Quiet start to the Fringe has made me an unlikely attraction

Arts Editor

Saturday 11 August 2012

Barely a week into the splendid shindig and shenanigans that is Edinburgh in August, and I had been chatted up twice.

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Keith Bruce

Once by a woman rather younger than I, as we both sheltered from a sudden New Town monsoon, and once at a show by a chap whose precise vintage I'd be hard pushed to guess, but to whom I could probably still cheerfully have given a few years. Neither of these events is without precedent, but they certainly haven't happened in the past 20 years – and the fact that both persons appeared stone-cold sober only enhances their rarity value. To what do I owe this sudden good fortune? I hear you ask, pausing only to squint at the picture above and reason, correctly, that it is probably not very up-to-date and things may well have taken a turn for the worse even from that.

Without wishing to sound like a taxi driver – never a treasured aural experience – Edinburgh seems a bit quiet. With the possible exception of a couple of shows at the Traverse – a venue that has, seemingly without attracting criticism for a "new writing" venue, gone for a bill of fare that embraces a fair number of not-exactly-unproven shows this year – notification of sold-out performances have been almost absent. It has been possible to get about the city on foot, my preferred mode of transport (monsoon rains notwithstanding), with remarkable ease. Even the street-theatre-obstacled routes have been passable and on some boulevards the posses of liveried teams handing out fliers from the various venues far outnumber the potential ticket buyers in between. Unaccustomed as I am to making an early assault on the stand-up comedy shows, I was surprised to find well-known names playing in far-from-full auditoriums. One comic even felt moved to base part of his routine on the empty seats, which was either bold or very foolish.So my two interrogators were probably just at a bit of a loose end and, not to put too fine a point on it, not exactly spoiled for choice. If you come to the Edinburgh Festival and Fringe as regularly as I do, you are probably statistically bound to eventually hit a year when the place is not quite as mobbed with attractive, vivacious and curious people, and the plain and slightly battle-weary are in with a chance of some attention.So, on the admittedly far from ruthlessly scientific evidence that two people have given me the time of day in a less-than-entirely-dismissive fashion, has the effect of the Olympics been to denude Edinburgh of its usual clientele? I've no idea, of course, but there is much chat (the casual, non-predatory kind) that ticket sales are less than wonderful so far. The more expensive restaurants in town, where perennial summer-visiting producers hold court despite pretending poverty, have plenty of tables available. Is this an extension of the phenomenon noted in London, where sports fans who flocked to watch the games strayed no further than that, leaving predictions of gridlock on Oxford Street unmet? Or is it simply that the recession is now really starting to bite and the local audience does not have the cash to splurge on Fringe-going?This weekend is when some of the answers to these questions should become clear, as the International Festival and Book Festival programmes are added to the Fringe free-for-all. It has been publicly hoped that some of those who came to London 2012 will stay to sample Edinburgh's wares before the journey home. The EIF and the Scottish Parliament has tried to lead on this, with the International Cultural Summit at Holyrood on Monday and Tuesday bringing together a truly global cast of cultural apparatchiks to chew the fat, including speakers from Abu Dhabi, Australia, Africa, India and America. As a gig it is up against some strong competition in the city at the moment, though, and I'm looking forward to seeing the participants out flyering on the Royal Mile.

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Quiet start to the Fringe has made me an unlikely attraction

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