Fringe Rules

These are the Fringe rules that I have been working on over the last 11 years, in the hope that many young ambitious youngsters will heed my advice and enjoy the Festival right away.

Rule one of the Fringe…don’t annoy the talent. When you see people walking around the street they would really like to be left alone, they obviously don’t want fans to approach them, as it would be never ending. In saying this, the man who told me this bit of advice has been stalking Richard Hearing for 11 years and on several “chance” encounters has said some really creepy things to him. So…morale of the story is

Rule two of the Fringe…beware of single white females. I’m a long standing believer that the Fringe programme should be clearly marked like the lonely hearts ads. One woman shows should be clearly labelled as the sad, lonely, attention grabbing hour long mind fucks they are. Its not like female comedians (who I love to bits) it’s just more self obsessed tripe from people who are slowing losing a grip on who they are.

Rule three of the Fringe…beware of bare feet. Bare feet from the cast members just screams pretentious tit wankery and it always spells disaster. If you are in a small venue with a bunch of tourists who don’t look like they are 100% on what’s going on and the cast come out in bare feet, I advise you just get up and leave. You already lost 10 bucks on the ticket price don’t lose an hour of your life watching the fevered dream of 4 awkward teens and a drama teacher with delusions of granger.

Rule four of the Fringe…don’t fuck with the tourists. These guys are your customers, they fill your seats and they hand over a lot of there hard earned (in some cases) money. They also will annoy the living fuck out of you if you let them, but you got to let it go. No matter what stupid pish they start spouting just smile, nod and if worse comes to worse get down on those knees.

Rule five of the Fringe…don’t burn the locals. People in Edinburgh have to put with the most ignorant people for the month of August and they do it with a smile. The locals are on strict instruction to be as helpful as possible to all you Nancy boys and Prima Donnas. Out of courtesy its best to antagonise them more than they already are (see rule four about annoying tourists).

Mr Bison