Modified On August 6, 2007
Is there too much standup at the Edinburgh Fringe? An article in the UK Guardian ponders the question. Once upon a time, it was all about uncovering and discovering obscure, experimental and daring theater, but…
…its integrity has disappeared as commercialism reigns, personified by big-name performers familiar from TV, such as Jimmy Carr, Ricky Gervais and Frank Skinner. That, at least, is the complaint from those who believe that household name comedy is drowning out more pioneering art.
The very fact that anyone would even raise the question is ridiculous. For the past three years, the number of standup shows offered among the Fringe’s 2,000 presentations has increased from 435 to 566 to this year’s 630. And, from all reports, it’s not a zero-sum game– as the number of comedy shows has exploded, so has the Fringe in general.
And steps have been taken to ensure that “integrity” remains.
For instance, new Fringe director Jon Morgan, has high praise for the biennial British Council theatre showcase. It was concocted ten years ago to promote some of the projects that people see as threatened by the proliferation of such vulgarity as standup comedy. “The British Council logo next to an entry in a festival brochure is seen as a mark of quality,” says Guardian arts correspondent Charlotte Higgins.
She follows this up with:
This year the showcase includes Low Life, a puppet show about “the lives of action-hero plumbers”; SuperJumbo, in which performer Richard DeDomenici recreates an Airbus 380 inside a flat; and Etiquette, in which the audience of just two become the performers, as they sit together in a cafe responding to instructions given to them via headphones.
Do you suppose that anyone would know or care about the Fringe if there were no standup? Do you suppose that the Fringe would have grown exponentially if it only offered a steady diet of action-hero plumber puppets and ponderous installations such as SuperJumbo? We’re confident that it would not.
It is worth making the distinction between the Edinburgh International Festival and the Fringe. The Fringe is more grass-rootsy than the Edinburgh International. The International started 70 years ago, the Fringe some time after that. The Fringe is, for the most part, a less elitist, more ragtag collection of artists who are financing their projects and hoping to eventualy be incoporated into the larger, older, more respected International. The Fringe, from all accounts, is wildly successful, well-attended and known far and wide as a place to garner attention. The International is a bloated, highbrow charity case that’s several million pounds in debt.
The last thing they should do is complain about standup comedy, as it seems that’s what people want.
In November of 2003, we re-ran a piece that originally ran in the Scotsman, by comedian Brian Hennigan. (We rarely re-run anything, but, in this case, we made an exception.) In it, he eloquently makes the case that standup has for too long been discounted, and that the Edinburgh establishment ignores or marginalized standup at its own peril.
As someone who spends a lot of time in comedic contemplation, one can only see so many plays, watch so much contemporary dance, and read so much cutting-edge fiction without feeling that standup comedy receives scant regard as an art form. There is no good reason for this. Comedy, once frowned on, is a long accepted artistic genre. In terms of recognising that standup comedy has come of age, it is about time the Edinburgh International Festival gave thought to its inclusion within the range of artistic disciplines that it celebrates.
Read the entire column here.