Urban Images: Edinburgh in August

Edinburgh Castle from the Rooftop Terrace, National Museum of Scotland

August is Festival time in Edinburgh and the only time of the year when I spend much time in a city. During the Festivals (I've lost count of how many different ones there are) Edinburgh is bustling, confusing, entertaining, overwhelming, exciting, inspiring, exhausting.

The Bluebells and Barbed Wire logo of the 2014 Edinburgh International Festival

This year was a more serious festival time than usual as we went to several shows and talks relating to World War 1 and war in general, which were the themes of the International Festival. Of these events a talk by historian Margaret MacMillan on the complex causes of WWI was illuminating while Ganesh Versus The Third Reich was a disturbing, thought-provoking and challenging play.

The James Plays by Rona Munro were the highlights though. The writing, acting and production of these three plays about the Scottish kings James I, II and III were all stunning. This is a major work. The plays are on in London in September. I recommend them to anyone who likes theatre.

There were some shows with outdoor themes at the Festival Fringe and I went to ones on John Muir, the Three Peaks of Yorkshire and George Mallory and enjoyed them all. You can read my thoughts in the October issue of The Great Outdoors.

Away from the shows I did spend some time wandering round the city looking at the variety of people and places and taking photographs. Here are some of my pictures.

A Diverse Skyline

Reptilian monsters? Not worth a glance.

You can buy anything

Or anywhere really

Venues everywhere

Posters everywhere

Cranes or monsters?

An odd corner

Philosopher David Hume wonders what has happened to his city, to the left Jehovah's Witness cause a miracle - an empty space on the Royal Mile

Crowds

Edinburgh Festivals: Music

The cast of This Land giving an encore on the steps of the venue.

At my almost annual urban interlude at the Edinburgh Festivals ('almost' because other activities, such as the Pacific Northwest Trail, do sometimes intrude) I've been to several musical shows, my attendance at one of which surprised even me. All of them are worth seeing though only one is still on in Edinburgh. My review starts with this.

This Land: The Story of Woody Guthrie

Described as a musical rollercoaster this is an exuberant, enjoyable and inspirational celebration of the life of Woody Guthrie, undoubtedly one of the most significant figures in American popular music of the last century, from Interplay of Leeds. The versatile cast play a variety of characters and swap instruments regularly. All seven male cast play Woody at different stages of his life with the lone woman member playing everyone from his mother to both his wives to a BBC presenter. Using a basic but effective set the cast conjure up freight trains, hobo life, houses and hospitals. The music is great of course and much of it familiar -  I knew most of the songs despite not owning any Woody Guthrie music (a defect I have now remedied). The singing and playing are both excellent and really capture the feeling of a time when folk music really was popular music of the masses. Whilst mostly energetic and upbeat there are poignant moments - deaths, divorce, illness - but Guthrie is always shown as being strong and positive right up to the time when near his death after years in hospital he is shown handing on the spirit of his music, not this time to the next stage in his own life but to a successor - Bob Dylan.


The Makropulos Case

I am not an opera lover. In fact it's fair to say that I've spent most of my life with a strong dislike of opera. So  my ever attending a full opera seemed unlikely. However a friend in Opera North was playing violin in a production of Janacek's The Makropolos Case at the Edinburgh International Festival so I surprised my partner, who does like opera, by saying I would go along, even though an opera about a legal case didn't  sound too promising. What I found was that actually going to an opera both confirmed and confounded my prejudices. The music was dramatic and thrilling with great dynamics. It surged and rolled and faded and really powered the production along. The singing was, well, okay. I didn't dislike it but it's not a style of singing I warm to - it sounds rather emotionless to my ear. The acting and melodrama conveyed the feelings well however. The sets were surprisingly interesting, given they consist of a lawyers office and a hotel. The story, which I didn't know, was strong enough to hold my interest. I appreciated having the words displayed as I couldn't always follow the singing and anyway sometimes I concentrated more on the music and let the words run as background. The audience and my companions were all enthusiastic so for those who like and understand opera it's obviously good. I guess I was pleasantly surprised but not so much that I'll be dashing off to more opera anytime soon.

Richard Thompson

If there was one performance I'd have been very surprised and disappointed if I hadn't found enthralling it was this solo show by one of Britain's greatest songwriters and guitarists of the last forty plus years. Somehow I'd managed not to see Richard Thompson since the early 1970s, on his farewell tour with Fairport Convention, so I was very pleased to finally manage to attend a concert and even more pleased that it was even better than I expected. Over the years Thompson's voice has grown in depth, range and emotional intensity and he is now a very good singer indeed, which was shown especially on the slower, sadder songs. As to his guitar playing, well, it's always been good but on this occasion it was really stunning, especially when he let rip on the uptempo numbers. At times I could swear I could hear bass, rhythm and lead at the same time, all from one acoustic guitar. The songs were a mix of old favourites from his now vast back catalogue and four good-sounding new ones from an album coming out next year. It was a good range of songs too - everything from the pathos of Beeswing through the rock'n roll of Valerie to the humour of Don't Sit On My Jimmy Shands. A brilliant hour and half's music.

