International Festival

I Went To The House But I Did Not Enter

Musical reflection of literary masters

29 Aug 2008

There has been no shortage of theatre that examines the disaffection and atomisation of modern life over the last century, but it’s less common to find a piece that selects four noted 20th century authors to explore the theme, then translates their work…

I Went To The House But Did Not Enter

First person peculiar

21 Aug 2008

Edinburgh favourite Heiner Goebbels returns to the Festival with the world premier of his collaboration with the Hilliard Ensemble, I Went to the House but Did Not Enter. Mark Fisher catches up with him The scene is Lausanne, Switzerland where a…

Matthew Bourne's Dorian Gray

Effective storytelling makes for an adaptation with impact

29 Aug 2008

In the closing moments of Dorian Gray, a bright light shines out into the audience, temporarily blinding us. Something most people aren't used to, but those who spend their life in the spotlight are all too familiar with. It's this -- the trappings of…

Matthew Bourne’s Dorian Gray

edfest.tv - video

26 Aug 2008

New Adventures, Sadlers Wells and the Edinburgh International Festival present Matthew Bourne's Dorian Gray freely adapted from Oscar Wilde's masterpiece.

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…

I Went to the House But Did Not Enter

Edinburgh International Festival

22 Jul 2008

A collage-based approach to theatre from maverick creator. Heiner Goebbels’ latest work may be in the Edinburgh International Festival’s drama programme, but the scope of this maverick composer and theatre maker is far more expansive. In 2001…

365

Magical reflection on children in care

26 Aug 2008

The idea of a play about children in care might not immediately strike you as the an entertaining festival night out, but overcome your prejudices. Vicky Featherstone’s production of David Harrower’s script for the NTS touches upon the issues that…

Bank of Scotland Fireworks Concert

Edinburgh International Festival

19 Jul 2007

Edinburgh International Festival Blazing squad A pair of unassuming middle-aged men are behind the explosive spectacle of the annual fireworks concert. Karin Goodwin meets the acceptable face of pyromania

Jerusalem Quartet

Globally renowned Israeli foursome make their EIF debut

21 Aug 2008

Making its Edinburgh International Festival debut, the Jerusalem Quartet is the final string quartet to appear at this year’s impressive Queen’s Hall series. Performing in the wake of the Ysaÿe, Belcea and Pavel Haas quartets, the quartet is, says EIF…

Wilde boys - Matthew Bourne’s Dorian Gray

Edinburgh International Festival

22 Jul 2008

Matthew Bourne is taking his biggest risk yet by revamping The Picture of Dorian Gray. Kelly Apter talks to him about sensuality, satire and the death of Heath Ledger.

Ruhe

edfest.tv - video

27 Aug 2008

A recital of beautiful Schubert song is brutally interrupted by people who want to talk about their voluntary enlistment in the SS.

365 - One Night to Learn a Lifetime

Shock tactics

21 Aug 2008

With 365, a series of fragmented narratives about children leaving care, Vicky Featherstone’s National Theatre of Scotland cements its commitment to telling stories of the people. Kirstin Innes meets the cast, writer and director. Lunchtime, and…

Festivals

5 Jun 2008

Until 8 June Leith Festival Various venues, Leith, Edinburgh, prices vary www.leithfestival.com Leith Festival showcases its trademark brew of home-grown talent and big name headliners with over 100 musical acts, 50 comedians and a dozen visual…

4.48 Psychosis

Painful journey into despair

16 Aug 2008

Having seen Grzegorz Jarzyna's mesmerising production of this Sarah Kane play on the intimate stage of TR Warszawa in Poland, I was concerned the playwright's sad mediation on suicide would lose its intensity on the bigger stage of the King's. I needn't…

Budapest Festival Orchestra

Folk and gypsy influence evident in programme of two concerts

21 Aug 2008

Starting off with a programme inspired by gypsy music and Hungarian folk melodies, the Budapest Festival Orchestra give two full orchestral concerts in the last week of the Festival plus two presented by some of their soloists. Featuring some rather…

Regal king size

21 Aug 2008

Karol Szymanowski considered himself an outsider which is why he identified with Sicily’s King Roger II and why his opera has become a gay favourite, finds Carol Main The Edinburgh International Festival’s staged opera programme is swinging from one…

Amir Nizar Zuabi - Jidariyya

Poetry in motion

14 Aug 2008

Perhaps the greatest psychological pain humans can feel occurs when they are denied language. The sense of frustration that builds from a voice unheard, marginalised or rendered irrelevant by the listener can be overwhelming. This is as true of the…

