Info & Links to Previews of the 2009 Festivals

This page is in two sections: the first is organised by individual festival and covers the launch of each festival programme plus early views from the critics - click on the appropriate link below; the second is a digest of links to preview articles and media recommendations across all the festivals in the lead up to August plus this particular punter's thoughts (plus those of friend Susan) - it can be found here.

International Festival
Fringe
International Film Festival
Book Festival
Art Festival
Jazz & Blues Festival
The Edge Festival (formerly T on the Fringe).

Edinburgh International Festival

The first sign of the festival always comes with the launch of the EIF programme which was announced this morning (25th March 2009).

The programme can viewed online (which I personally struggled with) or now two days after the launch it can be downloaded as a pdf (10MB in size). In either case start from this page. The schedule of performances, dates and venues - called the calendar - can also be downloaded, also via this page.

The theme this year is the Enlightenment. Presumably based in large part on the 14 page press release which can be downloaded via this page, very early feedback can be found in The Scotsman and The Stage. The Guardian and WhatsOnStage followed several hours later with The Times, The Herald and EdinburghGuide.com adding their pieces the following morning. Also in The Times, Richard Morrison weighs in with his initial thoughts.

Meanwhile, the cover of the brochure has caused some early controversy in Edinburgh. It seems quite a few years since we have had a Edinburgh "firestorm, although I am quietly ignoring the other issue of the moment, viz whether the tram works will continue on Princes Street during the festival. The locals - well actually mainly the tourist industry stoked by the media - are upset because the cover includes: a man urinating next to the statue of Greyfriars Bobby, beggars huddled at the statue of David Hume and neds drinking lager outside the Scottish Parliament. It seems that the Glasgow design firm Timorous Beasties was asked to come up a humorous twist on the theme of enlightenment. Our tourist industry friends are concerned that the use of such negative images will put arts lovers off visiting Edinburgh. One wonders if they would recognise an arts lover if they fell over one?

Back to the programme, The Scotsman was the first out of the blocks with a more detailed view from the critics. Links to any other views will be found here as they become available.

While we were still ploughing through the programme our friend and fellow festival enthusiast Susan had already starting booking tickets and she gave me her initial thoughts within a couple of days of the programme launch, with special emphasis on the opera and music sections.

"We feel this is the best Festival programme that the new director has launched and are hoping he has finally found his path. Sadly, it is not of the calibre of artists and productions we so loved at previous Festivals, but as it is so much improved over last year we are overjoyed and much more hopeful about the Festival's future. Many of the Festival highlights are early music operas, lots of Handel, Purcell, and even Bach. The programme says this is in honour of the Enlightenment but most of the composers and music predate that period so it is a bit of a stretch. But who cares as the music is fantastic and we are immensely thankful to have the opportunity to hear so many in so brief a time. The conductors are the masters of this period so in that, he was able to get the best. We'll see about the singers but I am betting, they will be fine (I hope.) One of the problems always with the Festivals is they quickly put together a group of artists who have never worked with each other, are of uneven quality, and have under-rehearsed,  which can be very frustrating. However, this is a universal problem for Festivals, not just Edinburgh. In any case, early music is too rarely performed despite its very loyal audiences, so specializing in this area is certainly a way the Festival can regain some of its lost importance and stature."

Drama does well this year in terms of the number of shows, but there is nothing that particularly stands out for me. The Traverse Theatre Company makes a welcome return to the EIF with Rona Munro's new play, The Last Witch. Susan is keen on this while I am slightly ambivalent despite the fact I am a Traverse enthusiast and I enjoyed the last Rona Munro play that I saw at the 2007 Fringe, Paines Plough's production of Long Time Dead. Brian Friel's The Faith Healer would definitely appeal but we still have the Almeida's production with Ken Stott and Geraldine McEwan fresh in our memories. We will probably take a punt on Optimism, an Australian production after Voltaire's Candide.

Dance suffers this year with only four shows. Indeed, I am beginning to wonder if Mills is particularly enamoured with this art form. Michael Clark's New Work is appealing (in terms of taking a punt) although it does not premiere until June while Susan's vote goes to the Royal Ballet of Flanders' Return of Ulysses.

