Edinburgh Fringe
Encyclopedia
The Edinburgh Festival Fringe (The Fringe) is the world’s largest arts festival. Established in 1947 as an alternative to the Edinburgh International Festival
, it takes place annually in Scotland's capital, in the month of August.
The Fringe is a showcase for the performing arts, particularly theatre and comedy (which has seen substantial growth in recent years), although dance and music are also represented. In 2009, 35% of shows were comedy and 28% theatrical productions. Theatrical productions range from the classics of ancient Greece, William Shakespeare
and Samuel Beckett
to modern works. In 2009, 37% of shows were having their world premiere.
The Fringe is an unjuried festival
– with no selection committee, and therefore any type of performance may participate. The Fringe often showcases experimental works that might not be invited to a more conservative arts festival. In addition to ticketed, programmed events, the Festival includes a street fair, which takes place primarily on the Royal Mile
. The Festival is organized by the Festival Fringe Society, which publishes the programme
, sells tickets, and offers advice to performers. Their offices are on the Royal Mile.
The Board of Directors is drawn from members of the Festival Fringe Society, who are often Fringe participants themselves - performers or administrators. Elections are held once a year, in August, and Board members serve a term of three years. The Board appoints the Fringe CEO (formerly known as the Fringe Administrator or Director) and operates under the chairmanship of a well-known public personality. The first chairman was Lord Sanderson, a High Court judge, who gave way in 1970 to the actor Andrew Cruikshank. He was succeeded in 1983, by Dr. Jonathan Miller, and then by Elizabeth Smith, Baroness Smith, (widow of former Labour Leader John Smith).
The first full-time Fringe chief was former teacher, John Milligan, who left in 1976 to run the Craigmillar Festival. He was succeeded by writer and historian Alistair Moffat
, who left in 1981 to become Head of Arts at Scottish Television. He was replaced by Michael Dale, who departed in 1986 to become Head of Events for the Glasgow Garden Festival. He was succeeded by his deputy, Mhairi Mackenzie-Robinson, who left in 1993 to pursue a career in business. Hilary Strong served in the position until 2001, followed by Paul Gudgin (2001-2007), Jon Morgan (2007-2008), and Kath Mainland, the current CEO.
The 2011 Fringe sold 1,877,119 tickets for 41,689 performances of 2,542 shows, in 258 venues, over 25 days, for an average of more than 75,000 admissions and 1,360 performances per day. There were an estimated 21,192 performers, from 60 countries participating. There were 607 free shows.
in 1947. Seven performed in Edinburgh, and one undertook a version of the medieval morality play "Everyman" in Dunfermline Cathedral, about 20 miles north, across the river Forth, in Fife. These groups aimed to take advantage of the large assembled theatre crowds to showcase their own, alternative, theatre. The Fringe got its name the following year (1948) after Robert Kemp, a Scottish playwright and journalist, wrote during the second Edinburgh International Festival
: ‘Round the fringe of official Festival drama, there seems to be more private enterprise than before … I am afraid some of us are not going to be at home during the evenings!’.
The Fringe did not benefit from any official organization until 1951, when students of the University of Edinburgh
set up a drop-in centre in the YMCA, where cheap food and a bed for the night were made available to participating groups. It was 1955 before the first attempt was made to provide a central booking service.
The advent of the Fringe was not warmly greeted by some sections of the International Festival (and the Edinburgh establishment), leading to outbursts of animosity between the two festivals. This lasted well into the 1970s.
Formal organization progressed in 1959, with the formation of the Festival Fringe Society. A constitution was drawn up, in which the policy of not vetting or censoring shows was set out, and the Society produced the first guide to Fringe shows. Nineteen companies participated in the Fringe in that year.
The artistic credentials of the Fringe were established by the creators of the Traverse Theatre
, John Calder
, Jim Haynes
and Richard Demarco
in 1963. While their original objective was to maintain something of the Festival atmosphere in Edinburgh all year round, the Traverse Theatre quickly and regularly presented cutting edge drama to an international audience on both the Edinburgh International Festival
and on the Fringe during August. It set a standard to which other companies on the Fringe aspired. The Traverse is occasionally referred to as 'The Fringe venue that got away', reflecting its current status as a permanent and integral part of the Edinburgh arts scene.
Problems began to arise as the Fringe became too big for students and volunteers to deal with. Eventually in 1969 the Society became a constituted body, and in 1970 it employed its first administrator, John Milligan, who left in 1976.
Between 1976 and 1981, under the direction of Alistair Moffat
, the number of companies performing rose from 182 to 494, thus achieving its position of the largest arts festival in the world. At this point, the Fringe operated on only two full-time members of staff. In 1988 the Society moved from 170 High Street to its current expanded headquarters on the Royal Mile.
The Fringe has grown dramatically since its inception. Statistics for 2011 Edinburgh Festival Fringe concluded that it was the largest on record: there were over 40,000 performances of over 2,500 different shows in 258 venues. Ticket sales amounted to around 1.8 million. There are now 12 full-time members of staff.
Of the shows, theatre was the largest genre in terms of number of shows until 2008, when it was overtaken by comedy, which has been the major growth area over the last 20 years. The other genres are, in order of number of shows: Music, Dance & Physical Theatre, Musicals & Opera, and Children's Shows, in addition to assorted Events and Exhibitions.
It is possible to sample shows before committing to a full performance. For many years, the Fringe Club (variously in the High Street from 1971 and at Teviot Row Student Union from 1981) provided nightly showcases of Fringe fare to allow audiences to sample shows. The Fringe Club closed down in 2004, and various venues still provide "the Best of the Fest" and similar. The best opportunity used to be afforded by "Fringe Sunday", started in the High Street in 1981 and moved through pressure of popularity to Holyrood Park
in 1983. Fringe Sunday was held on the second Sunday of the Fringe when companies performed for free. Having outgrown even Holyrood Park, this showcase took place on The Meadows until 2008. Alternatively, on any day during the Fringe the pedestrianised area of the High Street around St Giles' Cathedral and the Fringe Office becomes the focal point for theatre companies to hand out flyers, perform scenes from their shows, and attempt to sell tickets. Many shows are "2 for 1" on the opening weekend of the Festival.
According to the Fringe Society there were 258 venues in 2011, although over 80 of them housed events or exhibitions, which are not part of the main performing art genres that the Fringe is generally known for.
Over the first 20 years each performing group had its own performing space, or venue. However, by around 1970 the concept of sharing a venue became popular, principally as a means of cutting costs. It soon became possible to host up to 6 or 7 different shows per day in a hall. The obvious next step was to partition a venue into two or more performing spaces; the majority of today's venues fit into this category. This approach was taken a stage further by the early 1980s with the arrival of the "super-venue" – a location that contains multiple performing spaces. The Assembly Rooms
started the trend in 1981, taking over the empty Georgian building that had once hosted the International Festival Club, and the following year The Circuit was prominent; it was in fact a "tented village”, that was situated on a piece of empty ground, popularly known as “The Hole in The Ground”, once the site of a snooker club (Pool's), where the Saltire complex was subsequently built in the early 1990s. The new Traverse Theatre
opened here in 1993.
Venues now come in all shapes and sizes, with use being made of every conceivable space from proper theatres (e.g. Traverse or Bedlam Theatre
), custom-made theatres (e.g. Music Hall in the Assembly Rooms), historic castles (C venues
), to lecture theatres (Pleasance, George Square Theatre and Sweet ECA), conference centres, other university rooms and spaces, temporary structures (The Famous Spiegeltent and the Udderbelly
), churches and church halls, schools, a public toilet, the back of a taxi, and even in the audience's own homes.
The groups that operate the venues are also very diverse: some are commercial and others not-for-profit; some operate year-round, while others exist only to run venues at the Fringe. Many are based in London.
From the performers' perspective, the decision on where to perform is typically based on a mixture of cost, location (close proximity to other venues is seen as a plus), and the philosophy of the venue – some of whom specialise in amateur, school or college productions, some of whom are semi or wholly professional.
