Well, here I am for the Nth time (I’ve lost count) in the August cultural capital trying to work out which of the c.2000 shows I should take in. The more you come the easier it gets, as you learn to discriminate between the best home for new writing in the UK (The Traverse) and the new all female musical comedy version of Hamlet performed in a tree by a cast of 3…..
We started well with Let’s See What Happens by The Scat Pack, which is a bunch of talented (and brave) performers who create a new play each day before your very eyes, with a guest director and audience suggestion. With the fringe increasingly hijacked by ‘corporate comedy’ this is a breath of fresh air and embodies its true spirit……and we weren’t biased because Clive & Julia’s son Henry was in it! The Icelandic contingent was particularly taken with it.
Our visit to see a small Georgian male voice choir became more significant as events had unfolded in their homeland. Greyfriars was the perfect venue for a very varied selection of extraordinary songs – religious, folk, work songs & drinking songs amongst them. The very warm welcome was more than appreciation for a lovely show; it was also Edinburgh showing solidarity with their plight.
A rare bummer at the previously feted Traverse – Fall by Zinnie Harris – a play about war crimes which started at a snails pace and by the time it picked up became preposterous. I’m afraid we left at the interval as (Edinburgh) life’s too short for duds like this.
Arthur Smith’s one-off contemporary art lecture (to accompany his spoof exhibition) was a lovely slice of great British eccentricity and again the true spirit of the fringe. With three guest slots (including a late arriving Simon Munnery who had nipped out the back for a fag!), a couple in an on-stage wendy house throughout and someone called Rupert showing us his diamond prince albert piercing (!) there was never a dull moment. When I eventually caught up with the exhibition, Rupert was on the door, but I think I managed to look like I’d never seen (any of him) before. ‘Head of Security’ Ray Spinks, in his uniform and spectacular false moustache, remembered me from last year, which may be some indication of the exhibition’s popularity (though it did win an IF comedy award). It was even better this year but I still can’t find the words to describe it.
Margaret Edge had recommended Meli Melo, four talented Frenchmen who spoof everything from ballet to competition gymnastics to ice dancing to flamenco, and it turned out to be a real treat. We laughed our socks off and almost wet ourselves (too much information?). This is the sort of show which the French equivalent of the arts council subsidise (as well as opera, ballet etc.) – can we have their arts council please!
Shakespeare for Breakfast wasn’t up to its usual standard – this year with Macbeth and his lady, Romeo & Juliet, Malvolio and Prospero flitting in and out of The Weakest Link and The Apprentice. It amazes me how many people turn up at 10am for this, but maybe the free coffee and croissant have something to do with it. After 17 years, though, I think it may have outstayed its welcome.
Aluminium is a spectacle on the theme of…..go on, guess….which is highly inventive, pretty spectacular but otherwise a bit cold and pointless. It is a great idea well executed though, so I can’t say it was a waste of time or money. We decided it was for younger folk who have less need for things like narrative, story, plot or depth!
One of the absolute highlights followed (and I’m proud to say it was produced by Sherman Cymru, a good use of Welsh arts council funding if ever I saw any), with a verbatim play about the Deep Cut barracks case. You’re now thinking ‘heavy’ but it wasn’t. It was more objective and less preachy than most in this genre – and beautifully acted. When you live in a world of spin and cover up, you need theatre like this.
The next show also fell into the Verbatim theatre category; this time about the plight of those still homeless after the July 2007 flooding. Their stories were told at close quarters inside a caravan for an audience of less than 10. The proximity made it all the more real and when the actors made eye contact, I found myself nodding and grunting in true ‘active listening’ mode. Another treat.
At 75, Joan Rivers could easily be getting skin cancer in the sun in Palm Springs or standing on stage telling autobiographical stories and smutty jokes. Instead, she creates a play based on a episode of her life when she was fired and steps in and out of it to talk to the audience in the first person as if we were her therapist. It doesn’t entirely work but you can’t help admiring her balls (!) and there are some very funny lines. I felt a bit out of place in a reverential audience of fans, but didn’t regret going.
High culture followed with Honneger’s oratorio Le Roi David, which for 20th century music is surprisingly tuneful! I got a bit lost in the biblical story (despite the libretto) and after a while didn’t really care who begat whom but it was beautifully sung and played and Jeff’s snoring wasn’t too loud.
