Neda Mostafavi
posted 23 June 2005

Festival provides an insightful peep into the show that is the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, which takes place in August every year. Filmed on location during last year's festival (2004), Annie Griffin's dark comedy reveals what goes on behind the scenes at the festival and the offstage drama that is the product of the intense, overflowing atmosphere unique to the city at that time of year.

As in her Channel 4 series The Book Group, Griffin's dark humour sets an interesting tone. This darkness suits Festival perfectly, with its focus on comedy, the single biggest element of the festival. As Griffin observes 'It's a cliché that comedians tend to be very serious, but in general I don't think satisfied, happy people feel the need to perform. There is a neediness in performers. The relentlessness of that desire to get up in front of people has its dark side'. Festival reveals this with a sharp eye for raw edges. The need for attention and acceptance is emphasised further by the abundance of sexual encounters and a burst of sexual experimentation too.

Tons of energy comes out of this film, probably because of the actual presence of the festival. The comedians: Sean Sullivan (Stephen Mangan from The Green Wing), Tommy O'Dwyer (Chris O'Dowd) and Nicky Romanowski (Lucy Punch) all either wrote or at least contributed to the comic material they performed, the moody childlike comic genius, the drunk Irish depressive and the Jewish 'babe' respectively. The film therefore feels very much integrated with the actual festival itself, a real part of it.

Where the city and the festival meet also creates an interesting concoction. This is most explicitly seen in Micheline (Amelie Bullmore from Coronation Street), who crosses between the two worlds. A traditional well-to-do Scottish housewife suffering post natal depression, Micheline becomes fascinated by a group of Canadian boho actors and rejects her own lifestyle to become one of them.

As there is no focal plot, but a series of somewhat linked plots (similar to the structure of Love, Actually), many perspectives are explored. From different attitudes to and relationships with the festival to different attitudes to comedy or even ways of life, the film covers interesting ground from a fresh angle. Festival strives to find the exciting and unexpected paradoxes that exist in this context, and succeeds.