Punters’ Visit to the 2007 Edinburgh Festival

We travelled up by train this year rather than by plane. The journey was largely uneventful. We took some gin with us so that we could have our traditional “we are off to Edinburgh G+T” – somewhere between Doncaster and York I seem to remember. It was drizzling when we arrived in mid-afternoon but it is only a short 10 minute walk to Penny’s B&B where she gave us a warm welcome. After quickly unpacking (we travel light) and sampling Penny’s homemade scones, we were off …

Day 1

The Art Festival programme is quite strong this year and we kicked off with a visit to The Naked Portrait at the nearby Portrait Gallery. It consisted of a mixture of paintings, photographs and sculpture spread over two floors in the gallery. It was interesting to observe that many of the sitters in the early part of the exhibition looked slightly embarrassed and this resulted in a remarkably quiet atmosphere, the visitors obviously affected by the sitters’ and their own embarrassment. The atmosphere lightened in the second half, notably when the photographs of the celebrities were reached; they, perhaps unsurprisingly, showed no embarrassment. It was an interesting and thought-provoking exhibition.

After an early evening meal we wandered down Frederick Street to Aurora Nova, home of dance and physical theatre, to see Hangman by DO-Theatre. It consisted of a series of vignettes on the theme of crime and punishment, imaginatively performed by five bowler-hatted dancers; a good opening to our Fringe programme. Then over to the Traverse for a lighter end to the evening with Stewart Lee and Iain Gillie’s Johnson & Boswell - Late but Live. It was based around the idea of a modern day book launch for Boswell’s A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland and The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides in period costume with Miles Jupp as Boswell and Simon Munnery as Johnson. It was easy to spot the locals in the audience; they were the ones who gradually laughed less and less during Johnson’s tirade against the Scots when he first came on stage which went on for a full 10 minutes. An enjoyable show even if it did rather run out of steam three quarters of the way through.

Day 2

Day 2 started with breakfast at the B&B. We chatted with an Italian couple who were touring Scotland and, as with many tourists that arrive in Edinburgh during August, they found the size and scale of the August Feast somewhat mind-blowing. Our first show of the day was Rona Munro’s Long Time Dead at the Traverse, a new play about mountaineers and their closeness to death: innovative set, good dialogue and very well-acted. Our only minor carp is that it is probably 15 minutes too long (but we say this about many plays!).

We stay at the Traverse for Enda Walsh’s The Walworth Farce, a tragedy played as dark farce where an Irish father attempts to rewrite the reasons for his sudden bloody departure from Ireland through a daily “play” which he and his two sons have put on for many years, largely hidden away from the world in their flat off the Walworth Road in London. The pace is fast and quite dizzying, the acting excellent – in the running for the best show of our visit.

We take a leisurely walk to Traverse 3 (alias Edinburgh University Drill Hall) for the next show, Rough Magic’s Is This About Sex? This was a gentle, amusing, slightly dated but definitely lightweight show that the acting failed to save ... and it was way too long. The day finished with another visit to Aurora Nova for Astronomy for Insects from Russia’s blackSKYwhite company. I can only describe it as a strange somewhat surreal show that was composed of a series of what appeared to be often unrelated vignettes with insects, aliens, Santa Claus, among others. A very harsh, loud and overly persistent soundtrack ensured that we struggled to enjoy it.

Day 3

Monday morning and we were back at Aurora Nova where we bumped into Ruth and Graham, friends from previous festival visits. We were all there to see Woyzeck, Georg Büchner’s work, performed by Sadari Movement Laboratory (a Korean troupe). The story surrounds a simple man who is bullied by his boss, experimented on by a doctor, and loses his woman to a sergeant-major. The dancers turned in good performances, making imaginative use of chairs. Enjoyable.

Up to Princes Street to visit the excellent Warhol exhibition, Andy Warhol: A Celebration of Life ... and Death at the National Galleries of Scotland. My particular favourites were the Polaroid-based society portraits, particularly Debby Harry, although most people prefer Lisa Minelli, plus the blue and black portraits of Jackie Kennedy before and after JFK’s assassination.  Janet, and many others, delighted in the ability to play with the floating helium-filled silver pillows.

Back to Aurora Nova via one of our favourite watering holes, The Cumberland, for The Art Of Laughter which was billed as a talk / demonstration by Jos Houben, a founder member of Complicite. For 50 very enjoyable minutes Jos explained some of the basics of making an audience laugh, complete with examples which included help from some members of the audience. His delivery was understated and all the funnier for that.

This was followed by another helping of humour when we made our first visit to The Pleasance to see Punt & Dennis: Stuff and Nonsense. The stars of The Now Show (radio) and Mock The Week (television) were undoubtedly professional and amusing but what appeared to be the recycling of existing material made for a somewhat disappointing show.  We ate at the excellent David Bann restaurant which is close by The Pleasance. It is a popular vegetarian restaurant where tasty and imaginative dishes can be found. Something to get off my chest at this point – the prices in many Edinburgh restaurants appear to have risen by 25-30% over the past year, rises that have not been matched by increases in the quality of the dishes or in the levels of service (in certain establishments service has deteriorated). None of this applies to David Bann which represented excellent value for money … and no I am not a shareholder, part-owner, related to the owner, on the take, et cetera.

