Though it sometimes seems that all artistic life outside Edinburgh is suspended for the duration of the Festival, life does actually go on elsewhere. Though no London first nights were scheduled at all over last week or this, it’s business as usual at Stratford-upon-Avon (where As You Like It premieres to the press tonight) and at Chichester (where 5/11 opens tomorrow). And next week Ray Cooney’s new play, Tom Dick and Harry, opens at the West End’s Duke of York’s Theatre on Tuesday. So first-string critics who have already shown a remarkable reluctance to be here at all have a perfect excuse to leave as soon as they’ve arrived. Both The Guardian’s Michael Billington and the Telegraph’s Charles Spencer have been sighted in Edinburgh this week covering the openings of the International Festival, but they’ll both be departing today.
It’s true that it’s easy to become both jaded and overwhelmed by the prospect of the Fringe, and most if not all of what’s good will find a life later in London. But there’s still a lot of pleasure of discovery to be had along with the pain, and critics are a vital part of the process of that. It’s a pity that most of the London critics don’t engage in it more fully.
But with other more manageable competing distractions like those at Stratford and Chichester, there’s even less incentive to try to do so.
