EdFringe lockdown memories: Day Four
The #NothingToReviewHere and #SomethingToReview projects
In the eerily fallow Fringe of 2020 and weirdly hybrid event of the following year, The Dibdin Brothers, Thom & Peter, published a daily image from around Edinburgh.
These projects – #NothingToReviewHere and #SomethingToReview – showed the Edinburgh Fringe as it had never been seen before. And in that first year, when everyone had to stay at home, provided a surrogate fringe for its fans to witness from afar. There is an introduction to the projects here: #NothingToReviewHere.
This year, over the course of EdFringe 2024, we are publishing the images and words from the respective days of 2020 and 2021.
It was taking this picture in 2020, on two-for-one Monday, which made me realise how powerful this document of empty venues could be.
I was in tears as I wrote the caption.
We went back in 2021
The tears were rain.
The punter were friendly.
FoH heid-yins? Just about.
EdFringe: Day Four
Edinburgh Pleasance Courtyard. Monday 10 August 2020
Edinburgh. Pleasance Courtyard. Monday 10 August 2020. EdFringe Day 4. Pic: Peter Dibdin
Fallow EdFringe. Day 4: Peter Dibdin and I were there.
No Pleasance Theatre Totem Pole, no tables overflowing with flyers, no queues snaking across the courtyard.
No anxious punters in the “wrong” Pleasance…
No Kids Zone
No Two-for-one deals.
You can see the walls.
Grass is growing in the cobbles.
Out the back there is a skip spilling over with broken barrels.
We met one person, and said “hello”. They said “hello” back. We didn’t exchange flyers. We didn’t have any flyers.
#21Venues21Shirts Day 4 #NothingToReviewHere #BrothersGonnaSnapItOut
Edinburgh Pleasance Courtyard. Monday 9 August 2021
Edinburgh. Pleasance Courtyard. Monday 9 August 2021. EdFringe Day 4. Pic: Peter Dibdin
Hybrid EdFringe Day 4: Peter Dibdin and I were there.
Wet Edinburgh two-for-one Monday.
Four layers of security. Wet. Bored. (dis)interested.
They’ve weeded the cobbles.
Updated the directions on the Totem Pole.
Still no Kids Zone.
The tables are set up for hundreds.
Tens are there.
No flyers. So punters ask for recommendations as they sup their first EdFringe beer, happy to be here.
Happy to find something to see.
There’s a smell of normality, the whiff of a return.
#somethingtoreview Day 4
Edinburgh. Pleasance Courtyard. Monday 9 August 2021. EdFringe Day 4. The Long View. Pic: Peter Dibdin
ENDS
