I abhor hypocrisy yet I’m more guilty of it than most

Hardeep Singh Kohli

AFEW years ago I found myself in Farringdon, having been invited to a dinner party thrown by city-dwelling London types. In that house, surrounded by those folk, it felt not just a world away from my Bishopbriggs upbringing, but more like another cosmos – in a far distant galaxy. The conversation over canapés was a monotonous moan about how the recession had bitten one couple so deeply, they were being forced to sell their Caribbean holiday home. Another couple were having to seriously consider their youngest child becoming a day pupil rather than board. There is only so much tongue-biting I can do. “I’ve just done a charity comedy gig where instead of buying a ticket you brought two bags of messages which we sent to the local foodbank.” The awkwardness, thicker than the soup, was finally broken by my host. “What do you mean, messages?” I abhor hypocrisy yet I’m more guilty of it than most. By the time you read this, I will be preparing to perform my last show at the Fringe, a Fringe that has always been very good to me. I have never lost money playing Edinburgh. I’ve never had to hope that an agent would see my show and sign me up. I’ve never had to stake my savings hoping some TV producer would believe me to be the next Limmy or Victoria Wood. No. I came to comedy late. I’d already had a career. Comedy at the Fringe was the realisation of a dream rather than the beginning of one. Yet, after almost a decade of this, I wonder what it’s all about. Mistake me not: I love what I do. Compared to coal-mining or bringing up three weans aff the social, it’s nothing like work. But my reasons for being here this month are a bit different. There are only a handful of Edinburgh acts forming the thousands upon thousand of shows. One evening last week I saw the wonderful Wendy Wason and the glorious Grant Stott. It was the first time in a decade I had seen two local acts across the three-and-a-half weeks.

I am by no means a little Scotlander. I love the fact that the most beautiful city in the world welcomes the world. But while the world comes tae Edinburgh, it doesn’t always feel like Edinburgh shows up tae say hello. Many leave town, but not before renting their modest flats out for large sums of money. I know that some townhouse owners pay the remaining 11 months of their mortgage with the August income alone. Restaurant menus appear with stickers over the regular price – a new, increased Festival price, overwritten in Biro. In August, Edinburgh is all about the money.

The Fringe seems to have morphed into nothing more than a glorified trade show. This once edgy, dangerous, experimental festival of fun has become subsumed into the sensible, profit-and-loss world of show business – with emphasis on the business.

Acts shell out for venue hire, publicity, accommodation and teams of young flyer-posters. That’s before they have sold a single ticket. One comic told me that the average act loses the better part of £5k doing a Fringe. To break even is beyond many acts’ expectations.

It feels like the Fringe has become the playground of the middle classes, those who have the finance and the family to support their art.

Of course, the free Fringe, an innovative spin-off from the money-machine that the Fringe proper seems to have become, kicked against the commercialisation. Acts paid nothing, there were no tickets sold. On the way out you were offered a bucket for your money. Brilliantly talented acts like Janey Godley eschewed the industrial Fringe and embraced the punk upstarts of Free. (It’s little known but Janey has been known to give homeless audience members money out of her bucket. That epitomises what the Fringe should be all about).

The Fringe started as a reaction to the establishment, an open-access, anarchic, two-fingered salute to the pomposity of the patrician classes.

Today, that spirit of ad-hoc rebellion feels as far away from the Fringe as Farringdon.