Edinburgh Fringe offers comics help to cope with stress of performance

The Sick of the Fringe initiative highlights the mental health toll of Edinburgh’s endurance test

In Edinburgh from Friday, audiences of festival fringe-goers will sit in the dark in venues across the city, waiting for a performer to make them laugh or cry, or both. But what happens if the performers cannot force themselves out on to the stage? For the first time at this festival, an innovative programme funded by the Wellcome Trust and called The Sick of the Fringe, will acknowledge that many entertainers who come to the city for August’s festivities face a month-long mental and physical endurance test as well as a succession of hopeful crowds.

“There is a unique level of exhaustion and competition up at Edinburgh. I am aware of people who have got halfway through a show and then said they can’t do any more and asked their audience to leave,” said Tom Allen, a stand-up who is keen to draw attention to the strain borne by his fellow comedians – although he admits that they rarely attract public sympathy.

Continue reading...