Of tourists and hypocrisy

 

AUGUST, BLOODY AUGUST

Hello September. You're welcome. Cooler weather, calmer city. Hockey is back, rugby soon to follow, and the winter weekends begin to take shape for me. August was the usual mix of heaven and hell.

August in Edinburgh. festival month. Correction, festivals month. Lots of them. Lots of shows and exhibitions and venues and acts. And tourists. So many tourists. If a city could be full to the gunnels (it certainly can't be the gunwales, can it?) then this one was packed. Tourists, tourists everywhere, and lots of them with drink.

We ventured to a few Fringe shows (only eighteen this time, the number seems to decline every year now, perhaps as we decline...), but kept out of town otherwise. Even then the usual words were frequently on our lips. "Fekin tourists!" Gawping, dawdling, blocking, obscuring, bewildering, straying, misplaced souls that they all seemed to be. With disregard for all but themselves, forever in the way of locals, forever a source of irritation.

Post-Fringe, our end-days of August were spent on trains and in Brussels. Where we gawped and dawdled and blocked and obscured and bewildered and strayed and were misplaced constantly. We tried not to be, honest. But how can you not when you're that thing - fekin tourists... Sorry Brusselians (?).

That was the, or a, Fringe

 IT'S THE FRINGE JIM, BUT NOT AS WE KNOW IT

Regular readers (??) will be aware of my love for Edinburgh's festivals, particularly the Fringe, and that every August my days became dedicated to comedy and music and drama and street acts and the whole experience of a city filled to overcapacity with artists and punters. We'd usually find our way to about forty or fifty shows, plus spending time watching buskers and the like. Three weeks well lived. 

But not in 2020. Edinburgh felt like a ghost of it's former self.  In the midst of a global pandemic this feltmore of a relief than a disappointment.  But now it's 2021 and the Fringe returned.  Not the Fringe of the past, but a smaller, less intense, more geographically distributed Fringe.  It had changed.  And so had we.

I would have liked to recover my old enthusiasm, but twas not to be.  A year and a half of caution, of keeping a distance, of not mixing with other people, has made me even more antisocial than I was before.  So there was no great mass booking of tickets, not detailed schedule of daily activities.  Instead there was a desire to go to see shows, but also to feel comfortable, to feel safe.  And what that means is very much down to personal experiences and preferences and what feels right for the individual concerned.  I'd go to town to see what shows we had, but wandering about to see what was happening felt too odd, in light of recent times, even if it was a joy not to be given any fliers on my one venture down the High Street!

In the end we saw a curious of mix of events, felt much more comfortable where there was plenty of fresh air, and enjoyed what we did see.  Even if it meant abandoning some tickets already bought, because our one experience of the venue just didn't feel 'right'.  This was reflected in my daft hobby of trying to right reviews for the events I go to see.  I gave up on that after the first two, because I found myself wanting to write about the venue, and the social distancing measures they had in place, as much as I did the actual show!  The subsequent reviews are getting written, but only as a reminder to myself of what we've been to see, and they won't be getting shared with others.

My final tally amounted to seventeen events attended, plus a couple online.  Only eight of those were Fringe shows.  Three of those were indoors, two on the top deck of a multistory car park (yes, really...), one in the open air, one walking the streets, and one online.  There were five in deck chairs, outdoor film screenings from the Film Festival which had forgone it's usual June slot and joined in the August activities.  Three in giant open sided polytunnel like structures as part of the International Festival.  Two under a big plastic gazebo, at the BBC's new location.  And the final one, last night, was a Book Festival event online.  Hardly any of the above were in venues I would normally find myself in during Augusts past.  And of the nineteen only half a dozen were comedy shows, which is very far from the usual ratio.

We had fun.  The EIF gigs were all outstanding (as was their covid-related admin!).  I do hope that 2022 sees the return of something more like the old Fringe experience.  But whether I will be the same person I was remains to be seen.  The pandemic has changed society.  And individuals.

