Edinburgh Festival Guide 2022

FESTIVAL Guide 2022

EDINBURGH

ART

BOOKS FILM

FRINGE

INTERNATIONAL JAZZ CITY GUIDE

THE

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Marvelous

MS DUKER

FREE

SOPHIE SOUNDS OFF ON CANCEL CULTURE, DEATH THREATS AND MCU

BIANCA DEL RIO ALAN CUMMING CÉLINE CONDORELLI NUBYA GARCIA MARTHA WAINWRIGHT IAN MCKELLEN EZRA FURMAN AKRAM KHAN KINUYO TANAKA PEPPA PIG

kOrean shOwcase 2022

3–28 august edinburgh

2022Festival Guide 2022 | list.co.uk/edinburgh-festival 2 THE LIST LIST |May Edinburgh

theatre dance music

E D I N B U R G H F E S T I VA L G U I D E 2 0 2 2

CONTENTS PICTURE: MATT CROCKETT

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PICK UP OU

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STIVAL WEEKLY FE 1, 10, 16 ISSUES ON ST AUGU

FRONT & FEATURES Top 10 Festival chart-toppers

6

Moira The Queen of Falkirk spills the tea

8

Sophie Duker A comedian against cancel culture

12

Festival 75 Hear from the man who’s seen it all

16

Martha Wainwright More like Martha Wain-write…

24

ART

Union Canal A 31 mile-long canvas

31

Céline Condorelli From playgrounds to factories

35

BOOKS

Authors world map Just how international is the Book Festival?

40

Michael Pedersen Boys just want to have fun

42

FILM

‘

Kinuyo Tanaka An unsung hero of Japanese cinema After Yang Where family grief meets AI

YOU NEVER REIN IT IN AND YOU NEVER APOLOGISE!’

FRINGE

BIANCA DEL RIO ON SORRY BEING THE HARDEST WORD

PAGE 56

59

Alfie Brown Next up, South America

72

Peppa Pig A Q&A with Daddy Pig

79

Michael Begg From climate data to musical bars

85

Ian McKellen Hamlet is reborn

87

A Little Life An almighty novel meets an epic theatre director

102

Counting And Cracking A Sri Lankan story ten years in the making

108

Nubya Garcia Tearing up the jazz rulebook

OTHER FESTIVALS Jupiter Rising Escape to art country

CITY GUIDE

©2022 List Publishing Ltd.

Extensive efforts have been made to ensure the accuracy of the information in this publication; however the publishers cannot accept responsibility for any errors it may contain.

ISSN: 1744-3903

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of List Publishing Ltd.

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96

Ezra Furman Does she have time for organised religion?

JAZZ

Published in July 2022 by List Publishing Ltd 2 Roxburgh Place, Edinburgh EH8 9SU Tel: 0131 623 3040 list.co.uk editor@list.co.uk

51

Magical Bones More than tricks up his sleeve

INTERNATIONAL

COVER PICTURE: SARAH HARRY ISAACS

48

112

116

Filmhouse

122

Edinburgh College Of Art

126

The Stand

130

Pleasance Courtyard

135

Summerhall

139

Leith Theatre

143

HOT SHOTS

Festivals in photos

146

FESTIVAL DATES FOR YOUR DIARY

EDINBURGH ART FESTIVAL 28 July–28 August edinburghartfestival.com

e m o c l e W We know: every year claims to be the ‘biggest and best year yet’. But 2022 truly is a special one for the Edinburgh Festival. Not only is it the first full-scale event since the world went through a pandemic (or as our cover star Sophie Duker calls it, a ‘panna cotta’), but this triumphant return also marks 75 years of the Fringe, International and Film Festivals. In tribute, we look back over the years through the eyes of arts impresario Richard Demarco (who has been attending the annual arts fest since its inaugural year in 1947) and admit artefacts, shared with us by those who have worked through many Augusts in their time, into our figurative festival museum.

We’re also embracing the new, as a handful of festival regulars step outside of their comfort zones (Alan Cumming dances, Grace Petrie does stand-up, Martha Wainwright writes a memoir), while new festivals Otherlands, Out East and Over The Bridge make their debuts. And as 2022 gears up to be the year of the comedy newbie, we get to know several fresh-faced stand-ups delivering their first shows.

A minor warning: heavy topics are broached too. We touch on climate anxiety with Michael Begg and The Weather Station; migration and displacement with the International Festival’s Refuge strand and Uma NadaRajah’s new play Exodus; and grief in Kogonada’s After Yang, screening at Edinburgh International Film Festival. But light relief is never far away, especially with drag queen Bianca Del Rio and comic Alfie Brown in town.

On a more personal note, this festival season is a particularly special one to us at The List. Along with the rest of the arts and culture sector, we’ve weathered a pretty heavy storm these past few years, and it wasn’t always certain that we’d return to publishing. Thanks to crowdfunding and the resilience of our team, we’re able to bring festival-goers this guide, plus three festival issues throughout August.

So yes, we think this year really is worth making a big song and dance about.

After all, there’s two whole summers of chaos to catch up on.

EDINBURGH INTERNATIONAL BOOK FESTIVAL 13–29 August edbookfest.co.uk

EDINBURGH INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 12–20 August edfilmfest.org.uk

EDINBURGH FESTIVAL FRINGE 5–29 August edfringe.com

Megan Merino EDINBURGH FESTIVAL GUIDE CO-EDITOR

CONTRIBUTORS

EDINBURGH INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL 5–28 August eif.co.uk

CEO

City Guide Picture Researcher

Social Media and Content Editor

Sheri Friers

Suzy Pope

Megan Merino

Festival Guide Editors Megan Merino, Brian Donaldson City Guide Editor Jo Laidlaw Art Director / Design Seonaid Rafferty Sub Editors Paul McLean, Megan Merino, Brian Donaldson

EDINBURGH JAZZ & BLUES FESTIVAL 15–24 July edinburghjazzfestival.com

Business Development Manager Writers: Ailsa Sheldon, Alan Bissett, Brian Donaldson, Carol Main, Claire Sawers, Eddie Harrison, Fiona Shepherd, Gareth K Vile, Iain Leggat, Jay Richardson, Jo Laidlaw, Katherine McLaughlin, Kelly Apter, Kevin Fullerton, Lucy Ribchester, Marissa Burgess, Mark Fisher, Megan Merino, Neil Cooper, Paula Lacey, Rachel Ashenden, Rachel Cronin, Reshma Madhi, Stewart Smith, Suzy Pope

Jayne Atkinson Affiliates Manager Kevin Fullerton Media Sales Executive Ewan Wood Digital Operations Executive Leah Bauer

list.co.uk/edinburgh-festival | Edinburgh Festival Guide 2022 | THE LIST 5

FRONT

10 p o T

Edinburgh's festival season is not looking too shabby considering it's in its bounce-back year. In fact, programmes are bursting at the seams with innovation and new material. Our illustrious Top 10 features a musician-cumauthor, an epic book adaptation and two national treasures

FRINGE

FRINGE

An explosive celebration of Cuban dance awaits in this show created by Fringe veteran Toby Gough. Traditional rumbas and salsas are accompanied by contemporary reggaeton and Latin pop hits. See page 74. Underbelly Bristo Square, 4-29 August.

Now with the added accolades of being a Taskmaster winner and List cover star, Duker is ready to follow up a 2019 Best Newcomer nomination with her deliberately ambiguous new show Hag. See page 12. Pleasance Courtyard, 3–28 August.

HAVANA STREET PARTY

SOPHIE DUKER

INTERNATIONAL

BURN

National treasure Alan Cumming stars in a brand new dance theatre production studying the character of poet Robert Burns.

Along with choreographer Steven Hoggett (Harry Potter And The Cursed Child), the show sheds new light on the Bard’s personal struggle and inner psyche. See page 26. King’s Theatre, 4–10 August.

ART

BOOKS

FRINGE

Combining all of the artist’s main disciplines in one survey exhibition, After Work touches on Condorelli’s fascination with nature, labour and social architecture. See page 35.

Talbot Rice Gallery, until 1 October.

After baring all in her new memoir Stories I Might Regret Telling You, the musician prepares to talk about failure, family and the pressures of being part of a musical dynasty.

See page 24. Central Hall, 13 August.

The king of Shakespeare performs a world premiere of Hamlet. In this collaboration with Edinburgh Festival Ballet, McKellen shares the title role with dancer Johan Christensen.

See page 87. Ashton Hall, 2–28 August.

OTHER FESTIVALS

INTERNATIONAL

FILM

What if we told you an artistic utopia existed in August outside the chaotic city centre? Head to Jupiter Artland, where among the guest curators at this year’s festival is Alloysious Massaquoi of Young Fathers. See page 116.

Jupiter Artland, 26–28 August.

Adapting Hanya Yanagihara’s hugely successful 2015 novel is no mean feat. But if anyone is capable of bringing a story of this epic proportion to the stage, it’s Belgian theatre director Ivo van Hove. See page 96. Festival Theatre, 20–22 August.

Korean-American director Kogonada delicately tackles themes of grief and memory in his new sci-fi film starring Colin Farrell, Jodie Turner-Smith and Malea Emma Tjandrawidjaja.

See page 51. Vue Omni, 20 August.

CÉLINE CONDORELLI

JUPITER RISING

JAZZ

NUBYA GARCIA Following in the footsteps of her idol Dexter Gordon, this tenor saxophonist and composer is a key name in today’s British jazz scene. See page 112. George Square Spiegeltent, 21 August.

6 THE LIST | Edinburgh Festival Guide 2022 | list.co.uk/edinburgh-festival

MARTHA WAINWRIGHT

A LITTLE LIFE

HAMLET WITH IAN MCKELLEN

AFTER YANG

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40 Years of Assembly Festival at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe

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JI N K

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BEAT

L O V E, L O S S &

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3 – 29 AUGUST

Book online at assemblyfestival.com or call 0131 623 3030 FROM 22 JUL

TO 31 JUL

SERVING A FLAVOUR OF THE BEST MAKERS AND PRODUCERS FROM ACROSS SCOTLAND GEORGE SQ GARDENS | www.edfoodfest.com

@EdFoodFest

list.co.uk/edinburgh-festival | Edinburgh Festival Guide 2022 | THE LIST 7

festival

M O U T H P IE C E FRONT

Falkirk’s hardest woman is back to tell us how the hell she managed to survive lockdown.

An endless stream of nicotine, spirits and Zoom probably helped. Here, Moira gives both barrels (and then some) to the Edinburgh Festival while showing she’s all heart to the tourists who descend upon her capital city

S

ee yon Embra in August, Babs, AW MA GOD. First of aw, can ye actually get a seat oan the train fae Fawkurt High Station? Kin ye fuck. Fills up at Glesga Queen Street, so aw us Fawkurt punters have nae table space for oor Prosecco, meanin ye have tae swig it like a jakey fay a boattil, staunin up. No that I’m above that.

Then ye git there an the place is hoachin wi tourists, aw wanderin aboot in a daze, draggin suitcases ahind themsels like dugs. Nut wan cunt speakin the Queen’s English like us normal cunts, ken? This guy stoaps me an he goes, in this Australian accent, ‘Excuse me, d’you know where the Castle is?’ Course I helped him eh. Like the Aussies themsels say: everybody needs good neighbours (tell that tay yon bam next door tay me, wi her 2am Tuesday raves) ‘Jist head uphill,’ I goes, ‘Ye’ll find it eventually.’ It’s only when I’m walkin awa I realises, wi him bein fay

Australia, he’ll proberly no even ken whit a hill is. Aw that Outback. Iviryhin’s flat as fuck. I mean, dinnay git me wrang, Babs, I hink it’s great that tourists have chose tay come tay Scoatlind and no somewhaur obvious like, ken, Blackpool. But why dis it eywis need tay be Embra Castle? When there’s so many better places in Scoatlind tay go, like the Mariner Centre in Camelon (actual wave machine) or Primark?

An did ye ken, Babs, that see in Embra they’ve goat a time machine in every pub? Oh aye. Ye walk in an suddenly ye’re transported tay the year 2036, cos how the fuck else can ye explain a voddy and coke coastin EIGHT POUNDS FIFTY! But I wis there for the Embra Fringe. At first I’d thought that wis like a hairstyle for hipsters, but naw it’s like shows an that. Saw some random comedian in this wee pub an he comes onstage like, “Anybody here from Glasgow?” Aboot five folk cheer. “Anybody here from England?” Anither four folk cheer.

“Anybody here from Falkirk?” Fuckin shair I cheers. Gottay represent.

“Anyone here from Edinburgh?”

Silence.

City’s packed but nae cunt lives here? You tell me, Babs. You tell me. Aw aye, an that Greyfriar’s Bobby’s no even a real dug! Made fay fuckin metal! Two stars ootay five for Embra, hen. No a patch oan Fawkurt Toon Centre. n Moira In Lockdown, Scottish Storytelling Centre, 3–23 August, 6.30pm.

Here comes the pun A full-fat Fringe may have been denied us these part two years but thankfully the ability of acts to give their shows puntabulous names hasn’t been blunted.

Here are just a few of our ‘favourites’ . . .

8 THE LIST | Edinburgh Festival Guide 2022 | list.co.uk/edinburgh-festival

Roger Swift’s Machine Pun: Reloaded Aca-Pocalypse: Diamond In The Riff Bi And Large No Time To Diet The Joy Of Decks Animal Form Splash Test Dummies Rebels Without Applause Who Let The Gods Out?

Pundemic Kid-Life Crisis Million Dollar Maybe Basic Lee Member Of The Tragic Circle Your Aunt Fanny: Muff Said Aquapella Nerd’s Eye View Wavering Heights Sleight Of Handkerchief Bex’s Chainsaw Moussaka

HI FLYER

the niche

holmes not alone

FRONT

Is it really festival season in Edinburgh if you don’t end up with show flyers stuffed in every crevice of your bag and/or jacket? An intriguing poster is a performer’s gateway to getting bums on seats, so we’ve picked three that may end up in your hands this August: the niche, the mad and the ‘really!?’

the mad

Looks like a summer crime wave is being predicted for Edinburgh this August. How else do you explain the raft of Sherlock Holmes and John Watson-based business across the city? Arthur Conan Doyle’s detective certainly has his work cut out rushing between several venues at different times. The Space is gathering up four versions: The Return Of Sherlock Holmes (Surgeons Hall), Sherlock’s Excellent Adventure (On The Mile), That’s A Bit Of Sheer Luck! A Sherlock Holmes Parody (Surgeons Hall) and The Hound Of The Baskervilles (On North Bridge). Two of these are definitely less than serious affairs: you don’t need to be a super-sleuth to work out which ones they are.

Meanwhile, get yourself outside The Conan Doyle pub for the interactive Sherlock’s Secret Challenge while improv comedy takes on our deerstalker-donning ‘tec with Adventures Of The Improvised Sherlock Holmes (Just The Tonic At The Caves). Irene Adler returns for A Scandal From Bohemia (C cubed) while attention turns to the main man’s sidekick in Watson: The Final Problem (Assembly Rooms, pictured) as the case of Moriarty is spied from a slightly different perspective. n For full details on all shows, go to edfringe.com

Delve into the sonic universe of this issue with our curated Festival Guide soundtrack

y!?‘ all e r ‘ e th and

Discover music by featured artists Martha Wainwright, Kate Bush, Chavela Vargas, Primal Scream, The Weather Station, Ezra Furman, Herbie Hancock, Arooj Aftab, Nubya Garcia, Mr Scruff and Little Simz and many more . . .

Scan and listen as you read:

playLIST list.co.uk/edinburgh-festival | Edinburgh Festival Guide 2022 | THE LIST 9

THE BEST CURATED SHOWS AT THE FESTIVAL FRINGE EdFest is a gathering of eight venues that present a world-class curated programme of shows as part of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe: Assembly, Dance Base, Gilded Balloon, Just the Tonic, Pleasance, Summerhall, Underbelly and ZOO. This collaboration was brought on by the impact of the Covid pandemic that caused a two-year hiatus for the festival. The last full festival was in 2019. 2020 was cancelled. And in 2021, most of the EdFest venues operated at about ten percent of what they did pre-pandemic.

The endeavour behind working together is to collaborate on all the complexities of rebuilding this incredible event and at the heart of it is our commitment to programming world-class shows and creating wonderful experiences for audiences.

The EdFest website brings together all the EdFest shows under our collective banner and makes it easy for you to buy tickets for any of the eight venues. There is a search function that helps you find what you want to see when. Show pages give you listings information along with audience reviews and star ratings. Audiences will be encouraged during the festival to write their own reviews and share with friends.

From now until the end of the festival, we will be constantly updating the website with offers, so make sure you sign up to our newsletters so you have all the latest information on what’s going on.

We all love this festival and the drive behind this endeavour is to make it easy for you to find shows you want to see. Make edfest.com your go-to place for ‘the best curated shows at the Festival Fringe’.

10 THE LIST | Edinburgh Festival Guide 2022 | list.co.uk/edinburgh-festival

PICTURE: STEVE ULLATHORNE

THE CHOIR OF MAN

Assembly Hall, 5–29 August (not 10, 16, 23), times vary, £20−22 (£18−20). Preview 4 August, £12–£14.

A lock-in like no other featuring reinventions of chart-topping hits in this Olivier-nominated hour of joy for all ages. Multi-talented singers, stunning harmonies, footstomping singalongs and a working bar. Come drink in the action!

BALLET FREEDOM

Pleasance at EICC, 5–28 August (not 24), times vary, £15–£17.50 (£12.50–£15).

Previews 3 & 4 August, 9pm, £9.

This world-renowned contemporary dance company journey from Kyiv to Edinburgh with a spectacular new show to celebrate their 20th anniversary.

This intimate, sensual ballet is adapted from their hit show, Boudoir, and directed by Elena Koliadenko. This is a story about the moment in life when you come to terms with your love and your loss; when you can finally see yourself in the mirror. It is full of intrigue, passion, drama, sex and beauty.

TAIWAN SEASON: SEE YOU

Dance Base, 7–28 August (not 8, 15, 22), 5.30pm, £16−18 (£14−£16). Previews 5 & 6 August , £15 (£13).

Lai Hung-Chung is one of Taiwan’s most talked about young choreographers. This scintillating production for Hung Dance justifies the acclaim. It is a nonstop feast of intensely expressive motion and sensations inspired by ideas about loss, longing, confrontation and evasion.

HOME IS NOT THE PLACE

Summerhall, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, 17, 19, 21, 23, 25, 27 August, 7.20pm, £13 (£11). Preview 3 August, £8.

From ‘one of Scotland’s most powerful and interesting writerperformers’ (The Scotsman), Home Is Not the Place is a powerful production telling the remarkable story of the short life and lost work of Kerala writer PM John, shortly before India’s independence from British rule.

John’s story unwinds a tale of empire and migration across three generations of one family, in search of ‘who we are, what we are, what we believe’.

LATE’N’LIVE

Gilded Balloon Teviot, 6–29 August, 11.30pm, £13–£15 (£12.50–£14.50). Previews 4 & 5 August, £12.50.

‘The best late-night show on the Fringe’ (The Scotsman) returns in all its glory, featuring stellar line-ups of the very best acts every night, and hosted by the best MCs in the country including Thanyia Moore, Kiri PritchardMcLean and more.

LA CLIQUE

Underbelly’s Circus Hub on the Meadows, 6–27 Aug (not 15, 22), 7.35pm, £19–£21 (£18–£20).

Preview 5 August, £14.

The multi-award winning cabaret spectacular, La Clique, features the best of circus, comedy and cabaret. Born at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2004, this original and trailblazing cabaret show brings you a magnificent collection of extraordinary new artists and unmissable favourites. A decade on from winning an Olivier Award and fresh from performances in London and Singapore, La Clique promises to be a night of laughs, gasps, naughtiness and the best in international cabaret.

JIMEOIN: THE CRAIC!

Just the Tonic’s Nucleus, 8–28 August (not 15, 22), 8.40pm, £13.50–£18.50. Previews 4–7 August, £10–£15.50.

World-class stand-up from live comedy’s internationally acclaimed Irish master as he performs at his 27th Fringe. You’ve seen him on The Royal Variety Performance, Live at The Apollo, his films or specials, or perhaps online where he’s clocked up millions of views, but NOTHING beats seeing Jimeoin live.

NIGHT DANCES

ZOO Southside, 18–28 August (not 22), 10.30pm, £16–£17 (£14–£15). Preview 17 August, £12.50.

A series of dance poems expressing the invisible, energetic, connective tissue that joins us. An assault on the senses and an ode to the body, all breathing the same air, blood, sweat and tears. Love, fury, pride sharing a moment.

Punch a hole into the future. A deep groove for our eyes, ears and hearts. This one’s for all of us. The time for dancing has come. Live music by Daniel Fox (Gilla Band). May the salt from our sweat unite us.

list.co.uk/edinburgh-festival | Edinburgh Festival Guide 2022 | THE LIST 11

SOPHIE DUKER

FEATURES

TASKM m o d r e h of Sophie Duker may feel like the baby on Channel 4’s hit game show, but she’s now taking full charge of her comedy career. As she prepares for a monumental Fringe, this rising star talks to Jay Richardson about cancel culture and imposter syndrome

12 THE LIST | Edinburgh Festival Guide 2022 | list.co.uk/edinburgh-festival

A

newly crowned Taskmaster champion and about to become part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Sophie Duker seems far more established than perhaps she is. Despite only one full hour of Edinburgh Fringe stand-up to her name (2019’s Venus, which earned her a Best Newcomer nomination), Duker already feels like a UK comedy fixture: a favoured commentator on Frankie Boyle’s New World Order and familiar booking on the panel show and podcast carousel where upcoming comics build their profile.

Baselessly attacked by the right-wing press and social-media trolls for a throwaway joke on New World Order in 2020 (for which she received death threats) and having walked off Comedy Central’s female-led topical panel show Yesterday, Today & The Day Before last year when protesting at cuts to her IsraelPalestine monologue, it’s easy to forget that Duker has only been doing stand-up for six years. Naturally, she was wary about what Taskmaster’s ‘visibility can do to you’. Alongside experienced acts such as Bridget Christie and Ardal O’Hanlon on the hit Channel 4 show, she ‘intuitively felt like the baby’.

‘They’ve had so long to soak into who they are as performers,’ she notes.

‘They were so impressive because it’s hard to be yourself on telly. Knowing how to handle yourself when you’re so visible is a skill that, for better and worse, performers need more and more nowadays.’ She admits to having been traumatised by the death threats and muted ‘Taskmaster’ from her Twitter mentions, knowing that with any television show, ‘you don’t get ultimate control on how you present yourself and you don’t get a right to reply. I see minority peers and colleagues coming under fire in a way that’s disproportionate, that they wouldn’t get if they were men, white and middleclass. But I don’t think I’m particularly radical as a concept of who should be on television.’

SOPHIE DUKER

n i MASTER a m

PICTURES: SARAH HARRY ISAACS

list.co.uk/festival | Edinburgh Festival Guide 2022 | THE LIST 13

SOPHIE DUKER

Fortunately, as it transpires, everyone who ‘watches Taskmaster is either a legend or a massive nerd’, so the response that has filtered through has been generally lovely. Even so, and echoing a central theme of Venus, one of the tasks involved licking an ice lolly for ages and saw her being ‘sexualised, not in ways that were within my control or that I necessarily want’. Consequently, performing stand-up at the Edinburgh Fringe is where Duker feels most free.

‘I don’t believe in cancel culture, in censoring yourself,’ she explains. ‘If you’re a good comedian, you’ll have thought about what you’re saying and be able to stand by everything. You’ve produced something to be seen in its entirety, and audiences know you’re at your most vulnerable. Whereas if people just pull a line or a quote off the internet, all they see is an arrogant prick making a joke.’ She rolls her eyes: ‘As if I’m part of a woke agenda.’

Duker’s second show, Hag, pays homage to her late, Ghanaian grandmother (‘a formidable matriarch and bad bitch’) who raised her for two years. It also signals the ‘Black and queer’ stand-up’s growing acceptance and sharing of her intersectional complexities.

‘As we know, “hag” is a word for an ugly, old woman. But, as I found when I actually looked the definition up, it’s also a word for someone with magical powers. Shows are like babies: you’ve got to check these things before you name them. Still, I think it’s ambiguous. It could be about my grandmother, it could be about me having the temerity to turn 30, or a formative lesbian cruise I went on. There’s something really beautiful and terrifying about finally taking control of your own destiny and making your own decisions, something I definitely did not do in my twenties. It’s something the hags of lore like Maleficent do [in Disney’s 2014 reimagining of Sleeping Beauty], taking control of the narratives in their own stories. Instead of just floating in a soup of millennial angst and bisexual uncertainty, accept who you are and take on the weight of who you can be.’

Duker, who is also hosting two shows of Wacky Racists (her regular night which platforms comics of colour), won’t allow herself to grow complacent from feeling she’s arrived because that breeds hack comedy. Plus, coronavirus gave her space to think, away from the mayhem of Edinburgh. ‘There’s been more chance to explore what I find interesting about myself, to defeat the big boss of imposter syndrome.’

Citing Rosie Jones and Jack Rooke, she suggests that ‘the fullest performers, who kind of emerge box-fresh and are so essentially themselves, have been able to embrace different parts of themselves or have done the work to be like that. It makes them richer, funnier comedians, firing on all cylinders.’

Embarking upon a debut UK tour next year (‘because I’m excited to slowly lose my mind while doing something I love’), she’s enjoying the idea of audiences seeing her in her entirety and hopes to ‘create worlds’ with a couple of sitcoms she’s writing.

Meanwhile, she’s just shot her first film, superhero blockbuster The Marvels, in which she plays an alien. ‘I feel like my part might get cut or it’s a delusion that I had. But the director, Nia DaCosta, recognised me from Joe Lycett’s Got Your Back. So now I’m just chilling with Samuel L Jackson.’

Sophie Duker: Hag, Pleasance Courtyard, 3–28 August, 7.30pm; Wacky Racists Comedy Club, Assembly George Square Studios, 14, 21 August, 11pm.

14 THE LIST | Edinburgh Festival Guide 2022 | list.co.uk/edinburgh-festival

It’s great to be back!

3rd - 29th August Book now at Pleasance.co.uk list.co.uk/edinburgh-festival | Edinburgh Festival Guide 2022 | THE LIST 15

PICTURE: RICHA

RD DEMARCO

AND JOSEPH

BEUYS IN 1980

PICTURE: DEMARCO ARCHIVE AND DEMARCO DIGITAL ARCHIVE, UNIVERSITY OF DUNDEE

5 7 FESTIVAL 75

in 1980 and Joseph Beuys Richard Demarco

16 THE LIST | Edinburgh Festival Guide 2022 | list.co.uk/edinburgh-festival

beginning of watching a miracle happening

”

The Edinburgh Festival may have been forced into taking a sideways step over the last couple of years but it’s back with an absolute bang to mark its 75th anniversary. One man has been at the heart of this global arts phenomenon, a force of nature that goes by the name of Richard Demarco. At the age of 17, he attended the very first Festival in 1947, and has helped shape many others since. This beloved artist and curator tells Mark Fisher about a mere five of his favourite moments

FESTIVAL 75

“It was the

L’ÉCOLE DES FEMMES, LE THÉÂTRE DE L’ATHÉNÉE-LOUISJOUVET, LYCEUM THEATRE, 1947 It was natural for schoolchildren to be taken to Festival activities. I had a French teacher who couldn’t speak French, so I never heard the language of France. Then suddenly, there was Louis Jouvet and the greatest actors in France, speaking French. I couldn’t believe the sound of this language. It was just so beautiful. I thought, ‘I’ve got to get my act together and stop getting 10% in French. I’ve got to find out what this sound is.’

VIENNA PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA, USHER HALL, 1947 I had never heard the sound of an orchestra. And what did I get?

The world’s greatest orchestra, the Vienna Philharmonic, with Bruno Walter and Wilhelm Furtwängler conducting. The sound that really got me was that of an angel singing German lieder music: Kathleen Ferrier. Imagine that. What was going on was a feast. The city had never heard a sound that only an orchestra of mainly Austrian Jews could produce. I remember the stunned silence and then the eruption of applause, like a relief.

THE THRIE ESTAITES, THE SCOTTISH THEATRE, ASSEMBLY HALL, 1948 AND 1949 I was still at school in 1948. That year, I was given the job of manager, at 18 years of age, of the Camera Obscura, which is right beside the Church Of Scotland headquarters. A guy came in to the little café every morning. His name was Duncan Macrae. He said, ‘I’m rehearsing a play that nobody’s ever heard of. It’s called The Thrie Estaites. Come in to rehearsals.’ I came in and that was the beginning of four or five days of watching a miracle happening.

Duncan Macrae was wonderful. He got me behind the stage so that I could draw all the things that were happening.

PICTURE: DEMARC O ARCHIVE PICTURES: SARAH HARRY ISAACS

CORRUPTION IN THE PALACE OF JUSTICE, OXFORD UNIVERSITY DRAMATIC SOCIETY (OUDS), GULLAN’S CLOSE, 1957 When does the Traverse begin? It began when I met Jim Haynes as we were sitting in the front row of a play by Ugo Betti. I was with my dear wife Anne and her sister, and he was sitting about three seats away. Jim had a black Volkswagen Beetle. As we were coming out, he drove alongside us and said, ‘Can I give you folks a ride?’ Not a lift, a ride. We got in the car and immediately there was a friendship. We went off to the Laigh Coffee House in Hanover Street and on to the Central Hall in Tollcross for a commedia dell’arte performance in Italian. He then came back with us to our rented flat. That was where the Traverse was born. The Traverse was really an experiment in how to keep the spirit of the Edinburgh Festival alive in those 49 horrific weeks where it was like the circus leaving town.

ROSENCRANTZ AND GUILDENSTERN ARE DEAD, OUDS, CRANSTON STREET HALL, 1966 I always went to the Oxford University and Cambridge University programmes. This premiere wasn’t some stupid hour-long version of Fringe theatre. It was two hours and a bit. And it was beyond belief.

75 Years Of The Edinburgh International Festival, Signet Library, 1–5 August.

(From left) Anne CAPTION Diack, Richard

Demarco, and Phoebe Waller -Bridge earlier this year

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ARTEFACTS

During 75 years of the Edinburgh Festival, a whole heap of stuff will have appeared (and sometimes been forgotten about) in venues across town.

We spoke to those who have worked in Edinburgh during many an August and asked them to rummage around their archives for an intriguing artefact.

Here’s what they uncovered . . .

MORAG DEYES, ARTISTIC DIRECTOR OF DANCE BASE Almost exactly a year after I returned to Edinburgh to begin this amazing journey with Dance Base, I experienced Nelken, a mind-blowing show in the Festival by the Pina Bausch company in September 1995. The huge Playhouse stage was covered with thousands of standing carnations. I confess now that I swiped one off that gigantic stage on my way out, intending to keep it for eternity to remind me of the power that dance and live performance has.

ANTHONY ALDERSON, ARTISTIC DIRECTOR OF PLEASANCE The Pleasance was founded in 1985 by Christopher Richardson. This was the first programme, printed on the brightest coloured paper he could find, created using a 128k Apple computer with only eight fonts. Christopher used all of them: yellow and black seem to have stuck! There were 18 shows in two venues: Pleasance One (formerly the Little Theatre) where Unity Theatre from Glasgow first performed Gorky’s The Lower Depths in 1947; the other, a cabaret bar, directly beneath the theatre in what was then a wood-panelled bar, complete with wing-back chairs and fireplace. That very first year, Christopher made £118. It took him 15 years to do that again.

