A review of all 10 shows I saw in one day at the Edinburgh Fringe
Here are the 10 shows I saw in one day, and what I thought about each of them.
READ MORE: I tried to go to 10 Fringe shows in one day. Here's what happened
A Political Breakfast
Advertised as a show were comedians who wake up in time join a panel to discuss a range of topics over their morning coffee, I was actively excited for this.
The large room I entered was full, and the 40-plus folk were, in true Fringe style, from all over the world. The parallels in politics from all corners of the earth were drawn as we discussed the monarchy to attitudes towards driving instructors. Will Jeremy Corbyn help Nigel Farage become Prime Minister? Is Charles a better King than Elisabeth was Queen?
The comedians in attendance (Liz Bains, Kimmie Dee, Matthew Mckew and Jon Hipkiss) were on fire for 9.30am, and Harun Musho'd hosted the discussion incredibly well.
For anyone who's scrolling through social media and thinking the country's politics is a complete mess, this will restore some of your faith.
Rating: 4/5
Find out more here.
Florence
On Monday, this one-woman show starring and written by Honour Santes Barnes opened on George Street.
The satirical tragicomic play follows the story of an ambitious young woman willing to use any means necessary to secure her success in the art world. Even if it means taking on a new identity.
READ MORE: 'Cathartic': Indigenous Celtic heritage shines in Mairi Campbell's Fringe show
This was the show's first performance and the crowd loved it. It will definitely be one of the many stars of the festival, and its exploration of how image, connections, and wealth dictate your way in the world could not be more apt for our times.
Barnes, who plays at least nine characters, gives a masterclass in character embodiment, one so good it rivals James McAvoy in Split. Potentially the best show at this year's Fringe.
Rating: 5/5
Find out more here.
Dreams of Peace and Freedom
A song cycle commemorating Edinburgh-born David Maxwell Fyfe, a prosecuting counsel at the Nuremberg Trials, a human rights lawyer and a key figure in drafting the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).
This show is performed by his descendants, Robert and Lily Blackmore, alongside Sue Casson with beautiful vocals.
The trio gives the audience a love letter to Edinburgh, as well as to the values of peace, freedom and remembrance. I thoroughly recommend Keir Starmer sees this.
The extent of research and detail in this show is extraordinary, and what the team has done on a low-budget is commendable. I hope to see it one day with a full budget.
Rating: 3.5/5
Find out more here.
Zoe Coombs Marr: The Splash Zone
Australian comic Zoe Coombs Marr came to the Monkey Barrell with so much energy for The Splash Zone.
The premise of the show is what it means to be "in the splash one" of a comedy show, and who a comedian on stage wants in the audience. It is all rooted in one instance when Marr learned Trump fans were in her audience at one show, and she began to ponder about the relationship between performer and audience.
Her crowd work and observational comedy was some of the best I'd seen, and it felt there had ultimately been an important topic explored with applause, T-shirt guns, free pants, and laughter integrating her message.
Marr takes us full-circle with jokes multiple times, displaying incredible wit and energy all throughout the performance.
Rating: 5/5
Find out more here.
READ MORE: 5 of the best things I've seen at the Edinburgh Fringe so far
Alvin Liu: Love Letter to a Sandwich
Chinese comedian Alvin grew up in the heart of Chinese food culture – where families would cook for hours just to avoid a hug. Now living in London, he's facing the greatest challenge of his life: Eating cold sandwiches.
Although rooted in a fantastic concept, this show leans on the public a bit too much, with audience members getting the biggest laughs.
Liu may be funny, and the concept great, it feels like there is still work to be done on rounding out the rougher edges of this particular show.
Rating: 2/5
Find out more here.
One Man Poe: The Tell-Tale Heart and The Pit and the Pendulum
I met performer and director Stephen Smith flyering on the street in his full gothic, classical get-up. I was quickly hooked on the show's premise, and could not have been more wow-ed by this "marathon of the macabre".
