The buses and trams are rammed, every conceivable surface is plastered with garish posters, and it’s impossible to walk a mere 2m in the city centre without being accosted by a manically smiling, brightly costumed promotor or performer, shoving flyers in one’s face. All that to say, the Edinburgh Fringe Festival is on.
I should consider myself lucky the bin strike has been called off — in 2022, all this chaos was compounded by literal mountains of smelly trash on each street corner.
In fact, I quite enjoy certain aspects of it — the creativity, the exuberance, the preponderance of shows and performances available for one’s perusal.
I like bumping into celebrities on the street (Gerard Butler surprised staff at the restaurant Paolozzi the other day, Dara O Briain has been spotted in Old Town, and last year I bumped into Rose Matafeo in Newington Rd), and I like seeing how enthusiastic visitors to my beautiful city are. I don’t particularly like the bumped-up prices in the city centre, or that it takes me an extra 40 minutes to commute to work each morning, but it’s a small price to pay for having the world’s largest arts festival on my doorstep.
Originally founded in 1947 as an informal counterpart to the Edinburgh International Festival, the Edinburgh Fringe Festival takes over the city every August. The Fringe is open-access, or "unjuried", which means there is no selection committee — every man and his dog can participate (and I mean that literally, there’s a dog life drawing workshop taking place this weekend at the Royal Scots Club).
The Fringe Festival has a colourful history. What began as a spontaneous and informal event in the late ’40s soon transmogrified into a many-headed hydra, attracting ever more performers and audiences due to its open-access, free-spirited nature.
In 1958, the Festival Fringe Society was established to support and organise the annual festival, maintaining the principle that anyone could participate without selection or approval.
Over the decades, the Fringe has evolved into a major cultural event, known for its experimental and avant-garde performances, launching the careers of many artists such as Rowan Atkinson and Stephen Fry.
There’s a veritable smorgasbord of events for even the most discerning patron. Comedy dominates the festival, accounting for more than a third of the programme, and has gained significant recognition through the Edinburgh Comedy Awards.
This year, the Fringe is taking place from August 2-26, with 3317 productions across 262 venues — a total of 51,446 individual performances. The mind boggles.
I’ve been to two shows so far — the comedians Ania Magliano and Patti Harrison. Magliano was hilarious. Unthinkingly, I found myself in the front row — never a safe space at a comedy show. Magliano’s set was warm, witty, relatable and self-deprecating. A highlight was learning about her first time trying the Hitachi Magic Wand (the world’s most powerful vibrator).
A lowlight was being picked on personally for having a career in marketing (and communications). At one point Magliano looked up my nose, declared that it was very crooked indeed, but that I was beautiful anyway. You’ve got to take what you can get, I guess.
Patti Harrison on the other hand was utterly unhinged. Her show My Huge Tits Huge Because They Are Infected NOT FAKE was bizarre and lurid, blurring the line between performance art and comedy. I felt like I was trapped in a psilocybin-induced fever dream from which there was no escape.
It was surreal, absurd, and my stomach hurt from laughing so much. I can proudly say I have never seen a grown woman simulate sex with a mouse (Stuart Little) before. I’m sure (and I hope) I never will again.
Lest you presume the Fringe is a mere hotbed for sexual perversion and strident female performers, let me reassure you. The Fringe has birthed and raised many reputable, classic shows, plays, movements and series. Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead made its full debut at the 1966 Fringe. The indomitable Phoebe Waller-Bridge first performed Fleabag as a one-woman show at Underbelly in 2013, well before its current iteration as an Emmy Award-winning TV series.
Hannah Gadsby’s Nanette, which won the 2017 Edinburgh Comedy Award, was lauded for redefining the boundaries of stand-up comedy and is now internationally acclaimed via Netflix. I could go on, but you get my gist.
There’s a lot that makes the Fringe magical, from its open-access policy to the diversity of talent on show. It features both established artists and emerging talent, and performances take place in a variety of unique venues, from traditional theatres to unconventional spaces like pubs, streets and even cars.
The Fringe is a major economic driver for the city, generating revenue for local businesses, hotels, restaurants and shops. But there are problems too.
Despite its vibrance, its creativity, its international fame, the Fringe is a strain on the city and its residents. The influx of millions of visitors each August more than doubles Edinburgh’s population, leading to overcrowding, heavy traffic and noise disruptions that overwhelm local infrastructure and services.
Rising costs for performers and visitors alike threaten the festival’s accessibility — working class performers are virtually excluded, and the surge in short-term rentals drives up housing prices, contributing to gentrification and displacing long-term residents.
As Michael G. Clark, paying homage to Trainspotting, puts it: "Choose a £180 a night hotel. Choose £12 a sandwich. Choose all the eighth-rate English comedians you can fit in a tiny venue. Choose Fringe."
Temporary vendors often outcompete local businesses, and the commercialisation of public areas can make residents, especially vulnerable people, feel disconnected from their own city. The environmental toll, along with the unequal sharing of economic benefits, exacerbates the feelings of frustration among locals.
The city council and the Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society could do a better job of engaging residents in planning the festival, and supporting local businesses during August. While efforts have already been made to regulate short-term rentals, more could be done. There could be greater emphasis placed on waste reduction and the strengthening of public services.
For now though, I’ll try to enjoy the chaos and colour, and I might just find myself at another unhinged comedy show this weekend, or perhaps a life drawing session with poodles and Corgis.
• Jean Balchin is an ODT columnist who has started a new life in Edinburgh.
