A view from North Bridge
For more than a decade, I went to the Edinburgh Fringe obsessively and went again this year after many, many years' absence, and although this visit was more of a holiday than the pilgrimage it was in the past, the experience was unlike the others. I am slow at processing and can't yet tell you why, but in the crosshairs are a number of suspects.
My sense was that the city was busy but not to the extent that I expected. From my previous festival experiences, it had cemented itself into my head and heart as a vibrant city, busy, safe, friendly and alive. What I found was a city where businesses go to bed early instead of making hay whilst the sun shines and keeping the doors open for the three million or so visitors that arrive across August.
At dinner in a restaurant on the last Saturday, we were told at 9PM that the coffee machine was being switched off—did we want a hot drink? We hadn't yet had our main course. Well before the 10PM closing time, chairs went up on tables signalling to any hungry passers-by they should not enter.
Such enervation can have multiple causes and several culprits have been mentioned in this article, leaving me thinking that the UK is really utterly stuffed if even Edinburgh in the extravaganza that is Fringe month is manifesting the downbeat nature of a society afflicted on all sides.
Did I find the Fringe broken? I am not sure I am able to judge; I have not been to the Fringe for its last week and perhaps it has always been quite usual for the last lap of the race to not have the sense of enthusiasm and excitement that I remember of the earlier weeks. For sure, if the festival is no longer able to maintain its energy for four weeks, then that is a sign that something needs fixing.
Another was the prevalence of one-performer events. To me, they are an essential (and often undervalued) part of the theatre ecosystem and, as a fan, I did not suffer from solo show fatigue, but I know those that did.
A key characteristic of the Fringe is that it is an open event and I would not wish to see that change, but the ubiquity of solo shows across the programme at all levels was inescapable and requires the beacons to be lit not just for the future of the Edinburgh Fringe but for the industry as a whole.
Lyn Gardner's 'fix the fringe' piece justly puts the Fringe in a wider context, echoing The Stage's editor in calling for a new, broader Boyden Report, and certainly she is right when she says elsewhere (and I paraphrase) that many of the problems faced by the Fringe are not unique to it but are reflected back to it by the wider industry.
"Years of funding attrition have undoubtedly had a negative impact on the development of creative talent" said Peter Boyden's 2000 opus, Roles and Functions of the English Regional Producing Theatres.
Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose I can hear you say. Indeed. But in its day, the report fell into receptive ears, not least the then new-ish Labour Government whose culture secretary Chris Smith secured £37 million in response. Predictably, there were arguments about what the Arts Council did with it, but there is no escaping that it was big bucks, about £79.7 million in today's money.
My feeling is that the Edinburgh Fringe needs a Boyden Report of its own. Shona McCarthy, its chief executive, said, "there is just this expectation because we pull it off every year, every venue, all the artists taking the risk to come here, and because we keep making it happen, everyone assumes it will keep happening."
Such complacency could cost theatre dear, but the fact of the matter is that taking a show to the Fringe has always been fraught with risk and, even as we share our last reflections on this year's event, artists have already started planning 2024's gamble.