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Friday 5 December 2008

Edinburgh’s cultural jamboree

Lloyd Evans on the esotericism of the Festival and the ragamuffin risk-taking of the Fringe

Michael Barrymore, another pilgrim in search of spiritual renewal, is appearing in Surviving Spike, a life of Spike Milligan at the Assembly Rooms. At first sight this looks like a hopeless case. A finished comedian playing an immortal one. But you’d be rash to write off Barrymore entirely, and if he should pull off a triumph he’s chosen the ideal place to do it. If nothing else the Fringe is a festival of hope. It has a special atmosphere, a reckless studenty spirit of optimism and frivolity that infects everyone who performs. The past vanishes. Your age is irrelevant. Everyone is 19 and all that matters is your future and your fame.

For that reason there’s a growing animosity between the handful of celebrity gatecrashers and the great mass of unknown Fringe performers. Cushioned by their notoriety and their well-heeled backers, the celebs tend to forget that when Johnny Wannabe arrives at the Fringe he’s investing a sizeable chunk of his income in the venture. Take a rock bottom example, a one-man show at a smallish venue of 100 seats. Include transport, marketing, theatre-hire and a quarter-page advert in the brochure (without which you’re stuffed), add a rented bedsit and two tins of baked beans a day and you’re looking at 5,000 quid. Quite a chunk of money and yet it’s a fraction of what you’d pay to hire a pub theatre in London for three weeks. When you ask Fringe veterans how much they expect to make, they shrug and laugh. Recoup half your investment and you’re doing well. Break even and you’re a roaring success. Turn a profit and you’re the next Binkie Beaumont.

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