The professionalism of venues and of organisations has greatly increased. The church hall at Lauriston Place, used by Edinburgh University Theatre Company as Bedlam Theatre, was taken over by Richard Crane and Faynia Williams from the University of Bradford
in 1975 to house "Satan's Ball". This was an ambitious benchmark production which inspired others. By 1980 when William Burdett-Coutts set up the Assembly Theatre in the Assembly Rooms on George Street (formerly the EIF Festival Club), the investment in staging, lighting and sound meant that the original amateur or student theatricals were left behind. There was still theatre done on a shoestring, but several cultural entrepreneurs had raised the stakes to the point where a venue like Aurora (St Stephen's Church, Stockbridge
) could hold its head up in any major world festival.
, offering special ticket prices for different shows each day, selling 45,000 tickets in its first year.
Several venues use their own ticketing systems; this is partly due to issues of commissions and how ticket revenue is distributed, and was reinforced by the 2008 failure of the main box office.
In 2008 the Fringe faced the biggest crisis in its history when the computerised ticketing system failed. The director of the Fringe resigned and the Board decided that the post of "Director" (invented in 1992 after years of being called "Fringe Administrator") would be abolished and replaced by a Chief Executive, thus reinforcing the Fringe chief's basic administrative function. A report into the failure was commissioned from accountancy firm Scott-Moncrieff.
The events surrounding the failed box office software led to the resignation of Fringe Director Jon Morgan after only one full year in post. The resultant financial loss suffered by the Fringe Society has been estimated at £300,000 which it was forced to meet from its reserves. These events attracted much comment from the UK and world media. More debts emerged as the year went on, and an independent report criticised the Board and the current and previous Fringe Directors for a failure of management and an inability to provide the basic service.
To make matters worse, Fringe Sunday – a vast free showcase of events held on the Meadows – was cancelled as a sponsor could not be secured. After an interim period, when Tim Hawkins from Brighton held the reins, established Edinburgh Book Festival and Fringe manager Kath Mainland was appointed in February 2009 to stabilise the situation, and became the Fringe's first Chief Executive.
In 1960 Alan Bennett
, Dudley Moore
, Peter Cook
and Jonathan Miller
performed at the Royal Lyceum theatre in Beyond the Fringe
, introducing a new wave of British satire
and heralding a change in attitudes towards politicians and the establishment. Ironically, this show was put together by the Edinburgh International Festival as a rebuff to the emerging Fringe. But its title alone helped publicise "the Fringe", especially when it went on to London's West End and New York's Broadway for the next 12 months.
Tom Stoppard
's play Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead was first performed in its full version at the 1966 Fringe.
It has also launched or advanced the careers of a number of noted actors, such as Derek Jacobi
, who starred in a sixth-form production of Hamlet
, which was very well regarded.
The 1986 Fringe saw the breakout performance of Craig Ferguson
as "Being Hitler", a "parody of all the über-patriotic native folk singers who seemed to infect every public performance in Scotland."
2003
saw a very successful production of 12 Angry Men staged at the Assembly Rooms using established comedians in the roles of the twelve jurors. It starred Owen O'Neill
in the role made famous by Henry Fonda
, Juror #8. Stephen Frost
, Phil Nichol
and Bill Bailey
also featured.
A 2004 version of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
was beset by problems, including the lead actor Christian Slater
contracting chicken pox and the original director, Guy Masterson, quitting the project before it opened. Masterson was replaced by Terry Johnson
.
In 2005, a production of Neil Simon
's The Odd Couple
starring Bill Bailey and Alan Davies
was staged at the Assembly Hall, the meeting place on the Mound of the Church of Scotland. This had been taken over by Assembly Theatre and transformed into an 840-seat theatre.
The Tattoo set-up at Edinburgh Castle
served as the 6,000-seat venue for a one-off performance by Ricky Gervais
of his latest stand-up show Fame in 2007. Gervais was accused of greed and taking audiences away from smaller shows. Gervais donated the profits from the show to Macmillan Cancer Support
.
has been copied around the world. The largest and most celebrated of these spawned festivals are Adelaide Fringe Festival
, National Arts Festival
in Grahamstown, South Africa, and Edmonton International Fringe Festival
. The number of such events continues to grow, particularly in the USA and Canada. In the case of Edinburgh (est 1947) the Fringe is an addition to the Festival proper. Hence the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. But where there is no actual Festival to be added to – such as New York (est 1997) – or where the festival is more "fringe" than anything else, the word comes before the word "festival", thus the "Adelaide Fringe Festival." (est 1979).
In the field of drama, the Edinburgh Fringe has premièred several plays, most notably Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead
by Tom Stoppard
(1966) and Moscow Stations
(1994) which starred Tom Courtenay
. Over the years, it has attracted a number of companies that have made repeated visits to the Fringe, and in doing so helped to set high artistic standards. They have included: the London Club Theatre Group (1950s), 7:84
Scotland (1970s), the Children's Music Theatre, later the National Youth Music Theatre under Jeremy James Taylor, the National Student Theatre Company (from the 1970s), Communicado (1980s and 1990s), Red Shift (1990s), and Grid Iron. The Fringe is also the staging ground of the American High School Theatre Festival.
In the field of comedy, the Fringe has provided a platform that has allowed the careers of many performers to bloom. In the 1960s, various members of the Monty Python
team appeared in student productions, as subsequently did Rowan Atkinson
, Stephen Fry
, Hugh Laurie
and Emma Thompson
, the latter three with the 1981 Cambridge Footlights. Atkinson was at Oxford. Notable companies in the 1980s have included Complicite
and the National Theatre of Brent
. More recent comedy performers to have been 'discovered' include Rory Bremner
, Fascinating Aida
, Reduced Shakespeare Company
, Steve Coogan
, Jenny Eclair, The League of Gentlemen
, Al Murray
and Rich Hall
.
festival, open access arts festival or a fringe festival
.
, and occasionally from the Edinburgh International Festival
itself.
The Fringe's own position on this debate may be summed up by Michael Dale (Fringe Administrator 1982–1986) in his book Sore Throats & Overdrafts, "No-one can say what the quality will be like overall. It does not much matter, actually, for that is not the point of the Fringe ... The Fringe is a forum for ideas and achievement unique in the UK, and in the whole world ... Where else could all this be attempted, let alone work?". Views from the middle ground of this perennial debate point out that the Fringe is not complete artistic anarchy. Some venues do influence or decide on the content of their programme, such as the Traverse and the now defunct Aurora Nova.
A frequent criticism, well-aired in the media over the last 20 years, has been that "stand-up comedy is taking over" the Fringe, that a large proportion of newer audiences are drawn almost exclusively to stand-up comics (particularly to television comedy stars in famous venues), and that they are starting to regard non-comedy events as "peripheral". The 2008 Fringe marked the first time that comedy has made up the largest category of entertainment.
The freedom to put on any show has led periodically to controversy when individual tastes in sexual explicitness or religion have been contravened. This has brought some into conflict with local city councillors. There have been the occasional performing groups who have deliberately tried to provoke controversy as a means of advertising their shows.
which is expensive for performers as well as for audiences.
In recent years a different business model has been adopted by two organisations; The Free Fringe
and The Laughing Horse Free Edinburgh Fringe Festival
have introduced the concept of the free entry show, though there are collections at the end of each performance. There were 22 shows that came under this banner in 2005, growing rapidly to over 600 in 2011. There is also the "pay what you can" model of the Forest Fringe
, discussed below.
Instead, the festival is touted as a networking opportunity, training ground or springboard for future career advancement, and exciting and fun for performers as well as spectators.
island and a swimming pool at the Apex International Hotel
.
and use of a Fringe venue. For example, the 2008 registration fee was £289.05.
Some outdoor spaces also require registration, notably the Royal Mile.
Thus some artists perform outside of the auspices of the Fringe, either individually or as part of a festival or in association with a venue, either outdoors or in non-Fringe venues.
