No escape from the silent disco - even in Australia!

A silent disco walking tour in the Grassmarket during the 2017 Fringe

It’s a three-hour flight and two-and-a-half-hour time difference. If you did that journey in Europe, you would end end up somewhere very different, like Turkey. Whereas here, you find yourself in a city very similar to the one you left.

Yet the festivals are different. Fringe World in Perth is still in its infancy compared to the Adelaide Fringe, which is the largest arts festival in the Southern Hemisphere. In fact, this city’s fringe is second in size only to ours. Indeed, it owes its history to our own Edinburgh Fringe, from where it took its inspiration back in 1960.

In those far-off days, there was a feeling that local artists were not being given a platform at the Adelaide International Festival. But then some visitors from the city went to Edinburgh and were so inspired by what they saw at our Fringe that they decided to set up a similar festival when they got back home. Six decades later, it’s massive.

The two cities have much in common. There is a predominance of churches and masonic halls, all of which become temporary theatres for a month. There is a real feeling of the whole world descending on a small city to party for four weeks. They both have a tram system and a zoo. Although, unlike Edinburgh, Adelaide Zoo still have pandas.

Being here in February is like being at home in August. I keep on bumping into comedians in the street. Danny Bhoy is in town as is my old pal Ross Noble. Rundle Street feels like a warm Grassmarket.

Also, bizarrely, as I shelter from the heat of the Australian sun, I am currently finalising my Edinburgh Fringe programme entry for this August. Believe it or not, tickets for my show are actually due to go on sale next week.

There is one less fortunate similarity between here and home. The Silent Disco is in town, leading tone-deaf morons around the city like some pied-piper of halfwits. That’s one aspect of the Edinburgh Fringe they should not have copied.