Spank's Edinburgh Diary, Postscript 2024
A bit late - more my fault than anyone else's, sorry - but here's the conclusion of our Edinburgh Festival 2024 coverage. As is now traditional, this is where I get to shut up for a bit and let a few of the Pals - Nick, The BBG and Charmian - write about their own personal highlights and lowlights. All three seem to be as enthused about the food and drink as they are about the shows (and in one case, possibly more so).
If you absolutely feel that I should be contributing something to this page, there's a short bit of video here that I shot at the LUCKYME Festival Closing Party in Summerhall. Like I said at the time, who needs recreational drugs on the dancefloor when you've got Barney's beer?
Nick
What is it that draws us to the Edinburgh festivals in August, year after year? It's certainly not the weather. We had a foul week, the jet stream was on the move south, leaving Edinburgh exposed to the dying throes of hurricane Ernesto, which whistled under the doors of our flats all night long. The average temperature difference between London and Edinburgh is normally about 5C, but add in the wind chill and things get a whole lot colder.
It's certainly not the shows. Most of them are dire, but amongst the dross there are some real gems, though you have to strategise to uncover those. We saw three shows in a row that were truly dreadful. I would go as far to say the production team of Dear Billy should resign en masse. This was theatre at its worst, a so called love letter to the Big Yin Billy Connolly. It was so saccharine and reverential, it had people walking out in droves, Cha and me included. It was an affront to the great man.
One of the unwritten rules of Edinburgh festival going is, you are going to get totally demoralised at some point, and need a show you know is going to lift your spirits. Step forward Guy Masterson, who has an enviable record of producing some of the best shows on the fringe. You are in safe hands with Guy Masterson, or so we thought until seeing Making Marx, a totally misguided piece of feminist dross, reviewed by our fave monkey here. There was something not right about this production - Masterson is usually on hand to say hello, and you always get programme notes with his productions, a real rarity on the fringe, but neither were forthcoming, which suggests to me he was thoroughly embarrassed by his decision to direct this dross, and in so doing lost his reputation as a safe pair of hands.
But then the unexpected happened on Tuesday evening - we saw a show that will live long in the memory, a show that we will be talking about in years to come: Adam Riches: Jimmy, the story of the tennis player Jimmy Connors. I had read in the press Adam Riches had approached this project with the intensity of a method actor, and it showed - he completely nailed the famous Connors swagger he had around court. The match sequences were astonishingly recreated in a half court staging, the sweat pouring off Riches as he related the story of Connors' humble beginnings and amazing career. Also worthy of note was Simon Cartwright who played Bob Monkhouse in The Last Laugh, an impeccable impersonation of a great comedy technician. The play defied expectations, this wasn't just a crowd pleaser, it was a properly entertaining play, which might well be coming to a theatre near you. But the award for the best laugh out loud comedy moments of the week must go to the wordless water cooler sequences in Emma Sidi is Sue Gray, asking members of the audience to have a wordless chat around the on stage water cooler. It was a master class in comic timing, and as a bonus we got to see Emma do Spelling Bee later in the week.
Before I get cut off by our fave monkey, there's just time to answer that question I posed at the start, why do Cha and I go to Edinburgh year after year? Well in my case it's to nominate my beer of the week, Arbor Best, which I enjoyed at the Curfew micro pub in Berwick on Tweed. Bar of the week went to Kays Bar in Stockbridge for their great hospitality, and restaurant of the week went to Gratitude, a new found Thai in Bruntsfield. Thanks to our fave monkey for organising a great trip, we can't wait to return in a year's time.
The Belated Birthday Girl
Before I get into the highlights and lowlights of Edinburgh 2024, I have one other piece of business to conclude. While Spank was watching Blindboy, who just doesn’t do it for me, I was in the Edinburgh Playhouse watching Fern Brady - I Gave You Milk To Drink. Having previously seen Fern doing turns in multi-act shows at small clubs like the Good Ship, seeing her packed show at the 3,000 seater Playhouse felt a little surreal. To be honest, I did have a little trepidation about seeing Fern this time, as I had found her autobiography Strong Female Character more than a bit grim and light on laughs, but I am pleased to confirm that as a stand-up she was still brilliantly funny. Of course, some of the themes, and even a couple of the episodes, from the book were included in the show, but it always remained a comedy show, and not an uncomfortable retelling of a life-story. Overall, I would still rather see Fern in a small comedy club, but to be honest that’s just true of any comedian. But it was great to see her commanding the stage and making a few thousand people, myself included, laugh.