Started by Deborah Pearson in 2007, and continuing in 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2011, under the co-directorship of Andy Field and Deborah Pearson, a primary "Fringe of the Fringe" festival is the,
at The Forest, with support from 2008 to 2010 by the Battersea Arts Centre
(BAC) and currently supported by several organisations including the Jerwood Foundation and Queen's University in Canada. The aim is to encourage experimentation by reducing costs to performers – not charging for space, and providing accommodation. The same applies to audiences: all shows being "pay what you can".
Edinburgh based newspaper The Scotsman
, known for its comprehensive coverage of the Edinburgh Festival, originally aimed to review every show on the Fringe. Now they are more selective, as there are simply too many shows to cover, although they do see almost every new play being staged as part of the Fringe's theatre programme, because of their Fringe First awards.
Other Scottish media outlets that provide coverage include: The Herald
, Scotland on Sunday
, Sunday Herald
and the Scottish edition of Metro
. Scottish arts and entertainment magazines The List and Fest Magazine
– also provide extensive coverage.
Several organisations have appeared in recent years, which freely offer a comprehensive mixture of printed and web-based reviews. They aim to cover shows that are missed by the larger organisations. They include: Edinburghguide.com, ThreeWeeks
, 'Broadway Baby', Fringe Review
, and 'Fringe Guru'. 'Garden Sessions' are an internet based outlet which provides coverage on its weekly radio show, as well as reviews on folk music and the more traditional aspects of the festival. ThreeWeeks, Broadway Baby, Fringe Review, and Fringe Guru have collaborated for the 2009 Festival to produce iFringe, an iPhone application that collates all of their reviews and allows for reading on the go.
Most of the London based broadsheets also review, in particular The Guardian
and The Independent
, while arts industry weekly The Stage
publish a large number of Edinburgh reviews, especially of the drama programme.
There are a growing number of awards for Fringe shows, particularly in the field of drama:
Edinburgh International Festival
The Edinburgh International Festival is a festival of performing arts that takes place in the city of Edinburgh, Scotland, over three weeks from around the middle of August. By invitation from the Festival Director, the International Festival brings top class performers of music , theatre, opera...
, it takes place annually in Scotland's capital, in the month of August.
The Fringe is a showcase for the performing arts, particularly theatre and comedy (which has seen substantial growth in recent years), although dance and music are also represented. In 2009, 35% of shows were comedy and 28% theatrical productions. Theatrical productions range from the classics of ancient Greece, William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
and Samuel Beckett
Samuel Beckett
Samuel Barclay Beckett was an Irish avant-garde novelist, playwright, theatre director, and poet. He wrote both in English and French. His work offers a bleak, tragicomic outlook on human nature, often coupled with black comedy and gallows humour.Beckett is widely regarded as among the most...
to modern works. In 2009, 37% of shows were having their world premiere.
The Fringe is an unjuried festival
Unjuried
An unjuried art exhibition or festival is one where all submissions are accepted.Within theater, it is often referred to as a fringe festival, following the unjuried Edinburgh Festival Fringe.- History :...
– with no selection committee, and therefore any type of performance may participate. The Fringe often showcases experimental works that might not be invited to a more conservative arts festival. In addition to ticketed, programmed events, the Festival includes a street fair, which takes place primarily on the Royal Mile
Royal Mile
The Royal Mile is a succession of streets which form the main thoroughfare of the Old Town of the city of Edinburgh in Scotland.As the name suggests, the Royal Mile is approximately one Scots mile long, and runs between two foci of history in Scotland, from Edinburgh Castle at the top of the Castle...
. The Festival is organized by the Festival Fringe Society, which publishes the programme
Event programme
A programme or program is a booklet available for patrons attending a live event such as theatre performances, fêtes, sports events, etc. It is a printed leaflet outlining the parts of the event scheduled to take place, principal performers and background information. In the case of theatrical...
, sells tickets, and offers advice to performers. Their offices are on the Royal Mile.
The Board of Directors is drawn from members of the Festival Fringe Society, who are often Fringe participants themselves - performers or administrators. Elections are held once a year, in August, and Board members serve a term of three years. The Board appoints the Fringe CEO (formerly known as the Fringe Administrator or Director) and operates under the chairmanship of a well-known public personality. The first chairman was Lord Sanderson, a High Court judge, who gave way in 1970 to the actor Andrew Cruikshank. He was succeeded in 1983, by Dr. Jonathan Miller, and then by Elizabeth Smith, Baroness Smith, (widow of former Labour Leader John Smith).
The first full-time Fringe chief was former teacher, John Milligan, who left in 1976 to run the Craigmillar Festival. He was succeeded by writer and historian Alistair Moffat
Alistair Moffat
Alistair Moffat is an award winning writer and journalist, former director of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, and Rector of the University of St Andrews.-Education:...
, who left in 1981 to become Head of Arts at Scottish Television. He was replaced by Michael Dale, who departed in 1986 to become Head of Events for the Glasgow Garden Festival. He was succeeded by his deputy, Mhairi Mackenzie-Robinson, who left in 1993 to pursue a career in business. Hilary Strong served in the position until 2001, followed by Paul Gudgin (2001-2007), Jon Morgan (2007-2008), and Kath Mainland, the current CEO.
The 2011 Fringe sold 1,877,119 tickets for 41,689 performances of 2,542 shows, in 258 venues, over 25 days, for an average of more than 75,000 admissions and 1,360 performances per day. There were an estimated 21,192 performers, from 60 countries participating. There were 607 free shows.
History
Early years
The Fringe started life when eight theatre companies turned up uninvited to the inaugural Edinburgh International FestivalEdinburgh International Festival
The Edinburgh International Festival is a festival of performing arts that takes place in the city of Edinburgh, Scotland, over three weeks from around the middle of August. By invitation from the Festival Director, the International Festival brings top class performers of music , theatre, opera...
in 1947. Seven performed in Edinburgh, and one undertook a version of the medieval morality play "Everyman" in Dunfermline Cathedral, about 20 miles north, across the river Forth, in Fife. These groups aimed to take advantage of the large assembled theatre crowds to showcase their own, alternative, theatre. The Fringe got its name the following year (1948) after Robert Kemp, a Scottish playwright and journalist, wrote during the second Edinburgh International Festival
Edinburgh International Festival
The Edinburgh International Festival is a festival of performing arts that takes place in the city of Edinburgh, Scotland, over three weeks from around the middle of August. By invitation from the Festival Director, the International Festival brings top class performers of music , theatre, opera...
: ‘Round the fringe of official Festival drama, there seems to be more private enterprise than before … I am afraid some of us are not going to be at home during the evenings!’.
The Fringe did not benefit from any official organization until 1951, when students of the University of Edinburgh
University of Edinburgh
The University of Edinburgh, founded in 1583, is a public research university located in Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland, and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The university is deeply embedded in the fabric of the city, with many of the buildings in the historic Old Town belonging to the university...
set up a drop-in centre in the YMCA, where cheap food and a bed for the night were made available to participating groups. It was 1955 before the first attempt was made to provide a central booking service.
The advent of the Fringe was not warmly greeted by some sections of the International Festival (and the Edinburgh establishment), leading to outbursts of animosity between the two festivals. This lasted well into the 1970s.
Formal organization progressed in 1959, with the formation of the Festival Fringe Society. A constitution was drawn up, in which the policy of not vetting or censoring shows was set out, and the Society produced the first guide to Fringe shows. Nineteen companies participated in the Fringe in that year.
The artistic credentials of the Fringe were established by the creators of the Traverse Theatre
Traverse Theatre
The Traverse Theatre is a theatre in Edinburgh, Scotland. It was founded in 1963.The Traverse Theatre commissions and develops new plays or adaptations from contemporary playwrights. It also presents a large number of productions from visiting companies from across the UK. These include new plays,...
, John Calder
John Calder
John Mackenzie Calder is a Canadian and Scottish publisher who founded Calder Publishing in 1949.-Biography:John Calder was a friend of Samuel Beckett, becoming the main publisher of his prose-texts in Britain after the success of Waiting for Godot on the London stage in 1955-56...
