My first time performing at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival was in 2013.

I was a student in a group sketch show at a venue that no longer exists. Often there were more people in the sketch group than in the audience, and we thought we were rock stars!

That was the same year an actor and writer called Phoebe Waller-Bridge decided to take her own show Fleabag to the festival, and out of that, Britain got one of the biggest television shows of the past decade.

I’ve gone back to the Fringe every year since. 

One of my favourite comics I’d go to see from 2013 to 2016 was a guy called Richard Gadd. His shows were mad. And I wasn’t surprised in 2016 when he won the Edinburgh award for best comedy show. The only surprise there was, as he admitted in the show, it wasn’t a comedy.

Skip forward to 2019 and he’s doing a theatre show at the Fringe called Baby Reindeer. Assume you’ve heard of it?

To give you context of how much of a phenomenon his TV show has been, I was doing some gigs last month in Stockholm when a Russian guy started speaking to me in the pub toilets. I explained I was English, and he didn’t know much English, but he was able to say ‘Why are you in Stockholm?’ I explained ‘I’m doing comedy here’, he laughed and said, ‘Baby Reindeer!’

It’s awesome to see the Edinburgh Fringe Festival work for these supremely talented people and give them all the success they deserve.

But why doesn’t it seem to do this for stand-up comedy?

In the same 11 years, where are the comedians who originally broke through at the Fringe, and are now household names across the world?

You may point to Richard Gadd and say he is an example. Is he?

The show that became Baby Reindeer is a theatre show, not a comedy. His award-winning ‘comedy' show boils down to one gripping and horrible episode in the series.

The one stand-up you’re probably shouting at me for missing out is Hannah Gadsby, joint comedy award-winner in 2018. Nanette was arguably the biggest stand-up comedy show of the 2010s, so why is it still debated whether it’s stand-up comedy or theatre?

Romesh Ranganathan (nominated in 2014 for the comedy award), and James Acaster (nominated 2012-2016) are good shouts, but are not exciting new comedians.

Now it’s worth mentioning at this point I am not a fringe success. I wish! That’s probably the point of this article. Where’s my award!?

But truly as someone who every year is paying more and more to go up to Edinburgh for a month and perform, I’m starting to ask myself: does this actually help a stand-up career?

I’ve had far more success focusing on online comedy than the opinions of a panel in Edinburgh.

And when I think of the British acts that have become big ticket-sellers in stand-up comedy over the last five years – Adam Rowe and Simon Brodkin to name a couple –  they’re not Fringe darlings. Again, they have focused far more on producing online content and finding an audience that way.

Mo Gilligan is arguably the biggest breakthrough name in British comedy over the last ten years, and he was never nominated for an Edinburgh award. If you’re wondering why, it’s because he never even took a solo show to Edinburgh.

So why is the fringe not producing the new stars of British stand-up comedy?

As the price of accommodation and venue hire goes up, for no reason, it seems, than greed, the festival becomes more and more of an upper middle-class carnival. Reviews for comedy shows also seem to favour serious, traumatic comedy-theatre pieces. So as an act, if you’ve already paid a lot to be there, it makes sense to write some tragicomedy and try to get a good review while you’re at it.

These shows that get countless five star reviews do a run at the Soho Theatre, and then what? I’ve wondered this for years, where do they go?

I never have any friends outside of comedy talk about them. I never see clips online from them. Looking down the last five years of nominees, I can’t see any that have become Netflix specials apart from Catherine Cohen, an American act who already had a very successful career stateside.

It’s worth mentioning Leo Reich who was nominated for a debut comedy award in 2022, and has since released that as a special on HBO Max. Why does young British comedy talent have to travel thousands of miles just to get a special made by a big company?

There’s obviously some disconnect between what reviewers at the Fringe want, and what the rest of the country wants. Or the British comedy industry isn’t supporting these young stars to reach a wider audience. 

When I talk to my peers about what they’re working on, it’s mind-boggling how many say their agents are just telling them to ‘try posting content’.

As comedians we’re told to pay such a huge chunk of our annual salary to go to the Fringe, just so we can have the Orwellian-sounding ‘industry’ see us and potentially get on an existing TV comedy show that loses viewers annually.

I will admit, the stage time you get at the Fringe does make you a better stand-up. But it really shouldn’t cost so much just to work on your act, and with no guarantee of making any of that money back.

Maybe I’m wrong, maybe I’m bitter, or maybe I’m just trying to talk myself out of ever getting a good review from this website, but this will probably be my last year doing stand-up comedy at the Fringe for a while. 

I feel that Edinburgh is now more detached from normal comedy fans than ever. 

If you’re looking to make a TV show, maybe spend your money going up to Edinburgh Fringe with a really well-written and incredibly performed theatre show.

If you want to become a successful famous stand-up comedian, maybe it’s best to spend your money buying a digital camera, Tripod and some editing software.

• Ali Woods new stand-up show At The Moment is at the Underbelly Bristo Square at 8.30pm