Edinburgh Fringe: Has comedy lost its edge?
As I look through this year’s Fringe brochure I am struck, more than ever before, by a predominant self-obsession in the comedy section. And not in the egotistical way for which comics have something of a reputation. We know that much comedy comes from what you know. But it has always been more than that.
The comedy industry is huge, comedy stars rise meteorically, comedy audiences fill vast arenas, comedy and comics are always in big demand to shore up any and every new but shaky TV format that hits the schedules, social media gives everyone's 50 minutes of fame a global reach. The comics are bigger than ever. But, to paraphrase Gloria Swanson, it is the comedy that has got small.
Once upon a time the Edinburgh Fringe offered up searingly brilliant political satire and sketch, observations that were fresh and changed the way we looked at things, opened up brave new comedy frontiers, broke down taboos and broke through establishment doors. There was creativity and risk-taking and craziness. Laughter was an entity in and of itself and, as a comedian, your task was to generate it and do exciting things with the sparks.
The number of comics selling their souls to take their shows to people, half of whom only came into the venue to get out the cold, was smaller, the audiences were as well, and the media coverage considerably less, but the ideas were big.
This year, a cursory glance through the all-important collections of carefully, painstakingly put together 40 words that £393 (including VAT, for a full run) buys you in the official listings had me checking that I had actually been turning pages and not just reading the same one over and over again.
Comedy always has 'trends' and styles, some longer lived than others. This year's go-to theme seems to be a) always feeling you didn't fit in/just weren't like everyone else plus b) suffering but trying (with examples) plus c) finally getting a diagnosis of (fill in popular acronymic version of neurological diversity) / coming to terms with your realised (add sexual orientation and/or gender self-identification), followed by a warm, affirming but (optional) lip-trembly embracing of how life-changing it has been.
Now you are proud of who you are/have a Ritalin prescription, which is wonderful. Genuinely. I am happy for you. However, doing 50 minutes in Edinburgh about it, pressing us to come along and pay to sit in the dark to hear you talk about your 'journey', does not sound like anything the Perrier award popped its cork for. Unless you are a truly terrific comic and can make it very, very funny.
Perhaps that is the thing. That too many comics are taking an hour to Edinburgh when they do not actually have an hour of funny. And the current go-to bubble wrap for their material is a fashionable struggle with a happy ending. Me I'd rather have that good old-fashioned Dead Dad Show that used to be so popular. And I'd really rather have the visceral thrill that you used to get when we could enjoy… what was it ? Oh yes, 'feeling uncomfortable'. And laughing.
One of the Fringe's most experienced and successful PR agents says she gets the feeling that UK comics genuinely fear the professional repercussions of doing a more 'opinionated' show. A more political show. All of her 'dangerous' laughter comes from outside Britain, she says. She is worried they might be in for a shock.
I confess, I had not considered that. But the comedy climate here – and Edinburgh in August is the ultimate comedy centrifuge – is not at its most open-minded at the moment.
Thought police patrol the venues, umbilically linked to social media, lest someone's funny crosses their line. Autobiographical narrative with a good sprinkling of personal sadness and a happy ending might be the only safe thing to talk about for 50 minutes without upsetting the front of house staff. And, if it is true, then a curse on all those who cancel, if this is what you have brought the art and craft of comedy to. At least when they felt so upset by Sadowitz last year they waited until he had actually got on stage. Now they do not even wait to hear what a comic has to say before deciding that it will be all too upsetting and appalling to be allowed to be seen or heard at the world's largest and most famously open access Fringe.
Excellent performers, simply wanting to do what they do (very well) are being de-platformed for something they did or said or even were accused of doing many, many years ago. Most of those protesting loudest were probably only just capable of doing joined-up handwriting when the relevant horrors were perpetrated, and it worries me that their minds cannot encompass the possibility that someone might be as different from the person they were, close to a decade ago, as they are from the person they were back then. They really should listen to a very clever person who once said: “Every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future.”
Kate Copstick will be reviewing Fringe comedy for the Scotsman and Scotland on Sunday throughout August. Jerry Sadowitz proudly presents.... Last Year's Show! is at the Queen's Hall, 23-25 August, 8.30pm.