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The
Edinburgh Fringe
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Thoughts on the 2001 Fringe (2)Too big?Is the Fringe getting too big? The offshoot of the Edinburgh International Festival grew much bigger than its parent quite a number of years ago, but now with 174 venues ranging from pubs to theatres, restaurants to church halls, schools to cathedrals, art galleries to museums, it is massive. One thing is certain: it is totally impossible for one person to see every Fringe event, even if (s)he didn't sleep for three weeks and visited galleries during those times when performance venues were not playing. - not that there are many hours when they are closed! I saw shows which started at 10am and others which finished at 1am - and on my way home passed others who were going to yet another event. Of course, the great thing about the Edinburgh Fringe is the fact that anyone can perform there. If you can pay your fee to the Fringe Society, find and pay for a venue and digs - and afford to eat! - then you can appear at the Fringe. No matter how untalented you are, no one will stop you. Not that you could get into the bigger venues if you're untalented, of course, but you could book one of the smaller venues, or even set up your own. The English Shakespeare Company even used a bus as their venue at one Fringe! However, this year quite a few people have said to me that the event is becoming too big and that some limit should be imposed on its size. The listings in the programme run to 128 pages, plus indices and other information, a total of 177 page altogether. It's a pretty major read in itself! Never mind the quality: feel the width! It is possible to be very selective about what you see. By choosing only shows at particular venues (Assembly, Pleasance, Traverse and some others), you can be pretty certain that you'll be seeing good quality theatre. If you then refine your choice on the basis of company/actor names and/or writers, you increase your chances of avoiding the sub-standard considerably. You can apply this latter test to other venues (C, George Square Theatre, Hill Street, Gateway, Komedia) with the same effect. But if you do, you miss that frisson, that excitement, when you discover a hidden gem in an unexpected place. I would never have seen Hamlet! - the Musical, for example, or Elegies for Angels, Punks and Raging Queens, and my Fringe would have been much the poorer for that. Of course, you could end up seeing a lot of turkeys - a Fringe made up of shows like Dolly would be a very depressing experience! Yes, it's difficult to plot out a programme when there is so much choice. Yes, it is difficult for much of the time to separate the wheat from the chaff. And yes, things can go horribly wrong. But that's the joy of the Fringe. But there are those who feel it is too big. I've heard it discussed in pubs and venue bars: taxi drivers have talked to me about it. "I like to see a show or two when I can," one said to me as we were stuck in a traffic jam on North Bridge. "But where do you start? There are just too many to choose." If you start restricting the numbers of shows, then you have to make choices. Who sets the criteria? Who chooses? And what if the person who is making the choice feels that a musical version of Hamlet is going to be either very bad (which was, I confess, my fear) or an insult to our greatest playwright? What if (s)he feels that a play like Raw glorifies mindless violence? Do it on the basis of quality, you may say. But who defines quality? Experts? But who are the experts? Is a critic more of an expert than a director? an administrator than an actor? No, frustrating though it can be, let's keep the Fringe as it is, a glorious free-for-all! A reviewer's life |
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