Theatre Today: Fringe Fever – Fun, Frenzy & Fame in Edinburgh
Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2024 | Source: ‘Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2024: Dates, Events & Shows’
Ethan Farmer
Edinburgh Fringe Festival, the world’s largest arts festival, returned from the 1st to the 25th of August, transforming Scotland’s capital into a playground for the performing arts. The renowned festival, championed for celebrating and sharing diverse voices, brings together performers across the globe for a display of anything from theatre to music, dance to comedy and everything in between. With fringe festivals soon becoming more frequent and larger, Edinburgh Fringe stands above the rest and is a bucket-list moment for many within the arts sector. Currently in its 78th year, the programme for 2025 features over 3000 shows in its three-week run, and features famous faces such as Miriam Margolyes and Bill Bailey in headline shows.
In this latest edition of Theatre Today, we dove into the world’s most vibrant stage – the Edinburgh Fringe. As we explored the festival, we uncovered the fun, frenzy and pursuit of fame that define the unique and exciting energy of the Fringe experience, attracting thousands of visitors and performers.
The Origins
Founded in 1947, Fringe Festival s has since established itself as an internationally recognised event. With the Edinburgh International Festival formed the same year, the Fringe began as a response to the formal festival, offering a platform for artists to share their work. After WW2, the International Festival was an initiative to celebrate culture, creating unity through arts. Despite this, not all artists were invited to participate. This exclusion was the catalyst for the fringe. When eight performing groups arrived in Edinburgh to perform uninvited, they were determined to display their art and took to performing on the fringe of the festival, giving the Fringe its name. As the years progressed, the festival grew and in 1958 the Festival Fringe Society was developed to create the programme and introducei its constitution, one that continues to hold today.
With its 75th anniversary in 2022, the Edinburgh Fringe continues to be innovative and forward-thinking, launching a vision and set of values alongside a series of commitments to focus on making the festival even more inclusive, fair and sustainable (1). The festival has always championed diversity and with its core vision to ‘give everyone a stage and everyone a seat’, it continues to be a fantastic model for change.
Fun, Frenzy, and the Road to Fame
What is certain is the fun and frenzy that follows the city of Edinburgh as the Fringe arrives in its various forms. With comedy, drama, live music, dance and inventive street performances unfolding simultaneously , the atmosphere is electric. As historic streets turn into stages for upcoming creatives , audiences encounter anything and everything. It is the place to be for creatives in the summer months.
This vibrancy, however, is also joined by a sense of disorder and frenzy as the city’s narrow streets swell with visitors. The competition for attention can be intense.
As Edinburgh welcomes a multitude of people to its city over the course of the festival's run, visitors and performers are struck with rising costs and a lack of accommodation, worsening the accessibility .
Alongside this, the need to sell tickets is at an all-time high, with the volume of competing shows creating near-exhaustion. Many performers partake in the traditional act of flyering, navigating the crowds for hours in costume and/or character, marketing their show to anyone whose attention is drawn to their marvel.
This ritual epitomizes everything that the Edinburgh Fringe is - spirited, chaotic and unique entirely to Edinburgh in the late-Summer .
The chance of fame at the Fringe can act as the pot of gold for many creatives, who head to Scotland searching for acclaim . The Edinburgh Fringe has long been known to be a providing for emerging talentsa launchpad so their show can reach the big time.
This dream has become reality more than once , most notably with Phoebe Waller-Bridge, whose hit BBC comedy-drama Fleabag first began as a one-woman show at the Fringe in 2013. Three years after Edinburgh it aired on BBC and the show has become one of the best loved TV shows of the decade, achieving many an accolade from the Emmys and BAFTA. (2) Likewise, the hit musical ‘Six’ started at the Fringe and has now brought the story of Henry VIII’s wives to both Broadway and the West End.
However, it is not just shows . The career of one of Britain’s most iconic comedians and actors, Rowan Atkinson, was launched at the Edinburgh Fringe highlighting its role in helping achieve notoriety .
Although this can be reached, the journey brings costs in multiple senses .The physical price isastronomical for lesser-known artists, making the financial risk greater. The stakes are high . While some productions attract critical acclaim or media attention, even earning the opportunity of a national or international tour, many others face financial losses and the challenge of playing to modest crowds.
Yet it is this exact combination of uncertainty and endless possibilities that define the Fringe and continues to draw creatives to the festival.
The Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2025
This year was no different, with many fantastic shows on offer featuring headline names and some new and upcoming acts. Discovering new and emerging talents is one of the best things about Edinburgh Fringe, with several standout shows hitting the Scottish city (3).
There wasialso many an entry from universities around the country. I had the pleasure of watching one such show before it ran . Cyn, written by Sam Rees of the University of Warwick, looks back on the story of the mining strikes of 1984-85, exploring community in what is a bitter-sweet drama set in the Welsh Valleys. With audience participation, and gut-wrenching scenes, this is a fantastic piece excellently performed by a strong cast of university students.
On what has been another successful year, the Edinburgh Fringe continues to display why it is is the largest and best arts festival in the world. Founded on fairness and inclusion, the Fringe is still as open to its artists as its audiences.
It is these values which are testimony to the importance of having the Fringe. Arts for all, and entertainment for all.
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References
1. https://www.edfringe.com/about-us/our-vision-and-values/
2. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/videos/cn84jdgp2ldo
3. https://www.vogue.com/article/10-standout-acts-from-2025-edinburgh-fringe-festival
What’s on in September:
Highlights of Warwickshire
Measure for Measure at the RSC in Stratford-Upon-Avon (13th September – 25th October)
Emma at the Talisman Theatre in Kenilworth (27th September)
The Welkin at The Bear Pit Theatre in Stratford-Upon-Avon (19th – 27th September)
Highlights of London:
Tina – The Tina Turner Musical at Aldwych Theatre (until 13th September)
Every Brilliant Thing at Soho Place (until 8th November)
Till The Stars Come Down at the Theatre Royal Haymarket (until 27th September)
Highlights of the rest of the UK:
The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe at Bristol Hippodrome (16th-20th September)
Black Sabbath – The Ballet at the Birmingham Hippodrome (18th-27th September)
Moulin Rouge! The Musical at the Palace Theatre in Manchester (until 4th October)