Smith gives a demonic demonstration of Edgar Allan Poe's works, and the audience could not look away from his haunting eyes all show.
At several points, the audience collectively took in breath and after an on-stage change of clothes and make-up refresh, Smith's physical efforts were proven by the sweat pooling on the stage and dripping from his hair.
A captivating talent, telling legendary stories.
Rating: 5/5
Find out more here.
When Billy met Alasdair
Alan Bissett, award-winning writer takes on the dual roles of two Scottish cultural giants, speculating what (might've!) happened when Billy Connolly attended the launch for Alasdair Gray's 1981 masterpiece, Lanark.
Bissett embodies both with his accents, physicality and delivery, and anyone who appreciates Glasgow for its culture will enjoy this immensely. It's an easy show, comforting, and does not leave anyone behind in its historical exploration of Glasgow or Hollywood.
As a young writer, this show left me with immense pride in Scottish culture and enough inspiration to last decades, looking at all three; Connolly, Gray and Bissett.
Rating: 5/5
Find out more here.
Rebecca Lamb: 0 Advice on How to Hide a Body
I mistakenly entered into Lamb's performance, thinking it was a different show. However, the low ceiling room of the Banshee Room's allowed for a small reprieve from the endless Fringe crowds.
Lamb, who is just beginning her career, was visibly growing more unsure of what to say as the audience grew. Fewer insults thrown at different countries, fleshing out parts that did land well, as well as a hint of preparation, would probably go a long way.
Rating: 1/5
Find out more here.
Time Bends
Shown in the Radisson Blu, Time Bends is performed by a four-piece cast and although well-staged, was very hard to follow.
I was actively intrigued by the premise: "More than 20 years ago, literature student David met an older man called Michael in the bar of an independent cinema. They spoke for an hour, developed a genuine connection, and never met again. Twenty years later, sitting in the same cinema with his wife, David sees a man that looks very familiar. In that moment, David goes back to the afternoon he could never forget."
However, the audience is given very little direction on what is going on and as I tried to make sense of it, I looked around and saw other audience members equally puzzled.
At one point, the wife and Michael meet, crossing the boundaries of time, but with little meaning attached to why.
I and a fellow audience member attempted to decrypt the meaning, when we then saw the director sobbing in the front row. I think this show was trying to be a profound exploration of queer love but in reality, did not invite the audience in to explore with them.
Rating: 2/5
Find out more here.
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Scotsman
21 minutes ago
- Scotsman
Fringe theatre review: BABYFLEAREINDEERBAG + more
Sign up to our Arts and Culture newsletter, get the latest news and reviews from our specialist arts writers Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to The Scotsman, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... BABYFLEAREINDEERBAG (WIP) ★★★★ Summerhall (Venue 26) until 25 August There's no more obvious sign that something has become too unwieldy to function than when it begins to eat itself. Take, for example, the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, in which Bringing Shows To the Fringe seems to have become its own increasingly prevalent genre: a metatextual howl against the appalling labour conditions and precarious funding landscape in which the artists who make the festival are forced to work. Enter Fringe veteran Hannah Maxwell, whose latest show – the wryly titled BABYFLEAREINDEERBAG – deconstructs the cruel optimism of making art within a system which allows a select few to skyrocket to success and everyone else to flounder. Unfolding as a satirically corporate and thoroughly unhinged focus group, audience members are given name tag stickers and large post-it notes and encouraged to give feedback throughout the show, as Maxwell workshops three new ideas that she hopes – somewhat hopelessly – might be her long-awaited breakthrough. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Maxwell's self-deprecating wit is a fizzy delight, but it cleverly masks a spiral of self-doubt and criticism that begins to creep into the show, as feedback options provided on her middle-management-style PowerPoint go from the mildly constructive to the outright hostile. Is it possible, BABYFLEAREINDEERBAG asks, to maintain a sense of self-belief as an artist amidst the structural disinterest of a failing arts landscape, and the siren call of the Autobiographical Show Industrial Complex that defines the Fringe's few successes? What does it do to a person to continually have to sell themselves, particularly when no one seems to want to buy? Almost certainly nothing good, but watching Maxwell convey this through her deft and hilarious manipulation of genre and media is an (admittedly somewhat guilt-ridden) giddy ride. The Fringe may be eating itself but BABYFLEAREINDEERBAG is a compellingly delicious refusal to beg for a seat at the table. Anahit Behrooz David and Katie Get Re-Married ★★★ Friesian at Underbelly, Bristo Square (Venue 302) until 24 August David and Katie are star-crossed haters in this toe-curling caricature of a millennial couple remarrying after a tempestuous dating history. The decision is painfully questionable from the moment they set foot on stage, smothering each other in cloying affection. Each saccharine declaration of 'I love you' and therapy speak affirmations function as flimsy sticking plasters over cavernous emotional wounds. The audience are guests at their wedding, taken through their dating history, chance meeting at a college party to their first wedding, breakups, getting back together, all flecked by vinegary arguments and explosive emotions. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad It's a wittily observed send-up of millennial adults lacking in as much emotional intelligence as self-awareness, condemned to circle the same doomed cycle of breakup and reunion. Between sparky songs about failed sex experiments and volleys of petty insults, a grim realisation creeps in: they are hopelessly co-dependent, and neither are capable of escaping the other's gravitational pull. The comedy is broad, the tone often hyper-silly. Though it runs out of steam towards the final moments, there's a tragic edge to the whole thing, a sense that beneath the caricature lies a sadly recognisable truth about love, that letting go is harder than it looks. Alexander Cohen King ★★★ Former Gents Locker Room at Summerhall (Venue 26) until 25 August In King, socially anxious Yen discovers an unexpected liberation through drag performance. She reinvents herself as 'Sterling da Silva', a swaggering crypto-bro parody so pitch-perfect you can smell the protein powder. What starts as a private joke metastasises into a second life, one in which Yen is liberated from patriarchal expectations pinned on her by a clueless boyfriend. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad But there are limits to liberation. A rocky relationship with her newfound community of drag queens raises awkward questions about the politics of performance, community boundaries and the thin line between escape and appropriation, fissures which creep into Yen's personal life. The satire bites hardest when it skewers the smug banter and bravado of finance bro culture. Performer Jo Tan switches deftly between Yen's jittery awkwardness and Sterling's preening machismo. Her elastic performance is the show's real engine. When it widens its lens to gender roles in modern Singapore, the focus blurs and the sharp commentary dulls: the final moments feels more like tidy conclusion than an organic finale. The momentum rarely sags under Irfan Kasban's brisk direction. King isn't quite a knockout, but it lands its hits with the satisfying thud. Alexander Cohen Lovett | Andrew Perry Lovett ★★★ Pleasance Courtyard (Venue 33) until 25 August In most iterations of the Sweeney Todd story, Mrs Lovett plays second fiddle – or should that be second razor? – to the demon barber of Fleet Street. In this one-woman play written and performed by Lucy Roslyn, though, Nelly takes centre stage. