Punters’ Visit to the 2008 Edinburgh Festival

I was somewhat apprehensive as we set off this year: the Fringe box office fiasco and the disappearance of the Aurora Nova venue had made me slightly downbeat. My mood was not helped by a dire train journey from Kings Cross to Edinburgh, due to some kind thieves stealing signalling cable (for the copper) somewhere between Newark and Grantham. The upshot was an absolutely packed train with many passengers having to stand or perch somewhere. Janet was however determined that we would have our traditional “we are off to Edinburgh G+T” and she managed to get to the buffet after York when the train was very slightly less packed. Amazingly we were only 45 minutes late getting into Edinburgh; some fellow passengers were 4+ hours late due to train cancellations. After quickly unpacking, chatting to Penny, the delightful lady who runs the B&B, and a brief visit to the Sibbets where we used to stay (they are now retired), we were off …

Day 1

First up was Absolution, a one man piece with Owen O'Neill, a Fringe regular both as comedian and straight actor. It was a story, set in Ireland, of a man who killed Catholic priests that were guilty of abusing children. It was an enjoyable show with an interesting twist at the end. The evening meal was followed by a walk to the Traverse to see Finished With Engines. Although the show had received quite reasonable reviews, we found it somewhat uninspiring and totally failed to understand how one critic had managed to equate it with M.A.S.H.

Day 2

Day 2 started with breakfast at the B&B. It transpired that all the other guests this year were in Edinburgh at least in part for the festival. Our first show of the day was Fall at the Traverse, a play which deals with the aftermath of a civil war and the issues which surround how to deal with war criminals. We enjoyed the play and the performance of the actors although the script did tend to ramble somewhat after the interval.

This was followed by the Royal Court's production, Free Outgoing, a tale of social stigma in India with a decidedly 21st century take. It was very thought-provoking, well paced and had strong performances from the cast, particularly from Lolita Chakrabarti who played the mother.

Staying in the Traverse, we suffered Nocturne, a somewhat turgid monologue which lasted just under 2 hours. I found the descriptive passages way way too long and I am afraid that I lost the will to live around the one hour mark. I am sure that it would be possible to reduce the script by virtually 50% without losing any artistic content. You may wish to take my comments with a slight pinch of salt as I have been known to say (somewhat sacrilegiously) that a small number of Shakespeare's plays could do with a little trim, albeit in the bard's case I am just talking about certain final acts going on a bit too long!

Our Traverse day was completed with Architecting, a play which dealt with how people react to change. It was performed by the Team, a young US company. They were certainly very energetic performers but I found the play, albeit complex, somewhat naïve in the terms of the views expressed ... but enjoyable all the same.

Day 3

Monday morning sees our first cancelled show for several years. Derevo's Gospel of Anton had bitten the dust when the main dancer had broken his knee several weeks previously. However, we did not find out until we arrived at the Pleasance. One of my gripes about the Fringe is that they (and the venues) are not very good at highlighting cancelled shows - one for their suggestion boxes possibly although the Fringe's suggestion box is probably somewhat overloaded at this precise moment.

A quick piece of re-scheduling took us to the National Galleries to see the Impressionism and Scotland art exhibition. It put the Glasgow school and Scottish Colourists alongside the Impressionists. Some critics have complained that the exhibition lacks coherence, merely pandering to the tastes of the average punter who likes the Impressionists - hey ho, perhaps I am just your average punter ... although in my defence I do like the Scottish Colourists as well! Enjoyable.

After a quick visit to The Cumberland, one of our favourite Edinburgh pubs, we were off to Baby Belly to see Pip Utton's War of the Worlds. While we are fans of Utton this was a disappointing and somewhat lacklustre show.

Back to the Pleasance for our two remaining shows of the day. The Aluminum Show was very entertaining and inventive, suitable for all the family. Reginald D. Hunter was also reasonably entertaining. He courts controversy but generally manages to get away with it by convincing you that he is an intelligent chap rather than somebody who simply rants for the sake of it.

