One of the pleasures of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe is taking a chance on something you know almost nothing about. That’s particularly true of the Free Fringe, where voluntary donations mean you can experiment without having to worry about wasting your money.
So, having stopped for a post-show pint in Captain’s Bar, I was leafing through the Free Fringe programme, the Wee Blue Book, with two fellow Fringe explorers when my eye caught a listing for IYKYK. Something ‘amazing and unique’ would happen, apparently. Would we experience it, or would we miss out? It was a one-off, and it started in 11 minutes. That was enough. We drained our glasses and headed towards the Cowgate.
Rain was now hammering down, and after an only slightly alarming slide on the slippery setts of South College Street, we dodged the flyerers on Niddry Street and made for Banshee Labyrinth. There’s something gloriously unpolished about this stretch of the Fringe. Dark, dingy and faintly malodorous.
Into the secret gig
Inside Banshee Labyrinth, we escaped the rain and headed into its dark recesses. At the entrance to the room, another question: “Are you here for the poetry show?” Clearly, we didn’t look like people who knew exactly what was going on. We took seats towards the back, conveniently close to the door. Within minutes, the room was packed.
And then came the chanting. “SECRET GIG! SECRET GIG!” It was energetic, slightly chaotic and almost intimidating. Clearly many of those present knew each other and belonged to the same Spoken Word and Poetry circle. We were the outsiders. Still, the poetry itself quickly won us over.
The opening piece, reflecting on the realities of performing at the Fringe, set the tone. What followed was a striking mixture of styles and subjects. Some poems were deeply personal, drawing on difficult experiences, but the better pieces moved beyond autobiography into something more universal.
The gig that changed the world
The highlight for me was a superb poem about the Sex Pistols’ legendary 1976 concert at Manchester’s Lesser Free Trade Hall, the gig that supposedly changed the world.Only a few dozen people attended that concert, yet many went on to become major figures in punk and post-punk. The poem, however, deliberately looked away from those famous names towards two people whose presence at the gig has largely been forgotten. It was an act of resistance against history’s tendency to remember the stars and discard everyone else. Delivered with real intensity, it had the room completely absorbed.
At one point, poet Craig Chalmers, sitting beside me, asked whether I was going to get up and perform something myself.For a moment, I wondered if that was the next stage of the evening. It wasn’t, but the possibility was enough to make me reconsider my decision to sit near the exit. There was something almost evangelical about IYKYK: part poetry night, part secret society, part revival meeting. It also demonstrated why Spoken Word works so well on the Free Fringe. Give performers a microphone, some basic lighting and a black curtain and they can create something powerful without the need for elaborate technology.
Taking the plunge
But there was a slight problem.
For outsiders like us, the secrecy and in-jokes could also be off-putting. If you’re going to advertise a show in the Free Fringe programme, surely you want random passers-by to discover it, particularly those who might never normally attend performance poetry. The mystery was part of the attraction, but perhaps a little more explanation would have helped. Even so, stepping back out into the damp Edinburgh night, we were glad we had taken the plunge.
Had I known exactly what IYKYK was going to be like beforehand, I might well have stayed in Captain’s Bar, warm and dry. I would have missed the chants, the poetry, the slightly bewildering feeling of stumbling into somebody else’s cultural secret society, and a genuinely memorable performance.
That, perhaps, is the Fringe at its best. You take a chance. Sometimes you get something brilliant. Sometimes you get something strange. Occasionally you get something that isn’t really for you at all. But if you never take the plunge, you’ll never know what you might have discovered.
IYKYK was a one-off show as part of PBH’s Free Fringe.