Once again Mills has demonstrated his desire for a Visual Arts strand with 9 installations this year. Although I have said before that he should leave the Visual Arts to the Art Festival we will no doubt be visiting some, if not all, of them.

Previews and critics' recommendations from mid-June onwards can be found here at the bottom of this page.

Edinburgh Fringe

The Scotsman leaked some programme information on May 30th, 2009. mainly for artists appearing at the Pleasance and the Assembly Rooms.

The 2009 Fringe programme was officially announced today (Wednesday June 10th, 2009). The stats, so loved by the Fringe Society, include 2098 shows with 34,265 performances in 265 performing spaces - a new world record! The number of free shows has also increased this year - they are mainly comedy and music. Comedy - which overtook Drama last year as the largest element of the Fringe - accounts for 35% of this year's programme with Drama on 28%.

The programme can be viewed online from Monday 15th June 2009 at the Fringe web site although the sheer size makes it preferable to get hold of a printed copy - look here to see how to get hold of one. Individual venues either already have details of their own shows on their web sites or will have them shortly. This facility on The Stage web site can be useful to find the link to a venue's web site, as well as other useful information.

Early thoughts on this year's programme were quickly available through various media outlets within an hour or so, including: WhatsOnStage.com (the most comprehensive), EdinburghGuide.com, The Scotsman, The Guardian, The Stage and The Times. They were subsequently followed by Scotland on Sunday.

Previews and critics' recommendations from mid-June onwards can be found here at the bottom of this page.

International Film Festival

It was pre-announced in April that the Sam Mendes film Away We Go will open the 2009 Edinburgh Film Festival.

The full programme was launched on May 6th, 2009. It can be downloaded from here on the Edinburgh Film Festival's website. Brief summaries of the programme were available on the same day in various publications - click here for The Guardian, here for The List or here for The Scotsman.

Peter Bradshaw's top 10 appears in The Guardian (10th June 2009).

Previews and critics' recommendations from mid-June onwards can be found here at the bottom of this page.

Edinburgh International Book Festival

A busy 7 days ended today (11th June 2009) with the announcement of the 2009 Book Festival, the last of the 2009 summer festival programmes to be launched.

A brief summary can be found on the home page of the festival's website, while the programme can be browsed now and tickets bought from 22nd June 2009 here.

The highlights include Margaret Atwood with her new novel The Year of the Flood, Shirley Williams delivering the National Library of Scotland Donald Dewar Lecture, a celebration of Robert Burns (as part of Homecoming Scotland), along with celebrities Cherie Blair and Sebastian Coe.

The Scotsman was first to produce an article on the launch, followed by The Guardian and EdinburghGuide.com.

Previews and critics' recommendations from mid-June onwards can be found here at the bottom of this page.

Edinburgh Art Festival

The 2009 Edinburgh Art Festival programme was announced on May 27th, 2009. A list of shows by venue can be found here on their website.

Early publicity surrounds Rough Cut Nation, a multimedia project with young Scottish artists "remixing a version of Scottish history, as informed by street art and graffiti culture, painted, pasted and projected onto the walls of the Portrait Gallery". Apart from this free exhibition The Scottish National Portrait Gallery will be closed until autumn 2011 for refurbishment - a project called Portrait of the Nation.

It appears that the 2009 festival will otherwise be a relatively quiet year in the sense that there are no "blockbuster" exhibitions. The Scotsman provides a summary of the programme announcement. A more detailed article can be found at ArtDaily.org.

Further details on the exhibitions will be announced in late June.

Previews and critics' recommendations from mid-June onwards can be found here at the bottom of this page.

Edinburgh Jazz & Blues Festival

It has been pre-announced in the Scotsman that Jools Holland and his Rhythm and Blues Orchestra will be performing at the closing concert of the 2009 festival at the Edinburgh Playhouse on Sunday 9th August 2009.

The full festival programme was launched on Friday 5th June 2009. Details can be found on the Jazz & Blues Festival web site.

Jazzwise and The Scotsman were first out of the blocks with brief summaries of the programme.

