My love hate relationship with the Edinburgh Festival

I’m not going to comment on the cancellation of comedian Jerry Sadowitz’s show in Edinburgh.

On the face of it the decision by ‘venue bosses’ to cancel the second of two shows - while at the same time declaring their support for freedom of speech - is the height of hypocrisy, and censorship.

Given Sadowitz’s reputation it also seems unfathomable that members of the audience would be unaware of what they were letting themselves in for.

Alternatively if it’s true that the second show was cancelled because of complaints by members of staff then we really are in sticky waters.

That said I don’t know all the facts (nor I suspect, does the army of commentators on social media) so I’ll reserve judgement.

Anyway, by coincidence and for a very brief moment yesterday, I considered catching a train to Edinburgh.

The thought however was driven not by a desire to show solidarity with Sadowitz but by Dundee United’s 7-0 defeat in the Netherlands which I wrote about in my previous post.

How do you show support for your club after a major drubbing? You do it the only way you can - by going to the very next match and getting behind the team.

In United’s case that meant travelling to Edinburgh where United are playing Hearts this afternoon.

Sitting in my garden however, with an ice cold drink in one hand and a Rowntree’s fruit pastille lolly in the other, I quickly thought better of it.

Problem one: drivers at ten rail companies, including LNER which covers the east coast route, were on strike.

I could, I suppose, have driven to Edinburgh (which is what I would normally do) but …

Problem two: the Edinburgh Festival is on so accommodation is at a premium and it would be a struggle to find somewhere to stay.

Which brings me to the point of this post - my love hate relationship with the Edinburgh Festival.

My first visit to the Festival (or, more particularly, the Fringe) was in 1978, I think. A friend from school was at Edinburgh University and his father had bought a flat in the Old Town (off South Clerk Street) so I stayed there for a week with another schoolfriend who, like me, was at Aberdeen.

It was a basement flat - quite dark and possibly a bit damp, if I remember - but it was close to the venue for the Edinburgh Film Festival so we spent much of the day watching some rather quirky art house films, at least one of which involved American truckers, the rest being ‘foreign’ and therefore sub-titled.

In the evening we would seek out some ‘comedy’ and ‘musical’ entertainment.

In the late Seventies and early Eighties the Fringe was dominated by comedy sketch shows, most of which weren’t funny at all but at least the performers were having a good time.

In 1979, I think, another friend of mine at Aberdeen put on a sketch show with a small cast (also from Aberdeen) and somehow blagged a small but prime location.

In those days I think venues were allocated on a first-come first-served basis which meant some terrible shows got a central location while some really good shows might be exiled to a church hall five miles from the city centre and play to only a handful of people.

My friend’s show fell into the former category but I knew from speaking to him that the cast were having a great time in Edinburgh, even if their audiences were a bit non-plussed.

Sketch shows had been in vogue since the success of the Cambridge Footlights in the early Sixties.

The Footlights - and their Oxford counterparts - were still the go-to sketch shows on the Fringe but there were better ones out there and when I saw them they were living, to some degree, on past reputation.

Nevertheless I remember seeing Stephen Fry, Emma Thompson and Hugh Laurie, among others.

A big change took place in the Nineties. Sketch shows were out and were replaced by stand up comedy.

As it happens we moved to Edinburgh in 1992 and for the next six years the Festival, and the Fringe, were on our doorstep. Literally.

The Assembly Rooms, where many of the top comedians performed, was in George Street, a few hundred yards from our flat in Thistle Street.

The Book Festival, which was held in a large marquee in Charlotte Square, was also a short walk away.

I’m struggling to remember all the writers and performers we saw. For me the stand-out act was probably Ray Davies of The Kinks who performed a very charming one-man show, mixing stories from his career with songs that he played on an acoustic guitar.

Curiously, the longer we lived in Edinburgh the fewer shows we went to. In fact, as a resident the Festival/Fringe became a bit of a nuisance, not least because of the hordes of visitors.

I concluded that the Festival is great fun for performers and visitors, not so great for people living in Edinburgh although, to be fair, I do know residents who take enormous pleasure and even pride from the event.

The problem, for me, has always concerned quality. The Fringe was designed to be open to everyone but in my opinion it got far too large, with some great but unheralded shows losing out to the terminally naff and inept.

Part of the problem is that there are so many shows that some of the best never get reviewed or, if they do, it’s too late to attract an audience.

In recent decades household name comedians have ruled the roost but Edinburgh has often been no more than a stopping off point in their latest national tour.

Sometimes the show they’ve put on at the Festival has been no more than a work in progress ahead of their next tour.

The Festival still has the ability to break new shows however and a good example is The Shark Is Broken, a behind-the-scenes drama based on the making of the film Jaws.

After premiering at the 2019 Edinburgh Fringe, the play ran in the West End from October 2021 to February 2022.

It was directed by Guy Masterson who has been directing and producing critically acclaimed plays at the Festival for at least two decades.

I worked briefly with Guy in the mid Nineties when he was part of a small team I put together to stage a couple of one-off shows, one at the BBC Concert Hall, another at the Royal Academy of Music.

At the time he was an aspiring actor and director, appearing in a series of one-man shows that he would perform in small and sometimes tiny theatres up and down the country.

The first show I saw him in was The Boy’s Own Story in which he played a goalkeeper.

A few years ago I was in Edinburgh for the Festival when I bumped into him in the street. I hadn’t seen him for 20 years but we follow each other on Facebook so I recognised him immediately. The following day we saw his latest show (Dylan Thomas, The Man, The Myth) in a small venue just around the corner.

My godson was performing in another show that year and we were there to support him. We stayed in a serviced apartment within easy walking distance of many of the main venues and if there’s a better way to experience the Festival I can’t think of it.

To my immense surprise that was in 2015, seven years ago. Where has the time gone?

PS. Dundee United have a poor record against Hearts, home and away.

When it’s full, as it will be this afternoon, Tynecastle is one of the three most intimidating stadiums in Scotland (you can guess the other two) but it’s also my favourite.

Coming on the back of a 7-0 defeat it doesn’t bode well but, writing this, I do wish I was there.

Update: United lost 4-1. It’s going to be a long season.