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The Changing Face of the Edinburgh FringeDateline: 31st August, 2003It's less than a week since the 57th Edinburgh Fringe finished, but already it's beginning to feel like something in the dim and distant past, probably because, at the moment, theatres all over the country are launching the autumn and winter programmes. So perhaps now is a good time to look back at this year's event while it's still fresh enough in the mind to be remembered accurately but far enough away for us to be dispassionate about it. It seems to me, from the limited perspective that my cut-short visit this year has forced upon me, that the Fringe seems to be splitting into a number of parts, which increasingly have little in common with each other apart from some very uncomfortable performance spaces. And I'm not the only one to think so. Gilded Balloon supremo Karen Koren this year cut the GB's established connections with the Assembly Rooms and the Pleasance, linking instead with the Underbelly, a fairly new but impressive organisation, because the "big two" have become, she feels, much too mainstream and are playing safe in their programming. The Underbelly, she believes, is what the Gilded Balloon used to be. Interestingly, Pip Utton a member of the Fringe Society's committee and one of the most highly respected of regular Fringe performers, has a similar feeling. "The Assembly and the Pleasance," he told me, "are the only Fringe venues in which I don't feel old." I'm not sure that I agree with him entirely. The Traverse and Theatre Workshop have a similar effect on me. Although whether or not the Traverse can be properly considered to be part of the Fringe is a moot point: its programme doesn't really change for the three weeks, there's just more of it. It's possible to discern other differences, too. Take the Aurora Nova productions at St Stephen's, for example: many would not be out of place in the International Festival programme. And Richard Demarco has been bringing Eastern European productiosn to the Fringe for years. Then there's the Garage with its odd mixture of oriental (mainly Japanese) and occidental fare. Somewhat divorced from the rest, out along Morningside Road we have the Church Hill Theatre, home to the American High School Theatre Festival for many years. And tucked away at the top of the Royal Mile in the Lawmarket is Diverse Attractions, with its mixture of professional and amateur companies, many of them local. There are, in fact, numerous Fringes, and the regular visitor soon gets to know the places where (s)he is likely to find the kind of show which appeals to his/her taste. Inevitably each venue develops its own style: you're going to get polished professional companies at the Assembly, Pleasance, Traverse, Theatre Workshop, Gateway. Student shows will tend to go for Bedlam, Venue 13, Greyfriars Kirk House, Augustines. The various C venues and the Underbelly will have an eclectic programme of experimental professional and student groups. And so it goes on. The joy of the Fringe - and its frustration - is that it is so vast and varied, and, except for those venues which do have a vetting policy, so unrestricted. The biggest arts festival in the world is also the most anarchic, in that anyone who wants to can appear in some venue or another (as long as they can pay the costs). That's what gives it its unique atmosphere and excitement, and while impressarios like Karen Koren and performers like Pip Utton are willing to avoid playing safe and take risks, then it will continue in that way. Thank goodness! Read Philip Fisher's summary of his Fringe experience here. Articles Indices:
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