Edfest Review: Best of the Fest

It's been a few days since the festival ended and, predictably, I have a cold. It's been threatening for a while, but I totally believe in mentally pushing it off until a more appropriate time. 

The travel back was a bit of a nightmare. I'm normally a pretty good traveller and unfazed by lenghty bus journeys - I would even go so far as to say I like long journeys; it gives me time to just sit and do things I normally put off in favour of more pressing tasks. On this occasion a lack of communication and a poor attitude from staff made it quite an uncomfortable experience.

But I'm home and have an actual PC which works. This means I can format my blog properly and add pictures. This makes me unreasonably happy. 


I thought I would take a bit of a look back at my month at the fringe and work out some stats. First of all though - my WINNERS...

The Final Countdown - My Overall Top 5

5. Spillikin

4. The Ted Bundy Project

3. Molly

2. 64 Squares

and my ultimate favourite ......

[*Drumroll**Drumroll**Drumroll*Bated Breath*Drumroll**Drumroll**Drumroll*Bated Breath*Drumroll**Drumroll**Drumroll*Checks Watch*Drumroll**Drumroll*]

1. CELL

Of course it was CELL. I knew from the moment I saw it that I'd found my winner... which was a little awkward considering it was waaaay back at the end of week one. I just loved everything about it - the movement, the storytelling, the puppetry, the music - it was a perfect amalgamation of many elements and I could see it had been lovingly crafted. It moved me a lot. It missed out on a few 5 stars from the big publications, regularly getting 4 stars, which mystifies me. To me this is everything a 5 star show should be. I'll be following these guys on twitter to find out what's next for them @cellshow @dogfishtheatre

Some facts and stats:

I saw 51 shows across a broad range of genres.

My top 2 were both performed at Underbelly Cowgate.

My most visited venue (not including forest fringe) was :- Pleasance Courtyard (8 shows)

followed closely by :- Pleasance Dome (6 shows)

This is a total of 14 shows seen at Pleasance venues. This is not surprising in the least. Pleasance has had a pleasantly consistent good standard of shows.

Underbelly and Assembly were my next favourite venue choices with a total of 7 visits each across all their venues. 

Most disappointing shows :- TheSpace

Venue I wish I'd visited more :- Summerhall 


Well, that's it. The Fringe blog is officially over. For this year atleast. Who knows where I'll be, or what I'll be doing next year. As terrifying as that is, it's also incredibly exciting. So here's to the next stage....