ONE of Britain's leading comedians has attacked plans by the four big Edinburgh Festival Fringe venues to establish their own separate comedy festival, branding them "arrogant".
Stewart Lee said he would not participate in any comedy festival that was not run under the auspices of the Fringe, stating that to "ghettoise" comedy would be damaging to both it and the wider festival.
"Any attempt to pull comedy out from under
the umbrella of the Fringe Festival would be a great shame," he said. "It would be counterproductive for the health of the art form and probably counterproductive for the Fringe Festival.
"There is something arrogant in these venues thinking that they control all of comedy during the festival.
"If there was a separate comedy festival, I would still always want to be in the Fringe."
His comments came after The Scotsman revealed yesterday that the Assembly Rooms, the Gilded Balloon, Underbelly and Pleasance are planning to promote their own Edinburgh Comedy Festival during the Fringe in August this year.
Though it would initially run under the auspices of the Fringe and the Fringe Box Office, there are serious concerns that it would move to separate itself as early as next year. It is understood the venues hope to use the new festival as a marketing tool to raise more sponsorship.
But Lee, who has performed at the Fringe 20 times, said that it would have wider ramifications.
He said: "It seems quite unpleasant; it's about promoters and venues trying to consolidate their most popular shows.
"I think it would damage the quality of comedy talent. They shouldn't be ghettoised; they should try to be the best artists they can be. That's why it's great to be in the Fringe with all these other arts. It dignifies comedy by being in the Fringe, and it would cheapen and make it seem like a worse thing to separate it."
Simon Munnery, another comedian who has appeared regularly at the Fringe, said of the idea: "I don't think there's any need. The festival as it is should get ever larger until it stretches out and takes over Glasgow."
Critic Kate Copstick was also hostile. She said: "It's not a breakaway festival; it's rebranding. They know people are always going to go for comedy, that it brings in a fortune. They're hardly doing anything brave, are they? It's not as if they're saying: 'Let's stick our artistic necks out for the good of the community and the arts.' This is just cold hard commerce.
"If they do take comedy away from the main festival, it will be to the detriment of the main festival. Not that they'd care, because they'd get all the money."
One senior festival figure said it was an unusual step to take, and would be met widely with the attitude "why bother?" as the Fringe operated perfectly well.
But stand-up comedienne Janey Godley believed it could work. "It is really difficult having communications through the Fringe Box Office," she said. "There are always ticket problems, and the Fringe Society who run it don't have a lot of comedians on the board. It's represented by people who don't actually represent comedy."
Comedy award director hedges her bets
NICA Burns stands back from the politics of exactly how comedy should be packaged during the Fringe. But the director of the If.comedy Award, which is presented annually to the best comic at the festival, said that she would be interested to see if it will succeed.
"Nothing is bigger than the Fringe itself. It has been here a very long time, has always been organic and kept reinventing itself.
"What these people are trying to do is protect their businesses by trying to attract more sponsorship in.
"But I don't know how easy it will be to pull out a mini-festival based on these four venues. I think it's going to be quite a hard thing to do."
The full article contains 668 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
