and systematic geniuses who’ve spent their formative years planning their revenge on the cool kids and now they are the billionaires calling the shots.
The Fringe is changing in a lot of ways. Rents and prices in the city of Edinburgh have reached nose-bleed heights and it is cheaper for the average couple planning a holiday to go anywhere else for an entire summer than it is to spend a weekend in Edinburgh in August.
Cowgate (a dark Edinburgh road under a bridge where many comedy venues are located and hen- and stag-dos typically dwell) has been for the past three years… so empty, clean and vomit-free that it actually worries me. Can anyone afford to come to the Edinburgh Fringe anymore, let alone do a show there?!
I’ve always viewed the Edinburgh Fringe as a graduate school of sorts for artists and performers.It is a place to experiment and grow in a relatively artistically tolerant /agnostic environment. There are no guarantees of success but typically the better the paid venue your show is in the more eyes of people with decision making powers are on you while you strut your stuff in your show.
After years of doing the free Fringe where I had to do and arrange everything myself, I finally made the mistake of doing the paid Fringe for the first time ever. I only did so because I was , for the first time in my life, in a position to be so financially irresponsible. My paid fringe experience was successful in that: I made a lot of other people money, my show was well received and I was as happy as I could be performing what is essentially my life story with a highlight reel of my biggest mistakes. I am not gonna lie, it knocked the wind out of me. I know I am not the first to feel this way. I have heard of other comedians quitting comedy for a while after doing a too-personal show in a shipping crate in front of strangers for an hour every day in August at a huge financial risk.
I didn’t quit comedy but I understand why people do. I suppose I am disappointed in myself for having agreed to “play the game” the way “you’re supposed to”. Even typing that makes my nerves bristle. At least it was a new mistake to make, for me anyway.
The show I am doing this year with Laughing Horse Fringe Festival is My Name is Spring Day and Other Stupid Facts 17-30 August. It’s a hour of stand up where I show how facts aren’t only stranger than the truth, they can be a lot funnier too. For me, the Laughing Horse Free Fringe is where it’s at. It’s the benevolent anarchy my Jim-Henson’s-muppets-idealist heart craves. I hope to see you there.
