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Pointing North: An Edinburgh ChecklistDate: 23 August 2004
The theatre world focuses itself north of the border this month as the Edinburgh Festival gets into full swing in Scotland. But how do you make sense of the world's largest arts festival? In our annual feature, Mark Shenton offers his top tips.
Just what is the "Edinburgh Festival"?
No, that isn't as silly a question as it may at first look. What is commonly referred to as the “Edinburgh Festival” is in reality a many many-headed monster, with the six main events being the original Edinburgh International Festival (15 August to 5 September, www.eif.co.uk), the Edinburgh Festival Fringe (8 to 30 August, www.edfringe.com), the Military Tattoo (6 to 28 August, www.edintattoo.co.uk), the Film Festival (18 to 29 August, www.edfilmfest.org.uk), the Book Festival (14 to 30 August, www.edbookfest.co.uk) and the Jazz and Blues Festival (30 July to 8 August).
Held over overlapping five overlapping weeks in August and early September, the collective annual events spill out into every major and not so major theatre and concert space - including pubs, restaurants and plots of grass - in the city.
The Edinburgh International Festival began in 1947 as a post-war initiative to bring Europe back together after the devastation of the Second World War. Several distinguished musicians from countries across Europe were invited to perform and, realising there'd be a ready-made audience, several theatre companies arrived behind them to set up where they could. A critic christened this "the fringe of official festival drama" and from that the Edinburgh Fringe was promptly born.
Now in and of itself the world's largest arts festival, the Fringe is by far the most popular component of the monolith, as well as being an important launching pad for new talent and annual showcase for existing stars. This year, the 58th annual Fringe involves nearly 16,000 performers giving over 25,300 performances of some 1,695 shows in 236 venues – an increase on last year’s 21,500 performances of 1541 shows in 207 venues. A third of these are world premieres and countless more are European or British premieres.
Theatre, including musicals, comprises some 39% of the overall programme, making it the most popular art form of all, with comedy – constantly accused in some quarters of usurping the theatrical content of the festival – actually only comprising 23% of the Fringe festivities.
With so much to choose from, it’s easy to feel daunted – but take heart from the fact that no one can do it all. It’s estimated that it would take you five years and 53 days to see every performance back-to-back!
2004 Theatre Highlights
This year's theatrical highlights on the Fringe include the already West End-bound revival of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, starring Hollywood actor Christian Slater; new plays by Jonathan Harvey (Taking Charlie) and Marie Jones (The Blind Fiddler); Fatboy, the latest from director/writer John Clancy, whose Americana Absurdum was recently seen at London’s Menier Chocolate Factory and whose new play stars comedian Mike McShane; new plays by comedians Owen O'Neill (Finding Mick Jagger), Scott Capurro (Loaded) and Jenny Eclair (The Andy Warhol Syndrome); Shockheaded Peter collaborators The Tiger Lillies in a lurid new operetta, Punch and Judy; a world premiere stage adaptation of a Tom Stoppard screenplay for Galileo, written in 1970 but never filmed; and even a stage adaptation of Jeffrey Archer’s Prison Diary! Amongst the myriad solo shows, ones to look out for include David Benson’s Haunted Stage; two one-man offerings from fringe giant Steven Berkoff, Requiem for Ground Zero and Edgar Allen Poe’s The Tell Tale Heart; Sex, Drugs and Sausage Rolls, BBC London presenter Sadie Nine’s autobiographical journey through a career that has embraced West End musicals and once saw her dubbed the ‘Russian Madonna’; and Australian musical actress Caroline O'Connor, who has appeared in West End musicals and had a featured role in Moulin Rouge, performing Bombshells.
Across town, at the Edinburgh International Festival, parent to the Fringe, there's an 11-hour French theatrical marathon, Le Soulier de Satin (The Satin Slipper); a new Birmingham Repertory Theatre production of Fernando de Rojas’ Celestina, with controversial Spaniard Calixto Bieito directing a cast that includes Kathryn Hunter in the title role; Ibsen’s Peer Gynt, performed in German in a Berliner Ensemble production directed by Peter Zadek; Racine’s Andromache, also performed in German; a celebration of Rossini’s life, The Composer, the Singer, the Cook and the Sinner; and a new play by British playwright Anthony Neilson, The Wonderful World of Dissocia, presented by Glasgow’s Tron Theatre in a co-production with the Theatre Royal Plymouth and the International Festival.
So, with so much going on, how on earth can a person tame the Edinburgh beast? Herewith, our top tips for surviving the festival.
Planning, planning, planning....