The first International Festival Of Music And Drama is launched in Edinburgh alongside a series of ‘fringe’ events with venues including Dunfermline Abbey, while a programme of documentaries is presented by the Edinburgh Film Guild

1953

Richard Burton plays Hamlet at the Assembly Hall

Yehudi Menuhin performs at the second International Festival and John Gielgud directs Medea at the Lyceum

18 THE LIST | Edinburgh Festival Guide 2022 | list.co.uk/festival

1958

Ken Loach and Dudley Moore appear in the Oxford Theatre Group

1954 The first Fringe programme is published

19 61

1963

Traverse Theatre is founded

Director Gerard Slevin first hints that the Fringe may have become too big and suggests limiting it to ten venues

1969

1947

TIMELINE

1948

FESTIVAL 75

al v i st e f

The Fringe Society becomes a constituted body

HHHH

‘GREAT PUNCHLINES GALORE’ EDINBURGH FESTIVALS MAGAZINE

IVO GRAHAM MY FUTURE MY CLUTTER HHHH

‘HAS STAR-IN-THE-MAKING COMING OFF HIM LIKE STEAM’ TELEGRAPH

‘A MASTERCLASS’ THE SCOTSMAN

MARCUS BRIGSTOCKE

‘IF YOU HAVEN’T SEEN HIM LIVE, THEN YOU HAVEN’T SEEN HIM AT HIS VERY BEST’ MIRROR

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Ed'22_Fest,Skinny&List_Magazine.indd 8

22/06/2022 15:47

FESTIVAL 75

MARK COUSINS, FORMER DIRECTOR OF EDINBURGH INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL The desk in my study is actually from the Edinburgh Film Festival: they were throwing it out. It belonged to film historian Forsyth Hardy. I often imagine what retrospectives were planned at it, what faxes from movie stars landed on it.

JENNY BROWN, THE FIRST DIRECTOR OF EDINBURGH INTERNATIONAL BOOK FESTIVAL A joy to see again this leaflet for the very first Edinburgh Book Festival (the main programme was in The Scotsman). A cover designed by Quentin Blake, and authors including Shirley Hughes, Michael Rosen, Anita Desai, Margaret Drabble, Malcolm Bradbury, Anthony Burgess and (a real coup) John Updike. The scale wasn’t there, but the ambition certainly was!

ELEANOR BALLY, SENIOR PUBLICIST AT SUMMERHALL Writer Jenni Fagan spent a year as Summerhall’s Gavin Wallace Fellowship writer-in-residence from February 2019, spending many hours wandering the building trying to find unseen stories.

Summerhall was originally built to house the University Of Edinburgh Veterinary College and ran as such until 2011 when it was transformed into a multi-arts venue. One day during Jenni’s residency, a member of staff told her about some animal bones in the attic which had been left by the vets when they moved to their new premises. Jenni spent hours lifting boxes of bones down to her study. She taught herself how to engrave them with poetry she had written during her residency, painted them and then filled the engraved areas with gold. These bones represent both Summerhall’s past and its future; as a venue bursting with personality, quirks and many, many stories.

1981

1973

1983

Fringe Sunday is launched and Cambridge Footlights (featuring Emma Thompson, Hugh Laurie, Tony Slattery and Stephen Fry) win the inaugural Perrier Award

20 THE LIST | Edinburgh Festival Guide 2022 | list.co.uk/edinburgh-festival

The Film Festival launches the Surprise Movie with The Cook, The Thief, His Wife And Her Lover

1990

2000

Underbelly makes its debut at the Fringe

Clint Eastwood and Quincy Jones bring a bit of Hollywood sparkle to Edinburgh by appearing at the Film Festival

The iconic Gilded Balloon venue on the Cowgate is destroyed by fire in December

The Film Festival’s special guest Werner Herzog disappears after two days, only to be found shooting landscape footage in the Highlands

The Fringe office moves to the High Street

1989

2002

1977

The Edinburgh Book Festival begins in a single tent

FESTIVAL 75

WILLIAM BURDETT-COUTTS, ARTISTIC DIRECTOR OF ASSEMBLY FESTIVAL Assembly started in 1981 but, with the hiatus over covid, we have delayed our 40th celebration until this year when we are able again to do a full Festival. We began in the Assembly Rooms which became the first major multi-venue on the Fringe. The building quickly became known as ‘the jewel in the crown of the Fringe’ (The Scotsman) and very much a centre point for the whole event. The excitement in the building was palpable and built on the incredible work going on in every room that made it feel like you were in an artistic energy vortex. The spirit was one of community in a shared purpose to bring great art to Edinburgh and give the audience an incredible experience. Something that continues to this day.

KAREN KOREN, ARTISTIC DIRECTOR OF GILDED BALLOON In August 1988, Katy was eight months old. I already had a son, Kristian, who worked front-of-house; being a single parent egged me on to do more and I was proud to have a daughter, so I got her hand printed in the brochure. In the early days we used a cover of artists from the 369 Gallery which was part of the Gilded Balloon building. It was the third year of Gilded Balloon and Late’n’Live, and the first of So You Think You’re Funny? I didn’t realise how many amazing comics were going to take part in the competition going forward.

SORCHA CAREY, FORMER DIRECTOR OF EDINBURGH ART FESTIVAL Chilean artist Alfredo Jaar’s commission for our 2019 programme included a performance element, with individuals wandering the streets of Edinburgh wearing sandwich boards bearing the text ‘I can’t go on’ and ‘I’ll go on’. After the Festival, we mounted one of the sandwich boards on the wall of our office. We drew great strength from Jaar’s appropriation of Samuel Beckett, never more so than when, less than a year later, we were plunged into the global pandemic.

2004

Fringe Of Colour is founded as a response to the ‘overwhelming whiteness’ of the Festival

2017

Monkey Barrel arrives on the Fringe scene

The Edinburgh Festival is cancelled due to the c-word

The Edinburgh Art Festival is launched

Bridget Christie becomes the first female standup winner of the Edinburgh Comedy Award (sponsored now by Foster’s) since 1995, with a morning show at The Stand

2013

The Half Price Ticket Tent makes its debut

Edinburgh International Film Festival moves from its traditional August spot into June

2020

2006

2008 2018

2021

A mini Edinburgh Festival takes place

20 22 It’s back, baby!

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AT THE EDINBURGH FRINGE

CIRCUS HUB ON THE MEADOWS

7.35PM (8.45PM) 05-27 AUG

BRISTO SQUARE

11.20AM (12.20PM) 04-21 AUG

BRISTO SQUARE

7.30PM (8.30PM) 03-28 AUG

CIRCUS HUB ON THE MEADOWS

4.25PM (5.25PM) 06-27 AUG

BRISTO SQUARE

1.45PM (2.35PM) 03- 29 AUG

BRISTO SQUARE

11.20PM (12.50AM) 18-27 AUG

BRISTO SQUARE

5.25PM (6.25PM) 04-29 AUG

CIRCUS HUB ON THE MEADOWS

2.15PM (3.15PM) 06-27 AUG

BRISTO SQUARE

1.30PM (2.30PM) 09-13 AUG

BRISTO SQUARE

3.30PM (4.30PM) 04-28 AUG

GEORGE SQUARE

CIRCUS HUB ON THE MEADOWS

12.05PM (1.05PM) 06-27 AUG

underbellyedinburgh.co.uk #FollowTheCow

@FollowtheCow

22 THE LIST | Edinburgh Festival Guide 2022 | list.co.uk/edinburgh-festival

@underbellyedinburgh

@underbellyedinburgh

11AM (12PM) 04-29 AUG

PROGRAMME HIGHLIGHTS

6.35PM (7.35PM) 05-27 AUG

BRISTO SQUARE

6.50PM (7.50PM) 03-29 AUG

BRISTO SQUARE

7.30PM (8.30PM) 16 AUG

BRISTO SQUARE

8.25PM (9.25PM) 03-28 AUG

CIRCUS HUB ON THE MEADOWS

8.45PM (9.55PM) 05-27 AUG

GEORGE SQUARE

9.25PM (10.25PM) 03 - 28 AUG

GEORGE SQUARE

11.15PM (12.15AM) 05-27 AUG

GEORGE SQUARE

5.55PM (7.05PM) 04-29 AUG

COWGATE

11.55PM (3.00AM) 05-27 AUG

BRISTO SQUARE

9.15PM (10.15PM) 03-28 AUG

CIRCUS HUB ON THE MEADOWS

5.30PM (6.30PM) 06-27 AUG

COWGATE

VARIOUS TIMES 4-28 AUG

CIRCUS HUB ON THE MEADOWS

11AM (12PM)

31 JULY - 26 AUGUST 2019 (NOT 12)

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MARTHA WAINWRIGHT 24 THE LIST | Edinburgh Festival Guide 2022 | list.co.uk/edinburgh-festival

FAMILY AFFAIR

s a memoir title, Stories I Might Regret Telling You is up there with the most tantalising. Better still, its writer, the musician Martha Wainwright, is already known for the sometimes eye-watering honesty of her songwriting.

Who else would have the audacity to launch her solo career with a song called ‘Bloody Mother Fucking Asshole’ (that’s a lot of bleeps), alleged to be about her dear daddy?

Wainwright hails from a hugely talented musical clan (half-sisters and all), headed by folk legends Loudon Wainwright III and the late Kate McGarrigle. You may also have heard of her brother Rufus. So no pressure on the younger sibling. Despite an idiosyncratic style and successful career of her own, Wainwright has spoken of struggling to find her voice in such a crowded market. Publishing a memoir should help with that, although writing it was not without its challenges.

‘I think it spoke to my ego and vanity that I could write a memoir,’ says Wainwright. ‘I did nothing for a year and then I sat in front of a blank page and realised what I’d got myself into. I have 20-odd years of experience writing songs and none writing a book, so it took a long time to figure out what I wanted to say; but I think, more than that, how I wanted to say it. I had to write a lot, take a lot out, turn away from it for a period and then come back to it; so it was just something that was with me for a long time.’

Wainwright reckons her first draft was around ten times longer than the finished article, but the Wainwright family saga is an epic: loving, torrid, bitter, sweet, sad, hopeful. Like her brother, Martha had a close bond with her mother, who passed away in 2010, and a far thornier relationship with her father, who was absent for much of her childhood but happy to use his family as song fodder. Both of his children with McGarrigle would end up writing searing songs against him and have now reached an entente with pater.

Her mother’s cancer treatment and the premature birth of her first child are intertwined in Wainwright’s memoir and movingly evoked. But these were past events when she first started writing around seven years ago, unlike the then ongoing slow death of her marriage to bassist/producer Brad Albetta, the father of her children. ‘The hardest part was trying to figure out how to talk about my divorce,’ she says. ‘I also knew I couldn’t really talk about it that much, to protect the children and to make sure I wasn’t going to end up in a lawsuit.’

The first unexpurgated draft was actually submitted as an exhibit during divorce proceedings. ‘We luckily didn’t end up going into the detail of it but when that happened I realised how dangerous this is. I sing songs that I wrote 20 years ago which can breathe in different places, but I feel a book is more concrete; which is frightening.’

At one point, Wainwright even considered abandoning the project. ‘I was constantly changing the title, and then after a while I went back to it and said I really have to finish this. Every article that’s ever been written about me talks about my parents and my brother; this is a way to sort of close that and now make space for my other family, which is my kids. That’s what interests me. My gaze is forwards, it’s no longer behind me. That’s been helped by the writing of this book.’

Martha Wainwright, Central Hall, Saturday 13 August, 8.30pm; event sponsored by The List.

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MARTHA WAINWRIGHT

A

Martha Wainwright may come from a long line of successful musicians but that doesn’t mean life was always sweetness and light.

Far from it. The singer-songwriter tells Fiona Shepherd how hard it was to get her trauma down on paper and out into the world

ALAN CUMMING

RISKY Grace Petrie, Alan Cumming and Livia Kojo Alour all have one thing in common this August. They’re stepping way out of their comfort zone in the name of art. Kelly Apter speaks to this bold trio about the ups and downs of doing something just a little bit different

PICTURE: JOSH GOING

26 THE LIST | Edinburgh Festival Guide 2022 | list.co.uk/edinburgh-festival

GRACE PETRIE

F

PICTURE: FRASER WEST

ew performers would deny that stepping onto a stage is nerve-wracking, no matter how many times you’ve jogged around the theatrical block. So why, you might wonder, would you take a tried and tested way of entertaining people and swap it for something completely new? ‘I don’t want to be comfortable,’ says Alan Cumming, one of several performers hotfooting it out of their comfort zones in Edinburgh this August. ‘I thrive on new things and I want to feel the same excitement I felt early on, and to keep finding new things that will give me that energy and zest for work and for life.’

With a successful acting career firmly on his résumé, Cumming is branching out into dance with Burn, his solo homage to Scotland’s bard. Inspired by letters written by Robert Burns and new academic research surrounding his mental health, the show features minimal text but a whole lot of movement. ‘I’ve always danced in plays, musicals and films but I’ve never done anything like this; usually I’m speaking or singing as well,’ says Cumming. ‘So it’s been interesting to trust what you can do with just your body. And it’s good to be nervous; it means you care and I want to keep caring. I’m also very humbled that I’m going to go on stage and dance, and people are going to pay money to come and see it.’

BUSI NESS

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LIVIA KOJO ALOUR

PICTURES: SARAH HICKSON

If Cumming has a fractional head start in his new venture, having used his body to communicate as an actor, the same could be said for Grace Petrie.

The singer/songwriter is best known for her political lyrics and impassioned delivery; but anyone who has seen Petrie perform live will know her between-song banter has them LOLing in the aisles. So despite being ‘terrified’ at the prospect of delivering stand-up comedy, that’s exactly what she’ll be doing at this year’s Fringe.

‘I’ve nurtured a secret ambition to do it for quite a few years,’ says Petrie. ‘Because I’ve toured with quite a few comedians as a support act [Josie Long, Robin Ince, Hannah Gadsby] and I learned an awful lot from them about crowd work and stage craft, that’s really where my patter comes from.’ Having gathered a devoted fanbase for her music, Petrie could easily have stuck to delivering numbers about left-wing frustration and gender politics (plus the odd gorgeous love song). But in the face of what she terms an ‘engineered moral panic about trans people’, she felt compelled to write and perform the splendidly titled Butch Ado About Nothing.

‘I’ve been writing this show in my head for three or four years, so it’s really marinated,’ says Petrie. ‘I talk a lot in it about the gender critical movement, and the fact we’re living through a period where there’s a lot of division in the queer community. I’ll be hugely out of my comfort zone and it’s the most nervous I’ve been in years. But I couldn’t sit back any more; I have to say something.’

So, too, does Livia Kojo Alour: though it’s hard to talk with a sword in your mouth. For the past 13 years, Alour (formerly known as cabaret artiste MisSa Blue) has wowed audiences globally with her sword-swallowing routines. But now, Alour is putting her mouth to a different use. A mix of singing, spoken word, poetry and physical theatre, Black Sheep is a deeply personal show recounting some of Alour’s life experiences to date.

‘It’s very scary to go on stage and do something out of your comfort zone,’ she says. ‘People identify me as a sword swallower, so it’s almost like losing a part of your identity. Will the audience like it? Will I like it?

Because, like a lot of danger performers, I’m addicted to the adrenaline. It’s a whole different mastery to go out there and do something else but still bring the energy and skill I usually do as a sword swallower.’

After causing herself life-threatening internal damage during a performance one night, Alour spent time in hospital but soon returned to the stage, continuing for many years. The desire to take risks, however, is slowly giving way to a need to inform and inspire. ‘I have health issues with my sword, and even though I swallow one

during Black Sheep, it’s only once because it’s my show and I can choose how I end it,’ says Alour. ‘I’ve always wanted to tell my story, but people wouldn’t let me speak on stage; I never had the feeling I was able to show my true personality or my vulnerability.’ From her difficult childhood in Germany to experiences of racism, Alour knows what to share and what to keep to herself, balancing poignant poems with upbeat songs and even a bit of roller skating.

‘I’ve had a lot of therapy and once I’ve gone through the closure process, I create art,’ she says. ‘But I don’t create art to find closure, so I’m very comfortable with sharing all this material in the show. And usually, when I talk about my history, people are touched and inspired. I want the audience to leave thinking, “I liked that”, and maybe it’s because of a certain song or the vibe.

But then they’ll realise they also learned something. Or, if it’s a person of colour, they’ll think there are people like me out there, talking about issues. It’s scary, but if I go on stage and swallow a sword I can actually die. When I perform Black Sheep, I might feel pain from past events but they won’t kill me.’

Black Sheep, Assembly Rooms, 4–27 August, 9pm; Burn, King’s Theatre, 4–10 August, times vary; Grace Petrie: Butch Ado About Nothing, Assembly George Square, 3–28 August, 4.20pm.

28 THE LIST | Edinburgh Festival Guide 2022 | list.co.uk/edinburgh-festival

festival.summerhall.co.uk

FESTIVAL 2022 BOOK NOW

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ART

ART

LUKE JERRAM

Down the years, installation artist Luke Jerram has delighted crowds with large-scale representations of the moon, Mars, a floating Earth and a ghost plane. For his month-long residency at National Museum Of Scotland, he’s delivered something equally big but, for some viewers no doubt, rather more icky. E.coli is a suspended 90ft-long inflatable sculpture which is around five million times bigger than the real thing (thank goodness). Reactions are likely to be mixed, but it’s worth bearing in mind that bacteria were here before us and they’ll go on long after we’ve departed. (Brian Donaldson) n National Museum Of Scotland, 3–31 August.

30 THE LIST | Edinburgh Festival Guide 2022 | list.co.uk/edinburgh-festival

EDINBURGH ART FESTIVAL 28 JULY–28 AUGUST

ART

PICTURE: © COURTESY OF HES, FRANCIS M CHRYSTAL COLLECTION

UNCHARTED

WATERS

Celebrating its 200th anniversary, the Union Canal is perhaps a surprising focal point for this year’s Edinburgh Art Festival commissions programme. Rachel Ashenden takes a look at the events and artworks popping up along its banks this summer

I

n the past, Edinburgh Art Festival’s commissioned programme has explored epochal change and an accompanying sense of unwavering uncertainty. From ‘Remembering The Future’ in 2014 to ‘The Making Of The Future: Now’ in 2017, artists have been invited to imagine new and better ways of living in their practice. But this year’s commissioned programme centres on something more concrete and tangible: the Union Canal.

Originally built to transport coal between Edinburgh and Glasgow in 1822, the canal’s purpose rapidly diminished within two decades thanks to the arrival of railways. Since the millennium, it has been revived as a green route running through the capital, and a leisurely pocket of the city principally used by locals. This summer, it will become the unique setting for a series of newly commissioned works which span the disciplines of film, sound, dance, graphic design and print. list.co.uk/edinburgh-festival | Edinburgh Festival Guide 2022 | THE LIST 31

ART PICTURE: JULIE HOWDE

‘When you start to unpick what we’re walking on and what we’re a part of, much of that is based on the labour of those who’ve been oppressed or came from other places,’ says Glasgow-based artist Emmie McLuskey, who has curated EAF’s Associate Artist Programme. McLuskey observes that the canal was built by Highlanders and Irish immigrants whose labour is under-acknowledged; some even lost their lives during the process. It’s only the second time that the festival has given responsibility for curating a series of new works to an artist. Marking a fresh approach to the EAF’s programming, McLuskey invited four artists to delve into Union Canal’s rich history.

The associate artists are primarily process-led with behindthe-scenes research just as vital as a project’s outcome.

Graphic designer Maeve Redmond spent hours in Edinburgh Central Library’s archive examining material, including maps, ephemera and records of its construction. Redmond observed that 20th-century newspaper cuttings ‘varied wildly from negative to positive’ in their view of the canal’s existence.

Experimenting with typographical styles, and exploring the relationship between craft and art, Redmond has designed two new signs for the canal. One acknowledges its original labourers, and the other includes the polarised newspaper headlines from last century. The prominence of historical context in Redmond’s work prompts viewers to consider how they themselves relate to the canal.

Testament to the diversity of their collective work, artist Hannan Jones has recorded sound under water, which McLuskey interprets as ‘a pulse reading of the canal’. Jones will present a sound sculpture which considers the canal’s vibrations and frequencies. On land, Amanda Thomson, author of A Scots Dictionary Of Nature (2017), has logged the many wild plant species which grow along the canal’s edges.

Collaborating with a botanist, Thomson has developed a map which charts the flora and fauna, embellished with stories from the canal’s archives.

State of the Union: (previous page) Hopetoun Warehouse, Union Canal, c.1900–30; (clockwise from top) Hannan Jones, Orbit Of An Echo; Janice Parker; Emmie McLuskey (left); Amanda Thomson captures the canal’s flora; Amanda Thomson, Lightly Tendrils; Sarah Kenchington

PICTURE: ALAN DIMMICK

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ART PICTURE: SALLY JUBB PICTURE: HANES STURZENEGGER

Bringing an element of serendipity to this year’s theme, dance artist Janice Parker will choreograph solo works everyday between Lochrin Basin and Wester Hailes for the festival’s final two weeks. Experienced in performing in a multitude of settings (from factories to fields), Parker’s movements rely on improvisation and misrule. The times of her daily performances will not be readily available to the public. Instead, Parker hopes that people stumble across the performances, which are typically meditative, though she notes that ‘if there’s a raucous party happening on the canal, I might join them’.

For those who prefer structure to their festival activities, there are ticketed walking tours led by activist Jim Slaven, and cruises on the Lochrin Belle canal boat. Beyond the Associate Artist Programme, other commissions include ‘Tell Me Of Your Boats And Your Waters: Where Do They Come From, Where Do They Go?’ by Montreal-based artist Nadia Myre. This multi-format presentation explores migratory routes starting on the Union Canal, indigenous storytelling and archival research. Meanwhile, visual artist Jeanne van Heeswijk has teamed up with the Community Wellbeing Collective, a group of residents from Wester Hailes, to create a supportive space to explore what community wellbeing is and could be. Or join artist Sarah Kenchington in building a community raft made from found wood, string and a set of sails designed by fellow artists Pester & Rossi.

While the canal may initially strike festival-goers as an unusual choice of subject matter, it offers a chance to seek out some big existential questions. Community is at the heart of 2022’s theme, resonating with those who may have reassessed their everyday surroundings as a result of the pandemic. Once a symbol of the industrial revolution in Scotland, and now a place of leisure and contemplation, Edinburgh Art Festival invites the public to shape their canal’s meaning by being present in it.

For full details on all commissions and events, go to edinburghartfestival.com

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2022 DINBURGH TRE.COM/E SOHOTHEA

SOHO WALTHAMSTOW EDINBURGH MUMBAI ONLINE 34 THE LIST | Edinburgh Festival Guide 2022 | list.co.uk/edinburgh-festival

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ART

ARTS AND GRAFTS A sense of collective democracy informs the art of Céline Condorelli.

She talks with Neil Cooper about her new exhibition which draws attention to those who work hard behind the scenes

ART

T

he hard labour is almost done for London-based artist Céline Condorelli. It’s the day before After Work, her sprawling compendium of installations, interventions and disruptions, opens at Talbot Rice Gallery. All that is left for the team of technicians and installers to do is to put the finishing touches on Condorelli’s constructed evocations of gardens, adventure playgrounds and sports centres. These are set alongside images drawn from tyre factories and other everyday graft which some people undertake before clocking off for weekend outings which might well include a gallery excursion.

Those bringing Condorelli’s visions to temporary life are the art world’s key workers, who remain largely unseen to the public, but who make things tick. Without them, the exhibitions we take for granted simply would not happen. This is something Condorelli is acutely aware of, both in the social make-up of her constructions and in her recognition of those who built them, as well as those who might inhabit them.

‘I’ve been interested in work for a long time,’ Condorelli says, sitting in Talbot Rice’s bright white space, where previously boarded-up windows have been opened for the first time in around a decade.

‘One of the very first projects I made was called Support Structures and focused on the work that we think is invisible but that we entirely rely on. For example, framing devices or staging devices, all of these things that we take for granted, especially within an exhibition context. This is the work that allows us to see things, because if things aren’t framed or staged, we don’t see them. That’s something I’ve been looking at for a long time; the status, importance and recognition of the labour of art and cultural workers.’

The title of After Work comes from the 12-minute film made with artist/filmmaker Ben Rivers and poet Jay Bernard, whose work accompanies footage of a playground designed by Condorelli being built on a South London housing estate. All this chimes with Condorelli’s notion of what she calls ‘altering existing conditions’.

‘That’s the methodology,’ she says. ‘I’m entering into a situation and a space in which there is of course an architecture and special setting; but there is also all the people who made work before me. That’s also part of the context, the artists who came before and the way the institution is run; even an exhibition within this kind of white-cube situation, you’re just altering something that is already there. You don’t start from scratch.’

Condorelli’s work dates back over more than 20 years, with an emphasis on architecture and temporary structures. She is also one of the co-founders of Eastside Projects, the collectively run Birmingham-based art space and studio set up in 2008.

Condorelli has carried this sense of collective democracy into After Work, with those involved in setting up the exhibition being credited, while a series of works by peers, friends and key influences also feature.

Then there are those who use their leisure time to visit the show, often without any prior knowledge of what they’re about to see. How might Condorelli explain After Work for them? ‘I would sum it up around this idea of display,’ she says. ‘That it’s a show which very much tries to talk to how we see rather than what we see. So how the exhibition context is constructed itself, and how we actually see things; how we see landscape, how we see objects, how we see artworks.’

Céline Condorelli: After Work, Talbot Rice Gallery, until 1 October.

36 THE LIST | Edinburgh Festival Guide 2022 | list.co.uk/edinburgh-festival

BARBARA HEPWORTH

In Art & Life, this major retrospective spans the iconic sculptor’s entire career featuring works such as ‘Cone And Sphere’ and ‘Installation View Of Orpheus’. n Scottish National Gallery Of Modern Art, until 2 October..

PLATFORM

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JERRY HA

COOKING SECTIONS/SAKIYA

Turner nominees Cooking Sections team up with West Bank collective Sakiya for work which looks at land struggles in both Palestine and Scotland, reflecting upon how they can be viewed in a wider global context. n Royal Botanic Gardens Edinburgh, until 18 September.

PICTURE:

Graduates from Glasgow, Dundee and Edinburgh have their work showcased in this annual bonanza of emerging talent from across the country.

French Institute Of Scotland, 28 July–28 August.

TESSA LYNCH

In Houses Fit For People, Glasgow-based Lynch promotes alternative building techniques in the light of our longstanding housing crisis, issues which were raised in a 1986 BBC documentary from which Lynch has taken her exhibition’s title. n Edinburgh Printmakers, 28 July–18 September.

ALAN DAVIE

The life and legacy of this painter, jeweller, polymath and jazz musician are explored in

Beginning Of A Far-Off World, an exhibition featuring some rarely viewed work from across his lengthy career. n Dovecot Studios, until 24 September.

TRACEY EMIN

Another typically frank and bold statement from the renowned contemporary artist with work shown indoors and out, a majority of which was

created over the past two years. n Jupiter Artland, until 2 October.

A TASTE FOR IMPRESSIONISM

The story of how Scotland became home to a major collection of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist art is told in this exhibition featuring works from the likes of Millet, Degas, Matisse, Pissarro and Seurat. n Royal Scottish Academy, 30 July–30 November.

PICTURE: KENNETH GRAY COURTESY DOVECOT STUDIOS

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ART

Special commissions, emerging artists and major retrospectives dominate another festival of top art in the capital

ART HIGHLIGHTS

Barbara Hepworth (and bottom from left), Alan Davie, Tracey Emin, Edgar Degas

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All Together Now Edinburgh International Book Festival 13–29 August 2022

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• Candice Carty-Williams • Diana Gabaldon • P J Harvey • Douglas Stuart • Jarvis Cocker • Maggie O’Farrell • Martha Wainwright • Alan Cumming • NoViolet Bulawayo

• • • • • • • • • • •

Brian Cox Armando Iannucci Frankie Boyle Jack Monroe Gemma Cairney Ian Rankin Michael Pedersen Torrey Peters Jenni Fagan Chris Brookmyre Kevin Bridges

• • • • • • • • •

Malika Booker Kayo Chingonyi Salena Godden Lemn Sissay Damon Galgut Georgia Pritchett Jessie Burton Amy Liptrot Colm Tóibín

...and hundreds more.

Live in-person, online and on-demand Book now at: edbookfest.co.uk 38 THE LIST | Edinburgh Festival Guide 2022 | list.co.uk/edinburgh-festival

Julian

Join us in Edinburgh or online from home as we bring hundreds of the world’s best writers, artists and thinkers to stage and screen.

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BOOKS EDINBURGH INTERNATIONAL BOOK FESTIVAL 13–29 AUGUST

THIS IS MEMORIAL DEVICE

Memorably subtitled ‘An Hallucinated Oral History Of The Post-Punk Music Scene In Airdrie, Coatbridge And Environs 1978–1986’, This Is Memorial Device became a cult hit when it arrived in 2017. Music writer David Keenan flooded his tale with a series of local legends going by names such as Paprika Jones, Lucas Black, Remy Farr and Mary Hanna. In this specially commissioned play for the Book Festival, Paul Higgins (he of The Thick Of It and Utopia fame) plays the novel’s de facto editor, Ross Raymond. This is a man armed with all the stories (whether good, bad or ugly) about a ‘band’ known as Memorial Device. (Brian Donaldson) n Edinburgh College Of Art, 13 August, 3.30pm; 14–29 August, 8.30pm

list.co.uk/edinburgh-festival | Edinburgh Festival Guide 2022 | THE LIST 39

WORLD OF WORDS BOOKS

NO KA KN FINLAND PAJTIM STATOVCI

NORTHERN IRELAND MAGGIE O’FARRELL

IRELAND SINÉAD GLEESON

SPAIN IRENE SOLÀ VENEZUELA RODRIGO BLANCO CALDERÓN

NETHERLANDS FRANK DIKÖTTER

ENGLAND JESSIE BURTON

JAMAICA JASON ALLEN-PAISANT

CANADA ALYCIA PIRMOHAMED CUBA KARLA SUÁREZ

FRANCE JAKUTA ALIKAVAZOVIC GERMANY YASCHA MOUNK

COLOMBIA CRISTINA BENDEK

NIGERIA ARINZE IFEAKANDU

ECUADOR NATALIA GARCÍA FREIRE MEXICO FERNANDA MELCHOR

TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO AYANNA LLOYD BANWO

CAMEROON ERIC NGALLE CHARLES

USA HANIF ABDURRAQIB

CHILE ALEJANDRO ZAMBRA

BRAZIL SIDARTA RIBEIRO

ARGENTINA MARIANA ENRÍQUEZ 40 THE LIST | Edinburgh Festival Guide 2022 | list.co.uk/edinburgh-festival

RWANDA SCHOLASTIQUE MUKASONGA

NORWAY KARL OVE KNAUSGAARD

DENMARK SIGNE GJESSING

SYRIA DANNY RAMADAN RUSSIA SERHII PLOKHY

TURKEY MERVE EMRE SCOTLAND KEVIN BRIDGES

ALBANIA LEA YPI

PALESTINE RAJA SHEHADEH JAPAN MIEKO KAWAKAMI

ITALY DOMENICO STARNONE

EGYPT SANAA SEIF

SINGAPORE JEREMY TIANG CHINA XIAOLU GUO

BULGARIA GEORGI GOSPODINOV SOMALIA NADIFA MOHAMED

BAHRAIN AMIA SRINIVASAN UNITED ARAB EMIRATES JANINA RAMIREZ MALAYSIA ED YONG

INDIA AMIT CHAUDHURI KENYA OKWIRI ODUOR

SOUTH AFRICA DAMON GALGUT

TANZANIA ABDULRAZAK GURNAH

AUSTRALIA HELEN GARNER

NEW ZEALAND GWEN ADSHEAD

list.co.uk/edinburgh-festival | Edinburgh Festival Guide 2022 | THE LIST 41

BOOKS

In 1983, the Edinburgh Book Festival started off in a single tent aiming to be an event every two years. In 2022, the Edinburgh International Book Festival will welcome more than 600 authors and participants to Edinburgh College Of Art and Central Hall, with an event that continues to be in hybrid form, but which opens its doors to more in-person sessions than could have been imagined this time last year. And the authors are pouring in from all over the world to be in Scotland. Here, we produce a Book Festival world map detailing the wide scope of nations represented in August

BOOKS

While male friendships have shaped much of his life, Michael Pedersen has wrestled with both love and loss.

