Edinburgh Festivals - Day 6

The best part of today was discovering I had 100 followers on Twitter. And... I had Champagne to celebrate my centenary too! But the worst part was in discovering they had reduced to 99 by the end of the day!

Such is life... It’s been a mixed a day with beautiful moments such as the Impressionist Gardens Exhibition at The National Gallery to a few disappointments as well. Both the disappointments were very different in their lack-lustre performances. In one case it was the play itself, in the other the lack of audience:

The Gay Geese: The problem here was not so much the acting but a rather ridiculous and outdated plot – the one where the 17 year old best friend comes out as gay much to the horror and repulsion of his best mate who can’t handle it (for a while). And then there’s the revelation that his father was caught in bed by his mother with another man so he had to leave. On meeting his father for the first time after many years he confesses that he ‘doesn’t do that anymore’ (therefore it is alright because he’s not really gay anyway!).

Something Relevant: Obviously judged as being irrelevant to most Edinburgh festival goers as there were only about 5 people in the audience. Apparently that is the average size of audience for an Edinburgh show so at least it hits one target but it must be really hard to be a lively up-beat band when there are more on stage than in the audience – especially when you have travelled all the way from Mumbai! The seven guys in the band were loud and confident – a bit to loud for me – fine for one number but the thought of having my eardrums pummelled for a whole hour was too much so I had to leave.

I was pondering as to why this group had not caught people’s attention. Could it be the rather bland name ‘Something Relevant’? Could it be the uninspired title of the show ‘Feels Good to be Live’ or could it be that despite coming from India they seem to have severed all their musical roots to become yet another western jam rock band? I would have loved to see and hear a little more subtlety – especially at the start of the show and some exploration of the sounds of India and the west.

Edinburgh Festivals - Day 5

Getting to that mid week waning of energy, enthusiasm and interest but still managing to keep going. The plethora of reviews often are anything but a vague guide as to what might be worth tracking down but more often its down to word of mouth, instinct and sheer good fortune.

Songs by Michael Topping about gay geriatric sex was enough to blow the cobwebs away this morning. Then an extraordinary part sung / part spoken monologue about a young woman’s gradual decent into madness and ultimate suicide brought me back down to earth.

An afternoon with Hardeep Singh Kohli’s Chat Masala sort of put things back on the rails before a mesmerising red electric south African cellist and a very bleak and ghostly musical/opera about a disintegrating family!

Fortunately, our colleagues Michael and Martin joined us at the end of the evening and after a few beers in the Broadway Baby bar and Underbelly bar we staggered back to our flat.

Edinburgh Festivals - Day 4

Where was the rain?

All prepared for the worst with macs, umbrellas and stout shoes but another (quite) nice day in Edinburgh. Even sat out in the full sun in Grassmarket for lunch!

Two highlights from today:

• Tony Hadoke’s passion for the BBC and its legacy of memorabilia ranging from Grange Hill to Howards’ Way (Yes the apostrophe is in the correct place) which ended as a tongue-lashing rant against those who dare to commercialise it. Looking forward to his visit to Corsham in our next season

• A highly believable Grant Smeaton as Bette Davis in the superb Bette/Cavett show at The Zoo - a fascinating verbatim recreation of the famous 1970s US chat show in which Bette Davis was asked how she lost her virginity.

Meanwhile out in the streets the whirlwind of Edinburgh continues to fascinate, delight, puzzle and confuse us all in it uncontrollable frenzy...

Edinburgh Festivals - Day 3

It’s day 4 and I’m already trying to catch up with day 3! Fortunately, it’s amazing how much quieter Edinburgh is after the weekend. The queues have dispersed, the litter is slowly being cleared and most of the shows we wanted to see are having a day off!

Ah yes, but that doesn’t mean a lazy start to the day as we had the first of two frantic networking sessions to deal with yesterday:

• The first was staged by Visiting Arts and after a presentation by EIF director Jonathan Mills on the subject of the arts and climate change and the arts consisted of a panel of artists from five continents giving their individual responses to the challenge

• Later in the day was the Made in Scotland reception at the lovely Balmoral Hotel. Made in Scotland is a fantastic showcase of new work produced in Scotland and is a brave attempt to put Scottish Arts firmly on the International stage. Backing the initiative is the newly formed Creative Scotland – a merger of the Scottish Arts and Film Councils – a possible model of what might have been possible in England maybe?

Edinburgh Festivals - Day 2

Edinburgh has a habit of throwing the most unexpected weather at you and today was no exception with temperatures of 22 degrees, cloudless skies and views from the top of Carlton Hill to die for. It almost seemed criminal to go indoors for the shows.

Nevertheless the day started with the frenetic bun fight which is the Promoter's (or is it the Producer's) networking breakfast. It's a great chance to meet some interesting people who have shows they are desperate to get people like us along to see - and to meet a few old favourites too such as Ines Wurth who has brought some great new shows to Edinburgh this year.

Saw some good shows too - see the tweets opposite for instant reviews. Two very different highlights today (so far) include Kev Orvian's hugely entertaining 'The Illegal Tour' about an Armenian Immigrant musician and Martin Creed's inspirational and unified exhibition 'Down Over Up' at The Fruitmarket Gallery - one of my favourite spaces. The Edinburgh Art Festival has some great looking exhibitions on this week and I hope to see as many as I can this week.