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad The hour-long monologue begins with Roslyn's Nelly – real name Eleanor – solemnly sharpening a knife on a butcher's block and explaining the finer points of carving up a carcass. From there, she slowly tells the dark and desperate story of her life. We hear about an early encounter with a beached whale on the banks of the Thames; how Nelly's French mother sold her body after the death of her husband; how Nelly found security in her marriage to a German businessman; and how her life was injected with erotic excitement when she met a charming young barber called Mr Todd. Roslyn plays Nelly with a steely glint in her eye and a sly smile, sometimes sliding into other characters – a one-eyed prostitute, an abusive priest – as her story unfolds. She evokes the grittiness and griminess of nineteenth-century London well, too. It takes a long time for the meat of this monologue to arrive – a lot of religious imagery and animal metaphors get in the way of the narrative – but it is delicious when it does. Fergus Morgan How To Kill Your Landlord ★★ Bedlam Theatre (Venue 49) until 25 August Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad There's a 1980s punk spirit and a 2020s disclaimer (don't really kill your landlord) in this surreal comedy in which a group of 20-something tenants decide that the only way to get their skiing, scheming landlord out of their lives and crumbling flat is to kill him. Within the slapstick is a serious message about housing inequality between the generations in a piece that has the lively tone of an early evening BBC comedy with more big energy than laughable jokes. The younger performers could bring more nuance to their roles – an online yoga teacher, crypto trading tech bro and stressed city worker – in a plot with more variation, but the intentions are strong. Sally Stott The Cyclops ★★ theSpace @ Symposium Hall (Venue 43) until 23 August There's some great free-flowing comic banter from the talented Scottish cast in this rethinking of the Greek legend, which is transported to a pub get-together where the aftereffects of a modern-day tragedy are slowly revealed. Anyone looking for a more literal depiction of the single-eyed giant from Odysseus might be confused, but a story that celebrates friendship and raises awareness of men's mental health offers some pertinent observations on what's hidden behind acerbic put-downs and pints of beer. A structure that is predominantly a single pub conversation struggles to sustain an hour-long play, but the good energy and intentions help to keep the ship afloat. Sally Stott Will You Be Praying the Entire Flight? ★★★ theSpace @ Niddry St (Venue 9) until 16 August Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad This is a likeable character comedy two-hander, in which two young Jewish women with very different lives and attitudes meet on a plane to London and discover that they have more in common than it at first seems. One is ultra-orthodox, Hasidic and suffering from a severe case of flight sickness. The other, horrified, is a secular software developer, more at home in her pyjamas and oversized headphones. Playwright Gili Malinsky's tight script is full of the dry, wry dialogue that, in its comic brevity, seems to be referencing the world of Jim Henson and not just on the latter character's Animal-themed T-shirt. It's a dry mood that is accentuated by Rachel Ravel and Marissa Ruben's stripped back, understated delivery, in which they stare straight ahead under S. Dylan Zwickel's similarly punchy direction attended by Madeline Rose Parks' socially inept air hostess. The conversation covers work, relationships, region and non-religion and, briefly, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, although there's a clear gap in this part of the conversation – that of a Palestinian voice, which feels particularly absent at a time when unfathomable horrors are being carried out in the region. But within the limited scope of a simple story of two very different Jewish woman meeting on a plane, it's calling for understanding over conflict and finding the places that unify rather than divide. Sally Stott Dream with me... ★★ Greenside @ George Street (Venue 236) until 16 August There's a toddler in the audience who's loving this bold and experimental shape-shifting, self-referential, relatively late-night show about a man's metamorphosis-filled dreams featuring his father, his former athletics coach, a goblin, a pigeon and a fish. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad It's deliberately esoteric and, with writer/performer Samuel Koppel's jagged movements intercut with his monologues, the discombobulating feeling of travelling through the depths of the subconscious in sleep is well evoked. Unless you're the aforementioned toddler, the difficultly is in sustaining this for an hour-long place. 'I hope it's not too random, too complicated,' he says. It's not, but it wouldn't suffer from a bit more structure for the adults.
Scotsman
21 minutes ago
- Scotsman
Is flyering still the way for performers to win audiences at the Fringe amid environmental concerns?