The poet, memoirist and former trainee solicitor tells Claire Sawers that certain social pressures can have fatal results

B

ack in the 90s, a junior Michael Pedersen suspected something was rotten with masculinity. He was labelled a ‘poof’ in high school after unashamedly adoring row-boat trips on the Union Canal with his friend Daniel, someone he now recognises was his ‘first love in many respects’. He looked on enviously as his big sister linked arms with female pals and invited them over for sleepovers.

‘Boys didn’t get to do that. There wasn’t that same physical vocabulary. It felt somehow bereft. I was often called a soppy git; there was pressure to be stoic instead.’

Poet and author Pedersen is all too aware of the dangerous consequences that this forced masking of real emotions can have for men. After Daniel’s father ended his life when Pedersen was a teenager, tragically, one of Pedersen’s dearest friends, the singer-songwriter and artist Scott Hutchison also died by suicide in May 2018. Pedersen and Hutchison were midway through a book tour at the time; Hutchinson had illustrated a book of Pedersen’s poetry, Oyster.

Pedersen’s newly published memoir Boy Friends is a deeply tender love letter to his cherished buddy. It also serves as a manual for not just navigating grief but celebrating all friendships, including ones that have ended, sometimes abruptly, other times more gradually. ‘I still talk to Scott, out loud,’ says Pedersen, speaking over Skype from a bedroom in Paris where Serge Gainsbourg once romanced Jane Birkin. During a six-week tour, the ebullient 37-year-old vocabularian is shoehorning in a residency at Shakespeare And Company bookshop before a string of UK literary festivals.

‘After an interview, I’ll maybe check in that he was OK with what I said. If I said anything he didn’t like, I’ll tell him I owe him a pint. You can roleplay with grief; it helps,’ says Pedersen, who runs a literary salon called Good Grief! which returns to the Edinburgh International Book Festival in August. This year’s guest performers, chosen by Pedersen, are queer Vietnamese-American poet Ocean Vuong and Malaysian-Australian poet Omar Musa.

The remit is to find joyous ways of exploring those normally hidden depths of sorrow.

Pedersen’s book, while at times casually crushing in its depiction of heartache, is also dogged in a desire to find life’s visceral thrills and bask as often as possible in zesty moments of pleasure. Like his poetry, Pedersen’s prose is energetic and dazzling, but the whimsy and giddiness of some of his earlier writing is replaced with sage candour; a by-product of the sudden sucker punch dealt by his friend’s death. ‘I wanted to avoid any kind of pomposity,’ says Pedersen, who approached the genre of memoir with due caution. Any danger of seeming up himself is quashed early on with stories of his mawkish reaction to a pet hamster dying or his boyhood problem of piddling himself.

Writing about Hutchison’s death provided a welcome conduit for Pedersen to explore male friendship in general, and by extension the fluid parameters of platonic, romantic and sexual love. It’s also a warmly spun yarn, catching the reader up on Pedersen’s story so far, where he has trained as a solicitor, dabbled in heroin and set up the hugely successful Neu! Reekie literary collective and performance series, among other things.

‘Going through this enormous jumble sale of memories, I needed to write things down to preserve these sacred moments. There was a cathartic compulsion to create this archived friendship history. Using my cerebral apparatus and sensuality and sentimentality, I wanted to move past the histrionics of tumultuous times in the past and enjoy the glorious splendour and fun that my friendships have brought me.’

Michael Pedersen, 24 August, 7pm; Good Grief!, 26 August, 7pm; both events at Edinburgh College Of Art.

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“Prejudice starts Patrice Lawrence has written a new picture book that takes its curious protagonist on a celebratory and unflinching voyage through African history. Lucy Ribchester talks to this award-winning children’s author about the bias that resides in us all

”

as soon as we’re on this earth

‘W

hen I first went to Trinidad, nobody could understand me,’ says children’s author Patrice Lawrence. Although born to a Trinidadian mother, Lawrence had spent her life in the UK, growing up in Brighton. ‘So my grandma and most of my cousins couldn’t understand my accent.’ This feeling of shared yet disconnected heritage planted a seed in Lawrence, that years later became her latest children’s book, Our Story Starts In Africa.

Set on a family trip to Trinidad, the book sees its young protagonist, Paloma, ask curious questions of her Trinidadian auntie about why she speaks differently to her cousins. The answer Tante Janet gives takes us on a journey which spans warrior queens, the frankincense trade, slavery and colonialism. It’s an unflinching and brilliantly concise portrait of African history, beautifully illustrated by Jeanetta Gonzales.

Lawrence has previously won awards including the Waterstones, Bookseller and Jhalak Prizes for her YA work and older children’s fiction, but she was determined this particular story be written for early years. ‘Our prejudices and our biases start as soon as we’re on this earth, because we absorb everything that’s around us,’ she says.

While working in early years and social justice policy, she came across a study detailing how four-year-olds responded differently to pictures of children from various ethnicities. ‘Most of the children at that age, including most Black children, thought the Black boy was most likely to be naughty. And that’s prior to school.’

The only child who hadn’t absorbed those prejudices was a Black boy whose mother had taught him Black history, and how to value himself. Lawrence herself says she used to carry internalised racism; she didn’t write a character of colour in her own fiction until she was in her 30s and had huge gaps in her knowledge of African history that were only filled when she began Our Story Starts In Africa. ‘Nobody taught me African history. And you don’t know what you don’t know.’

Having also recently written a picture book about the Windrush generation (which will feature at her Book Festival event), Lawrence now says she would love to see other writers explore Chinese or South Asian history for young readers. For the author, the most joyous part of writing Our Story Starts In Africa, however, was her discovery of Africa’s historical warrior queens. Though it was only Amanirenas of Kush who made the final cut, there were many Lawrence could have chosen. ‘To know there were these queens in Africa, fighting men, fighting colonialism, was so powerful. The best bit was trying to work out which warrior queen to have in the book. We can give Boudica a run for her money . . . ’ Patrice Lawrence: Warrior Queens And The Windrush, Edinburgh College Of Art, 21 August, 11.30am; Challenging Discrimination With Patrice Lawrence & Jason Reynolds, online edbookfest.co.uk, 22 August, 10am.

44 THE LIST | Edinburgh Festival Guide 2022 | list.co.uk/edinburgh-festival

MARLON JAMES

Catch Booker Prize winner Marlon James in conversation with Jess Brough about Moon Witch, Spider King, the second novel in his Dark Star trilogy. As one of the leading fantasy writers of our time, this conversation is bound to be mind-bending. n Edinburgh College Of Art, 16 August, 7.30pm.

ARMANDO IANNUCCI

The witty and satirical mind behind The Thick Of It and The Death Of Stalin is interviewed by Jenny Niven about a new mock epic poem written in response to the pandemic, Brexit and other absurdities. n Central Hall, 19 August, 8.30pm.

KARL OVE KNAUSGAARD

Known for penning six epic autobiographical novels under the title of My Struggle, Norwegian author Karl Ove Knausgaard joins the line-up to discuss his recent equally ambitious work The Morning Star. n Central Hall, 20 August, 11.30am.

CHITRA RAMASWAMY

In response to Ramaswamy’s new memoir Homelands, this event sees her and dear friend Henry Wuga (who fled Nazi Germany in 1939 as a child) combine their life stories to paint a picture of Scotland’s history of immigration. n Edinburgh College Of Art, 21 August, 1pm.

JOELLE TAYLOR

Learn how to pull from personal experiences and invent new forms of poetic expression with poet and performer Joelle Taylor. In this workshop, she shares her award-winning expertise and helps attendees explore queer identity and creativity in writing. n Edinburgh College Of Art, 24 August, 5pm.

CRESSIDA COWELL

Waterstones Children’s Laureate and author of the How To Train Your Dragon series presents a new adventure-packed tale in Which Way to Anywhere? Expect futuristic twists and a sprinkling of wanderlust. n Central Hall, 27 August, 10am.

BRIAN COX WITH NICOLA STURGEON

Hear Dundonian actor Brian Cox (most recently of Succession fame) discuss his new memoir Putting The Rabbit In The Hat with avid reader and First Minister Nicola Sturgeon. n Central Hall, 29 August, 8.30pm.

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BOOKS

There’s no shortage of big names doing great things at this year’s Edinburgh International Book Festival. Here are seven must-see events

BOOKS HIGHLIGHTS

Brian Cox (and bottom from left), Marlon James, Cressida Cowell, Joelle Taylor

46 THE LIST | Edinburgh Festival Guide 2022 | list.co.uk/edinburgh-festival

EDINBURGH INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 12–20 AUGUST

FILM FILM FEST IN THE CITY

We might all be able to huddle together again in busy cinemas, but there’s something comforting, relaxing and almost nostalgic about seeing a movie on the big screen armed with just a picnic hamper and rug (tartan optional). Yes, this is Scotland but fortune favours the brave and all that. Talking of which, Brave (Pixar’s ‘Scottish’ movie) is just one of Film Fest In The City’s highlights alongside other family favourites such as Big, Fantastic Mr Fox, Shrek, WALL-E, Peter Pan and (depending on the kind of family you hang around with) 2001: A Space Odyssey. (Brian Donaldson) n St Andrew Square, 12–14 August.

IN ASSOCIATION WITH

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FILM

Kinuyo Tanaka was a major actress of 20thcentury Japanese cinema who went on to direct a number of pioneering films. As a retrospective of her work behind the camera hits Edinburgh, Eddie Harrison pays tribute to a seriously undervalued talent

LNER.CO.UK

B

ack in the 1970s, period ghost story Ugetsu (1953) was a Japanese film many international critics considered to be one of the best ever made.

Directed by Kenji Mizoguchi, Ugetsu featured a powerful performance

by Kinuyo Tanaka. Mika Tomita of the National Film Archive Of Japan noted that she was ‘so popular as an actress that her films were presented under her name, like Chaplin’s were.’

As well as appearing in 15 features made by her romantic partner Mizoguchi, Tanaka also had a remarkable solo career as a director, offering a strong female view that was decades ahead of her time. Now, fresh prints of six of Tanaka’s directorial works are featured at this year’s Film Festival under the fresh stewardship of Kristy Matheson.

‘Tanaka’s films gracefully shape-shift across genres,’ says Matheson of a retrospective first presented at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival, and which provides UK audiences with a chance to trace the development of an illustrious career. ‘Irrespective of their diverse styles, when viewed collectively these six films offer a unique perspective on a nation grappling with the scars of war, social upheaval and modernisation. And all of it is seen through the lives of its female citizens.’

After Ugetsu, Tanaka made her directorial debut with Love Letter, an adaptation of a novel by Fumio Nima about a male war veteran who translates letters from Japanese women to American GIs, a scenario that established Tanaka as a genuine auteur. By the time of The Moon Has Risen, Tanaka was telling stories from a female perspective, with this love story partly written by master filmmaker Yasujirō Ozu.

The Kinuyo Tanaka retrospective screens during the Edinburgh International Film Festival which runs from 12–20 August; full programme details are available from 20 July.

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FILM

away from the shadow of such a powerful man and appreciate her work in its own right. Despite being involved with over 250 films, she worked increasingly in television until her death in 1977.

So while cinephiles may well recognise Tanaka from established classics like Red Beard or Sansho The Bailiff, it’s her pioneering work as a director that’s celebrated here (it’s worth noting that few other women initially followed Tanaka’s difficult path). While Tanaka was recognised as an actress internationally, winning a Silver Lion in Venice shortly before her death, the internet age hasn’t provided Tanaka’s directorial work with the boost that male collaborators such as Mizoguchi, Ozu or Kurosawa have received. By shining a light on her impressive output behind the camera, the festival is redressing the balance towards an important, neglected female filmmaker whose work you almost certainly haven’t seen.

woman of SUBSTANCE

Tanaka’s third film, Forever A Woman (aka The Eternal Breasts) was written by Sumie Tanaka (while not a relation, they shared a feminist perspective on cinema) and deals sensitively with a female poet who develops breast cancer.

By 1960, Tanaka made her first colour film as director, The Wandering Princess, which views Japanese history from the point of view of a consort at the emperor’s court, consolidating Tanaka’s ethos of ‘films for women, by women’.

Working again with Sumie Tanaka, she then returned to controversial subject matter with Girls Of The Night, which deals with the moral reformation of prostitutes, another difficult subject to tackle at that time. Similarly, 1962’s Love Under The Crucifix comes from the perspective of a shogun’s mistress; it’s clear from the subjects Tanaka chose that she intended to offer an alternative to male dominance in society generally, and specifically in Japanese and world cinema.

Tanaka’s relationship with Mizoguchi was a torrid one, with the male director reportedly seeking to stifle her directorial career. This welcome retrospective aims to move Tanaka

50 THE LIST | Edinburgh Festival Guide 2022 | list.co.uk/edinburgh-festival

NOT OK COMPUTER FILM

A sci-fi movie about one family mourning their broken android. Sounds daft, right? It’s not.

Katherine McLaughlin finds that After Yang is a deeply affecting film about love, loss and the intangible power of memory

LNER.CO.UK

>> list.co.uk/edinburgh-festival | Edinburgh Festival Guide 2022 | THE LIST 51

Kogonada channeled Ozu for After Yang

I

magine if you could enter the memories of a loved one who has passed away and locate their cherished memories of your time spent together. That’s partly what Korean-American filmmaker Kogonada’s contemplative, profoundly moving and multi-layered sci-fi film After Yang (based on a short story by Alexander Weinstein) explores.

Set in the near future, Colin Farrell, Jodie Turner-Smith and Malea Emma Tjandrawidjaja star as a family mourning the demise of an android named Yang (Justin H Min) who they considered to be an integral part of their unit. Yang had been purchased to act as an older sibling to Mika (Tjandrawidjaja) and to impart knowledge about her Asian heritage. When Yang unexpectedly shuts down, this sudden loss and the desperate need to fix him impacts them all in different ways.

‘I was interested in exploring the difference between human memories and technological recordings,’ explains Kogonada. ‘In the film, there are primarily two ways we re-experience the past: through the objective, POV recordings of Yang and through the subjective, fluctuating recollections of Jake [Farrell] and Kyra [Turner-Smith].

I remember a distinct moment when I decided to stop recording the school performances of my sons and just let them enter into the flux of my memories. The fear was that I would forget and never be able to re-experience this moment as it appeared through the lens of my phone. But for me, there is something lovely about the way memory will alter an event as time passes, often making it more poignant or relevant or elusive.’

Kogonada was inspired by Yasujirō Ozu’s Tokyo Story, a film he describes as ‘haunted by a profound sense of loss . . . a ghost story disguised as a family drama.’ Similar to Ozu, Kogonada’s films, including his breakthrough feature Columbus, use wide shots, architecture and space in a perceptive way to convey emotional intimacy and distance while also subtly examining family obligation and identity. After reading Weinstein’s short story, Kogonada ruminated on what the character of Yang represented. ‘At first, I took Yang’s ethnicity at face value. But the more I explored this idea of him, the more I realised that his Asianness was manufactured by a company. He was a construct of Asianness. In a strange way, I could identify with that.’

Kogonada observes the family as they grieve, but also viscerally enters memories with a dreamy score by Aska Matsumiya that includes a theme from Ryuichi Sakamoto and a song by Mitski, all of which take inspiration from 2001 cult film All About Lily Chou-Chou.

Kogonada’s After Yang strikes a powerful note as the world gets to grips with collective trauma. ‘I hope my film has a relationship to the now, whether it’s the pandemic or just life itself.’

After Yang, Vue Omni, 20 August, 7pm.

52 THE LIST | Edinburgh Festival Guide 2022 | list.co.uk/edinburgh-festival

IT IS IN US ALL

The Conversation is a strand which promises ‘cinema to get you talking’, so prepare to chat about this Irish thriller featuring the disturbing and existential aftermath of a car accident.

Written and directed by Antonia CampbellHughes (who also stars), it features Claes Bang and Cosmo Jarvis.

REFRAMING THE GAZE

Subtitled ‘Experiments In Women’s Filmmaking, 1972 To Now’ and curated by Kim Knowles, this retrospective programme responds to the 50th anniversary of the 1972 Women’s Film Festival with a focus on feminist film theory and the avant-garde.

SALOUM

Winner of an Audience Award at the 2021 Vancouver film fest, this Senegalese thriller revolves around an elite group of mercenaries.

Variety hailed Saloum for its mix of ‘spaghetti Western, samurai drama and classic monster movie’ while still telling a uniquely African story.

A CAT CALLED DOM

A frustrated animator, Will, records a message to his ill mother, confessing that the film he was trying to make about her with his collaborator had failed.

But how does an imaginary digital cat called DOM fit into all this?

WINNERS

UK-Iranian production in The Chamber strand (‘quality arthouse for the culturally curious’) is set in a provincial town where children work hard to support their families. One day, nine-year-old Yahya and his friend Leyla discover a precious statue: a search for the owner begins.

LA SAGRADA FAMILIA

In the Heartbreakers strand for ‘friends, family, lovers and cheaters’ comes this documentary about two parents (Peruvian shamans), three kids

and a 1000-mile road trip into the Amazon in an attempt to find some sense of balance between ancestral beliefs and urban chaos.

MORVERN CALLAR

From the famed Alan Warner debut novel came this hallucinatory road movie released in 2002, starring the peerless Samantha Morton. Directed

by Lynne Ramsay, its 20th anniversary screening gets the full lovely 35mm treatment.

Edinburgh International Film Festival, 12–20 August; full programme is available on 20 July.

LNER.CO.UK

list.co.uk/edinburgh-festival | Edinburgh Festival Guide 2022 | THE LIST 53

FILM

FILM HIGHLIGHTS

Taking place in various cinema spaces across the capital, the latest Film Festival instalment features everything from imaginary cats to Peruvian shamans

Winners (and bottom from left), Morvern Callar, La Sagrada Familia

PLease drink resPonsibLy

aFTer THe sTand-UP enJoy a siT doWn Fine local cuisine with unrivalled rooftop views.

book yoUr TabLe Today 54 THE LIST | Edinburgh Festival Guide 2022 | list.co.uk/edinburgh-festival

122719 - JWPS Ed Fringe FullPageAd A4 v1 GF.indd 1

17/06/2022 17:00

FRINGE

FRINGE

EDINBURGH FESTIVAL FRINGE 5–29 AUGUST

PICTURE: MATT TURNER

a n REBEL

He may be gone but there’s little chance of David Bowie ever being forgotten.

Since his death in 2016, there has been a musical (written just before he passed), an all-star gala concert and, of course, a veritable slew of tribute acts attempting to be the best Thin White Duke of them all.

But, as far as we know, Rebel is the first circus show in his honour. Coming all the way from Oz, this show incorporates a live band (all of whom are circus performers in their own right) and an aerial spectacle which draws out the beauty and drama of his music. (Brian Donaldson) n Underbelly’s Circus Hub, 6–27 August, 5.30pm.

IN ASSOCIATION WITH

list.co.uk/edinburgh-festival | Edinburgh Festival Guide 2022 | THE LIST 55

17:00

FRINGE CABARET

KEEP IT U N pLeAse drink responsibLy

After the stAnd-up enjoy A sit down Book your table today.

56 THE LIST | Edinburgh Festival Guide 2022 | list.co.uk/edinburgh-festival

FRINGE CABARET

U NCLEAN Everyone’s favourite ‘clown in a gown’ returns with an unfiltered cabaret extravaganza. Bianca Del Rio explains to Rachel Cronin why she will never say sorry

B

ianca Del Rio exited lockdown with an itch to perform and it turns out she’s more brilliantly brazen, boisterous and brash than ever. A previous winner of reality TV phenomenon RuPaul’s Drag Race, Del Rio will be showcasing her courageously crude comedy to audiences whose minds should be as open as their skins are thick.

Unsanitized (as per its title) is an uncensored and animated reflection on the past two years of pandemic pandemonium. Del Rio’s worldrenowned quick-witted clap backs, audience insults and outrageous anecdotes are sure to be present and correct. No social group is safe from the drag-comedian’s unruly ridicule, which could be considered crass to those unfamiliar with Del Rio’s dry delivery.

The performer, however, is unapologetic about the nature of her humour, which she believes her fans not only understand but actually expect. ‘Never rein it in! You never rein it in and you never apologise!!’ she explains. ‘The trick is to trust comedy and to remember what you’re seeing. This is not some TED Talk or AA meeting: it’s not that serious. I think it’s important for people to come in with an open mind. And usually, the people who do come know exactly what they’re getting into.’

As evidenced from her touring show in May at Edinburgh’s Usher Hall, audience involvement is a staple of the Del Rio live experience. It goes without saying that those who opt for a front-row seat (which she dubs the ‘splash zone’, referencing sea-lion shows at SeaWorld) require a strong stomach. But Unsanitized’s final segment allows an insulted gathering to get their own back. A quickfire Q&A is prime breeding ground for

spontaneous hilarity. ‘Did Hurricane Bianca really need a sequel?’ This sly dig at her cheesy 2016 film that fans love to hate was met with a collective guffaw from spectators (and from Del Rio herself). ‘That’s the crazy thing about live theatre,’ Del Rio tells me later. ‘You just never know what’s going to happen. When you’re doing a lot of crowd work or on-thespot stuff, it really does change the narrative.

I’ve been very fortunate to have had some amazing audiences.’

Del Rio has been spreading her love/hate humour across the Americas and Europe since her Unsanitized tour kicked off at the end of last year. After a triumphant win on RuPaul’s Drag Race in 2014, the quirky queen never imagined she’d be parading her insults all over the globe less than a decade later. ‘Oh, god, I didn’t think I’d be alive!’ she exclaims.

‘I mean, I’m 46, who the hell lives this long?

I didn’t plan any of it or even think it would happen. I’m not a dreamer on that level; I just roll with the punches. And I think that’s the best way to handle life. So, when unexpected things happen, good or bad, you just have no choice but to plough through it.’

At the core of Del Rio’s comedy is an overwhelming need for light-hearted laughter in challenging times. ‘It’s very important to find the humour in all of it,’ Del Rio explains of her covid material. ‘We’ve had a long period of time where everybody was losing their minds. And to just get out and laugh is crucial because those were scary times. But with most situations that are serious, we have to find the humour in it.’

Bianca Del Rio: Unsanitized, Pleasance At EICC, 18–26 August, 9.30pm.

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Fascinating Aïda ‘Outrageous’

‘Hilarious’

Scotsman

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‘Cabaret Heaven’ Metro

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ROOMS GEORGE STREET

3 To See

FRINGE CABARET

FRINGE CABARET

homage shows

There is no one more capable of stepping into very big shoes than cabaret queen Sarah-Louise Young (pictured). In her show An Evening Without Kate Bush (Assembly George Square Gardens, 3–29 August, 5.55pm), Young inhabits the howls, moves and melodies of the recently resurfaced icon.

In Becoming Chavela, Stephanie Trudeau pays homage to Mexican singer Chavela Vargas (theSpace, 5–7 August, 9.10pm).

Expect to hear juicy stories about Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera and Pedro Almodóvar in this vivid portrayal of mid-century Mexico City and its thriving artistic scene. And for those searching some pearl-clutching satire, Frank Sanazi’s Das Vegas Nights (Voodoo Rooms, 5–28 August, 10.30pm) reimagines Rat Pack classics with shocking lyrics sung from the perspective of Hitler and other terrible men. (Megan Merino)

SLICK T RICKS

S

As Richard Essien brings another crowd-pleasing show to the Fringe, Kevin Fullerton tries to anticipate what the Britain’s Got Talent finalist has up his sleeve

ince the heyday of David Blaine and Magic Secrets Revealed, there’s been a concerted effort to make the ‘pick a card, any card’ cheese of a traditional magician into something a little bit sexy. Magical Bones: Soulful Magic, an act fronted by Britain’s Got Talent finalist Richard Essien, takes that template and gives it a modern sheen, infusing intricate tricks with impressive dance routines and an encyclopaedic trawl through the history of magic.

His sold-out 2019 Fringe run and showstopping turn on Britain’s Got Talent in 2020 has led to a number of other high-profile telly appearances, including Penn & Teller: Fool Us, BBC One’s BAFTA Awards, ITV1’s This Morning and Sky’s Around The World In 80 Tricks. But Essien’s likeability is the real card

up his sleeve. Unlike Blaine or Derren Brown, he fashions himself as an affable family man rather than a mystical outsider, more interested in adding a sense of wonder and enthusiasm to his act than spooking audiences.

Essien has the confidence of an all-round showman, and he isn’t afraid to pepper his performances with a powerful social message.

In his audition for BGT, his set-piece trick paid tribute to Henry Box Brown, a 19thcentury Virginia slave who in 1849 mailed himself to abolitionists in a wooden crate. If you thought magic couldn’t tackle big issues, Soulful Magic will make you think again.

this show runs

pLeAse drink responsibLy

ALL yeAr round Book your table today.

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Free Entry Monday-Saturday parliament.scot/wpp www.worldpressphoto.org

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IRINA WERNING | PULITZER CENTER

28 July – 27 August The Scottish Parliament

ANIA MAGLIANO

What’s the best bit of advice you’ve ever been given from a seasoned comic? On a long

train journey, Catherine Bohart gave me so much good advice that I’ve got a notes page on my phone of everything she said. There was so much wisdom, but a lot of it was to do with finding your own ways to measure if you’re improving as a comedian, rather than relying on external validation. She’s as wise as she is funny (VERY)!

Is there one thing that keeps cropping up when people talk to you about Edinburgh in August? People seem to like the name of my show,

celebrated as a sort of national holiday

I have in talking about baked beans and cheese into promoting my show and it will be a sell-out!

What’s your favourite word that begins in ‘e’?

‘Eejit’. I identify as a big eejit. I come from a long line of awful eejits and it’s an extremely enjoyable word to say! It’s a harmless Irish slag that no one can take offence at cos it’s not really a word: is it, ya lil eejit!?

What percentage of your early stand-up performances is likely to appear in your Fringe debut? Oh none! I left that all in Vancouver

Absolutely No Worries If Not, which is inspired by my people-pleasing tendencies. Therefore, people saying they like it is literally ideal.

where I started stand-up. I do enjoy my earlier stand-up as it’s a marker of where you were at that time and the craft you were learning, but my debut is based on a particular personal story so it’s all fresh but tested.

Which side of your family do you get your funny bones from? My dad and stepdad are

Which word of six letters or more will crop up the most in your Edinburgh show?

both very funny people, but since English is my mum’s second language, she’s often the funniest by accident. When dropping me and my friends at the train station, she offered to take us to the back platform where the train was leaving from.

Unfortunately, what she said was, ‘I’ll take you from the back’. Thanks mum! n Ania Magliano: Absolutely No Worries If Not, Pleasance Courtyard, 3–28 August, 4.35pm.

‘Ayahuasca’, ‘ghosting’ and . . . ‘hahahahaha!’ n Anna Clifford: I See Dead(ly) People, Gilded Balloon Teviot, 3–28 August, 9pm.

”

In early 2020, fresh-faced comedians were looking forward to their first Edinburgh Fringe. A year later, they and another bunch of bushy-tailed wags were still stymied by the c-word. Now a third set of newcomers are on board for this August. To mark a flood of debutantes for 2022, we gave 22 of them the chance to impress you lot with their answers to some questions (the responses we got could have filled several Festival Guides so these are heavily edited versions. The full unexpurgated glory of each one resides online at list.co.uk/edinburgh-festival)

RANDA HO LMS

PICTURE: MI

CERYS BRADLEY

What’s the best bit of advice you’ve ever been given from a seasoned comic? Sarah

Bennetto once told me that if you’ve had a bad gig you should use the fee to buy yourself a gift.

My gift is usually cake.

ANNA CLIFFORD

What’s your favourite word that begins in ‘e’? ‘Easy’ (as in easy peelers).

When people talk to me about Edinburgh I get excited about what toppings I’m going to get at the baked potato shop! I need to transfer the skills

What will you do to keep fit and healthy (relatively speaking) during August? My show

Is there one thing that keeps cropping up when people talk to you about Edinburgh in August?

is about playing sports and mostly involves eating list.co.uk/edinburgh-festival | Edinburgh Festival Guide 2022 | THE LIST 61

FRINGE COMEDY

TT STRONGE PICTURE: MA

“ He should be

FRINGE COMEDY

Snickers on stage, which seems pretty balanced to me. I’ve technically signed up to do a duathlon with some of my teammates on the first weekend in September and currently can’t run 5k, so I have a lot of training to do in preparation. I’m hoping to run most days and, subsequently, do a lot of yoga to recover from the running, but we shall see how long that lasts.

Which word of six letters or more will crop up the most in your Edinburgh show? I do say

the word ‘sportsperson’ a lot in my show. And ‘Snickers’. I also say ‘sorry’ to my audience a fair amount, but that’s only five letters. n Cerys Bradley: Sportsperson, Gilded Balloon Teviot, 3–29 August, 4.40pm.

probably say that. But this sort of sentimentality would probably make her physically sick, so I’ll go with my first and greater love, the Eagles, nickname of my football team, Crystal Palace.

Which side of your family do you get your funny bones from? Dad is much more socially

quiet but will pop up with excellent quips constantly and tells a great anecdote. My mother is much more gregarious; my friends say she’s like Alison Steadman in Gavin & Stacey and I don’t think they’re far off.

Which word of six letters or more will crop up the most in your Edinburgh show?

Probably ‘toilet’. It’s a place where loads of cultural conversation is focused at the moment; many transphobes are policing who gets to use which gendered space they feel most comfortable in, so toilets are getting a lot of heat. But equally, it’s the place where you go to do poos, farts and wees which are always funny so, for me, toilets are a blend of the highbrow and lowbrow. Much like my show, I hope. n Chloe Petts: Transience, Pleasance Courtyard, 3–28 August, 6pm.

DANIELLE WALKER

What’s the best bit of advice you’ve ever been given from a seasoned comic?

Get good in the shadows.

What’s your favourite word that begins in ‘e’?

I can’t say I have one, but a word beginning with E that means something to me is ‘Edward’: the name I wanted to call my first dog but was denied.

