TRAVEL TIP Edinburgh Fringe Festival – 2nd-26th August - Edinburgh, Scotland After the end of World War II, the people of Edinburgh wanted to celebrate ‘the flowering of the human spirit’, and in 1947 created the Edinburgh Festival. That very same year, no less than eight uninvited theatre companies crashed the party, and because they were seen (and saw themselves) as outsiders, kept to the edges of the main event, thus also creating the Edinburgh Fringe. Now the world’s biggest arts festival, performers gather from all over the world for this month-long gathering of classical and cutting edge performance. Some of the numbers involved are quite incredible – for example, the 2011 Fringe sold close to 2 million tickets to 2,500 shows, which themselves put on over 40,000 performances during the month. While there is no official jury overseeing the event, there are a host of special awards given for drama, performance and comedy. Among the vast array of performers this year, you’ll find unique and exciting acts, such as Ballesque, where the worlds of ballet and burlesque combine, the Scandinavian folk singing group Angels of the North and a retrospective of Man Ray portraits. There is an opera entitled Assassins, which follows nine would-be Presidential murderers around a fairground shooting gallery, and stand-up performances from Alexi Sayle, Alan Davies and Al Murray (and that’s just under ‘A’!). Just figuring out how you’re going to fit everything in – difficult enough when there are constant street performances going on – is going to be a major task, so you’d better get started now!
Posted on: Tue, 30 Jul 2013 19:12:15 +0000