From Edinburgh with Love: Humanity’s Vitality at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival
Photos by Jack Marley
Dear Reader,
It was a relief to be flying from a 38˚C southern England to a slightly more temperate 26˚C Scotland. I was heading to Edinburgh for its famed Fringe Festival. Across August, hundreds of performers descend on the city from around the world to perform thousands of shows. Venues pop up everywhere: in churches, parks, university buildings, existing pubs and clubs. Every square inch of space is plastered with brightly coloured posters, entreating you to see that show and not the thousands of others being advertised.
Within a few hours of arriving, I’d heard a recitation of Robert Burns’ Address to a Haggis whilst eating the iconic Scottish dish; listened to some mediocre sad-boy indie-pop buskers; watched some amazing magic in a nightclub basement; and reviewed a one-woman show about the OceanGate Titan submersible. Not bad for an afternoon’s work. The following few days followed much the same eclectic schedule, totalling at thirteen shows across comedy, magic, theatre, and improv.
This is festival-going like little else. Forward planning is a futile exercise and guaranteeing you only see good shows a near impossibility. Armed with a brochure of free performances in chronological order and a few pre-booked shows, my sister and I simply headed into the city centre and began piecing performances together, often based on little more than how we were feeling and what was on nearby. Unsurprisingly, this was rather hit and miss: the sheer volume and variety of shows make the Edinburgh Fringe a numbers game.
On one day, after two certified misses, we consoled ourselves with a ticketed show, an improv troupe doing spoof Sherlock Holmes mysteries. It was so funny my face hurt from smiling. Such is the ebb and flow of a day at the Fringe. The following day, we mistakenly assumed evenings worked like afternoons, showing up to things just before they started. After an hour of being turned away from full shows, we returned regretfully to the site of our earlier failures – karaoke rooms above a weird Asian restaurant with the décor of a laser-tag arena. We were treated to a mercifully acceptable show about 19th-century curiosities and street entertainment, featuring my sister being asked to shoot the performer with a miniature canon. Good stuff.
Edinburgh’s historic promenades just about cope with the festival hubbub. Street acts juggle fire, pluck guitars, throw knives; endless performers – each wearing a stranger outfit than the last – thrust flyers into your hands; and tourists wander around chatting in just about every language there is. There is a fine line between it being unbearably overwhelming and deeply affirming of humanity’s infinite richness, which generally depends on how much coffee and/or sleep you’ve had. Looking back on a long weekend at the festival, however, I can’t help feeling the latter. So much talent and ambition on display, so many people being unapologetically themselves, and such a diverse audience coming together to support them. In an evermore digital age, the Edinburgh Fringe stays a vital beacon for live, grassroots culture.