Cunning stunts: Edinburgh Festival's greatest PR moments
Edinburgh old-timer Mark Borkowski pays tribute to one of the festival's finest art forms: the publicists' tricks that propel certain performers centre stage
VIEW GALLERY
Related articles
This is the year to celebrate the festival stunt – the quick and naughty publicist's plaything, constructed to achieve mass media attention. Publicity stunts have always been a vital ingredient of the Edinburgh Festival mayhem. They bring a creative flourish and give the shows life outside the rarefied Scottish climate.
Some have suggested the stunt is an endangered species, but I believe it is an art form as relevant as any performance on view in August, so I have set up a Twithibition to celebrate great stunts of the past. Each one has been captured in poster form by the design god David Hillman, based around photographs by Geraint Lewis and located at the home of the original stunt.
Edinburgh is big (show)business now and, as a consequence, is a tougher place for publicists to manoeuvre in – especially since the deaths of right-wing zealots such as Mary Whitehouse and Councillor Moira Knox, who were always ready with a storm of objections to filth at the festival. Even J D Kidd, an Edinburgh councillor who could be relied on to denounce bestiality, nudity and all the other things that guarantee ink, has died.
"Edinburgh has got a bit serious about comedy," John Fleming of the Malcolm Hardee Awards suggested recently. He is attempting to put some of the anarchy back into the Fringe with the Malcolm Hardee Cunning Stunt Award, given for the best fringe publicity stunt of the year and the Twithibition has a similar aim. Putting it up on Twitter allows it to be completely egalitarian – by using the hash tag #twithibition, anyone can commemorate great stunts of the past or show off ones they've managed to pull off at the festival this year. Let the audacity and mayhem begin!
Arts & Ents blogs
Owen Howells: From the UK to Australia and back again (and again!)
Owen Howells is a DJ/producer who grew up in Australia but was born in the UK. He came back to the U...
Brighton Fringe 2013 – Is everyone sitting uncomfortably?
Fancy seeing a play about serial killers? How about inviting a funeral director into your home for a...
The Fall ‘Darkness Visible’ – Series 1, episode 2
There are a good many moments in the second episode of this psychological thriller that deserve refl...
Travel Shop
-
Liam Gallagher slams Daft Punk: 'I could have written Get Lucky in an hour'
-
Rocky Horror star Tim Curry 'suffers major stroke'
-
Archaeologists uncover nearly 5,000 cave paintings in Burgos, Mexico
-
Lord of the Sings: Sir Christopher Lee, 91, to release heavy metal album
-
After 61 films, including The Hangover Part III, Heather Graham admits she still likes to boogie
- 1 What, let gays get married? We must be bonkers
- 2 'Something passed underneath us, quite close': Airbus A320 has close encounter with UFO
- 3 Rocky Horror star Tim Curry 'suffers major stroke'
- 4 Lord of the Sings: Sir Christopher Lee, 91, to release heavy metal album
- 5 Exclusive: Woolwich killings suspect Michael Adebolajo was inspired by cleric banned from UK after urging followers to behead enemies of Islam
Get your summer started with British Military Fitness
BMF is the UK’s biggest and best loved outdoor fitness classes
Visit York
Find out what The Independent's resident travel expert has to say about one of the most beautiful small cities in the world
Making reading fun for kids
Nook is donating eReaders to volunteers at high-need schools and participating in exclusive events throughout the campaign.
Introducing the 'Get Reading' campaign
Get the latest on The Evening Standard's campaign to get London's children reading.
Enter the latest Independent competitions
Win anything from gadgets to five-star holidays on our competitions and offers page.
Business videos from commercial thought leaders
Watch the best in the business world give their insights into the world of business.
Johnny Marr talks relationships and reunions
In pictures: After the flood
Death becomes her: A very modern mortician
School of chop: Learning the art of butchery
The man who's eaten everywhere
A Berliner in 1963 – but did John F Kennedy once admire Adolf Hitler?





Comments