Festival

The Edinburgh Festival deserves a film. It is a strange occasion in a great city, and huge numbers of people around the world have experienced it. It brings its own array of bizarre characters and situations, mixing them with the locals, and then takes them away again just as quickly, until next year when some of them come back for more. If that's not a recipe for some interesting comedy/drama, I don't know what is.

Unfortunately this film fails to hit the mark. It is structured quite well, and I liked the idea of following one venue through the course of its day. The overall atmosphere of the city is well-caught too, on the whole, and people who know Edinburgh in August will recognise it.

But its main flaw is lack of empathy. There are quite a lot of characters, some of whom are quite funny, but very few of whom are particularly likable and attractive. Those who are likable often lack authenticity, and everyone suffers from a lack of depth. The episodic plot is also patchy - some of the events that befall certain characters have nothing at all to do with the Edinburgh Festival and seem almost to have been put in as time-fillers.

To be fair, there are some funny moments and quite a few good lines. But put it this way: If it's on TV and not costing you anything, then by all means watch it. However, I paid £3 to rent it, and by the end I felt it wasn't really worth the money.

It's that time of year again and Edinburgh is awash with artists coming to perform at the on the fringe of the festival. Among them is Dwight Swan a famous comedian who has rather let it go to his head; his put-upon PA Petra; Tommy O'Dwyer, an Irish comedian who has been at the festival for nine consecutive years without a mention in the comedy awards; a young woman who is staging an one-woman show about Dorothy Wordsworth in the challenging 9am slot; a bubbly "Jewish" comedian keen to do whatever it takes to get to the top and a local BBC journalist with some complex relationships.

From the creator of The Book Group and featuring a host of recognisable faces from British comedy, I was intrigued by this film and initially quite drawn in by its sharp edge, natural feel, laughs and multi-character approach to the narrative. It had energy and it captured the feel of a festival (albeit I cannot speak for the Edinburgh one in particular). This makes for a good start to the film as it sets up lots of characters and also has an affectionate at the types of people and acts at the festival – not ever being overly cruel but not shying away from poking fun where it is deserved. This makes for an enjoyable film but not an ultimately satisfying one. As the film goes on it puts more onus on the stories rather than the references and this is where it could have been stronger. Some of the stories are pretty good but the majority don't really hang together that well and are little more than a sense of a time and place rather than being engaging.

Griffin may struggle with this but she does everything else pretty well. The film is well directed and uses the festival itself to good effect. As writer she produces sharp characters who may be easily pigeonholed but rarely in a lazy fashion. The cast respond well to the fun material, although none of them really succeed in developing their characters much further than Griffin had taken them. Ayoade has a simple character and does it well while O'Dowd does a solid "blustering Irishman" similar to his IT Crowd character. Cassidy and Nardini are both impressive and indeed most of the cast turn in solid performances in mostly small roles.

Overall this is an amusing ensemble comedy that benefits greatly from Griffin's own experience on the Edinburgh Fringe. The material doesn't develop much beyond a certain point and does have a rough, messy feel to it but this is not a fault so much as the idea – imitating the feel of the Fringe itself. Not perfect and understandable why it didn't ever grab much of an audience but an enjoyably rough comedy nonetheless.

Ok. More fun location spotting than watching the film. Not even that redolent of a late summer in Edinburgh. A lot of actors under used. Nothing fleshed out, no one particularly interesting. Very superficial. Doesn't add up to much. Ultimately a bit pointless. If art is this depressing why bother?

Festival. Written by Annie griffin who is best known for her channel 4 series 'the book group' (I have to admit at this point that I seemed to have missed that one) and staring familiar faces from the world of comedy shows such as 'green wing', 'Garth Marenghi's dark place' and 'this life'. This film is almost a mock-umentary. It parodies the Edinburgh fringe festival and some of the characters that inhabit this world of shows, plays and street theatre. The first thing to say is too much bagpipes!! I hate them with a passion. But that is a personal thing and no real reflection on the film, which is very good. The best bits of this kind of fly on the wall look at all things fringe like are the bits where the cast are taking the p#ss out of the whole pretentiousness of it all. The comedy-judging panel arguing over whether comedy should or shouldn't get laughs is brilliant. Elsewhere the film is punctuated with great one liners delivered by a huge cast who range from drunk comedians to sex mad journalists, an over enthusiastic one woman performer to a person so famous they don't care and have given up trying. It is in the subtlety of these characters, who were it not for the festival would probably have never met, that the story get it's rich ideas. If you have ever been to the fringe you will recognise the sense of madness portrayed of a city under siege from people from all walks of life convinced they have talent. Some have and go on to bigger things others fall by the wayside. This is a story of these people and of those who have made it but could lose it or in the case of one character hasn't made it after 8 years at the festival. Funny, dark and an insight into human nature alongside creativity. Festival will not be for all, but for those who visit they will come away rewarded. I have resisted giving away the best scene lets just say it happens to the ventriloquist.

If you've seen Altman's 'Nashville', you've kind of seen this. It's just the era and backdrop that are different. Substitute Daniella Nardini for Geraldine Chaplin, Mangan or O'Dowd for Keith Carradine and you have the general idea. Griffin's best-known piece, 'The Book Group', also had multiple plot lines, but had time to develop over two three-hour series. In 'Festival', for instance, the plot line with the crazy Canadians had a fantasy quality to it, but didn't seem to be going anywhere. On the other hand, watching Petra staring at a drink, trying not to fall off the wagon, was heart-wrenching, as was the chat-up scene where she realizes as she talks about her job, that she has no real life apart from Sean, and hateful as he is he is all that stands between her and a return to drinking. That was brilliantly done, as was the young actress falling for Sean because she sees him as nobody else does, because she doesn't know his work or how famous he is. I wanted to like this film a lot more than I eventually did. It is worth seeing, but like so many British movies, it doesn't warrant the big screen treatment when a TV series would have been better.