Culture

From the archive

August 06, 2007
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The Edinburgh Festival Fringe started yesterday (the main festival begins on Friday). In Prospect's August 2002 issue, playwright Samantha Ellis defended the fringe's position as the best launching pad for new theatre work against perennial criticisms that it has become too large, over-hyped and commercial. This year, the attacks have mainly been about comedy.

(My one experience of the fringe was as part of a student theatre production. We received such a harsh—though not inaccurate—review in The Scotsman that the director spent his last few hours in the city searching for their paper's offices so that he could piss on their steps.)