‘I’ve never experienced an event like this. Edinburgh is just so full of youthful exuberance’
It is the annual opportunity for Edinburgh Festival performers, producers and promoters to pitch their shows to journalists from around the world.
A record 1,200 of them queued from the early hours of the morning for the Fringe Society’s annual “Meet the Media” event
Edinburgh University’s Informatics School was resembled a mass speed-dating event over the course of five frenzied hours as shows were given just a few minutes to sell themselves.
Scarlett Kim is directing The End, The End, The End, part of the California Institute of the Arts programme at the Fringe, which explores America’s “identity crisis”.
She said: “I came to Edinburgh for the first time for a weekend last year, but I got to see some really exciting shows from all around the world. I was especially looking for shows which were bending genres or blurring the boundaries between art and life.
“The show is about our paranoia and paralysis about living in a world that is constantly ending. That’s what the US feels like right now.”
Australian playwright Chris Aronsten wrote his show, What Would Cathy Do?, about a drug addict who claims to be an actor after being caught shoplifting in a supermarket.
He said: “I wanted to come to Edinburgh to take the show further and expose it to a wider audience. We know the show is terrific, but we just need people to see it. It’s been slightly overwhelming so far. I’ve been anxious and excited. But in Sydney I could never be around so many like-minded people at once.”
Hollywood actor Joe Reitman, whose screen credits include Clueless, ER and American Pie 2, is making his Fringe debut in the play Like Blood From a Cheap Cigar.
He said: “I’ve done a lot of big TV and film festivals in the US, but I’ve never experienced an event like this before. Edinburgh is just so full of youthful exuberance.”
New York-based performance artist Paul Valenti has brought his show The Long Miserable Journey to Happiness, in which he plays a “well-meaning affable and hopelessly fallible clown”.
“I’ve been to the Fringe a couple of times before. The reason why I wanted to come back was to get inspired by all the other artists around me.”