Edinburgh’s Fringe, Now 70, Is Having Growing Pains
The theme this year, for example, is "Art as an act of defiance."
But others say it has become too big and expensive — and even too funny, with too many comedy acts, despite its origins in serious if often amateur theater.
21, 2017
EDINBURGH — Once a year, the cobbled, medieval streets here host an extra million people, tripling the population of the Scottish capital
for the nearly monthlong Edinburgh Fringe Festival, which used to be known as the biggest theater festival in the English-speaking world.
Comedy sells best, said the producer and academic Richard Demarco, 87, who claims to have attended every one of the 70 Edinburgh festivals — both Fringe
and official — and to have produced 3,000 shows for both.
Already, said Mr. Demarco, the producer, there are many shows where performers
and their stagehands outnumber their audiences — and sometimes there is even the dreaded phenomenon of a curtain call to an empty house.
Gone from the main Fringe is much of the rebellious spirit Mr. Sutherland remembers from earlier days, though a movement
within the festival — the Free Fringe, which lets performers put on shows for donations — has compensated somewhat.