Yurts, a cruise ship, my flat: all the city’s a stage at the Edinburgh fringe

From the backseat of a moving car to a swimming pool, what constitutes a venue at Scotland’s sprawling arts festival never fails to surprise

Of all the extraordinary things about the Edinburgh fringe, the easiest to take for granted is that performances in the world’s biggest arts festival take place almost anywhere other than actual theatres. Over the years, I have even hosted three shows in my own flat, including a production of The Tempest in which Ferdinand was found in the kitchen frying eggs for Miranda. In other people’s homes, I have seen one about sex trafficking and another about sexual assault, both all the more powerful for their intimacy.

I was in an audience of three sitting in the back of a moving car for an underworld murder mystery. I sat poolside for a Ukrainian version of Othello in which the actors swam lengths of the old Infirmary Street baths. I skulked around the clothes rails in Debenhams after hours for a play about food consumption and watched a site-specific dance piece in room 206 of the Caledonian hotel.

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