The Big August Gamble

It's the time of year when many British comedians' thoughts turn to festivals. First, the weekend summer ones, which can be a nice little earner for those booked onto the comedy stages; but then also the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, which can be the opposite, if things don't go to plan.

The Fringe is a gamble, even for acts with a decent bit of profile behind them. Hiring a venue for most of August, renting somewhere to live, and the requisite show-plugging and other peripherals can set you back thousands, sometimes tens of thousands if it really goes south.

In recent years the Free Fringe model - where acts get a gratis room and take donations at the end - has helped to drastically cut those expenses for many, but even this isn't a guaranteed money-spinner, if you end up off the beaten track. There was a telling quote on this site a few days ago, from a candid American comic who's vowed never to do the Fringe again, and didn't sound won over by this new development: "They've progressed to where you can work for free!" he exclaimed. Which is a fair point.

Now a lot of armchair viewers probably assume that every vaguely well-known comedian spends his or her evenings quaffing champagne with glamorous models at the best casinos, but making a living from comedy can be a throw of the dice: even the big names need a big stroke of luck along the way, someone influential seeing them on the right night. Armchair viewers will also probably have noticed that a lot of the same acts tend to hoover up most of the TV jobs, and to get there you need momentum. That momentum often starts at the Edinburgh Fringe.

For ambitious on-the-up comics, the general goal of embarking on a Fringe show is to hone your skills, write something interesting, hopefully get spotted, and perhaps develop that particular show for radio, TV, a book, and in an ideal world, a global franchise. The lengthy run gives you the best chance of that vital word-of-mouth spreading, but just being in Edinburgh for those weeks can make creative stuff happen in unlikely ways.

Take Taskmaster. It's now the Dave channel's flagship show, spawning versions in the US and beyond, while turning co-host and creator (little) Alex Horne into TV's new in-demand format guy; like Richard Osman, but shorter. It started out at the 2010 Fringe as an elaborate one-night show, the sort of extra-curricular event comics often do while in Edinburgh to pass the time. Many are fun one-offs; others become Fringe institutions.

Horne did Taskmaster II the following year, pitched it to several broadcasters, and a phenom was born. But then he'd had a lower-key dry run: his 2007 Fringe game show with Mark Watson and Tim Key, We Need Answers, became a BBC4 series in 2008/9. A good idea is often surprisingly versatile.

And that's the thing with the Edinburgh Fringe. It can seem a big, scary, expensive, dog-eat-dog, high-pressure world, particularly when it comes to your own show. It also offers a big blank canvas, though, to do something bonkers, and quite possibly brilliant.