Fyre Festival 'not all that funny' says Theatre Studies Student

The chaos surrounding the Fyre Festival is 'not all that funny' according to Gareth K Vile, a candidate for a PhD at Glasgow University. Commenting on footage of posh people moaning about having to eat cheese sandwiches and getting their stuff robbed from their half-erected tents, Vile insists that it fails to conform to the rules of the comic genre.

'Aristotle and Diderot both make it very clear that comedy happens to unimportant people, and all those rich kids probably count as aristocracy. It might be a farce, I suppose, but I'm not sure the timing is tight enough.'

Vile, who has driven away his friends by insisting that contemporary political theatre is compromised by its roots in Enlightenment dramaturgy's bourgeois agenda, also rejected suggestions that Fyre Festival could be a tragedy. 

'Once again, Aristotle is very explicit: the protagonist of a tragedy has to be a good person, at least enough to evoke some kind of sympathy in the audience. Frankly, I don't think the festival goers are likely to appeal to any audience, let alone the Athenian one of the fifth century, which was familiar with Sophocles' precisely structured dramas.'

The suggestion that organiser Jah Rule is a bit of a clown cuts no ice with the student, who regards the critical writings of George Bernard Shaw as essential bed-time reading. Citing Rule's career as a rapper, he questions his lack of training in any serious clowning tradition. 

'I've been blogging about theatre for a decade, and this festival's curation doesn't fit into any of the classic genres,' Vile stated from his office in the CCA, where he spends his Saturday nights listening to people having fun on Sauchiehall Street. 'The only reason the press are saying that Fyre Festival is funny is because it is happening to rich people. I don't remember Lessing saying that was comedy - in fact, he says that laughing spitefully is a low response. It's funny because it educates, it says in The Hamburg Dramaturgy.'