Brace yourself, for it is about to begin.
By next weekend, this year's Edinburgh Fringe will be up and running. Although the exact start date becomes ever more vague as shows try to steal a march by opening during "week zero", the Fringe's astute chief exective Kath Mainland has instigated a new marker for the get-go in a Welcome Address, the inaugural edition of which will be delivered by playwright Mark Ravenhill at Fringe HQ on Friday afternoon. Ravenhill, London-based but a Fringe regular since 1985, when he was a student and before Shopping And F***ing catapulted him to notoriety, is an inveterate explorer of new directions using the platform the Fringe affords. Expect his address to be both provocative and inspirational to the current generation of newcomers to the capital's jamboree, as well as replete with invective directed at those whose small minds might restrict its scope.
Ravenhill is an ideal example of the sort of figure who has – possibly to his own surprise – assumed elder statesman status on the Fringe when only moments ago he was the enfant terrible. If that is a phenomenon everywhere in the arts, it is assuredly accelerated in the hothouse of the Edinburgh Fringe. What makes Mainland's initiative particularly apt, however, is that it is another example of the growing awareness that the Fringe is developing of its own heritage. By its very ad-hoc, come-all-ye nature and ethos, the Fringe has struggled with any sense of continuity. Veteran performers, rightly, have no more entitlement to an audience than novices, and critics and audiences are often more disposed to seek out the unfamiliar than revisit the trusted. But that does not mean that those who have blazed a trail in earlier years are not due a measure of respect, and a sense of the significance of their legacy has been a growing part of the joy of August in Edinburgh in the 21st century. We have been part of that trend with our Herald Angel awards, by recognising the contributions of returning heroes like Jack Klaff, Heathcote Williams, Marsha Hunt, the People Show and the perennial Jim Haynes, who boldly turns producer with two shows in the 2013 programme.
It might be tempting to draw a parallel with the explosion of band reformations and retro-rock revivalism in commercial contemporarty music and its festivals, but there is one absolutely crucial difference. None of the revered names from the 1960s and 1970s who have returned to the Fringe are peddling their old hits. They are coming to Edinburgh to share the direction their invention is taking them right now.
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