Sign up to our Arts and Culture newsletter, get the latest news and reviews from our specialist arts writers Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to The Scotsman, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... When Canadian comedian Mark Forward realised his ticket sales were not going as quickly as he had hoped at this year's Edinburgh Festival Fringe, he knew he would have to resort to his worst nightmare: flyering. After standing near his venue, Patter House, for three days, in which time he only managed to hand out two flyers, he bought a whiteboard on which he penned the words: 'Flyering is terrifying'. Over ten times more people picked up a leaflet from the box he placed next to the whiteboard than he had managed to market to the previous day. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad 'I had spent three days wandering with my flyers, not approaching human beings.' says Mr Forward, who has two TV specials in Canada and four sell-out shows waiting for him when he returns home. 'I finally gave out two over three days. It is so stressful, some people have that gear and some don't. 'It was terrifying for me and I'd watch other people dressed up as bears and toilets and they didn't seem to care. So it became a battle of watching ticket sales and knowing that it helps and finding a way to put myself out there. 'What is terrifying is you don't know who's looking for a show and who's not, who lives here and maybe thinks August is the worst month of their lives trying to get to work.' Handing out flyers to would-be audience members is a right of passage for most Fringe performers and their friends and family - and often a serious irritation for locals trying to go about their normal business in the Old Town. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Hundreds of thousands of flyers are handed out by performers during the course of the Fringe, with the vast majority going straight into waste or recycling bins. Environmental campaigners have also raised questions over the sustainability of the practice, with some artists this year opting to share flyers by posting two shows on one piece of paper, or handing out business card-sized adverts instead of the standard A5 size in a bid to reduce waste. Mark Forward wrote a message on a whiteboard saying "flyering is terrifying". | Steve Ullathorn/Gilded Barry Fisher, chief executive of Keep Scotland Beautiful, wants promoters and performers to switch to 'alternative marketing approaches' and for organisers including venues to provide better sustainability best practice guidance to acts. However, he says in the meantime, more needs to be done to encourage the recycling of flyers, rather than dumping them in general waste bins. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad He says: 'What many of us don't realise is that our unsustainable consumption of 'throw-away' items is one of the primary drivers of the global climate and nature crises and Scotland's litter emergency. The simple flyer handed out to promote a show may not be the most damaging single-use item out there, but it is symbolic of the attitudes and excuses so many of us have and make. 'For those living and working in Edinburgh the paper flyer blowing about the streets during August is something that just is. But, with 73 per cent of people agreeing that litter damages the reputation of their area for tourists, it is ironic that Scotland's most famous Fringe event generates so much paper waste – much of which isn't recycled and can become litter.' Mr Fisher points to a previous trial carried out by the organisation in the Grassmarket which saw 21 bags of leaflets weighing 315kg collected in one flyer recycle bin in 22 days. He adds: 'Scale this up across Edinburgh and the potential to reduce harm to our environment and communities, reduce the cost of cleaning up and landfilling, a recyclable item, and supporting a circular economy becomes clear.' Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Becky Kenton-Lake, coalition manager at Stop Climate Chaos Scotland, backs calls to move away from the use of disposable items. She says: "Stronger regulations are needed to drive the shift away from single-use, disposable items to cleaner, greener options and to end our throwaway culture.' While Edinburgh City Council has put on an extra 10-strong team to clean busy streets during the festival and placed extra litter bins around festival hotspots such as Cockburn Street, High Street and the Mound, no recycling measures are in place. The Edinburgh Festival City action plan on environmental issues includes the introduction of digital ticketing and offering online shows to reduce the number of people travelling. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Meanwhile, the Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society runs a swap shop for set, props and costume at the end of the festival and offers a free flyer recycling service. A spokesperson says: 'We've significantly reduced the programme print quantity since 2019, and encourage artists to consider an environmentally conscious approach to flyering - whether by ensuring they're only giving a flyer to an audience member who they've had an engaged interaction with; by making use of QR codes or the new Fringe app; or taking advantage of our digital flyering offer on our edfringe Instagram each Friday.' Gillian Garrity, co founder of Scottish theatre production company Raw Material, which is this year performing Windblown at the Queen's Hall, says she does not use flyers or leaflets for any Fringe shows, instead opting for large posters. 'It really is an environmental issue for me,' she says. 'We decided a long time ago that social media was a more interesting way to connect with people. Our marketing manager once asked me if I'd ever been to see a show after getting a flyer and I realised I hadn't.' Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad She said in previous roles working in the arts in Scotland she had used flyers to promote shows, but feels times have changed. "Flyering used to be the way you found out about shows, but I don't feel it's the way now,' she says. 'Environmentally, you would hope there would be a shift. I see venues often at the end of the Fringe with boxes of flyers piled up and you just know they're going to go straight in the bin." At the Brighton Fringe Festival, flyering is hugely restricted, with performers required under council legislation to obtain a licence and flyer only in specific areas. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Paul Levy, founder and editor of website Fringereview, which covers Fringe festivals across the country, says the high level of flyering is specific to the Edinburgh Fringe. 'it's interesting that flyering is still so much a thing at the Fringe, given the whole thing about sustainability,' he says. 'The bins are absolutely full. It still seems to be the main currency of communication here. Hypnotist Fraser Penman and his friend flyer for six hours a day. | Scotsman 'Down in Brighton, even though there are about 800 shows, you will not walk up a street and be guaranteed to get flyers like you will in Edinburgh. It's become as much of an institution in Edinburgh, probably, as the shows are. 'If you flyer your show, you often do get a bigger audience that day, but you have to really know how to do it. If you don't, you might as well just throw your flyers away in a recycling bin.' Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Councillor Stephen Jenkinson, transport and environment convener at Edinburgh City Council, says the council encourages people to recycle flyers. He says: 'Flyers are a traditional part of the Fringe experience. They help artists to find new audiences, but it's undeniable that all this paper use has an environmental impact. That's why Edinburgh's festivals have been encouraging less paper and greater use of digital tools, for everything from e-ticketing to QR codes on posters – as part of their collective action plan on climate change.' While flyering can be a professional business - there are agencies offering the service charging up to £20 an hour to do the job - there are still reports of people being exploited. One Fringe producer told Scotland on Sunday their street team had come across a young woman with little English who said she had been told by a promoter that she would get 10 free tickets to shows if she worked for 40 hours unpaid - with the promise of a £100 bonus if she worked for as much as 50 hours. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Although this particular claim is unverified - the producer's flyering team has not managed to track down the woman or her employer after the initial meeting, despite plans to report the incident to police - there are fears that some temporary workers are being exploited. Mr Levy says the industry has improved in recent years, but warns there are still some gaps. 'At the worst end, it's exploitative,' he says. 'And at the best end, it's a proper industry, and it's properly paid. The best flyerers, you can't get hold of them because they are literally full up.' JD Henshaw, who runs Dundee Fringe and previously worked at the Edinburgh Fringe, says online marketing, such as social media, is losing impact, returning the focus to in-person and physical marketing including flyering. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad He says: 'We don't find online marketing as good as it was. People's engagement has shifted as they move down a track of distrust of social media platforms. There's truth to flyers, they're real, they're tangible, but there's also that personal element. When you're flyering, you need to make people like you, there needs to be more to it than just that there's a show on.' He says alternative approaches to traditional flyering is being considered at other festivals, such as 'zines', which would create a community around shows. 'We're finding ourselves talking about alternative approaches,' he says. "We've considered the idea of creating zines at other Fringe festivals, which includes the shows in there but also has chat and information, not just the title of the show and the time. It's community-built so people have a sense of tribe and belonging. But that's always going to be difficult in a place like Edinburgh because everything is so temporary.' However, hypnotist Fraser Penman, whose show Penman the Imaginator - You is also on at Gilded Balloon for the full Fringe run, says flyering is vital for him to generate ticket sales. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad He hands out flyers for six hours every day before his show, with the help of his friend and his father. 'We can start off the day with 11 ticket sales in the morning and have 170 by the show at night, just from flyering and speaking to people,' he says. 'It's absolutely key for me to get my audience.' Major venues also say they believe the practice remains a key marketing tool. A spokesperson for Assembly says: 'Flyering is still an integral part of the Fringe that we encourage all artists to engage in. It gives audiences face to face time with artists and street team who have seen the shows, and can talk about them in an informed and passionate manner. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad 'Lots of people come to the Fringe expecting to be flyered, and will choose shows on the basis of a good experience on the street.' Anthony Alderson, director of The Pleasance, says he believes flyering is still 'an absolutely valuable tool, enabling acts to get out there and talk to potential audiences about their own shows'.