Day 4

Tuesday started with a trip to the Traverse to see the Abbey Theatre's production of Terminus. Seemingly disparate monologues from three actors until you gradually realise that they are interconnected, with magical aspects that seem to be part and parcel of much Irish drama these days. This was a good all-round show.

Off to the Assembly Rooms for Weights, another of Guy Masterson's productions at this year's Fringe. It is autobiographical, written and played by Lynn Manning. It deals with his troubled childhood, being shot and blinded in a bar in LA, and dealing with his blindness. A solid performance.

Back to the Traverse for Pornography, a play dealing with disparate Londoners at the time of 7/7 bombing. We struggled with this play, not least because all the Londoners portrayed were odd-balls. I am sure that there is a play to be written around 7/7 but this is not it.

The final show of the day was Deep Cut at the Traverse. It has been the subject of considerable media hype, much of it claiming that the theatre can do what journalists have failed to do with respect to learning the truth about what did or did not happen at the Deepcut barracks. Viewing it simply as a piece of theatre we (no doubt in the minority) did not find it to be a particularly powerful piece. It had an overtly sentimental streak which detracted from the verbatim elements of the show. We saw The Exonerated at the Fringe several years ago, a verbatim theatre piece about innocent people on death row in the US. We got the impression at the time that it was mostly pure transcript, and the sheer harshness of it made it very moving. Deep Cut simply did not have that effect on us.

Day 5

The first show on Wednesday was Enda Walsh's New Electric Ballroom at the Traverse. It deals with three sisters, two of whom repeatedly relive their failed love lives. We saw Walsh's The Walworth Farce last year, a stunning play which was the best thing that we saw during our 2007 visit, showing at the National in London from September after a successful run in New York. New Electric Ballroom, written a year earlier than The Walworth Farce but covering some similar territory, was an excellent production - arguably one of the best shows of this visit - but it did not quite match The Walworth Farce.

The next show was Scaramouche Jones, a one man show, written and performed by Justin Butcher and directed by Guy Masterson at the Assembly Rooms. It was orginally premiered in Dublin some years back when Pete Postlethwaite played Scaramouche, a clown who has decided to die on the eve of his 100th birthday. The play deals with the colourful first 50 years of his life before he became a clown. As an aficionado of the one man show I have to say that this was up there with the very best of them. It was beautifully written, very well paced and, as one critic said, Butcher's performance was spellbinding. The lady in front of me on the way out was muttering to herself "amazing" - difficult to disagree with her. Excellent.

Remaining at the Assembly Rooms we see another one man show,The Tailor of Inverness. Matthew Zajac covers the life of his father, chronicling his childhood in eastern Poland, his experiences during the Second World War, and his eventual arrival in Scotland where he spent the rest of his life. The first two thirds of the show was in a pleasant dramatic form while the remaining one third was factual. Although we enjoyed the show we did not think that this format worked successfully, although once again we appear to be in the minority.

The last show of the day was Bale de Rua, best described as a mixture of Brazilian dance and acrobatics, performed by a troupe of 15 very talented and very fit artists. Hugely enjoyable, particularly by those women in the audience who were persuaded to join in towards the end of the show.

Day 6

We started the day with a visit to the Foto: Modernity in Central Europe 1918-1945 exhibition at the Dean Gallery (part of the Scottish Gallery of Modern Art), taking our usual leisurely walk through the pleasant parts of the New Town, Dean Village and over the Water of Leith. This was an interesting exhibition which has been well received by the critics. I particularly enjoyed the early rooms, e.g. the surrealist room, which showed a time when photography was very much seen as a close relation to other forms of visual art. A coffee was followed by a visit to the main gallery over the road to see Tracey Emin: 20 years before we set off for our long annual lunch with the Sibbets (who ran the first B&B that we stayed at many years ago) and the Cohens (long-standing festival devotees).

Festival activities resumed with Lynn Ferguson: The Plan at Gilded Balloon Teviot.  This was a modest workmanlike show with several pieces on the subject of death.

