Edinburgh Festivals: Light in Dark Times

Everything sucks. Everything’s... mucked up. We live in difficult, polarised times, with people and institutions exposed as flawed and failing. The festivals are no exception, but is there light in the darkness? Fest finds out

The Worst of Times

Sh!t Theatre

One year, back in 2013, we specifically applied to perform at wheelchair accessible venues. One venue got back to us offering us a slot, on the basis that it was accessible, only for us to realise that the wheelchair user would have to be lifted out of their chair and carried down a final flight of 11 stairs. We made the argument that if a person has to be carried by other people, it is not accessible. They disagreed. We did not perform there.

Sh!t Theatre Drink Rum with Expats, Summerhall, 31 Jul–25 Aug, not 1, 8:05pm

It is difficult to ignore the gigantic amount of flyers produced for the festival and the use of plastic. When you consider the size of the festival... and the volume of food and drink that has been served using plastic cups and cutlery over the years, it has taken a long time for the impact this has on the environment to be considered.

Birth, Pleasance Courtyard, 1–25 Aug, not 12, 12pm

The greed of almost everyone in the industry. A lot of comedians are mentally ill people who aren’t great with money and end up giving away cash they can’t afford to unnecessary producers, publicists, flyering teams. But the worst thing is the council’s absolute refusal to crack down on high rents – plenty of people I know are paying 3-4k for rent this year. It’s going to have a huge impact on diversity in the arts and the kind of voices we hear on TV down the line.

I think the most important issue would be the inability of the festival to solve visa issues for artists who are not part of the EU countries. It is a shame that the largest international theatre festival in the world, which was created about the deadliest war in human history, to foster collaborations cannot satisfy the essence of its existence by not being able to support the inclusion of artists from all over the world.

Before the Revolution, Summerhall, 13–25 Aug, not 19, 9:50pm

I think there’s a certain attitude that seeps into the way the Fringe is organised which is important to challenge. Earlier this year the Fringe Society said that paying workers fairly would ruin the festival [as reported in The Scotsman, Feb 2019]. I don’t claim to know the ins-and-outs of how much it costs to run such a huge festival, but I do think that merely accepting that exploitative payment practices are part-and-parcel of it suggests an attitude that artists, workers, and everybody else should expect to be exploited and put up with it. I think that attitude runs counter to everything good about the Fringe.

Joz Norris Is Dead. Long Live Mr Fruit Salad, Heroes @ The Hive, 1–25 Aug, not 9, 10,

I think that people have often forgotten that Edinburgh is a city and not a festival. The festivals are international in outlook and that is brilliant but they have not always done enough to embrace local audiences and local Scottish artists or considered the impact they have on the locals. Too often it has felt like a circus comes to town for the month of August and it is a circus which brings enormous economic benefits for some in the city but not all. Then it melts away and there is little or no cultural legacy for the rest of the year for artists making year round theatre in Scotland.

Like Animals, Summerhall, 31 Jul–25 Aug, not 1, 19, 2:15pm

One thing that, at the time, seemed the most wonderful bonus (as a youthful smoker) was The Marlborough Girls, who frequented the Pleasance Courtyard for many years. Wearing very tight hotpants and giving out packs and packs of free cigarettes and lighters, they saved me a fortune as a smoker, but the levels of sexism and carcinogens would now both be seen as unacceptable.

The Shark is Broken, Assembly George Square Studios, dates vary, 11am

Of course there’s always going to be a competitive element to having an Edinburgh run, but I get the sense that there’s a lot more of “looking out for each other” now. For example, look at last year’s Edinburgh Comedy Awards Panel Prize winner Angela Barnes, and her fantastic initiative for a communal bank account that women-identifying acts could use to get a taxi home safely at night. That’s a wonderful thing to have done, and takes the stress off our shoulders as women performing late and having to get home safely.

Maisie Adam: Hang Fire, Gilded Balloon Teviot, 31 Jul–26 Aug, 5pm