The most talked about performance at the Edinburgh festival fringe kicked off less with a bang and more with the clearing of a throat, the donning of some glasses, and the gripping recital of a contents page.
But then, Iraq Out and Loud – in which all 2.6m words of the Chilcot report on the Iraq war will be read aloud by comedians and volunteers from the public – was never really about theatrics.
The reading of all 12 tomes, 6,000 pages, will proceed non-stop 24 hours a day in a small shed in the heart of Edinburgh. The whole thing will take about a fortnight, making it by far the longest event at the fringe.
It was at 6pm on Monday that the first readers, comedians Arthur Smith, Nish Kumar, Shappi Khorsandi and Mark Thomas, stepped up to the plate.
As he readied himself to read, Kumar said he was a little nervous but added: “It’s not my material, it’s someone else’s stuff, and that takes the pressure off. In a way, if I get laughs with this, I will have singularly failed at my job. It’s an unusual position for me to be in.
“I am just going to read it straight. This is not a place to start riffing and doing voice work.”
Kumar said he hoped the project would reignite discussion and accountability around the Iraq war, as well as making the Chilcot report less impenetrable for the public.
“It’s vital that we have an understanding of why we went to war in Iraq and why those decisions were made, both for transparency and to make sure those mistakes are not repeated,” he said.
“And this is exactly what the fringe is for. There’s no other place in the world you could get a bunch of comedians to read a government report about why we went to war in Iraq. It’s a uniquely Edinburgh experience.”
Every hour, six volunteers will go into the shed and take turns reading a section of the report. The reading will also be broadcast live for anyone who wants to watch online.
Currently over 1,000 people have signed up to recite the report, although Bob Slayer, who coordinated the production and built the shed, said they still needed the same number again to sign up to get to the end of the two weeks.
Other comedians who have agreed to take part include Stewart Lee, Johnny Vegas, Reginald D Hunter and Simon Munnery. Slayer’s most recent recruit was Nina Conti.
Tony Blair and Sir John Chilcot were among those invited to read; both have yet to respond.
Slayer said he had been heartened by the response to the idea.
“The point of this is to provoke discussions around Chilcot and it already has, which is great,” he said. “But will that make any difference? Well, I don’t know. Think about those enormous protests that tried to stop the war in the first place but were ignored. I don’t feel confident that that wouldn’t happen again.
“We are all liberal, left-leaning people here, patting each other on the back, but if we can all group together, get to know each other, then hopefully we have a better chance of stopping this happening again.”
An unexpected obstacle came in the form of trying to get a free physical copy of the report, which usually costs £767. They went through the SNP office, with the help of MP Tommy Shepherd, who has also volunteered to read, but got nowhere.
In the end Slayer sent a speculative email to the Ministry of Defence, asking for a free copy to read at the fringe. “They came back and said, yes, OK, as long as you give the money to charity – which is fine because this is all for charity,” said Slayer. “The upshot of that is that the Chilcot report is clearly not selling as well as they thought.”
Despite the dry content, as he emerged from the small shed after his stint reading the report, Thomas said he felt “bizarrely emotional”. “Yes, it’s dry but this report is talking about something that affected hundreds of thousands of lives.”
He said: “Chilcot is like the Latin bible: this is a document you’re not really supposed to have full access to and that is not going to be read in its entirety by anyone. I don’t even think Sir John did – he falls into the category of Jeffrey Archer, who has written more than he’s read. So what is great about this is it’s making it publicly accessible.”
For Smith, the first person to read, it was “unlike any gig I’ve ever done, because obviously you’re not trying to get laughs or any reaction at all, other than just telling it straight”.
He was mainly responsible for reading the contents and the initial introduction but said he had “already grown attached to some of the people involved”. “I was beginning to love Sir John.” It was the footnotes, said Smith, that were the trickiest part to read.
“But I feel honoured to have been the first to read and I hope the Chilcot report is listened to and followed,” Smith said. “Maybe in 100 years, some historians will watch this to save themselves the trouble of having to read it themselves.”
