Five tribes of Edinburgh

Alfie Brown is your anthropologist...

1. Students

If you chance upon the right venue you may see an intimidating horde of loud, colourfully dressed teenagers shouting at you trying to convince you that coming to see Facebook: The Musical or some two-hander play that thinks it’s about victim blaming, would improve your day. It usually wouldn’t. Although I once went to go and see a jazz production of Turandot in which they had cut Nessun Dorma. That was worth it.

2. Actors

These are like the students but with the enthusiasm drained from them. Walking ghost like, mouth corners creaking up trying to commit to a functioning smiling. Like taxidermy, once functioning vessels for hope, these are dangerous groups to consort with, five minutes too long drawing out a forced conversation about how ‘everything is fine really’ and you will find yourself morally obliged to go to see their play about child abuse or if not child abuse some kind of abuse. ‘Ah wow. That was.. that was.. great.. I’ve never seen anyth.. such a brave.. yeah. just wow.’

3. Industry

If you go to one of the artist bars in Edinburgh you’ll find the king makers. They are loud laughers, very loud, as if to say, ‘here’s my laugh and I’m in the business so it means something’. They’re dressed like a frenzied five- minute £1,000 spree took place on the Asos website, boisterously clinking glasses in a sandstorm of gak, using artists as a conduit to exercise their own self obsession.

4. Comedians

These people very much think about themselves as occupying the main hall in this trade fair. Many of them drinking their way through the slow realisation that the haemorrhaging of thousands of pounds might not have been the sensible and sound investment they had hoped. All courteously and constantly bumping into one another around the city asking ‘How is your show going?’ like children back at school after the Christmas holiday asking another ‘what did you get for Christmas?’ as a method only to talk about the bike that they themselves received.

Bitter and feeling perennially wronged they write bizarre over-written lists about how everyone is awful in the vain hope that someone will read it, be endeared by the irony and buy tickets for their actually rather funny show. TICKETS

5. Them

These are the ticket buyers. The most important people in a way. Who invest and are interested. They keep the festival going. I have no idea who they are.