It's the Edinburgh Fringe Festival... but you could work that out for yourself, couldn't you?
The 61st Edinburgh Festival Fringe was launched this morning, finally revealing to the world the great and good impoverishing themselves this summer in the name of art. With hundreds of shows battling for attention, the average audience for many still being a drunkard and his theatrically-inclined dog, it's understandable that more obscure companies or first-timers would want to stand out from the rest of the frantic Fringe pack. This used to take the form of a desperate tussle over having the title with the most "A"s in it, meaning a (sadly non-existent) show called AAAARRGHH! An Alcoholic Aardvark Hits Amsterdam would pip all others to being listed first in the programme.
This year such alphabetical frolics have faded but the usual parade of zany, gimmicky or downright ludicrous names and concepts are there again, sat snugly within the programme and screaming out for some love and affection. Probably topping the list for sheer dubiousness is Cabaret Auschwitz, billed as "The songs! The torture! The brothel!" and likely to be a rather pathetic case of shock over substance. Then there is A (Gay Disabled Transexual) Love Story Told To A Ticket Inspector At Alton Towers, a tale of two men taking a ride on Nemesis after having gender reassignment, and the rather self-explanatory The Matrix: The Pantomime.
Fringe performers, ever quick to tie in with recent political events, are this year serving up not one but two musical treatments of the life and times of Tony Blair; ASBO: The Musical and Chav! It's a Musical Innit will also presumably subject his social policies to a rigorous critique. Jihad: The Musical, including songs such as I Wanna Be Like Osama, seems so crashingly obvious that it might just turn out to be good, while I'm A Lab Rat: Get Me Out Of Here! tackles the perils of signing one's life away to laboratory testing.
Of course you should never (usually) judge a show by its title. The hundreds of low-budget shows is part of the beauty of the Fringe, and wading through the theatrical turd to discover a glimmering diamond is far more rewarding than sticking with the tried and tested. But more often than not a gimmicky title will merely be a crude fig-leaf for a weak or occasionally desperate production, turning away more punters than it attracts. Still, I can't wait to see Jihad: The Musical - whether it is dire or not.
