FESTIVAL GUIDE
FESTIVAL GUIDE
Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo
Edinburgh Mela Drawing Festival crowds to the popular parkland of Leith Links, the Mela is a multicultural party that celebrates the capital’s diverse cultural roots. With a non-stop weekend line-up of music, food, dance and crafts, it is popular with families seeking a lively day out, as well as with dedicated fans of Asian music keen to catch the latest bhangra stars. ALL-DAY ACTIVITIES
In a city stuffed to bursting with performers of cuttingedge, left-field theatre, it’s worth remembering that the biggest crowds of all turn out for the Military Tattoo. This captivating display of regimental skills takes place in Edinburgh Castle, a location that can scarcely be matched anywhere. A guaranteed sellout, the spectacle combines the thrill of tightly drilled marching bands with the poignancy of the lone piper. EDINBURGH MILITARY TATTOO Aug 6-28 TATTOO
Edinburgh Castle, Castle Hill, EH1 (0131 225 1188, www.edintattoo.co.uk). Mon-Fri 9pm, Sat 7.30pm & 10.30pm; £16-£53. Gregory Burke’s hugely successful play Black Watch began with a blast of triumphal music, a swirl of spotlights across an empty central stage and a patrician voice
promising ‘the unforgettable first sight and sound of the massed pipe and drums’. The joke, after that big build-up, was the appearance of a solitary soldier looking sheepish in his civvies and giving us a timid ‘All right?’ All the references until that point in the National Theatre of Scotland’s international hit play, however, were to the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo, the spectacular celebration of military colour and precision that has been attracting coachloads of spectators for 60 years. Taking place on the esplanade of Edinburgh Castle, one of the most atmospheric locations there is, it is a pageant renowned the world over. Unlike in Burke’s play, at the Tattoo you really do get to see the massed pipes and drums, as well as the music of the massed military bands. Turning up this year are the Swiss
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Highlanders, along with the South Australian Pipes & Drums, and the prestigious bands of the Grenadier and Coldstream Guards. Elsewhere in this year’s diamond jubilee event there are four continents’ worth of pipers, gymnasts, dancers and singers. Middle Eastern musicians rub shoulders with Highland dancers, and a New Zealand army band takes to the same stage as the Citadel Band from Charleston, South Carolina. Adding some highperformance tension is the Imps Motorcycle Display Team from London’s Docklands, with a 40th anniversary daredevil show. After all the thrills and spills, the invariably moving final fixture is the Lone Piper, playing a haunting lament from high on the castle ramparts, before the cosmopolitan cast leaves to the strains of the famous pipe melody ‘The Black Bear’.
Leith Links, EH6 7QR (0131 332 2888, www.edinburgh-mela.co.uk). All day; site pass £2 in advance (£2.50 on the door). Things burst into life all over the site at any time of day. Particularly busy is the programme for children and families, comprising arts and crafts, performances and workshops, supported by Forestry Commission Scotland and Scottish Natural Heritage. Make sure you arrive hungry – the range of alfresco food from Asia, Africa and the Middle East is irresistible. CARGO Aug 6-8, 11-15, 17-22 MELA
Leith Links, EH6 7QR (0131 332 2888, www.edinburgh-mela.co.uk). Check website for showtimes; £2 in advance (£2.50 on the door). A huge outdoor spectacular directed by Douglas Irvine of Visible Fictions theatre company, based on the theme of migration. A co-production between the Mela and street theatre company Iron Oxide, it reflects Scotland’s multicultural make-up and considers the journeys of those who have left.
NATURALLY INSPIRED Aug 7 & 8 MELA
Aug 7: Leith Links, EH6 7QR. 4.45pm: £2 in advance (£2.50 on the door). Aug 8: Royal Botanic Garden, Inverleith Row, EH3 5LR. All day; free. (0131 332 2888, www.edinburgh-mela.co.uk). This collaboration with the Jazz and Blues Festival and the autumn Scottish International Storytelling Festival brings a breath of nature to the Mela and a rush of artistic life to the Botanic Garden. Indian sitar virtuoso and Ravi Shankar protégé Shubhendra Rao, and his wife, cellist Saskia Rao-de Haas, will perform new music inspired by birdsong, while poets, storytellers, singers and dancers respond to Scotland’s landscape, in conjunction with local communities. JAZ DHAMI Aug 8 MELA
Big Top, Leith Links, EH6 7QR (0131 332 2888, www.edinburgh-
mela.co.uk). Evening; site pass £2 in advance (£2.50 on the door). Hailed as the hottest Punjabi bhangra artist of 2010, Birminghamborn Dhami is a graduate of Paul McCartney’s Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts and an expert in Indian classical music. With a bestselling album under his belt, he was named best newcomer at last year’s Asian Music Awards and best male performer at the 2010 Brit Asia Music Awards. TAZ Aug 8 MELA
Big Top, Leith Links, EH6 7QR (0131 332 2888, www.edinburghmela.co.uk). Evening; site pass £2 in advance (£2.50 on the door). The pioneer of British-Asian pop fusion, Taz, aka Johnny Zee, is the lead singer of Stereo Nation and the living embodiment of crosscultural music. He’ll be promoting his newly released album ‘Twist and Shout’, a characteristic amalgam of Bollywood and Beatles, Motown and club sounds.
Find out more: www.edinburghfestivals.co.uk 27
MELA
TATTOO
Aug 6-8 MELA