The Edinburgh Fringe returns this week, and with it, hundreds of hopeful stand-up comedians, dreaming of five-star reviews and sold-out runs. Like Glasgow-based comic Larry Dean, who picked up his third Best Show nomination at last year’s Fringe with his confessional hour Fudnut and is back at the festival again this year. His work-in-progress show has, impressively, already sold out. It’s a relief for any performer – but, he tells me, part of him is thinking: “I’ve managed to sell out my run and luckily, I’ll break even.”
His frank admission echoes that of rising comedic talent Leo Reich, who told me last year that – even with a show that nabbed him an Edinburgh Comedy Award nod and reams of glowing reviews – he just about made ends meet. In fact, the more performers I speak to, the more I’ve learnt this is the norm; that “breaking even” is the best you can hope for. Every summer for more than 75 years, the Scottish capital has been flooded with comedians and actors, dancers and circus performers. They arrive with hopes and dreams, aspirations of creating the next surprise hit of the Fringe. Sure, most of them leave with shin splints and a pounding hangover, but that’s part of the fun; while the largest venues curate their line-ups, the Fringe has always been proud of being open to all. But in a landscape of rising costs, gentrification, and an industry still recovering from the pandemic, is the Fringe still, in the words of Scottish theatre critic Mark Fisher, “an egalitarian playing field”, where “the amateur rubs alongside the professional rubs alongside the semi-professional”?
