Edinburgh Festival Fringe Diary 2023: Festival Overview
The first part of NoPro’s first Edinburgh Fringe diary (Part 1 of 3)
Part One of our Three Part coverage of the 2023 Edinburgh Festival Fringe.
Find Part Two here.
Find Part Three here.
In 1947, a post-WW2 Europe came together to celebrate the arts at the newly formed Edinburgh International Festival. Eight theatre companies who had not been invited decided to show up anyway, and the Edinburgh Festival Fringe was created — the first-ever “Fringe Festival.” Since then, cities around the world have formed their own versions of the Fringe, but the original remains the largest. In fact, it holds the record as the largest performing arts festival in the world.
For its 2023 edition, 3,553 shows graced 288 venues all across the city — transforming the medieval streets of the Scottish capital into a bustling hub of creativity. With so many productions during the festival’s three-and-a-half-week run, crafting an itinerary proved to be a daunting task. But with the help of a few Excel spreadsheets, a good pair of walking shoes, and a very full calendar, I was able to see 57 shows during my seven days in Edinburgh — a mere 1.6% of the overall lineup, but a solid dive into the Fringe’s immersive offerings.
Having explored the world of Edinburgh Fringe immersive, here are a few of my overall thoughts, trends, and findings.
What gets to be tagged as “immersive?”
During the festival, I caught 22 of the 44 shows specifically tagged as “immersive.” However, I quickly realized that some shows categorized as immersive didn’t quite fit the bill, while some of the most engaging immersive works I experienced were lacking the label. Notably, the buzziest immersive show, Funeral, from Belgian immersive stalwarts, Ontroerend Goed, was not explicitly tagged as immersive.
Of my top 15 immersive shows at Edinburgh Fringe, less than half were specifically identified as such. Instead, most opted for tags that better encapsulated the show’s content themes, or for the similar, but less vague “interactive” tag. Even Moses Storm: Perfect Cult — in which the audience devises a cult before marching into the Pleasance Courtyard to share it with the world — is missing any mention of the ‘I’ word, even though Storm himself has described it as immersive in past interviews.
At the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, each show could be tagged with a maximum of two genre labels. Much of the most interesting work I saw at the festival had so much to say that using one of their spots for “immersive” might have been a waste. Rather than creating immersion for the sake of immersion, my favorite shows used immersive techniques as a tool to explore new ideas and perspectives rather than as a focal point.
Technology as a storytelling tool
Several shows featured technology as a key element.
In Soulmates (Not) Found, the audience played the role of passengers on an AI airline (or “AI-rline”). Based on a pre-show survey, we were given AI-generated alter egos and matched with a platonic “soulmate”. Through a series of conversations with the AI via a microphone, as well as by questioning other passengers, each person found their “match”.
In contrast, Save the Princess directed audience members to a mobile web app. Throughout the show, we voted on which actions a Nintendo Princess Peach-inspired character should take to escape her neverending damsel in distress storyline.
Lastly, Aionos told its story to three audiences via three different stages — a live audience at the festival, a livestream audience, and in VR. Though all three platforms demonstrated how technology could be used as an innovative storytelling medium, this tech often overshadowed the story itself. With a loosely explained narrative and uncomfortable dialogue, Aionos felt more like a showcase of technological possibilities as opposed to a fully fleshed-out show.
Though it’s exciting to see how technological innovation can augment storytelling, many of these shows focused more on their technology than on their content. My favorite exception to this was The Umbilical Brothers: The Distraction, where two green screens are used as a genuine creative vehicle.
Audio-centric performances
Binaural immersive audio experiences were aplenty at the festival. Fringe regulars Darkfield showcased three of their shipping container shows (Coma, Eulogy, Seance). Arcade, Darkfield’s latest production, was originally scheduled to premiere as well, but was canceled shortly before the festival.
Ghost River Theatre’s adaptation of Tomorrow’s Child by Ray Bradbury took a different approach to immersive audio. Rather than headphones, the show utilized speakers placed around the room to create a 3D audio effect.
However, the most impactful audio performance I attended, Klanghaus Darkroom, made little use of technology at all. Instead, I sat in total darkness as live instruments crashed, wailed, and vibrated around me, adding a layer of physicality and human warmth that pre-recorded audio lacks.
