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The star of the Fringe

12 0
20.08.2026

Attention spans at Edinburgh are brief. With thousands of shows on offer, the punters have to make a split-second decision based on the title and the poster. A blunt descriptive name works best, hence the popularity of Dan Kelly: How I Went to Every Supermarket in the World. Kelly spent 11 years as a data analyst collecting the prices of 164 basic items from supermarkets on every continent. The information was sold to international firms that needed to calculate the salaries of their overseas staff.

Kelly, a solitary and obsessive character, liked to tour the shops with a dictaphone taped to his chest and to record the prices by muttering into the hidden microphone, like a spy. His adventures are limited to shopping centres in large cities so his observations lack surprises. He finds that strangers react well if he wears a smile and he notices that shop staff get suspicious when he asks for the prices of a bra in six different sizes. His travels take him to Iran where America is hated by the government but not by the locals who support two faux-American fast-food franchises, Mash Donalds and Keng Burger. Kelly’s job no longer exists and his final task was to check prices online and terminate his own career.

Will the BBC apologise for its role in the Jason Arday........

© The Spectator