Much as I did enjoy Fern, she wouldn’t quite make my list of highlights for this year. Top spot for comedy definitely goes to Nish Kumar, whose blisteringly angry show was by far the funniest thing I saw this year. I also really enjoyed Mark Thomas’ chat with Mervyn Stutter at our visit to his Pick of the Fringe. I felt we didn’t do well enough at trying out acts we didn’t know this year – a failing of the last couple of years – but I was pleased we managed to fit in a Best of Red Raw show, and of the acts we saw there, I’d call out Gabriel Featherstone as one I’d be keen to see again. One final highlight on the comedy side of things was Guy Montgomery's Guy-Mont Spelling Bee, which I think met expectations. It’s been nice seeing a couple of the rounds he played turn up on the Australian television version of the show.
It was good once again to see the Film Festival in its proper August slot, and one real highlight from that was Nina Conti’s Sunlight, which was both funny and genuinely moving. Sadly the Film Festival did also provide my only two real lowlights of the week, in Timestalker and And Mrs. The concept in Timestalker sounded good, but the execution didn’t work, with no chemistry between the central characters and generally unconvincing performances: while And Mrs could easily have been a Richard Curtis film, and while some may think that’s a compliment, that’s not how I intend it. Still, I look forward to seeing more from the Film Festival in coming years, hopefully back at the Filmhouse, where it belongs.
The International Festival had a much better hit-rate for me. I always enjoy our trips to the Queen's Hall for the morning classical concerts, and this year the Kleio Quartet provided us with a terrific programme, best of the pieces and performances being Britten's Three Divertimenti. But as well as the Queen’s Hall, our visits to The Hub provided a couple more definite highlights. The Wu Man concert was probably my favourite of our International Festival concerts, with a wonderful group of musicians – the Kazakh percussionist in particular - playing a real fusion of music from around Asia. But I did also enjoy hugely the Scottish and Estonian bagpipes of Cätlin and Marko Mägi with Finlay MacDonald and Ali Hutton. While the combination when all were on stage together was a terrific climax, it was also incredible how the Highland pipes filled the space of the hub in the Scottish pipes set.
This year’s Book Festival had a focus of food which I approved of, particularly as two of my favourite food and recipe writers. It was lovely to get to see Rachel Roddy - whose Guardian recipes have become regular favourites to cook since we realised they were actually recipes - in person, talking about her life in Rome and food writing. But it was the Rukmini Iyer event at Elliott’s which was a real highlight of this year’s Edinburgh for me, not only because we got to eat some lovely food and drink a glass of delicious wine as part of it, but just because the format was so refreshing and fun. But yes, bribing us with food was never going to do any harm, even if it was more “here’s one I made earlier” than being actually what was cooked at the event.
No such issue with My English Persian Kitchen, where although you could get a bowl of ash-e reshteh outside the theatre which had been prepared presumably in the Traverse’s kitchens, we queued up and were actually served the food we’d seen being made throughout the play. As I say, bribing us with tasty food never does any harm, but the play and the performance didn’t really need that extra help, as it was a terrific story, wonderfully told.
The one other play we saw that I’d like to shout out was James Whale: Beyond Frankenstein. With so many shows on at the Fringe, some don’t get the audiences they deserve, and to my mind this was one of those. The story of James Whale’s life was engagingly told in this one person play, and particularly as a fan of film, I found it a thoroughly enjoyable piece of theatre.
One category which was very light for us this year was Spoken Word, but I was very pleased we managed to fit in John Hegley, which was another top highlight for me this year. With just the right level of audience participation it was lovely to see Hegley’s mix of songs and poems, always funny, often moving. It was exactly what I needed.
The last event – rather than show – I want to call out was the LUCKYME Festival Closing Party at Summerhall. With our 2024 project based around dance nights, I was really happy we found one to fit in, and this was lots of fun, and made a great way to finish our last night at this year’s Edinburgh.
