Before I head off to Edinburgh myself tomorrow, I caught Stomp again in the West End this week – a show launched on its journey towards becoming a global phenomenon at the Assembly Rooms 14 years ago (and turning its former street performer creators Luke Creswell and Steve McNicholas into multi-millionaires, proving once again the old adage, “You can’t make a living in the theatre, but you can make a killing”).
This is probably the most profitable of all the “franchise shows” born in Edinburgh that, like Cats and Les Mis, are then endlessly replicated around the world. Of course, it hasn’t stopped numerous imitators from trying their luck to create the same kind of show, from break-dancing spectacles like Bounce to the hip Ozzie tap-dance show, Tap Dogs that all did their Edinburgh showcases. It doesn’t always work – the Spanish-born percussion show Life is Rhythm a couple of years ago was an Edinburgh hit, but when Bill Kenwright transferred it to Shaftesbury Avenue’s Lyric Theatre, it looked awfully exposed.
But Edinburgh’s place as a giant trade show for producers from around the world to come and cherry pick from is exemplified by the biennial British Council Edinburgh Showcase, which has selected some 28 British theatre shows as potential candidates for foreign touring – and as well as endorsing them with an official stamp of approval, have also helped to pay the travel expenses for some 212 overseas producers to come and see them, including delegates from as far afield as China, Vietnam, Thailand and Mexico, as well as Germany, the Netherlands and Russia.
Among the work they will be exposed to are site-specific works like Scottish company Grid Iron’s The Devil’s Larder (being performed at Debenham’s Department Store) and dreamthinkspeak’s Don’t Look Back (being performed at Edinburgh’s General Register House and previously seen at Somerset House in London; when I did so last summer, I got stuck in a lift for half an hour, so didn’t complete the strange tour that the show takes you on – let’s hope the same thing doesn’t happen to anyone, least of all the foreign producers, in Edinburgh). According to the British Council’s head of drama Sally Cowling, the growth in site-specific work was “reflecting and responding to the fact that, as so many experiences today are virtual, people increasingly want a very intense, very local experience in theatre”.
Cowling estimates that the last showcase in 2003 brought in an additional £1.5-£2m in fees to the companies promoted in it. The council initiated the bi-annual showcases, she says, because “theatre was looking thin” and “it was getting a bit pointless encouraging theatre promoters to come to Edinburgh” because of the dominance of stand-up comedy.
The Edinburgh Festival Fringe’s director Paul Gudgin acknowledges that it has had an effect: “This year is a really good year for theatre, and it’s partly to do with the impact of the showcase.” But the corollary of that is that in, non-showcase years, theatre duly drops. “We are more and more concerned,” says Gudgin. “People felt last year the theatre programme wasn’t the strongest. That’s a problem for us to solve, an area of our work we have to develop.”
Apparently in showcase years, even companies not officially part of the British Council’s package were keener to perform in case they were spotted by a roving producer. Gudgin comments, “The showcase demonstrates that performers are coming to the Fringe because they want to be picked up and we have to make these opportunities every year.”
Few, of course, will turn into Stomp; but there are quieter ways to make an impact – and a living – too.
