Stand-Up Misery

The Distractor is a keen friend and supporter of The Edinburgh Fringe Festival, and this August, as last year, we will be reporting from the festival, recommending what we think are the stand-out shows and warning you of the ones to avoid. So a film all about the festival should be right up our street, shouldn't it?

Annie Griffin's Festival is possibly the most depressing film about comedy ever made. Tackling subjects as varied as post-natal depression, child abuse, suicide, alcoholism, adultery and fisting, it follows various characters performing in and working around the Fringe. Altman-style, they interact, mostly either arguing with or shagging each other.

Two characters come off worst - the attractive, ambitious and fantastically untalented female comic, and a complete arse of a successful comic who just has to be based on Steve Coogan. But in truth, no-one comes off well. Comedians are variously depicted as whiny, self-obsessed, manipulative and generally dysfuctional. Journalists are world-beaten cynics, critics are self-important tossers (one lambasts a comedian for openly "trying to get a laugh"). The only vaguely sympathetic characters are the young drama students: innocent, passionate about their work, and performing the most pretentious bollocks you can imagine.

The talent on display is certainly impressive. Writer and Director Annie Griffin continues to show the mix of subtlety and surrealism she displayed on the fantastic "The Book Group", and the cast is made up of pretty much every up-and-coming young comic actor. It's an engaging story, and it does have some interesting things to say about how comedians, and in particular comedy promoters, have hijacked the festival. It's an accurate, if very glass-half-empty representation of what the festival is like. But it does forget that it is entirely possible to go along to the festival and actually, you know, enjoy yourself.