I try to keep news about me or this blog to a minimum. I’ve never wanted to make this about me, I want it to be about the theatre I see. However, this is a rare occasion where I need to write about what I’m doing. The main reason I have persisted with the reviewing for so long as that I do get a lot of appreciation for this, and consider myself as doing a service. But I must never lose sight of whether I am really doing people a favour, and one question that must be addressed in Edinburgh Fringe.
Before you get too excited about any earth-shattering bombshells: I intend to carry on reviewing at Edinburgh Fringe. Although Brighton is a close second, Edinburgh Fringe offers by far the great variety of theatre in one place, made possible to a large part by the culture that all are welcome. Nevertheless, one cannot ignore the crisis of expense. It’s always been a problem, 2022 and 2023 were particularly bad, but the ban on short term lets now in place could well push up costs even more. However, I will defend to the death the rights of individual artists to decide for themselves what’s best for them. For many artists, my advice is that Edinburgh Fringe is not the right festival for you and you’re better off doing something else – but it must be your own choice. I am streadfastly opposed to imposing this choice on people, nor will I penalise people for making a different choice to what I recommend.
However, what concerns me about Edinburgh Fringe is that people are taking part not by choice. As I have said before, we have a big problem with many arts organisations going talent scouting at Edinburgh Fringe and nowhere else. This means – and I have observed this myself – many artists who cannot comfortably afford Edinburgh and are gambling with more money they can afford to lose still do this Fringe because the think they have no option but to go there if they want a hope of making it. Until now, I have been challenging the arts industry on this, and especially challenging those who complain about the unfairness and expense of Edinburgh whilst refusing to gives artists a fair chance by any other route. But I’m wondering whether we are reaching the point where even the availability of reviews in Edinburgh – compared to a perceived dearth of reviews at other fringes – is doing more harm than good.
The other issue I’m facing is that I am increasingly struggling to accommodate all the review requests I get. I’ve been fully accredited press since 2021 – and I am grateful to Edinburgh Fringe for this, I could not be sustaining this coverage without – but the volume of review requests I’ve been getting is going up and up and up. And I’m honestly not sure how to filter this. I give priority to acts I’ve seen before and liked, but should I prioritise other acts on how good other reviews are? Probably not, I want to give a break to acts without reviews, not just big up already successful ones. Make choices on how good the press release sounds? I could, but I like to be go into most productions not knowing what to expect. But I can’t say yes to everything. I’m reaching the point where I’m missing stuff I want to see (not on review request lists) because I’m squeezing in too many reviews.
So here’s a new rule I’m introducing to both make it easier for me to choose what to review and (in my opinion) be a bit more responsible with what I encourage:
From 2024, priority for Edinburgh Fringe reviews will go to acts that have already performed at smaller festivals (for acts based in England and Wales).
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