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Edinburgh's Gilded Balloon launches summer season of online comedy

<span>Photograph: Murdo Macleod/The Guardian</span>
Photograph: Murdo Macleod/The Guardian

The Gilded Balloon, Edinburgh’s uproarious palace of late-night comedy, has announced a season of work to replace its cancelled fringe programme this summer.

Gilded Balloon Offstage will offer new online performances from acts who were due to appear at the festival next month. Archive footage of theatre and comedy productions will be made available, including popular festival shows such as the raucous Late’n’Live and the newcomers competition So You Think You’re Funny? whose previous winners include Aisling Bea, Tom Allen and Peter Kay. Most of the shows will be free to watch but viewers will have the option to make donations, which will be shared among the venue, the fringe and performers whose livelihoods have been devastated by the coronavirus pandemic.

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The Gilded Balloon is also organising an interactive city-wide treasure hunt, Fringe Search Party, which will run throughout August. Created with the Scottish company Padlox Escape Rooms, it promises to be a family-friendly trail of puzzles and games around town, with participants visiting festival venues and receiving clues from fringe comedians. Teams of up to five will be able to take part.

Karen Koren, who founded the Gilded Balloon, is now its co-artistic director with her daughter, Katy. “It would have been the Gilded Balloon’s 35th fringe this August,” they said. “During these hard times with no live entertainment … we thought it might be a good idea to remind the world just how much joy the arts can bring to our lives.” The cancellation of this year’s fringe has “left a huge hole not only in our lives but in the lives of thousands of performers and other people who made Edinburgh their home for August. This year we will try to remind ourselves of what there was and what we will bring back again in the future.”