Edinburgh International Festival: St Kilda Island of Birdmen

Last night I went to see one of the star events at this years Edinburgh International Festival,the multi-media St Kilda Island of the Birdmen,which involves film, acrobatics, dance, music and song. The production tells the story in symbolic form of the people of St Kilda in the years leading up to the evacuation of the island in 1930. Visually it is stunning with acrobats climbing and hanging from ropes to show the St Kilda men collecting birds from the cliffs. The films, projected behind the cast throughout most of the performance,are a fascinating mixture of old films from the early twentieth century shot on St Kilda and modern film of the show performed there in 2007 plus pseudo-documentary sections of film makers returning to the island with a man playing a descendant of former inhabitants. The black and white film of the 2007 performance is cleverly merged with the old films of the actual islanders. Sombre music, much of it cello-based, adds atmosphere and the singing of Althy McCormack, who plays islander Catriona, is haunting and beautiful. There is also wonderful film of St Kilda with dramatic shots of sea stacks rising into misty skies. Some of this was filmed from a boat and the swaying of the water and movement of the islands adds to the realistic feeling.

Whilst I enjoyed the production and would certainly recommend it I did have one problem and that was the language, which was a mix of French, Gaelic and English. My ancient O level French was not up to more than a fraction of the French singing and my Gaelic is non-existent, though I did know a few words. This meant that following the story was difficult and some of the longer sung passages with no visual displays did have me starting to feel restless. Subtitles would have been welcome!

Four of us went to see the show and the reactions afterwards were interesting. My partner Denise thought it was wonderful. I thought it was good as did my stepdaughter Hazel whilst our friend Pat disliked it as too sentimental (a love story lay at the heart of the drama)and not a true reflection of what life would have been like on St Kilda.

Photo info: Adam Smith looks down on the festival crowds on the Royal Mile. Ricoh GRD III, 1/60 @f9, ISO 64, raw file processed in Lightroom 2.4.

Edinburgh Festival Review Part 3

Gormenghast

This adaptation of Mervyn Peake's weird and macabre Gormenghast trilogy, written by playwright John Constable, was exciting, noisy, colourful and, appropriately, mysterious. It's a promenade production with the actors moving round and through the audience between different stages. The venue was moved at the last minute. I don't know what the original one was like but the replacement seemed too small and too low without the space and high stages needed for such an energetic production. Even moving round with the actors it was difficult to see everything. Despite this it was a fine production, visually stimulating and well acted by the young female cast. Some of the acting and costume design seemed influenced by the excellent and under-rated BBC TV Gormenghast series, which is no criticism. Peake's story of a decaying aristocratic family - the Groans - and their downfall at the hands of sinister young upstart Steerpike was portrayed as much by action as words and it would probably be difficult to follow for anyone not familiar with the story. Although there was the occasional lapse into mere recitation the lines were mostly delivered confidently and with passion. I was particularly impressed by Amelia Peterson as the seductive and manipulative Steerpike and Alice Hodgson as the Wild Child, who gibbered and cried furiously, while Camilla Thompsell as Swelter the evil cook was suitably disgusting.

Escaping Hamlet

The last theatre production we attended begged the questions as to how many interpretations of Shakespeare there can be. An unlimited number it seems but I doubt many are as unusual and original as this Italian production by Teatro Dei Borgia / Compagnia Delle Formiche and Andy Jordan Productions, directed by Giianpiero Borgia and written by Natalia Capria and featuring an Italian/British cast. It's set in a surreal world that slips between Shakespeare's Denmark (the Swedish army is approaching throughout the play) and the world of today(actors wearing iPODs, "Somewhere Over The Rainbow" and different versions of "My Way" ringing round the theatre). The themes of the play are duty, destiny and the nature of theatre. Two of the principal characters are transvestite performers who don't performer (played well by Alessandro Sciusco and Antonello Taurino) but whose image of themselves as on the stage is central to their identity. Rather than avenge his father Hamlet wants to run away from the alcohol fuelled debauchery of Denmark to Paris and become an actor. The tone of the play shifts from comedy to pathos and tragedy and back again, sometimes with confusing speed. The costumes and set are splendid and the acting confident and compelling, drawing the audience into the mad dream world of this fantasy Denmark. Jessica Sedler is excellent as Kate, a servant who is also a voice of sanity, and Charlie Palmer is suitably doubting and uncertain as Hamlet.

