Yesterday the largest performing arts festival finished it three-week run and drew to a close. While I’d loved to have been there for the entire run catching the brilliant, the passionate, the totally absurd and occasionally absolute rubbish, we only had time for three days. But we packed a lot into those three days.
If you are not aware of Edinburgh Festival Fringe and have even a remote interest in theatre/dance/blindfold men juggling chainsaws on a unicycle/comedy you really should go at least once. Here are some numbers. It goes on for twenty-five days, there are over 45,000 performances, put on by 2,871 different shows across a couple hundred venues spread throughout the city.
It is the most amazing cultural experience and I’ve never seen anything like it elsewhere. We were there for 3 days. We saw 18 shows and hardly scratched the surface, but gosh it was fun. And we were not alone; the fringe sold 1.94 million tickets this year.
This is my fourth Fringe, I knew what I was letting myself in for, but nothing could quite prepare Michele, the fringe virgin, for sitting down with the catalogue and trying to decide which of the 2,871 shows she wanted to see.
We heard horribly inappropriate jokes about death, monologues about writing letters, had breakfast with Shakespeare. There were stories about London flooding and Edgar Allen Poe retold with incredible passion by a guy who writes for Doctor Who.
We learned what it took for Blythe Spartans to win the Champions League, saw drunk Glaswegians on space hoppers, learned the secrets of a psychic and what six of the seven ages of men are.
We saw Bridget Christie talk about pens and Pakistani blogger Malala Yousafzai. Learned how Diane Spencer nearly burned her parents’ house down. What sectarian violence looks like to Andrew Maxwell. Heard about Ben Van Der Veldes failed quest to bring back the art of letter writing.
And so much more.
We saw less than 1% of the shows put on, but each was the result of hours of hard work and dedication. I never felt any performer was going through the motions. And while we did talk of what we missed, we were astounded by some of what we saw.
Edinburgh is a fantastic city any time, but the atmosphere on the Royal Mile or grabbing a pint between shows and meeting a nervous group from St Andrews University that had just heard a reviewer was going to watch their afternoon sketch show makes it even more special.
We had three days of perfect weather, yes three days in Edinburgh without the need of an umbrella. Perhaps that’s even more impressive than blindfold men juggling chainsaws on a unicycle…