Loving Free Fringe

I’ve always loved the Free Fringe and still do. We awarded it the Panel Prize in 2009. In a serious discussion about how hard it is for a comedian to graduate from a strong 20-minute club set to the full Edinburgh hour, Scotsman arts correspondent Brian Ferguson asked me an interesting question, one I hadn’t considered ­before: are comedians more likely to risk the full hour when they don’t have a “financial stake”?

My response was: “Hmm, well, (probably) yes.” Somewhere down the line this has translated into “Nica Burns, director of the Foster’s Edinburgh Comedy Awards, thinks the Free Fringe is bad for the Edinburgh Festival” (Perspective, 12 August) I don’t.

In an arts festival with nearly 3,000 shows they will range in standard from brilliant to terrible. This is true whether on the Free Fringe or not.

Nica Burns

Foster’s Edinburgh Comedy Awards

Quartermile

Edinburgh