These are busy times: I have lots to do. By which I mean figuring out what to put in the very large suitcase I’m taking with me to Dublin and Edinburgh. I take more with me when I’m working in those two cities for a few days than I took for several months in Australia. And with good reason: it will be hot, it will be cold, I will get wet, I will need spares and I am a lady-woman. Hence, heavy-duty Samsonite on wheels and dislocated shoulder prior to boarding.
It always strikes me as strange that in Edinburgh during the Fringe, so many people choose to take their clothes off. I cite all the above reasons (apart from the “being hot” one) as good reasons not to. My first foray to the Fringe was in 1995, and even though I was young and hungry for attention and all those other oft-cited reasons for sheddage, I didn’t get it. I still don’t. Naked posters and flyers (and worse, naked flyerers) don’t make me want to see a show. They just make me sad. In a town peddling comedy, this is not a good result.
Of course the intention of the bare is to shock. But it’s not shocking. It’s nothing you don’t see in gym changing-rooms or late-night TV or mini-hippie communes in West Cork in the 70s. (Wait…is that just me?) So as soon as someone peels off in a move they deem outrageous or risqué, my heart sinks. It tells me that they think nudity is outrageous and risqué. And it’s not. It’s just lovely. Normal, healthy, fun.
That’s not to say I personally peel off at the drop of a hat or other garments: at Phil Nichol’s brilliant Naked Racist show (where audience nudity was energetically encouraged) I was one of the few who didn’t disrobe. It was deeply cathartic for the people who chose to do so, and the feeling of liberation in the theatre was electric, but it was a feeling with which I was already acquainted. I’m a big fan of the skinny-dip, the topless sunbathe, the naked, home-based prance. I don’t mind if the neighbours see, only because I don’t think that what they might see is anything out of the ordinary. As my mother used to say “If they’re trying that hard for a glimpse, then they deserve whatever they see…good or bad.” You read right. My mother said that.
There’s a new thing in Edinburgh every year. I already know from the Fringe brochure that – this year – we haven’t caught it in time. There are many, many flesh-flaunters dying to tell us how cutting edge and unusual they are. But next year, let’s make clothes the new naked. Honestly, if my mum’s ok with it, you should be, too.
