At The Odd Couple on Friday, the venue’s press representative told me he had, so far, accommodated over 60 reviewers to see the show. It’s the kind of saturation coverage that a show could only dream of; but is almost totally unncessary, since the entire run is all but sold out. But it’s the one obligatory show that everyone seems to have to review: it has two telly-friendly names Alan Davies and Bill Bailey in it; it’s a popular classic comedy; and it’s in the fringe’s biggest venue, the Assembly Hall (former temporary home of the Scottish Parliament).
But who, exactly, are these reviewers? It’s interesting to note that, of the London national dailies, only two first-string critics have been up in Edinburgh over the last week — Benedict Nightingale of The Times and Quentin Letts of the Daily Mail. Both have duly covered The Odd Couple (and much else; Letts has shown himself particularly conscientious with a double-page spread of reviews on Friday from the fringe, and a few featured ‘overnights’ during the week on the news pages, too).
Of the other daily nationals, Lyn Gardner, deputy critic on The Guardian, has been doing her usual sterling work as Queen of the Edinburgh Fringe who makes more discoveries than anyone else; Dominic Cavendish, second-string on the Telegraph, has been up and about (while Charlie Spencer has avoided the world’s biggest theatre festival and reviewed a show on at the Mill at Sonning instead this week); while The Independent has mainly used their Scottish stringer Lynn Walker and the Evening Standard have posted Veronica Lee here (who only ever seems to write for them at Festival time, but has done double duty by also covering comedy for the Sunday Telegraph).
Of the Sundays, two number ones have been here: Kate Bassett for the Independent on Sunday and Susannah Clapp for The Observer; of the rest, the Sunday Times has employed a local stringer, Adrian Turpin, to cover theatre, and the Sunday Telegraph has posted Susan Irvine to cover theatre in Rebecca Tyrrell’s absence. I’m here for the Sunday Express, of course, but haven’t filed a column for today’s paper on Edinburgh but will do so for next Sunday.
So Edinburgh at festival time may be full of critics, but few of the usual London lot are doing their usual jobs. Instead, it may be healthy that we are getting other voices; but the only trouble in the cacaphony of voices that are being heard is that we don’t always recognise them. And when there’s a plethora of opinion about, it only means anything if you start to recognise voice and tone. That’s why Lyn Gardner is so invaluable. And ditto, on the local Scotsman, Joyce McMillan and comedy critic Kate Copstick: you can stick with them, for good or ill, because you recognise where they are coming from.
