Trygve Wakenshaw on the best and worst of the Edinburgh Fringe

Hello. I’m Trygve Wakenshaw,

I’m not going to beat around the bush. I’m going to hit you hard with my opinions. 

Fringe binge

I can’t get enough of seeing my friends performing and then following a mysterious trail of recommendations and overheard suggestions to plan what I see next. 

I’ve never gone to Edinburgh with a plan of what to see. The plan grows and evolves like a weird and shabby spiderweb, from one of those spiders that had LSD tested on them in the 1970s or whenever.

You keep your ears peeled and your nose close to the ground, you leave the show of your best friend Barnie Duncan (Oooky Pooky,  Assembly Roxy, 7.05pm) and you hear someone mutter, ‘Oh, that was so great, if you like physical stuff then you’ve got to see Silent Rocco’s show (Untold Stories: Modern Mime Tales, Pleasance Courtyard, 11:55am), so you do some sleuthing and Rocco’s show is something wonderful, so you see it and as you have a midday drink a hefty voice wafts across the courtyard Kit Loyd, Kit Loyd, Kit Loyd… (Kit Loyd: Frenzy,  Assembly Roxy, 8:20pm), next thing you know you’re watching another amazing thing. I call this technique ‘follow the whispers’.

Fringe cringe

The cringiest thing that happens to me every year since the beginning of time is forgetting people’s names, but I have a trick! There are so many wonderful people from all over the world and some of them I have met and some of them know of me but I don’t know who they are and sometimes it’s difficult to tell the difference between someone you had a hilarious conversation with late at night in Adelaide in 2015, and someone who saw you perform something which bombed at an experimental variety night in Perth. 

Usually, I try to be good with names and usually have the confidence to say: ‘I’m so sorry I’ve totally forgotten your name again. What was it?’ But sometimes it doesn’t feel right. 

So, here’s the trick: for this trick to work you need a friend that you hang out with often. Perhaps it’s your best friend, maybe it’s your producer or set designer, or sound-person, or comedy partner, or… did I mention best friend?

Together you work out a code phrase, one that can be used in a variety of situations (mine is ‘Well I never!’). Then when you have an interaction you can drop ‘well I never' in and the friend picks up and either introduces themselves, requiring an introduction in return, or if they know it then they name drop.

Example time.

Stranger: Hey Trygve, how’s it going?

Trygve: So good, really busy with three shows this year but having so much fun. What about you?

Stranger: I just saw Claire Parry’s show (Assembly Roxy, 6:5pm).

Trygve: You saw Claire Parry? Well I never!

Best Friend: She’s great isn’t she. Hi, I’m Barnie by the way.

Stranger: Hi Barnie, I’m Elf Lyons (The Bird Trilogy, Pleasance Dome, 8pm from August 12).

End scene

Jeepers. This is some quality content that you’re reading right now. 

So let’s blast into the final and most negative of the questions…

Fringe whinge

Of course the worst thing is the skyrocketing prices of the festival, and we could write about them forever. But I’m going to whinge about something different. Advertising. 

It’s just the worst. It creates noise, it means nothing, it costs a lot. You could run this festival just as a festival of marketing, you wouldn’t even need performers. It’s just a competition about whose advertising gets the most people in a certain room at a certain time. 

Marketing, I think I’m okay with, there’s something perverse and sneaky about marketing and when it works well I think I can doff my cap to whoever marketed to me (if I bought a Trygve Wakenshaw T-shirt because I liked his show, and then someone saw that and thought maybe they should see the show also, then fair play I say). 

But ads in every booklet, pamphlet, website, social media feed, desperate little trinkets shouting at you for your attention, can get out of here. I bet that wherever you are reading this there are two or three devious little ads clamouring for your attention. But clever marketing rules, and that is why you won’t find any ads on my website www.trygvewakenshaw.net

Love,
Trygve Wakenshaw

• Monsterrrr! with Trygve Wakenshaw is on a Assembly George Square Gardens at midday until August 16, He also has two shows with Barnie Duncan (Assembly George Square Gardens. 5.20pm to 17th) and Hot Chips (11.10pm for the full run) 

Published: 6 Aug 2025