Edinburgh needs to become evangelical

Vice-Pope Eric explaining the true meaning of the Edinburgh Fringe, yesterday.

COMMENT: The Edinburgh Fringe’s renewed commitment to open access is welcome – but they badly need to sell this benefit to other festivals.

In the legendary Brand New Monty Python Papperbok, there’s a panel discussion where Vice-Pope Eric explains the Catholic Church’s current position on sex and marriage. He explains that whilst their stance on sex outside marriage is well-known, what currently concerns them is the uncontrolled prevalence of sex within marriage. That’s not to say they oppose it outright – like it or not, it remains the best method for procreation; whilst they prefer Immaculate Conception to be used wherever possible, the Vatican has been forced to turn a blind eye to this matter, but only for outnumbering purposes mind, never for fun. When queried about where this was mentioned in Jesus’s teachings, however, his Vice Holiness admits that it wasn’t in his teachings as such, but it was an oversight they were quite happy to correct, by using St. Paul’s later writings and passing that off as Jesus’s own words quite successfully.

The relevance to the Edinburgh Fringe might not be immediately relevant here, but bear with me.

When Shona McCarty took over as the new chief executive of the Edinburgh Fringe, the first thing she did was stress her commitment to keeping the fringe open access. One year on, and it looks like she means business here. I’ve been a little sarcastic over the catchphrase “Alliance of Defiance” (a bit difficult to portray yourself as anti-establishment when you are the establishment), but I fully agree with the sentiment behind it: the true roots of the fringe is those original eight groups who turned up to Edinburgh in defiance of the International Festival who wouldn’t programme them and expected them to stay home. This story, along with the bit that these eight groups received no encouragement from the rest of the arts world, even appears on the website to all new visitors.

What’s worth watching: spring/summer 2017

This is a bit later than normal owing to all the Brighton Fringe coverage I’m in the thick of writing, but there’s also a new season of stuff coming up in the north-east. Annoyingly, I can’t be sure this is the full list because Live and Northern Stage don’t announce their new programmes until later this month, so there’s a chance they might have a gem up their sleeves that I don’t yet know about. If they do, I will add this to the list as soon as I know about it.

Yes, I know it’s June so some people might say “How can this include spring”, but I’m using the atronomical definition where spring runs until the summer solstice on June 21st, so ner.

Remember, a cross section, not an exhaustive list. A cross section, not an exhaustive list. A cross section, not an exhaustive list. That’s the only rule I need highlight, rest of the rules are here. So, what is there to look forward to?