‘Genius’, ‘perfection’, ‘brilliance’ – Tom Sutcliffe examines the mismatch between promise and fulfilment at the Edinburgh Fringe.
After a few days, I began to wince whenever I saw the word “brilliant” on a poster. I found myself wincing a lot. Because as anyone who’s visited Edinburgh during the fringe will know, even in a culture generally lost to hyperbole, fringe hyperbole is something special. It’s Darwinian, I guess – an evolutionary response to terrifying selection pressures. With just shy of 50,000 performances available in just shy of 300 venues, an audience member in Edinburgh in August is a ferociously contested resource, so it’s hardly surprising that the mating displays get more garish and shrill with every passing year… Read more in The Guardian
After a few days, I began to wince whenever I saw the word “brilliant” on a poster. I found myself wincing a lot. Because as anyone who’s visited Edinburgh during the fringe will know, even in a culture generally lost to hyperbole, fringe hyperbole is something special. It’s Darwinian, I guess – an evolutionary response to terrifying selection pressures. With just shy of 50,000 performances available in just shy of 300 venues, an audience member in Edinburgh in August is a ferociously contested resource, so it’s hardly surprising that the mating displays get more garish and shrill with every passing year… Read more in The Guardian