, Jim Haynes
James Haynes
James Haynes, commonly known as Jim Haynes , was a leading figure in the London "underground" and alternative/counter-culture scene of the 1960s...
and Richard Demarco
Richard Demarco
Richard Demarco, CBE is an Italian Scottish artist and promoter of the visual and performing arts.-Richard Demarco Gallery:...
in 1963. While their original objective was to maintain something of the Festival atmosphere in Edinburgh all year round, the Traverse Theatre quickly and regularly presented cutting edge drama to an international audience on both the Edinburgh International Festival
Edinburgh International Festival
The Edinburgh International Festival is a festival of performing arts that takes place in the city of Edinburgh, Scotland, over three weeks from around the middle of August. By invitation from the Festival Director, the International Festival brings top class performers of music , theatre, opera...
and on the Fringe during August. It set a standard to which other companies on the Fringe aspired. The Traverse is occasionally referred to as 'The Fringe venue that got away', reflecting its current status as a permanent and integral part of the Edinburgh arts scene.
Problems began to arise as the Fringe became too big for students and volunteers to deal with. Eventually in 1969 the Society became a constituted body, and in 1970 it employed its first administrator, John Milligan, who left in 1976.
Between 1976 and 1981, under the direction of Alistair Moffat
Alistair Moffat
Alistair Moffat is an award winning writer and journalist, former director of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, and Rector of the University of St Andrews.-Education:...
, the number of companies performing rose from 182 to 494, thus achieving its position of the largest arts festival in the world. At this point, the Fringe operated on only two full-time members of staff. In 1988 the Society moved from 170 High Street to its current expanded headquarters on the Royal Mile.
The Fringe today
Of the shows, theatre was the largest genre in terms of number of shows until 2008, when it was overtaken by comedy, which has been the major growth area over the last 20 years. The other genres are, in order of number of shows: Music, Dance & Physical Theatre, Musicals & Opera, and Children's Shows, in addition to assorted Events and Exhibitions.
It is possible to sample shows before committing to a full performance. For many years, the Fringe Club (variously in the High Street from 1971 and at Teviot Row Student Union from 1981) provided nightly showcases of Fringe fare to allow audiences to sample shows. The Fringe Club closed down in 2004, and various venues still provide "the Best of the Fest" and similar. The best opportunity used to be afforded by "Fringe Sunday", started in the High Street in 1981 and moved through pressure of popularity to Holyrood Park
Holyrood Park
Holyrood Park is a royal park in central Edinburgh, Scotland about a mile to the east of Edinburgh Castle. It has an array of hills, lochs, glens, ridges, basalt cliffs, and patches of whin providing a remarkably wild piece of highland landscape within its area...
in 1983. Fringe Sunday was held on the second Sunday of the Fringe when companies performed for free. Having outgrown even Holyrood Park, this showcase took place on The Meadows until 2008. Alternatively, on any day during the Fringe the pedestrianised area of the High Street around St Giles' Cathedral and the Fringe Office becomes the focal point for theatre companies to hand out flyers, perform scenes from their shows, and attempt to sell tickets. Many shows are "2 for 1" on the opening weekend of the Festival.
Venues
Over the first 20 years each performing group had its own performing space, or venue. However, by around 1970 the concept of sharing a venue became popular, principally as a means of cutting costs. It soon became possible to host up to 6 or 7 different shows per day in a hall. The obvious next step was to partition a venue into two or more performing spaces; the majority of today's venues fit into this category. This approach was taken a stage further by the early 1980s with the arrival of the "super-venue" – a location that contains multiple performing spaces. The Assembly Rooms
Assembly Rooms (Edinburgh)
The Assembly Rooms is a former assembly rooms located in central Edinburgh, the rooms now host a number of events including the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and the Hogmanay celebrations. There are four rooms that are used year-round and are available for private functions: Music Hall, Ballroom,...
started the trend in 1981, taking over the empty Georgian building that had once hosted the International Festival Club, and the following year The Circuit was prominent; it was in fact a "tented village”, that was situated on a piece of empty ground, popularly known as “The Hole in The Ground”, once the site of a snooker club (Pool's), where the Saltire complex was subsequently built in the early 1990s. The new Traverse Theatre
Traverse Theatre
The Traverse Theatre is a theatre in Edinburgh, Scotland. It was founded in 1963.The Traverse Theatre commissions and develops new plays or adaptations from contemporary playwrights. It also presents a large number of productions from visiting companies from across the UK. These include new plays,...
opened here in 1993.
Venues now come in all shapes and sizes, with use being made of every conceivable space from proper theatres (e.g. Traverse or Bedlam Theatre
Bedlam Theatre
Bedlam Theatre is a student-run theatre owned by the University of Edinburgh and notable for being the oldest student-run theatre in Britain.It is housed in the former New North Free Church building at the foot of George IV Bridge in Edinburgh; a building which was designed by Thomas Hamilton, an...
), custom-made theatres (e.g. Music Hall in the Assembly Rooms), historic castles (C venues
C venues
C venues is the home of the largest theatre and new writing programme at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, which is held annually in August each year...
), to lecture theatres (Pleasance, George Square Theatre and Sweet ECA), conference centres, other university rooms and spaces, temporary structures (The Famous Spiegeltent and the Udderbelly
UdderBELLY
The udderBELLY is an upside-down giant purple cow tent owned by the event venue and management company Underbelly, and sponsored by E4.The udderBELLY can be used for a variety of different purposes as it can be adapted to contain a stage and all-seater 322 seat venue, or alternatively can be...
), churches and church halls, schools, a public toilet, the back of a taxi, and even in the audience's own homes.
The groups that operate the venues are also very diverse: some are commercial and others not-for-profit; some operate year-round, while others exist only to run venues at the Fringe. Many are based in London.
From the performers' perspective, the decision on where to perform is typically based on a mixture of cost, location (close proximity to other venues is seen as a plus), and the philosophy of the venue – some of whom specialise in amateur, school or college productions, some of whom are semi or wholly professional.
The professionalism of venues and of organisations has greatly increased. The church hall at Lauriston Place, used by Edinburgh University Theatre Company as Bedlam Theatre, was taken over by Richard Crane and Faynia Williams from the University of Bradford
University of Bradford
The University of Bradford is a British university located in the city of Bradford, West Yorkshire, England. The University received its Royal Charter in 1966, making it the 40th University to be created in Britain, but its origins date back to the early 1800s...
in 1975 to house "Satan's Ball". This was an ambitious benchmark production which inspired others. By 1980 when William Burdett-Coutts set up the Assembly Theatre in the Assembly Rooms on George Street (formerly the EIF Festival Club), the investment in staging, lighting and sound meant that the original amateur or student theatricals were left behind. There was still theatre done on a shoestring, but several cultural entrepreneurs had raised the stakes to the point where a venue like Aurora (St Stephen's Church, Stockbridge
Stockbridge, Edinburgh
Stockbridge is an area of Edinburgh, located towards the north of the city, bounded by the New Town and by Comely Bank. The name is Scots stock brig from Anglic stocc brycg, meaning a timber bridge. Originally a small outlying village, it was incorporated into the City of Edinburgh in the 19th...
) could hold its head up in any major world festival.
Computerised box office
A computerised booking system was first installed in the early 1990s, allowing tickets to be bought at a number of locations around the city. The Internet arrived in 2000 with the launching of its official website, which sold over half a million tickets online by 2005. In the following year, a Half Price Ticket Tent was added in association with MetroMetro (Associated Metro Limited)
Metro is a free daily newspaper in the United Kingdom published by Associated Newspapers Ltd . It is available from Monday to Friday each week on many public transport services across the United Kingdom.-History:The paper was launched in London in 1999, and can now be found in 14 UK urban centres...
, offering special ticket prices for different shows each day, selling 45,000 tickets in its first year.
Several venues use their own ticketing systems; this is partly due to issues of commissions and how ticket revenue is distributed, and was reinforced by the 2008 failure of the main box office.
2008 problems
In 2008 the Fringe faced the biggest crisis in its history when the computerised ticketing system failed. The director of the Fringe resigned and the Board decided that the post of "Director" (invented in 1992 after years of being called "Fringe Administrator") would be abolished and replaced by a Chief Executive, thus reinforcing the Fringe chief's basic administrative function. A report into the failure was commissioned from accountancy firm Scott-Moncrieff.
