When the TV channel Dave announced it was scrapping its long-running Joke of the Fringe award, I felt a weird mixture of relief and trepidation. Yes, the widely publicised one-liners increasingly felt like a bit of a disservice to all the actual comic genius you’ll find at the world’s biggest arts festival (2023’s Lorna Rose Treen winner “I started dating a zookeeper, but it turned out he was a cheetah” was only ammo for pub bores across the land to say they could do better). But all the same, it’s this kind of mainstream attention that makes the Fringe what it is: a place where hit shows like Fleabag and Baby Reindeer emerge from dingy tents, and comedy legends from Bridget Christie to Sacha Baron-Cohen to Miranda Hart find their feet, victors of a fevered battle against the odds, the Scottish rain and public indifference. The loss of Dave's headline-grabbing annual award feels like a warning sign. Is the fest coming dangerously close to losing its relevance?
Before the pandemic, the story of Edinburgh Fringe was one of unstoppable growth and opportunity. Each year, press releases trumpeted the “biggest arts festival to date” line, as it ballooned from a plucky band of eight companies in 1947 into an event with 3,548 shows at its still-unsurpassed peak in 2018. But in recent years, some of its sheen has worn off.
