Fantasy Fringe

〰️

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.

How do you make the most of everything happening at Edinburgh Fringe? It’s too much for one person to handle. Kuan-wen Huang teams up with all his different multiverse selves to get the absolute best out of the fest.

Everytime I came back from the Edinburgh Fringe as a punter, the “What ifs” weighed heavily on my mind, replacing the FOMO prior to the Fringe. It's a deep soul-searching phase of drowning myself post Edfringe in thoughts of coulda, woulda, shoulda.

Could I have watched Jinkx Monsoon in a more intimate room than the large hall later if I’d booked the tickets before her Allstar 7 win? Should I have taken a chance on the alien-period drama improv instead of the one man show that turned out to be a private school boy’s artistic wank? Would an emerging comedian’s debut hour be a better experience than a TV name’s work-in-progress show?

A lot of these can be dealt with if we get hold of that parallel universe-hopping device in Everything Everywhere All At Once. Just before the fringe, one of you summon all the different you (plural here, “yous” should not be a word) from different universes for a meeting — except those whose universe already witnessed Edinburgh Fringe Festival going bust — and create a giant Excel spreadsheet. In the first week, you are going to collectively watch every single show on offer at the Fringe Festival. The shows need to be distributed in a fair way so that everyone has at least one dodgy show to stomach, from the edgelords’ “I’d like to think I am a Gen Z Joe Rogan” to nepo babies’ bragging about their fathers’ connections. But you never know — you might enjoy it as a guilty pleasure!

A week later, you (plural) all sit down and unpack. Just by observing how distraught some of your fellow you (plural) are, having gone through some of those Fringe shows, you know what to avoid. Also, since you are basically talking amongst you (plural), there is no need for diplomatic answers or politeness as formality. If a show is shite, just tell fellow you (plural) it’s shite.

This device should of course be lent to the reviewers, so some of them no longer have any excuse to be quasi-permanently camping in Pleasance courtyard citing logistics are a reason not to review shows elsewhere. Hey! There’s an infinite number of you (plural) in other universes. Some of them can even cross the North Bridge to the New Town side. Oh my god, can you imagine??

Maybe if the device can be mass produced, every punter should simply have one. Everyone gets to see as many shows as possible. Then the genuine good shows, from Week 2 onwards, get to sell out. Not just in our universe, but in every single other universe. Basically it is across-parallel-universally acclaimed.

Well unfortunately the device is not there — at least not I know of. Maybe just not in our universe. So the physical restrictions and the rules of the games at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival apply. You (plural) will just have to take my words and take a leap of faith. I think my show is pretty good in this universe. Please come watch it. PLEEEEAAAAASE. It’s a show about my home country Taiwan, which might have already fallen in another universe….

Kuan-wen Huang: Ilha Formosa runs at Gilded Balloon Teviot, from August 2-27 at 5:40pm. Tickets here

Features