Also, my nana’s dad’s name, and the name of the ghost I saw as a child (also nana’s dad).

What will you do to keep fit and healthy (relatively speaking) during August?

I Iike to swim (I have massive feet so it’s very easy for me to glide through the water like a seal). I’ll try and cook myself some meals with veggies. If not, I’ll walk around with capsicums and eat them like apples.

Which word of six letters or more will crop up the most in your Edinburgh show? ‘Family’.

CHELSEA BIRKBY

n Danielle Walker: Nostalgia, Assembly George Square Studios, 3–28 August, 3.35pm.

Is there one thing that keeps cropping up when people talk to you about Edinburgh in August? Exorbitant rental fees. And if

Rickrolling will hijack QR codes.

What’s your favourite word that begins in ‘e’? ‘Egghead’.

Which side of your family do you get your funny bones from? I have my father’s nose, if

that’s what you mean.

Which word of six letters or more will crop up the most in your Edinburgh show? I know

this because my phone saves voice recordings of the show under the most-used word. To my surprise, it’s ‘murder’. Twice it’s been ‘blobby’. n Chelsea Birkby: No More Mr Nice Chelsea, Just The Tonic At The Caves, 4–28 August, 3.40pm.

PICTURE: MATT CROCKETT

CHLOE PETTS

What’s your favourite word that begins in ‘e’?

Well my girlfriend’s name begins with E so I should

CHRISTIAN BRIGHTY

What’s the best bit of advice you’ve ever been given from a seasoned comic? Tessa

Coates stopped me from becoming a lawyer. I would not be doing comedy if it wasn’t for her.

Which is a really good thing, because I would have been a terrible lawyer.

And what has proved to be the least useful?

The opposite. A friend kept advising me to go become a lawyer for five years, and then come back and do stand-up about it. They’re now a lawyer, so at least they follow their own advice.

What’s your favourite word that begins in ‘e’? ‘Elephant’. I don’t know if it’s my favourite

word, but I really like elephants! Oh wait, was that a trick? Was I supposed to write ‘Edinburgh’?

Picture yourself in early September: what would constitute a successful Fringe for you? If I go to my therapist and manage to talk

about something that’s not the Fringe. n Christian Brighty: Playboy, Pleasance Courtyard, 3–28 August, 9.40pm

62 THE LIST | Edinburgh Festival Guide 2022 | list.co.uk/edinburgh-festival

EMILY WILSON

What’s the best bit of advice you’ve ever been given from a seasoned comic?

To put in the hours, and just keep writing and

HHHH ‘ACHINGLY FUNNY...

WORTH SEEING AGAIN AND AGAIN.’ TIME OUT

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getting on stage. The only way to get better is to do it all the time. Oh, and also ‘be funnier’.

Someone told me that once and it really helped!

Is there one thing that keeps cropping up when people talk to you about Edinburgh in August? Yes! ‘Wow, that’s a lot of shows in a

row!’ Don’t remind me. Kidddingggg, I’m excited!

Is there one thing that keeps cropping up when people talk to you about Edinburgh in August? When I tell people I’m doing the

Fringe, their first question is always, ‘what are you gonna do about your voice?!’ They ask me this because I lose my voice all the time, so the idea of me doing a show where I talk and sing for an hour for 25 nights in August kinda makes you go, ‘good luck with that, girlfriend’!

What percentage of your early stand-up performances is likely to appear in your Fringe debut? Zero. But my early singing

HANNAH FAIRWEATHER

Is there one thing that keeps cropping up when people talk to you about Edinburgh in August? Whether or not I have a spare room.

What’s your favourite word that begins in ‘e’? I love the word ‘epiphany’. It’s a very

BARBER

pleasing-sounding word and I love the Taylor Swift song by that title. However, I have just had the epiphany that I should have probably said something like ‘Edinburgh’ or ‘enemies’ or something somewhat related to my show that I’m trying to plug.

turns out, a real bitch to spell! ‘Ego’: I definitely explore it in my show and I love that it’s this tiny word that encapsulates so much. ‘Efteling’: proper noun, but my favourite theme park in the world; it’s in Holland and I grew up going to it.

It’s super whimsical, weird, haunting. n Hannah Pilkes: A Woman On The Verge, Underbelly Bristo Square, 3–29 August, 7.15pm.

PICTURE: JAMES

performances? Well honey, that’s what my whole damn show’s about! In my Fringe show, I literally have footage of me singing on The X Factor when I was 15. But I don’t think anybody ever needs to hear the jokes I used to run at open mics in humid New York City basement bars . . . n Emily Wilson: Fixed, Pleasance Courtyard, 3–29 August, 10.25pm.

What’s your favourite word that begins in ‘e’? ‘Eccentricities’: that’s a good one! And

Is there one act you absolutely HAVE to see in August? Sean McLoughlin’s show So Be It is

an absolute must-see. I saw a preview of Sean’s show at Mach Comedy Fest and even in its early stages, it was phenomenal.

Which side of your family do you get your funny bones from? My mum is quick-witted

and sharp and would make for a killer MC. My dad is very thoughtful and logical and would thrive with a notebook in the corner of a writers’ room. To be clear, neither of them have any experience or interest in the comedy industry; I am talking metaphorically and no nepotism has been involved in my career. n Hannah Fairweather: Just A Normal Girl Who Enjoys Revenge, Just The Tonic At The Caves, 4–28 August, 2.25pm.

JACK HARRIS

What’s the best bit of advice you’ve been ever been given from a seasoned comic? No

one knows what you’re about to say.

What’s your favourite word that begins in ‘e’? Probably should be ‘education’ but it’s ‘egg’.

What will you do to keep fit and healthy (relatively speaking) during August? At

the start, going for a run. By the end, curbing kebabs to just one a day.

Which word of six letters or more will crop up the most in your Edinburgh show? If it’s not

EMO MAJOK

I keep getting told this will be my biggest opportunity to date. True or false, I’m approaching it like I’m hungry. When it’s all said and done, and that last show from the Festival is done, I want to know I gave it my everything.

What’s your favourite word that begins in ‘e’? ‘Endless’.

Which side of your family do you get your funny bones from? Mother’s side for sure.

Everyone’s too serious on my dad’s side. n Emo Majok: African Aussie, Underbelly Bristo Square, 3–29 August, 8.30pm.

PICTURE: ARIN SANG-URAI

Is there one thing that keeps cropping up when people talk to you about Edinburgh in August?

HANNAH PILKES

What’s the best bit of advice you’ve ever been given from a seasoned comic?

Do what makes me laugh, first and foremost. If I get a kick out of it, it’s likely the audience will too, versus trying to perform what I think I’m ‘supposed’ to do.

64 THE LIST | Edinburgh Festival Guide 2022 | list.co.uk/edinburgh-festival

‘teacher’ then something’s gone seriously wrong. n Jack Harris: Teaching Teachers How To Teach, Just The Tonic At The Mash House, 4–28 August, 1.55pm.

JOSH JONES

PICTURE: GR EG FEINER

senses before anyone found out . . . oh whoops . . .

What’s the best bit of advice you’ve been ever been given from a seasoned comic? Don’t

What’s your favourite word that begins in ‘e’? ‘Eggplant’. Because

What’s your favourite word that begins in ‘e’? ‘Ermmmm’.

it’s my favourite food and my favourite emoji and the American name makes so much more sense.

Where we got ‘aubergine’ from I’ll never know, Brits aren’t fancy and romantic; we’re cold and cynical. It’s a plant that looks a bit like an egg: why are we catfishing it as something else?

Is there one act you absolutely HAVE to see in August? The main thing I want to go to is the

Edinburgh Dungeons. I love the Dungeons: the actors are class.

What percentage of your early stand-up performances is likely to appear in your Fringe debut? A handful of jokes but not much;

most of my early stand-up is proper crap.

What will you do to keep fit and healthy (relatively speaking) during August? Cry.

n Josh Jones: Waste Of Space, Pleasance Courtyard, 3–28 August, 8.30pm.

KYLIE BRAKEMAN

Is there one thing that keeps cropping up when people talk to you about Edinburgh in August? I’m just excited for the whole process!

When I talk about Fringe it’s usually 50% about the show and 50% about how much I miss sausage rolls.

Which side of your family do you get your funny bones from? Both! My mom’s side is

more dry and British and my dad is more goofy.

What will you do to keep fit and healthy (relatively speaking) during August? I’ll be

honest: nothing.

Which word of six letters or more will crop up the most in your Edinburgh show?

‘Bumhole’. I’m my father’s daughter! n Lily Phillips: Smut, Pleasance Courtyard, 3–28 August, 7.25pm.

ASHLEIGH

Which word of six letters or more will crop up the most in your Edinburgh show? ‘Tinseltown!’

recently found a recording of a song he wrote with his uni band, just called ‘Bum’. So, it was inevitable that I would, years later, write a show called Smut.

PICTURE: JORDAN

LETT

PICTURE: KARLA GOW

What’s your favourite word that begins in ‘e’? ‘Evil!’

Which side of your family do you get your funny bones from? My dad. I

n Kylie Brakeman Presents: Linda Hollywood’s Big Hollywood Night, Gilded Balloon Patter Hoose, 3–28 August, 7pm.

KATIE PRITCHARD

Is there one thing that keeps cropping up when people talk to you about Edinburgh in August? The only conversations I’ve been having

about Edinburgh in August is a lot of people saying stuff like ‘anything could happen!!’ After the last two years, I guess none of us know exactly what it’ll be like, but that does feel exciting!

What’s your favourite word that begins in ‘e’? It’s got to be ‘enigmatic’! I’ve never used it

PICTURE: KARLA GOWLETT

in a sentence before, but when I read it I’m like ‘wow, how did this person know how to use it in a sentence?’

Picture yourself in early September: what would constitute a successful Fringe for you?

MARY BETH BARONE

What’s the best bit of advice you’ve ever been given from a seasoned comic? ‘Get

your ass up and work’: Kim Kardashian.

To be honest, I would just love to get on that soldout board once, and to not have a cry by myself on a street corner in the middle of the third week.

And if I can do both of those things, then I’m making myself a bloody badge!

LILY PHILLIPS

People keep calling it a boot camp. That’ll be fun for me because I’ve never been to camp.

Which word of six letters or more will crop up the most in your Edinburgh show? ‘Bonkers’?

cares. When you realise that, you are free!

What percentage of your early stand-up performances is likely to appear in your Fringe debut? It depends how you look at it.

Wait, is this a word that I say, or a word that people call me after they’ve seen my show? If it’s the latter, it’s ‘bonkers’. n Katie Pritchard: Disco Ball, Pleasance Courtyard, 3–29 August, 6.05pm.

What’s the best bit of advice you’ve ever been given from a seasoned comic? No one And what has proved to be the least useful?

Someone suggested once that I should have a stage name, sparking a brief period of calling myself Lady Power. Thank god I came to my

Is there one thing that keeps cropping up when people talk to you about Edinburgh in August?

From my early stand-up, maybe none; but there are multimedia elements from when I was a kid/ teenager. In some ways, I’ve been a comedian since childhood.

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listen to other comics.

JUST THE TONIC IS BACK

FOR EDFRINGE 2022 Feast your eyes upon our offerings

19:20 - 21:20

21:45 - 23:45

The most talked about smash hit show of the festival returns

18:10 - 19:10 4th - 28th August 66 THE LIST | Edinburgh Festival Guide 2022 | list.co.uk/edinburgh-festival

Gloriously Funny

Unmissable

SCOTSMAN

EDINBURGH EVENING NEWS

8 PM

4-28 AUG (not 15th) WWW.TOMSTADE.COM

TICKETS

Which side of your family do you get your funny bones from? My dad has very

Which other new comedian do you feel a special kinship with? And do you reckon it’s reciprocated? Darran Griffiths. He’s not

at the Festival this year but prepare for him to make a splash in 2023! I guess we share some similarities. We’re both comics with professional backgrounds (he’s a chartered accountant, I’m a doctor), we’re both married, he has a daughter, I have a (god) daughter.

So when we speak about comedy or issues surrounding it, it’s from a perspective we both understand and can relate to. However, if he states that this kinship is not reciprocated once this interview goes live, I will be asking y’all to remove this shout-out, expeditiously! n Michael Akadiri: No Scrubs, Pleasance Courtyard, 3–28 August, 8.35pm.

PICTURE: JAMES

MELISSA STEPHENS

What’s the best bit of advice you’ve been ever been given from a seasoned comic? You don’t

DEACON

have to fit into any comedy scene. Just do you.

What’s your favourite word that begins in ‘e’? ‘Everything’.

SIKISA

What’s the best bit of advice you’ve been ever been given from a seasoned comic?

Barry Ferns (who is one of the founders of Angel Comedy) told me that when you’re compering a show, your job is to not be the star of the show but make sure the room is set up for comedy. He also told me that when you’re doing audience interactions just be honest and say the first thing that comes to your head. It may be funny, it may not, but it doesn’t matter.

And that is something that I have taken on board and so far has worked.

Picture yourself in early September: what would constitute a successful Fringe for you?

The lead singer is hot and my husband.

For me a successful Fringe would be one that I am happy with. To know that I went out every day and performed for an hour and made audiences laugh. I would also hope in early September that I am in hibernation.

Picture yourself in early September: what would constitute a successful Fringe for you? That I

Which word of six letters or more will crop up the most in your Edinburgh show? ‘Vagina’.

Is there one act you absolutely HAVE to see in August? The Idiot Circus: Death Is Coming.

never had to cancel a show for lack of audience. n Melissa Stephens: Hot Dogs & Tears, Assembly Rooms, 4–27 August, 7.40pm.

n Sikisa: Life Of The Party, Pleasance Courtyard, 3–28 August, 8.25pm.

PATRICK SPICER

PICTURE: GARRY

What’s your favourite word that begins in ‘e’? ‘Excrement’. It sounds like scientists came

CARBON

up with it because the word ‘poo’ was too silly and they needed something science-y that makes you feel sick to say. I also have a disgusting story in my show about a ridiculous test a bum doctor had me do that I’m still convinced was part of an unreleased episode of Punk’d.

Is there one act you absolutely HAVE to see in August? Sam Campbell. Seeing his show in

2019 was the most I have laughed in any onehour period of my life. Everything he does is just so surprising and creative and uniquely funny, and I think he should be celebrated as a sort of national holiday.

MICHAEL AKADIRI

Which side of your family do you get your funny bones from? Thankfully everyone on

years (Medical School, not retakes), obtained two degrees and I even have a postgraduate certificate to boot. However, I learned this word from the rapper, TI, who incidentally has recently crossed over to comedy and has done so, expeditiously.

both sides of my family has bones, but my mum’s side are Irish so they’re funny in an Irish singing and telling stories sort of way. My dad’s side are Maltese so they’re funny in an eating Pastizzi and shouting at each other about the history of bus franchises in Malta kind of way (if you’re Maltese, this is VERY funny).

Picture yourself in early September: what would constitute a successful Fringe for you?

What will you do to keep fit and healthy (relatively speaking) during August? Last

What’s your favourite word that begins in ‘e’? ‘Expeditiously’. I went to university for five

I’d be a liar if I said I didn’t want some industry attention, whether that comes in the form of meetings in the diary, positive reviews or even in the running for some awards. However, I’m not in control of any of the above nor is it healthy to attach my happiness to things I can’t directly control. I can control leaving a better comic than

Fringe I brought running shoes with me and ran on the 3rd of August, and then did not run again until May the following year. This year I’ve bought a gym membership for the month so I guess I will be doing a full month of workouts on August 3rd. n Patrick Spicer: Who’s This All Of A Sudden?

Gilded Balloon Patter Hoose, 3–28 August, 6.20pm.

VIDURA BANDARA RAJAPAKSA What’s the best bit of advice you’ve been ever been given from a seasoned comic? I feel

as though I learned early on that just about any advice from other comics is, with few exceptions, almost entirely useless. At least for me. I think with stand-up being as individualistic an artform as it is, even the things people told me early on from a place of more experience weren’t able to be put into practice until I learned the same lesson myself. And then in hindsight I might remember that I was forewarned about it.

What’s your favourite word that begins in ‘e’?

‘Epistolary’.

Which word of six letters or more will crop up the most in your Edinburgh show? None.

No reason to use a bigger word when a smaller, simpler, more widely understood one gets the job done. n Vidura Bandara Rajapaksa: Monsoon Season, Monkey Barrel, 4–28 August, 1.55pm.

Visit list.co.uk/edinburgh-festival to see these Q&As go up all the way through to August and in their full splendour.

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dry humour which I got from him. I have an extremely monotone voice so I was doing deadpan well before comedy; just in my everyday life without knowing it. My mom comes from a family of seven siblings and I have five siblings so all the goofy chaos comes from that side. n Mary Beth Barone: Silly Little Girl, Pleasance Courtyard, 3–28 August, 8.30pm.

I arrived. I’ve been performing stand-up for close to five years and I’ve never had the opportunity to perform an hour 25 times in a month.

★★★★

★★★★

Broadway World

Fairy Powered Productions Productions

★★★★

Creative Reviews UK

A PARODY MUSICAL ABOUT FRIENDS

20:00 3 - 28 AUG (not 11)

ROOMS GEORGE STREET

WATCH VIDEO AND BOOK NOW

WOR THE SMA LDWID RET SH HIT E URN S!

15:30 4 - 29 AUG 68 THE LIST | Edinburgh Festival Guide 2022 | list.co.uk/edinburgh-festival

HALL MOUND PLACE

FRINGE COMEDY

Satirical duo Thick ‘n’ Fast are not exactly taking over the world so much as stumbling around it. They tell Rachel Cronin that this is pretty much how those in power conduct matters of state

global warning PICTURE: THE OTHER RICHARD

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ike most of us over the past two years, Georgina Thomas and Cassie Symes spent their lockdown helpless to stop the covid catastrophe or anything else that was going wrong with the world. The duo’s pandemic pondering led to their newest sketch-style show which follows two frightfully inexperienced characters tasked with running the world.

‘General Secretary was born out of that kind of feeling, of being powerless and not in control of anything,’ explains Thomas, one half of Thick ‘n’ Fast.

‘We thought, “what would happen if we were suddenly in control of absolutely everything?” We made a conscious decision not to delve into covid because we wanted it to be a bit escapist. It does touch on quite a lot of other rather depressing issues, but hopefully in a fun way.’

It’s been a quiet time since Thick ‘n’ Fast’s Fringe debut with Not Quite, and these funny women can’t wait to return to the one-of-a-kind stages of an August Edinburgh. ‘We’re kind of nervous to be back in the sort of underground cave-type rooms that you get in the Fringe with so many people around,’ says Cassie Symes, the other 50% of Thick ‘n’ Fast. ‘But we’re definitely very excited.’

In their hiatus from live performing, Thick ‘n’ Fast continued their quest for comedy with online sketches, including ‘Succulents’, where two people fall in love with their houseplants (in true lockdown fashion). They were also shortlisted for the 2021 Funny Women Digital Comedy Awards. General Secretary can be considered a comment on the government’s handling of covid and current issues.

‘I was going to say it’s political, but it’s not too political,’ insists Thomas. ‘It’s feelgood comedy, so we want people to leave feeling a little bit lighter rather than a little bit heavier.’

‘Yeah, it’s definitely entertaining to think that probably half the people in our government are somewhat in this position,’ Symes continues. ‘Although, obviously, with much more serious consequences.’

‘Or no consequences whatsoever,’ chimes Thomas.

‘Ultimately, we’ve realised that the bits which really shine and drive the narrative are essentially between two people who are totally inexperienced, and it’s also a lot about their Book your friendship and their journey. As soon as we all start thinking table today. about the world in a different way, we realise how much we need to change it. And by engaging with things differently, maybe we can actually make things better in the world.’

3 More To See

female double acts

pLeAse drink responsibLy

After the stAnd-up enjoy A sit down

Thick ‘n’ Fast: General Secretary, Gilded Balloon Patter Hoose, 3–28 August, 3pm.

70 THE LIST | Edinburgh Festival Guide 2022 | list.co.uk/edinburgh-festival

‘Sordid’ and ‘strange’ are just two of the many words that have been used to describe the sketch act of Norris & Parker (Monkey Barrel, 3–28 August, 9.15pm) since they first darkened our comedy doors in 2009. They (Katie and Sinead) are back this year with Sirens, a show that promises ‘nautical madness’.

Britney (Pleasance Courtyard, 3–28 August, 5.45pm) are Charly Clive (Pure, All My Friends Hate Me) and Ellen Robertson (The Pale Horse, The Outlaws) back in Fringeland for the first time since 2017. Friends And Nothing More explores relations between pals via routines about dating apps, gender reveal parties and a reflection on the school Christmas talent show in which they both froze.

Coincidentally quoting Ms Spears on their press material (stuff about bikinis and martinis), Stokes And Summers (pictured, Gilded Balloon Teviot, 3–29 August, 3pm) are also in town delivering a show, Careering, centred around the weird, daft and annoying stuff that goes on in the office workspace. (Brian Donaldson)

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FRINGE COMEDY

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Alfie Brown: Sensitive Man, Monkey Barrel, 3–28 August, 9pm.

72 THE LIST | Edinburgh Festival Guide 2022 | list.co.uk/edinburgh-festival

PICTURE: JAMES DEACON

bviously I realise that whenever anyone humourlessly explains “comedy process” they are in danger of sounding like a dildo.’ Well, not necessarily: for anyone outside the comedy scene, how a standup routine comes to life is inherently interesting. Particularly when you’re asking someone like Alfie Brown. Over the last decade, Brown has emerged as one of our most exciting comics. Thought-provoking, fearless and always looking at the world from a different angle; it’s no surprise then that the process for Brown is an ever shifting, questing one.

‘For me, when putting a show together, it isn’t a singular inspiration that becomes the basis for an entire show. It’s me working out what I want to talk about, and then why it was those particular things.’ Brown is back in Edinburgh performing Sensitive Man, a show that he’s been working on for a while now given the disruption of the last two years. ‘I suppose if there was any inspiration it was the grey gnawing horror of lockdown. I tried to speak about the pandemic mostly indirectly. I didn’t think people would really want to hear a direct recounting of someone else’s shitty pandemic experience. The things I wanted to write about were ageing and depression, things I became more aware of whilst indoors. But the connection isn’t explicitly made.’

For someone who grew up with Dead Ringers’ Jan Ravens as their mum, it’s perhaps no surprise that Brown became a stand-up, but as it happens it hadn’t initially crossed his mind. ‘I was the funniest person working at Top Shop! So having no A-levels or access to uni it felt like my only skill.

I felt absolutely desperate to find something I wanted to do.

I realise in retrospect it was not as urgent as it felt: I was 18.

But I’m so glad I started when I did. It does you very well to be shit for a while. And my oh my, I was shit,’ he laughs.

But Brown has constantly pushed himself and now he has even loftier ambitions. ‘I want to learn Spanish and tour everywhere in the Spanish-speaking world. I would be intrigued to learn how the mechanics of comedy work in another language and how different cultural contexts inform comedic style. I’ll get back to you when that’s happening . . .’

Compassion intrigue

As a singularly talented and thought-provoking comic, Alfie Brown could quite easily have bordered on the arrogant. Marissa Burgess finds a stand-up all too aware of his past failings

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FRINGE DANCE

FRINGE DANCE

on the road A little bit of Cuba is set to arrive in Edinburgh with the Havana Street Party.

Kelly Apter hears from those behind a dance collective which is fuelled by bundles of energy and a smattering of gratitude

this show runs

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ALL yeAr round Book your table today.

W

hen Eduardo Robel was studying at Cuba’s National School Of Art, he learned a valuable lesson: to make the best of what you have. And when everything was dramatically reduced during the pandemic, this proved more pertinent than ever.

‘Musical instruments were always in short supply when we were students, and my teacher always told me to make “more with less”,’ recalls Robel. ‘So we would improvise with whatever we found. It was hard to get hold of violins or trumpets, unless you had your own, so the music was essentially percussive as boxes, bottles and barrels could always be found. They were great parties where we jammed together, swapped instruments and invented choreography with the dancers.’

74 THE LIST | Edinburgh Festival Guide 2022 | list.co.uk/edinburgh-festival

When covid struck, Robel found his teacher’s words ‘stuck in my head’ and he created Mas Con Menos (Spanish for ‘more with less’) to remember the spirit of those days. ‘Covid took away our reason to live,’ he says. ‘Two years being separated from stages without feeling the adrenaline of live performance was devastating. It felt like we couldn’t breathe, talk or feel. Our means of expression had been taken away.’

After such an enforced break, and soon to arrive in Edinburgh as one of three groups performing in a feelgood show called Havana Street Party, the members of Mas Con Menos aren’t taking anything for granted. ‘We now realise what a unique gift this is,’ says Robel, ‘so we value it more. Every show we perform now, we give it our all in case we ever lose the chance to play again.’

Performing alongside Mas Con Menos will be Kufesa Contemporary Ballet, and street dance group Los Datway. All three companies were formed

FRINGE DANCE

3 To See

at dance base

PICTURE: HUGO GLENDINNING

during lockdown, with the latter in particular experiencing a phenomenal boost from the increase in online activity. ‘I put Los Datway together because I saw that on the streets of Havana there were many young people who loved to dance but had not been trained at the National Dance School, so couldn’t join official dance companies,’ explains director Ernesto Rodrigues. ‘So I invited a few talented individuals to form a new dance collective. But with the arrival of covid, our only outlet was through social media so we made videos of our company that merged with the urban environment where we lived.’

What started as a simple desire to share their work suddenly exploded when the group won $10,000 in a TikTok challenge set by Latin pop sensation Ozuna. ‘Immediately we became stars in Cuba,’ says Rodrigues. ‘We had come from the streets, almost from nowhere, and in our first year together we won a major competition and a life-changing cash prize. We were recognised nationally and internationally; Reggaeton star Daddy Yankee posted one of our videos on his site and it went viral with 2m views in just a few days. No other Cuban dance company or music group has ever had such success.’

Considering that just a few years ago, internet access in Cuba was virtually non-existent, Los Datway’s achievement is cause for celebration across the island. ‘We’ve become an inspiration for the young people here,’ says Rodrigues. ‘And to go to Edinburgh is one more incredible step on our journey.’

Dance Base serves up its usual smorgasbord of enticing programming this Fringe, featuring several shows that celebrate and explore LGBTQI+ life. 71Bodies 1Dance (5–7 August, 6.50pm) sees Daniel Mariblanca perform a solo inspired by the stories of 71 trans people whom he met around Europe.

We all think we know Swan Lake, but do we know the man behind the music? Danish troupe Granhøj Dans takes a peek at the relationship between Tchaikovsky, who was gay, and his wife Antonia, in This Is Not Swan Lake . . .

(16–21 August, 8.30pm). It promises a banquet of sensuality and drama, shot through with Danish humour.

Later in the month, Dan Daw (pictured) has created The Dan Daw Show (23–28 August, 8.30pm) to take control of his own narrative as a queer, disabled artist. Tired of being cast as an ‘inspiration’ to others, Daw has chosen to inspire himself in a show that examines both pride and shame. (Lucy Ribchester)

Havana Street Party, Underbelly Bristo Square, 4–29 August, 5.25pm. list.co.uk/edinburgh-festival | Edinburgh Festival Guide 2022 | THE LIST 75

40TH ANNIVERSARY FESTIVAL

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78 THE LIST | Edinburgh Festival Guide 2022 | list.co.uk/edinburgh-festival

ROOMS

GEORGE STREET

Hogging the limelight FRINGE KIDS

Peppa, George, Daddy and Mummy Pig are all set to storm Edinburgh with a musical fiesta. Lucy Ribchester (and her young sons Gabriel and Harry) throw out some questions to Daddy about tour riders, Muddy Puddles and bashing tummies Hello Daddy Pig. I hope you’re looking forward to joining us in Edinburgh for the Festival. Will it be your first time in the city? It’s my first time in Edinburgh learning about all these amazing instruments! I’m so excited as I’m actually going to help conduct the Aurora Orchestra, on a stage in front of an audience. Can you believe it? I’m also going to have a try at playing some new instruments. I think I’ll be very good!

What is on Daddy Pig (and the rest of the family)’s rider? I did ask for lots of yummy snacks and treats in our dressing room, but somehow after Mummy Pig added her request for a copy of Ezza magazine, my treats disappeared from the list!

Perhaps the Aurora Orchestra have some in their dressing room . . . I’ll have to see if they’ll share!

How have rehearsals been going?

It’s amazing! We’ve done some of the show already and we’re performing it all over the country before coming to Edinburgh. The rehearsals are great. Peppa and George can get a bit excited as there’s so much going on, but there’s nothing quite like taking part and having fun to focus the mind.

Where did you meet the Aurora Orchestra?

Grandpa Pig and Granny Pig’s folk band performed at a music festival with the Aurora Orchestra a long time ago, and they have stayed very good friends ever since. They are kindly going to introduce us to all of their instruments and play the audience some classical music they might not have heard before.

list.co.uk/edinburgh-festival | Edinburgh Festival Guide 2022 | THE LIST 79

LIVE ORCHESTRA! From Mozart to Muddy Puddles!

and and The The Wheel Wheel of of Science!

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Assembly Hall 0131 623 3033 assemblyfestival.com #peppapiglive www.peppapiglive.com Peppa Pig © [2021] ABD Ltd/Ent. One UK Ltd

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FRINGE KIDS

Are there any instruments in the orchestra that you’ve never seen before? I love to play the drums, but I have been learning about all of the other instruments in the percussion section. Did you know that any instrument you can hit to make a noise is part of the percussion family? They come in lots of different sizes and can be very noisy . . . just like my family!

Who decided on the music that is going to be played at the concert? How did you choose which pieces you’d like to hear?

What a very good question! My family like to listen to all kinds of music like jazz and folk. In the concert, we play and sing some of the songs that Peppa and George love and that little ones in the audience might already know. We also introduce the audience to pieces of classical music that Mummy Pig and I love. Peppa and George love to learn all about new music by listening to Grandpa Pig’s records, so I’m

excited to introduce them to some beautiful classical music. They may love singing ‘Muddy Puddles’ (and I love singing with them too) but there is lots of other great music and I want my little piggies to have the chance to hear it all!

And now, if you don’t mind, two of your very biggest fans, my children (both aged four), would like to ask a few questions . . .

What is your favourite piece of music? (Harry) It’s so hard to pick just one! I like any musical piece that has lots of percussion and loud drums!

Are you going to bash your tummy like a drum? (Gabriel) Well, I am a bit of an expert at bashing things as I’ve been learning percussion, so I think it’s quite fitting. Maybe you’ll be able to hear my big tummy in some of the performances.

How does a pig play the trumpet? (Harry) By taking a big breath and blowing very hard. Then you have to press the right valves at the right time along with the music.

How do pigs play the guitar? (Gabriel) By strumming on the strings, just like everyone else.

Our friend, Madame Gazelle, plays in a band called the Rocking Gazelles with her sisters. She gave me some lessons and I think I got pretty good. I’m not as good as her though.

What vegetables does Grandpa Pig grow in his allotment? (Harry) Carrots, potatoes, broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower: all the ones that are good for you!

Peppa Pig: My First Concert, Assembly Hall, 4–21 August, 10am (plus Saturdays & Sundays, 11.50am).