Previews and critics' recommendations from mid-June onwards can be found here at the bottom of this page.

The Edge Festival

The Edge Festival, formerly T on the Fringe, announced its initial lineup of gigs today (Wednesday 10th June 2009).

The List and The Skinny both contain summaries of the festival programme.

Further additions to the Edge programme are detailed in efestivals.co.uk.

Picks and Previews

Links to preview articles, critics' recommendations and any other relevant info will be posted below until early August.

If you are looking for feature articles the following sites are well worth a browse (list last updated on August 5th, 2009):

The Scotsman's Edinburgh-Festivals.com - new look to it this year
WhatsOnStage.com/edinburgh2009 is making more of an effort this year
The List's EdinburghFestivalGuide
The Telegraph
The Guardian's Edinburgh Festival section
BBC website - the Beeb seems to making more of an effort this year ... on the website at least
The Stage's Edinburgh Festival site no significant content so far
EdinburghGuide.com's Edinburgh Festival section - slow start
Fest Magazine in association with The Skinny

Punters' Thoughts

A selection of my picks follow - they include last minute additions:

Drama - The Last Witch (EIF), Faith Healer (EIF), Midsummer, Morecambe, Barflies, Palace of the End, Orphans and The Doubtful Guest ... possibles include Certain Dark Things, Sylvia Plath - 3 Women, Austen's Women, If That's All There Is, The Sociable Plover, David Leddy's 'White Tea' and Francis The Holy Jester. Late additions ... The Event, The Sound of My Voice, Beachy Head, Precious Little Talent and Little Gem

Dance - The Red Room ... possibles Spaceman and The Overcoat. Late additions .. Something about Others,

Comedy - The Interminable Suicide of Gregory Church (Daniel Kitson), Alistair McGowan and Hardeep Singh Kohli ... possibles include Reginald D. Hunter and Simon Amstell

Visual Arts - Raphael to Renoir and Rough Cut Nation ... possibles include The Discovery of Spain and EIF installations at various galleries. Late addition ... Eva Hesse

Other - Lewis Barlow Close Up Magician.

My friend Susan has kindly given me her recommendations for the the music and opera programmes at the EIF, the length of her list indicating that she is pleased with the overall programme this year:

Opera - Macbeth, Rinaldo, Acis & Galatea, Der Fliegende Hollander, The Fairy Queen, Il Ritorno d'Ulisse in Patria and Actus Tragicus

Choral Music - She would love to see all the performances but singles out Dunedin Consort, Bach Collegium Japan , Rivercar Consort, Cantus Colln, Retrospect Ensemble - Carolyn Sampson and The Sixteen

Music - Willard White, Orchestre des Champs-Elysees- conductor Phillippe Herrewege, Elias by Felix Mendelssohn- again the Orchestre des Champs Elysees and Phillippe Herrewege with Christianne Stotjin singing, Philarmonia Orchestre with Esa-Pekka Salonen conducting and Yefim Bronfman on piano, Le Concert des Nations with Jordi Savall playing Handel, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment with Sir Roger Norrington conducting and Joyce DiDonato singing Haydn, Bryn Terfel, Scottish Chamber Orchestra with Sir Charles Mackerras conducting Haydn etc, Tonhalle-Orchester Zurich with David Zinman and Dawn Upshaw - Brahms and Mahler's 4^th, The Monteverdi Choir with Sir John Gardiner conducting Bach and Handel, and The Dream of Gerontius with Sir Mark Elder conducting the Halle

Queen's Hall Music - Collegium Vocale Gent with Kristian Bezuidenhourt on piano -The Haydn Songbook, Lisa Milne soprano, Hebrides Ensemble - Christopher Maltman baritone, Hesperion XXI with Jordi Savall playing early music on the Gamba, Elisabeth Leonskaja playing Chopin, Quatuor Mosaiques, Andreas Staier fortepiano, Bernarda Fink mezzo soprano, Christian Zacharias piano and Emerson String Quartet.

Finally, I will take a view on the Forest Fringe programme closer to festival time. Last year we had decided up front on a particular show only to find out that it had disappeared from the programme a couple of days before our arrival in Edinburgh.