The Evening Hill Diaries: Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2014

Edinburgh 2014

Somewhere up towards the University around Nicolson Square a chorus of girls in flowing Greek dresses, well, neatly stitched old sheets, seem to be giving a performance of Aristophanes’ Parliament of Women. Or perhaps Lysistrata. Whichever it is doesn’t matter much, their chanting blown away on the Lothian breeze. The choreography is good – Aristophanes gone disco. I’m not sure if this is the entire performance or if it’s a trailer. It doesn’t matter. This is the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, and everybody is happy, everybody is enjoying themselves. Well, mostly. A retired medical colleague we have coffee with at the Book Festival in Charlotte Square, who works as a volunteer in Gaza, brandishes a newspaper article by Elie Wiesel calling for everybody to stop the killing. He says that Israel rejected child sacrifice 3000 years ago (Abraham and Isaac in case your Old Testament knowledge is a bit rusty), now it’s Hamas’ turn. See: http://mondoweiss.net/2014/08/wiesel-holocaust-trump.html

Silhouettes of the Scott Monument and the North British (now Balmoral) Hotel

Trust my friend Glenys to come up with the unexpected. At the Book Festival we also meet an American artist called Marie-Louise, a stick thin lady who lives between Nice and Monte Carlo and clearly doesn’t need to work. However, she is here, inflicting her art work on the masses.

Glenys urges us to spend longer in Edinburgh, and being semi-retired I should be able to do so, but life seems to be so busy. Two days of starting festival going at 10am and falling into bed at 1am after an average of five shows and two or more exhibitions take their toll and require a holiday to recover. I guess if I was here for longer it would not be so frenetic. So here are the highlights and the lowlights.

Guy Masterson (hit show Morecambe) is here again, this time a 1½ hour recitation and performance of some of Dylan Thomas’s best poems and stories, entitled Fern Hill and Other Dylan Thomas. His rendition of the Visit to Grandpa and the Day at the Seaside are probably the best. When it comes to the poems, I’m still thinking about those crackly Caedmon Records’ recordings of Dylan’s of 60 plus years ago, and I find it difficult to think of any other. That wonderful musical sonority... A big year for Dylan, his centenary in fact, DT-100.

On to ‘Mallory - Beyond Everest’ by John Burns. A one man show which imagines that George Mallory survived and achieved the first ascent of Everest. Although this was perhaps not the best show I've ever been to, it was something of a slow burner in my mind, with the separate scenes where Burns recites from Melville’s Moby Dick initially jarring, but somehow coming to seem the appropriate literary parallel of an obsession overtaking a man’s existence.

Briefly a lunch, a trip to the Scottish National Gallery for the Titian exhibition (am I alone in finding Diana’s head in ‘Diana and Actaeon’ not quite naturally realised?) and reacquaint ourselves with the many masterpieces of Scottish Art on the lower floor.

The odd turkey. An hour of cabaret in the Spiegeltent concludes with the dire Phil Kay, a man who plays the guitar and makes up extempore songs on themes the audience throw at him. The trouble is that he is unsuccessful at both. Glenys says that he has quite a following in Edinburgh.

Dundas House, Palladian, early George III. Home of RBS. Opposite the Spiegeltent in St Andrew's Square.

Off to ‘A Room in the West End’ for dinner and then to St John’s Church for Simply Soweto Encha, the find of the day. A five-strong a capella group in the tradition of Ladysmith Black Mambazo. Great dancing as well. Finally we end up at the Freemason’s Hall in George Street for ‘The Hat Pack’, late night cabaret, which is sort of okay. The MC is a lugubrious Welshman called Dai Lowe, a friend of Glenys’s who has a nice line in witty poetry (published as ‘Parodies Lost’). The final performer is a largish lady known as Woody, aka Woodstock Taylor. In fact she looks rather like Jo Brand and gives us a rendition of several numbers including most of the notes of Georgia on my Mind, but not all. A remarkable reunion with my former classmate at Medical School, Dr Rick Donmall, who is in Edinburgh for a three week residential piano course. I have a wonderful memory of hearing some elegant piano music in the UCH students’ union building in Huntley Street, following the sounds, and finding Rick playing Satie, circa 1971. So he must be pretty good at the piano by now...

I should mention the Scottish Diaspora Tapestry in St Mary’s Cathedral. Tapestry from all over the world and still growing (see pictures). Wonderful.