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FRINGE MUSIC

As Canadian folk artist Tamara Lindeman prepares to play Edinburgh’s Summerhall, Iain Leggat talks to The Weather Station frontwoman about vulnerability and climate anxiety

82 THE LIST | Edinburgh Festival Guide 2022 | list.co.uk/edinburgh-festival

T

he Weather Station found a new wave of success in the midst of a global pandemic with their critically acclaimed fifth album Ignorance. As the world hunkered down into another lockdown, Tamara Lindeman, who fronts the Canadian folk fusion band, found herself in a whirlwind of commercial and critical success (perhaps peaking when she got to FaceTime with Sir Elton John) all within the confines of her Toronto home.

‘It’s been a really powerful experience to realise ultimately how much we all want connection,’ Lindeman says over Zoom. Yet there was a sense of relief that she could easily hide away in the immediate aftermath of such a personal piece of work. ‘That record was deeply exposing. Every time I put out a song or a record or music videos, I go through this shame and vulnerability hangover. It’s hard, and I sometimes really question why I do it,’ she says, only half joking.

Lindeman’s songwriting is largely fuelled by frustration with environmental and social issues, something that often leads to her being compared to fellow Canadian heavyweight Joni Mitchell. ‘I just have so much to say about all of these things as a person and the songs are just little fragments,’ she explains.

‘When I get up in front of an audience, I’m always surprised that anyone wants to

FRINGE MUSIC

Shining star

PICTURES: BRENDAN KO

engage with this stuff. I think the songs are so heavy. Sometimes I want to apologise,’ she laughs.

Ignorance blends multiple genres, spanning folk, pop and hints of jazz, to place the listener within a forest of reflection. Lindeman has performed songs from the album live with a larger band to recreate those rich instrumentals, but is committed to keeping shows grounded and honest. ‘Sometimes it can be amazing to watch something super theatrical, but ultimately I tend to be more drawn to what feels like a genuine emotional experience. As a performer I know that the best thing I can do is transmit something real in the moment about what I’m feeling.’

Ignorance was recently followed up with a quieter ‘companion’ album, How Is It That I Should Look At The Stars. Both are an emotional contemplation on the global climate crisis and speak to each other in an attempt to explain Lindeman’s internal anxiety over the looming environmental disaster. Stripped back, featuring mostly just piano and soft vocals, How Is It . . . was recorded over just three days

in March 2020. The result is a collection of tracks which she deems are ‘some of the best she’s ever written. I feel like those songs come from almost a child-like place. I’m such a perfectionist and my songs never measure up to what I want them to, but there are a few songs on this record where I just feel like there isn’t a word I’d change.’

Originally not intended for release, the latest album has poignantly entered the world at a time where climate change has slipped down our collective list of priorities. ‘I think in a lot of places, people are struggling. So how can you engage with something as big and multifaceted as climate change when you’re just struggling day to day, right? And with abortion rights being lost in the US, there’s so much happening. So it’s not surprising. I do think people have held back from this issue, sadly. But that’s just going to show that it needs another push. Because unfortunately it’s the mother of all issues. Nothing doesn’t connect to it.’

The Weather Station, Summerhall, 31 August, 7pm. list.co.uk/edinburgh-festival | Edinburgh Festival Guide 2022 | THE LIST 83

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FRINGE MUSIC

PICTURE: MICHAEL SNYDER

Sonic storms From greenhouse gas to strings and brass, Stewart Smith learns how Scottish composer Michael Begg let real climate data inform his latest musical creation

3 To See

interesting instruments

‘A

key term for us is solastalgia, describing the acute anxiety arising from living through environmental change,’ says composer Michael Begg of the inspiration behind Black Glass In Pieces. ‘It’s a curious word.

Nobody has heard of it and then, when you tell them what it means, everyone says, “I have that.” This is what we are creating music for, to recognise and address that condition.’

Begg formed Black Glass Ensemble to create new forms and processes of music in the place where contemporary classical and experimental electronic meet. ‘Such crossover works generally tend to be one side co-opting the other to their own ends, but I was keen that we should definitely meet in the middle, far from our comfort zone. It generates a fragile, intimate context in which we can realise new work.’

A key part of Begg’s process is using software to transform data streams (weather systems, climate changes, satellite tracks, lunar eclipses) into sounds and musical scores. ‘Combining scores, data streams, atmospheric recorders and structured improvisation, we can project a true soundscape of a planet in crisis, and the musical response to that crisis,’ he explains. The result is music of uncanny beauty, where environmental sounds and mysterious electro-acoustic timbres fold into glacial strings and warm brass.

‘My main objective for Black Glass In Pieces is to find ways to dissolve the divide between audience and musicians,’ Begg adds. ‘We are going to dissolve the stage and turn time back on itself.’

PICTURE: BEN MILLAR COLE

Michael Begg And The Black Glass Ensemble: Black Glass In Pieces, Queen’s Hall, 16 & 17 August, 8.30pm.

Breathing new life into the phrase ‘triple threat’, Sean Choolburra (Assembly Rooms, 6–21 August, 11.30am) combines traditional dance and storytelling with comedy in Didj And Dance!, his all-singing all-dancing Aussie extravaganza. As the ‘didj’ in the title suggests, this kids’ show celebrating Aboriginal Australian culture just wouldn’t be complete without the deep vibrations of a digeridoo.

Edinburgh’s beloved folk trio North Sea Gas (Acoustic Music Centre, 13, 18, 20 & 25 August, 8.30pm) return to relay their greatest hits from over the years. Complete with Greek lute-like bouzouki, banjo, fiddles and traditional bodhran drums, the prolific folk band display their musicianship in a show full of stories and song.

In the Pianodrome Amphitheatre, a venue entirely constructed from disused piano parts, harpist Esther Swift (pictured, Old Royal High School, 10, 17 August, 5pm; 23 August, 7pm) leads several sound-makers in a cocktail of folk, jazz and classical with Sound Effects. Commissioned by Celtic Connections, Swift showcases the harp in all its towering glory while string, brass and percussion players will amplify her traditional compositions to new heights. (Rachel Cronin)

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FRINGE THEATRE

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f it’s big theatrical beasts you’re looking for at the Fringe, then look no further than Edinburgh Festival Ballet’s take on Hamlet: director Peter Schaufuss was the man behind seminal BBC documentary Dancer; the venue is named after famed British choreographer Sir Frederick Ashton; and last but not least, it stars none other than Sir Ian McKellen in a role he’s revisiting at the age of 81.

‘I have had a lot of Hamlet recently,’ McKellen reflects. ‘I was part of a film made by Ken McMullen, Hamlet Revenant [scheduled for 2023 release]. I filmed the ghost of Hamlet’s father for it . . . and then Sean Mathias asked me to play Hamlet in his age-blind production. I wasn’t much looking forward to returning to it, but it seems such a challenge to be playing a young man at my age that I fell for it.’

After those most recent encounters with the Prince Of Denmark, McKellen thought he would have been finished with the Dane. ‘And then, Peter Schaufuss, out of the blue, contacted me. I had always admired him as a dancer and he has this school in Edinburgh, and the church had adapted as a theatre.’ The school McKellen talks of is Edinburgh Festival Ballet and the church is the former St Stephen’s in Stockbridge, now the company’s base and venue for this much-anticipated production.

‘My motive for saying yes was not to get back to Hamlet but to see how a ballet was rehearsed and planned. I have no idea how it is done: and I still don’t quite know, because we haven’t started our rehearsals yet!’ While McKellen is now a star of film and stage, he retains a warm sense of humour and openness. Sharing the title role in this production with dancer Johan Christensen, he ponders whether he will be allowed a ballet step or two while performing Shakespeare’s speeches and admits that returning to the Festival is another reason he accepted the part.

‘It will be nice to be back,’ he says. ‘It was way back in 1969 when I was first there, part of the official festival with Richard II and Edward II, having the time of my life. I have been to about a dozen and I was actually in Edinburgh during August only a couple of years ago with my one-man show for my 80th birthday. I wanted to go back to the Festival because it has always been central to my career.’

McKellen’s career, especially from the 1980s onwards, has been notable for his roles in blockbusting franchises, including X-Men and Lord Of The Rings, as well as continuing respect for his stage work and activism. An important figure in the foundation of Stonewall, he admits that he’s still politically active, but observes delightedly that ‘the younger generation are so much wiser than mine: our job now is to support their initiatives.’

But Shakespeare remains, as he puts it, ‘a big part of what I like to do on stage. Whatever your age, there are wonderful parts to play throughout your lifetime.’ And while name recognition will no doubt make this one of August’s most popular runs, there is something that McKellen recognises in the production that speaks to the Fringe’s experimental spirit.

‘It is unique as far as dance is concerned,’ he continues, ‘because in the middle of the story, when the actors arrive in Elsinore, and Hamlet decides to put on a play to trap his uncle into confessing the murder of his brother, they do a mime; a dance, no words, and tell the story of the play that they are going to do.

And Shakespeare has written down the choreography. There is a dance choreographed by Shakespeare! I think Shakespeare might have approved and that makes the whole project . . . appropriate.’

An imaginative and bold response to a script that can be overfamiliar in production, Hamlet is a rare chance to see a powerful ballet company and one of the most famous actors of his generation in an intimate setting. And that seems equally ‘appropriate’ for the Fringe.

Hamlet With Ian McKellen, Ashton Hall, St Stephen’s Stockbridge, 2–28 August, 7pm (also 4pm Fridays & Saturdays).

88 THE LIST | Edinburgh Festival Guide 2022 | list.co.uk/edinburgh-festival

Stage and screen legend Sir Ian McKellen is returning to the iconic role of Hamlet in a hot-ticket collaboration with Edinburgh Festival Ballet. He tells Gareth K Vile of his love for the Festival and what drew him back one more time to Shakespeare’s classic work

choose live list.co.uk/edinburgh-festival | Edinburgh Festival Guide 2022 | THE LIST 89

PICTURES: GERAINT LEWIS

‘I

t’s one of the few things we excel at,’ says Irvine Welsh of a proud Scottish tradition. But what is he referring to: great music? Never electing a Tory government? Snooker players?

Not quite. ‘We’ve exported the term “cunt” as a genuine compliment. I think it’s something to do with the bad weather or the gallows humour due to this weird status we have politically within this fag-end of a crumbling empire.

It breeds this dark humour and that transfers well to drama, no question about it.’

It’s almost 30 years since the sweary and sweaty Trainspotting put a firecracker straight up the literary establishment (resignations were threatened when it landed a place on the 1993 Booker longlist), with a later cult stage play by Harry Gibson and two box-office busting films from Danny Boyle making sure that Welsh’s iconic novel has become much more than a one-decade wonder.

Back at the Fringe again before heading out on a UK tour, Trainspotting Live is an up-close and visceral experience which starts with a 15-minute rave before taking its audience on a scary ride into oblivion (it seems almost too ideal that the theatre company producing the play is called In Your Face). Not for nothing (asides from the great headlines) has Welsh dubbed this stage version as better than the 1996 film or, indeed, the original source material.

‘What I meant, in a way, is that the ideal entry point to the work is through this live version which really engages with audiences who are so close to the action. It’s mixed up the whole Trainspotting thing with the spirit of rave; I was mad into rave at the time of writing

FRINGE THEATRE

Brian Donaldson speaks to Trainspotting Live director and co-star Greg Esplin about a missing Spud while Irvine Welsh claims that this stage version is the perfect way to immerse yourself in his original story

FRINGE THEATRE

the book and I wanted to capture the energy that I felt from that onto the page. This is the true realisation of it which is why it has always excited me as a show.’

Greg Esplin was only one year old when Trainspotting was published. By the time he was at secondary school in Falkirk, he’d read the book a couple of times and written an English essay on it. And now he’s the co-director and key actor of this 75-minute production (performed twice a day no less). ‘It’s structured to be like drugs,’ he notes. ‘At first it’s fun, a rollercoaster look at what a good time we’re having. Then there’s a pivotal scene where Tommy stops the guy beating up his girlfriend and the play then just crashes. It’s like a comedown.’

Esplin takes on the role of Tommy who here is the moral compass: first solid and pointing the right way but soon going wildly off-grid before completely losing his direction. For fans of the original works, there might be some disgruntlement that the beloved Spud is not in the cast; but he’s integral to the play’s DNA. ‘Spud is split between Renton and Tommy,’ explains Esplin. ‘Renton wakes up covered in his own mess and Tommy gets the interview scene. It’s about those two characters but they embody the innocence of Spud; he’s definitely there in spirit if not in name.’

For the man who conjured up these characters, he’s not sure he’ll ever return to them, but insists their status has evolved in his mind. ‘Then, they all seemed to be rebels,’ Welsh says. ‘But now they’re not really; they’re like the rest of us. We’re all on the fringes of capitalism and trying to get by, making money from the dregs of a decaying system.’

Trainspotting Live, Pleasance At EICC, 4–28 August, 6pm, 9pm.

90 THE LIST | Edinburgh Festival Guide 2022 | list.co.uk/edinburgh-festival

“I find the showmanship

”

E

xodus is a dark comedy about a fictional Home Secretary with prime ministerial ambitions whose PR campaign is interrupted when a baby is washed ashore at the White Cliffs Of Dover. The play has been created by Uma Nada-Rajah, the Scottish playwright of Sri Lankan Tamil heritage who won this year’s inaugural Kavya Prize (a literary award honouring Scottish writers of colour) for Toy Plastic Chicken.

Nada-Rajah began writing plays ‘half as a joke’ during her first degree (her mother’s response was less than encouraging: ‘this little brown girl is going to be a playwright? Get a grip!’).

After working odd jobs, she became an NHS nurse in 2014, a move that inspired her pandemic-era piece, The Domestic, which has gathered up more than 4.4m views as part of National Theatre Of Scotland’s series, Scenes Of Survival.

She now returns with a play satirically exposing deceitful power structures and apathy towards human suffering.

‘Personally, it took me a while to find my voice,’ NadaRajah insists. ‘There are so many competing voices in your head about how things should be and how it should look; of being a woman, being a woman of colour, what a good play looks like. You have to strip it back.’ Directed by NTS’

PICTURE: PETE DIBDIN

Unsupportive words from her mother didn’t stop Uma Nada-Rajah launching a successful career in theatre. Reshma Madhi chats to the playwright about a new work that examines political operatives and their wicked games

FRINGE THEATRE

particularly repugnant

Debbie Hannan, Exodus centres on Home Secretary Asiya (Aryana Ramkhalawon) and her cut-throat advisor Phoebe (Sophie Steer). Faced with the chance to capitalise on a human tragedy, what will they choose to do in their clamour for power?

That was the dramatic question in mind when Nada-Rajah wrote this. Back then, she was pregnant, Sajid Javid was Home Secretary, and Europe’s largest migrant camp had been destroyed in a fire. It seeks to understand how recent refugees or migrants are interacting with policies and asks what’s behind that. It’s not simply about Priti Patel but a whole front bench of South Asians using their cultural background or colour, for themselves.

‘As an NHS nurse, what angers and frustrates me is the use of such policies, instrumentally, to gain power. While there’s this assumption that everyone from the same heritage should have the same political opinion, I don’t agree. Everyone is entitled to their views. It’s the showmanship that I find particularly repugnant.’

It’s those very differences that Nada-Rajah appreciates. ‘When there’s a diversity of voices, people write from their very unique perspective, whatever background they’re from. Anything that breaks down barriers, and is written with honesty and from the heart is so beautiful.’

Exodus, Traverse Theatre, 6–28 August, times vary. list.co.uk/edinburgh-festival | Edinburgh Festival Guide 2022 | THE LIST 91

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From the freaky to the utterly fantastic, Fringe shows of all flavours are back in their masses.

Here are seven genre-spanning performances to consider

THE DELIGHTFUL SAUSAGE

The award-winning double-act from Yorkshire return with their brand new show Nowt But Sea. Find out what happens when comedians Amy Gledhill and Christopher Cantrill get stuck on a desert island. Expect some surrealism and lots of silliness. n Monkey Barrel, 3–28 August, 12.45pm.

BEN HART

Celebrity magician Ben Hart (of BBC Three’s Killer Magic fame) prepares to dazzle with his new show Wonder. Watch the Britain’s Got Talent finalist impress with minimal props and stellar sleight of hand. n Pleasance Courtyard, 3–28 August, 7.50pm.

SHE WOLF

Written and performed by Isla Cowan, She Wolf follows the character of Maggie as she finds herself hiding out in a zoo. A commentary on gender, class and capitalist structures, this is a fiercely told one-woman show. n Assembly Roxy, 3–28 August, 1.50pm.

DANCE BODY

As a plus-sized Black woman, writer and performer Yolanda Mercy challenges the world of contemporary dance and its narrow-minded beauty standards in this powerful fusion of dance and theatre that is both defiant and joyous. n Summerhall, 3–27 August, 4.15pm.

THE SONG OF FERGUS AND KATE

Suitable for children up to eight years old, this show from Jay Lafferty fuses animation, music and interactive elements to tell the heartwarming story of Kate and Fergus’ special friendship. n Gilded Balloon Teviot, 3–28 August, 10.15am.

SEANN WALSH

Following a highly successful hour on the perils of his 2018 Strictly Come Dancing appearance, stand-up comedian Seann Walsh returns with a new show titled Seann Walsh: Is Dead, Happy Now? Expect slick storytelling and acute observations. n The Stand, 3–28 August, 10pm.

LOS BITCHOS

This international group of London-based musicians perform 70s and 80s-inspired psychedelic surf music with a Latin twist. Their 2022 album Let The Festivities Begin! is full of memorable hooks and vibrant rhythms, perfect for dancing the night away. n Summerhall, 16 August, 7pm.

PICTURE: TOM MITCHELL

PICTURE: CAMILLA GREENWELL

list.co.uk/edinburgh-festival | Edinburgh Festival Guide 2022 | THE LIST 93

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FRINGE HIGHLIGHTS

She Wolf (and bottom from left), Dance Body, Los Bitchos, The Delightful Sausage

SAMUEL JOHN PEPLOE, R.S.A The White Dress Estimate: £200,000-300,000*

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94 THE LIST | Edinburgh Festival Guide 2022 | list.co.uk/edinburgh-festival

INTERNATIONAL REFUGE

EDINBURGH INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL 5–28 AUGUST

This year, the Edinburgh International Festival launches a dynamic season of online and in-person events exploring migration, identity and inclusion, in collaboration with the Scottish Refugee Council. Spanning contemporary theatre, art, dance and conversation, Refuge invites artists from a host of countries to reflect upon migration’s impact on the cultural landscape of Scotland and a wider world. A Wee Journey (pictured), choreographed by Palestinian artist Farah Saleh, features on the in-person programme, while its At Home series will offer exclusive interviews and sessions on themes of displacement. (Paula Lacey) n A Wee Journey, The Studio, 16–20 August, 7.30pm; 18 August, 2.30pm.

IN ASSOCIATION WITH PICTURE: MIHAELA BODLOVIC

list.co.uk/edinburgh-festival | Edinburgh Festival Guide 2022 | THE LIST 95

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HOPE AN Ivo van Hove is a hard-bitten master of uncomfortable and often traumatic theatre. But, as he tells Neil Cooper, even his own production of A Little Life felt like a sucker punch to the gut

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I

vo van Hove initially resisted reading A Little Life, Hanya Yanagihara’s 2015 novel. This despite the Belgian theatre director being gifted the book twice by friends, who declared that Yanagihara’s 814-page epic was definitely for him. Van Hove was familiar with A Little Life’s success, and presumed Yanagihara’s story of four friends in New York to be a gay rites-of-passage tale. Being given the book twice, however, piqued his curiosity.

When he eventually opened it, he discovered the novel’s apparent premise to be a sucker punch that opened out onto an altogether more troubling world, in which one of the friends, Jude, a man emotionally and physically damaged to a self-destructive degree, becomes the book’s central focus. ‘I couldn’t stop reading it,’ van Hove says. ‘It’s a book that you don’t want to read but you cannot stop. You know it’s going to end terribly, but you still can’t stop.’

When van Hove applied for the rights to stage Yanagihara’s story, a third copy of the book turned up, this time from its author, whose handwritten message spoke of how she would be ‘deeply

PICTURES: JAN VERSWEYVELD

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ND GLORY honoured’ if van Hove was to dramatise it. Despite this affirmation, and their friendship, it took time to convince her to let go of the book.

Eventually, van Hove couldn’t wait any longer. ‘I said, “Hanya, I understand this is your baby”,’ he recalls. ‘”I’m gonna take your baby away from you, and I’m gonna raise it perhaps in a different way than you are happy with, or that you would do yourself, but you have to make a decision. Can you allow me to do this or not?” And she said yes.’

The result was van Hove’s 2018 Dutch-language production for his Internationaal Theater Amsterdam (ITA), which forms the centrepiece of their three-show residency at this year’s Edinburgh International Festival. Given van Hove’s unflinching approach to his work (brought to Edinburgh most recently in 2015 by way of his production of Antigone, starring Juliette Binoche), audiences should steel themselves for a visceral and, at times, discomforting experience.

‘The book is about the structural and violent abuse of a young boy, who is traumatised for the rest of his life,’ says van Hove. ‘That’s the grim, dark story, but what I think is very attractive to a lot of people is that it also has some hope. Because this guy Jude is surrounded by three of his best friends in the world who, all for different reasons, are people that really care for him, and are almost never selfish. They always think of him and try to understand him, which is impossible because his pain is so deep.’

Van Hove relates the importance of friendship in A Little Life to an incident in his own youth. ‘I lost my best friend when I was 15 or 16.

It was a stupid accident; he fell down with his bike 200 metres from

his house. I only understood this afterwards, but I was in mourning for a whole year. I tried to talk about this to one person, who really tried his best to console me and to take care of me, but I got angry about it because I thought this was not solvable. All these terrible things came out. That was only a year, but with Jude it’s his whole life, surrounded by his best friends trying to help him. It’s heartbreaking.’

The emotional power of A Little Life stayed with van Hove, even while watching a live film feed of the show. ‘I cried three times. I never cry at my own productions, because I know exactly how I made it. I know every trick I used. So I didn’t cry because of the production, but because of what it talks about. It makes you cry that somebody is so helpless in his life that this trauma, which was caused so early on, caused a lifelong death sentence.’

It is hope, again, however, that van Hove believes gives A Little Life its power. ‘It’s a beautiful, ambivalent text about life and death, about trauma and the reality of life ending into death. But it also touches on something essentially human, even when it’s quite extreme.’ Van Hove points to Pablo Picasso’s famous anti-war painting to illustrate this. ‘When you look at “Guernica”, it’s all war. There is no hope there. Sometimes it’s good to look at the black painting to know what we have. Sometimes it’s good to see the opposite of that to experience our real happiness.’

A Little Life, Festival Theatre, 20 & 21 August, 6pm; 22 August, 2pm. list.co.uk/edinburgh-festival | Edinburgh Festival Guide 2022 | THE LIST 97

8:45PM (9:55PM) 03 - 27 (not 15, 22) 8:45PM (9:55PM)

05 - 27 AUGUST 2022 (NOT 15, 22) 98 THE LIST | Edinburgh Festival Guide 2022 | list.co.uk/edinburgh-festival

- OUT IN PERTH

- THE FOURTH WALL

FT. SAHARA BECK Australia’s award-winning cult-cabaret mischief-makers, circus stars, and heart-stopping hooligans Briefs Factory, join forces with much celebrated songbird Sahara Beck

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HIS DARK MATERIAL

PICTURE: MARK HAMILTON

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t may be Beethoven’s only opera, but Fidelio packs as powerful a punch today as when it was fresh off the page in 1814. More accurately, that should be several pages, as Beethoven wrote and rewrote the opera extensively before settling on the version which Philharmonia Orchestra and Philharmonia Voices will perform at the Usher Hall, with Jennifer Davis and Clay Hilley in the main roles, and Donald Runnicles conducting.

It was not an easy commission for Beethoven. ‘Of all my children, this is the one that caused me the most painful birth pangs and the most sorrows,’ he said at the time. Its plot, allegedly based on a true story from the French Revolution, tells of the unfailing love of Leonore for her husband Florestan. He is a political prisoner facing death and she disguises herself as a young male prison officer, Fidelio, in order to rescue him. ‘I think part of the timeless appeal of this opera is that it is always relevant,’ says Runnicles.

‘Every performance that has ever been heard has doubtless been in a time of war or strife, suppression, persecution and violation of human rights. At its very core, it’s a timeless struggle against oppression and a very compelling and inspiring story.’

100 THE LIST | Edinburgh Festival Guide 2022 | list.co.uk/edinburgh-festival

Beethoven may have struggled with the creation of Fidelio but he finally produced an opera of timeless quality.

Conductor Donald Runnicles tells Carol Main that there are few better metaphors for our traumatic times

Against all the odds, Leonore saves her husband and love triumphs. ‘It’s a journey from darkness to light,’ says Runnicles, ‘and a metaphor for the last two years with the pandemic. Although it’s not over yet, we are emerging from that darkness into light.’ Performed as a concert, this Fidelio is all about the music. ‘A concert performance can enhance the audience focus, whether that’s on the music, the performers or the text,’ adds Runnicles. ‘The music is paramount. And the greatest theatre known to us is our imagination.

Each and every person can take the story and create the image in their minds of what that prison would look like.’

Music Director of Deutsche Oper Berlin and a highly renowned opera conductor, Runnicles has conducted staged performances of Fidelio many times. ‘But you’re that bit closer to the music in a concert performance,’ he says. ‘The orchestra can be seen, front and centre, rather than in a pit. You see how the music moves around, how players interact with each other and with the conductor. It’s a great joy for me that the International Festival has put this together.’

Fidelio, Usher Hall, 10 August, 7.30pm.

22–28 AUGUST Aidan Moesby I Was Naked, Smelling of Rain

Marikiscrycrycry He’s Dead

Common Wealth, Speakers Corner and Bradford Modified Club Peaceophobia

RashDash Look At Me Don’t Look At Me

Dan Daw Creative Projects The Dan Daw Show Eve Stainton with Mica Levi Dykegeist Jaz Woodcock-Stewart with Morgann Runacre-Temple Civilisation

Sonia Hughes I Am From Reykjavik Sung Im Her NUTCRUSHER the vacuum cleaner EXPOSURE

horizonshowcase.uk

#EDINTFEST

MEDEA Liz Lochhead’s acclaimed adaptation of the classic drama NATIONAL THEATRE OF SCOTLAND AFTER EURIPIDES WRITTEN BY LIZ LOCHHEAD DIRECTED BY MICHAEL BOYD

10–28 AUGUST BOOK NOW | EIF.CO.UK |

Medea © Peter Dibdin | Charity No SC004694

The Dan Daw Show. Photo © Hugo Glendinning

Ten vital, genre-defying performances

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ALL FIR E UP

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Y

R ED PICTURE: TONJE THILESEN

ou’d think Ezra Furman would be busy enough as a writer of righteous/neurotic punk rock, series composer for hit TV show Sex Education, a touring artiste with a band which changes its name more often than its members (current band name, according to its leader, is simply Ezra Furman) and parent of a toddler (who needs some attention before our Zoom chat can begin). Think again: she also recently started training as a rabbi, taking one class in the Talmud ‘which I really enjoyed. But that’s an intense commitment: maybe, predictably, in retrospect, that’s really too much for me right now.’

Furman has put the study on hold for now, and will not be joining the likes of ordained priest Sinéad O’Connor or Reverend Richard Coles in the ranks of rocking religious leaders just yet. ‘I’m curious; could I really be part of an organised religion?’ she wonders. ‘I tend to be more of a do-it-yourself mystic. But, then again, I’m in love with the stuff so I’m drawn to it. Maybe some day.’

Furman identifies as strongly with her Jewish heritage as with her recently declared transgender status, both of which which spill gloriously, thoughtfully, messily into her songs, informing her most recent trilogy of albums, Transangelic Exodus, Twelve Nudes and the forthcoming All Of Us Flames, which she playfully dubs ‘the thrilling conclusion’.

‘These albums are some sort of spiritual and emotional check-in, not just with myself but human civilisation almost,’ she says. ‘With all humility, I’m just a songwriter making rock’n’roll records but I saw them reflecting things about society at large. I began with this fear and panic and also hope; maybe we’re not going to be OK, but maybe we are if we stick together. Twelve Nudes is like that but without the hope, just pure panic, fury, alarm bells ringing louder; y’know, punk rock.’

Furman says her upcoming album, All Of Us Flames, concludes that society’s faltering might be a permanent state of affairs and we have to take care of each other for the long haul. ‘It’s what comes after punk for a lot of people: what’s a sustainable insurgency? I hope we learned something from watching civilisation grind to a halt when covid was hitting because I think we might have to do that again and more radically revise how we operate.

Climate change is especially on my mind.’

Twelve Nudes, released in 2019, was very nearly titled Climate Change before Furman had a rethink. All Of Us Flames, meanwhile, is her philosophical response to the pandemic. ‘I got through it by writing and recording. I think everybody did their version of that. Some people learned to make a really good apple pie. I made a record. It’s been brutal but also I was anchored financially by having a corporate gig.’

Having bent the ear of anyone who would listen to her soundtrack ambitions, Furman got the dream call-up to score for television, creating a suite of songs for use in hit Netflix comedy-drama Sex Education. Musically, she is to the show as Paul Simon was to The Graduate, or Cat Stevens to Harold And Maude (one of Furman’s faves).

Post-lockdown, Furman’s plan is to ‘write my ass off and go round the world passionately performing’. Next stop: Edinburgh International Festival, rekindling fond memories of one day Furman arrived in the city to find the Fringe in full swing. ‘The most pierced woman in the world walked by and she hit on me! She loudly said to her friend, “I want a boy like that”, or something lurid and sexual like that. I was so honoured . . . ’ Ezra Furman, Leith Theatre, 23 August, 8pm. list.co.uk/edinburgh-festival | Edinburgh Festival Guide 2022 | THE LIST 103

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Writer, composer, performer, future rabbi: Ezra Furman isn’t resting on her laurels. The acclaimed musician talks to Fiona Shepherd about her take on religion, fears for the planet and being hit on by a heavily pierced admirer

104 THE LIST | Edinburgh Festival Guide 2022 | list.co.uk/edinburgh-festival

children would trust animals more than human beings

”

Master choreographer Akram Khan turns his attention to climate change and rewriting fables through feminine eyes in a modern take on The Jungle Book. Lucy Ribchester met him to chat about creating a positive message in troubled times

A

kram Khan is no stranger to the Edinburgh International Festival.

From his blistering Mahabharata-inspired Gnosis in 2014 to the autobiographical Chotto Desh two years later, and on to his solo-dancing swansong, Xenos, in 2018, Khan is one of the festival’s recurring superstars. And though he is no longer taking centre stage himself, his Jungle Book reimagined is certain to become one of August’s hot tickets.

Khan first encountered the Rudyard Kipling classic through Disney’s cosy (though now considered racially dubious) version, before he starred at the age of ten in an Indian classical-dance adaptation. His reimagining, however, is a radical departure from both of these interpretations, transporting the fable to a post-climate change world where Mowgli, the protagonist child, is a refugee trying to reconnect with nature in a barren landscape.

Despite the bleak nature of the setting, it was Khan’s nine-year-old daughter (and her relationship with animals) which drew him towards the themes. ‘She trusts animals more than she does human beings, let’s put it that way,’ he says.

‘And I can see why children would trust animals more than human beings because humans carry a language that is so deceiving. Our words do not match our actions. But my daughter inherently believes in action.’

