As the Edinburgh Fringe returns this week for 2024, how does it reflect the issues of gender-equality within comedy at large?
In the thousands of years since the first festival, one aspect has remained unchanged: complaints about headliners. Last year, twenty percent of UK festival headliners were women. This year, two out of three Glastonbury headliners were women for the first time. But what happens when artists get to choose the line-up? Though famous for its comedy and theater, not music, the Edinburgh Fringe Festival is an “open access arts festival”. Since 1947, when performers showed up uninvited to the Edinburgh International Festival, no central body decides which acts can perform at the Fringe. Anyone can take part, as long as they find a venue. But does the Edinburgh Fringe avoid the gender inequality that other festivals face? Is the Fringe fair?
Data collected by Power Play at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2018 found that more women than men held lead roles on stage, with women dominating offstage roles as well. However, the same study found that men at the Fringe earned an average of 60 per cent more than women. Though Edinburgh is lauded as a place for newcomers to be discovered – Robin Williams, Alan Rickman and Phoebe Waller-Bridge, to name a few – it is also prohibitively expensive for many due to inflated accomodation costs which make it tough to break even. If women working the Fringe are not even making the same as their male counterparts then, for many, the show cannot go on.
Comedian Grace Campbell, who returns to the Fringe this year with her new show ‘Grace Campbell is on Heat’, told Mission that the Fringe has “been the making of my career.” Winning awards at the festival can garner attention from TV commissioners or producers, as was the case with Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s ‘Fleabag’, which won the Fringe First Award in 2013 and was picked up by the BBC. Four of the last five ‘Best Newcomer’ awards have been won by women, unlike the award’s first ten years, in which it was only given to men (such as Noel Fielding and Harry Hill). But comedy remains male-dominated, as Campbell confirmed to Mission. The BBC’s well-intended rule that each panel show must include at least one woman seems to have been taken by many as a limiting prescription, rather than a springboard for gender inclusivity. Only 3 of the past 11 winners of Edinburgh’s ‘Main Prize’ identify as women or non-binary.
“I’m obsessed with wearing looks that lil baby me might have played dress-up in as a little girl. Those ultra feminine glamor moments give me the confidence to go on stage and slay”.
Catherine Cohen
But Edinburgh continues to pioneer some of the most exciting women and non-binary comics. Whilst Miranda Hart had to routinely cancel her first show at the Fringe due to no audience, recent years have seen comics such as Rose Matafeo and Hannah Gadsby winning awards which launched them into Netflix catalogs worldwide. A key theme the Fringe has highlighted this summer is “the female experience”. Far from monolithic, these acts include a show about teen girls in Iran dealing with the morality police (‘A Fire Ignites’) and a series of monologues about sex from an all-woman cast (‘A Girl Gets Naked In This’). Also at Edinburgh this year is Catherine Cohen with her new show ‘Come For Me’.
A seasoned Edinburgh performer – she won Best Newcomer in 2019 – Cohen told Mission that “nothing is too personal if I find it funny. I trust that whatever makes me laugh will make a crowd laugh, and if it doesn’t they probably have bad taste and should get that checked out.” Cohen’s signature confidence is lent to topics from psychiatry to sex, wrapped in musical interludes and sequins. “I’m obsessed with wearing looks that lil baby me might have played dress-up in as a little girl. Those ultra feminine glamor moments give me the confidence to go on stage and slay”. It’s a far cry from what one industry insider called an industry run rampant with “willy-waving machismo”. Instead, Cohen has “been lucky enough to come up in a community full of women and queer people who support all kinds of self-expression on stage”, naming Patti Harrison, Mitra Jouhari and Pat Regan as friends who particularly encouraged her at the start of her career.
“I’ve been blessed with incredible mates in comedy to prevent me from ever suffering the male domination that hard.“
Grace Campbell
Campbell echoed these sentiments: “I’ve been blessed with incredible mates in comedy to prevent me from ever suffering the male domination that hard. Alice Brine and Christopher Hall are my ride or dies and our WhatsApp group is like comedy group therapy.” These friends, she told Mission, are key to protecting her when the professional becomes personal: “I set good boundaries between work and life, but I am an open and honest person so my comedy does just reflect that naturally. With this show it’s been hard but I’m fucking proud that I’ve managed to turn a painful story of an abortion into a funny and grown up show that I’m proud to perform.” What looks to be the most innovative and exciting comedy at this year’s Fringe has women at the forefront. Who’s laughing now?
Homepage image of Grace Campbell, courtesy of Eva Pentel. Above image of Catherine Cohen, courtesy of the artist.
