It's almost midnight and Asher Treleaven is on stage. He's not wearing much: heavy eyeliner, a wig coiffed in a classic '80s blow wave, a bandana wrapped Rambo-like around his forehead and animal print jocks. He also has one testicle protruding out the side.
As audience members spot this, a Mexican wave of laughter erupts. While Treleaven is fully aware, his character Peter remains oblivious and continues to stride about the stage, making a point no one is listening to, as laughter at his exposed junk is pretty much drowning out anything else.
It's a sublimely silly moment and the audience cannot get enough. The laughter leaks out of the flimsy walls of the small Spiegeltent we are in. The piccolo, as this one is called, is one of 300 venues that either pop up or are repurposed for performances for August as the Scottish capital is transformed by an international influx of creativity.
This is the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. It is the largest performing arts event on the planet. Like the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year, the fringe is celebrating its 70th birthday this month. It began in 1947 when eight groups showed up hoping to perform as part of the newly formed Edinburgh International Festival but were denied. Undeterred, they staged their shows anyway and so, from humble, anarchic beginnings, the mammoth Edinburgh Festival Fringe was born.
This is Treleaven's 11th visit. He first came as a street performer, then a stand-up and now he's back with a double act. Performing with real-life former wife Gypsy Wood as a loved-up on-stage couple, the pair have struck comedy gold expertly blending suburban Aussie dagginess with an over-earnest Vegas sensibility to create a new genre they call parody disaster magic. Their show, Peter and Bambi Heaven: When Love Becomes Magic, is one of 3398 shows presenting here, giving punters the chance to see 53,232 performances.
"The Edinburgh Fringe as I know it has always been a brilliant slog through fireworks, pissing rain and glory," Treleaven says. "Some people come here to experiment, some come to win and all come hoping to do brilliantly. The best description I've heard of the fringe came from comedian Simon Munnery: 'The fringe is not a race, it's not a marathon, it's a dance. A dance in a room slowly filling with bees'."
Metaphorical bees aside, Australian performers flock here annually. About 200 flew long-haul to participate in this year's festival, which concluded last week. Multiple disciplines are represented – dance, circus, music, cabaret, variety, spoken word and kids' shows – and while theatre accounts for 28 per cent of the program, comedy dominates, with more than a third of shows dedicated to the funny.
All the major award winners from this year's Melbourne International Comedy Festival are in town – Barry Award-winner Hannah Gadsby, Pinder Prize recipient Damien Power and Director's Choice Demi Lardner. Last year's Barry winner, Zoe Coombs Marr, is performing both her award-winning show Trigger Happy and Wild Bore, her collaboration with Ursula Martinez and Adrienne Truscott. Sam Simmons, who won Edinburgh's top comedy honour in 2015, is back, as are regular faces here such as Jimeoin and Sarah Kendall.
Melbourne-based stand-up Nath Valvo made his Edinburgh debut last year and collected a best newcomer nomination in the process but that didn't spare him some tricky moments earlier in his season. He experienced everything from a cancelled show due to zero ticket sales, tough shows to small audiences and the psychological torment of doubting his voice as a comedian. It also gave him a cold sore. "The only other time I got a cold sore in my life was 10t years ago when someone close to me died, so when someone says 'was Edinburgh stressful?' I give them that comparison," Valvo says.
Fortunately, he's having a vastly different experience this year. Back with Not in This House, Valvo is consistently selling out shows. "It may be a little bit of a trickle on from the nomination last year but maybe not, who knows," he says. "This festival has no rhyme or reason."
The four-star review in The Scotsman certainly didn't hurt. However, Valvo also attributes it to a shift in his intention for this run. "I'm here to find my audience, not to find out if I can do it, so I think I'm here with a different attitude this year. Last year was, 'am I good comedian? Can I do this?' and so when you have a shitty night you go, 'oh my god, the last eight years have been for nothing!' "
Having warmed up for the show by touring the festival circuit back home has also helped. "So if you do your show for 12 weeks in Australia and you come here and it's not tight, you're doing something wrong," he says.
Pieta Farrell works nine months of the year at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival as artists and program administrator and the rest of the time as an independent producer. She started her dancing career in Sydney but, with a masters in arts and cultural management, has since retired from burlesque to be a full-time producer. In Edinburgh producing four shows, she knows how difficult it can be for artists. "I've done the solo performer-producer-director thing and it's awful, you feel so alone. I've actually run into a few performers who are here on their own and they're like 'I'm really lonely'."
That said, she believes Australians are good at forming a community. "There's enough of us who have been over a couple of times, or many times now, to know how to 'do' the festival," Farrell says. "We've kind of banded together and we're there for each other and that's the only way you can get through is by supporting each other."
