For most people, the 2012 Edinburgh Festival Fringe was a delight. Unprecedented good weather washed over the capital as it celebrated some of the best theatre, dance and comedy from around the world. The Royal Mile was littered with street performers as every conceivable flat surface heaved under the weight of posters. There seemed no escaping the Fringe.
But for the performers it seemed their venues were peppered with empty seats. Sales appeared to be falling and not before long a barrage of excuses were being cooked up to explain the low numbers – if not for their own sake, then for their promoters.
The Olympics was first up: no-one could possibly expect the British people to brave the outside when some of the greatest live sport was being pumped in through their television boxes. Post-closing ceremony, however, and it seemed ticket sales were not improving. Possibly the double-dip recession had left potential Fringe attendees out of pocket.
No doubt the fall in sales was for an amalgamation of reasons, but the Fringe still carried on with an undeniable gusto. The comedy side of the festival, on the other hand, seemed to be in a bit of a conundrum.
First off was the overwhelming politics of the event. The question again was whether the Fringe had become too commercial and had completely deserted its roots. Was too much time being spent on performers who had already ‘made it’ rather than honouring those who were being repeatedly bypassed by television producers. Admittedly, it all could be disregarded as another Stewart Lee whinge, but again and again headliners steamrolled into Edinburgh for a week, snapping up prime-time slots, charging extortionate prices and taking up all the advertising space.
Without a doubt, there was still an abundance of underground gigs and the Free Fringe had gathered together a host of impressive shows, from new and veteran performers. But the gap between the big names and those residing just out of the remit of BBC1 appeared bigger than ever. Similarly, the Fosters Comedy Awards (formerly the Perriers) choice of ‘The Boy with Tape on His Face’ as their panel prize winner was an odd choice for a man who had sold out every show, been commissioned his very own show and arguably didn’t need any more recognition.
It wasn’t just the Festival itself that was getting a political make-over. With stand-up now saturating our television screens, and offensive comics like Jimmy Carr and Frankie Boyle grabbing more headlines than ever, it seemed jokes about rape and domestic abuse were becoming commonplace, especially with up-and-coming comedians desperately trying to stand out from the crowd. This year, however, it seemed a lot of comedians were willing to put their foot down and question the mantra of ‘nothing is sacred in comedy’.
From afar it seems like a concept easy enough to understand: just don’t make jokes about rape or domestic abuse, particularly when the butt of the joke is the victim. But for some comedians it is a little more complicated than that. Comedy is arguably one of the few art forms left where taboo subjects can be tackled with honesty and laughter without fear of censorship. But not everyone who makes a distasteful joke is doing so with that in mind – the majority are blindly cohering to offensive stereotypes and only upsetting people in the process.
Fortunately, the Fosters Comedy Awards echoed this with its nominee shortlists, honouring some of the best comics on the circuit, many of which had firmly stated their desire for comedians to stop falling to such depths for a laugh. The winner of Best Show went to Doctor Brown with his bizarre and absurd show ‘Befrdfgth’. The Best Newcomer award went to Norwegian comic, Daniel Simonsen with his debut aptly named ‘Champions’.
Personally, it would have been nice to see a few more of my favourites grace the nominee lists, such as Nick Mohammed with his brilliant character comedy, Peacock and Gamble with their wonderfully silly and subversive double-act, and Bridget Christie with her fantastically odd and unashamedly political ‘War Donkey’.