Bringing people together
A common theme I noticed among many productions was of shows creating community. In King of More: Veza, the titular character (who encourages everyone to do everything 5% more), utilized several balls of yarn and audience participation to demonstrate connection, invisible links, and even quantum physics. Lucy McCormick’s Lucy and Friends was a one-woman show in which the audience becomes the “Friends”, and culminated in a cell phone being passed around so a group text could be formed. The Church of Princess Cassandra invited the audience to share a biscuit and glass of Ribena as we contemplated toxic masculinity’s hold on society and Brave Space fostered a sense of trust amongst audience and performer by creating moments where one’s safety was in the hands of the other.
Two productions that I saw during the festival were specifically designed to connect strangers. In Without Sin, the conceit of a confessional booth is used to encourage honest and heartfelt conversation. Two Strangers Walk Into A Bar made use of the titular trope to orchestrate a meet-cute that defies stereotype. In both shows, an individual’s experience was heavily reliant on their partner’s enthusiasm and engagement. Much of the magic in these shows was audience-generated, but both did a compelling job of creating an environment where human connection could thrive.
The production that best nurtured a sense of community was Ontroerend Goed’s Funeral, in which, after jointly participating in a ritual of mourning and connectedness, the audience was provided a space to share and unpack their experience over a cup of tea. Though many immersive productions were designed to foster connection, Funeral is the only show I saw that created the time and space for audience members to truly connect.
Alternative Spaces
Despite seeing over 50 shows, there were only four instances where I found myself revisiting the same venue stage twice. This was largely due to the sheer number of spaces that participated, but the immersive shows on the Fringe bill were also hosted at some particularly unique spaces. From a concert venue (Leith Arches — a fitting space for Bits N Pieces, in which the story revolves around an EDM show), to a secluded section of the ancient volcano Arthur’s Seat (WanderWomen Mindfulness and Adventure), to an ice rink transformed into a pitch black big top with hundreds of twinkling lights (IMA), the shows made clever use of Edinburgh’s spaces.
However, the three productions that I think best utilized alternative spaces were:
Denmark’s Sensuous Governing, which took up residence in their home country’s consulate building and made extensive use of its spiral staircase.
Ctrl Room :_, where immersion into the world of futuristic warfare was aided by its staging at the Edinburgh Army Reserve Centre.
Bodies, which required a 20-minute Scotrail train ride, and a trip to the locker room to change into our swimsuits, before we hopped into the Deans Community High School pool.
Genre Agnosticism
From experimental performance art (What You See When Your Eyes Are Closed / What You Don’t See When Your Eyes Are Open), to ruminations on dementia and the healthcare system (The Fish Bowl), to gyrating human statues (Weathervanes), to multimedium stage-acting-meets-live-rock-music-meets-live-painting experiences (Revelations of Rab McVie), the immersive offerings at Fringe ran the gamut.
In fact, the immersive lineup at this year’s Festival covered almost every single show category: Children’s Shows (Lost Lending Library), Dance Physical Theatre and Circus (Soul Penny Circus Presents: Dreams of a Clown), Exhibitions (A Carrying Stream), Musicals and Opera (OSCAR at the Crown), Theatre (May Contain Traces of Nuts), Cabaret and Variety (Man Machine Spectacle), Comedy (Failed by Design), Events (The Most Toast), Music (Klanghaus: InHaus).
[Ed. note: Punchdrunk Enrichment’s Lost Lending Library was staged as part of the the Edinburgh International Festival. The very festival that the Fringe was originally a response to and is still going strong. For more on the relationship between the two, check out this piece from 2015 in The Guardian.]
With such a wide variety of programming, immersive theatre likely found its way onto many Fringe-goers’ itineraries, whether they were specifically looking for it or not.
For the 2023 edition of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, audiences were encouraged to “Fill Yer Boots” — British slang for getting as much as you can out of an experience. After seeing 57 shows in a single week, I can say with confidence that my boots are very full. Having the opportunity to experience immersive work from around the world was an incredible adventure, and I hope that one day I have the opportunity to fill up my boots at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe once again.
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