From the backseat of a moving car to a swimming pool, what constitutes a venue at Scotland’s sprawling arts festival never fails to surprise
fringe, the easiest to take for granted is that performances in the world’s biggest arts festival take place almost anywhere other than actual theatres. Over the years, I have even hosted three shows in my own flat, including a production of The Tempest in which Ferdinand was found in the kitchen frying eggs for Miranda. In other people’s homes, I have seen one about sex trafficking and another about sexual assault, both all the more powerful for their intimacy.
This has been going on ever since the festival began due to some combination of pressure on space, creative exuberance and financial necessity. In 1947, before the term fringe had been coined, the eight companies that arrived in the city to share in the spirit of the inaugural Edinburgh international festival performed in whatever buildings they could find. They included a YMCA, a cinema restaurant and Dunfermline Abbey, 18 miles out of town.
The lineup includes US comedians Rachel Redleaf and Tim Murray, and West End performers Rob Madge, Frances Ruffelle and Norman Bowman. The cheapest rate of £1,250 for a week might sound steep, but it is less than you would pay in a city-centre budget hotel this month. “I used to have an inferiority complex about my venue having a bit of noise bleed,” he says. “Then I went to a show in the Gilded Balloon and the act had to write in bits to deal with the cheering from next door, it was so loud. There’s no perfect room. Some of the rooms up at the university are closets throughout the year … The fringe is put together like an Escher painting.”
I check out four shows in less-familiar venues and what is striking about each is how well they are matched to their surroundings. I return to the Hoots Big Yurt to see Freddie Hayes in The Magic Lady. It is a deliciously daft faux-magic show made all the more enjoyable by our proximity to Hayes and each other. There are 40 of us nestled in so tightly that her interaction feels less like audience participation than a family party.
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