SHORTLY after its launch at 9am tomorrow morning Festival-goers across the Capital will leaf through the pages of the 2008 Edinburgh Festival Fringe programme, circling the acts and shows they intend to see.
For many it is an annual ritual and,
at first glance, the directory of 2000 or so productions that make up the biggest arts extravaganza in the world will seem no different than in previous years. There, highlighted in colour-coded sections, will be the theatre, the musicals, the music and of course the comedy.
The difference this year will be that 90 per cent of the comedy section will already be in the public domain, having been released at a separate press briefing some 14 hours earlier. That preemptive strike will be hosted by the organisers of the inaugural Edinburgh Comedy Festival, a "strand" of the 2008 Fringe that many fear may, ultimately, break away from the main event. A move that could have lasting ramifications for the Fringe as we know it.
Those fears first surfaced back in March, when the Capital's "big four" comedy venues (The Assembly, The Pleasance, Gilded Balloon and Underbelly) revealed that, while remaining part of the Fringe, their shows would be marketed under a new banner, The Edinburgh Comedy Festival. They also announced that they intended to publish their own independent programme.
At the time, unnamed Fringe insiders claimed that any breakaway could be "a disaster".
Nica Burns, promoter of the if.comedy awards cautioned: "Any proper breakaway would not be a good development. If this is just a way of marketing the four venues, then fine, but if it turns into more than that, that would be a great shame in the context of the Fringe as a whole."
When it became obvious that her views were shared by members of the stand-up community, including Fringe veteran Stewart Lee and controversial American comic Doug Stanhope, any chance of a breakaway appeared to fade.
But has it really subsided, or are there those who are simply biding their time?
Of course, the idea of a separate comedy festival is nothing new. It is an idea that has been punted around in various forms and guises since the mid-1980s when the "new wave" of stand-up comedy first began to challenge the drama which, until then, had dominated the Fringe.
Indeed, it could be argued that the Fringe has had a separate celebration of comedy ever since the Cambridge Footlights won the inaugural Perrier award in 1981 – five years before the Gilded Balloon introduced the concept of a comedy-centric venue to the Fringe.
How else would you describe the world-renowned Perrier Awards, now rebranded the Intelligent Finance Comedy Awards (or Eddies if you prefer), which involve judges seeing every comedy performance on the Fringe.
One undisputed fact is that, come August, the demand for a good laugh remains undiminished. Comedy on the Edinburgh Festival Fringe has enjoyed the largest growth of any genre within the Festival over the past ten years.
Consequently, it is easy to see the financial attraction of a separate festival to the big four. As Tommy Sheppard, owner of The Stand Comedy Club, who has declined to operate under the new banner, said recently: "The Edinburgh Comedy Festival doesn't exist. It's purely a marketing exercise by four of the venues."
Earlier this year, when justifying the decision to create a separate identity, Anthony Alderson, director of The Pleasance and spokesperson for The Edinburgh Comedy Festival, wrote: "Running a venue or producing a show in Edinburgh is no laughing matter. The costs of managing and producing rise above inflation, year on year, and the financial ecology of these venues grows ever more fragile. By consolidating our programme we can share our costs, and grow opportunity for sponsorship. With little or no support from other sources, sponsorship has become the vital ingredient. The Edinburgh Comedy Festival will present a unified attraction that is even more compelling."
HOWEVER, comedy is not alone when it comes to production costs. Every Fringe show faces the same challenges. If anything, it could be argued that stand-up invokes less costs than theatre – few stand-up routines require the scenery and complicated lighting plots of a play.
With the Edinburgh International Film Festival now taking place in June, the landscape of the Edinburgh Festival has already changed irrevocably. Still, organisers of The Edinburgh Comedy Festival maintain that it is an important addition to the Fringe. It won't be if it is allowed to monopolise the sponsorship that flows into Edinburgh during August.
£1.5 million is the target sponsorship for the big four – that's a lot of cash. The big question is: Should the Edinburgh Comedy Festival succeed in raising such an amount, how long would it be before the temptation to operate outwith the Fringe umbrella became too much?
With this year's separate launches, the Edinburgh Fringe has already been diminished. Has a parting of the ways just come one step closer?