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PICTURES: AMBRA VERNUCCIO

“I can see why

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Jungle Book reimagined, Festival Theatre, 25–27 August, 7.30pm; 27 & 28 August, 2.30pm.

106 THE LIST | Edinburgh Festival Guide 2022 | list.co.uk/edinburgh-festival

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PICTURE: JULIEN

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Several years ago, Khan read Amitav Ghosh’s non-fiction book on climate change, The Great Derangement, and began to question the way we relate to nature through stories. Ghosh, he says, writes about the cutting of ‘the umbilical cord’ between nature and myth, and Khan believes we are living in a ‘myth gap’ just now, ‘where ‘the old myths haven’t died yet . . . but the new myths are not given time to be born.’

Part of drawing out a new myth, or at least a new perspective on a classic story, led to Khan’s other major creative decision in Jungle Book reimagined: re-gendering the character of Mowgli as a girl. Paying homage to the ‘strong, strong characters’ of his wife, mother and daughter, Khan believes we can re-evaluate the stories we have been told, and which were ‘designed by men to make sure the women serve the men, and because they fear nature.’

While myth has always been a common thread running throughout his work, he credits his mother with showing him that classic stories can have untold perspectives. From an early age, she would fill his head with tales, from Hindu mythology, Islam, Judaism, Christianity, Greek myths and Scottish folk legends. But there was always one caveat. She only ever told these tales from the perspective of the women: Genesis from the point of view of Eve, The Mahabharata through Amba. ‘She said, “most of the myths are written by men, so it’s a patriarchal perspective. We need to change that, Akram.” That’s what I’ve been trying to do all these years.’

When it came to recasting Mowgli as a young South East Asian girl, Khan also had the encouragement of his daughter. ‘I said, “OK, I think that’s a brilliant idea”. And then I realised my daughter was secretly trying to get herself the part. Then she started putting conditions on me like, “papa, I only rehearse two hours a day because I have schoolwork.”

And I was like, “I haven’t even accepted you into the production.” And she said, “papa, I also want my name credited for giving you the idea”.’

In the current climate, where not only the planet is under threat but human rights too (particularly those of women), was it hard for Khan to create a work with an ultimate message of hope? ‘When you choose to come and listen to a story, it already means you have hope. Otherwise you wouldn’t come. When an artist chooses to tell a story, by default, that means you have hope.’

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PICTURE: BRETT BOARDMAN

Multi award-winning, multicultural and multigenerational, Counting And Cracking is a monumental story of family and hardship. Its creator S Shakthidharan tells Rachel Cronin how a quest to find out about his Sri Lankan heritage turned into a theatrical epic

C

onsidering playwright S Shakthidharan’s Counting And Cracking took more than ten years to research, it’s hardly surprising the finished product clocks in at a hefty threeand-a-half hours. In this ambitious play, a Sri Lankan-Australian family’s generational trauma and secrets are revealed over the course of six decades, from 1956 to 2004.

‘What I would say is that it’s a work of fiction, but everything in it is true,’ says Shakthidharan.

‘It’s simultaneously the story of a family over four generations, and the story of Sri Lanka postindependence. But it’s not the history you read in books or might hear retold in the media. It’s about dozens of people who lived through it, and using the act of theatre to assemble a truer history of that time.’

His initial motive for researching Sri Lankan history was to find out more about his own heritage, which eventually turned into an eight-hour-long first draft of what would become Counting And Cracking.

‘It started with me trying to learn about my homeland, as I didn’t know a lot about it growing up,’ he continues. ‘My parents hadn’t talked to me about it. And I used the play to kind of find out. And what

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emerged was a picture of a very united and diverse country.’ Directed by Eamon Flack, the play is not only astounding for its layers of cultural history told through the lens of an individual family; it’s also the first of its kind for Australian theatre in that it features 19 performers from six different countries, including India, Malaysia, New Zealand and France, as well as Sri Lanka and Australia.

‘It’s about kind of knowing that the people you pass by on the street (particularly in multicultural countries) have this immense heart and wisdom in them,’ Shakthidharan explains. ‘I remember an audience member in Australia saying after the show that they would never look at the lady sitting at the bus stop in the same way again.’

Reflecting on the significance of having his production appearing in Edinburgh, he says: ‘It’s amazing that a Sri Lankan-Australian story can be shown at Edinburgh International Festival for a global audience. It’s a very personal story for me and the Sri Lankan community, and I love that it can be on the world stage.’

Counting And Cracking, Lyceum Theatre, 8–13 August, 7pm; 11, 13 & 14 August, 1pm.

HERBIE HANCOCK

One of modern music’s finest contributors is making his International Festival debut this year.

Hancock hits the keys in style as he plays iconic compositions like ‘Chameleon’ and ‘Watermelon Man’ with an all-star band in Edinburgh’s largest seated theatre. n Edinburgh Playhouse, 7 August, 8pm.

AS BRITISH AS A WATERMELON

Aptly featuring watermelon in its title, this show written and performed by Zimbabwean artist mandla rae is part of the festival’s Refuge strand and explores topics of reclamation, identity and asylum through poetic monologues. n The Studio, 23–26 August, 8pm.

RUSALKA

BDIN

COPPÉLIA

Together with Scottish Ballet, choreographing duo Jessica Wright and Morgann Runacre-Temple bring this classic work into the digital age, using an innovative blend of film, live dance and theatre. n Festival Theatre, 14–16 August, 7.30pm, 16 August, 2.30pm.

PETER DI

AROOJ AFTAB

Filling Leith Theatre with her captivating voice and Urdu lyrics is this Brooklyn-based musician and composer. Known for bringing Sufi music into the contemporary moment, Aftab won the first ever Best Global Music Performance Grammy this year for her song ‘Mohabbat’. n Leith Theatre, 21 August, 8pm.

PICTURE:

Dvorák’s operatic masterpiece closely resembles the story of Hans Christian Andersen’s The Little Mermaid as a watersprite falls in love with a human prince. The mystical fable is brought to life by London’s Philharmonia Orchestra, Douglas Boyd and Garsington Opera. n Festival Theatre, 6–9 August, 7.15pm.

MEDEA

National Theatre Of Scotland presents Liz Lochhead’s acclaimed adaptation of Medea, first performed in Glasgow in 2000. The reimagined version of this Greek tragedy is directed by Michael Boyd and stars Adura Onashile in the leading role. n The Hub, 10–28 August, times vary.

UKRAINIAN FREEDOM ORCHESTRA

Assembled by New York’s Metropolitan Opera and the Polish National Opera, the orchestra will perform a free concert featuring works by Chopin, Verdi and Ukrainian composer Silvestrov. n Usher Hall, 6 August, 2pm.

PICTURE: BENJAMIN LIDDELL

PICTURE: JULIAN GUIDERA

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INTERNATIONAL

After innovating new ways of enjoying socially distanced live performance last August, Edinburgh International Festival makes an epic return to the city’s signature venues

INTERNATIONAL HIGHLIGHTS

Medea (and bottom from left), Rusalka, As British As A Watermelon, Herbie Hancock

T PRESENTS

ION WITH PBJ MANAGEMEN

SHOW AND TELL IN ASSOCIAT

Swimming

SIMON MUNNERY

Trials and Tribulations

EMMY BLOTNICK

Pleasance Courtyard | Attic

The Stand | One

Assembly George Square | Studio Five

ATSUKO OKATSUKA

CELYA AB

Pleasance Courtyard | Bunker Three

The Intruder

18:00

19:15

15:15

The 30 Fragrances of Jennifer Lopez...

18:40

MARY BETH BARONE

COMEDY JANEANE JACQUELINE SASSAFRAS GAROFALO NOVAK

Silly Little Girl

Pardon My Tangent

Get On Your Knees

Gilded Balloon | Wine Bar

Pleasance Courtyard | Forth 22:00 11-14 Aug only

Pleasance Courtyard | Upstairs

20:30

Pleasance Courtyard | Beside 20:45 5-20 Aug only

19:15

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S&T_Fringe Ad_v2.indd 1

20/06/2022 17:16

EDINBURGH JAZZ & BLUES FESTIVAL 15–24 JULY

JAZZ

TOM MCGUIRE & THE BRASSHOLES

Bringing their high-octane tunes to Edinburgh Jazz & Blues Festival are Glaswegian funk and soul outfit Tom McGuire & The Brassholes.

The eight-piece, who went from busking on the streets of Glasgow to opening for the likes of Nile Rodgers & CHIC, George Clinton and Craig Charles, amassed a following with their 2019 single ‘Ric Flair’ before swiftly following it up with a self-titled album. Now with a few new releases under their belts, this group is sure to deliver an electrifying performance full of manic rhythms and heartfelt vocals. (Megan Merino) n George Square Spiegeltent, 15 July, 10.30pm.

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JAZZ

CHANGING I Saxophonist Nubya Garcia is distinguishing herself as a leading name in UK jazz. Megan Merino finds out what audiences can expect from a musician who is not afraid to experiment both on and off stage

W

PICTURE: JONATHAN CHIMENE

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ithin London’s blossoming jazz scene, tenor saxophonist Nubya Garcia is a creative force.

From playing in a trio with Theon Cross (Sons Of Kemet) and regularly collaborating with Ezra Collective (lead by Gorillaz’ live band drummer Femi Koleoso), to releasing her Mercurynominated debut album Source in 2020, Garcia’s identifiably rich tone is central to the recent evolution of UK jazz.

Her debut album’s release may have coincided with a global pandemic, but having recently arrived back on UK soil after touring the US with psych funk trio Khruangbin (just in time to make her Glastonbury set), Garcia is finally able to play the record live.

‘The core meaning of the songs have not changed,’ she explains, ‘but the arrangements and structure change at every show.’ Her regular band, made up of Joe Armon-Jones on keys, Sam Jones on drums and Daniel Casimir on double bass, are a tight group of musicians consistently able to maintain dynamism on stage. ‘We stay engaged by continuously challenging each other musically and never playing a song the same way twice,’ states Garcia. ‘Each one brings 100% to what they do and contribute enormously to the music. I think “wow” all the time when I hear them.’

As someone who spends a lot of time playing with other musicians, what does Garcia look for in a collaborator?

‘Someone who isn’t afraid to explore melding genres.

Someone who can listen and is open to new ideas that might seem left of centre.’ It may come as no surprise, then, that Garcia’s music is a unique blend of grooves and textures that fuse American jazz with Afro-Caribbean and Latin rhythms, something she attributes partially to her Guyanese heritage.

‘Having South American roots I am heavily influenced

by Latin sounds. I also spent some time in Colombia just before lockdown, where I first met multi-instrumentalist Diana San Miguel of La Perla, a young trio celebrating the nation’s traditional music. I soaked up the sounds of Cali and Bogotá and stayed with celebrated cantora Nidia Góngora, a custodian of Afro-Colombian music and culture. That’s where “La Cumbia Me Está Llamando” was recorded.’ That song, featuring La Perla, translates to ‘La Cumbia (a traditional Colombian dance) Is Calling Me’.

Garcia frequently writes with a deep level of introspection on topics of identity, as witnessed in tracks like ‘Inner Game’ (also on Source). Explaining the story behind that song, she says, ‘it’s about the psychology of music and creativity, and takes its cue from books The Inner Game Of Tennis and The Inner Game Of Music, which focus on overcoming nervousness and self-doubt. Most musicians will be fighting themselves at some point. I’ve definitely fought myself and somewhat come out the other side. [The song] is about that inner push and pull inside yourself that nobody can see but plays out in so many things that you do, whether you’re aware of it or not.’

JAZZ

IT UP

PICTURE: ADAMA JALLOH

Garcia first picked up the tenor saxophone at ten years old. ‘I was drawn to the distinctive sound it made. Then Dexter Gordon became one of my huge influences in my teens.’ Also citing Alice Coltrane, Herbie Hancock and McCoy Tyner as her favourite jazz artists (‘there are too many to mention’), Garcia displays a strong respect and admiration for the greats that came before her. But a lesson she tries to pass on to aspiring musicians is ‘not to box yourself into a genre; or maybe what others define jazz to be.’ She promises her Edinburgh performance will be ‘dynamic, surprising and fun’, and we’re certain she’ll practise what she preaches, bringing an audience powerful compositions, classic musicianship and cross-genre flare.

Nubya Garcia, George Square Spiegeltent, 21 July, 9.30pm.



Photo © 2022 Brighton Studio; Illustration © 2022 Lisa Smith

Edinburgh49

Fringe favourites Theatre Fideri Fidera are back with a hilarious reimagining of the legend of Swiss folk hero Wilhelm Tell

Perfect Summer holiday fun!

12:00

3 - 21 AUG 2022 (Not 10/17) (60 miNs)

Will Tell 134mm x 189mm The List ad v5 REPLACEMENT.indd 1

23/06/2022 13:25

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JAZZ

PICTURE: ELIZABETH DINGWALL

Fresh faces

Scat

Stewart Smith highlights five emerging artists who encapsulate the thriving UK jazz scene

woman

Anoushka Nanguy

FERGUS MCCREADIE LARGE ENSEMBLE

The pianist known for wowing audiences with his lyrical and fiery Celtic jazz convenes a large ensemble to expand his folk-tinged compositions. Expect fireworks.

Assembly Hall, 16 July, 7.30pm.

Ahead of her debut festival performance, Iain Leggat gets to know 2021 Scottish Jazz Awards Best Vocalist, Marianne McGregor

S

cotland’s jazz scene is currently having a bit of a moment, with stars from the next generation continually giving the genre a new lease of life.

Marianne McGregor is one such talent and is using her vocal skills to give the classics a contemporary twist.

Self-described as ‘rooted in old jazz, with vocals influenced by pop and R&B’, the young singer will be one of the opening acts of the Edinburgh Jazz & Blues Festival. A worthy reward after being crowned Best Vocalist at last year’s Scottish Jazz Awards.

Joining McGregor on stage are Scottish powerhouse duo Colin Steele on trumpet and Brian Kellock on piano, experienced jazzers who the singer believes are key parts of why Scottish jazz is buzzing right now. ‘It’s down to this mix of younger musicians moving within areas of the genre coupled with established players who play more traditional jazz.’

Performing original tracks from her debut self-written album Good Morning Warning, sprinkled with iconic jazz standards, McGregor’s trademark is her thrilling improvising, a skill that gave her an entry point into the genre. ‘When I was a kid, my mum would be playing records and I would be scat singing,’ McGregor recalls. ‘I didn’t even know what that was and now it’s a big part of what I do.’

Marianne McGregor, The Jazz Bar, 15 July, 6pm.

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XHOSA COLE QUARTET Tenor saxophonist and 2018’s BBC Young Musician Of The Year, Cole is on a hot streak following the 2021 release of K(no)w Them, K(no)w Us, a wicked blend of spicy post-bop and ingenious composition.

Piccolo, 16 July, 8.30pm.

NOUSHY 4TET Described by Soweto Kinch as ‘amazing’, trombonist and singer Anoushka Nanguy scooped the Rising Star Award at 2021’s Scottish Jazz Awards. She performs with her quartet: guitarist James Mackay, bassist Ewan Hastie and drummer Peru Eizagirre.

The Jazz Bar, 17 July, 6pm.

AKU! Featuring Harry Weir’s hearty saxophone, Liam Shortall’s sinuous trombone and Graham Costello’s dynamic drumming, AKU! specialise in meaty riffs and powerful rhythms. Their occasional detours into cosmic jazz and moody noir are imbued with a distinctly Glaswegian energy.

The Jazz Bar, 19 July, 9pm.

KITTI Winner of Best Vocalist at the 2020 Scottish Jazz Awards, Kitti’s smoky voice has a strong underpinning of 1960s soul and has earned comparisons to Amy Winehouse and Erykah Badu.

Assembly Roxy, 21 July, 8.30pm.

Winner Hard Seltzer Category.

Survey of 9,897 people by Kantar.

FIND US AT @eastside.edinburgh

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OTHER FESTIVALS

JUPITER RISING

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PICTURE: HARVEY PEARSON

Artist-led festival Jupiter Rising will return to the world-class sculpture park, Jupiter Artland, with three electrifying days of music, art, workshops and dance. Championing diversity and underrepresented performers, the 2022 programme is guest-curated by Alloysious Massaquoi (Young Fathers) alongside Hen Hoose, a Glasgow-based collective challenging gender inequality in the music industry. The resulting line-up is inventive and varied, with highlights including the politically charged ‘spoken-soul’ of The Dylema Collective and eclectic world mixes of DJ Auntie Flo. With only 1000 tickets available, this is an exclusive arts festival not to be missed. (Paula Lacey) n Jupiter Artland, 26–28 August.

Despite a reputation for fearless adventuring, Fiennes wears his phobias on his sleeve. ‘My superpower would be to not have extreme vertigo,’ he said. ‘Last August at home, the gutters got full of leaves and I was too scared, so I sent my wife up and I held the ladder.’ Ladders may set his pulse racing, but he’s still plotting his next unique adventure. ‘If it’s a first, you don’t want to let anyone know. You’ll have to wait and see.’

Sir Ranulph Fiennes: Living Dangerously, Belhaven Big Top, North Berwick, 14 August, noon; Fringe By The Sea, various venues, North Berwick, 5–14 August.

FANTASTIC FEASTS AND WHERE TO FIND THEM All that show-watching and wandering will surely work up anyone’s appetite. Ailsa Sheldon has rounded up a tasty list of food and drink festivals to fuel the summer months

Reusable forks at the ready, it’s time for a summer of festival feasting whatever the weather.

Edinburgh Food Festival (22–31 July) returns to leafy George Square Gardens with a tasty line-up of local delicacies. Go fancy with lobster and chips from East Lothian favourite Alandas Scottish Seafood or keep it light at We Sell Dumplings. British Street Food Awards finalist Moskito Bites are bringing their tapas trailer and you can finish off with a paleta (ice lolly) from Ohana Pops (try the Whipped Vietnamese Coffee). With pints from Bellfield Brewery and Poco Prosecco on tap, this is prime

OTHER FESTIVALS

C

ertified by the Guinness Book Of World Records as ‘the world’s greatest living explorer’, Sir Ranulph Fiennes has nothing to prove. He has spent five decades pushing the human body to its limits, venturing into dangerous territory and reporting what he’s found through writing numerous books.

Now aged 78, his new show Sir Ranulph Fiennes: Living Dangerously gives audiences a chance to discover the man behind the legend. ‘I’ll be talking about my life,’ Fiennes explains. ‘My childhood and schooling, and training with the SAS. There’s so much to talk about that I can only briefly touch on being the oldest Brit up Everest.’

DANGER MAN

In his nerve-shredding show, Sir Ranulph Fiennes discusses how he lives on the edge after all these years.

As Kevin Fullerton learns of the famed explorer’s struggles with vertigo, it’s a good thing his Fringe By The Sea appearance is at low altitude

summer dining. Further north in Inverleith Park, Foodies Festival (5–7 August) is all about cooking demonstrations with famous chefs, street food and an array of artisan producers ready to impress, while nearby is the excellent open-air Neighbourgood Market (until 17 July). For more permanent summery eats, check out Festival Village on the rooftop of Waverley Market. With live music, floral displays and topnotch dining, including Pizza Geeks, Fizz & Pearl and the brand-new Secret Garden Restaurant, visitors can keep the festival vibes going well into autumn.

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EASTERN PROMISE OTHER FESTIVALS

Legendary DJ Mr Scruff brings his floor-fillers to Out East this summer. Iain Leggat predicts the joint willl be jumping to an infectious fusion of soul, funk, jazz and house

One of the most creative DJs on the circuit, Andy Carthy aka Mr Scruff, is known for bringing energetic and eclectic tunes that summon both raving regulars and occasional shufflers to the dance floor.

After achieving commercial success in 1999 with Keep It Unreal, which featured classic dance tune ‘Get A Move On!’, Carthy has continued to delight crowds with originals like ‘Music Takes Me Up’ and ‘Kalimba’, both tracks from his 2008 release Ninja Tuna. The Manchester DJ can regularly be found at Band On The Wall, his hometown residency, as well as on Gilles Peterson’s WorldwideFM radio station, where he brings his musical discoveries to a global audience.

There are few lulls in Scruff’s sets, as he curates hours of material full of character and infectious beats. The most impressive part? As a record purist, he performs his shows all on vinyl, picking and switching live as he goes. Keep an eye out for him holding his signature cup of tea as he effortlessly shakes up Dalkeith this August. n Mr Scruff, Out East, Dalkeith Country Park, 6 August.

MAKING IT BIG From snatching BRITS to rocking Glastonbury, Kevin Fullerton reflects on Little Simz’ latest career-altering album ahead of her CONNECT appearance

T

he BRITS are rarely a watermark for good taste, but the industry love-in showed a rare discernment when they showered Little Simz’ Sometimes I Might Be Introvert with awards last February.

Her fourth album has finally propelled her to bona fide stardom with its finely crafted blend of Afrofuturism, old-school grime, deeply personal lyricism and a production style that’s eclectic without ever being diffuse. This is the kind of album that rarely translates into chart success; a study of womanhood, race, validation and the power of artistic expression that’s simultaneously cerebral and danceable.

The album’s rich, cinematic musical canvas and innate sense of drama has given Simz’ already impressive live shows an additional sense of swagger. Her seemingly idiosyncratic lyrics translate effortlessly into festival singalongs (as seen in the rapper’s epic Glastonbury set) making Little Simz’ appearance at CONNECT all the more exciting. n Little Simz, Royal Highland Centre, 28 August; CONNECT, 26-28 August.

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OTHER FESTIVALS

BEST OF THE REST OF THE FESTS Here’s a few more festival highlights coming your way in July and August Kicking things off with a brand new three-day music festival in Stockbridge, Over The Bridge (29–31 July) features big names like Twin Atlantic, Ella Eyre and James Arthur on its line-up, while fellow newbie Otherlands (19–21 August) brings the likes of Bicep, Tom Misch, Jamie XX and Biig Piig to Perth’s Scone Palace. The faithful Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo (5–27 August) returns with its new production Voices, and Edinburgh TV Festival (24–26 August) packs in big names with talks from Rose Matafeo, Dolly Alderton and Brian Cox, while its 2022 awards are hosted by our very own cover star Sophie Duker.

BBC’s Starstruck, written by and starring Rose Matafeo

CELEBRATING

25WORLD YEARS WIDE ‘A HILARIOUSLY BONKERS AFFAIR’ EDINBURGH EVENING NEWS

‘INGENIOUS COMEDY’ THE SCOTTISH SUN

‘OUTRAGEOUSLY FUNNY’ BROADWAY BABY

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N AT UR A L Discover 14 natural botanicals in one award winning classic gin Edinburgh Gin encourages responsible drinking

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CITY GUIDE

It’s back! Festival season has landed and we couldn’t be happier to welcome the planet’s biggest party. Even among all the shimmery-shiny, you’ve still got to eat; and a wee libation isn’t going to go amiss either.

You’ll find our recs for the very best eating and drinking options across the next few pages, grouped around six key venues, with some insider knowledge from the performers and production peeps that make the festival happen. It’s been a tough time for our pals in hospitality and they’re waiting for you with open arms. So fill your boots, tip like there’s no tomorrow and enjoy everything Edinburgh has to offer. Cheers! (Jo Laidlaw) ILLUSTRATIONS: SEONAID RAFFERTY

IN ASSOCIATION WITH

filmhouse

In association with

H

ome to the Edinburgh International Film Festival, Filmhouse sits on busy Lothian Road within hailing distance of some of the city’s bestloved venues. Just a hop, skip and jump over the road will take you to the Traverse, devoted to new writing; the Lyceum, with a packed Fringe and International Festival programme; and the Usher Hall, a stunning concert venue with near-perfect acoustics. The EICC is also nearby (it’s gearing up for a circus and comedy-themed August) while Central Hall is getting in on the action with a family-focused Fringe as well as some big Book Festival events.

When it comes to food and drink here, you could do a lot worse than Filmhouse’s own café-bar; a comfortable casual hang-out with a straightforward menu and equally straightforward prices. If you’re after a quick fill-up, the usual chains are on Lothian Road, including Byron and Wagamama, while local fave Ting Thai Caravan is great for a speedy noodle stop. Landmark hotels like the Sheraton and Waldorf Astoria are also at hand. The latter is home to Mark Greenaway’s fine dining restaurant Grazing if you’ve a notion for a long, lazy lunch, while the new flagship Johnnie Walker visitor centre is across the junction.

At the top of Lothian Road you’ll find Tollcross, home to one of the city’s most vibrant food and drink micro-districts. Try Ong Gie for excellent Korean, while Dumplings of China does exactly what it says on the tin. If real ale is your thing, the laid-back Cloisters bar has been pulling pints of excellence since 1995, and The Blackbird is worth the slightly longer walk for its excellent beer garden.

This isn’t the greenest part of town, so if al fresco dining is on your mind, head to Princes Street Gardens, where you’ll find takeaway options plus the excellent Scottish Café & Restaurant at the Scottish National Galleries.

RESTAURANTS Baba

130 George Street, 0131 527 4999, baba.restaurant

Bread Meats Bread

92 Lothian Road, 0131 225 3000, breadmeatsbread.com

Bread Meats Bread’s mini-chain of burger joints keep the fast in fast food, with enough details to make it well worth paying more than the standard chains. There is a comprehensive vegan menu, meat is carefully sourced, service is brisk; all in, it’s a fun place for a fast fillup with pals.

Chizuru Tei

278 Morrison Street, 0131 228 1688, chizurutei.com

There are more refined competitors out there, but Chizuru Tei is a great bet for quick, tasty and affordable food. The substantial menu offers a wide choice of sushi and main course rice and noodle dishes, as

MY PICKS

Contini George Street

103 George Street, 0131 225 1550, contini.com

Gorgeous setting for a leisurely lunch between shows, though you’ll need sharp elbows to grab that pavement seat. Mains include plenty of pasta, as well as dishes like rump of Highland lamb that show off their thoughtful approach to sourcing. Service is warm and breakfast is the perfect way to ease into your day.

Kyloe Restaurant & Grill

The Rutland Hotel, 1–3 Rutland Street, 0131 229 3402, kyloerestaurant.com

Know nothing about steak? No problem: your waiter will talk you through every step of your dinner’s journey in this luxurious restaurant.

There’s plenty of choice when it comes to sides: beef dripping chips are terrific. Wine lovers will be spoilt for choice, particularly when it comes to steak-loving reds.

The Palmerston

1 Palmerston Place, 0131 220 1794, thepalmerstonedinburgh.co.uk

Easy breezy hospitality abounds in The Palmerston, where the gorgeous bones of a former bank building meet a modern British menu with careful sourcing at its core. Warm service and confident cooking abound and, if you’re staying around Haymarket, their morning pastries and coffee are well worth exploring.

Taxidi

6 Brougham Street, 0131 228 1030, taxidi.uk

RAYMAH TARIQ PROGRAMME OFFICER, FILMHOUSE Filmhouse finds itself in prime position for food and drink no matter which direction you head. Gooseneck Café serve up excellent coffee and have an array of savoury and sweet pastries that will get your day started right. If you’re short on time, look no further than Bánh Mì Brothers, where cheery staff, quick service and a filling Vietnamese baguette is a guarantee: add extra chilli at your peril. If you have a little longer to indulge, Taco Libre is a joyful restaurant where you get some of the best, affordable Mexican fare. For drinks, Hanging Bat has you covered on beer and gin needs, while Hey Palu makes an ideal spot for a pre-show cocktail. And of course, our very own Filmhouse Café Bar takes care of the whole lot from breakfast till dinner.

Holy Cow

FILMHOUSE

A contemporary take on classic Levantine dining in a shabby-chic restaurant, where the menu is a pick and mix of flavours, textures and price tags. Order abundantly from the snacks, side and mezze sections; and don’t forget to throw in a couple of dips with accompanying flat breads.

well as several set menu and bento combos. Brisk, buzzy and bustling.

Cosy and authentic, Taxidi’s plentiful mezze options include squeaky sheep's milk talagani cheese and pitta bread seasoned with lashings of olive oil and oregano. If you're not in the mood for sharing, mains are all packed with character and flavour, and there are daily specials too.

Yamato

11 Lochrin Terrace, 0131 466 5964, yamatosushiedinburgh.co.uk

Quality and attention to detail rule the day at this high-end, intimate Japanese spot. A huge amount of thought has clearly gone into every element of the experience. Plating is picture-perfect and underlines Yamato’s focus on subtle, yet exquisite, tastes and textures, while rarer dishes like wagyu beef and o-toro tuna belly elevate the menu.

CAFES Cairngorm Coffee Co

1 Melville Place, cairngorm.coffee

A distinctive, bright and airy café where featured roasters change regularly; they batch brew too.

All-day breakfast, brunch and lunch options are available, like granola with seasonal fruit, fresh pastries, avocado toast and soup, as well as coffee beans to take home.

PLANT-BASED

It’s rare to find a menu with no decent vegan or veggie options in Edinburgh, but these cafés, bars, restaurants and delis are the pick of the bunch for trailblazing plant-based food

BLACK RABBIT 33 Brougham Street, 0131 241 8504, blackrabbitedinburgh.co.uk A super-useful fully vegan deli and coffee shop offering sandwiches, rolls, cakes and savoury bakes, plus vegan ingredients if you’re cooking.

CONSIDERIT 3–5a Sciennes, 0131 667 4064, consideritchocolate.com Flagging? On your way to Summerhall? One of Considerit’s indulgent doughnuts or ice-creams will see you right. Their chocolate is exquisite and everything is vegan.

DAVID BANN 56–58 St Mary’s Street, 0131 556 5888, davidbann.co.uk Flying the flag for veggie cooking for two decades now, this is somewhere to kick back and linger over precise flavours and warm service.

FACEPLANT 37 Duke Street, faceplantfoods.com Cute wee vegan spot specialising in grilled ‘cheeze’, it’s also close to Leith Links if you fancy grabbing and going on a sunny day.

HARMONIUM 7–11 East London Street, 0131 558 3536, harmoniumbar.co.uk Punchy flavours, 100% vegan: this

recommended bright and airy laidback café/restaurant/bar is working hard to be all things to all people.

HENDERSONS 7–13 Barclay Place, 0131 202 1635, hendersonsrestaurant. com The Hendersons more or less introduced veggie cooking to the city; their new incarnation promises to carry on the family tradition of accessible veggie food.

HOLY COW 34 Elder Street, 0131 629 7057, holycow.cafe Tucked into a basement near the St James Quarter and open well into the evening, this is a very useful vegan option to have up your sleeve. Great burgers.

PARADISE PALMS 41 Lothian Street, 0131 225 4186, theparadisepalms.com Lively, kitsch bar with a primarily vegan soul-food menu that’s waiting to become your festival HQ. Great fun. Get the frickles.

SORA LELLA 13a Brougham Street, soralella.co.uk Fully vegan Roman restaurant with a great line in simple but delicious pastas and pizzas, with plenty of gluten-free options.

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In association with

Fortuna Coffee Bar

FILMHOUSE

77 Queen Street, 0131 467 0179, instagram.com/fortunacoffeebar

Dog-friendly modern eatery with simple, yet creative, food and a rollcall of dependable local suppliers, like Machina coffee. Decent deals, colourful garnishes and a laid-back vibe make this a happy, bright spot for lunch or brunch and the cakes are good too. Walk-ins only.