A gentle stroll along Cowgate, through the Grassmarket and over to the King’s Theatre on Leven Street for the National Theatre of Scotland’s much vaunted production of The Bacchae, part of this year’s International Festival. In the reviews that I have read, apart from Billington in the Guardian and The Stage, the critics absolutely loved this experimental version of Euripides’ play which included a camp Dionysus played by Alan Cumming and a gospel choir for the chorus. While I found it spectacular – Dionysus’ entrance, the burning of Pentheus’ palace, the flower darts and the bright lights aimed at the audience to show the divinity of Dionysus – I am in the Billington and The Stage camp. The play’s complexities were largely lost while I found the pace very lumpy, occasionally it moved from top gear, usually when it involved some repartee from Cumming, into almost reverse gear.

Day 4

Tuesday started with the first (preview) performance of Game Theory by EK Performance at the Traverse. This show which deals with conflict resolution has received mixed reviews. I enjoyed it, probably because I am interested in the subject matter. It contained three discrete pieces: talks about talks to resolve a conflict at the national level; the effects of the conflict on one family; and the bringing together of a man who had been erroneously condemned as a traitor during the conflict (and whose life was destroyed) with the woman who condemned him.

We were attracted to Truth in Translation at the Assembly on the Mound by the early favourable reviews. It dealt with the dealings of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission through the eyes of the translators. I was generally disappointed, as it was not as hard-hitting as I thought it might have been and it made no concessions to people (like me) who have forgotten some of the detail. I was also unhappy with: actors talking over each other, particularly early on … although it got better later; excessive use of devices such as lockers; and what I considered to be an ineffective video accompaniment.

Back to the Traverse for Venus as a Boy. At the risk of upsetting Luke Sutherland who wrote the novel on which the play is based and who provided the musical accompaniment, I put it in the one person show genre. It tells the story of a boy from the Orkney Islands looking for true love that eventually ends up as a male prostitute in London and dies at the early age of 38. This is a poignant piece that is beautifully acted by Tam Dean Burn. In my guise as a fan of the one person show I heartily recommend it. 

After dinner with Veronique, friend and one time B&B hostess, we head off for our only outdoor show, Biuro Podrozy's Macbeth – Who is that Bloodied Man? in the Old Quad at Edinburgh University and guess what … it was raining … mostly drizzle so it could have been worse. Characters on stilts, Nazi-looking motorcyclists, and more burning palaces … this is a spectacle with minimal dialogue … “More the charred bones of Shakespeare's play than the flesh” says Lyn Gardner in The Guardian. So long as you are not expecting vanilla-flavoured Macbeth (one critic obviously was) then this is an inventive and spectacular production.

Day 5

The first show on Wednesday was Yellow Moon at the Traverse. It used a storytelling technique to describe a youth who stabbed his mother’s boy friend to death and fled to find his long-lost father. It was OK (3 star show) without being anything special.

Over at the Assembly Rooms on George Street we saw Athol Fugard’s Exits and Entrances, a play set in the 1960s which dealt with two meetings between a young playwright (based on Fugard himself) and an ageing actor-manager (Andre Huguenet) – a sort of out with the old and in with the new. I am afraid that I found the pace a trifle funereal.

This was followed at the same venue by An Age of Angels, another one person show.  It centred on the seemingly uninteresting event of a ball being kicked over a school fence and across a busy highway. Mark Soper played 10 different characters who were involved in this event. Early on it seemed unpromising. This, coupled with the fact that the early characters included a paedophile who was watching the children in the playground and a spastic child, resulted in about 15-20 members of the audience leaving. This is another of my pet hates – people leaving shows. The two thirds of us who were left saw the plot gradually and skilfully unfold, layer by layer, until the eventual tragedy was revealed. This was an enjoyable show, well written and well acted.

The last show of the day was Will Adamsdale’s The Human Computer, an amusing piece on how infuriating and painful PCs can be to use. The first part of the show benefited from audience participation, as individuals were chosen to play items such as the hourglass and a piece of spam. A certain level of anarchy – Adamsdale struggled to keep control of some of his audience recruits – made for more laughs. The second part, where he wandered through networks and servers, did not work for me at all. I feel that there is a rich seam of comedy to be mined here but the show in its current guise failed to exploit it. Adamsdale could probably do with a bit of help from someone who knows more about the ins and outs of computers.

Day 6

We went to the Picasso on Paper exhibition at the Scottish Gallery of Modern Art on Thursday morning, walking through the pleasant parts of the New Town and over the Water of Leith. This was another enjoyable exhibition, containing 150+ drawings and prints. I am always fascinated by the drawings and paintings of Picasso’s women, and there are plenty of such drawings here. The Bull, a series of 12 lithographs where the creature changes each time, becoming gradually more stylised, is one of the highlights of the show. Time Out … we had a leisurely lunch with Aurora, Jim, Susan and Cal who we met on our first visit to the festival many moons ago.

