Frivolity and fun as Fringe laughs off recession

Amid the 2,453 shows in the world's largest art festival, the Fringe office could identify only two that confront the downturn. Even the comedians have eased up on bankers, last year's whipping boys.

"It's not a fiscally-charged Fringe," said one leading comedy critic, Julian Hall. He and other comedy veterans say there's no easy common ground for the shows this year. "I'm not sure that anyone has defined the theme of this Fringe. You always get pockets about the environment, religion, creationism, it's more of a patchwork," said Hall. "The recession has not come out strongly."

Economist journalist David Shirreff, has authored one of the few shows centred on the credit crunch - a comedy musical, Broke Britannia!

"I would have thought the issue is pretty live," he said. "All the problems that began with Northern Rock, through Lehman Brothers and bailing out the British banks, those haven't been solved. It's like a disaster waiting to happen."

It's not a message the festival wants to hear, apparently. Sex and sauciness, are back in strength. Cabaret and burlesque, glitter and spectacle, appear to be particularly in vogue this year, from Miss Behave at the Assembly Rooms to Mrs Bang at the Gilded Balloon, to the Pleasance's new Ghillie Dhu venue. These shows do not merely ignore economic insecurity, it's almost as if they are trying to defy it.

Nick Barley, the first-time director of the Edinburgh International Book Festival and a former editor of the List, said: "There is an emphasis on cabaret, on escape, on fun this year. That is an emotional response to austerity."

In 2008 and 2009, the "credit crunch" itself was new jargon to play with amid the panic and pain of sinking portfolios and pension pots. The Free Fringe and 5 shows were all the rage. But when ticket sales hit record levels in 2009 - up again this year - sob stories were harder to sell.

Tim Hawkins, a former Fringe general manager, whose Remarkable Arts operation has made the Hill Street Theatre one of the top niche venues this year, suggested it was a practical matter of timing. "When people planned their Fringe shows, February, March, April, by that time everyone was thinking that the recession was over and things were coming back," he said. "Cuts were not on the agenda."

With the coalition government, however, while it was "manna from heaven" for the satirists, the new reality of public sector job losses and warnings of double-dip recession came too late for a Fringe programme produced in May.

"Next year the recession story will be back on the agenda, plus all the cuts and the cultural vandalism," Hawkins said cheerfully. "I'm looking forward to it already."

n [email protected]