Soledad Barrio and Noche Flamenca

Pain and passion on the dancefloor

14 Aug 2008

Noche Flamenca is less a company and more of a community. Founded in Madrid in 1993, by artistic director Martin Santangelo and his Flamenco dancing wife, Soledad Barrio, the group is far more concerned with expressing its artistry than grabbing the…

Edinburgh Festivals Cavalcade

Our toon cavalcade

31 Jul 2008

The warning signs have been building for weeks: large parties of Italian teenagers in rucksacks occupying whole stretches of pavement, posters of vaguely-familiar looking comedians obscuring bus shelters and funny dressed people eating fire on the Royal…

Best of the rest - Edinburgh International Festival

Edinburgh International Festival

22 Jul 2008

Giselle. Under the artistic direction of Nina Ananiashvili, the State Ballet of Georgia will be performing what many view as the definitive interpretation of this romantic ballet. Gabriela Montero Two performances here from the superb Venezuelan…

Damned Beautiful

Edinburgh International Festival

22 Jul 2008

Kelly Apter finds another Dorian Gray show kicking about in the form of Helix Dance’s Fringe adaptation. Matthew Bourne isn’t alone in finding Oscar Wilde’s 19th century novel inspirational. Cambridge-based company Helix Dance also saw potential for a…

Festivals - Capital Gains

5 Jun 2008

Kicking off the capital’s world famous summer festivals in late July, it’s the Edinburgh Jazz and Blues Festival (25 Jul–3 Aug) which is the longest running jazz festival in the UK. Following hot on its heels is relative newbie to Edinburgh’s festival…

Edinburgh International Festival programme unveiled

2 Apr 2008

This year’s Edinburgh International Festival will take the changes and challenges facing contemporary Europe as its theme, it was announced today. Highlights of the programme include the world premiere of Matthew Bourne’s new dance work ‘Dorian…

POPPEA

16 Aug 2007

One of the most powerful leaders in the world abuses his position by having an affair and ignoring the will of the people – it’s a concept as familiar today as it was 2000 years ago for the Romans, on whose machinations Claudio Monteverdi based his…

Class Enemy

edfest.tv - video

26 Aug 2008

In a run-down schoolroom a group of foul-mouthed high school students conduct their own lessons as they await teachers who never arrive.

Looking at Tazieh

Fascinating filmed version of millennium-old Persian drama

16 Aug 2008

This video installation by Abbas Kiarostami renders into real emotion a filmed version of Tazieh a millennium-old form of Persian drama enacted annually to commemorate and grieve the loss of Imam Hussein, grandson of the prophet Mohammed. But the felt…

Jidariyya

Palestinian end game

15 Aug 2008

There's a sad irony that a play about mortality should open in Edinburgh only days after the death of its author. Mahmoud Darwish was a major Palestinian poet and his Jidariyya was a response to a life-threatening heart attack a decade ago. It was…

Mortal Engine

14 Aug 2008

Using cutting-edge technology, Australia’s Chunky Move dance company explores human interaction and mortality. Performed on a steeply raked stage, the show features patterns of music and sound triggered by the dancers’ movement and re-routed back to the…

Steve Reich Evening

Music and dance pioneers in perfect harmony

14 Aug 2008

She's one of the most prominent names in European contemporary dance, he's a giant of American minimalist music. Together, Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker and Steve Reich make quite a pair - although their partnership is a result of admiration, rather than…

Early mourning - 4.48 Psychosis

Edinburgh International Festival

22 Jul 2008

Nine years ago, uncompromising playwright Sarah Kane ended her own life. In an old Warsaw variety theatre, Mark Fisher is shaken by a mesmerising staging of her final work.

Regal king size - Król Roger

Edinburgh International Festival

22 Jul 2008

Fitting neatly into the EIF’s theme of Artists Without Borders, the majestic Król Roger opens up audiences to an innovative collaboration. Carol Main chats to Festival director Jonathan Mills about the opera’s arrival in the city. Listening to a…

Devil's Ship

21 Aug 2008

Renowned Iranian actor-director Attila Pesyani, founder of the Bazi Theatre Company, brings his haunting new play to the EIF for its European premier following a successful run at Tehran’s Fadjir International Theatre Festival. Performed in Farsi with…

5 Questions - Ruth Janssen

14 Aug 2008

As Scottish Dance Theatre lights up the Fringe with its superb double-bill of dynamic contemporary works, dancer Ruth Janssen faces the music.

