Edinburgh Fringe: Comedy Shows 'Losing Edge' Aug 5th 2013, 11:30
By Lucy Cotter, Arts and Entertainment Correspondent
Comedy accounts for around a third of the programme at the Edinburgh Festival but for the last few years its share has actually been marginally falling.
It has long been the Mecca for all things comic, attracting some of the industry's biggest and brightest stars as well as being a launch pad for the up and coming, but since 2011 numbers have fallen by about 4%.
According to Kate Copstick, chief critic for the Scotsman, comedy at the Fringe is losing its edge.
"Everything finds its level and I think big prices in a big auditorium listening to people who are basically just serving you up a slice of their telly show cobbled together to make a bit of money (aren't working).
"People are maybe stupid one or two times but they're not perpetually, endlessly stupid and they're going to remember 'I paid £12 to see him last time and he was rubbish'," she said.
The Comedian David Baddiel has brought his stand up act to the Fringe for the first time in 16 years and believes the sheer volume of comedians could be the problem.
"One thing I notice after not being here for years is the bewildering amount of comedians here. There's always been quite a lot but now you walk along and it's like being in a zoo of comedians there's so many," he said.
Many people still come to Edinburgh to see comedy, to watch the big names or to discover someone new.
However the idea behind the festival is that people will also stumble upon something completely different that they had never expected to see.
Performers come to Edinburgh from all over the world and the variety is seen as impressive. For instance, Australia's most renowned contemporary circus has brought its show Wunderkammer to the Underbelly, a combination of circus, cabaret and vaudeville.
As the number of comedy shows falls, theatre has seen a marked increase over the last few years, proving there is a place for the thought-provoking as well as for the fun and frivolous.
One of the shows being talked about includes a play about the political prisoner Yulia Tymoshenko. Her daughter Eugenia has come to the festival to see the show and thinks a play can make a difference, particularly at the biggest arts festival in the world.
"I think it's quite painful for the authorities and the regime who put my mother in prison and others that people are not silent, that a play has been made about her and I think it's very hard to silence it.
"So for them it did make a difference, it made them realise the truth will be heard no matter what," she said.
The average visitor sees three shows while they are at the festival and it seems a punch line is no longer a pre-requisite for success.
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