It’s frustrating, it’s exacerbating, it’s irritating and it’s annoying but sometimes you just have to say things again and again before they go in.

There’s an old joke. What’s the difference between a drum machine and a drummer? Answer: You only have to punch the information into a drum machine once.

Last week I told my little boy he sounded like his needle was stuck (he was repeatedly asking me for something). Obviously he had absolutely no idea what I was talking about.

But I find myself a bit like a broken record. Sometimes you have to keep saying the same thing until people take notice.

Here’s what the deal is.

The Edinburgh Fringe Festival is hopelessly inaccessible for people with disabilities.

That’s it. It’s just rubbish.

Contrary to the idea that’s an old city, with cobbled streets and historic buildings and nothing can be done – actually - it’s really easy to change - and it should be changed.

I’ve already written about it. Joshua Hepple has written about it. Colchester’s own Jeremy Lucas has written about it. People are bored of hearing me say it.

I can’t think of a way to be funny about it. Probably because there’s nothing funny about it. It’s an absolute disgrace, it’s shameful, it’s immoral, it’s a crime against equality.

But it’s not illegal. So the venues (with a few notable exceptions – take a bow The Pleasance) and the fringe society will just do the bare minimum to stay this side of the law.

It’s the biggest joke of the whole festival. Nearly 50% of all the shows on the fringe are inaccessible to wheelchair users. Hilarious eh? What a joke.

Under 2% of shows have captioning or BSL interpretation. This means that 98% of shows are inaccessible to those who are deaf or those with hearing impairments. The figures are worse for audio description.

I have had the privilege of helping many different venues and companies making their work more accessible, and enjoy how much energy some companies have when it comes to making their work accessible.

However, this doesn't even make up 1% of companies at the Fringe, and the 99% of companies who haven't considered access are excluding disabled people.

The pop up nature of the festival and the historic architecture of the city seem to combine to give people an excuse to do nothing. “Well it’s Edinburgh” (Shrug).

Organisations like The Underbelly are big, muscular, commercial operations with a turn over of literally million of pounds yet they repeatedly refuse to spend the £400 it takes to offer disability awareness training to their box office staff.

It’s not good enough.