Power

〰️

Power 〰️

The Edinburgh Fringe is back for 2026, and with it, our annual feature series! This year, we’re taking on POWER: Who’s got it? Where is it? Where should it be? How do you get it? Our comedians are the only ones with the answers.

By Tom Greaves

The myth goes that the bouffons were the ugly, deformed, queer, illegitimate, unwanted members of society, banished from the city to live in the swamps outside its walls, where they ate dead birds and banded together.

Once a year they were allowed back in, to perform for kings and queens and the wealthy and high-status. Cleverly, sneakily, they satirised the hypocrisy and delusion they saw around them. Their impressions cut so close to the bone that their targets would laugh in the moment, then go home and buckle under the truth and shame of it. It's the tradition Gutter belongs to. But what happens when the joke lands on us?

Jung wrote about the trickster as one of the figures that moves through the unconscious — the part of us that catches the rational mind unawares, puncturing the ego and dragging the shadow into the light. He challenges the King: our steadfast internal ruler, the part of us invested in staying composed, in control, certain of its own story. Integrating the trickster's mess is what's sometimes called "shadow work" — coming to terms with our ugly desires, buried insecurities, unwanted feelings. We ignore him at our peril, because the King's actions need to be kept in check. Bouffon exists to keep us aware of our power and the shadow it casts, which, left in darkness, threatens to destroy us.

Subscribe to the newsletter

I felt this directing Gutter, a late-night comedy night featuring clowning drag and alternative cabaret. Being both part of the ensemble and at the helm of the night is tricky territory. In one rehearsal, trying to navigate it, I told the other two I saw myself as "captain of the troupe." The improvisation immediately turned into them mockingly saluting me, "Captain, my Captain." It was hilarious but also, if I'm honest, a bit humiliating. I wanted to be alongside them exposing hypocrisy, not be the butt of the joke myself. But that discomfort was the point.

We moved away from it being personal, and now, in performance, it's a bit where the three of us stand back from the microphone stand, none of us wanting to take the lead. The moment one of us does, they're immediately, childishly mocked. Looking back at our process, it was interesting that the moment I occupied authority, however temporarily, the bouffon turned its gaze on me, which is exactly what bouffon is supposed to do to power.

I learned something there. Whether it lands the same way for an audience is a harder question. Can bouffon actually change anything for the people watching, or does laughing it off just let off steam instead of confronting what's underneath it? Ideally it does neither — it shouldn't relieve the pressure, and it shouldn't fully satisfy. It should leave a bee in the bonnet: hang on, are they chatting about us? A living, visceral political cartoon. An image that doesn't quite leave you alone afterwards.

I don't know whether bouffon changes the world. But I do know that when the fool disappears, power starts believing its own story. Perhaps that's why the bouffons keep returning from the gutter: opening up the bin and wafting the smell of our unwanted truth under our noses.

Gutter – A Bouffon Comedy Ritual is running at Underbelly Bristo Square (Friesian) from Aug 18-30th at 23:20. Tickets here