Back for some of the old normal

 

BUT... THERE'S GOING TO BE PEOPLE THERE...

Some readers will be aware that, pre covid, going to live entertainments played a big part in my life.  Music and comedy gigs, plays, sports events.  And that Barbara and I have been enthusiastic audience members at the Fringe for a few years now.  Then 2020 came and did it's thing.  My last experience of live music was on the eleventh of March last year.  I won't be able to say that for much longer.  Hopefully.  Maybe.  

There have been sports events with crowds recently.  There have been gatherings of one sort or another in streets and squares.  But there have also been lots of vaccinations, and the covid infection rate, after a surge upwards, appears to be in decline again.  Yet, despite regular trips to the shops, the idea of sitting down in a building with strangers feels ever so slightly weird.  This may be because I have been a fan of social distancing long before it became popular.  Because people.

My calendar tells me there are nine events booked for the rest of this year.  Four of those are carryovers, dates rearranged from one or more postponements last year.  Five I have booked recently.  Four in August, one next month in the Jazz and Blues Festival.  It feels like there should be more, and also that that's too many.  But there are Fringe tickets being made available next week, decisions to be made.  Book now, while there's availability, or wait until we see how we feel after our first gig?  

I already know the answer.  Unable to resist seeing what's on sale, my brain will say that we need to see her, we need to see him, that there are plenty of free days in August to fill.  That this is what we missed last year.

And that gig in less than three weeks from now will confirm I was right.  There will be people.  But there will also be guitar.  It's the music that counts.  Bring on the blues.

Where's my next comedy hero?

SEEKING OUT THE NEW

You have to do the Fringe right.  Or at least do it in whatever way feels 'right' to you.  For some that means booking the big names, the ones they've seen on the telly, heard on the radio, or spotted on the biggest posters.  Sometimes I do the same, if only out of curiosity.  And it turns out that these 'stars' are just like anyone else, just as flawed.

So some turn out to be disappointing, a failure to meet the hype their image has created.  And a recognition that being funny in short bursts on a carefully-edited TV panel show isn't the same as delivering a one hour solo show.  Sometimes they are excellent, as mark Watson or Romesh Ranganathan have been, sometimes not quite what was hoped for, like Katherine Ryan a few days ago, and sometimes outright poor, as Ed Byrne was a few years ago (although, to be fair, we saw him again more recently and he was superb, but that just goes back to what I was saying about merely human).

Still, it's an understandable, even sensible, approach if you only have a couple of days in Edinburgh and want to be sure of having a good time.  But if even if you go see all these 'big' names, and enjoy them, have you really 'done' the Fringe?  There are more than three thousand shows on offer, plus offerings from all the various other festivals running simultaneously, and they range from the sublime to the downright horrendous.  What there most certainly is is something for everyone.  If you can find it.

And for someone who has the luxury of being a city resident , and having the time-richness that comes with no longer having to work for a living, sticking with the familiar is absolutely the 'wrong' way of going about things.  But I would also argue it's 'wrong' for even the short term visitor.

Blyth's number one rule of Fringe-going : If you haven't seen something you thought was a bit shit then you haven't been trying hard enough.  (Or you're just very, very lucky....)

Blyth's number two rule of Fringe-going : If more than half the shows you go to see feature acts you've seen before then you're not being brave enough.

Yes, go pick a few sure fire winners.  But take risks too, go for people you've never heard of and see if, under the covers, lurks a diamond or a lump of coal.  Often you'll find someone you'll love and want to see again.  And sometimes you'll just wish you could have that hour of your life back.  But you probably learned something from the experience.  (Last year we had a powerful reminder of one of the comedian's golden rules - if you start blaming the audience for not laughing then you are definitely the problem.)

