(It's just Arthur Smith doing his walks)

Arthur Smith is not going to let a little thing like a global pandemic stop his annual trip to the Edinburgh Fringe… even if the festival itself has been cancelled.

The veteran comedian has attended 42 Fringes – and his late-night tours of the Royal Mile have become a thing of festival legend since he started them in 1977.

Today he announced that the walks will still go ahead next month, branding them ‘probably the only show on the Fringe’. Normally there are about 4,000.

Described, tongue-in-cheek,  as ‘a piece of radical, site–specific, outdoor promenade performance art’, the tour tells the story of Edinburgh and its festivals without being too constrained by the facts.

One change, apart from the audience being encouraged to wear ‘suitably eccentric’ protective equipment, is that the walks will take place in the daytime, and be family friendly. Although there will be a traditional midnight over-18s show on Saturday August 15 that’s likely to be more rambunctious.

Although traditionally starting at the gates of Edinburgh Castle, this year’s  tour will begin in the Pleasance Courtyard at 2pm and 6pm every day from August 8 to 15

Previous tours have included surprise celebrity guests  including Steve Coogan, Lucy Porter, Mike McShane, Shappi Khorsandi and Jonathan Ross - plus the occasional glimpse of nudity. 

In 2000 Smith and Simon Munnery were arrested on public order offences during the tour after residents called the police at 3.30am. Smith was using a megaphone to lecture a crowd of 200, including Munnery who was playing the part of a German tourist called Heinrich.

Tickets are available from The Pleasance, priced £10, thus enabling the behemoth venue to claim it has never missed a Fringe since it first opened in 1985.

Published: 22 Jul 2020