This was followed by Jerry Sadowitz - Comedian, Magician, Psychopath II in the "Purple Cow". He gets a bit more outrageous as the years go by ... one wonders where it will all end up. The early rants were fine and the magic was as good as ever, but the prolonged rant at the end smacked of somebody who had run out of material.

On to the Assembly Rooms for A Drunk Woman Looks at the Thistle, a one woman show which is "a 45 minute rant on the political climate in Scotland ... which questions Scotland’s political ideology, Scottish cultural identity and, most importantly, the view and treatment of women in modern Scotland". I quote this from OnStageScotland because it was delivered in a fairly thick Scottish accent and with much use of Scottish vernacular. The locals in the audience found it amusing but, as we struggled to understand much more than 50%, it was somewhat over our heads.

Day 7

The final day of our visit started with Reasonable Doubt. This was a tale of two jurors meeting up two years after the trial that they sat on and just before the retrial is due to start, discussing their differing views of the original trial, their would-be relationship and their lives since the trial. An enjoyable two-hander.

This was followed by a trip to Zoo Southside to see Holdin Fast by DOT504, a Czech company. This dance production is described as a "dreamy ballad of sexual dependency, inspired by Milan Kundera's The Unbearable Likeness of Being". It was very enjoyable and made me yearn for the return of Aurora Nova.

After a beer in the Cafe Royal, we take in The Expert at the Card Table. Guy Hollingworth, a very urbane, smooth performer, tells the story behind the book of the same name which was first published in 1901 and has never since been out of print. He chronicles the story of its author Samuel William Erdnase and his friend, the troubled con man Milton Franklin Andrews, interpersing the dark tale with amazing card tricks which get more impressive as the show goes on, particularly as he seldom stops the narrative to concentrate on the magic. Extremely enjoyable.

23 shows (and three art exhibitions) down … just the one show to go. After dinner we head to the Traverse one last time for Daniel Kitson's 66a Church Road. We have seen Kitson before and enjoy his rambling, self-deprecating, storytelling style. This was about his love affair with his flat in Crystal Palace. It was very enjoyable albeit it tended to get slightly repetitious towards the end ... here I go again ... just shave 10-15 minutes off the current 90 and it will be great Daniel!

In Summary ... 

The weather was not wonderful although it was not as bad as made out by the media. My initial fears were not realised; we managed to avoid using the Fringe box office system at all, but we heard several tales of punters who had not been so lucky, particularly some who had pre-booked when the fiasco was at its height.

Although there was no "must see show" this year the general standard of what we saw was good; the Traverse programme was better overall than it has been for several years; but The Art Festival failed to hit last year's heights - not surprisingly. The main themes this year seemed to be violence, killing and death. Nudity was also prominent ... and I thought that on-stage nudity was somewhat passé these days?

Our shortlist of recommendations (from the shows that we have seen) is as follows:

• New Electric Ballroom, Terminus and Free Outgoing (Drama)
• Bale de Rua and Holdin Fast (Dance and Physical Theatre)
• Scaramouche Jones (One person show)
• 66a Church Road (Comedy)
• Impressionism and Scotland and Foto: Modernity in Central Europe 1918-1945 (Visual Arts)
• The Aluminum Show and The Expert at the Card Table (just for general enjoyment).

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 list of missed opportunities is smaller than usual, both productions not coniciding with our visit: 365 and Matthew Bourne's Dorian Gray, although we will fortunately be seeing the latter at Sadlers Wells in September. We had also planned to see one of the productions on the Forest Fringe but we noticed just before going up to Edinburgh that the programme had been changed significantly and our chosen show had disappeared.

24th August 2008.

Addendum (13th September 2008) - we duly got to see Matthew Bourne's Dorian Gray at Sadlers Wells last night. The critics had in general not been impressed with it, complaining about the choreography and calling it a "missed opportunity". Perhaps they expect too much from Bourne, perhaps some arrive with preconceptions of what a Dorian Gray production could / should encompass. Anyway, as mere punters we deign to disagree with their take on the production. We thought that it was very good: the set was very effective; the dancers were terrific; and the storyline resonated. All in all a very good start to our autumn season.