This review goes out in honour of Gerard Slevin. He was the theatre director who in 1961 came up with a suggestion of how to bring the burgeoning Edinburgh fringe into line. “I think there should be a limitation on the number of halls used during the festival,” he said after staging a play in the Lauriston Hall. “It would be much better if only 10 halls were licensed.”
You can only imagine his reaction now the number of venues exceeds 250. To fill all those rooms with as many as 10 shows in a day, you need an awful lot of material. So much material that today’s arts lover is offered not only shows but also shows about the shows. This is a phenomenon that extends far beyond the fringe to a pop-will-eat-itself culture driven by an insatiable hunger to cannibalise. On stage, as on screen, the schedules are stuffed with parodies, pastiches and tributes.