Finally, I just want to mention a few things about the food and drink that we had (and in one case didn’t have) this year. Our two new discoveries both happened to be near the Edinburgh Playhouse. Down The Hatch’s Canadian fare was really good for a solid casual meal – I do love a place that will do a veggie poutine – but the real stand-out find was Taisteal, with their excellent value 2 course for £30 / 3 course for £35 menu. High quality and innovative dining at a very acceptable price. Other than that, old favourites we revisited included The Outsider, David Bann and Mother India’s Café for excellent meals, and Salt Horse and Hoot The Redeemer for drinks, although the sad news about the imminent closure of the latter made the visit a bittersweet one. We also had some terrific eclectic pub grub at the Royal Dick at Summerhall. Our one real food disappointment was failing to get in at Chez Jules. Next time we won’t take for granted that we’ll be able to get in, and will look to book, although proper on-line booking would help.
Thanks to Spank, as ever, for another excellent Edinburgh, and looking forward to the next one. Hopefully the journeys there and back will be a little smoother!
Charmian
Reflecting on another enjoyable trip to the Fringe, it occurred to me that this year marks 35 years since I remember standing on Arthur's Seat on “Fringe Sunday”, leafleting for my drama group the Bristol Players’ production of Agamemnon by Berkoff (the must-see playwright at the time), while the wind blew a hooley around us. I won’t go too far down Memory Lane, as I did this back in my postscript on the 30th anniversary in 2019; suffice it to say a lot has changed during this time, but not the weather – that wind certainly made its presence felt again most of the week this year.
Over the years I’ve been coming to the Fringe I’ve obviously seen numerous shows, but interestingly some of those I saw back in 1989 have stayed in the memory longer than many more recent ones: in particular a brilliant production of Llorca’s House of Bernarda Alba; a multimedia Berkoff play called Lunch, and a punchy play called Hooligans (where one of our party was handed a can of lager by a cast member).
Anyway fast-forward to 2024. It has often been a feature of the week to see a duff first night show (Frisky and Mannish set the bar at the bottom), but to see a trio of duffers for your first three shows was a bit disheartening, especially when you were confident that two of them - Dear Billy and Making Marx, directed by the previously reliable Guy Masterson – would be sure-fire winners. However, I’m sure the Big Yin would give a big thumbs down to the ultra-reverential tribute to him, and was the poorly-written Making Marx really a production by the same man who brought us such previous greats as The Shark is Broken and The Marilyn Conspiracy?
Fortunately things on the show front looked up considerably after this – the stand-out being Adam Riches: Jimmy. Riches gave an intense and life-like portrayal of the great player; it was a masterclass of method-acting and you could have been at the court watching Connors himself. That is a play I’m sure will stick in the memory. Also worthy of mention was the warm and poignant The Last Laugh, for sheer entertainment: Gwyneth Goes Skiing, including a brilliant impersonation of the Goop-founding star herself, for skilful use of audience participation (which I’m not a big fan of): and Every Brilliant Thing, a thoughtful and uplifting play.
Unlike the shows, there were no disappointments on the gastronomic front: our regular haunts the Katmandhu, the Mussel Inn and David Bann’s were all up to their usual high standard; any sadness at the closure of our old Lothian Road favourite Bar Italia, was lifted by a visit to their sister restaurant, Ciao Roma, where we were greeted by the same front of house manager, and the food and ambience was exactly like the old place.
As far as neighbourhood areas go, Stockbridge came up trumps with the friendly and welcoming Kay’s Bar (the pub discovery of the week), the high quality gastropub the Scran and Scallie, and the welcome return of Iggy - he used to run the much-missed Iggs tapas bar, and has now come out of retirement with a new place, Cata. However, the best new restaurant discovery has to be the lovely Thai place Gratitude in Morningside. And for the second year, the Curfew in Berwick-on-Tweed proved the place for Nick’s best beer of the week, Arbor – another winner from Bristol (we Bristolians are doing well on the beer front!).
Thanks to Spank once again for organising another great week, and I look forward to returning in another 50 weeks or so!
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