What is Edinburgh for? There are times when it simply feels like one huge market place with hoards of producers and promoters on the lookout for shows, and hundreds of artists saying: "Look at me!" There is nothing wrong with this, of course. If you make a piece of wor you want the largest number of people to see it.
The new generation of producers have a key role to play, particularly at a time when theatre and the arts are being seriously threatened by cuts in funding. This week's report by the National Association of Local Government Arts Officers is very bad news indeed. It suggests that more councils will follow in the footsteps of the 34 who, in the last four years, have already completely cut arts services. It is not encouraging news for the estimated 50% of arts groups whose only core funding comes from local councils.
In the circumstances, I think we need to be rather better at bringing artists and producers together in general, and in Edinburgh in particular, in that it's the biggest showcase in the world. Talking to companies in Edinburgh this week, it's clear that this is an area where people feel that the Fringe Office could do a great deal more to help.
Companies of course come to Edinburgh with dreams of being discovered: it has happened this year to the theatre company 1927 with Devil and the Deep Blue Sea (and given that they come out of the BAC development process, I hope that they will receive the support and advice to make sure they don't just become a one hit wonder). For most young companies, however, the dream won't come true - but that Edinburgh is still the only three weeks of the year when they can take a risk, develop process and freely exchange ideas with other young artists makes it invaluable.
This spirit of risk and experiment is no better demonstrated than by the development of free venues such as Forest Fringe on Bristo Place, which has become a magnet for young artists wanting to try things out. Earlier this week I had one of my most enjoyable evenings on the Fringe this year doing a piece called Exposure, which was dreamed up by Andrew Field, a young theatre maker, who blogs at The Arcades Project.
Exposure was a brilliant and simple idea, giving participants a disposable camera and inviting them to go out into the city and take 24 exposures each on a different theme. Exposure One asked you to take a picture of the place you would go if you wanted to tell someone you loved them; exposure nine asked you to snap the future; while Exposure 16 asked you to find the place where you would start an uprising and Exposure 22 demanded you find someone you could fall in love with. The trick of the piece is that it can be done quite alone or in groups; it transforms the entire city into one vast film set and makes you engage and look at the city and the people on the streets with entirely new eyes.
I hope Field will go on to develop Exposure further, because on Monday evening for a few hours, 30-odd people were chasing around the city doing something they had never done before, creating a collective, on-the-hoof piece of art and discovering something about the topography of the city - and in some cases themselves - that they hadn't previously noticed. That alone makes the last three weeks worthwhile.
