I’m amazed by the supremely brilliant things people do, say and create. But then I’m also amazed by how dull, pedestrian and lazy people are too; and how impressed they are by stuff that is ultimately nothing special. It’s a strange mix.

I’ve just been up in Edinburgh, at The Fringe, a great place to witness such things first hand…

Each year in Edinburgh, people try and be clever. They’ll do a show in a toilet for example, or in a taxi. Since viewing such shows as a small child however, I’ve realised that these gimmicks do not in themselves deserve praise. You’ve got to have the content. Good content. It’s similar to the way I feel about ‘Improv’ ‘comedy’. It just isn’t that funny; and it’s very self congratulatory. I’d rather see something that was just good, not good in a given context. Does that make me odd?

The Hotel, is this year’s ’so what’ show for me for two reasons.

1) It just isn’t very well executed. It isn’t particularly funny (though it isn’t bad), the set-pieces seem lazily put together and the practicalities of moving people around doesn’t appear to have been thought through.

2) The bizarre belief by the general public that this is hugely creative in its approach and is so unique as to simply deserve a positive review irrelevant of how good the ‘performance’ actually is.

The second one, to be fair, is no fault whatsoever of the minds behind The Hotel, but it does worry me.

Spend an hour on Youtube, go to your local art school graduation show, delve into the history of Victorian theatre, take a look through the ideas book of any reasonable writer… you’ll find more exciting things, and you might just feel better about the world.