Noses pressed up against the glass

The UK comedy scene is much exercised by a slanging match on chortle.co.uk (the industry website). The nub of the issue is that a comic, who I would describe as no further than midway up the food chain, has taken issue with the Edinburgh Free Fringe.

His criticism is little more than a rehashing of the reasoning that if a market is flooded by cheap (or in this case free) product then the consumer gets dangerously confused as price no longer functions as an indicator of quality. The argument is a sort of weird take on Gresham's Law; that cheap / bad comedy will drive the good stuff out of circulation.

There is no shortage of responses accusing the writer of a badly disguised ulterior motive: he is somehow promoting his ticketed show. I don't really understand this accusation as (a) he's only talking to the industry, but also (b) he's just pissing everyone off anyway.

This year I'm directly involved in two Free Fringe shows and two ticketed shows so obviously I think that there is a place and a role for both. The genuine and incontrovertible benefit of the Free Fringe is that it affords Edinburgh locals easy access to the festival that takes over their city for a month every year. Tickets for a nighttime show start at £8 for a one hour performance. A couple seeing three hours of comedy is paying at least £50 before they've even made it to the bar.

The Edinburgh Festival is one of the truly great events on the British cultural calendar. It's fun and funny and wonderful and sexy and cool. To have it go on around you in your home town but to feel uninvited would be terrible.