— read write play

A few overdue thoughts, post-Fringe 2007:

1. The narrative in the media that there was “too much comedy” at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival was both strange and unexamined. In actuality, theatre and comedy represent roughly equal proportions of the Fringe – theatre has slightly more shows, in fact.

It’s never been clear why comedy should have to represent a smaller proportion of the total shows; if the argument is that they take a larger proportion of ticket shares and that this impacts directly on theatre sales.. well, we’re just admitting that the public doesn’t actually want to cram into converted cupboards to watch theatre. Comedy? Maybe it doesn’t matter what the venue is like if the bar is open.

I’m down in London over the weekend of the 27th October for the first recording of the Penny Dreadfuls’ new BBC radio series. If you’re free on the Friday night – or the following Wednesday – free tickets for the recording are available here.

C.J. Jarvis and C. Cooke – Edinburgh artists now based in London – are in the final weeks of their show at the Madder 139 gallery. I’ve worked with them on various projects over the last few years and hope to collaborate again in the future: there’s a mix of high-level art theory and humour that really appeals.

I’m also in the process of putting together the first issue of a new quarterly online publication – (which, right now, mainly involves calling a large number of friends and contacts working in theatre and the arts to see if they have time to spare). I’ll post something more here when I have firmer details – and when I start the open submission process – but am aiming for a winter edition at the end of the year.