Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2002

I usually travel off-season to save money on flights, but as I wanted to attend the Edinburgh Fringe Festival,held during the month of August, I was willing to pay the summer fares.

The Edinburgh Fringe is a huge cultural festival which attracts a variety of acts from all over the world. It's all the theatre, both experimental and mainstream, music, comedy, and street performers that you can stand. Before I left home I read how it all is supposed to be crowded, wild, and full of street hawkers shoving flyers in your face, trying to get an audience to shows. Unless I am inhabiting an alternate universe I found none of this was really true. To me the amount of people was comfortable, I would have loved more wild, and the street hawkers were actually polite and helpful,having actually directed me to some good shows I would otherwise not have seen.

I bought several tickets for shows over the internet on the Fringe website. I've learned that next time I'll wait until I get there to purchase tickets, as I didn't see half of the shows that I paid to see. Half the time I wasn't in the mood for a show. I preferred to do something else.

The titles are an eclectic bunch. Things like the Treason Show, Talking Cock, and Gladiatrix. There was traditional Scottish music, Shakespeare. There is something for every one.

The most polished show I saw was a play called "Aunty and Me," starring Alan Davies, who is a comedian and actor in British television. Another show I saw and really liked was called Dharmuid and Grainne, an avant-garde style of musical based on an ancient Irish legend.

There are supposedly some awful shows as well. It is part of the Fringe experience that it is okay to see some bad stuff, and it is acceptable to walk out during a performance if necessary.

My only disappointment was that I had a ticket to see Michael Moore's one man show, but he cancelled for some reason. A surprise to me was the popularity of a show called "Jerry Springer - The Opera". That was a concept I would have swerved to avoid, but apparently from the lines I saw going around the block, I was in the minority.

[will be continued soon ...]