Treleaven and Wood have also put in many hours of preparation. "We've invested an enormous amount physically, financially and emotionally into this show," Treleaven says. "Rehearsals started the moment our Australian tour ended in June and have lasted over two months. We've been putting in 14-hour days writing, creating and rehearsing in preparation to work with our director Cal McCrystal. The process has been extremely bruising, both physically and mentally, but the results are starting to pay off."
Not only are Australian acts competing with thousands of other fringe shows, they're also up against the Edinburgh International Festival, the Edinburgh Art Festival, the Edinburgh International Book Festival and the Royal Military Tattoo, which run concurrently and are vying for the attention of ticket buyers. To sell out here becomes an even greater achievement.
Burlesque performers Hot Brown Honey have been doing that every night. "Playing to full houses feels freakin' awesome and when one of our hashtags is MAKENOISE it really helps to have the peeps," group co-director Lisa Fa'alafi says. "Selling out also just takes a huge amount of pressure off, travelling from Australia is a big gamble so it's a big relief when the work can pay for itself as well as get the response from audiences that you hoped for."
Having a strong show helps but promotion is a big part of the mix. The city is wallpapered with show images – bollards, buses, banners and billboards – there's not a surface where a poster hasn't been slapped up, making the festival feel overwhelming. Where does one begin? It's why the fringe is frequently referred to as a "word of mouth festival" and flyering is particularly effective here.
The Big Four multi-venue venues – Pleasance, Gilded Balloon, Assembly and Underbelly – all have temporary "real estate" including performance spaces, box offices, food trucks, bars and beer gardens clustered around the university, from Bristo to George squares. A pedestrian thoroughfare links them all and people with flyers line up on either side, barely a metre apart at times, and hustle the hordes of passers-by: "Free coffee with comedy!", "Sketch comedy starting in 10 minutes", "Award-winning stand-up".
In the middle of this melee M Magazine speaks with Josh Glanc, who is wearing a full-body muscle suit and footy shorts, and carrying glittery confetti in his pocket, which he uses to attract attention if his costume fails to.
"Flyering culture is very different here than it is in Australia," says Glanc, who's putting in at least three hours a day promoting his show, Manful. "There's a perception in Australia that if it's your show that you're flyering, then you're struggling, there's a desperation; but there isn't that connotation in Edinburgh. In Edinburgh, people want to know what's on. They've come out to explore the different offerings of different shows, there's an openness."
Glanc is making his debut here after winning Best Comedy Perth Fringe World this year.
Lauren Bok is also making her debut here with her show Is That a Burrito in Your Pocket or Are You Just Happy You Have a Burrito. To generate attention at the start of her run, she recreated her poster image – her reclining among burrito ingredients – in the middle of Bristo Square. Despite the grey skies, cool temperatures, wind and rain, the Scots still insist on referring to this time of year as "summer" and Bok copped the lot. But the show, and the publicity stunt, must go on and she persisted in the drizzle. "A human burrito? Cool!" came one comment from under a passing umbrella. "This is what we do for our art," Bok says. "But you don't see Robyn Nevin lying down in a burrito, do you? She's a celebrated theatre actress, so her art is a little different to mine. But you gotta do what you gotta do."
"Edinburgh Fringe is really important. It's the world's largest open access performing arts market," says Briefs Factory's Linda Catalano, who produces Hot Brown Honey.
Treleaven says: "There are producers, agents and life-changers out there hiding in plain sight with the rest of your crowd."
The festival also allows artists to gauge how their work fits in the world.
"It really tests the clarity of your voice as a maker because in Sydney I have a really amazing community around me, but I have them before I even walk in the room," says Emma Maye Gibson, creator of the spectacular Betty Grumble, who has been riding high on excellent word of mouth and full houses.
"For the most part, that's really beautiful, so to come over to the other side of the world where you are unknown and to test your ideas, it's a fast way to find out whether what you're doing is clicking into place. .
"It's super rigorous as well. It's like being an athlete, you get up every day, flyer, do the show, after the show you do spots. You become a different kind of beast in these fringe environments and I really get off on it, running from gig to gig, pushing yourself into this endurance landscape. You've gotta really love it and want it".
According to Treleaven: "This festival can change your life."
No holds barred at the Gilded
The Edinburgh Festival Fringe buzzes with shows pretty much around the clock. Kids' shows start in the mornings, performances run during the day into evening and come midnight, the line-up shows start. For almost half its existence, the festival has been home to the most famed – and feared – stand-up comedy room in the world. Kicking off at 1am, Late'n' Live runs seven nights a week at the Gilded Balloon.
So notorious were the brutal heckles, it was nicknamed the Bear Pit and, while it has become tamer, it still has a reputation as one of the harder rooms to conquer. For the past decade, Australian producer Frehd Southern-Starr has been booking the room. "We have so many good comedians," she says. "I've got such a big selection."
Australian highlights from this year?
"Nick Cody, he always storms it. Laura Davis rocked it the other night, she was brilliant. She's just fearless. Double Denim are another one, they're getting really great feedback in the building and rocked Late'n'Live."