I read the Edinburgh Fringe guide cover to cover and all you got was this stupid article.
Its my very first Edinburgh Fringe, and while Fringe has begun, I’m feeling the FOMO at heading up for week 4 from 20th- 26th of August. Like it wasn’t hard enough to work out what to see, but to cram it into 6 days as been near impossible. I’m finally making my pilgrimage to the world’s largest arts festival and it’s the kind of thing I moved to the UK to do, but when my partner dropped the Fringe guide on our bed, I thought it was a joke. Hundreds of pages of amazing comedy, cabaret, music, spoken word, theatre, musicals and opera and so much more.
#edfringevirgin #edfringeburgin
So in preparation and in countdown to my time at #EdFringe, I read the entire Edinburgh Fringe guide and here’s what I found, felt and thought during the legitimate hours it took me to flick through the flimsy thin paper pages that I desperately hope are recycled. Ready?
Okay let’s go!
I feel a crushing sense of being overwhelmed with the 4000+ shows on - how are you supposed to make sense of any of it?
I see so much drag - which I love! Thank goodness there is a place for such a wide variety of drag shows - comedy, musical, camp, naughty, cabaret. The beauty, art, fashion, dance and everything that goes into drag is spectacular and it’s so important to ensure Fringe and opportunities for development of work at all levels exists.
It got me thinking - is anything particularly underrepresented in this year’s Fringe guide? (Please, feel free to tell me! Let’s chat!)
I am impressed with the broad range of kids programming - for a festival that goes for 4 weeks over summer holidays, it’s essential to ensure the world’s largest arts festival appeals to all ages (plus it ensures that more often than not, I don’t have to be out of bed and into a theatre before midday). Plus, starting them young means they we convert them to arts fans and future theatre audiences for life *nods and taps producer brain wisely*
Somehow some shows are jumping out at me and I can’t tell you how or why, just that reading the guide is overwhelming and impressive at the same time: the sheer amount of work talent and art has gone into it is beyond impressive, I cannot imagine what it is like to work in programming at Edinburgh Fringe, or how the entire festival comes together.
The comedy section is the longest by a long way - is it time for a fringe and a comedy festival slightly separated to help with some of the FOMO? In Melbourne we have both a Fringe and a Comedy Festival and they’re 6 months apart, allowing development between the festivals, more than one opportunity in the one city each year to showcase, but it does lead to some double programming across the festivals, and we’ve had an influx of fairly professional comedians heading to the Fringe Festival (which is how Edinburgh works)... just a thought!
What’s the function of Fringe then - isn’t it supposed to be outside the main festival? How does it work if the Fringe is always bigger than ‘The Festival’? Is the aspirational goal of Fringe to go to ‘The Festival’ then, or has Fringe evolved past this?
I’m so bored of reading the comedy section and realised I was just only up to B, this is going to be a long afternoon.
A single headshot of a comedian as your show picture works only if I know who you are, otherwise this seems like some sort of strange and terrible food menu with pictures and I still don’t know what I want.
I get a bit confused how people decide to categorise their shows - musical theatre shows are blasted all over the program instead of just being in the musicals and opera section? Which is much smaller and less overwhelming to read, but may not be read by comedy fans? What is the logic here - is it about your target audience?
There’s almost an entire page dedicated to dudes called Daniel or Dave/David! Yay dudes!
A joyous reminder that companies on the Australian Stock Exchange are more likely to be run by a dude named John or David than a woman. Good one dudes.
110 pages in…. It’s been an hour… I’m bored and put the TV on in the background
Men dominate the comedy pages still. Tits a delight (the best typo I made and I’m leaving it in) to see so many female comedians or comedy acts heading to the fringe but I’m on pages and pages of Johns and Jons and Jonnys.
The Johns are back yay!
141 pages in… Bored, went and made a smoothie and got some cheese and crackers for a snack. Sustenance!
Honourable mention to the show title that made me laugh out loud the most - Christopher KC’s Why I’m No Longer Talking To White People About Rice.
Second honourable mention to the best Fringe guide description ever: Mark Simmons - One Linerererer just says “jokesjokesjokesjokesjokesjokes” over and over and his photo works with it perfectly. Kudos sir.
It’s fantastic that a lot of shows are listed as works in progress and people are coming to test their material and hone their craft - I would have thought Edinburgh is the place you want to be ready for, however it’s some of the most passionate arts audiences to test your work on. Plus if Eddie Izzard can do it and then completely sell out a four week work in progress run, so can you!
Man I cannot fathom the idea that some of these shows start at like…. 11am. And some of them start at 11pm. Do people at Fringe ever sleep?
Oh we’ve reached the page dedicated to Toms!
Christ somehow I've found at least another 12 shows to add to an extremely busy schedule woo!
Honestly why did I do this to myself - delirium has set in.
Man the events section is fascinating - what’s with all the cooking classes? Also, I want to do a Thai cooking class. How are most of these events ‘Fringe’ or ‘arts’?
I’m not even sure if the sidebar advertising is helping - maybe it means I’ve read the name of that show twice, but still. I can tell its people who have money or who are presented in one of the larger Fringe houses who are advertising, but I feel like I’m still overwhelmed and not really paying attention to it.
Did you know people read websites in an F shape? For the Fringe guide I feel like I’m reading the middle two columns closest to the middle first (so as above, ignoring any potential sidebar advertising) and then reading the outside columns). Fun fact!
I’m surprised how classical a lot of the music programming is. Do people come to fringe to see comedy and then a contemporary choral piece or see a church concert?
If this is all the Fringe, what on earth goes on at the Edinburgh Festival?
Three productions of Oliver! Three!
Page 310 and we’ve hit our second (that I can remember) two girls one cup reference. WHY!
Not even one Two Girls One Cup reference was okay.
I’m back to being overwhelmed but really excited by the theatre section - the second largest section of the guide and full of all varieties and genres
Three productions of the Scottish play in Scotland! Groundbreaking
Miranda expects better of you .
I certainly recognise shows that publicists have emailed me about, or people have tweeted me about, but even speed reading the entire guide (still took me two hours), the FOMO is setting in immensely and the ability to work out what shows are good, what shows I want to see, where are the shows and when, it’s very difficult.
I made it through the programming! But equally overwhelming is the sheer amount of venues and how they are spread out across Old and New Towns.
Well this was as overwhelming and stressful as Edinburgh Fringe promises to be… It’s next to impossible to filter out what to see other than just by blindly trying and picking from a book of descriptions likely put together long before the shows were finished being conceptualised, let alone rehearsed.
Brace yourself, Fringe is only just getting started!
