So another Edinburgh Fringe comes to an end. From our viewpoint there was a lot of celebrate. We easily found 200+ shows that were disabled/ND-led and reviewed nearly a quarter of them. We published our guide so people could find disabled-led work, and we also held our awards ceremony where over 50 acts were longlisted, and 10 winners took home awards. It was an amazing ceremony, full of love and emotional speeches.
We also took part in the Emerging Critics Programme and mentored a new disabled writer who brought a much needed new perspective to shows at the festival.
But, there were some issues that came up repeatedly at this year’s Fringe. First of all, accessibility. Our own review site isn’t fully accessible, and people are rightly frustrated about this. The reason being is we are voluntary and unfunded – there are no resources to facilitate a fully accessible site, yet. This didn’t stop disabled activists telling us ‘if it’s not accessible, who is this site even for’ and that’s a hard thing to take with the 100’s of hours of work we put in. We understand the anger, but it leads to a gatekeeping mentality where a disabled editor is being told they shouldn’t run a review site. We feel it was better to contribute something and have a basis on which to build.
The other big issue that people came to us with is that many reviewers from other publications write ableist reviews. We had engaged with the Fringe Society to create an event where we could talk to reviewers, a kind of disability-awareness training in advance of the Fringe. There wasn’t any movement on this, so we wrote an open letter to all reviewers asking if they’d be willing to have such a session. There was no uptake.
So, where do we go from here? We are going to go away and look for funding so we can create a fully accessible site, hire and pay reviewers that represent the disabilities and different lived experiences that reflect our communities.
We will also work with other disabled organisations and review sites to create a group that can hold reviewers accountable next year. We want that to be a good-faith gesture, but if we are repeatedly ignored, we may have to expose ableist practices in a more direct way.
And what if we don’t get funded, what if we can’t work together?
Well, that’s it. There was an expectation this year that we would just ‘review everything disabled/nd-led’, with no thought to who actually works on this site. It felt like a corporate exchange between some artists and us.
So, I’ll leave you with this thought. Take a close look at who we review, who we have nominated and awarded. We chose who we thought were creating the most exceptional disabled-led work at the fringe, not artists with great P.R or an agent, not those who had been on TV or had a million TikTok subscribers. It’s very easy to get swept up in the idea of what success is at the fringe, it’s stressful enough as it is, without putting these arbitrary goalposts in your way. Remember, please, it’s about the actual art you create and who it connects with, there lies the integrity. And if we are back next year, and you want us to review you – start with your passion, not your pitch.
All the best,
Simon Jay
Editor
Neurodiverse Review
