In the next few weeks stacks of shows will make their way from the Edinburgh Fringe to London. Over-praised in the North, some will get cut down to size in the South. Others, often very good, will be critically ignored. So I have a radical suggestion to make. Why don’t more companies cut out the middleman, forsake expensive, inflated Edinburgh and open in London in August where, believe it or not, there is an audience hungry for theatre?

To me, the Edinburgh Fringe has become a bad joke (and there is no lack of those given the plethora of attention-seeking stand-ups). What started in 1947 as an alternative idea has turned into a capitalist institution – one dominated by a handful of big commercial venues outside which the weakest often go to the wall. And the search for quality becomes a needle-in-haystack job. Of the 1,600 shows on view at the Fringe this year, I would estimate the vast majority are rubbish and will leave their performers sadly out of pocket. Yet each year gullible innocents are lured to Edinburgh by the prospect of fame and fortune: it is the ultimate triumph of hype over experience.

(more…)