Shouldn’t we be at Edinburgh Fringe?
Article by Fern Miller, CSO as recently featured in Campaign Magazine UK.
I’ve long been curious about why the links between the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and the advertising industry are so light. Beyond a handful of individuals returning from their holidays to bore everyone with stories of their favourite shows, it seems, (like a lot of things North of the Watford Gap), to thunder along largely unnoticed by the Creative Agencies claiming to want to “live in culture”.
Instead, we all trek out to the South of France to hear our senior staff exchange opinions (Top 3 shows currently on tour: AI is important but so is Human Empathy; Ain’t E Commerce Marvellous, and We Really Should Do Something About How White We Are).
Meanwhile the world’s largest Arts festival sets up a global riot of theatre, comedy, dance, film, circus, magic, opera and spoken word (and others), featuring every single person you might ever like to cast or commission in your work, performing 4,700 shows for a whole month every single Summer, when most of our clients are conveniently on holiday, in a major UK city that is reasonably easy to get to by train or, if you are a climate terrorist, a plane… and most people have still never been.
I hesitate to say this, because I don’t really want to be the wanker that ruined the Fringe by turning it into an advertising industry destination, but, just as SXSW was built around a music festival, there’s even an argument for a more formalised extension that connects brands and talent. Yeah, let’s pretend I didn’t say that.
For us, for the time being, Edinburgh has been a source of inspiration and an introduction to talent. I’m not enough of an expert to glorify the following as a comprehensive guide to the trends at the Fringe this year (see above: 4,700 shows, some of which included magicians or clowns both of which I am somewhat allergic to) but here are three observations about the value of the Fringe to people in our industry:
Social media superstars on stage
One reason you should go to Edinburgh is to catch the biggest Creators live, as well the newer talent practicing in smaller rooms. As stand-ups grow their base through TikTok/ Insta skits/ reels and TikTok/ insta creators push into mainstream comedy, the Fringe hosts massive social superstars like Jimmy Rees (4.5m followers), Troy Hawke (3.4m followers) Tatty Macleod (750k followers, but with 25m views of one post about her Mum which her new show focusses on).
Not to mention each of the new SNL UK team who have had a pretty good year online. I managed to get into the Tatty Macleod WIP show (you should go when it tours, it is excellent) and can report the crowd were significantly younger than most of the other audiences.
Edinburgh has launched generations of sketch comedy icons of course, so is a perfect home for those with funny little ideas to play around with. The influence of social media on the comedy circuit can also be felt in the resurgence of insta-friendly crowdwork . A raft of shows had audience participation very much front and centre from the benign to the full roast, and from the loose “ what do you do for a living, mate?” approach to the high concept, including Truth Machine which hooked a collection of audience members to lie detectors before asking them very personal questions indeed.
Meanwhile, the socially-savvy standups are clipping up live material all month and posting to keep their numbers up. So, avoid the front row if you don’t want to be part of someone’s reel.
Nevertheless, she persisted…
The one thing you might have read about Edinburgh this year is that Amanda Knox was on stage with her one woman show entitled “Cartwheel”. There were a number of other notorious women on stage telling their stories first hand or through a playwright’s account, including writer, actress and ex glamour model, Keeley Hazell with one of my favourite Fringe show titles; the irrepressible TV presenter, bottom barer and ghosthunter Gail Porter, Isabel Peron in Evita TOO, the witches from Macbeth in Mother, Maiden, Crone and, perhaps the OG Bad Girl, Pandora in Mere Mortals.
The Fringe has always provided women with a mic and an audience, to amplify stories that couldn’t find room elsewhere in the media. Fleabag was an Edinburgh show first, after all. I reckon we have two to three years before Meghan Markle’s Edinburgh show…(yes I have come up with some names but I don’t want to be sued).
Fringe Groups, Fringe Ideas
4,700 shows allows for pretty much everyone to get their time in the spotlight, so long as they can find somewhere to stay that doesn’t bankrupt them, obviously. One day we began the day with the story of a Black Mormon Missionary in Moscow, and ended it with a Shrek-themed drag show Swamplesque. I was gutted to miss Man Sings the Same Song Over and Over Again for an Hour which got excellent reviews (honestly) and the man who went up Calton Hill one afternoon to fold a fitted sheet to a crowd of 400, but I did see a performance in a Sauna with towel choreography.
This is really what the Fringe is about, it’s about the weird places, the unheard voices and occasionally, a Gingerbread Man doing something unspeakable to a partially dressed Drag Donkey. Because that’s where your next good idea will probably come from, not the Croisette.