We've only seen four Fringe shows so far (breaking ourselves in gently), and three of those have been people we've seen before.  That set alarm bells off in my head so I had a check through the shows we currently have booked, and was able to recover my smugness.  About two thirds are acts we haven't seen at all, or only seen doing short sets before.  (And by 'seen' I don't mean on telly, but doing ten or fifteen minutes slots in bigger shows.  And I'm not sure if Will Franken counts in that category, as he was a woman last time we saw him....)

We have the people we return to every year - such as Mark Thomas, Stewart Lee, Aidan Goatley - so there's a bedrock of quality we know we can rely on.  There are others we've meant to see in the past and ran out of time/money/energy.  Some chosen through personal recommendation.  And some chosen because we wanted a mix of genres in our choices.

And then there's the Free Fringe.  There's a few quite big names in those line-ups too, the likes of Janey Godley and Pippa Evans for instance, but most are relatively unknown.  Or totally obscure.  And that's where the greatest potential form discoveries lies.

How to choose?  Whim.  Serendipity.  Random factors like an interesting photo or title, or something in the very brief blurb that catches your attention.  It's best to be arbitrary and fortuitous.  Trust in the Fates.  Go for bold.

So today's job is going through the Free Fringe programmes and slotting a few choices into the timetable for the weeks ahead.  And then just waiting to see what we've drawn out of the lucky bag.  By the end of the month I'll have a new favourite performer.  I've just no idea who it'll be yet.

There's just a few days to wait

TOMORROW IT'S AUGUST IN EDINBURGH

And, in this household at least, that means one thing.  It's Fringe time.

Of course it isn't just the Fringe.  There's the International Festival.  The Art Festival.  The Book Festival.  The Festival of Politics.  The Tattoo.  But, mostly, it's the Fringe.

It's the Fringe that's largely responsible for the population of the city doubling for a while.  It's the Fringe that prevents you from walking down the Royal Mile with anything greater than mollusc momentum and emerging at the other end with enough flyers to paper your bedroom walls.  It's the Fringe that's putting on well over three thousand two hundred shows in hundreds of venues ranging from plush to slimey.  It's the Fringe that Edinburgh residents either love or hate.

And it's the high point of the city's festival season.  We went to a few gigs at TradFest in April and May.  Saw our fair share of new, and old, movies in FilmFest in June.  And, only a week ago today, rounded off a week and a bit of the Jazz and Blues Festival.  But none of them offer the variety and stamina challenge that awaits the dedicated Fringe goer.  Last year we saw sixty shows.  Last year we were knackered.  So if we make it to fifty this time that will be enough.  We're not getting any younger....

We have just over thirty shows booked so far, enough to be going on with.  I have a timetable set up, the tickets now reside in poly pockets (one pocket for each day of course), there's a list of other possibles waiting to fill in the gaps.  Past experience of these things (and having lots of time on my hands) tells me that this OCD level of preparation will be something I'm grateful for come the start of the the third week.  By then I'm starting to suffer from that dread condition known as "Fringe arse" from sitting in so many unforgiving seats, and I just want to know when and where the next show is.

Of course August is immediately followed by September, and in this household that too can only mean one thing.  It's ice hockey season.  But excitement at the prospect of seeing the new Caps line up take to the ice will have to be contained.  There's some serious Fringe going to get through first....

Carnival time

The city is well into Festival Season now (more of which in another post) and buzzing with tourists.  One of the free events staged each year is the Festival Carnival Parade, which took place on 17 July.  Several hundred performers and participants assemble on The Mound and come down the hill and along Princes Street to the West End where many then continue into the Gardens and give performances.

The parade itself is a mixture of professional entertainers and community groups, with dancers, acrobats, drummers, pipers, a brass band, Chinese dragons and more.  I took a video as they passed by, trying to reflect the colour and energy and excitement they generated.  Sadly it was a dull, cloudy day, but at least it stayed dry and warm.

You can see the full 18 and a bit minute video by clicking on this link.

Or you can find the fourteen individual clips that have gone into it on my YouTube Channel.