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Eye to the future at the end of the line for Edinburgh Festival 2008

Alan Bissett's festival blog

27 Aug 2008

Ah, the end of the Fringe. Goodbye rain. Goodbye bright-eyed young hopefuls thrusting flyers. Goodbye posh accents. How was it for you? Depending on who you talk to, plays this year have been too bleak/political/teenage. Given the gloomy political…

Fringe hangover: Where have you been?

Adam Fraser's festival blog

26 Aug 2008

That’s it. The Fringe is over. At this point, the hard-working critic, performer, theatre-goer or box office drone might wish to find a darkened room, take a moment to collect their thoughts and let the adrenalin settle, and unpick the events of the…

Telling stories while we can at The Edinburgh Book Festival

Alan Bissett's festival blog

26 Aug 2008

Today's theme is stories! The ones we tell about ourselves, our past, our bodies. What prompted this was The Fooligan at the Pleasance, a one-man show from the Arches' artist in residence, Al Seed. Al waddles onto the stage, an obese, grotesque medieval…

Medium of the masses joins debate at Edinburgh Book Festival

Alan Bissett's Festival Blog

20 Aug 2008

17th August This morning I went to see Stella Duffy, Rodge Glass and Will Sutcliffe at the Edinburgh International Book Festival, promoting their new novels. Each reading was an assured affair, Duffy's in particular. Author discussion afterwards was…

London home away from home at Edinburgh Festival

Adam Fraser's festival blog

20 Aug 2008

Having a gander round the Guardian's fine Edinburgh arts blog pages on their site, I noticed this one entitled 'Why Take London to Scotland?' from G2 commissioning editor Laura Barnett. Why, it ponders, are so many shows at the Fringe so obsessed with…

Speaking in tongues at the Edinburgh International Book Festival

Alan Bissett's festival blog

18 Aug 2008

Thurs 14th Aug This morning I was on at the Edinburgh International Book Festival with Des Dillon and Anne Donovan, two of Scotland’s ace-est writers and who, like me, have a name mainly for writing in Scots urban dialect. We met in the Author’s Yurt…

Once and for all, it's just a matter of opinion

Steve Cramer's festival blog

18 Aug 2008

I don’t know, perhaps it’s me. There’s always one show of every festival where a critic appears to be out of kilter with his peers. For me, this festival the show would appear to be Once and For All We’re Gonna Tell You Who We Are, So Shut Up and Listen…

The horror, the horror… of the Edinburgh International Book Festival

Alan Bissett's festival blog

15 Aug 2008

Ah the Edinburgh International Book Festival! My home from home! My August social life! The Author's Yurt! The free tea/coffee/wine/beer/finger food! The celebs! The horror. The horror. Man, I love the Book Festival. As its director, Catherine…

Absurd living and heartbreak at independent Edinburgh festival

Andy Field's festival blog

13 Aug 2008

Well it's been a week now. The festival has erupted. A wild sea of damp flyers and dampened hopes. I've been treading water. My friend Andrzej pointed out that Edinburgh seems to generate its own absurd mode of living, an alternative universe…

The naked truth about the Edinburgh Festival

Jonny Ensall's festival blog

13 Aug 2008

Last week I went to review a show called Strippers & Gentlemen at C Venue on Chambers Street. In it, girls in corsets and black pants reinterpreted the gyrating dance moves of real strippers while members of the audience, free to move about the…

How late it was, how late

Steve Cramer's festival blog

11 Aug 2008

It happens annually. Just as our railway system’s management professes the same astonishment that it should snow during the British winter each year, so Edinburgh’s transport infrastructure collapses with monotonous regularity each August, quite as if…

Cultural feast and nutritional famine at Edinburgh Festival

Steve Cramer's festival blog

8 Aug 2008

I’m pining for a vegetable. At the moment, it doesn’t feel as though I’ll be eating one until September. At the best of times reviewers have an irregular diet, since at most people’s dinner time we’re either in shows or on the way to them. But at the…

Themes emerge at Edinburgh Festival 2008

Steve Cramer's Festival Blog

6 Aug 2008

Critics are as human as anyone else, so they’re apt to seek patterns in what they see from day to day in a busy fringe. Perhaps these patterns are there, or perhaps we simply seek to find some comfort in the regular recurrence of some phenomena or…

How to bribe your way to Fringe success

How to bribe your way to Fringe success

The List payola blog

6 Aug 2008

Every year, thousands of performer flock to the Edinburgh Fringe in order to showcase their talent and kickstart a career in the performing arts. Unfortunately, there's so may other blighters doing the same that it's hard to make yourself heard above…

Near-silent office ambience proves highlight of day one proper

Alan Bissett's Festival Blog

5 Aug 2008

My first play proper is Stoning Mary at the Underbelly, from the pen of debbie tucker green. This contains three separate stories, the links between which are gradually revelead, but when the first words you see onstage are ‘AIDS Genocide’ you know the…

Samurai swordsmanship cuts the mustard

Alan Bissett's Festival Blog

4 Aug 2008

Swords. Japanese people with swords. Japanese people with swords who choreographed the fight scenes in Kill Bill. I’m there. Samurai Spirit (at Zoo) is just that: a group of warriors performing with samurai swords. There isn’t much to be said about this…

Don't let media circus obscure Tracey Emin's talent

Adam Fraser's festival blog

4 Aug 2008

In this writer’s opinion, the most impressive show of the Fringe so far was the one which kicked off with a circus show on Friday morning (1 August). A media circus, that is, as Tracey Emin appeared in Edinburgh for the press viewing of her debut UK…

Life's a riot with Man versus Art

Alan Bissett's festival blog

4 Aug 2008

Hello, groovers. And so begins my blog for Scotland’s Cultural Bible from the beating, garish heart of the Edinburgh festival. I’ll be updating, with semi-regularity, on what I’ve seen, heard, touched, tasted, felt and drank. After, all, something had…

The Edinburgh Festival as a stranger in a strange land

Andy Field's festival blog

4 Aug 2008

I’m on the train up to Edinburgh. Some of you probably know the one - Peterborough. Doncaster. York. Onwards. It’s a good train. I’m racing through fields, all golden brown and delicately framed by hedges and trees. The sun is going down and the sky…

A healthy dose of Edinburgh Festival skepticism

Kirstin Innes' festival blog

31 Jul 2008

Today and tomorrow are the sort-of starts of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Although of course the official opening is Saturday. I think. The Art Festival opens tomorrow, properly, as does the newly-minted Comedy Festival, and the Book Festival kicks…

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