Patron of new venue says change would help festival get back its �international spirit�, hears Senay Boztas

HOLLYWOOD actor Brian Cox has called for Edinburgh's new comedy festival to be moved out of the Fringe to allow space for its "international spirit" to return.

Cox, an Emmy award-winner who has starred in films including The Bourne Identity and X-Men 2, has returned to Scotland to be patron of a new Fringe venue encouraging worldwide acts.

He said moving the film festival to June had been very successful and that other parts of the August Edinburgh festivals should follow suit.

"I think the problem at the moment with all of the festivals is that the vision of the festival has slightly got muffled," he said, speaking at his The World venue in Edinburgh last week.

"I've nothing against the comedy festival, but it isn't breaking ground. There are too many overlaps of what is going on and just as the film festival got out of August, I think the comedy festival should get out, to get back to the international spirit of the festival. The Fringe has become catch as catch can, but we were so much stronger on the international community in the old days: Scotland had a sense of the rest of the world."

He recalled his first time in Edinburgh in 1963, when he attended a drama conference and met festival "trend-setters" Jim Haynes and Ricky Demarco, who brought artists such as Joseph Beuys to the festival.

"Toby Gough the theatre director behind The World is part of that tradition and that is why I backed him. It is to do with kids and a lot of social projects such as the Capoeira Knights from Brazil or the Zawoze Family from Tanzania, whose music is about the individual's experience in a globalised world."

The Capoeira Knights have won rave reviews for their raw and energetic show based on the part-dance, part-martial art created by Africans enslaved in Brazil. The dancers, who came from the streets of the favela shanty towns, now work with other children to get them out of drugs and violence.

"Money is a problem, but that would be alleviated if there wasn't a comedy festival, a fringe, a book festival, an international festival ... so many elements going on," Cox said. "The film festival had its best year ever because it came out of August and I think you could do that with other parts of the festival.

"You could do the comedy festival at any time, and I think this kind of international work would be greatly improved and enhanced. Then you wouldn't have an average audience of eight people, but a festival going on for two-and-a-half months. The city was designed for that - it is a 19th-century city for soirees and events."

He did admit that 10 weeks of festival might drive Edinburgh residents round the bend until they "got their city back".

Cox has been enjoying the Fringe festival following a period recording the Radio 4 drama on the Victorian detective, James McLevy. This week he will also take his film The Escapist to Tilda Swinton's quirky Ballerina Ballroom alternative film festival in Nairn.

Steve Cardownie, Edinburgh Council's festivals and events champion, said he would be concerned if another August festival tried to move out. "Several years ago, we commissioned a report on the festivals which reached the conclusion that what makes Edinburgh special in August is that there are so many things going on - and room for more," he said.

"The film festival did a great deal of research and found that its audience were film buffs, but I would be concerned if more of the festival were diluted. I can understand what Brian is saying: it is a cultural jungle where if you are from a foreign country performing drama, you are likely to make a loss. But this huge experience is what boosts the economy and gives Edinburgh its reputation."

William Burdett-Coutts, artistic director of Assembly (part of this year's new Edinburgh Comedy Festival), agreed. "Trying to extend it for 10 weeks would kill everybody," he said. "It is an idea that has been explored many times but I think all of the festivals gain by the energy of happening at the same time, and it has already extended from three weeks to four-and-a-half."