THIS has been a child in a toy factory time again for me. To send me to Edinburgh for the Festival Fringe and the Edinburgh International Book Festival is like sentencing my two wee grandchildren to two weeks’ community service in a sweetie shop. Bring it on.
Yes, for the last two weeks, I’ve been in residence in the capital city, watching plays and listening to authors speak. It’s dirty work, but somebody’s got to do it.
Every August, this worthy column decamps from Orkney to Edinburgh to feast on culture and report on it to a grateful nation. Not only that, in the midst of all this arty stuff, I’ve been able to attend three Cowdenbeath football matches.
Mind you, watching the Blue Brazil is a bit like watching ballet. Three wins and now top of the league: I’m glad you asked. Mind you, the weather has been absolutely atrocious in the deep sooth, while Orkney has been basking in sunshine. You can’t have everything.
I just love live theatre. Always have done, but even more so since I started writing for the stage. There’s nothing beats the feeling when the curtain rises on live theatre – except, perhaps, the closing of the curtain when the show’s been rotten. Let me tell you about some of the stuff I’ve seen.
I’ll start with something completely unusual. Before you go in to see Supper at the Assembly Rooms, you’re offered a set of headphones. You can choose a man’s voice or a woman’s voice in your lugs. For novelty’s sake, I chose the woman’s voice.
In the middle of a cafe – not on a stage – you observe four people at a table. They’re eating fondue and drinking wine. And talking. But you can’t hear what they’re saying. All you get is the voice in your ears. You gradually gather that the older of the two couples are entertaining their daughter and the young man she is dating.
While I watched them chatting, the voice of the older woman was in my ear. What you get is her stream of consciousness self-chat, rather than what she is actually saying.
The whole point of it is to make you realise that behind what people say, a quite different dialogue is running through their brains. The whole experience was disorientating and revealing. It stayed with me, and I found myself thinking about it, which is the hallmark of challenging theatre.
My son and I went to see a fantastic one-man show called Lies Have been Told: An Evening with Robert Maxwell. Philip York gives a bravura performance as the obnoxious newspaper tycoon who plundered the Daily Mirror pension fund to service his enormous debts. York even looked like Maxwell as he bawled, smoked and drank his way through a mesmerising 90 minutes.
How did Maxwell manage to con his way and bully people for so long? If you get a chance to watch it, please do so. It’s riveting theatre.
And now for something completely different, a play called Love for Sale. I have to declare an interest here: it was written by a friend of mine, Stuart Miller, a former minister who is now a successful TV film director with Tern TV, Aberdeen’s outstanding indie film and television company.
It’s the story of Rose, an Edinburgh prostitute whose father and mother are both ministers of the Kirk. It’s a gripping, searing tale with strong performances from both actors. It is not for the faint-hearted, and wouldn’t be the usual fare for a Woman’s Guild outing. Mind you, the Guild is actually the most radical and open-minded part of the Kirk.
So what about the Edinburgh International Book Festival? It was as enthralling and exhilarating as ever. There were so many good things that I can only mention a few. Professor Richard Dawkins, the evolutionary biologist and scourge of religion, was back.
Dawkins is brilliant and sometimes a bit dismissive and arrogant, but this time he was much less dogmatic as he speculated about possible life on other planets.
I did enjoy John Prescott’s knockabout session. He was very amusing about his time as deputy prime minister, particularly in relation to the uneasy relationship between Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. He gave a stout defence of Mr Brown as prime minister. When asked by a member of the audience why Brown didn’t smile enough, Prescott replied that when you get on a plane, you don’t check on whether or not he is smiling. All you want is a pilot who will get you up in the air and down again safely.
The philosopher A.C. Grayling was fascinating about the legacy of the Enlightenment, and Professor Susan Greenfield gave a brilliant account of the latest research into the working and capacity of the human brain.
Publishers’ editor Diana Athill, who is 90, held her audience spellbound as she spoke about facing death. Her advice: live your life to the full, in the present moment.
There were some scintillating poetry readings. I hadn’t encountered the work of Robin Robertson before, and I was overwhelmed by it. The son of a Church of Scotland minister who was a university chaplain in Aberdeen, he writes fantastic poetry. He was teamed up with another favourite poet of mine, Don Paterson, in what was one of the most electrifying sessions at the festival. Yet another favourite poet is Jackie Kay, who is a brilliant performance poet. Her poem Maw Broon Sees a Therapist brought the tent down.
One of the best sessions was conducted by Ffion Hague, wife of former Tory leader William Hague. She has written a superb book about the women in the life of Lloyd George, and her presentation of the subject was excellent. By the way, did you know that Lloyd George never learned to tie his shoelaces? No, neither did I. This information might come in handy for you sometime.
The book festival ended last night. Tonight, I’ll be going over to Cowdenbeath to watch the Blue Brazil play Dundee United in the CIS Cup. Hey, talk about culture?