I Served The King Of England

This was reckoned to be one of the highlights of the Film Festival. Based on a novel by Czech writer Bohumil Hrabel the film is directed by Jiri Menzel and set in the 1930s, 40s and 50s. It's a satirical film that tells the story of Dittie, whose ambition is to own a hotel and become a millionaire, and who works his way up to this position, mostly as a waiter. An innocent in many ways Dittie is happy to accommodate anything that aids his dream, including the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia, until the Communist takeover after the war sees him sent to jail. The story is told by Dittie as an older and wiser man, after nearly 15 years in jail, but the key character is him as a young waiter. The film is lavish and opulent, beautifully shot with echoes of Peter Greenaway. The lushness, the graceful choreography, the light-hearted piano music contrasted with the cattle trucks full of prisoners and the war imagery gives the film a moral ambiguity that is disturbing (one of our party hated it, feeling it was a deeply immoral film). Is Dittie a hero? Should the film maker evoke sympathy for someone who joins the Nazis (though without any real understanding of what they are) and doesn't oppose the war? Perhaps Dittie should be contrasted with the head waiter at the hotel he works in when the Nazis take over who is eventually taken away, head held high, as he refuses to salute Hitler and accept the Nazi dominance. That the film raises such questions and challenges the viewer gives it a depth that belies some of the pretty filming and tinkling piano.

Martha McBrier: so you think you're a good heckler?

Edinburgh was awash with comedy shows (are there that many funny people around?) and I was assured that going to a late night comedy show was an essential part of attending the Festival. On the somewhat flimsy basis that she apparently once knew John Manning of TGO magazine and TGO Challenge fame we went to see Martha McBrier, a Glaswegian comic with a show with a rather provocative title. For some of the audience it was a bit of a challenge though sitting at the back of the cavern like room (with drips falling from the rough brick roof) we mostly missed her attentions. McBrier was everything I expected a late-night stand-up comedian to be - crude, rude and (mildly) shocking. The show wasn't so much about heckling as audience participation with McBrier getting us to vote and comment on her jokes (some good, some appalling). The humour, and much of the show was very funny, lay in her interaction with the audience rather than the jokes themselves and she did find a few people who delighted in sparring with her. The show was light relief after all the rather serious drama we saw but enjoyable and worthwhile for all that.

The picture shows a street scene in Edinburgh during the festival. Photo info: Ricoh GR-D, f9 @ 1/640, ISO 400, raw file converted to JPEG in Photoshop Elements 5 and processed in DxO Optics Pro.

Edinburgh Festival Review Part 2

Babble

Arriving in Edinburgh at Waverley Station we made our way through the sudden and startling throng to the Half-Price Hut on Princes Street and bought tickets for a play called Babble that my partner had marked as sounding interesting in her Fringe guide and about which I knew nothing. Within a few hours of arrival we were in a small, dark, almost claustrophobic room listening as a strange, dark, somewhat claustrophobic monologue unfolded. Babble is about a world consisting of an endless library full of books no one can understand, a nightmare world of futile quests for meaning. A disturbed and disturbing Gothic figure welcomes us in and tells us, haltingly and with many asides, about his tragic and seemingly futile life. This sounds potentially depressing and possibly dull but in fact the play is engrossing and thought-provoking and there's an excellent performance by Jonathan Clarkson as the at times sinister, at times pathetic Librarian. The play was written by Eric Conway, based on a short story by Jorge Luis Borges. As an introduction to the Fringe it was a serious and intense work, presaging much of what was to come.

The Last South: Pursuit of the Pole

A few days later we saw another play that was, in its own way, about meaning and purpose. This tells the story of Scott and Amundsen's race for the South Pole and was adapted from expedition diaries by GM Calhorn. The two protagonists, played by Adrian Lukis (Scott) and Jamie Lee (Amundsen), describe the planning and execution of their journeys, at times directing comments and looks at each other. Lukis and Lee, dressed in appropriate polar costume, even down to old ski boots, are superb, capturing well the different personalities of the two explorers and their feelings of trepidation, exhaustion, excitement, wonder, triumph and despair. The final tragedy is poignantly told. The world of the Antarctic is captured well too and at times I expected to see the audience shivering, as I was inside. An excellent interpretation of one of the epic stories of exploration that made both men more human and sympathetic than they are often portrayed in books.