Tina C is a country singer who’s decide to run for president and practice her campaign rally here in Edinburgh….well, actually she’s the creation of Christopher Green from south London, but you just might believe it. I’ve seen her / him a few times before (without the presidential campaign context) and this wasn’t the best for two reasons – the live guitar accompaniment has been given over to pre-recorded tracks and there were a bunch of drunks in the audience whose loud talking was clearly making it hard for him / her to concentrate (and we eventually conspired to slow handclap them out of the venue). Still worth the effort though and I’m looking forward to another of his creations – housewife Ida Bar – at the Barbican at Christmas.
The badly titled Pornography (it’s not got a lot to do with it) is a brave attempt to weave together stories of fictional Londoner’s (and a fictional bomber) at the time of the 07/07 bombings. I thought it was beautifully written, acted and staged and regret that it couldn’t find a home where it belongs in London. Simon Stephens is a favourite playwright of mine, though I didn’t like his last play – Harper Regan – at the National, so this is a return to form.
At the same venue, the aforementioned Traverse, Architecting was the low spot of the entire festival. This is the sort of pretentious avante guarde tosh NYC’s Wooster Group churned out in the 80’s and I can’t fathom why the otherwise spot-on National Theatre of Scotland decided to involve themselves with it. Maybe it was a jolly to the US for the assistant director…..If I was Scottish, I’d be picketing the parliament.
Old folkie John Redbourn is certainly a guitar virtuoso (though he can’t sing for toffee!) and though a bit under-rehearsed he managed to deliver enough to send you home happy. Unfortunately we followed him with a more virtuosic and on-form Latin jazz guitarist Antonio Forcione and the comparison didn’t help. Forcione and his percussionist were completely original and simply wonderful.
It’s not often you see something completely different, but Slick was just that. I can only describe it as puppets with human faces and arms which look something like cabbage patch dolls. The result was like a crude surreal black comedy cartoon – it was a touch overlong, but I still loved it.
After a spectacular lunch at Restaurant Martin Wishart, any play was going to be a challenge and so it proved with New Electric Ballroom. I think it was another of Enda Walsh’s gothic Irish stories of unfulfilled lives, but you might have to ask Jeff or Ruth who appeared to be more awake than me.
Every year I go to a stand-up and then wonder why I don’t go to more, and so it was with Michael McIntyre. The reason why I’m put off is that you can always see them on TV or back in London, so why waste precious Edinburgh time? The reason why I enjoyed this so much might be because it was a great laugh to end the day – no gimmicks; just a normal bloke who is exceptionally funny.
Our final day started at the Traverse (again!) for Terminus; three interwoven monologues. Though I admired them and they were beautifully told on a stunningly lit set, they were (like all monologues) not really theatre. This sparked a fascinating debate, as the most literary amongst us (Jeff) liked them most and the most visual (me) least. Different people are clearly stimulated by different things and see the same show from a different perspective. To satisfy my intuition, I need characters to interact and changing visual images to accompany them.
Stephen Berkoff’s interpretation of the 50’s (?) Brando film On The Waterfront gave us another highlight. It took a while to take off, but once you were immersed in the highly stylised movement it was captivating, and the terrific ensemble provided some of the best acting of the week.
We’d started with the spirit of the fringe and we ended with the spirit of the international (main) festival – a 70’s English play (Nigel Williams’ Class Enemy) re-interpreted for a 21st century post-civil war Bosnia. Its anger was a bit relentless, but it probably meant more to me just a month after my visit. Whatever you think of it though, it’s what festivals are for and it brought back many memories of better main festival days – Macbeth in Japanese at cherry blossom time in the Shogun period and Greek tragedies in Romanian in a disused corn exchange!
Art has been well represented in recent years, but this year was a disappointment. Though it included some nice paintings, Impressionism & Scotland was really an excuse for an exhibition and only Janet Cardiff & Charles Miller’s six (mostly aural and sometimes moving) installations enthralled (well, me and Clive bu t not Jeff & Ruth!).
Not a vintage Edinburgh, but it’s always a fascinating cocktail. I’m now in the Orkney’s looking at the morning sun over the glass-like Kirkwall harbour from my hotel room and it seems like a million miles away……..
Gareth's Culture and Travel Blog 
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