The events surrounding the failed box office software led to the resignation of Fringe Director Jon Morgan after only one full year in post. The resultant financial loss suffered by the Fringe Society has been estimated at £300,000 which it was forced to meet from its reserves. These events attracted much comment from the UK and world media. More debts emerged as the year went on, and an independent report criticised the Board and the current and previous Fringe Directors for a failure of management and an inability to provide the basic service.
To make matters worse, Fringe Sunday – a vast free showcase of events held on the Meadows – was cancelled as a sponsor could not be secured. After an interim period, when Tim Hawkins from Brighton held the reins, established Edinburgh Book Festival and Fringe manager Kath Mainland was appointed in February 2009 to stabilise the situation, and became the Fringe's first Chief Executive.
Notable shows
Edinburgh has spawned many notable original shows and helped establish the careers of many writers and performers.In 1960 Alan Bennett
Alan Bennett
Alan Bennett is a British playwright, screenwriter, actor and author. Born in Leeds, he attended Oxford University where he studied history and performed with The Oxford Revue. He stayed to teach and research mediaeval history at the university for several years...
, Dudley Moore
Dudley Moore
Dudley Stuart John Moore, CBE was an English actor, comedian, composer and musician.Moore first came to prominence as one of the four writer-performers in the ground-breaking comedy revue Beyond the Fringe in the early 1960s, and then became famous as half of the highly popular television...
, Peter Cook
Peter Cook
Peter Edward Cook was an English satirist, writer and comedian. An extremely influential figure in modern British comedy, he is regarded as the leading light of the British satire boom of the 1960s. He has been described by Stephen Fry as "the funniest man who ever drew breath," although Cook's...
and Jonathan Miller
Jonathan Miller
Sir Jonathan Wolfe Miller CBE is a British theatre and opera director, author, physician, television presenter, humorist and sculptor. Trained as a physician in the late 1950s, he first came to prominence in the 1960s with his role in the comedy revue Beyond the Fringe with fellow writers and...
performed at the Royal Lyceum theatre in Beyond the Fringe
Beyond the Fringe
Beyond the Fringe was a British comedy stage revue written and performed by Peter Cook, Dudley Moore, Alan Bennett, and Jonathan Miller. It played in London's West End and then on New York's Broadway in the early 1960s, and is widely regarded as seminal to the rise of satire in 1960s Britain.-The...
, introducing a new wave of British satire
Satire
Satire is primarily a literary genre or form, although in practice it can also be found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement...
and heralding a change in attitudes towards politicians and the establishment. Ironically, this show was put together by the Edinburgh International Festival as a rebuff to the emerging Fringe. But its title alone helped publicise "the Fringe", especially when it went on to London's West End and New York's Broadway for the next 12 months.
Tom Stoppard
Tom Stoppard
Sir Tom Stoppard OM, CBE, FRSL is a British playwright, knighted in 1997. He has written prolifically for TV, radio, film and stage, finding prominence with plays such as Arcadia, The Coast of Utopia, Every Good Boy Deserves Favour, Professional Foul, The Real Thing, and Rosencrantz and...
's play Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead was first performed in its full version at the 1966 Fringe.
It has also launched or advanced the careers of a number of noted actors, such as Derek Jacobi
Derek Jacobi
Sir Derek George Jacobi, CBE is an English actor and film director.A "forceful, commanding stage presence", Jacobi has enjoyed a highly successful stage career, appearing in such stage productions as Hamlet, Uncle Vanya, and Oedipus the King. He received a Tony Award for his performance in...
, who starred in a sixth-form production of Hamlet
Hamlet
The Tragical History of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, or more simply Hamlet, is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1599 and 1601...
, which was very well regarded.
The 1986 Fringe saw the breakout performance of Craig Ferguson
Craig Ferguson
Craig Ferguson is a Scottish American television host, stand-up comedian, writer, actor, director, author, and producer. He is the host of The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson, an Emmy Award-nominated, Peabody Award-winning late-night talk show that airs on CBS...
as "Being Hitler", a "parody of all the über-patriotic native folk singers who seemed to infect every public performance in Scotland."
2003
2003 Edinburgh Festival Fringe
The 2003 Edinburgh Festival Fringe was the 56th Edinburgh Festival Fringe. The Fringe ran from 3–25 August 2003 and presented 1541 shows over 207 venues...
saw a very successful production of 12 Angry Men staged at the Assembly Rooms using established comedians in the roles of the twelve jurors. It starred Owen O'Neill
Owen O'Neill
Owen O'Neill is an award-winning writer actor director and comedian. His short film The Basket Case won the best Irish short at the 2008 Boston Film Festival in the U.S...
in the role made famous by Henry Fonda
Henry Fonda
Henry Jaynes Fonda was an American film and stage actor.Fonda made his mark early as a Broadway actor. He also appeared in 1938 in plays performed in White Plains, New York, with Joan Tompkins...
, Juror #8. Stephen Frost
Stephen Frost
Stephen Frost , also known as Steve Frost, is an English comedian.Frost is known for his work in the 1980s with Mark Arden as part of the double act The Oblivion Boys on Saturday Live...
, Phil Nichol
Phil Nichol
Phil Nichol is a Canadian comedian, singer-songwriter, and actor.-Comedy:Nichol was born in Scotland to a Scottish mother, but raised in Canada. He first found fame as a member of the musical comedy trio Corky and the Juice Pigs, known for the song " Eskimo"...
and Bill Bailey
Bill Bailey
Bill Bailey is an English comedian, musician and actor. As well as his extensive stand-up work, Bailey is well known for his appearances on Black Books, Never Mind the Buzzcocks, Have I Got News for You, and QI.Bailey was listed by The Observer as one of the 50 funniest acts in British comedy in...
also featured.
A 2004 version of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (play)
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is a play based on Ken Kesey's 1962 novel of the same name. Dale Wasserman's stage adaptation, with music by Teiji Ito, made its Broadway preview on November 12, 1963, its premiere on November 13, and ran until January 25, 1964 for a total of one preview and 82...
was beset by problems, including the lead actor Christian Slater
Christian Slater
Christian Michael Leonard Slater is an American actor. He made his film debut with a small role in The Postman Always Rings Twice before playing a leading role in the 1985 film The Legend of Billie Jean...
contracting chicken pox and the original director, Guy Masterson, quitting the project before it opened. Masterson was replaced by Terry Johnson
Terry Johnson (dramatist)
Terry Johnson is a British dramatist and director working for stage, television and film. He is a Literary Associate at the Royal Court Theatre. At The Court he directed Dumb Show by Joe Penhall and opened his play Piano/Forte...
.
In 2005, a production of Neil Simon
Neil Simon
Neil Simon is an American playwright and screenwriter. He has written numerous Broadway plays, including Brighton Beach Memoirs, Biloxi Blues, and The Odd Couple. He won the 1991 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for his play Lost In Yonkers. He has written the screenplays for several of his plays that...
's The Odd Couple
The Odd Couple
The Odd Couple is a 1965 Broadway play by Neil Simon, followed by a successful film and television series, as well as other derivative works and spin offs, many featuring one or more of the same actors. The plot concerns two mismatched roommates, one neat and uptight, the other more easygoing and...
starring Bill Bailey and Alan Davies
Alan Davies
Alan Davies is an English comedian, writer and actor best known for starring in the TV mystery series Jonathan Creek and as the permanent panellist on the TV panel show QI.- Early life :...
was staged at the Assembly Hall, the meeting place on the Mound of the Church of Scotland. This had been taken over by Assembly Theatre and transformed into an 840-seat theatre.
