Edinburgh Fringe graduates to grandest stage of all

THE Fringe is famous for pokey venues where audiences can heckle performers from close range, but one of Edinburgh's grandest buildings will become the biggest venue at the event this summer, The Scotsman can reveal.

• A graduation ceremony for University of Edinburgh students in the ornate setting of the McEwan Hall, but it will ring to different applause this year. Picture: Jane Barlow

The A-listed, 1,000-seat McEwan Hall will see the Underbelly – one of the biggest operators at the Fringe – stage performances by big-name comedians including Danny Bhoy, John Bishop and Jim Jefferies.

In an unprecedented move, the Underbelly has put tickets for the August dates on sale today, three months ahead of the traditional June launch of the Fringe programme.

The venue, built in the 1890s, will reinforce the Bristo Square area of Edinburgh as the busiest hub of the festival. Organisers said it would boost audiences and advance sales across the Fringe, but the move also brought renewed criticism yesterday that the small-scale, inventive "spirit of the Fringe" risked being drowned out by big commercial players.

The McEwan Hall will be the biggest temporary Fringe venue of 2010, and second only to the Edinburgh International Conference Centre's main space in seating numbers.

Charlie Wood, the co-director of the Underbelly, said: "It is exciting news. It is a great space, and it's a building right at the heart of the Festival."

The Gilded Balloon venue, the Pleasance Dome and the Underbelly's own "Udderbelly" space – housed within a giant upside-down purple cow – are nearby.

Yesterday, Tommy Sheppard, director of the Stand Comedy Club and a frequent critic of the Fringe's biggest operators, said the move might be "the way of the world", but it was a "shame" that the sales launch was so early. The Fringe should "keep its powder dry" for June, he said.

"They are immediately sucking perhaps 70,000 people out of the available audience to go to all the other venues.

"If people keep doing that, we are going to end up with fewer shows, fewer performers, less diversity, less experimentation and more big commercial events that take up the lion's share."

In the past two years, the Underbelly has used the hall for performances of its show Silent Disco, where audience members are given wireless headphones and invited to party in silence, but this is the first time it is being run as a seated venue.

The Liverpool stand-up comedian John Bishop had a sell-out UK tour last year and TV appearances have run from Live at the Apollo to Friday Night with Jonathan Ross. Australian Jim Jefferies has had sell-out shows at five Fringes and numerous TV dates. Danny Bhoy, from Moffat, has appeared at the Royal Variety Show and on David Letterman's US talk show.

Waiting for June to start selling was a "very, very old-fashioned" approach, said Mr Wood. "All the other summer festivals, even the Edinburgh International Festival, go on sale months before the festival starts. If the Festival is going to continue to grow, it has to do what all the other festivals are doing.

"We shouldn't be scared of this. I don't believe the argument that big shows take sales away from smaller runs," he said.