Long ago and in a different life, when I lived in Edinburgh, I used to dread festival time, not least because my place of work was just off the Royal Mile which, in August, is possibly the most populous piece of land on the planet, outside of Shanghai.
They used to sell T-shirts in city centre shops, intended to ward off the close attentions of flyer hander-outers and over-enthusiastic thespians, which simply said “F*** off…I live here”.
It’s now regarded as sacrilegious to criticise or question the place of the various Edinburgh festivals in the canon of Scottish success stories.
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Not only do they contribute millions of pounds to the Scottish economy and attract thousands of visitors to the city every year, they also help to keep the country relevant in an age of cutthroat global competitiveness.
At a time when so much else of value in Scotland is under threat and in decline, the festivals remain shining examples of something we can still genuinely claim to do better than anyone else.
While organisers of the International Festival, the International Book Festival and the International Film Festival have all trumpeted the success of this year’s events, there are growing siren voices around the future health and direction of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.
As the festivals drew to a close this week, Shona McCarthy, chief executive of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society, warned in an open letter that the “fragility of the performing arts community is palpable”, adding that an “outward veneer of success cannot mask the struggle for artists to emerge let alone thrive in the UK right now.”
As its name suggests, the Fringe was........