Northern exposure

Edinburgh is a flashers’ convention.

Edinburgh is a flashers’ convention. Everyone wants exposure. They come to build their brand, to raise recognition levels among the oblivious, to smuggle themselves into your brain while you’re not looking. So don’t feel obliged to buy a ticket. Your attendance is sufficient reward. Performers know the fringe is a gamble and they risk only what they can afford to lose: most of August and most of their savings. If you want comedy you’ll find numerous free venues listed at freefringe.org.uk. The best of these, by some distance, is The Canon’s Gait located at the lower end of a road known to the entire world — apart from the fringe map, which calls it ‘High Street’ — as the Royal Mile. Ale costs three quid. The crowded basement has the sweaty, uneasy, crackling energy of a beer hall in the middle of a revolution. Still, it’s good-natured.