Arrival of so-called Comedy Festival is nothing to laugh at

Published on Monday 16 June 2008 10:31

'Bogus' event exists purely to earn cash, claims The Stand's Tommy Sheppard

THE Stand Comedy Club is now the largest producer of comedy shows on the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. The Capital's favourite year-round comedy venue has doubled in size for 2008, adding two new temporary stages.

We are proud to be at the heart of the Fringe and we support the innovation, experiment and risk-taking that are the hallmark of the world's largest arts festival. Yet we are not part of the so-called Edinburgh Comedy Festival launched recently by four private companies – only one of which is based in Scotland.

Then again, it's not just us – the majority of comedy shows on the Fringe won't be part of this separate event.

This new event is entirely bogus, set up by four big venues to give them a greater share of the sponsorship money and ticket sales. This "festival" has no office, no board of directors, no website, no bank account and no telephone number. It is, to all intents and purposes, just a brand.

Frankly, it's the sort of sharp practice that gives festivals a bad name, and has been launched by people in London to take from our city's cultural heritage.

So why has this happened? Well, there's talk of bringing in new investment. This hasn't worked of course. No extra money has been found. In fact, the organisers of this new festival have charged each of the performers an extra 500 to be in their programme, pushing up costs for the comedians and the price of tickets for punters.

Wouldn't new sponsorship help bring down costs and give us all cheaper tickets? Not likely, I'm afraid. New sponsorship will simply be used to boost the profits of the companies involved, and since it's a cartel that no-one else can join, they're not going to be spreading the jam around.

But there's another problem. If this particular piece of private enterprise is successful, it will take money away from the official Fringe and put it in the hands of a few large operators.

Not only will this give them an unfair slice of the cake, but it will give them much more bargaining power over the Fringe, making sure that the organisation works to their own agenda.

It's all politics in the end, and it all comes down to money. There are some good shows on at the Assembly and Gilded Balloon, for instance, but there will be a lot of naff ones too. Since these venues seldom make artistic judgements about who is in their programmes – they simply hire out space to those who will guarantee ever-spiralling rents – there's precious little quality control either.

Meanwhile, at the Stand Comedy Clubs – and, I have to say, a bunch of other equally decent establishments – artistic judgements are made and financial risks taken, to bring you some of the very best comedy.

So try not to get conned. A so-called Comedy Festival that excludes most of the comedians on the Fringe isn't worth the name. Shop around and support aspiring performers, no matter what venues they are appearing at.

• Tommy Sheppard is the director of Stand Comedy Clubs