Put the Fringe out of reach and we'll all pay a high price

My marmalade dropper of the week came after reading The Independent’s report into the staggering costs of taking a show to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, which kicked off its 78th iteration yesterday.

- KAT BROWN

Six and a half grand in accommodation costs alone for the university revue, The Leeds Tealights (excellent name)!

It highlights the most worrying culture of “extract, don’t invest” that exists around its future stars, with minimal government or private investment – despite the Fringe flogging more tickets than any event bar the Fifa World Cup and Olympics – but maximum expectation of scooping up a winner for Netflix or the Beeb. These don’t appear overnight: it takes opportunity.

After graduating in 2004, I packed in my glamorous temp job in a meatpacking factory and drove a van up the A1 to Edinburgh. Two friends and I had won best show at our university drama festival and were ready to spend a month showing it off to – well, literally anyone we could drag in off the street.

While avoiding my finals revision a few months earlier, I had auditioned for, and unexpectedly won, The Weakest Link: boom, an extra £1,000 for the Fringe. Even in 2004, and with accommodation at £100 a week each, it was all gone by the end of the festival.