Today is the last day of the Edinburgh festival. From today mime artists, street performers and makers of odd-looking jewellery will be returning to their corner of the earth (and possibly their day job). Comedians will, from now, begin work on their shows for the fringe next year and try to piece together what happened this year from pictures on facebook. Some careers will have started, others will have ended and some will be no different from the state they were in before. The barkeepers of Edinburgh will be considerably richer than they were before.
In principle, I think the fringe is a great idea. Well known and successful comedians can ply their trade to their adoring fans in intimate venues. Beginners in comedy can learn from the masters. People can be entertained both for a price and for free. It's possible to see multiple big names in one day, equally you can go to a gig with less than 10 people in attendance with the thrill that the performer might be the "next big thing". The whole thing is one great big f*ck off party to which everyone is invited. Round about the centre of town, you can reasonably expect to bump into some seriously big names in the world of comedy, have a drink, then wonder up the street and see some mates from uni performing on the street stage; possibly via buying a CD of some odd music you've seen some street performer play a minute ago.
Despite this, my experience of the Fringe has always been somewhat lukewarm. Having grown up on the outskirts of Edinburgh, the festival always spelled an unwelcome swell in tourist traffic (I know it's antisocial but there you go - good preparation for living in London I suppose). However the reasons go deeper than this. My first real encounters with the fringe on my own were when I was about 14. Unfortunately it was battling my way through crowds and street performers to go and visit my dad in hospital. Pretty much the last thing I wanted to come face to face with was an obnoxiously loud street performer or yet another crowd.
Despite the poor start I persevered. I saw some great shows. Some comedians I have followed and admired for years have entertained me... Marcus Brigstoke's rant on the subject of iphones was worth several hundred times what I paid for it. The rest of the show was rather good too. Lucy Porter too was fantastic. Like everyone else that has ever seen her, I think I fell a little bit in love with her. However most of my trips to the festival have almost always ended with a massive argument with my then girlfriend. I doubt the two are related but the two are sort of linked in my mind.
However good the shows I've seen have been, one thing I have always been left with at the festival is a slight sense of anticlimax. After hearing so many stories of riotous occurrences at the fringe, I always feel mine never quite match up. The feeling that an almighty party is going on somewhere but I'm just not quite sure where. Not to mention the feeling that I ought to be having so much more of a good time than I am.
This is a bit of an odd feeling. Usually, I do my best to live life as much on my own terms as possible and not worry too much about the goings on around me. After all, we can only really live our own lives so getting worked up about how much others seem to be enjoying themselves seems a bit pointless. For some reason, the fringe seems to circumvent this aspect to my personality. Perhaps it's because the festival is so famous and notorious.
Perhaps unsurprisingly I had similar feelings about my first freshers week. Like every other new student, I marched into my halls filled with tales of other's drunken debauchery, sexual misadventure and hazy memories of good times. I had a great freshers week. Some of it was drunken, some did involve adventures with girls but throughout a dim part of my consciousness was wondering if I was doing it right. After all, I remember all of it! Lots of booze was drunk but I did not wake up in any gutters or in some random part of town and I did manage to attend breakfast every morning and scheduled events during the day. Perhaps I'm just being paranoid!
JR
In principle, I think the fringe is a great idea. Well known and successful comedians can ply their trade to their adoring fans in intimate venues. Beginners in comedy can learn from the masters. People can be entertained both for a price and for free. It's possible to see multiple big names in one day, equally you can go to a gig with less than 10 people in attendance with the thrill that the performer might be the "next big thing". The whole thing is one great big f*ck off party to which everyone is invited. Round about the centre of town, you can reasonably expect to bump into some seriously big names in the world of comedy, have a drink, then wonder up the street and see some mates from uni performing on the street stage; possibly via buying a CD of some odd music you've seen some street performer play a minute ago.
Despite this, my experience of the Fringe has always been somewhat lukewarm. Having grown up on the outskirts of Edinburgh, the festival always spelled an unwelcome swell in tourist traffic (I know it's antisocial but there you go - good preparation for living in London I suppose). However the reasons go deeper than this. My first real encounters with the fringe on my own were when I was about 14. Unfortunately it was battling my way through crowds and street performers to go and visit my dad in hospital. Pretty much the last thing I wanted to come face to face with was an obnoxiously loud street performer or yet another crowd.
Despite the poor start I persevered. I saw some great shows. Some comedians I have followed and admired for years have entertained me... Marcus Brigstoke's rant on the subject of iphones was worth several hundred times what I paid for it. The rest of the show was rather good too. Lucy Porter too was fantastic. Like everyone else that has ever seen her, I think I fell a little bit in love with her. However most of my trips to the festival have almost always ended with a massive argument with my then girlfriend. I doubt the two are related but the two are sort of linked in my mind.
However good the shows I've seen have been, one thing I have always been left with at the festival is a slight sense of anticlimax. After hearing so many stories of riotous occurrences at the fringe, I always feel mine never quite match up. The feeling that an almighty party is going on somewhere but I'm just not quite sure where. Not to mention the feeling that I ought to be having so much more of a good time than I am.
This is a bit of an odd feeling. Usually, I do my best to live life as much on my own terms as possible and not worry too much about the goings on around me. After all, we can only really live our own lives so getting worked up about how much others seem to be enjoying themselves seems a bit pointless. For some reason, the fringe seems to circumvent this aspect to my personality. Perhaps it's because the festival is so famous and notorious.
Perhaps unsurprisingly I had similar feelings about my first freshers week. Like every other new student, I marched into my halls filled with tales of other's drunken debauchery, sexual misadventure and hazy memories of good times. I had a great freshers week. Some of it was drunken, some did involve adventures with girls but throughout a dim part of my consciousness was wondering if I was doing it right. After all, I remember all of it! Lots of booze was drunk but I did not wake up in any gutters or in some random part of town and I did manage to attend breakfast every morning and scheduled events during the day. Perhaps I'm just being paranoid!
JR
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