The Tattoo set-up at Edinburgh Castle
Edinburgh Castle
Edinburgh Castle is a fortress which dominates the skyline of the city of Edinburgh, Scotland, from its position atop the volcanic Castle Rock. Human habitation of the site is dated back as far as the 9th century BC, although the nature of early settlement is unclear...
served as the 6,000-seat venue for a one-off performance by Ricky Gervais
Ricky Gervais
Ricky Dene Gervais is an English comedian, actor, director, radio presenter, producer, musician, and writer.Gervais achieved mainstream fame with his television series The Office and the subsequent series Extras, both of which he co-wrote and co-directed with friend and frequent collaborator...
of his latest stand-up show Fame in 2007. Gervais was accused of greed and taking audiences away from smaller shows. Gervais donated the profits from the show to Macmillan Cancer Support
Macmillan Cancer Support
Macmillan Cancer Support is one of the largest British charities and provides specialist health care, information and financial support to people affected by cancer....
.
Fringe legacy
The concept of Fringe TheatreFringe theatre
Fringe theatre is theatre that is not of the mainstream. The term comes from the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, which name comes from Robert Kemp, who described the unofficial companies performing at the same time as the second Edinburgh International Festival as a ‘fringe’, writing: ‘Round the fringe...
has been copied around the world. The largest and most celebrated of these spawned festivals are Adelaide Fringe Festival
Adelaide Fringe Festival
The Adelaide Fringe Festival is an arts festival held annually in the South Australian capital of Adelaide. The event is the Southern Hemisphere's largest arts event and the second-largest fringe festival in the world, second in size only to the Edinburgh Fringe...
, National Arts Festival
National Arts Festival
The National Arts Festival is one of the most important events on the South African cultural calendar, and the biggest annual celebration of the arts on the African continent....
in Grahamstown, South Africa, and Edmonton International Fringe Festival
Edmonton International Fringe Festival
The Edmonton International Fringe Festival produced by the Fringe Theatre Adventures is an annual event held every August in Edmonton, Alberta in Canada....
. The number of such events continues to grow, particularly in the USA and Canada. In the case of Edinburgh (est 1947) the Fringe is an addition to the Festival proper. Hence the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. But where there is no actual Festival to be added to – such as New York (est 1997) – or where the festival is more "fringe" than anything else, the word comes before the word "festival", thus the "Adelaide Fringe Festival." (est 1979).
In the field of drama, the Edinburgh Fringe has premièred several plays, most notably Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead
Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead is an absurdist, existentialist tragicomedy by Tom Stoppard, first staged at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 1966. The play expands upon the exploits of two minor characters from Shakespeare's Hamlet, the courtiers Rosencrantz and Guildenstern...
by Tom Stoppard
Tom Stoppard
Sir Tom Stoppard OM, CBE, FRSL is a British playwright, knighted in 1997. He has written prolifically for TV, radio, film and stage, finding prominence with plays such as Arcadia, The Coast of Utopia, Every Good Boy Deserves Favour, Professional Foul, The Real Thing, and Rosencrantz and...
(1966) and Moscow Stations
Moscow-Petushki
Moscow-Petushki, also published as Moscow to the End of the Line, Moscow Stations, and Moscow Circles, is a pseudo-autobiographical postmodernist prose poem by Russian writer and satirist Venedikt Erofeev....
(1994) which starred Tom Courtenay
Tom Courtenay
Sir Thomas Daniel "Tom" Courtenay is an English actor who came to prominence in the early 1960s with a succession of films including The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner , Billy Liar , and Dr. Zhivago . Since the mid-1960s he has been known primarily for his work in the theatre...
. Over the years, it has attracted a number of companies that have made repeated visits to the Fringe, and in doing so helped to set high artistic standards. They have included: the London Club Theatre Group (1950s), 7:84
7:84
7:84 was a Scottish left-wing agitprop theatre group. The name comes from a statistic, published in The Economist in 1966, that 7% of the population of the UK owned 84% of the state's wealth....
Scotland (1970s), the Children's Music Theatre, later the National Youth Music Theatre under Jeremy James Taylor, the National Student Theatre Company (from the 1970s), Communicado (1980s and 1990s), Red Shift (1990s), and Grid Iron. The Fringe is also the staging ground of the American High School Theatre Festival.
In the field of comedy, the Fringe has provided a platform that has allowed the careers of many performers to bloom. In the 1960s, various members of the Monty Python
Monty Python
Monty Python was a British surreal comedy group who created their influential Monty Python's Flying Circus, a British television comedy sketch show that first aired on the BBC on 5 October 1969. Forty-five episodes were made over four series...
team appeared in student productions, as subsequently did Rowan Atkinson
Rowan Atkinson
Rowan Sebastian Atkinson is a British actor, comedian, and screenwriter. He is most famous for his work on the satirical sketch comedy show Not The Nine O'Clock News, and the sitcoms Blackadder, Mr. Bean and The Thin Blue Line...
, Stephen Fry
Stephen Fry
Stephen John Fry is an English actor, screenwriter, author, playwright, journalist, poet, comedian, television presenter and film director, and a director of Norwich City Football Club. He first came to attention in the 1981 Cambridge Footlights Revue presentation "The Cellar Tapes", which also...
, Hugh Laurie
Hugh Laurie
James Hugh Calum Laurie, OBE , better known as Hugh Laurie , is an English actor, voice artist, comedian, writer, musician, recording artist, and director...
and Emma Thompson
Emma Thompson
Emma Thompson is a British actress, comedian and screenwriter. Her first major film role was in the 1989 romantic comedy The Tall Guy. In 1992, Thompson won multiple acting awards, including an Academy Award and a BAFTA Award for Best Actress, for her performance in the British drama Howards End...
, the latter three with the 1981 Cambridge Footlights. Atkinson was at Oxford. Notable companies in the 1980s have included Complicite
Complicite
The British theatre company Complicite was founded in 1983 by Simon McBurney, Annabel Arden, and Marcello Magni. Its original name was Théâtre de Complicité. "The Company's inimitable style of visual and devised theatre [has] an emphasis on strong, corporeal, poetic and surrealist image supporting...
and the National Theatre of Brent
National Theatre of Brent
The National Theatre of Brent is a British comedy double-act, in the form of a mock two-man theatre troupe. Patrick Barlow plays Desmond Olivier Dingle, the troupe's founder, Artistic Director and Chief Executive...
. More recent comedy performers to have been 'discovered' include Rory Bremner
Rory Bremner
Roderick "Rory" Keith Ogilvy Bremner, FKC is a Scottish impressionist, playwright and comedian, noted for his work in political satire...
, Fascinating Aida
Fascinating Aida
Fascinating Aïda is a British comedy singing group and satirical cabaret act, which has retired twice, most recently in 2004. After the death in 2007 of the group's pianist and musical director, Russell Churney, all plans for a new show were shelved. Some of their most famous songs include...
, Reduced Shakespeare Company
Reduced Shakespeare Company
The Reduced Shakespeare Company is an American acting troupe that writes and performs unsubtle, fast-paced, seemingly improvisational condensations of huge topics.- Overview :...
, Steve Coogan
Steve Coogan
Stephen John "Steve" Coogan is a British comedian, actor, writer and producer. Born in Manchester, he began his career as a standup comedian and impressionist, working as a voice artist throughout the 1980s on satirical puppet show Spitting Image. In the early nineties, Coogan began creating...
, Jenny Eclair, The League of Gentlemen
The League of Gentlemen
The League of Gentlemen are a group of British comedians formed in 1995, best known for their radio and television series.The League of Gentlemen may also refer to:* The League of Gentlemen ,...
, Al Murray
Al Murray
Alastair James Hay "Al" Murray , is a British comedian best known for his stand-up persona, The Pub Landlord, a stereotypical xenophobic public house licensee. In 2003, he was listed in The Observer as one of the 50 funniest acts in British comedy...
and Rich Hall
Rich Hall
Richard "Rich" Hall is an American comedian, writer and musician.-Early life and career:Hall was born in Alexandria, Virginia and grew up in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina. He is part Cherokee Indian...
.
