Monday, August 23, 2010
I hate the Edinburgh Festival
Well I’ve never actually been to it, so that’s a somewhat absurd claim, but am I the only one whose heart sinks a little every time the Edinburgh Festival comes round to hog every possible spot in the arts and culture media? The more I read the reviews of tiresomely ‘innovative’ Fringe shows and the ‘look-at-me!’ competitive desperation of the stand-up comics, the less is my desire to actually go to the blasted thing. Anyone been? Am I being wildly unfair? Edinburgh itself is nice of course, always worth a visit during the rest of the year.
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8 comments:
Never been. Got a pathological urge to murder street performers, and no desire to see annoying zany drama school students doing Shakespeare's Naked High School King Lear Musical.
Exactly. I hate the fringe. The festival itself I never even hear about. It's like that old joke from Barcelona:
Fred: Maybe you can clarify something for me. Since I've been, you know, waiting for the fleet to show up, I've read a lot, and...
Ted: Really?
Fred: And one of the things that keeps popping up is about "subtext." Plays, novels, songs - they all have a "subtext," which I take to mean a hidden message or import of some kind. So subtext we know. But what do you call the message or meaning that's right there on the surface, completely open and obvious? They never talk about that. What do you call what's above the subtext?
Ted: The text.
Fred: OK, that's right, but they never talk about that.
No one ever talks about the Festival. All they talk about is the fringe.
Exactly David. Isn't there now a 'fringe fringe' - for those who think the fringe itself is too mainstream? So what on earth is left for the actual Festival itself? Simon Cowell?
The Edinburgh branch of the family leave the country at Festival time. I think students and critics are the only people around.
The festival is admirably highbrow. Can't remember if I've ever attended any of its performances (e.g. 7 hour version of King Lear in Polish) but I did do a lot of the Fringe in my youth and then stopped. Don't even open the programme now. Says it all, really.
Well I’ve never actually been to it, so that’s a somewhat absurd claim
On the contrary, Sir, it means you have just attained a more exalted level of curmudgeonliness. I feel exactly the same about Salzberg.
Hear hear! I once lived for nearly a year in Edinburgh - long enough to learn to cordially hate the place, and be gone before the dreaded Festival came to town.
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