Baby Reindeer and Half Man creator Richard Gadd has revealed he fears for the future of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe due to the soaring costs faced by artists.
Gadd, who won the best comedy show at the Fringe 10 years ago, said “huge financial pressures” were making it harder for new performers to “take the leap” to put on shows as he did when he was completely unknown.
The Fife-born actor, writer and performer said the Fringe was “nothing without giving new voices a chance” and called for the festival to be protected “at all costs”.
Gadd, who was speaking at an event to announce a “replacement” for the long-running Edinburgh TV Festival, also raised concerns about the growing commercialisation of the Fringe and the dominance of venues which he said were “growing more powerful each year”.
Gadd, who last performed at the Fringe with the stage version of Baby Reindeer in 2019, described the event as “the cultural backbone of the whole country, the world even”.
Speaking at the new headquarters of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society, Gadd said: “Everything I have in my life, I owe to this festival.
“Not just the career leaps forward that I made: meeting agents, producers, writers, going full-time and getting commissions.
“It helped me grow and develop as an artist, as a person even, to figure out what I stood for and what I liked. And I know it's given that to so many people.
“It would be remiss of me not to take time out at this point to talk about the huge financial pressures that artists face year on year – accommodation, venue hire, travel, equipment and marketing are all soaring in cost, making it harder for new performers to take the leap that I once did.
“With the TV Festival leaving due to extreme overheads, and with PR, production and the dominance of ticketed venues growing more and more powerful each year, I worry whether people will start to doubt whether they can actually be seen here at all.
“And then what? Because the Fringe is nothing without giving new voices a chance. A chance to experiment. To take risks. To hitch their car to a crazy idea and see what comes of it. To fail spectacularly.
“And come back the next night to try again.
“But when the costs become so high and established performers and commercial productions have more resources and more visibility than ever before, those freedoms become harder to protect, meaning that the festival risks become something that only those with enough money can afford to do.
“And that's what worries me, because if the Fringe becomes too expensive, too commercial and too difficult, to access we could lose the very thing that makes it extraordinary, we could lose why it started in the first place and we could lose the place where someone could arrive with an idea and leave with a career.”
Gadd highlighted how the success Fleabag, Taskmaster, Flight of the Conchord, Alan Partridge, The League of Gentleman and Mr Bean could all be traced back to the Fringe.