Open Access Arts Festival
The role of the Fringe Society is to facilitate the festival, concentrating mainly on the challenging logistics of organising such a large event. Alistair Moffat (Fringe administrator 1976–1981) summarised the role of the Society when he said, “As a direct result of the wishes of the participants, the Society had been set up to help the performers that come to Edinburgh and to promote them collectively to the public. It did not come together so that groups could be invited, or in some way artistically vetted. What was performed and how it was done was left entirely to each Fringe group”. This approach is now sometimes referred to as an unjuriedUnjuried
An unjuried art exhibition or festival is one where all submissions are accepted.Within theater, it is often referred to as a fringe festival, following the unjuried Edinburgh Festival Fringe.- History :...
festival, open access arts festival or a fringe festival
Fringe theatre
Fringe theatre is theatre that is not of the mainstream. The term comes from the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, which name comes from Robert Kemp, who described the unofficial companies performing at the same time as the second Edinburgh International Festival as a ‘fringe’, writing: ‘Round the fringe...
.
Quality
Over the years this approach has led to adverse criticism about the quality of the Fringe. Much of this criticism comes from individual arts critics in national newspapers, hard-line aficionados of the Edinburgh International FestivalEdinburgh International Festival
The Edinburgh International Festival is a festival of performing arts that takes place in the city of Edinburgh, Scotland, over three weeks from around the middle of August. By invitation from the Festival Director, the International Festival brings top class performers of music , theatre, opera...
, and occasionally from the Edinburgh International Festival
Edinburgh International Festival
The Edinburgh International Festival is a festival of performing arts that takes place in the city of Edinburgh, Scotland, over three weeks from around the middle of August. By invitation from the Festival Director, the International Festival brings top class performers of music , theatre, opera...
itself.
The Fringe's own position on this debate may be summed up by Michael Dale (Fringe Administrator 1982–1986) in his book Sore Throats & Overdrafts, "No-one can say what the quality will be like overall. It does not much matter, actually, for that is not the point of the Fringe ... The Fringe is a forum for ideas and achievement unique in the UK, and in the whole world ... Where else could all this be attempted, let alone work?". Views from the middle ground of this perennial debate point out that the Fringe is not complete artistic anarchy. Some venues do influence or decide on the content of their programme, such as the Traverse and the now defunct Aurora Nova.
A frequent criticism, well-aired in the media over the last 20 years, has been that "stand-up comedy is taking over" the Fringe, that a large proportion of newer audiences are drawn almost exclusively to stand-up comics (particularly to television comedy stars in famous venues), and that they are starting to regard non-comedy events as "peripheral". The 2008 Fringe marked the first time that comedy has made up the largest category of entertainment.
The freedom to put on any show has led periodically to controversy when individual tastes in sexual explicitness or religion have been contravened. This has brought some into conflict with local city councillors. There have been the occasional performing groups who have deliberately tried to provoke controversy as a means of advertising their shows.
Ticket prices
In the mid 1990s only the occasional top show charged £10 per seat, while the average price was £5–£7; in 2006, prices were frequently over £10, and £20 was reached for the first time in 2006 for a show that lasted 1 hour. Some of the reasons that are put forward for the increases include: the increasing costs associated with hiring large venues; theatre licences and related costs; plus the price of accommodation during the Edinburgh FestivalEdinburgh Festival
The Edinburgh Festival is a collective term for many arts and cultural festivals that take place in Edinburgh, Scotland each summer, mostly in August...
which is expensive for performers as well as for audiences.
In recent years a different business model has been adopted by two organisations; The Free Fringe
Free Fringe
The Free Fringe is an organisation that promotes free shows at the annual Edinburgh Festival Fringe in Scotland. Free Fringe venues are commonly independently run bars and nightclubs which create performance spaces in their premises for the duration of the Fringe Festival...
and The Laughing Horse Free Edinburgh Fringe Festival
Free Edinburgh Fringe Festival
The Free Festival is an organisation that promotes free shows of all genres at the annual Edinburgh Festival Fringe in Scotland. Free Festival venues are commonly independently run bars and nightclubs which create performance spaces in their premises for the duration of the Fringe Festival...
have introduced the concept of the free entry show, though there are collections at the end of each performance. There were 22 shows that came under this banner in 2005, growing rapidly to over 600 in 2011. There is also the "pay what you can" model of the Forest Fringe
Forest Cafe
The Forest, also referred to as Forest Café, was an independent social centre and arts centre located on Bristo Place, central Edinburgh, Scotland.It was notable for being run by volunteers as a charitable self-sustaining not-for-profit...
, discussed below.
Costs to performers
Putting on a show at the Fringe is costly to performers, due to registration fees, venue hire, cost of accommodations, and travel to Edinburgh. There are graduated registration fees, inexpensive venues, and inexpensive accommodations, but despite this, few shows even break even.Instead, the festival is touted as a networking opportunity, training ground or springboard for future career advancement, and exciting and fun for performers as well as spectators.
Costs to venues
Putting on shows is costly to venues as well, due to theatre license fees which by 2009 had risen 800% in the preceding three years, and were eight times as high as fees in English cities, starting at £824 for a venue of up to 200 people and rising to £2,472 for a venue of up to 5,000 people. These fees have been cited as punitive to smaller venues and site-specific performances by such figures as Julian Caddy, which in 2009 featured site-specific shows in such venues as InchcolmInchcolm
Inchcolm is an island in the Firth of Forth in Scotland. Repeatedly attacked by English raiders during the Wars of Scottish Independence, it was fortified during both World Wars to defend nearby Edinburgh...
island and a swimming pool at the Apex International Hotel
Apex Hotels
Apex Hotels Ltd is an operator of four star hotels, owned by former accountant Norman Springford and his family.Based in Edinburgh, the company operates seven hotels in the United Kingdom.-Hotel Locations:...
.
Fringe of the Fringe
The Fringe itself at times sprouts a fringe. While the festival is unjuried, participating in the Fringe requires registration, payment of a registration fee,and use of a Fringe venue. For example, the 2008 registration fee was £289.05.
Some outdoor spaces also require registration, notably the Royal Mile.
Thus some artists perform outside of the auspices of the Fringe, either individually or as part of a festival or in association with a venue, either outdoors or in non-Fringe venues.
Started by Deborah Pearson in 2007, and continuing in 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2011, under the co-directorship of Andy Field and Deborah Pearson, a primary "Fringe of the Fringe" festival is the,
at The Forest, with support from 2008 to 2010 by the Battersea Arts Centre
Battersea Arts Centre
The Battersea Arts Centre is a performance space near Clapham Junction in Battersea, in the London Borough of Wandsworth that specialises in music and theatre productions.-History:...
(BAC) and currently supported by several organisations including the Jerwood Foundation and Queen's University in Canada. The aim is to encourage experimentation by reducing costs to performers – not charging for space, and providing accommodation. The same applies to audiences: all shows being "pay what you can".
Sources of reviews
For many groups at the Fringe the ultimate goal is a favourable review which, apart from the welcome kudos, may help to minimise any financial losses that are suffered in putting on the show.Edinburgh based newspaper The Scotsman
The Scotsman
The Scotsman is a British newspaper, published in Edinburgh.As of August 2011 it had an audited circulation of 38,423, down from about 100,000 in the 1980s....
, known for its comprehensive coverage of the Edinburgh Festival, originally aimed to review every show on the Fringe. Now they are more selective, as there are simply too many shows to cover, although they do see almost every new play being staged as part of the Fringe's theatre programme, because of their Fringe First awards.
Other Scottish media outlets that provide coverage include: The Herald
The Herald (Glasgow)
The Herald is a broadsheet newspaper published Monday to Saturday in Glasgow, and available throughout Scotland. As of August 2011 it had an audited circulation of 47,226, giving it a lead over Scotland's other 'quality' national daily, The Scotsman, published in Edinburgh.The 1889 to 1906 editions...
, Scotland on Sunday
Scotland on Sunday
Scotland on Sunday is a Scottish Sunday newspaper, published in Edinburgh by The Scotsman Publications Ltd and consequently assuming the role of Sunday sister to its daily stablemate The Scotsman...