Arm yourself with the free Fringe Programme before you get to Edinburgh. You can pick one up at a number of London venues, or order online on www.edfringe.com. Of course, at a daunting 224 pages of densely packed and painstakingly categorised and cross-referenced information, you may not be able to make any sense of the publication at first. But, like a really fine wine, while it tastes good the moment you sip it, it only reveals its darker mysteries as you get further down the bottle. Bear in mind, however, that the programme is liable to many changes post-publication so don't rely on it authoritatively to timetable your visit.
How to choose a show
Beware the curse of the critics. Come festival time, there seem to be nearly as many people who call themselves critics as performers. With the avalanche of newsprint expended on covering the festival and few shows actually worth covering, critics are only human, and tend to overhype the merely mediocre. There are also simply too many of them - both shows and critics - and it becomes difficult to separate the wood from the trees, which have all been pulped anyway in this futile attempt to lead through the forest that has been destroyed to make sense of it all. You'll find the most comprehensive Edinburgh Festival coverage in the Edinburgh morning paper, The Scotsman, which devotes a daily supplement to it and runs an all-singing, all-dancing festivals website. Otherwise, stick to one or two other reliable critical sources, and ignore the rest.
Which is the fairest of them all?
Use the updated Daily Diary for precision planning. Published each day and distributed all over town, this helpfully orders the shows by timeband rather than name of the presenting company or title of the act (as in the Fringe Programme) to let you know what's playing on an hour-by-hour basis.
Many of the larger individual venues also publish their own separate brochures that you can pick up at each one. Virtually compulsory are the two brochures that cover four of the biggest venues - the Assembly Rooms and the Pleasance, published together, and separately but jointly, the Smirnoff Underbelly (a relatively new venue on a fast track to becoming a major player) and the Gilded Balloon (now firmly ensconced at Teviot Row House in Bristol Square after a devastating fire in 2002 wiped out its original home).
And whether you get a glance at its programme or not, if you're a serious theatregoer in search of new plays, it's always worth heading first for the Traverse Theatre, a year-round new writing venue that regularly transfers to the Royal Court and Bush in London. This year’s programme includes the world premiere of When the Bulbul Stopped Singing by Palestinian lawyer, activist and writer Raja Shehadeh, adapted for the stage by David Greig; and Lynn Parker directing Linda McLean’s Shimmer.
But do remember to venture further afield too. There's more to Edinburgh than the Pleasance, though its pleasant courtyard setting, against the backdrop of Salisbury Cragg, is the nicest festival hangout in good weather.
Pick up the complimentary and complementary brochures to the other festivals, too, all of which are far easier to get your head around than the Fringe. If nothing else, they'll provide you with an alternative should you slip into arts overload.
Spend Spend Spend
The cost of attending myriad shows can add up, but you don't have to buy tickets to see everything - the central section of the Royal Mile around the Fringe Office and Parliament Square becomes a huge street theatre on a daily basis. Buskers, acrobats, fire-eaters and other entertainers make their appearance - alongside actors from Fringe shows dressed up in costume promoting their shows and often performing 'trailers' to help you decide what to plump for. In addition, there are around 139 shows in the programme that are completely free!
The biggest 'freebie' is the Royal Bank Fringe Sunday, which takes place on the Meadows, just south of the city centre on 15 August. It's a huge garden party attracting crowds of around 200,000. It includes free performances and extracts from Fringe shows with art displays and crafts stalls, music and children's activities.
To book or not to book
Do book ahead - but don't overbook. If there's something you're particularly determined to see, don't delay, book today. The most popular fringe shows, especially comedy, sell out in advance, so it's worth securing your seats for them. But don't book too many shows in advance - you'll want to retain some flexibility in your schedule to slot in late discoveries or recommendations you hear on the street. Most shows don't come close to selling out so you can simply purchase tickets on the door. Even the more popular shows only fill up a day (or sometimes two, seldom three) in advance, so you can leave it fairly late to commit.
Finally...
Enjoy it. Edinburgh is neither a race nor an endurance test. It's a pleasure, not a penance. And don't fret too much if you miss something that sounded good - if it's really up to scratch, chances are it'll reappear, either in London, on tour or again at Edinburgh next year.
The 2004 Edinburgh Fringe runs 8 to 30 August and is joined by the Edinburgh International Festival from 15 August to 5 September. For overviews on theatre highlights from both, see related stories in the Whatsonstage.com News section. And for all the very latest festival news, reviews and listings, check out the detailed reporting from our partners at The Scotsman at www.edinburgh-festivals.com.
