EdFringe lockdown memories: Day Six
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.
The first Wednesday of the abandoned EdFringe, Peter and I were in glorious sun in front of a locked & empty George Square gardens.
We were thinking of jumping over the fence, but we met this ice figure skater practicing on the concrete because the ice-rinks were closed.
Peter had fun finding reflected light.
The following year, well…
EdFringe: Day Six
Edinburgh George Square. Wednesday 12 August 2020
Edinburgh George Square. Wednesday 12 August 2020. EdFringe Day 6. Pic: Peter Dibdin
Fallow EdFringe. Day 6: Peter Dibdin and I were there.
No Assembly George Square Theatre, George Square Gardens – or George Square Studios.
No Underbelly upside-down purple coo.
No container theatres or venison burger concessions.
No Kid’s theatre favourites.
No sassy cabaret acts drumming up business in the gardens.
No one is rushing.
Students forget to social distance on the steps, a gaggle of them chatting in the sun.
The cafe on the corner of Basil Spence’s library building is busy. The library is open with 2m markings on the concrete slabs.
Elsewhere, the ice rinks are closed.
Here, a young Polish figure-skater practices on concrete in line skates. Tomorrow she will be in elsewhere says her mother, asking whether it will be busy here on another day.
No, it won’t, we say.
It’s warm.
#21Venues21Shirts Day 6 #NothingToReviewHere #skaterphotobomb
Edinburgh George Square. Wednesday 11 August 2021
Edinburgh George Square. Wednesday 11 August 2021. EdFringe Day 6. Pic: Peter Dibdin
Hybrid EdFringe Day 7: Peter Dibdin and I were there.
Assembly Festival Spiegel tent is back and full – in a socially distanced way.
The Astroturf is down.
The rain is coming down.
Hard.
Bored families flock around the Angel Wings, search for puddles to stomp in.
Older folk can drink standing up.
Food concessions look on, bored in the dreariness of it all.
Cagoules. Pints. Umbrellas. Rain.
A family I know rush by, late for a show.
A press peep hovers.
Serendipitous meetings happen; connections are made.
I smell fringe
#somethingtoreview Day 6
Edinburgh George Square. Wednesday 11 August 2021. EdFringe Day 6. The Long View. Pic: Peter Dibdin
ENDS
