WHEN JON MORGAN LAUNCHES the programme for the Edinburgh Festival Fringe this Thursday, he'll be full of positive PR. The new director will sing the praises of an event that bursts out of every backroom, basement and broom cupboard to generate not only a huge economic boost to the city but a validation of the capital's status as one of the world's artistic hotspots.
These are points that he is right to make, but he will be doing so against mounting suspicion that what was once an anarchic, let's-do-the-show-right-here kind of event is turning into the arts world's answer to Tesco.
This August's programme will be affected by two changes that seem to run counter to the spirit of the ad-hoc happening that began in 1947 when half-a-dozen companies who hadn't been invited to the inaugural Edinburgh International Festival decided they'd come and perform regardless.
The first change is that the big four venues have formed an alliance – some would say an oligarchy – to create the first Edinburgh Comedy Festival. Taking place in the venues run by Assembly, the Gilded Balloon, the Pleasance and the Underbelly, it sounds terribly like a festival within a festival and one so big it could overthrow its parent body.
The arty end of the market faces a similarly uncertain future. In April, The Scotsman reported that the critically fawned-upon Aurora Nova has been forced out of action by lack of funds. Carrying on a tradition established earlier by Richard Demarco, the St Stephen's Church venue has been a magnet for lovers of dance, physical theatre and Eastern European curiosities for the past seven years. They'll be lost without it.
So as commercial comedy throws its weight around and high-minded theatre goes under, it's easy to suppose that an event once celebrated for its free-market flair is little different from a ruthless supermarket.
If you want a sense of how things have changed, just ask a Fringe veteran. Steven Berkoff is an Edinburgh legend, appearing over four decades as director, actor and writer. This year he's directing an adaptation of On the Waterfront for Nottingham Playhouse. His love of the Fringe is undiminished, but he knows it's not the same. "Out of Edinburgh I grew," he says. "Nearly all of my plays were first tried out in Edinburgh. In the early days I went to the Traverse and they used to shove us in the late-night slot, but we still found audiences for East, Hamlet and The Fall of the House of Usher. Once we got to the Assembly Rooms, things started to get more civilised. William Burdett-Coutts created a marvellous institution there, but I started to find even there, the plays had to be cut down. You had to cut out your intervals, so they could get more and more in. That is having a detrimental effect."
Morgan sympathises. "I share the concern that the cost of putting on a show and running a venue is getting higher. And yet most shows are trying to keep ticket prices at a reasonable level. The average ticket price last year was £8.98 – that's consistently gone up by less than inflation. It's important to keep ticket prices affordable because we're trying to encourage people to go to as many things as possible."
He is negotiating with the city council to cut the cost of entertainment licences. A temporary licence for the smallest venue costs £800, rising to £1,200 for 200-1000 seats. A bigger problem is accommodation: last year, Fringe companies reported that it is now their single biggest outlay. "We need to work with partners in the city to find ways of creating more cheap accommodation," says Morgan. "One of our goals is to support a diverse Fringe and there's a danger that, in the end, only those things that are commercially viable will be able to afford to come."
But are we painting too bleak a picture? Over on George Street, in the Assembly HQ, it certainly doesn't feel like the centre of an evil empire. Mary Shields, programme director, is there with her two dogs, having a cup of tea with communications director Peter Wood. The Comedy Festival, they argue, is merely a way of packaging a number of shows, and gives them no extra clout with comedians. It's possible that in future it will include shows beyond the big four venues.
"The Fringe isn't one entity, it's a huge number of colourful characters and business-heads and they're all looking to do the best they can in that marketplace," says Shields. "With the Comedy Festival, the four venues have to work together to maximise on what we have – or we're as much at threat of going under as any small business."
Wood agrees: "It's not like a corporate conglomerate has come in and said, 'This is what we are going to do with the Fringe.' The Comedy Festival has been born out of a marketplace that we are a part of. The reason for supporting all this is the desire to celebrate, nurture and enjoy the talent that comes to light."
As Fringe director, Morgan says his job is to support all artists without bias – which includes comedians not in the Comedy Festival – but he points out that the organisation already accommodates the American High School Theatre Festival and T on the Fringe (about to be reborn as the Edge Festival) without controversy. "Initiatives come and go and people get worked up unnecessarily about these things. My job is to make sure everyone has a fair chance of getting a profile for what they're doing. But it's not our role to restrict what any one promoter wants to do."
Shields admits Assembly didn't have a great year for theatre audiences in 2007, which is one reason for consolidating the Assembly programme this year. When Wolfgang Hoffmann of Aurora Nova announced he couldn't keep the venue running because of "a combination of personal and business reasons", they tried to help him out, but didn't feel they had the right shows. It was a similar story at St George's West, which they've also pulled out of. But far from apologising for the Comedy Festival, Shields wants to have a debate about setting up a theatre festival as well.
"A big issue for us is the cost of putting on theatre," she says. "We want to launch a debate about whether theatre needs more marketing initiatives or more funding. We think that's an important debate to have alongside the Comedy Festival debate, because they're not divorced. It is a market issue."
At the same time, she believes it's important to keep a sense of perspective. "When Assembly, Gilded Balloon and Pleasance joined up (to produce a joint brochure] it really felt like the world was going to end. I've never known a reaction quite as intense. There was a huge worry from promoters but, actually, when that year rolled out there was virtually no difference. We were still haggling for shows in that same competitive spirit."
Put this way, the picture looks serious but not ominous. As Hoffmann argues, the glory of the Fringe is its capacity to surprise. "I believe the Fringe is very resilient and will reinvent itself should it come to a point where there is a perception that the interesting stuff is not there any more," says the director, who lost patience with the financial uncertainty of Aurora Nova. "The Fringe thrives on change."
And surely what we'll discover when the Fringe Programme is launched on Thursday is less the things that aren't happening than the things that are. "Water will find its level and the gaps will fill," says Shields. "Part of the pressure to keep growing is that if you don't run that venue, someone else will."
Indeed, just look at the fabulous international line-up that's blossoming at St George's West the moment Assembly has relinquished it. Director Toby Gough has filled the void with the World Festival, bringing a round-the-clock programme of Tibetan sacred dance, Brazilian capoeira, Cuban mambo, Tanzanian thumb pianos and, with the support of Peter Gabriel, Cambodian child temple dancers.
"The spirit of the Fringe is taking risks, showcasing new writing, presenting world culture and coming up with ideas that are only valid for the Edinburgh Fringe," says Gough, who is known for his Fringe First-winning shows in the Royal Botanic Garden. "We're flying the flag for original events that are designed for a festival audience. This is not a stepping stone on some other project. These people are coming to the Fringe believing it will change their lives. The festival becomes a lifeline – a real possibility for change."
This is closer to the spirit in which Morgan is approaching the Fringe than the doom and gloom the headlines often suggest. "I am optimistic about the state of affairs," says Morgan, looking forward to next year when Scottish companies on the Fringe could benefit from the government's Expo Fund. "The Fringe is an ecology. One branch dies and another one grows. That's not to say I'm complacent about Aurora Nova going – that's a real shame – but it's what happens on the Fringe. It shifts and changes. It's a hugely successful event and audiences and artists have a fantastic time, but it would be irresponsible of me not to point out the weaknesses in the ecology."
• The 2008 Edinburgh Fringe programme is launched on 5 June.
www.edfringe.com The full article contains 1602 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
