Tim Cornwell: Naked ambition continues Fringe run

The sex wars are back. A year ago The Scotsman critic Sally Stott raised a storm when she described a burlesque show at the Assembly Rooms as little more than bad stripping by "a string of miserable-looking women, with the glazed expressions of porn stars".

The pornography or art debate is probably as old as cave painting. But Stott's wider inquiry into what, if any, were the artistic merits of burlesque breathed new life into it last August, and there's every sign of a return round in Fringe 2011.

This year's Fringe programme includes a boom in cabaret acts among its 2,542 shows, recognised by their own section of the programme for the first time. The number of productions marked over-18 - by their performers, rather than any central censoring body - has by all accounts soared.

The best nudity I ever saw in the Fringe was in The Naked Racist, comedian Phil Nichol's award-winning show, whose story began with some absurdist adventure on a Dutch railway track, if I have it straight, and ended with one of the timeliest blossomings of nakedness that ever graced the stage. (He is currently appearing in Bedfringe, a July Fringe festival in Bedfordshire, and is back at The Stand this year with The Simple Hour.)

The most painful has been in the Edinburgh International Festival, at the awkward meeting of high art and low sauce. There was a hasty exit from Faust, shielding the eyes of an impressionable young teen - apparently everyone else who saw it adored it - and enduring several productions by opera shock jock Calixto Bieito.

Last year Stott challenged the notion that burlesque, particularly if poorly done, could really be billed as feminist or subversive. She questioned why acts involved male comedians performing alongside women removing their clothes. It prompted a march on The Scotsman's office by burlesque performers. Good publicity all round, may be, but there was a serious point.

At least one show she reviewed, Kitty Cointreau's BraHaHa, will be back this August, with host Kitty praising the "glamour and decadence" of burlesque.

Plug "burlesque" into a search of the sea of press releases landing at our offices and you'll pull out shows like Smut, promising "a German Hooker, a Gay Storytelling Frog, and a man who is convinced he can get you into bed by the end of his act". Actually the release appears to quote a review by the New York Times, for an offering "scandalous, sexy, deviant, raw, weird", so there may be more than meets the eye.

Other shows coming include billings like "a night of stand-up and strip-tease". Edgy comedy, parody, or cheap titillation?

But the opening shot of 2011 was fired when it emerged that the Sapphire Rooms, one of Scotland's largest strip clubs, is featured this year as a Fringe venue. It includes an exhibition called Pot of Dreams, photography of the women who work there. Scotland on Sunday's story on the venue brought a sharp website debate rather than street protests.The photographer Jannica Hanney insisted "I shot the series of images from my heart, portraying another human, not a sex object". The club's artistic director primly insisted that "just because a cabaret event is being held in a strip club, we cannot simply dismiss it as being devoid of any artistic merit".

There seem to be few taboos. Conservative councillors, certainly in Edinburgh, have given up trying to enforce moral attitudes.

Pity the poor reviewer that's dispatched to a strip club. But bad burlesque is like bad belly dancing, and deserves similar treatment. It may be the Fringe's job to push the envelope in the name of open access, but the critics' answer is to call a spade or spade, naked or clothed.

The biggest single thing on performers' minds as the Fringe rapidly approaches, after sex and reviews, is selling tickets. Among them comedian Sanderson Jones returns to the Fringe with his bid to sell every ticket for his Fringe show personally, and by hand. He'll let people know where he is distributing flyers and promises to meet every prospective audience member in person. The rest will be desperately trying to flog theirs through street flyers, door-to-door drops, and social media, all looking for the golden ticket that will get punters into their shows. Good luck.