Milk

232 Morrison Street, 0131 629 6022, cafemilk.co.uk

Moments away from Haymarket station, Milk is the perfect mix of trendy and homely. Inside, industrial stools and subway-tiled walls sit comfortably alongside an open counter of baked goods, and simple dishes have a modern vibe while remaining resolutely homemade. Decent coffee, even better brownies.

Social Bite

89 Shandwick Place, social-bite.co.uk

Social Bite has been donating its profits to help tackle homelessness since 2011 and many staff have experienced life on the streets. The simple menu offers sandwiches, salads, soup and hot lunches as well as breakfast rolls and cakes. There’s also a branch on Rose Street, plus Vesta, their social enterprise restaurant.

BARS Bennets Bar

8 Leven Street, 0131 229 5143, bennetsbaredinburgh.co.uk

Super handy for the Cameo cinema, Bennets is a stunning traditional

Victorian bar offering a wide range of cask ales, whiskies, gins and cocktails. It’s full of gorgeous original features, like cute brass water taps on the bar and the ladies’ snug (a set-apart wee room with its own serving hatch).

Social Bite

The Hanging Bat

133 Lothian Road, 0131 229 0759, thehangingbat.com

Busy Lothian Road is now a bit of a beer destination, but the Hanging Bat was there first. Deceptively cavernous, there are six cask and fourteen keg lines on draught and, in total, they sell around 150 mainly British beers (and lots of gins). Take advice from the bar staff: beer gurus, every one.

Heads & Tales

1a Rutland Place, 0131 656 2811, headsandtalesbar.com

Find the prohibition-style door hidden at the foot of a discreet staircase, pass the cosy vaulted booths and you’ll spot a working gin still; a major clue that gin is indeed the thing here. Choose from around 80 varieties or just ask the knowledgeable team for a recommendation.

The Innis & Gunn Brewery Taproom

81–83 Lothian Road, 0131 228 6392, innisandgunn.com

With 26 beers on tap and enthusiastic, well-informed staff, this is a great place to try a new beer or two. Naturally, beers from the home brewery star but they also feature local contemporaries.

If beer’s not your thing, there’s a surprisingly good choice of cocktails, gin and whisky.

Bennets Bar

Le Di-Vin Wine Bar

9 Randolph Place, 0131 538 1815, ledivin.co.uk

Set in a former church, Le Di-Vin’s door opens into a vast, high space, lined floor to ceiling with wine. The menu is small and rustically French, but the main focus here is the wine,

and you can easily spend a very happy evening sipping your way through their compact list.

Panda & Sons

79 Queen Street, 0131 220 0443, pandaandsons.co.uk

Behind a barber shop façade and through the bookshelf door, one of the vanguards of Edinburgh’s cocktail revolution is still going strong. Clued-up bartenders guide you through a boundary-pushing cocktail list and, while there’s a little bit of theatre, mixologists who really know their stuff keep it all on the right side of authentic.

Red Squirrel

21 Lothian Road, 0131 229 9933, redsquirreledinburgh.co.uk

Great beers and a bite to eat is the ethos at the Red Squirrel; it’s hard to argue with the simplicity of their approach when it’s done so well.

House taps and rotationals showcase interesting choices, all available from a third of a pint measure upwards. It’s worth knowing that breakfast runs until 3pm.

Teuchters

26 William Street, 0131 225 2973, teuchtersbar.co.uk

First-rate traditional bar, with around 90 single malt whiskies and 20 blends lining the shelves plus a notable collection of Scottish gins, cask and keg beers. Burgers, hot dogs and pies provide good company to a well-pulled pint, or order from the mug menu and tuck into creamy mac and cheese or traditional stovies.

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CONNECT MUSIC FESTIVAL .COM A DF CONCERTS PRESENTATION

THE GRAND PARADE

IDLES | Jon Hopkins John Grant

Jessie Buckley & Bernard Butler | Charlotte Adigéry & Bolis Pupul Future Utopia | Maeve GUITARS & OTHER MACHINES

Joesef

Moses Boyd | LYRA | Cloth | Jealous of The Birds | LVRA UNKNOWN PLEASURES

Optimo (Espacio)

I. JORDAN | Hammer | TAAHLIAH | Pocket

THE GRAND PARADE

The Chemical Brothers

Bonobo | The Twilight Sad | Caribou Holly Humberstone Chloe Moriondo GUITARS & OTHER MACHINES

Ride playing Nowhere

LOW | Matt Maltese | Willie J Healey | NewDad | Swim School | Opus Kink UNKNOWN PLEASURES

Erol Alkan | Krystal Klear

Dance System | Nightwave | Push It | Nadia Summer B2B DIJA

THE GRAND PARADE

The National

Mogwai | Bombay Bicycle Club | Little Simz Self Esteem

Black Country, New Road | Rae Morris | Rachel Chinouriri GUITARS & OTHER MACHINES

Idlewild playing The Remote Part

Admiral Fallow | Sudan Archives | DEHD | Hamish Hawk | Lizzie Reid Geese | Kathleen Frances UNKNOWN PLEASURES

Horse Meat Disco

Sam Gellaitry | Jamz Supernova | Barry Can’t Swim Rebecca Vasmant | Karma Kid |

ROYAL HIGHLAND CENTRE SHOWGROUNDS

|

EDINBURGH

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In association with

edinburgh college of art

F

or many festival-goers, the area around Edinburgh University is the heart of the August action. That belief has only been cemented by the International Book Festival’s recent move to the College of Art. It’s a beautiful building, with a spacious leafy courtyard, café and bookshop, making the Book Festival Village a pleasant place to while away an hour or two, whether you’ve tickets to see your favourite author or not. (And if not, their brilliant hybrid approach means you can easily watch a livestream on your phone while sipping a drink.)

A short walk from the art college (take a slight detour and go via the Meadows) brings you to George Square, an enclosed garden split between two of the Fringe’s biggest names: Assembly and Underbelly. It’s filled with street food vendors and pop-up bars, so this is a great spot for on-the-go dining and drinking. From George Square, run the flyering gauntlet to Gilded Balloon’s main base at Teviot Row House and Underbelly's Bristo Square hub for more top food and drink options, or just take a break from it all in the excellent National Museum of Scotland nearby.

When it comes to restaurants, in this studenty area cheap eats with brisk service abound. Try Saboteur for good value Vietnamese or Mosque Kitchen for one of the cheapest, simplest curry lunches around. If you’re looking for something a little slower-paced, Hotel du Vin’s courtyard has a sophisticated wine list with service to match; in contrast, The Pear Tree is home to one of Edinburgh’s biggest, noisiest beer gardens. A walk down to the Grassmarket brings you to atmospheric Victoria Street, home of The Grain Store, a stalwart of the Edinburgh dining scene; Maison Bleue which offers French/North American bistro cooking; and a branch of IJ Mellis, the city’s cult cheesemonger.

RESTAURANTS Angels with Bagpipes

343 High Street, 0131 220 1111, angelswithbagpipes.co.uk

El Cartel

15–16 Teviot Place, 0131 370 8189, elcartelmexicana.co.uk

Expect funky skull art, Mexican tiles, hip hop beats, tequilas, mezcals and agaves galore, plus two Margarita slushies turning slowly in the machines at this cult taqueria.

The food is equally exciting; superb small plates (don’t miss the bombers) and regularly changing tacos. There’s a second branch in Roxburgh’s Court too.

Ondine

2 George IV Bridge, 0131 226 1888, ondinerestaurant.co.uk

Ondine quite simply serves some of the best seafood in town. Oysters, salmon and squid set the tone, and if you’re really pushing the boat out then spoil yourself with one of the decadent (though pricey) piledhigh platters. Service is practically faultless and there's a well thoughtout wine list too.

The Outsider

15–16 George IV Bridge, 0131 226 3131, theoutsiderrestaurant.com

This large dining room, with a mezzanine floor and great views of the castle, is frequently packed.

Customers are drawn in by an exceptionally good value lunch, the lively atmosphere and a wideranging menu focusing on modern bistro classics. In truth though, the witty wine list almost steals the whole show.

Petit Paris

38–40 Grassmarket, 0131 226 2442, petitparis-restaurant.co.uk

An Edinburgh institution with extensive outdoor seating and charm aplenty, Petit Paris churns out simple French classics done well, like snails nestling in garlic butter, onion soup, coq au vin, Toulouse sausages and stew of the day. The huge terrace really comes into its own on a sunny day, where people-watching opportunities abound.

SEN

41 West Nicolson Street, 0131 347 4120, senrestaurant.co.uk

SEN serves Vietnamese comfort food, primarily from the Nam Din province. Midnight-blue walls and a ceiling glowing with lanterns welcome you, and the menu is everything you want from Vietnamese cuisine: spicy, sweet, sour, savoury and refreshing all in

Razzo

Ting Thai Caravan

8–9 Teviot Place, 0131 225 9801, tingthai-caravan.com

Small and always packed, Ting Thai serves tasty Thai street food with skill, passion and edge. The food comes with a punch, reflecting its street food roots. There are no bookings so expect to queue, though the line usually moves quickly enough. There’s also a second branch on Lothian Road if you’re film festivalling.

ECA

A series of subtly decorated, atmospheric rooms in a 17th-century building on the Royal Mile, where considerable effort has gone into an engaging and quality dining experience based around wellsourced ingredients and impressive modern Scottish cooking. With friendly, attentive service and divine food, the whole thing is heavenly.

one. The duck lantern curry is a highlight; there’s a full plant-based menu too.

CAFES 10 to 10 in Delhi

67 Nicolson Street, 10to10indelhitakeaway.com

There’s a reason this café-cumIndian restaurant has been around for decades. Decked out like a Bedouin tent, there’s a laid-back vibe, where perfectly spiced dopiazas and lamb curries are served for lunch and washed down with cups of chai. Still one of the best value lunch spots in the area.

Greek Artisan Pastries

PIZZA

23 Bread Street, 0131 466 1691

As well as being a shop for Greek produce and provisions, this bakery serves freshly made bougatsa and huge wheels of spanakopita to take away. There are sweet options too, like delicious slices of walnut cake with honey syrup. Stop by for a rocket-fuel Greek coffee to slurp on the go.

Hula Juice Bar and Healthy Eatery

103–105 West Bow, 0131 220 1121, hulajuicebar.co.uk

Hula is a welcome respite from the crowds (there’s another branch on Fountainbridge too). Take away freshly pressed juices and smoothies or settle in to enjoy fresh takes on breakfast, brunch and lunch options that layer colourful goodness and make you feel good from the inside out.

Kauai

26 Forrest Road, 0131 305 0455, kauai.co.uk

From juice shots to green smoothies and ultra-healthy wraps to bowls, everything is made from scratch at Kauai. Inspired by the current Hawaiian health food kick, it’s all about springy greenery and oodles of avocado, though there’s a nod to Scotland in the pickled Scotsman open sandwich and choc protein porridge.

Lovecrumbs

155 West Port, 0131 629 0626, lovecrumbs.co.uk

Lovecrumbs is all about the cake, with at least eight home-baked options every day. Tea lovers will appreciate the flask of hot water that comes with the loose leaves and their hot chocolates are particularly

A pie or a slice, sit-in, delivery or eat on the go: there’s plenty of topnotch pizza action available in Edinburgh if you know where to look

CIVERINOS SLICE 49 Forrest Road, 0131 225 4026, civerinosslice.com With three venues around town, when you see the Civerinos name you can expect excellent pizza served by lovely people in cool surroundings.

DOUGH 47 South Clerk Street, 0131 667 5343, dough-pizza.co.uk Excellent pizza with imaginative sides and plenty of choice, available for delivery or pick-up.

MATTO PIZZA 370–372 Morningside Road, 0131 259 3130, mattopizza.co.uk Bubbly Neapolitan-style pizza that’s heavy on the colourful toppings. Their second Meadowbank venue is take-out focused with a handful of stools.

NOVAPIZZA VEGAN KITCHEN 42 Howe Street, 0131 629 2828, novapizza.co.uk Completely vegan pizza in the heart of the New Town, plus a handful of pastas and starters with gluten-free options too.

ORIGANO CAFÉ & PIZZERIA 236 Leith Walk, 0131 555 6539, origano-leith.co.uk The buzzing atmosphere makes it worthwhile lingering over your crusts, but if you’re in a rush then

Origano Go (their takeaway arm) is just across the road.

PAOLOZZI RESTAURANT AND BAR 59–61 Forrest Road, 0131 259 0047, paolozzirestaurantandbar. co.uk Pizza and beer is a great combo, so opening a pizza parlour must have seemed like a natural move for local brewers, the Edinburgh Beer Factory.

PIZZA GEEKS 19 Dalry Road, 0131 347 8863, pizzageeks.co.uk Cartoon-inspired names, lots of puns, dine-in, delivery or click and collect: this is pizza for the people, people. There’s also a second branch in Leith.

PIZZERIA 1926 85 Dalry Road, 0131 337 5757, pizzeria1923.co.uk As close to Neapolitan pizza as you’ll get in Edinburgh, this caféstyle dough-slinger is the absolute pie daddy. That said, their fried starters are exceptional too.

RAZZO PIZZA 59 Great Junction Street, razzopizza.co.uk Funky wee pizzeria down in Leith that’s been quietly building a name and reputation for a couple of years now.

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ECA

SEN

MY PICKS

comforting if (when) the Edinburgh rain strikes. Cushions, benches, pot plants and exposed floorboards make for a relaxed vibe.

Söderberg The Meadows

27 Simpson Loan, Quartermile, 0131 228 5876, soderberg.uk

SARAH DRUMMOND PR MANAGER, EDINBURGH INTERNATIONAL BOOK FESTIVAL The Edinburgh International Book Festival site at Edinburgh College of Art is home to a range of fabulous food and drink options throughout the Festival and the local area is also bursting with independent eateries, boojee boozers and some of the best pizza in town.

If you’re looking for a quick slice between events, head to the original Civerinos on Forrest Road, or for a more leisurely start to a day of festival fun, Victor Hugo’s on the corner of Melville Terrace is the ultimate brunch spot. For post-event frozen margaritas, look no further than El Cartel, and for top-notch comfort food it has to be Mums. Serving up that wow factor is The Outsider, an Edinburgh institution with a menu matched only by its views of the castle. You can find it just round the corner from the Book Festival Village on George IV Bridge.

Straddling the Quartermile and the bustle of George Square and the Meadows, this roomy Scandi-style coffee house with loads of outdoor seats is always a popular festival spot. You’ll find Söderberg’s other cafés and shops dotted around town though, so you’re never that far from your next cardamom bun fix.

Union Brew Lab

6–8 South College Street, 0131 662 8963, brewlabcoffee.co.uk

Now part of the Union roasting family, Brew Lab offers something for the thoughtful, the gregarious and the serious coffee fan. Breakfast spans everything from fresh fruit to toast and jam, while lunch brings sandwiches, soups and salads, but the coffee is the star of the show.

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BARS

The Devil's Advocate

The Bow Bar

One of the best contemporary spots for whisky, this lovely bar is set into the remains of a former Victorian pump house. Clever lighting filters through 300 bottles of whisky, creating a beautiful amber glow and a mezzanine floor and hidden booths add to the welcome. Not a whisky fan? Enjoy an excellent cocktail or local beer.

9 Advocates Close, 0131 225 4465, devilsadvocateedinburgh.co.uk

80 West Bow, Victoria Street, 0131 226 7667, thebowbar.co.uk

On the historic curve of West Bow and Victoria Street, the Bow Bar remains delightfully traditional but that’s not to say their choice of tipples is outdated. This wee nook fits in an astonishing 310 single malts, eight cask ales and six kegs. A real treasure, especially in a quieter moment.

Cold Town House

4 Grassmarket, 0131 357 2865, coldtownhouse.co.uk

Set inside a cavernous former church, Cold Town House includes a brewhouse, pizza bar and outdoor terrace with castle views. The brewhouse is the liveliest space, while the Italian-leaning menu features wood-fired pizzas named after Edinburgh neighbourhoods, like the Marchmont, perfect for enjoying with their own Cold Town beer.

El Cartel

Hey Palu

49 Bread Street, 0131 285 6752, heypalu.com

Negronis and people-watching is the philosophy here and the museumlike collection of spirits lining the bar lets you know this place takes its cocktails seriously. Herbal liqueurs, bitters and sweet syrups are balanced in every twist-on-an-Italian-classic cocktail with the same finesse as a fine-dining menu. Paired best with a window view.

The Pear Tree

38 West Nicolson Street, 0131 667 7533, peartreeedinburgh.co.uk

The Pear Tree is the proud possessor of arguably the best beer garden in Edinburgh, a huge cobbled courtyard filled with picnic tables, outdoor screens and live bands during the festival, while food is straightforward pub grub. Get there early on sunny afternoons and be prepared to defend your seat.

Under the Stairs

3a Merchant Street, 0131 466 8550, underthestairs.org

A pleasing cocktail bar and restaurant that manages to feel a bit hidden, despite being in the heart of the Old Town. Try an adventurous cocktail or stretch your beer muscles with a guest brew. There’s a compact but perfectly fine wine selection, and it’s all pretty laidback and easy.

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the stand

T

he tiny basement club that is The Stand punches well above its weight when it comes to the nation’s comedy culture, and August sees a dizzying array of talent taking to its postage stamp-sized stage. Around the corner you’ll find the Edinburgh Playhouse, showing an eclectic mix of International Festival performances, spoken word and comedy. A short stroll takes you to the Assembly Rooms, a Fringe hub for decades with a packed programme of comedy, drama and music under the Assembly banner; the Rose Theatre, an understated venue with a family-friendly Fringe majoring on musicals and variety, is also nearby. The Stand sits close to the city’s pink triangle, with LGBT-friendly venues like CC Blooms and The Street offering a warm welcome to all, with some home-grown shows thrown in.

For food, you’ll find familiar names clustered around St Andrew Square, including Wahaca, The Ivy, Wagamama and Hawksmoor. High-end hotel Gleneagles has just opened their Townhouse venue here, and the square itself makes for a pleasant spot to take a breather on the grass. Edinburgh’s newest shopping centre, St James Quarter, is also nearby with a good mix of local pitstops and chains, including Five Guys, Maki & Ramen, and Bonnie & Wild, a foodcourt where you can choose from options like East Pizza, Jimmy Lee’s Salt & Chilli and Tony Singh’s Radge Chaat.

A 15 minute wander will bring you to Stockbridge, a village within the city with exceptional eating and drinking. Smith & Gertrude offer unusual wines paired with excellent local cheese; Good Brothers’ Wine Bar focuses on natural and biodynamic wines in a laid-back atmosphere; Bell’s Diner, Edinburgh’s original burger bar, is still going strong after decades; while Radicibus offers contemporary Italian cooking in a cosy basement spot.

Dean Banks at the Pompadour

RESTAURANTS

Ka Pao

Café St Honoré

Put aside any preconceptions about eating in a shopping centre: Ka Pao is terrific. While clearly influenced by the food of South East Asia, they don’t hesitate to jump around, so padrón peppers come with tamarind and soy while trendy corn ribs come drenched in salted coconut sauce. Delicious, punchy and a bit of a breath of fresh air.

34 North West Thistle Street Lane, 0131 226 2211, cafesthonore.com

Dishoom

3a St Andrew Square, 0131 202 6406, dishoom.com/edinburgh

Tapas-style Indian dining, from familiar favourites to more exotic street fare like pau bhaji (spicy mashed vegetables in generously buttered buns). Other scene stealers include the house black dhal and an unbelievably tender chicken ruby.

But it’s breakfast that has secured Dishoom’s cult status, with queues around the block for those incredible bacon naans.

TIME TO SPARE

East Finch Edinburgh punches well above her weight when it comes to world-class restaurants, so cancel that student improv mash-up, create a couple of hours in your busy schedule and treat yourself

AIZLE Kimpton Charlotte Square Hotel, 38 Charlotte Square, 0131 527 4747, aizle.co.uk A no-choice tasting menu where absolutely everything is made in-house. Aizle means ‘spark’ and Stuart Ralston’s food will light you up.

BOROUGH 50–54 Henderson Street, 0131 554 7655, boroughrestaurant.com Borough operates from a paredback dining room in the heart of Leith, offering five or three-course tasting menus, with a focus on local ingredients.

DEAN BANKS AT THE POMPADOUR Waldorf Astoria, Princes Street, deanbanks.co.uk Dean Bank’s first Edinburgh venture serves up opulent, lavish cooking, matching the surroundings of one of the city’s most sumptuous dining rooms.

FHIOR 36 Broughton Street, 0131 477 5000, fhior.com The Scottish larder brims with excellence, and Scott Smith makes the most of every inch of it in this cool, Scandi-inspired dining space.

THE KITCHIN 78 Commercial Quay, 0131 555 1755, thekitchin.com Tom Kitchin’s flagship venue shows exactly how he got that

Michelin star, with extraordinary attention to detail and little touches that make diners feel like royalty.

THE LITTLE CHARTROOM 14 Bonnington Road, 0131 556 6600, thelittlechartroom.com A move to larger premises has brought a more relaxed vibe to Roberta Hall-McCarron’s precise cooking, where booking ahead really is essential.

THE LOOKOUT BY GARDENER’S COTTAGE Observatory House, Calton Hill, 0131 378 7990, thelookoutedinburgh.co It’s hard to know where to focus; the plating is gorgeous, the environment is soothing and the views? Simply stunning. Well worth the trek up the hill.

73 Hanover Street, 0131 357 3730, eastfinch.co.uk

This good-natured wee place is stuffed full of New Orleans-style classics, gorgeously friendly staff, banging tunes and interesting cocktails in a tardis-like space: what’s not to love? Pull up a booth and settle into a po boy, wings (with excellent peach hot sauce) or home-made poppers. Happiness will surely follow.

Educated Flea

32b Broughton Street, 0131 556 8092, educatedflea.co.uk

Small but perfectly formed, Educated Flea’s eclectic menu and cosily stylish space are full of unusual personal touches and creative, well-balanced, menu mash-ups and flavour combinations.

The cheerfully informal service has turned many Broughton locals into regulars; it is truly tiny though, so booking is advised.

L'Escargot Bleu

56 Broughton Street, 0131 557 1600, lescargotbleu.co.uk

Busy and bustling, L’Escargot Bleu wears its French heart on its sleeve. Enjoy steak tartare or snails to start, or a sublimely comforting gratin de St Jacques. Passionate about provenance, they also grow their own herbs and veg. There’s a cute wine bar downstairs, with cosy tables and nibbly bits and pieces.

Taisteal

1 Forth Street, 0131 557 2209, taisteal.co.uk

Taisteal means 'journey' and chef Gordon Craig loves to meld the Scottish pantry with techniques and ingredients from across the world. A move to a new(ish) home in Forth Street has done nothing to damp down this questing spirit; diners continue to enjoy unusual combinations like mackerel with gochujang and yuzu crab with crispy capers.

CAFES Artisan Roast

57 Broughton Street, artisanroast. co.uk

Artisan are credited with starting Edinburgh’s coffee boom and their Broughton Street branch feels a world away from the city centre.

The main attraction is, of course, the coffee: single origin and sourced directly from around the world.

Keep an eye out for branches in Stockbridge, Bruntsfield and Leith.

Eteaket

RESTAURANT MARTIN WISHART 54 The Shore, 0131 553 3557, restaurantmartinwishart.co.uk Seasonal Scottish produce combines with classical French technique to produce incredible Michelin-starred dining, supported by impeccable service and a real sense of theatre.

TIMBERYARD 10 Lady Lawson Street, 0131 221 1222, timberyard.co Sophisticated dining in a soaring space, the Timberyard is run

by Edinburgh food legends the Radfords and it shows.

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THE STAND

Chef-director Neil Forbes confidently showcases classic technique, contemporary flourishes and impeccably sourced Scottish produce, giving full consideration to sustainability. It’s all served up in a Parisian-style bistro; a true celebration of the Auld Alliance.

Don’t leave without sampling the sensational dark chocolate fondant.

St James Quarter, 0131 385 1040, ka-pao.com

In association with

THE STAND

MY PICKS

JO CAULFIELD COMEDIAN I discovered Mather's on Broughton Street about ten years ago. It was a proper bar. People talking about football and boxing and horse racing. Over the years, it’s had several facelifts. Now I would say it’s one of the nicest laid-back bars in the city centre.

And the food is very good. During the Festival, it’s the kind of place you’ll bump into a comedian. I don’t know if that’s a good thing.

You know what comedians are like. Always want to talk about themselves, never buy a round of drinks. The last time I was in, the playlist was French hip hop. Yes, it’s that eclectic.

n Jo Caulfield: Here Comes Trouble, The Stand, 5–28 August, 8.20pm.

Bross Bagels St James Deli

Leo's Beanery

It started with a bagel, then there was the irresistible social media, now there are three cafés plus this whacking great deli and bar in the St James Quarter. Fill your hole at Scotland’s answer to Montreal with piled-high bagels, all cracking value and guaranteed to keep you going through the longest of Fringe days.

Family-owned café, catering well for dietary requirements. The cakes are fantastic, including an unmissable densely gooey awardwinning brownie, while substantial sandwiches of roast aubergine, peppers and artichokes with olive tapenade make for a filling lunch.

Breakfasts are worth waking early for, especially at weekends when tables can be hard to come by.

4 Little King Street, 07918 172996, brossbagels.com

Eteaket Tea Room

41 Frederick Street, 0131 226 2982, eteaket.co.uk

Eteaket offers a huge range of loose-leaf teas, each in their own individual pot with timer to ensure the perfect brew. The cosy tea room serves breakfast, lunch and a full cake stand of afternoon tea, and you can buy tea, teaware and other cute gifts to take home.

Greenwoods

61 Frederick Street, 0131 220 6799, greenwoods.eu

Straight from the streets of Amsterdam, this cheery brunch and lunch spot will set anyone up for a day of show-hopping. While the full Scottish is present and correct, there are a ton of more diverse offerings including pancake stacks, a banana bread tumble and bircher bowls if you’re feeling abstemious.

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23a Howe Street, 0131 556 8403, leosbeanery.co.uk

The Pantry

1–2 North West Circus Place, 0131 629 0206, thepantryedinburgh. co.uk

One of Stockbridge's most popular brunch spots, The Pantry also has an excellent lunch menu of wellcrafted dishes drawing on Scottish, Middle Eastern and Mediterranean influences. Brunch always delivers: the Sunshine on Stockbridge combines roasted sweet potato, paprika tomato, grilled courgette and smashed avo with poached eggs for that Insta moment.

Urban Angel

121 Hanover Street, 0131 225 6215, urban-angel.co.uk

An independent café right in the heart of the city, with a deceptively large space comprising a deli area

plus two dining rooms. Brunch options are served all day, joined by a compact lunch menu around noon.

The quality in-house baking offers plenty of tempting choices too.

BARS The Basement

10a–12a Broughton Street, 0131 557 0097, basement-bar-edinburgh. co.uk

A favourite locals’ haunt since the 90s, the lively Día de Muertosinspired space is filled with tunes, Margaritas shaking and chat from the engaging staff. The drinks menu is immense, with an interesting selection of cocktails, mescal and añejo, though food is no afterthought: it’s primarily small plates, though there are more substantial dishes too.

Bramble

16a Queen Street, 0131 226 6343, bramblebar.co.uk

Blink and you’ll miss Bramble: it’s a hidden basement with nothing but a brass plaque to hint at what lies within. A regular top tip for cocktail enthusiasts, the ever-evolving menu bursts with booze, with several pages dedicated to gins and whiskies, but the cocktails are the real highlight, some featuring their very own spirits.

The Broughton

46–48a Broughton Street, 0131 556 6608, the broughtonbar.com

Lady Libertine

THE STAND

Unrecognisable from its former incarnation, this beautiful space with exposed brickwork and velvet seats has become a classy dining spot which happily accommodates a few pub must-haves: its smart Sunday roast has a loyal following, there are plenty of beers on tap and they’ll happily switch the rugby on if asked.

Edinburgh Gin Mound Bar

The Mound Precinct, Princes Street

Edinburgh Gin’s pop-up at the Mound Precinct (just outside the National Galleries) offers a full range of Edinburgh Gin’s popular G&T serves and refreshing gin cocktails, alongside local beers and ciders. The bar runs daily from 5–28 August.

The Guildford Arms

1–5 West Register Street, 0131 556 4312, guildfordarms.com

One of Edinburgh’s most beautiful traditional bars, with gleaming dark wood and brass twinkling in the soft lights. But don’t be fooled by the pretty: beer is a serious business here, with new guest ales arriving almost every day. There’s always something new (and perfectly kept) to discover.

Hoot The Redeemer

7 Hanover Street, 0131 220 0310, hoottheredeemer.com

Step down the unremarkable staircase and push the fortune teller hard.

You’ll find yourself stepping back into a 1950s funfair complete with vintage cinema seating, booths and stools. This bar is heavy on the fun, light on the navel-gazing, with boozy slushies and alcoholic Senor Scoop ice-cream to bring out the inner child.

Lady Libertine

25 West Register Street, 0131 322 1020, ladylibertine.co.uk

Split over two floors, both of which have a different feel and menu: a bright, airy ground level wine café bar and a sexy basement bar, dripping in jewelled wallpaper and geometric pattern. Med-inspired small plates are a real cut above the norm, while interesting cocktails are prepared with skill and plenty of panache.

Pickles

60 Broughton Street, 07485 711023, getpickled.co.uk

Pickles just works: if it didn’t exist, you’d have to invent it. Generous platters of Scottish cheese and charcuterie are perfect for grazing and sharing, the welcome is genuinely warm and the excellent wine list has offerings from all over the world, including a good number by the glass.

And they're dog-friendly too.

Take a break from the city and come and discover what’s on in Fife this summer www.welcometofife.com/events

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JAMES SEABRIGHT PRESENTS

AN ACHINGLY FUNNY RHYMING RETELLING OF DIE HARD WRITTEN AND PERFORMED BY RICHARD MARSH DIRECTED BY HAL CHAMBERS 3-29 AUG (NOT 10, 17, 24) 14:35

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pleasance courtyard

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cene of many a lost Fringe weekend, Pleasance Courtyard’s vast array of performance spaces means there’s always something going on, whether it’s comedy, new writing or music. This sense of ‘come for a show, stay for a week’ is enhanced by the pop-up bars and food vendors that surround the courtyard site, as well as a fantastic space for kids.

When you do manage to tear yourself away, you’ll find you’re minutes from the Old Town. The High Street is one of the main spots for street theatre in August; it’s easy to lose an hour or two to the fire-eaters, acrobats, buskers and patter-merchants when you’re on your way to The Hub, home of the International Festival. For lower-key pleasures, seek out the hidden spaces that line the spine of the Royal Mile, like the garden at Dunbar’s Close, or the quiet courtyard outside the Scottish Book Trust. You’ll also find some of the main venues for the Edinburgh Art Festival around here, including the City Art Centre, beautiful Dovecot Studios and Fruitmarket.

There’s plenty to eat in this part of town, though the tourist traps are many: our recommendations will keep you right. Breakfast, Brunch & Lunch is a popular wee café if you have an early show at Pleasance Courtyard, or if you’re wandering up to the Festival Theatre for an International Festival production you could do a lot worse than Pizza Posto. If you want to combine your culture with some whisky, Holyrood Distillery Courtyard is a ten-minute walk away, with craft beers, gin and street food as well as distillery tours. Veggies and vegans will also appreciate Kalpna, a veggie Indian restaurant that’s just a couple of blocks away.

