Every day my inbox fills with stories of panic, madness and despair. The Edinburgh Fringe is upon us and the publicists are firing off emails begging critics to cover their shows. If the festival is a national X-ray, this year’s image is shadowed by emotional frailty and a distinct sense of humour failure.

The brochure is full of performers advertising their mental disorders (ADHD, OCD, PTSD, and so on), as if they were badges of achievement. The chair and chief executive of the Fringe say that the festival means ‘giving yourself over to the (safe) hands of our performers allowing yourself to be swept away by their creativity’. The word ‘safe’, in brackets, assures nervous visitors that their mental wellbeing won’t be jeopardised. Clearly the aim is to cosset audiences rather than to stimulate or amuse them. As for making them laugh, that seems a distant memory.

The Fringe once had a sense of freedom and danger. I used to head for a cramped little basement just off the Royal Mile where comedians performed from noon until midnight. No tickets. A bucket was passed around at the end of the show. Every hour, a new compère arrived with half a dozen mates from elsewhere on the Fringe and they delivered 60 minutes of chitchat and verbal swordplay. Often this involved singling out members of the crowd for good-natured abuse. Anyone with a sensitive temperament or, heaven forbid, an emotional disorder stayed away.

There were no rules or special protections other than the criminal law. I was there in 2010 when a comedian lost patience with a drunken heckler and headbutted him to the floor. As the bleeding victim was carried upstairs to a waiting ambulance, the next performer was called to the mike. She was an American with a delicate southern accent. ‘Good evening, Edinburgh. I just stepped over a pool of fresh blood to reach the stage. Is that normal in Scotland?’ The building still exists but it specialises in fine dining these days.

Back then, the Fringe specialised in monologues about mass murderers and war criminals. An actor would dress up as, say, Hitler, Stalin or Jeffrey Dahmer, and deliver an hour of bad-taste jokes to a crowd of unshockable punters. That genre seems to have expired. And yet right now the world stage is full of controversial and even monstrous characters who are ripe for mockery. The satirists seem uninterested. Westminster barely features at all. No comedian has targeted Keir Starmer or any of his scheming colleagues around the cabinet table. Last year’s Liz Truss impersonator hasn’t returned. No one wants to attack Trump, Farage, Zelensky, Bibi or Macron. The festival has lost its satirical teeth.

Clearly the aim is to cosset audiences rather than to stimulate or amuse them

Another casualty is the joke of the Fringe award whose sponsors, U&Dave, have withdrawn their support. Last year’s winner suggests that the pool of talent had all but dried up. ‘I was going to sail around the globe in the world’s smallest ship but I bottled it.’ Not great. But it’s better than the winner from the previous year. ‘I started dating a zookeeper but it turned out he was a cheetah.’ What a mess. Compare it with the winner of the inaugural prize in 2008. ‘I can’t believe Amy Winehouse self-harms. She’s so irritating she must be able to find someone to do it for her.’ The author Zoe Lyons would face a barrage of condemnation if she aired a quip like that today. There’s an old Fringe joke about the BBC that has never been nominated for an award – for obvious reasons: ‘It was a different era, the 1970s. The sex offenders’ register was called the Radio Times.’

The one-liner may be passing into history. The culture of backchat or verbal jousting, which breeds quickfire gags, is under assault from many directions. Puritans denounce repartee as ‘banter’ and they consider it a form of ‘toxic masculinity’. Working from home has put an end to the informal games of one-upmanship that used to amuse staff in offices or after hours in the pub. And people are simply too scared to launch a mocking barb at a colleague in case it results in a lawsuit or a summons to an employment tribunal.

A few critical voices have suggested that the demise of the one-liner has coincided with the ascent of female comedians who lack the epigrammatic powers of men. Mae West might dispute that: ‘I used to be Snow White but I drifted.’ So would fans of Nancy Mitford and Dorothy Parker. Even Marilyn Monroe was adept at crafting a decent gag: ‘I’ve been on a calendar, but never on time.’ The Fringe alone isn’t responsible for the death of the one-liner but it might do more to help.

Most of the best comedy that the festival now creates is in response to its own restrictions. What perhaps marked the beginning of the end for the Fringe ​was the outbreak of humourlessness and stupidity that led to the cancellation of Jerry Sadowitz’s show at the Pleasance in 2022. The noted satirist of racism, sexism and homophobia was accused by the venue of racism, sexism and homophobia. ‘We will not associate with content which attacks people’s dignity,’ declared the venue’s press release. But attacking people’s dignity was Sadowitz’s whole shtick. As comedian Richard Herring pointed out, ‘To complain about him being offensive is like asking the actor who plays Macbeth to be arrested for murder.’

To remove ‘content that attacks people’s dignity’ is to suppress almost every joke ever made by anyone

In this climate it’s little wonder that the festival’s one-liners have become so weak. To remove ‘content that attacks people’s dignity’ is to suppress almost every joke ever made by anyone. Jokes hurt. That’s why they exist.

The spirit of cancellation, meanwhile, continues apace. A long-running show, Jew-O-Rama, has been pulled because of ‘staff safety’ concerns. The same fate has befallen Rachel Creeger’s show, Ultimate Jewish Mother. And Philip Simon’s solo effort, Shall I Compere Thee in a Funny Way?, has also been cancelled. He was informed that his views conflict with Banshee Labyrinth’s ‘stance against Israel’s government and actions’. This venue is a dank, underlit cavern tucked away in a cobbled side street and yet it addresses the world as if it were a permanent member of the Security Council.

Perhaps there’s a simpler explanation. A pub that sells fun to youngsters is vulnerable to changes in fashion and to boycotts orchestrated by online activists. Less harm will be incurred by cancelling a couple of performers than by risking an embargo that could lead to long-term financial damage. Understandably the venue wants to present this commercial decision as a high-minded desire to establish peace and justice across the world.

It shouldn’t be like this. Censoring comics harms the Fringe’s reputation. A casual observer may conclude that the festival is engaged in a war against comedy, which in turn looks like an attack on the human spirit. Laughter is as natural as saying ‘ouch’ when you stub your toe. It’s an emotional response to suffering, to tragedy, to being alive. ‘Nothing is funnier than unhappiness,’ says Beckett in Endgame ‘It’s the most comical thing in the world.’

The Edinburgh Festival Fringe is on until 25 August.