, Sunday Herald
Sunday Herald
The Sunday Herald is a Scottish Sunday newspaper launched on 7 February 1999. The ABC audited circulation in April 2011 showed sales of 31,123.From the start it has combined a centre-left stance with support for Scottish devolution...
and the Scottish edition of Metro
Metro (Associated Metro Limited)
Metro is a free daily newspaper in the United Kingdom published by Associated Newspapers Ltd . It is available from Monday to Friday each week on many public transport services across the United Kingdom.-History:The paper was launched in London in 1999, and can now be found in 14 UK urban centres...
. Scottish arts and entertainment magazines The List and Fest Magazine
Fest Magazine
Fest Magazine is an Edinburgh-based arts magazine that publishes during the Edinburgh Festival each year. It is published in partnership with The Skinny and is a free, bi-weekly, A5 glossy publication.-History:...
– also provide extensive coverage.
Several organisations have appeared in recent years, which freely offer a comprehensive mixture of printed and web-based reviews. They aim to cover shows that are missed by the larger organisations. They include: Edinburghguide.com, ThreeWeeks
ThreeWeeks
ThreeWeeks is a newspaper that covers the Brighton and Edinburgh Festivals in May and August respectively.It has covered the Edinburgh Festival since 1996 and the Brighton Festival since 2006.- Education Programme :...
, 'Broadway Baby', Fringe Review
Fringe Review
FringeReview is a British online and paper-based theatre reviews publication. It was founded by writer Paul Levy in 2006. This web-based publication reviews in London, Brighton, Edinburgh, Oxford and Amsterdam, covering fringe theatre. Reviewers are theatre practioners and experts. In 2010,...
, and 'Fringe Guru'. 'Garden Sessions' are an internet based outlet which provides coverage on its weekly radio show, as well as reviews on folk music and the more traditional aspects of the festival. ThreeWeeks, Broadway Baby, Fringe Review, and Fringe Guru have collaborated for the 2009 Festival to produce iFringe, an iPhone application that collates all of their reviews and allows for reading on the go.
Most of the London based broadsheets also review, in particular The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
and The Independent
The Independent
The Independent is a British national morning newspaper published in London by Independent Print Limited, owned by Alexander Lebedev since 2010. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily...
, while arts industry weekly The Stage
The Stage
The Stage is a weekly British newspaper founded in 1880, available nationally and published on Thursdays. Covering all areas of the entertainment industry but focused primarily on theatre, it contains news, reviews, opinion, features and other items of interest, mainly to those who work within the...
publish a large number of Edinburgh reviews, especially of the drama programme.
Awards
- The ScotsmanThe ScotsmanThe Scotsman is a British newspaper, published in Edinburgh.As of August 2011 it had an audited circulation of 38,423, down from about 100,000 in the 1980s....
introduced the prestigious 'Fringe First' awards in 1973. These awards were established by Scotsman arts editor Allen Wright to encourage new theatre writing, and are given only to new plays (or new translations), and several are awarded for each of the three weeks of the Fringe – usually by a celebrity at a prestigious ceremony. - Herald Angels are awarded by the team of arts writers of The HeraldThe Herald (Glasgow)The Herald is a broadsheet newspaper published Monday to Saturday in Glasgow, and available throughout Scotland. As of August 2011 it had an audited circulation of 47,226, giving it a lead over Scotland's other 'quality' national daily, The Scotsman, published in Edinburgh.The 1889 to 1906 editions...
to performers or shows deemed worthy of recognition. Similar to Fringe Firsts, they are given each week of the Fringe. - The StageThe StageThe Stage is a weekly British newspaper founded in 1880, available nationally and published on Thursdays. Covering all areas of the entertainment industry but focused primarily on theatre, it contains news, reviews, opinion, features and other items of interest, mainly to those who work within the...
has awarded the Stage Awards for Acting ExcellenceStage Awards for Acting ExcellenceThe Stage Awards for Acting Excellence are a set of Scottish theatre awards which were established in 1995 to recognise outstanding theatre performances by individuals and companies on the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Organised by theatrical newspaper The Stage, the initial award categories of Best...
since 1995. There are currently four categories: best actor, actress, ensemble and solo show. - 'Total Theatre Awards' has presented their Total Theatre Awards for excellence in the field of physical and visual theatre since 1997. The categories under which these awards are given vary from year to year. A notable addition in 2007 was the inclusion of a 'Wild Card' award chosen by the festival-going public.
- Amnesty InternationalAmnesty InternationalAmnesty International is an international non-governmental organisation whose stated mission is "to conduct research and generate action to prevent and end grave abuses of human rights, and to demand justice for those whose rights have been violated."Following a publication of Peter Benenson's...
introduced the Amnesty Freedom of Expression Award in 2002. - The Carol Tambor Best of Edinburgh AwardCarol Tambor Best of Edinburgh AwardThe Carol Tambor Best of Edinburgh Award is a prize given annually at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.The Award has presented by the since 2004...
for best drama was introduced in 2004. To be eligible for this award a show must have received a four or five star rating in The ScotsmanThe ScotsmanThe Scotsman is a British newspaper, published in Edinburgh.As of August 2011 it had an audited circulation of 38,423, down from about 100,000 in the 1980s....
and must not have previously played in New York, as the prize is to put the show on in New York. - The ThreeWeeks Editors' Awards was introduced in 2005 and are given to the ten things that have most excited the ThreeWeeks editors each year.
- The Terrier Awards (hosted by The Scotsman Piano Bar) joined The Tap Water Awards (hosted by the Holyrood Tavern) as alternative awards in 2006.
- The Edinburgh Musical Theatre Awards were introduced in 2007 by Musical Theatre Matters, to encourage the writing and production of new musicals on the Fringe.
- The Holden Street Theatres Edinburgh Award – presented at The Scotsman Fringe Awards Ceremony. The Award offers an outstanding production the opportunity to tour as the headline act for Holden Street Theatres in its Adelaide Fringe Program in the following year.
- The Perrier Awards for Comedy came into existence in 1981 when the award was won by the Cambridge Footlights. (Two further award categories have since been added.) PerrierPerrierPerrier is a brand of bottled mineral water made from a spring in Vergèze in the Gard département of France. The spring is naturally carbonated...
, the mineral water manufacturer ended its long association in 2006 and was succeeded by the Scottish-based company Intelligent FinanceIntelligent FinanceIntelligent Finance is a Scottish offset bank, a division of Bank of Scotland plc which is part of Lloyds Banking Group. It was established as a division of Halifax plc in 2000 by Jim Spowart, who helped establish other direct financial services firms including Direct Line.Following a...
. In 2009 IF also withdrew and could not be replaced so the awards are now temporarily being funded by promoter Nica Burns and rebranded as the Edinburgh Comedy awards, or "Eddies". - The Malcolm HardeeMalcolm HardeeMalcolm Hardee was an English comedian, author, comedy club proprietor, compère, agent, manager and "amateur sensationalist"....
Award "for comic originality of thought or performance" is to be presented for ten years, 2008–2017. An initial one-off Malcolm Hardee Award had been made at the Fringe in 2005, the year of Hardee's death, to American musical comic Reggie WattsReggie WattsReggie Watts is a Seattle-based comedian and musician. His shows are mostly improvised and consist of stream of consciousness stand-up in various shifting personae, mixed with loop pedal-based a cappella compositions. He also performs regularly on television, radio, and in live theater...
.
See also
- Fringe theatreFringe theatreFringe theatre is theatre that is not of the mainstream. The term comes from the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, which name comes from Robert Kemp, who described the unofficial companies performing at the same time as the second Edinburgh International Festival as a ‘fringe’, writing: ‘Round the fringe...
- List of Fringe Festivals
- List of if.comedy and Perrier comedy award winners
Further reading
- Bain, A., The Fringe: 50 Years of the Greatest Show on Earth, The Scotsman Publications Ltd, 1996
- Dale, M., Sore Throats and Overdrafts: An illustrated story of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, Precedent Publications Ltd, Edinburgh, 1988
- McMillan, J., Carnegie, J., The Traverse Theatre Story 1963–1988, Methuen Publishing, London, 1988
External links
- Official Edinburgh Festival Guide full listings and reviews for all the Edinburgh festivals
- Histories of the Fringe and other Edinburgh summer festivals
- Edinburgh Festival Classroom resources