Richard Long: Walking and Marking

This exhibition at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art was the only show I had planned on seeing in advance. Ironically it was the only one I found disappointing. Fascinated by the idea of walks as art works and liking the idea of art that explores relationships with landscape I really wanted to like this exhibition but it just didn't make any significant impression on me. I went round twice, in case I'd missed some vital clue or connection, but to no avail. I saw some nice patterns and some intricate circles and spirals but these had less effect on me than a well-made dry-stone wall let alone a rock face or a tree. The photographs, snapshots in the main, left me unimpressed. Many had words about the walks and the places written on them and some of the art works were just words. None of these conjured up anything. Some just seemed statements of how many days Long had walked and how many miles in a day. I can see that some of the works were fun to do. Throwing muddy water at a pristine gallery wall and letting it drip down to form streaky patterns was probably entertaining. The result left me cold though - to my eyes it looked like what it was, muddy drips on a wall. A map of Britain consisting purely of rivers did stir me a little. If that had filled a wall I might have been impressed. And at the end of this extensive exhibition there was a short poem that touched me. Finally the artist had succeeded in communicating a love of wild places. I'm sure Richard Long enjoys his walks and they are meaningful for him. But if I want to be inspired or made to think about walking and wild places I'd rather look at photographs by people like Colin Baxter, Colin Prior, Ansel Adams and Galen Rowell or read the works of Colin Fletcher or Edward Abbey.

Outside the gallery is a lawn leading to sculpted grass terraces reflected in curving pools. This is an art work by Charles Jencks called Landform. I found it soothing and graceful, a modern reminder of the great landscape gardeners of the eighteenth century. The image above shows part of Landform.

Photo info: Ricoh GR-D, f9 @ 1/200, ISO 100, raw file converted to a JPEG in Photoshop Elements 5 then processed in DxO Optics Pro.

Edinburgh Festival Review Part 1

Urban landscapes are not my favourite places but as cities go Edinburgh is one of the most diverse and interesting. And it has the Festival, a summer of art and entertainment. I'd never visited the Festival until this year, always preferring the hills, but invited down by friends and with my partner going I decided to risk a few days of city life. I went open-minded, with no real idea what to expect, and came home replete with artistic satisfaction and delighted with most of the shows I had seen. There are many festivals of course - official, fringe, film, book, art. The Fringe is the big one, with over 2000 shows, of which we saw six - five theatrical, one late night comedy. One art exhibition and one film added brief visits to those festivals. There was an outdoor element - one play was about Scott and Amundsen, the art exhibition about walking.

Edinburgh itself becomes part of the event, with crowds wandering its old and twisted streets and gathering to watch street performers. Characters in costume amble out of their venues for sustenance, barely meriting a glance. Posters, often plastered with reviews, scream for attention and show promoters thrust leaflets at you constantly, the most vigorous and determined street sellers I've seen outside Kathmandu. It's all very colourful and exciting but eventually I did find pushing through the hordes and the roar and smell of the traffic wearing and I was glad to seize an hour away from the clamour and climb Arthur's Seat in the rain to look out on a misty Edinburgh fading away into greyness. This little 250 metre rocky volcanic remnant had been my first ever Scottish hill back when I was eleven and here on a school trip. I'd sneaked off with a friend, drawn by what seemed a huge mountain, and we'd found our way to the top, returning to a telling off by worried teachers that washed over me. Nothing could crush the feelings of wonder and triumph. Brought up on the flat Lancashire coast and never having climbed anything higher than a 20 metre sand dune before I was astounded at this little hill. All I remember now is how good it felt to climb it, to be there on a summit, above everything else.

Of the shows I saw one had the same stunning effect on me as Arthur's Seat all those years ago.

Macbeth: Who Is That Bloodied Man? Biuro Podrozy.

Held in the open air in the cobbled Old College Quad this Polish theatre production was an astonishing sensory feast that has left strange images floating in my mind that I suspect I'll never forget. Black robed witches, their faces hidden by white veils, stalked the cobbles on stilts, sinister and powerful. Macbeth and Banquo were gun toting soldiers roaring round on motorbikes. Snatches of Shakespeare floated in the air at times and there was some powerful singing but overall this was a visual show. Fires flared from posts and walls, gun shots rang out, tall poles toppled and fell, representing deaths. Lady Macbeth went to pieces, seen hazily naked as she tries to wash out all that blood. Earlier a naked prisoner in a cage symbolised the victory of Duncan. Macbeth and Banquo, on foot, shoot the witches, now down from their stilts, repeatedly only to find them leaping back to life. Banquo's son tempts Macbeth with a crown rolled along the ground on a stick as a child's toy, a strangely unsettling image. At the finish the tall poles appear again, now as Birnam Forest come to Dunisinane, and Macbeth burns in his blazing castle. Intense and absorbing, this surreal drama drew me in and held me spellbound. I'd love to see it again.

The photo shows people watching a street show in the drizzle on the High Street. Photo info: Ricoh GR-D, f9 @ 1/320, ISO 400, raw file converted to JPEG in Photoshop Elements 5 then processed in DxO Optics Pro.