Scottish Diaspora Tapestry - a visual story from Prince Edward Island, Canada

Our next day starts with separation, me to the Museum of Modern Art for the ‘American Impressionism’ exhibition. Glenys and Lindsay to the Fringe for Lavender Junction, an autobiographical piece about India. I liked the American impressionists, Cassat, Benson, Hassam, Bunker, Merrit Chase, Sargent, etc, and many of them visited Monet at Giverny, so there was a smattering of Monet, Degas, etc. In fact many were quite taken with Monet’s stepdaughter, Suzanne Hoschede, and one of them, Theodore Butler, married her.

Back to the Grassmarket and we sit outside for lunch! Schiehallion beer.

On to Peter Henderson’s one man show, ‘Who did I think I was?’ in the loft at the Counting House, West Nicolson Street. This is an autobiographical piece about his turbulent relationship with his father, Gordon Henderson, DFC, the C.O. of Lindsay’s father’s squadron in the RAF (225). I am sure we all realise that war heroes are not necessarily the easiest human beings to get on with. I know from a friend how difficult an individual Douglas Bader was, for example. Gordon was a flawed human being (aren’t we all?), but he was clearly an inspiring leader in the Second World War. After one of his later illnesses, due mainly to cigarettes, all of the surviving members of his Squadron came to visit him, and this was mentioned in the play. This was an experience that I found deeply moving. Peter laid his innermost thoughts completely bare. His bewildered reaction to his mother’s schizophrenia and her eventual suicide brought tears to my eyes. Despite the tiny venue (capacity audience 35), his 4 star review in the Scotsman has meant that he has played this piece to good crowds every day. On the day we went it was clear that the audience were with me in opinion. It would be wonderful if it could be redone on TV – whatever’s happened to the BBC’s New Writing experimental pieces?

Peter Henderson plays his father in 'Who did I think I was?'

Another turkey. The St George’s Hospital Medical School revue, in the Wee Red Bar in the University. What happened to the wealth of thespian and musical talent that Medics’ Revue used to be? In the 60s and early 70s, St George’s had a musical group of near professional standard, in Temperance Seven style, called The Gonads. No longer.

In view of the fact that we are near the Edinburgh College of Art, we go into the exhibition. A bit curate’s eggish. We participate in a contemporary piece of performance art. "Participate in a new experimental artwork that explores proprioception, haptic communication and movement." We go separately, shoeless, into a small dark room and Justine Lim, a lithe and sexy Chinese (MA Contemporary Art) places us in various postures. I’m enjoying watching Justine bending into various postures placing the other subjects but she tells me that I’m meant to close my eyes. My postures are somewhat unexciting and uncomfortable because she rushes off to reposition some of the other participants. When I sneak another look only two or three minutes later I see that Lindsay and Glenys have already had enough and have sneaked out...

Dinner at Angels with Bagpipes in the High Street. Then rush to Piaf – Love Conquers All, a re-enactment of Edith Piaf’s life with songs by Laurene Hope. Pretty good, three to four stars.

Angel With Bagpipe - neo Scottish school?

Lindsay and Peter at Angels with Bagpipes

Glenys McLaren - my hostess, guide, and she claims, the sister I never had. Made me feel welcome on my first day in Medical School and continues to do so xx years later

A long brisk walk through Prince’s Street Gardens to Glenys’s club, the Scottish Arts Club, a haven and time warp in Rutland Square, before a final dash to St Andrew’s Square again for the very good late night cabaret ‘La Clique’, a sort of Cirque du Soleil in the Spiegeltent. Great live house band. Amazing acrobatics from a couple of girls from Kiev (sort of pole dancing with a difference) and a repeat of Ursula Martinez’ famous disappearing handkerchief striptease to round off the show (sorry no photograph this time but you can find Ursula’s original on Youtube).

Edinburgh Castle at dusk from Prince's Street Gardens

My pedometer, which does overread a bit, suggested 15 miles walked on the second day. All through a wonderful city, from the Waters of Leith to the Royal Mile. The variety on show at the Festival is fantastic, but it’s difficult to choose good performances all the time, and if it’s good you can be sure it will be either packed out or sold out or both. If you are physically fit it’s a great way to explore. Old Edinburghers tend to be a bit sniffy about the festival, but I’ve been coming off and on for forty years, and if you get the dose right the tonic effect is marvellous!

Appendix – Carfest South 2014

A walk on the Hampshire downs, a sight of Highclere House (Downton Abbey), an underwhelming night at Marco Pierre White’s Carnarvon Arms, and a day at Chris Evans' Carfest. At least it was in a good cause - for Children in Need.