I like to be proved wrong sometimes. Only the other day I was admitting that I didn’t expect the Edinburgh Fringe to keep growing as it does: as I wrote here, “every year I expect the bubble to burst, as I think the message will finally get through to participants that it’s usually a fast way to lose money. And this year, with less of it about than ever, I thought far fewer would try.”
But as Lyn Gardner writes in an Edinburgh preview feature in today’s Guardian, the fringe “seems to be defying the recession: now in its 63rd year, it is still expanding, albeit by the tiniest of margins (there are 10 more shows this year than last).”
Just as I was naturally cautious and said, “Let’s hope audiences remain similarly confident about taking their holidays in Edinburgh, too”, Lyn has also registered the same worried note: “On the Fringe, of course, bigger doesn’t always mean better: an ever-expanding festival must also find an ever-expanding audience, which could be tricky in the current climate.”
But then such worries are nothing new.
As Lyn says, taking a long-term view, “For the 20-odd years I’ve been going to Edinburgh in August, the naysayers have been predicting the festivals’ imminent demise. (There are at least three of them: the international festival, the Fringe, the Free Fringe.) Their critics say they are too big, too baggy, too highbrow, too lowbrow; that the international festival (EIF) can’t afford the best of the best; that the Fringe has been overrun by comedians and exhibitionists. Add to that the recession, and last year’s fiasco on the Fringe - a chaotic new ticketing system - and many thought that 2009 would be the year Edinburgh went pop. Well, there’s no sign of catastrophe.” And as she astutely points out, “Neither the Fringe nor the EIF would still be in existence if they hadn’t proved their ability to adapt to changing circumstances.”
The same is true of the worries of the impact of the recession on theatregoing patterns in the West End. This is the first year I can think of when we’ve not had cries of a West End crisis as the summer has arrived: in fact, quite the contrary. As I wrote here only last week, figures are not only holding up in the West End, but actually doing better than last year. And far from the commercial heartland of our theatre seeing off plays, they’re more robust than ever. That’s partly product-driven; put on the right shows, and people still want to come. As Charlie Spencer has suggested, “I cannot remember a time when there has been so much superb drama to see in London.”
He cites some of the plays that have opened recently, from Hamlet and Arcadia to The Winter’s Tale, The Cherry Orchard and Phedre and says, “All of this seems to indicate a mood of seriousness in the public, a desire to address big subjects and stretch their minds. With so much seeming tawdry and soundbite-driven in Westminster, I think there is a real hunger for strong emotion, human wisdom and hard-won truths of the kind offered by great theatre. Even Samuel Beckett’s bleak Waiting for Godot, not normally regarded as a box-office hit, is proving so popular that the run is being extended.”
Charlie goes on to quote Nick Hytner: “People are looking for substance. When you watch a wrenching tragedy like Phèdre or a play by Shakespeare or Chekhov, you are experiencing the best that has been thought and felt by the human mind, and contemplating the best and worst of human nature.”
Theatre can also, says Charlie, be a valuable communal experience in times of stress. “I would argue that another great thing about theatre, whether it is an escapist musical or a scorching tragedy, is that it is an activity that brings people together. In great productions you enter a show as a group of individuals and emerge as a community who have been through the same experience together, whether harrowing or uplifting. At times like this, of anxiety and stress, when I suspect many of us have woken up in the middle of the night worrying about what the future holds, such communal activity strikes me as healthy, and great art itself can be a healing and consoling experience.”
And hard times can also mean creative opportunities. I was talking to a producer the other day by e-mail about the possible transfer of a couple of fringe hits to a larger venue, and he said, “For me, it’s a sign of the times - it takes me back to my cowboy days of the mid 90’s - when there’s a recession and empty theatres but fun, interesting cheap product about, lots of enthusiasm and tiny amounts of cash allowed me and others to transfer stuff that West End proprietors would never have normally looked at. I am hoping that this is a symptom that we might be looking towards that kind of ‘Prague Spring’ again. I’ve certainly got an eye on the West End again in a way I haven’t for many years.”
So the difficulties can become a positive. Sure, there have been early and undeserved casualties, like Spring Awakening, that failed to take the town; but then that can happen in any theatrical economy. Sometimes its difficult to predict what will happen. After garnering mostly great reviews at Hammersmith and a big audience response there, the producers had to be confident that they were onto something; but that didn’t translate into West End ticket sales.
But the show was heavily capitalised: it had over 30 producers, and cost in excess of £2m to put on. By comparison, the small fringe shows we are talking about that are looking to extend their lives now don’t have the same things to lose as Spring Awakening did.
Suddenly, small can be beautiful again. And while I’ve already pointed out here that some of the press interest in one small show, The Mountaintop has surely been fuelled by the presence of one James Dacre as its director, as I reported here the other day, it is his father Paul, editor-in-chief of the Daily Mail, who actually gets credited in today’s Guardian review! That’s the kind of typing error it is all-too-easy to make: I once scrambled the names of actors David and Nicholas Tennant (in days before David was as famous as he is now) in a review. No one pointed it out to me, until I ran into Julia McKenzie and she told me (though I was not quite so surprised to discover that she was a Sunday Express reader).
While there may be more shows this year, I have heard that this year the total number of 'performances' are down, as many shows are only doing a one or two week run, as opposed to the whole festival - leading to many empty spaces around the fringe!
Here's hoping that visitors to Edinburgh this year check out the smaller shows like my comedy sketch show Socially Retarded, written and performed by me and my pal with zero budget. Trying something new and supporting new performers used to be what the fringe was all about, now that people are having to tighten their belts maybe that'll give the smaller cheaper shows a chance... thats the hope anyway! Check us out at:
http://www.myspace.com/tomfoolery2009
http://www.twitter.com/tomfoolery09
Reminds me of the time in early acting days when i was lucky enough to be cast in a good play and subsequently excited to learn that Baz B was going to write something about it. I was very, very upset when the piece came out in the Mail and named the successful actor as Humphrey Burton.
Harry B