Perhaps now the most famous of the Edinburgh events during the festival season is The Fringe. It has much outgrown the original International festival with estimates of approximately 31,000 performances in 250 different venues and is now the world’s largest cultural event.
Super Venues such as The Assembly, Pleasance, The Gilded Balloon and The Underbelly hold the much larger events with famous names while smaller venues offer opportunity for less well known acts and artists and charge substantially less to attend.
The Fringe is known as an ‘unjuried festival’ which means that anyone is free to put on a performance which has brought criticism that the quality of some of the shows is questionable. In some cases acts involving nudity, sexual explicitness and religion has caught the attention of the city counselors and police and have had to be shut down.
The Fringe is known as an ‘unjuried festival’ which means that anyone is free to put on a performance which has brought criticism that the quality of some of the shows is questionable. In some cases acts involving nudity, sexual explicitness and religion has caught the attention of the city counselors and police and have had to be shut down.
Composed of performing arts such as drama and comedy it is often a gateway to being ‘discovered’ for the all hopefuls. Many famous comedians have begun there careers with The Fringe including Rowan Atkinson, Stephen Fry, Emma Thompson, Jenny Éclair and Steve Coogan. A frequent critic’s complaint in the last 20 years of performances has been the dramatic increase in the amount of comedy and stand up, now thought to compose about 80% of the fringe content. This however does not seem to deter the public as growth of popularity has shown.
The size and prestige of the Fringe festival has lead to several awards being introduced recognising the performances, most notable of which is The Scotsman newspaper Fringe First awards which began in 1973. There are also The Perrier Awards, the Herald Angels and The Stage Awards for Acting Excellence.
The size and prestige of the Fringe festival has lead to several awards being introduced recognising the performances, most notable of which is The Scotsman newspaper Fringe First awards which began in 1973. There are also The Perrier Awards, the Herald Angels and The Stage Awards for Acting Excellence.