Festival activities resumed with Victoria at Aurora Nova.  This powerful piece was based on an elderly woman, played by Dulcinea Langfelder, with senile dementia who struggled to recognise her visitors. Although her memory was fading her imagination was intact, as she danced the tango with her wheelchair as a partner and talked to her shadow.  This was a gentle, thoughtful piece of physical theatre on a difficult subject, witty and poignant – one of the best shows so far.

On to Assembly@St. George’s West for Emergence – See!, Daniel Beaty’s one man show that concerns the rising up of a slave ship in the Hudson river in modern day New York.  Beaty plays a myriad of characters in providing a portrait of black America, giving something of a virtuoso performance in the process. Although the show has been largely well received, including a Fringe First, I found that it wandered off at a tangent too much and his delivery, which was mostly high octane top gear stuff, to be somewhat tiring – quite why he needed a microphone given the natural power of his voice I did not quite understand.

A visit to the Udderbelly to see Jerry Sadowitz – Comedian, Magician, Psychopath rounded off the day. If you are easily offended by swearing, tirades on racism, immigration, jokes about disabled celebrities and much else besides then JS is not for you unless you can spot the irony.  This is sometimes quite easy to do when his standard bitter and twisted look occasionally collapses into a brief smirk. His close-up magic with cards was excellent as usual – an overhead camera being installed to provide the audience with a better view. I would personally have preferred a bit more magic and slightly less of the rants. I liked Brian Logan’s closing sentence in his review for The Guardian, “With his bitterness such a fertile source of black comedy, heaven forfend that Sadowitz should ever feel appreciated.” Reading reviews across the piece this year JS may well be in some danger here … he almost sounds like a national treasure!! … or should that be a f***ing national treasure?

Day 7

The final day of our visit started with Damascus at the Traverse. While the acting was excellent the play lacked a certain je ne sais quoi, i.e. I am not sure where it was ultimately going. Although it has been generally well received several critics have complained that nothing happened after the interval, and I tend to agree with them although I did enjoy it.

After a quick beer we were off to the Pleasance Dome for Pip Utton’s Chaplin. We are fans of Utton, an Edinburgh stalwart who specialises in the one person show. We enjoyed the show as Chaplin, close to death, looked back on his life. Good use was made of video, including interacting with it (shades of All Wear Bowlers at Aurora Nova a couple of years ago). However, the piece ultimately lacked a bit of depth; another 15-20 minutes over the existing running time of 50 minutes may have produced a better result.

Time permitted a visit to the Pleasance Courtyard to sit and watch the festival world go by before returning along Drummond Street to the Dome (briefly playing the – and where precisely was Darnley’s body found? – game) for An Air Balloon Across Antartica. This was a poignant play about a female explorer who seeks a meaning to her life after the death of her son and the breakdown of her marriage. She was joined by the ghosts of Shackleton, Scott and Amelia Earhart. It was a pleasant, relatively gentle piece but quite how it got 5 star ratings from some reviewers I do not know.

24 shows (and three arts exhibitions) down … just the one show to go. After dinner we headed to the Fruitmarket Gallery where Tim Crouch’s England was being performed. This show had received most of the plaudits on this year’s Fringe, including a Fringe First and a Herald Archangel, as well as topping my reviews “league”  (average star-ratings across 11 sources). The first part is played promenade in the upper gallery and introduced a character with a rich boyfriend who falls ill with a degenerative heart condition. Tim Crouch and Hannah Ringham “share” this part. In the second part, played on the ground floor of the gallery, the character, having had a transplant (paid for privately) and recovered, goes to a developing country to meet the widow of the donor who we find is convinced that her husband’s death had been engineered. The broad theme of this tightly written and well acted one hour play was inequality.

We spent the train journey south the following morning pondering the usual question – how did the festival compare with previous years. The Art Festival was very strong, probably the highlight for us. The Aurora Nova programme was stronger this year but the Traverse programme, while of a reliable standard, failed to live up to the pre-festival hype. There was no “absolutely must see” show on the Fringe or International Festival this year although the overall standard of what we saw was good. Of course, this may simply be a reflection on our growing ability to avoid the “turkeys”. If we had to pick a favourite we would both go for The Walworth Farce. In summary, the visit to the August Feast was as enjoyable as ever, helped in no small measure by the beauty of the city and meeting up with old friends.

Recommendations 

My short list of recommendations (from the shows that we have seen) is as follows:

• The Walworth Farce, England and Macbeth – Who is that Bloodied Man? (Drama)
• Hangman and Victoria (Dance and Physical Theatre)
• Venus as a Boy (One person show)
• Jerry Sadowitz if you can stomach him and Johnson & Boswell – Late but Live (Comedy)
• Andy Warhol: A Celebration of Life ... and Death, Picasso on Paper and The Naked Portrait (Visual Arts).

And What Should We Have Seen?

We always come away from the festival wishing that we had seen various other shows during our stay but were unable to fit them in. This year’s batch of missed opportunities included: Dai (Enough), The Battle of Stalingrad, The Container and Get Your War On.