prize5-2, Exercise 3: Testing the Fringe origin story

Model answer (one possible paragraph; check the sources named):

The story says that eight uninvited companies came to Edinburgh in 1947 and staged shows alongside the official festival. To test it, two kinds of source are useful.

1. Newspaper reports and listings from 1947 and 1948. Strength: written at the time, so less affected by later legend. Weakness: the groups were small and unofficial, so they may have been poorly covered or described in passing, and the papers may not give a full count.

2. Later recollections and official histories, including the Fringe Society's own account. Strength: they supply names, motives and detail that newspapers lack. Weakness: they were written years afterwards, they tend to tidy the story, and the organisation has a reason to present a clear founding narrative.

Comparing the two is the best test: where they agree the claim is stronger, and where only the later accounts give a detail it should be treated as claimed, not documented.