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…

The IT crowd - Mortal Engine

Edinburgh International Festival

22 Jul 2008

An enormous technological feat and huge physical challenge, Chunky Move’s new show has been universally acclaimed. Kelly Apter hears how choreographer Gideon Obarzanek’s dream came vividly to life. Bumps, bruises and bunions. It’s all in a day’s work…

Festival frenzy as Edinburgh gears up for August

3 Jul 2008

With just three weeks until Edinburgh officially takes its place in the spotlight as one of the world's greatest cultural playgrounds, festival news and views have been coming in thick and fast. Perhaps most contentious is the news that after capturing…

Trisha Brown Dance Company

23 Aug 2007

In 1962, one building in New York City became the centre of the modern dance world. Artists flocked to Judson Memorial Church to produce work, and when they left, went on to influence dancers and choreographers around the world. But when I ask Trisha…

La Didone

19 Jul 2007

For over 30 years, the most unlikely elements have been combined in the Wooster Group’s work. Everything from creaky old B-movies to cutting edge technology have been spliced together to create arresting pieces of theatre.

Trisha Brown Dance Company

Edinburgh International Festival

19 Jul 2007

From rejection to reverement, Trisha Brown has seen it all. Kelly Apter speaks to the woman whose career began almost 50 years ago, and who is playing the Festival for the first time

The Directors

13 Nov 2006

It may not be very apparent yet, but Scotland’s summer festivals are feeling seismic tremors. On the one hand there are new chiefs heading up two of Edinburgh’s prestigious festivals. On the other, there’s a new, upmarket music festival outside Glasgow…

Class enemy

Heavy-handed adaptation

21 Aug 2008

Haris Pasovic’s production of Class Enemy for Bosnian company East West retains the central theme of Nigel Williams’ 1978 play - the desperate need for nurturing among young people neglected by an under-funded education system - to powerful effect. Yet…

Five questions: Jill Gascoine

21 Aug 2008

Currently enjoying a successful run playing the suicidal mother of four estranged daughters in Sister Cities at the Gilded Balloon, star of The Gentle Touch and CATS Eyes Jill Gascoine turns her talents to our Q&A 4 shows you’re looking forward to…

Class Enemy

A different class

14 Aug 2008

When Nigel Williams’ Class Enemy made its debut at London’s Royal Court in 1978, hip hop was still a phenomenon of the American underground. It would never have occurred to a director to incorporate it into this portrayal of a bunch of teenagers in a…

Transgression

Taking it to extremes

14 Aug 2008

Transgression is a breathtaking showcase of urban sports skills, taking in BMXing, skateboarding, inline skating, freerunning, even extreme unicycling. Performed on one of the Fringe's most unique venues - a full skate park and ramps surrounded by a…

Festival News In Brief

7 Aug 2008

The Performing Rights Soci ety (PRS) has announced plans to give more new talent the chance to perform in front of a Fringe audience on Sunday 10 August at this year?s Fringe Sunday festivities. A small group of musical types from the worlds of rock…

Song and Civilization

Chants will be a fine thing

7 Aug 2008

If a singing nun conjures up images of The Sound of Music or Sister Act, then it’s time to get real and listen to the exquisite beauty of Sister Marie Keyrouz. Appearing as part of the EIF’s fascinating Song and Civilization series, the Lebanese-born…

Video nation - Looking at Tazieh

Edinburgh International Festival

22 Jul 2008

Aiming to debunk some of the cruder myths of Iran and its people, acclaimed director Abbas Kiarostami brings us a filmed account of an ancient drama. Miles Fielder talks to him about universal themes.

Death becomes them - The Two Widows

Edinburgh International Festival

22 Jul 2008

Jane Irwin and Kate Valentine are at very different stages in their operatic careers. But Carol Main finds them both in exuberant mood ahead of Scottish Opera’s take on Smetana’s 19th century comedy.

The Tell-Tale Heart

Edinburgh International Festival

22 Jul 2008

Tension-filled hour of Edgar Allan Poe’s psychological chiller. Barrie Kosky made his mark last year with the vulgar extravagance of Poppea, a show that blended Monteverdi opera with the songs of Cole Porter. Now he’s back with an altogether more…

Bittersweet symphony - Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny

Edinburgh International Festival

22 Jul 2008

Brecht and Weill’s Mahagonny has inspired an artistic generation. Neil Cooper analyses the pair’s enduring appeal.