Edinburgh Fringe chief executive to stand down

Ms McCarthy took the festival through the Covid lockdown a year after it celebrated its most successful year on record in 2019.

A full programme only returned in 2022.

Earlier this year, it was announced a former Victorian-era school on Infirmary Street in the heart of the city’s Old Town would become a permanent headquarters for the festival.

But in recent years, the Fringe has been hit by skyrocketing accommodation and venue costs.

Prominent performers including comic Jason Manford and Gail Porter said they had been “priced out” of the event by rapidly increasing living costs.

Ms Waller-Bridge, whose Fleabag character made her debut at the festival in 2013, became the festival’s first honorary president in 2021.

“Shona held the Fringe together through its most challenging years and guided it to its record-breaking peak,” she said.

“She is one in a billion. I am personally devastated that she is leaving, but equally thrilled that she can take a well-earned rest knowing that she has raised more money, staged more shows, convinced more people of the importance and vibrancy of the Fringe than should be humanly possible.”