ABC Edinburgh
The programme for the 2008 Edinburgh Fringe Festival is an astonishing 288 pages long – packed with details of the thousands of comedy, theatre, music, dance and children’s shows that are to be performed during the month of August.
When faced which such an enormous choice of creative offerings you might, like me, struggle with where to start. You could do it the organised way, picking out the big names and booking well in advance. You could try the "go with the flow" option and see which over-enthusiastic person handing out flyers catches your attention first. Or, you could start at the beginning, end at the end, and call it "ABC Edinburgh".
And so it was that ABC Edinburgh was born. My complete inability to make a decision, coupled with my excitement at the idea of seeing lots of shows resulted in this crazy plan. Put simply, ABC Edinburgh is 1 girl, 1 month, 1 alphabet – 100s of shows. That’s right. I’m starting on day 1 with shows that begin with the letter A, day 2 will be shows starting with the letter B, day 3, the letter C – and you get the picture.
If you take a look at the programme, and do some calculations about the number of shows, you quickly realise that I’m unlikely to see them all. In fact, at a rough estimate, I think I’d have to see 152 different shows a day if I wanted to tick them all off my list. Much as I like to occasionally pretend that I have super-powers, fear that even I would find this to be an impossible feat!
So here’s the deal. I’m going to see as many shows as I can each day, and write quick reviews as soon as I’ve seen them, which will automatically update to the website. You can catch up on all the day’s antics once I’ve finished my dutiful attendance at said shows, had a bite to eat, partaken in a little tipple and some (big or) small talk with any of the characters I’ve met during the day, and finally written something up for the blog section.
If you’re out and about seeing shows too I would love to hear from you. Perhaps you’d like me to include your show in my adventure? Perhaps you’re planning a stunt to publicise your show? Perhaps you’d like to keep me company on D-Day? (Or E or F or any other that takes your fancy!) Or perhaps you’d like to add a review of something you’ve seen yourself… you’re very welcome to. Please do – the more the merrier.
I shall hopefully be doing a few reports on the radio too – so keep checking back for updates and I’ll let you know what to tune into and when.
I’d really like this site become a one-stop shop for public reviews of things in the festival. It might not happen this year, but I’ll start spreading the word and next year perhaps we can become the fringe equivalent of "RottenTomatoes". Join in now – whilst it’s still niche and trendy – and then say you were here first!
Most of all though, enjoy the festival, and wish me luck. This is going to be a very, very, busy month!