Fantasy Fringe

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Fantasy Fringe 〰️

We’re excited about the Edinburgh Fringe, but it’s clear it needs to change. A lot of people have a lot of ideas, but nothing has really happened yet. So we decided to ask the comedians themselves: in your fantasy, what would the Fringe look like? It might have been a mistake.

The Rat King is dead, long live the Rat King! Jodie Mitchell was present at the latest meeting of Edinburgh’s biggest rodent cluster, and reports back with their findings on how a big, writhing pile of rats can make the Fringe a better place for us all.

Rodents of Edinburgh Annual Gathering

Meeting Minutes

5th July 2023

Rat King LXXVI: Friends, thank you for coming to this meeting regarding our aims for Edinburgh Fringe 2023. As you know, we ate the former Rat King, and we are now the Rat King.

Many rats: Long live Rat King seventy six!

Rat King LLXXVI: Yes, thank you. Can the minutes please note that the Rat King is made of many rats tangled together by their tails? Many visitors to the Fringe last year hadn’t come across the concept before and thought we were simply a singular large rat. Until they saw us in our tangled glory!

Assorted Rats: Fools! He is many rats in one! He is our benevolent socialist leader! He has many minds grouped around one enmeshed tail cluster! He has the brainpower to resolve all issues!

Rat King LLXXVI: Yes indeed. To business. As you know, we have a passion for good and are highly intelligent. Last year we made a valiant effort to fix the Fringe, capitalising on the strike of the bin lords. By the final week, we had completely inhabited the piles of rubbish left by them so that performers and visitors alike would see in us their own dire accommodation issues and take action. But did they?

Miscellaneous Rats: No! They simply normalised it! They did not see we mirrored them! They journeyed through the trash maze quite happily! They seemed fine with many not being able to afford to come!

Rat King LLXXVI: Yes, my friends! So then, we ate each other in a desperate attempt to show the visitors that without shared resources and mutual support, all will crumble. That funding must exist to ensure all artists can afford to come to the festival, for without them it suffers. Our former king sacrificed himself to the performance. It was a masterpiece on class politics! But did they notice?

Various Rats: No! They mildly disliked our cannibalism at most!

Rat King LLXXVI: So what are we to do, friends? What would help the arts to thrive? To be as diverse as they should be? To survive the cost of living crisis?

Ratty Gervais: I have written a show where I say that-

Rat King LLXXVI: Let the minutes show that Ratty Gervais ate himself in a moment of clarity. Truly helpful. Ah, I see a few more rats have attached into the Rat King. Alas, we cannot physically visit different shows when we are attached, but only through mass action will we see any change! I propose one giant Rat King, so large we form walls and stages from our writhing bodies, to provide housing and platforms for every artist! May our paws flail the fliers of every artist except the arsehole ones! May our tails knot together to form the grounded centre of a new fringe! Long live the Rat King Utopia!

Rat King LLXXVII: Long may we reign! And we should all go to see Jodie Mitchell’s show ‘Becoming John Travulva’. Shouldn’t we? Yes, it aligns strongly with our values and we have heard it is great.

Jodie Mitchell: Becoming John Travulva is at Pleasance Courtyard (Below), from August 2-17th, 9:50pm. Tickets here

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