Scotsman
22 minutes ago
- Scotsman
Edinburgh Festival Fringe: How its true spirit is being kept alive in backroom bars
Sign up to our daily newsletter – Regular news stories and round-ups from around Scotland direct to your inbox Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to The Scotsman, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... The integrity of what was once a platform for experimental artists on the 'fringes' of the professional arts world is now increasingly being compromised by commercialisation and upward pressures on budgets amid the broader cost-of-living crisis. The artists who flock to take part in the Edinburgh Festival Fringe as they chase their big break draw floods of tourists into the city, fuelling Edinburgh's economy. But who really benefits? Certainly not many performers. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Just breaking even through ticket sales is becoming increasingly unfeasible at the major venues. Their 'pay-to-play' model leaves artists covering increasing year-on-year overheads – like venue hire, equipment, marketing, sound and lighting – while registration fees are set to go up by at least 10 per cent from 2027 to balance rising service costs and keep pace with inflation. Dean Misdale, seen performing during an Australian rules football match between West Coast Eagles and Port Adelaide Power last year, has found a home at Edinburgh's 'Free Fringe' (Picture: Paul Kane) | Getty Images Creative freedom and financial control However, the true Fringe spirit can still be found – not in the glossy tents, but in makeshift bars and backrooms of 'Free Fringe' venues. Artists like Dean Misdale, an award-winning cabaret performer from Australia, are part of a growing wave choosing creative freedom and financial control over the perceived prestige associated with well-established venues. After a decade touring internationally, Dean returned to Edinburgh this year with 'Priscillified', a solo cabaret that blends autobiography and comedy, staged in a Free Fringe venue rather than a corporate-branded tent. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad 'After winning Best Cabaret at Perth Fringe, I looked at applying to the bigger venues in Edinburgh,' Dean explains. 'But the costs were just too high.' Unlike the major venues, Free Fringe shows typically don't charge excessive upfront ticket prices, relying instead on post-show voluntary contributions. 'You just pay a small registration fee and the venue makes their money over the bar,' Dean says. 'Raw, intimate' This model comes with risks too. Financial uncertainty and limited tech support put pressure on performers to host a good show without the bells and whistles provided by the bigger venues. 'I'm pressing play on my own music,' Dean says. 'But that's part of the Fringe charm. It's raw. It's intimate. For my kind of autobiographical show, that's perfect.' Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad For artists like him, it often pays off financially too. On one recent night, a 60-person crowd brought in £415 through a mix of entry fees and tips – mostly cash in hand. If that were repeated nightly, it would total around £10,375 over the course of the festival – enough to cover the initial £5,000 upfront costs of travel and production. Of course, not every night draws a packed house but the potential for high-reward evenings makes the gamble worth it. The Free Fringe is also known for cutting through some of the noise associated with advertising. Audiences want it cheap and so, in effect, the advertising takes care of itself. 'There's not a lot of drag in the Free Fringe, so people are curious,' Dean says. 'When they have low expectations and you knock it out of the park – that's magic.' These benefits aside, there's a philosophical element too, aligning to the original spirit of the Fringe, providing a cheaper alternative to festival-goers and connecting artists with audiences. Larger commercialised venues are certainly not the enemy. However choosing a less glamorous space with greater financial return appears like a choice worth making.
