First Time at The Fringe
Hazel Lawrence on that yearly Cambridge migration to Edinburgh

It’s 11.30pm on a Wednesday and I, like those around me, am crouched on the floor of a multi-storey car-park, desperately attempting to concentrate on what Romeo is telling us. Romeo is a soldier and he is here to protect me from the zombies. I keep telling myself that this is an immersive theatre experience — the zombies are actors wearing contact lenses and make-up and our ‘mission’ is to escape them — no one is going to harm me. My heart rate has not yet received this logic memo, and I'm so tense that parts of my brain are starting to question why on earth I thought a zombie experience, or indeed the Edinburgh Fringe Festival at all, was a good idea.
My time at the Fringe was not at all what I expected. I had previously encountered the festival in the form of what I defensively assumed were belittling conversational put-downs. Just as you finish your anecdote of seeing a brilliant comedian’s most recent not-yet-on-DVD tour, someone responds with "Oh yes, I saw that at Edinburgh. Last year". Conversation moves on and you are left deflated and silently cursing the moron who ruined your only chance at being cutting edge. Perhaps subconsciously this has been my preconception of arts festivals in general – pretentious, and only for the show-offs.
Show-offs exist in every area of life and there are always those who will abuse a cultural experience in an attempt to outshine others who are unaware of a niche – and frankly expensive – arts festival. But the Fringe itself is vastly different from this presentation, mostly due to the constant and confusing bombardment of weirdness. This is permitted because there is actually no ‘norm’ at Edinburgh - anything and everything goes. There are over 2000 events at the festival (plays, comedy, live music, poetry, burlesque, and everything in between), which means two things. Firstly, there is no way you are going to see a large proportion of what’s on offer, and secondly neither is anyone else. That means that no one is an expert (not even the Guardian) and that’s rare in any artistic environment. It’s quite a nice change.
That’s why during the Fringe, the Royal Mile is filled with people shamelessly attempting to grab your attention long enough for them to offer you a flyer to their show. Actors are dressed in costume as everything from Victorian gentlewomen to arty modern students, medieval monks, and World War I soldiers. There’s singing, dancing, statue-imitating, chanting, posters, and pithy catchphrases as you walk by. On one particularly bizarre day the coincidental placing of two shows’ promoters meant I was asked "Would you like to see a show about women just released from prison?" followed immediately by "Would you like to see a show about five women chained together?". Before I had time to ask the latter cast member if their show was a prequel to the one I’d just been offered, someone else jumped into view and offered me "A comedy about social anxiety, existential crises guaranteed!"
Every event you attend has the potential to surprise. I am not entirely sure what I was expecting when I attended a show called Dracula. A steampunk, rock-pop, Emo musical was certainly not it. Two audience members behind me were equally surprised — they had expected a musical and were audibly horrified when Dracula started biting people and drinking their blood. So, perhaps not all surprises are good ones. Comedy duo Guilt and Shame provided the audience with pink hairnets and paper crowns which my friends and I forgot we were wearing on leaving the auditorium until we bumped into someone we knew in the bar (much to their amusement). Cheap onstage tickets to James III (new writing now transferred to the National Theatre in London) meant I got to be part of a Scottish Parliament, albeit a fictional one, while Choose Your Own Documentary equipped the audience with multiple-choice handsets for decision-making moments, meaning each show took a different route towards multiple endings.
So, back to Romeo. Unfortunately he didn’t make it. Half way through The Generation of Z he went to turn the power back on and never returned. However, thanks to my newly discovered apocalypse instincts, I realised I didn’t particularly care as long as the zombies (creepy actors) didn’t get me. I would like to think that as we all sprinted back through the multi-storey in the grand finale, I had some deep thoughts about how my preconceptions of arts festivals had changed and how creative and surprising they really can be. But to be honest, I was far too busy trying to outrun other audience members and zombies and having a ridiculous amount of fun.
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