This week, blogger Scott Walters attempts the seemingly impossible – defending Mike Daisey, the American theatremaker who landed in such trouble over his solo show about alleged abuses at Apple's factories in China. Crucially, he revisits Daisey's original episode of This American Life and notes that host Ira Glass very deliberately frames it as an adapted excerpt of the theatre piece. Glass's exact words, which you can read on Walters's blog, openly admit the element of storytelling in Daisey's contribution and contradict the holier-than-thou tone of his subsequent retraction. Whether one accepts that Daisey's presentation of the "facts" is acceptable onstage is another matter, but maybe it's Walters is also promising two more blogs on the topic.
Perhaps Daisey's blushes could have been spared if he'd employed a dramaturg, that most enigmatic of theatrical creatures. Ever since the 18th-century German critic Gotthold Ephraim Lessing invented the term dramaturgy, people have struggled to work out what it really means. The job has elements of director, literary manager, researcher, critic and much more. However, the practice of dramaturgy is both increasingly important and increasingly widespread. So it's great to see Nottingham-based performance artist Michael Pinchbeck publishing his PhD research on the role online at a relatively new blog, Outside Eye. In the last fortnight, he's added interviews with architect Matthew Letts, director Philip Stanier and academic and artist Kevin Egan. Egan's definition of the "outside eye" – the role that a dramaturg can take – is certainly intriguing: something, he suggests, that "looks at and reads the work from an alternative angle, turns it upside down, on its side, puts it through the shredder." You wonder what most playwrights would think about that.
Yesterday, the deadline passed for inclusion in the official Edinburgh fringe brochure, meaning that thousands of shows have now settled on venues, timeslots, ticket prices and the rest. (All that remains is to make the show: easy …) Where and when you perform in Edinburgh can have a major impact on a show's success, and it's a process that requires careful deliberation. A significant proportion of performers plump to do so for free, rather than submit to the commercial pressures of a run at some of the larger venues. Those that do can chose between Peter Buckley Hill's Free Fringe and the Laughing Horse Free festival, run by Alex Petty.
However, there are some disconcerting allegations on comedy commentator and producer John Fleming's blog. Citing anecdotal evidence, he accuses Buckley Hill of fostering a petty, one-sided rivalry between two organisations with equally good intentions. According to Fleming, "If any PBH Free Fringe act applies to perform or does perform at a Laughing Horse Free festival venue, [Buckley Hill] bans them from appearing on the Free Fringe again."
Surprising though that stipulation might sound, it's undeniably there in the small print of the Free Fringe application process, though the terms don't rule out "guest" performances at a Laughing Horse venue. There's previous between the two operations – Petty broke away from the original festival – but Buckley Hill's demands do seem to undermine to his idealistic claims for the Free Fringe. In January, also on Fleming's blog, he described it as "a model for the liberation of performers from the chains imposed on them by others."
Finally, the rare sight of experimental theatre on Shaftesbury Avenue, with Elevator Repair Service's Gatz part of this year's Lift festival, might present a unique problem for theatregoers. The combination of an eight-hour running time and the West End's notoriously limited facilities is potentially horrifying. However, help is at hand thanks to American blogger Mildly Bitter, who speaks from bad experience in her Gatz: The Bathroom Strategy. "I foolishly ordered a beer with dinner. Bad move." Quite.
