How Edinburgh Festival 2021 Will Be Unlike Any Other

After an enforced year off, the world’s largest arts festival is back, with the Edinburgh International Festival (EIF) and its larger offshoot the Fringe running from 6 August until the end of the month. But like most live events during these strange times, they will look very different to the norm.

One obvious hurdle facing festivals that are predicated on internationalism is that travel in and out of the UK has been largely curtailed. As well as artists, this also hugely impacts audiences, which at Edinburgh have traditionally comprised a significant chunk of overseas tourists.

Then there are the ever-changing safety requirements. At time of writing, the Scottish government requires one-metre social distancing as well as masks to be worn indoors, with regular hand washing and clear ventilation “strongly advised.” For the Fringe in particular, known for its reliance on small studio spaces, this has proved a sticking point. Many performances will take place outside, meaning that much is hinging on the famously unreliable Edinburgh summer weather.

All told, this year marks a step into the unknown, so there is some understandable trepidation among those participating. “The Fringe is always a risk, but I’ll admit this year it feels more so,” says Aidan Sadler, who is bringing his queer cabaret Tropicana to The Space. “In recent weeks, we’ve had reports it’ll be cancelled, reports it’ll all be online – as much mixed messaging as you’d expect from 2021.”

Joe von Malachowski, writer of the play Mediocre White Male at Assembly Roxy, says he is also anticipating bumps in the road. “I don’t know what the public’s appetite is right now for getting back into small spaces and being spat at by actors for an hour. We are prepared to be playing to just a handful of people a day, or even pull the show on occasion.”

A major fear of all participants is the so-called “pingdemic,” whereby shows can be forced to close at short notice when company members are told to isolate by the NHS app. This has already impacted many productions elsewhere, including Andrew Lloyd Webber’s new musical Cinderella, which was forced to postpone its West End premiere.

Anthony Alderson is the artistic director of Pleasance, which alongside its London home operates one of the Fringe’s “big four” venues. “The fact you can be pinged to isolate at any moment is shutting down theatres, clubs, restaurants and bars,” he told Backstage. “It’s pointless being open if every five seconds your staff get sent home. It just doesn’t make sense.”

Despite these frustrations, Pleasance will operate at Edinburgh, albeit with an emphasis on larger spaces. One of their new venues this year is the Edinburgh International Conference Centre (EICC), which until recently was operating as a vaccination centre.

Alderson says that part of the reason for going ahead, in the face of a bleak financial picture, is the importance of maintaining the festival’s momentum. “This year we’re doing five percent of what we normally do, which is obviously not sustainable. But we’re just keen to do something, and try and get back to normal as soon as we can. I’m confident the Fringe will recover in time.”

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Daniel Nicholas is among the performers at Pleasance this year, with his show Eugene. He tells Backstage that one advantage of the enforced pause of the Fringe last year is that it has given people time to reflect on the festival’s overall direction: “Last year, there were a lot of great conversations about the Fringe, and pricing generally, across the industry. It was a moment where we were forced to stop, breathe, and reflect on how we operate and who [the Fringe] is serving.”

One outcome of this seems to be that some venues are taking a more lenient approach when it comes to hire costs, and allowing greater flexibility for shorter runs.

The company Say It Again, Sorry? are bring their interactive version of The Importance of Being Earnest to the Pleasance. They told Backstage: “From our experience, it seems like the venues have done everything they can this year to mitigate risks for the visiting companies, and the financial deals seem less risky than normal Fringe years. As the runs are shorter lengths, it’s much more manageable for the team going up to Edinburgh.”

So, perhaps one good thing to come out of the crisis will be greater accessibility for a festival that is increasingly seen as the exclusive domain of those with deep pockets.

Paul Aitchison, whose show Could it be Magic? is at the aforementioned EICC, suggests there could be other benefits too. “This year, the Fringe being smaller in terms of acts might work as the pallet cleanser,” he says. “I hope the festival finds a new equilibrium of how many shows it can realistically host.”

But what of the many artists who simply can’t get there, whether due to travel or other barriers?

Alley Scott is artistic director of New York-based Dutch Kills Theater, who were hoping to bring their show Temping to Edinburgh this year. “Covid restrictions change all the time and without much warning,” she told Backstage. “This makes planning for travelling companies extremely difficult, and in the end we had to opt out this year because the logistics became insurmountable.”

Instead, they have adapted the performance, which is designed for one audience member at a time, for streaming online, and will show it as part of the Fringe’s extensive digital programme. She says at least the move “will push our audiences as well as ourselves and expand our form into one that embraces technology more readily.”

And while she feels it will never wholly substitute for the live experience, there is much to be said for the enforced migration online: “I eagerly await the return to in-person performance, and I don't think anything can replace that – it is the heart of our work. But I do think utilising technology to tell stories in an immediate and theatrical way is here to stay.”

For the first time, this year the Fringe will have entirely virtual venues, one example being American Intent at Assembly, which is offering a diverse range of spoken word performances to online-only audiences.

Others fall somewhere in the middle. Bianca Mastrominico and John Dean run Edinburgh-based Organic Theatre, and plan to present their show Flanker Origami to both physical and virtual audiences, which they describe as a hybrid of live and cyber performance. “For us, encountering audiences through the digital medium is a bit of an anthropological experiment,” they said.

The EIF is also embracing digital platforms, presenting 21 free full-length productions online. And this is unlikely to be a one-off. It seems certain that whatever the longer-term shape of the Edinburgh Festival in the wake of Coronavirus, greater integration of online audiences is here to stay.

And that spirit of experimentation and artistic boldness makes these productions very in keeping with the origins of Edinburgh. Because somewhere, amid the anxieties and uncertainties of the 2021 edition, is a programme that might one day be seen as the beginning of a new kind of festival.