Every August, millions flock to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival to watch some of the freshest faces in comedy, theatre, cabaret, musicals, and a man who eats a wheel of cheese at 2 am every single night for the whole month.
I’ve only ever done Fringe as a performer, but when you’re up there for weeks, you learn to find out the best things to see and do. So now, every year, I put together a guide of the hottest things to watch for my friends and family.
The key to doing Fringe right is going with a very open mind. There are going to be thousands of people flyering you. Posters are everywhere, and it can be overwhelming. As soon as you get there, drop your bags at the hotel. I would head straight to one of the beer gardens, which are all over the city, but my favourites are the Pleasance, Assembly George Square Gardens or Bristo Square. The first thing I do is grab Tommy’s margarita. It might be 11 am, but you are on holiday. Relax. Now you have your base, so sit and work out your plan for the day.
An easy hack is to ask other people around you what the best thing they’ve seen so far is. Choose the person in your group with the least social anxiety to do this on your behalf. Word of mouth is how you find out about the freshest talent, the ones who could be about to make it big time and also how you find out about the secret gems of the Fringe – it’s how you find out there’s an Underground Monk Show that has a queue going around the corner, or a Shrek Burlesque show that will change your brain chemistry forever. The first time I went to Fringe, I took my little brother, Will, to a clown cabaret show called Stamptown, which I’d been hearing was the show to watch. It was 11 pm, and Will said, “Sorry, Sophie, are you okay? This sounds weird”. When we left that show at midnight, we immediately booked again to go the next day, and now we go together every year. And yes it was weird, very weird, but in the best possible way – you will cry with laughter and try to retell people back at work what you witnessed and everyone will look at you like, have you lost your mind? Yes.
The beauty of Fringe is that you can book most shows on the day. Still, suppose there is something you’re desperate to see before you get up there. In that case, you can pre-book to save any disappointment. If you miss out on something, here’s a little tip: They sometimes have a queue outside before it starts for you to take the no-show seats.
My last piece of advice is to keep an eye out to see who’s debuting their first-hour shows and watch someone who could win the Best Newcomer Award. Did I mention I’m debuting this year? See my show Poor Little Rich Girl, if you want to watch an hour of me being gorgeous and delusional.
Sophie Garrad brings her debut comedy hour ‘Poor Little Rich Girl’ to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival from Wednesday 30th July – Monday 25th August at the Pleasance Courtyard.
Tickets: pleasance.co.uk/event/sophie-garrad-poor-little-rich-girl