In association with

RESTAURANTS

Taza In Town

Blonde

75 St Leonard’s Street, 0131 668 2917, blonderestaurant.co.uk

PLEASANCE COURTYARD

One of those places that feels like it’s been around for ever. Blonde continues to draw crowds of loyal fans year-round thanks to a commendable focus on Scottish produce, a relaxed environment and fair pricing, creating a lovely experience that is far, far more than the sum of its parts.

Chop House Market Street

Arch 15, East Market Street, 0131 629 1551, chophousesteak.co.uk

With three branches around town, Chop House has perfected their formula of slick food, drink and service in funky interiors. The steak is consistently exceptional: tender, juicy and full of flavour Scottish beef, dry-aged in-house for a minimum of 35 days then cooked on an open-flame charcoal grill.

Mother India’s Café

3–5 Infirmary Street, 0131 524 9801, motherindia.co.uk

TAKEAWAY

One of those nights? We’ve got you. If you’re soaking up the booze, feeding the hangover or just don’t have time to eat, here are a few takeout highlights

BURRITO N SHAKE 97–99 South Bridge, burrito-n-shake.co.uk Offering a simple menu of Mexican standards, kebab wraps and thick shakes, Burrito N Shake is right in the heart of the action and open very, very late.

CAFÉ PICCANTE 19 Broughton Street, cafepiccante.co.uk Honest, it’s not a club; it’s a chippy, albeit an ultra-violet, beatinfused one. A seminal Edinburgh experience. Get the chips and cheese.

KEBAB MAHAL 7 Nicolson Square, 0131 667 5214, kebabmahalendinburgh.co.uk Reliably tasty tandoori, curry and kebabs. This place has been around for more than 30 years so they know a few things about feeding hungry revellers.

L'ALBA D'ORO 7 Henderson Row, 0131 557 2580, lalbadoro.com An Edinburgh institution, this traditional fish and chip shop has been making hungry people happy for well over four decades now.

PALMYRA PIZZA 22 Nicolson Street, palmyrapizza. co.uk Despite the name, Palmyra Pizza’s

selection of kebabs and wraps are incredibly popular and there’s seating too if you want to take the weight off for wee bit.

SLUMDOG DELIVERED 38–39 Elm Row, 0131 297 3297, slumdogdelivered.com Bright and lively Indian takeaway, with a vibrant selection of street food which is worth exploring.

There’s a second branch in Morningside Road.

Delighting the capital’s diners with its imaginative selection of tapasstyle Indian dishes since 2008, the skill of the kitchen is most apparent when it comes to their treatment of seafood: chilli king prawn is a terrific example of balancing spicing and heat without eclipsing the underlying flavour of the shellfish.

Service is prompt and unfussy.

The Pakora Bar

251–253 Canongate, 0131 241 8836, pakorabar.co.uk

Scottish produce meets Punjabi street food at this photogenic spot on the Canongate. The menu focuses on (you guessed it) pakora, for when a quick and spicy snack between

shows is on the cards. Or settle in to one of the al fresco seats and linger over haggis and black pudding crispy pakora.

Soi 38

38–40 Clerk Street, 0131 618 8502, soi38.co.uk

Soi 38 is all about fast and tasty Thai street food, so if you’re after a quick bite between shows in the Southside, this place has you covered. Zingy green papaya salad and rich massaman curry topped with crunchy peanuts are whipped up in five to eight minutes, without skimping on the flavour.

Tanjore

6–8 Clerk Street, 0131 478 6518, tanjore.co.uk

This no-frills South Indian restaurant with generous BYOB policy usually bustles with large, happy parties.

Their curry options are no slouch, but the dosas are the true crowning glory: do not miss the masala, a perfectly crisp yet soft dosa encasing a mash of spiced potatoes, tomato and onion, served with sambar and chutneys.

Wedgwood the Restaurant 267 Canongate, 0131 558 8737, wedgwoodtherestaurant.co.uk

A smart restaurant earning welldeserved accolades by producing consistently high-quality cooking with an emphasis on game and foraged foods. The drinks list is a particular passion and new wines are introduced regularly. This is somewhere to linger and recharge over excellent food and wine.

White Horse Oyster & Seafood Bar 266 Canongate, 0131 629 5300, whitehorseoysterbar.co.uk

A venue of two halves: the front bar section is more suited to a casual experience while the rear

STREETBOX 53 Raeburn Place, 0131 332 0031, streetboxedinburgh.co.uk One of Edinburgh’s best Thai restaurants, this tiny place focuses mostly on takeaway, with traditional options that really hit the spot.

TAZA IN TOWN 69 Bread Street, 0131 629 1480, tazaintown.co.uk Fresh and tasty, Taza’s sharing shawarma platters have built up a cult following on the socials.

There’s a generous sit-in area too.

TURKISH STREET FOOD 58 Elm Row, orderturkishstreetfood.com Look beyond the usual menu options and you’ll find authentic pide, cacik and some interesting grill options. They love a deal too so check their socials.

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Scran Bistro

accommodates those after more conventional dining. Oyster fans are particularly well-catered for with both natural and dressed options, but the bulk of the menu is made up of excellent fish-based sharing plates.

Edinburgh Larder Café

15 Blackfriars Street, 0131 556 6922, edinburghlarder.co.uk

Two different spaces sit next door to each other on Blackfriars Street, both serving up the Larder’s trademark healthy-yet-decadent take on hearty breakfasts and lunches.

The best of Scottish produce shines in both spaces and, although it’s just off the heaving Royal Mile, it’s a friendly, bright and chilled spot.

Loudons

2 Sibbald Walk, New Waverley, 0131 556 7734, loudons.co.uk

Breakfast, brunch and lunch for all appetites is Loudon’s mission, and this huge café is frequently packed with hungry diners enjoying stacks of pancakes, a range of eggs benny (including beef brisket) and all-day breakfasts. There’s a delicious range of cakes if you’re just after coffee

The Milkman

7 Cockburn Street, themilkman. coffee

There are plenty of coffee shops along Cockburn Street, but few compete with The Milkman’s excellent coffee. The baristas are passionate about what they serve and everything feels carefully and lovingly selected. Very much a coffee shop, the food range is small and based around cakes and pastries, with a few sunny seats available outside.

Room & Rumours Coffee

25 East Market Street, instagram. com/roomrumourscoffee

If the smell of freshly baked doughnuts doesn’t entice you in, perhaps the buzz of the state-of-theart espresso machines will. Coffee is taken seriously here, with a rotation of local roasts changing monthly.

If you’ve got time to sit, the new brunch menu gives plenty of reasons to linger.

Santu Coffee Bar

126 Canongate, santucoffee.com

Santu’s owner grew up on a coffee

farm in Brazil, so the focus here is on Fair Trade Brazilian roasts: you may recognise their logo from some of the fine-dining establishments around town. Housed in a pretty 17th-century building, linger at the coffee bar with a pastel de nata.

Scran Bistro

7 North Bridge Arcade, scran-bistro. business.site

Against a backdrop of exposed brickwork and an ivy-covered ceiling, brunch staples and comfort food are the focus at Scran. Brioche burgers stuffed to bursting, breakfast wraps oozing egg yolk and fried chicken and waffles cure those dayafter blues, while milkshakes are a full pudding in a glass.

BARS The Auld Hoose

23–25 St Leonards Street, 0131 668 2934, theauldhoose.co.uk

There’s nothing more comforting than a pile of nachos, overflowing with giant dollops of salsa, sour cream, guacamole and generous amounts of melted cheese. The Auld Hoose is a haven for hearty pub food, with plenty of vegetarian and vegan-friendly options, interesting beers and the best metal/punk juke box in the city.

The Cocktail Geeks

27 East Market Street, 0131 557 1224, thecocktailgeeks.com

In a tiny Edinburgh bar, a team of mixologists geek out about their favourite things, creating immersive cocktail experiences with a new theme and menu every three months.

This summer’s theme is the Upside Down, inspired by Netflix’s Stranger Things. Expect hard shakes and boozy I-scream floats. Booking essential.

The Holyrood 9A

9a Holyrood Road, 0131 556 5044, theholyrood.co.uk

The Holyrood 9A has built its reputation as one of the city's best burger joints, with options showcasing haggis, halloumi and everything in-between. It’s also a hotspot for beer lovers, with 25 taps of rotating brews highlighting local and international ales, ciders and beers: check the board for the flavours of the month.

Kilderkin

65 Canongate, 0131 556 2101, kilderkingroup.co.uk

Unpretentious comfy boozer featuring a pub grub and pizza menu and a well-stocked back bar, with a particularly strong range of rums.

Kilderkin attracts a fiercely loyal crowd drawn by regular open mics and spoken word nights, while the weekly quiz is harder fought than a local football derby.

Pilgrim The Milkman

MY PICKS

3 Robertson’s Close, 0131 557 3768, pilgrimbar.co.uk

Not all who wander are lost,

HAL CRUTTENDEN COMEDIAN The Mosque Kitchen on Nicolson Square is a place I frequent at the start of the Festival when I’m determined not to overspend and fancy high-quality, no-frills Indian food that tastes good and feels healthier. I like to look across the road at people in KFC and sneer at their life choices.

Breakfast at City Café on Blair Street has to be done at least once. Great food and a good place to catch up with comics and bitch about the Fringe. I’m single in Edinburgh for the first time since 1999. If I meet anyone I want to impress, I’m taking her to The Witchery on the Royal Mile. It’s classy and my date will think I’m loaded . . . until my card gets rejected. When that woman dumps me after a disastrous first date, I’ll be eating in the KFC on Nicolson Street being judged by people in The Mosque Kitchen.

n Hal Cruttenden: It’s Best You Hear It From Me, 3–28 August, Pleasance Courtyard, 8.10pm.

proclaims the neon sign outside Pilgrim: wise words indeed for the footsore festivaller in desperate need of a cheap cocktail, hearty bar snack and, perhaps, a DJ set or two to unwind to. Pilgrim is a straightforward yet quirky drinking den with a lot going for it.

Salt Horse

57–61 Blackfriars Street, 0131 558 8304, salthorse.beer

Salt Horse has more than 350 beers, served either in two-thirds of a pint glasses from one of the twelve regularly changing beer taps, or in bottles or cans. The menu focuses on burgers, po boys and wings, the staff know their beer onions and there’s an excellent hidden garden too.

Tipsy Midgie

67 St Leonard’s Hill, 0131 563 9061, tipsymidgie.com

This shiny new whisky bar promises to demystify the water of life, with flights and themed tutored tastings galore. But this is no bar for sternfaced whisky purists; there are whisky cocktails as well as fizz and gin, plus their take on the ‘half and half’ – a can with a dram.

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PLEASANCE COURTYARD

CAFES

with something sweet, and there’s a second branch at Fountainbridge.

THE FORTH FLOOR BRASSERIE AND BAR

Things are heating up at Harvey Nichols.

Enjoy three courses and a cocktail for £33 with our new Summer Dining menu.

Available from 1st July — 30th September.

BOOK YOUR TABLE NOW +44 131 524 8350 | harveynichols.com ST ANDREW SQUARE, EDINBURGH, EH2 2AD

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Photo © 2022 Brighton Studio; Illustration © 2022 Lisa Smith

Edinburgh49

Fringe favourites Theatre Fideri Fidera are back with a hilarious reimagining of the legend of Swiss folk hero Wilhelm Tell

Perfect Summer holiday fun!

12:00 3 - 21 AUG 2022 (Not 10/17) (60 miNs)

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summerhall

A

s a venue, Summerhall has it all: a former vet school, it’s an atmospheric rabbit warren of nooks and crannies given over to shows, exhibitions and, for one night only, our very own List Festival Party. Their Royal Dick Bar is far more than a pre or post-show stop-off point; spread across a couple of rooms and a big enclosed courtyard, the drinks menu features Barney’s Beer and Pickering’s Gin, both of which are made on-site.

A short walk takes you to The Queen’s Hall, an intimate concert hall where the International Festival’s programme of morning recitals is a gorgeous way to start your day. Talking of good starts, one of the best things about Summerhall’s location is its proximity to the green spaces of the Meadows. There, as well as Underbelly’s Circus Hub, you’ll find an excellent playpark, tennis courts, cafés (Victor Hugo’s original branch on Melville Terrace is recommended) with acres of space to sit and watch the world go by, pet a few dogs or join in an impromptu game of frisbee.

Continuing along the Meadows brings you to Bruntsfield, for decades the student heart of Edinburgh. Here you’ll find food and drink aplenty: Three Birds is a tiny wee bistro offering adventurous flavour combinations; Seeds For The Soul is a pretty vegan café with epic cakes; and new wine bar Fin & Grape’s lobster rolls led to block-long queues during lockdown.

Alternatively, head up Causewayside towards Newington to find a more residential area offering a welcome change of pace. The Old Bell Inn, and neighbour The New Bell, are quieter, traditional pubs; Sofia’s Lounge is a pretty Lebanese restaurant that caters well for most dietary requirements; and Voujon is a traditional Indian restaurant with particularly good seafood options.

RESTAURANTS

Leftfield

Apiary Restaurant

SUMMERHALL

33 Newington Road, 0131 668 4999, apiaryrestaurant.co.uk

Apiary’s cosy, rustic interior and palpable neighbourhood atmosphere are the setting for top-to-tail cooking, a mantra which makes its presence known across the menu; for example, crispy pigs' ears are reinvented as a snack. Global influences are prominent and their handling of seafood deserves an honourable mention.

CAFES Beetroot Sauvage

33–41 Ratcliffe Terrace, beetrootsauvage.co.uk

This completely plant-based café is a perfect oasis. There’s a yoga studio upstairs and a real calm, community feel. An all-day brunch menu moves into simple lunches of stews, soups, salads and sandwiches, while their shakes and cakes prove that good for you can also be a little bit naughty.

Great spot for a reset.

Ikigai Ramen

13 West Crosscauseway, ikigairamen.co.uk

This petite ramen joint feels as though it could be tucked down a Tokyo side-street. Miso and tonkotsu broths are rich and warming and noodles are made fresh daily. Street food staples like gyoza and takoyaki are available, but really it’s all about the steaming bowls of ramen topped with a gooey egg.

Bonnie Burrito

82 South Clerk Street, 0131 662 0007, bonnieburrito.com

After starting life as a food truck (which still operates from Lauriston Place), Bonnie B have gone bricks and mortar on South Clerk Street.

Customisable and easy to eat on the run, their burritos make for a relatively healthy, nice and spicy, on-the-go feed.

Kim’s Mini Meals

5 Buccleuch Street, 0131 629 7951, kimsminimeals.com

Sizzling bulgogi and hot-stone bowls of bibimbap are served in this family-run restaurant, where the interior feels like someone’s homely living room. It’s a small space, right in the heart of the Fringe, and it’s not open late, so best show up early to be sure of your bibimbap fix.

LeftField

12 Barclay Terrace, 0131 229 1394, leftfieldedinburgh.co.uk

A short stroll along the Meadows to Bruntsfield Links brings you to this charming corner bistro where

that’s the vibe at Pataka. Adored by the city’s veggies and vegans for their wide range of plant-based options, there are no huge surprises but still much to enjoy: the saag paneer side is worth a visit on its own.

a concise and colourful menu celebrates the Scottish larder, with a particular emphasis on seafood.

There are a few outdoor seats (catch them if you can), plus a new bar area where you can explore the interesting wine list.

dishes and hearty flavours on show in this busy restaurant. The menu roams through Mozambique to Goa to East China, melding a fusion of cultures and ingredients which are at once comforting and thrilling.

Macau Kitchen

190 Causewayside, 0131 668 1167, patakarestaurant.co.uk

93 St Leonard’s Street, 07577 667334, macaukitchen.uk

A modest front of house doesn’t begin to hint at the range of punchy

Beetroot Sauvage

140 THE LIST | Edinburgh Festival Guide 2022 | list.co.uk/edinburgh-festival

Pataka

Indian-Bengali meals are rarely served in a dining room that pays homage to Charles Rennie Mackintosh, but

The Earl Grange Café

2 Fountainhall Road, 0131 629 0132, instagram.com/ earlgrangecafe

Tucked away from the crowds, sunlight streams into this café through big Victorian shopfront windows.

On the menu, wedges of homebaked brownies and artisan coffees accompany a selection of toasties. Bag a window seat to watch the world go by and peruse the selection of gifts and books while you sip a frothy cappuccino.

MY PICKS

Honeycomb & Co

1 Merchiston Place, 0131 228 4641, honeycombandco.com

DILJEET KAUR BHACHU

Victor Hugo Deli

PRODUCER, HOME IS NOT THE PLACE/TWA

With sites on George Street and the Shore, there are now three Victor Hugo’s around town, but this is the OG. A sparkling deli counter is a feast for the eyes, jam-packed with sandwiches, savoury mains and a strong selection of pastries and cakes. Breakfast and brunch options reveal pancetta-stacked waffles and eggs and avo every way, plus there’s generous outdoor seating too.

As the resident commuter and sugar addict, the indulgent brownies and cakes at Mimi’s Little Bakehouse at City Art Centre will be fuelling my journeys from the station to Summerhall this August. I also recently brunched here; their take on beans on toast is definitely good Fringe fuel. For a quick, fresh, healthy lunch, Eve Allan (our stage manager) recommends a Hawaiian poké bowl at KauKau Poke on South Bridge. Build your own bowl with rice or salad, a range of proteins, veg, dressings and toppings. With Home is Not the Place being partly set in (writer/ performer) Annie George’s birthplace of Kerala, it would be remiss to not introduce you to food from the region. Annie recommends Nilgiri Spice on Brougham Street. Masala dosa and idli, which Annie describes as ‘steamed flying saucershaped discs of childhood joy’, are best enjoyed fresh rather than as takeaway. Both are traditionally served with sambar (lentil and vegetable curry) and a coconut chutney.

n Home Is Not The Place/Twa, Summerhall, 3–28 August, 7.20pm.

Elliott’s

27 Sciennes Road, instagram.com/ elliottsedinburgh

26–29 Melville Terrace, 0131 667 1827, victorhugodeli.com

BARS

KIDS

Black Ivy

4 Alvanley Terrace, 0131 564 1901, weareblackivy.com

This massive, stylish bar works hard to be all things to all people, with lots of different spaces for eating and drinking, and food served from 8am well into the evening. But the outdoor terrace is really where it’s at, especially when the sun shines.

No 1 The Grange

1 Grange Road, 0131 667 2335, no1thegrange.co.uk

Food is the focus at this comfortable corner bar on the boundary of Newington and the Grange, where the bright interior and booths and nooks make it an ideal stop. Real thought has gone into the place, with well-considered food and drink and confident cooking: there’s a topnotch Sunday lunch too.

Southpour

1–5 Newington Road, 0131 650 1100, southpour.co.uk

Jessica Elliott Dennison brings a wealth of experience as a cookbook writer to her café and store, where simple, seasonal cooking is front and centre. You’re just as likely to pick up a new cook’s knife as a coffee at this sunny spot, though it’s her breakfast cake that locals have really taken to their hearts.

Brunch, lunch, dinner, cocktails; this place does it all, with a stylish backdrop of exposed brickwork and twinkling fairylights. Pub grub is elevated by a focus on the locally sourced; like scampi and chips accompanied by seaweed and charred lemon. A healthy rotation of local craft beers is on offer and the cocktail menu is seasonal too.

Fortitude

Steel Coulson Southside

Coffee dominates in this small but perfectly formed space, though fresh baking and beans are also available.

Fortitude is building a formidable reputation for the attention to detail they pay to their brews. You’ll also find branches in Stockbridge and York Place.

The home of Bristol’s Dawkins Ales in Scotland, the Steel Coulson gang have preserved the charm of this traditional pub and added a huge array of craft beers and ciders.

They’ve incorporated a bottle shop too, so it’s well worth stopping off if you’re looking for something to take back to your digs.

72 Newington Road, fortitudecoffee.com

SUMMERHALL

With sunshine yellow seats and a picture-perfect cake counter, Honeycomb & Co buzzes all day with equally tempting breakfast and lunch menus. The menu is compact at first glance but lots of dishes are customisable; so hey, why not add black pudding to your shakshuka or bacon to your cheese on toast?

114 Causewayside, steelcoulsonltd. selz.com

Most places around town are perfectly accommodating when you’ve got the kids in tow, but our picks are definitely worth exploring for an extra dash of family-friendly

@PIZZA 188 High Street, 0131 560 2299, atpizza.com Choose your own toppings and watch your pizza cook in 90 seconds: @pizza’s blend of speed and interactivity is perfect when hunger strikes. Also in the West End. BERTIE’S RESTAURANT AND BAR 9 Victoria Street, bertiesfishandchips.com A giant fish and chip shop spread across two floors, there’s something for everyone in this fun homage to Scotland and Italy’s shared food heritage.

CORO THE CHOCOLATE CAFÉ 12 Frederick Street, corochocolate.co.uk Yep, it does exactly what it says on the tin and yep, you’ll regret giving them that sugar rush almost immediately. But it is chocolate heaven, and they’re only wee once . . .

DI GIORGIO 1 Brandon Terrace, 0131 624 4666, digiorgio.homestead. cloud.com Genuinely warm, family-run café with an Italian twist and a cracking full breakfast. King George’s park is just around the corner too.

FRANCO MANCA 19–23 South St Andrew Street, 0131 560 1329 Popular pizza chain with a fair price-point, friendly, speedy service

and a super-central location, with a second branch set for a summer opening down by the Water of Leith in Stockbridge.

MARY'S MILK BAR 19 Grassmarket, marysmilkbar.com There’s ice-cream, then there’s Mary’s Milk Bar ice-cream. It’s worth getting there early as they often sell out of their amazing home-made creations.

THE SCRAN & SCALLIE 1 Comely Bank Road, 0131 332 6281, scranandscallie.com Tom Kitchin’s upmarket version of a traditional British boozer has been designed with families in mind; as well as a kid’s menu, they’ll adjust the mains to suit smaller appetites.

THE STORYTELLING CAFÉ Scottish Storytelling Centre, 43–45 High Street, scottishstorytellingcentre.com This homely café is an oasis among the madness of the Royal Mile, with plenty of space, wholesome activities and an excellent bookshop on the premises.

VITTORIA ON THE BRIDGE 19 George IV Bridge, 0131 225 1740, vittoriagroup.co.uk Traditional, stylish and roomy Italian restaurant where children are treated like mini royalty. The children’s menu is excellent value and they also do half portions of pasta.

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“Brilliant work … comical … inspirational” Atlanta Press “Insight, humour and endearing sincerity” Southern Voice A-List

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leith theatre

L

eith and Edinburgh used to be completely separate entities, and it’s true that in the past Leithers could easily avoid all the August action simply by not venturing past Pilrig Street. The revitalisation of Leith Theatre has done much to change all that, although if you are heading to the International Festival’s brilliant series of performances there, you might not necessarily be overwhelmed with nearby shows to add to your day planner: check out Leith Depot for music, The Granary for comedy or Gilded Balloon’s events at the excellent street food market, The Pitt.

Yet Leith has endless other joys to explore, many of them culinary.

You’ll find natural wine and small plates at Mistral; some of the best seafood in the city at The Ship On The Shore and The Shore Bar & Restaurant; amazing cakes and afternoon tea at Mimi’s Bakehouse; and traditional pints at Carriers Quarters (established in 1785) and Malt & Hops.

Head for the Shore on a sunny evening and you’ll find locals lining the banks of the Water of Leith before heading off to Teuchters Landing for drinks (and a massive outdoor terrace), The King’s Wark for excellent pub grub, or Toast for a sophisticated wine list and generous sharing platters. Places like Bundits of Leith and Cutting Chaii have emerged from lockdown and endless roadworks with a strong sense of identity, and you’ll never go thirsty. The legendary Port O’ Leith bar may have changed in recent times but it’s still worthy of your attention, as is The Bullfinch and Smoke & Mirrors.

The area is also a hub for local brewers and distillers. You’ll find tap rooms from Campervan, Moonwake and Innis & Gunn, a cute wee bottle shop in Beets, plus distillery experiences from gin-makers Lind & Lime.

In association with

RESTAURANTS

artistic happenings taking place around the building. The menu is simple and accessible, with fairly priced dishes: it’s a social enterprise offering training for local people, so a visit here is a tasty way to do some good with your festival budget.

Krema Bakehouse

Aurora

LEITH THEATRE

187 Great Junction Street, 0131 554 5537, auroraedinburgh.co.uk

If you have time for a long, leisurely dinner or weekend lunch, Aurora’s plant-filled restaurant is The One. The menu centres around produce from the surrounding Lothians and Borders (perhaps local lamb loin, sea buckthorn and foraged mushrooms) and each course has a plant-based alternative that feels just as finessed and indulgent.

Krema Bakehouse

21 Leith Walk, instagram.com/ kremabakehouse

An Instagram-worthy array of home baking is on offer at this takeaway cake shop on Leith Walk.

Classic slabs of red velvet cake and brownies are to be expected, but the made-to-order brioche, with a topping and filling of your choice, is the highlight. This alongside Machina coffee and Pekoe Tea.

Bodega

14–15 Albert Place, 0131 555 1423, ilovebodega.com

A contemporary take on the taqueria, this pastel-toned casual restaurant serves Mexican street food fused with flavours from Europe and Asia in a relaxed vibe. Corn tacos make up most of the menu plus a few appetisers. Sharing is recommended, as are the frozen Margs.

Twelve Triangles

148 Duke Street, twelvetriangles. co.uk

Twelve Triangles is a huge sourdough success story, with seven branches now dotted around town.

The Duke Street branch is one of the largest, offering their full array of sourdough, pastries and other treats, including arguably the best croissants in town. Expect quality and cheery service wherever you come across them.

Down the Hatch

13 Antigua Street, 0131 374 5566, downthehatchcafe.com

After a successful few years serving Canadian-inspired diner food in Queensferry, Down the Hatch has now opened at the top of the Walk.

Towering burgers, dirty fries and ice-cream floats mean there’s no chance of leaving hungry. But it’s the poutine (loaded with maple bacon or haggis) that keeps the crowds coming back.

Eleanore

30–31 Albert Place, 0131 600 0990, eleanore.uk

Owned by the team behind The Little Chartroom, Eleanore is a wee gem of a place. The small plates menu is designed for nibbling and sharing, watching the world go by and catching up with friends, in a tiny space that’s big on personality.

Bar stool-style seating only.

Fishers Leith

1 The Shore, 0131 554 5666, fishersrestaurants.co.uk

Set in the base of a 17th-century

watchtower on the picturesque Shore, Fishers is split between two equally atmospheric dining areas, both panelled in dark wood and decorated with assorted nautical paraphernalia. Starters frequently celebrate shellfish and fish also dominates the mains, while the Fishers favourites menu gives a choice of straightforward bistro classics.

Heron

87–91a Henderson Street, 0131 554 1242, heron.scot

Pretty place, pretty plates and pretty views: this airy space (with a showstopping outlook across the Water of Leith) offers confident modern British cooking. With à la carte, tasting menus and delicious bar bites, it’s perfect for almost every August occasion you could think of.

Pera: Turkish Mangal & Meze Bar 57 Elm Row, Leith Walk, 0131 281 4515, turkishrestaurantedinburgh. co.uk

This blink-and-you'll-miss-it Turkish delight at the top of Leith Walk offers an ever-changing mezze selection of homemade dips, vegetables, olives and bread. The charcoal grill really comes into its own when used to barbecue meat to caramelised glory. You'll leave full and happy.

CAFES Alby’s

8 Portland Place, 0131 285 3720, albysleith.co.uk

Late-night hangouts don’t have to be boozy. At Alby’s, you’re encouraged to linger late with a (soft) drink, fuelled by their famous towering hot sandwiches. It’s a precision menu with the beef short rib the star, though the paneer fries are a worthy sidekick.

Café Renroc

91 Montgomery Street, 0131 629 3727, instagram.com/caferenroc

This café has a real community feel so you’ll feel equally at home grabbing a solo breakfast as meeting friends for a leisurely brunch. Inside, the street level space is small and bright with just a few tables, while a spiral staircase leads down to what was once the old bakery, with original baker’s oven still in place.

The Drill Hall Café

34 Dalmeny Street, 0131 555 7100, outoftheblue.org.uk/cafe Heron

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MY PICKS

Just off Leith Walk, the Drill Hall Café seamlessly co-exists with the

NEIL MCLEOD MEDIA MANAGER, EDINBURGH INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL The Pitt is a must for pre-Leith Theatre scran. Five minutes from the venue on foot, it offers a wide range of street food and drink. If you fancy a more refined experience, the newly opened Lind & Lime distillery is just around the corner. You can book yourself in for a selection of gin tastings in the distillery itself. Bundits of Leith is a 10-minute walk away on Constitution Street and is an ideal spot before and after a gig. Swing by before the show and try their range of delicious bao buns (special mention for the hoisin duck) and following one of our Friday night gigs, head back over and take to the stage yourself for karaoke.

Post-gig, I’ll be found in some variation of The Barologist, Nauticus or Teuchters Landing, sinking pints whilst floating on the Water of Leith.

Valvona & Crolla Caffé Bar

19 Elm Row, Leith Walk, 0131 556 6066, valvonacrolla.co.uk

Lost in Leith Fermentaria

82 Commercial Street, 0131 378 7834, campervanbrewery.com

BARS

You’ll find an array of craft beers on tap beneath the vaulted ceiling of this tucked-away bar. The on-site Campervan microbrewery offers zesty IPAs and rich porters on a regular rotation, plus there’s plenty of seating outside.

Bittersweet

Nauticus

Aperitivo isn’t just for the streets of Bologna. Bittersweet is the spot for a neon spritz, negroni and small plates of rustic Italiana in the early evening. Platters of charcuterie are piled high with garlicky mortadella and creamy buffalo mozzarella, while heartier dishes like homemade gnocchi offer a more filling option.

Nauticus celebrates Leith’s colourful boozy history, with skilled bartenders honouring local produce in liquid form. Their cocktails wander from the spice routes to the gin era (stop off here to sample a Trinity and Beyond featuring Arbikie Kirsty's gin, Braemble gin liqueur and a delicious tea syrup) before continuing to wine trading with a Leith sherry, perhaps. They know their whiskies too.

24 Henderson Street, 0131 531 1410, bittersweetleith.co.uk

Joseph Pearce

23 Elm Row, Leith Walk, 0131 556 4140, bodabar.com/joseph-pearce

Quirky décor, friendly-but-cool staff, generous food at decent prices: JP’s is a great locals’ local. There’s a real community feel here and if you’re planning on hanging around the city for a while, it’s a great place to meet new people. Children are very welcome during the day, evenings are grown-ups only.

Leith Depot

138–140 Leith Walk, 0131 555 4738, leithdepot.com

The developers couldn’t crush the Depot, neither could the tram works or the small matter of a global pandemic. This independent, laidback bar, restaurant and venue is therefore worthy of your attention.

The Lioness of Leith

21–25 Duke Street, Leith, 0131 629 0580, thelionessofleith.co.uk

Just a wee bit off the main drag and festival hot-spots, the Lioness is a popular, versatile bar with great food.

There’s a good range of craft beers

Woodland Creatures

260–262 Leith Walk, woodlandcreaturesleith.com

With a fairly plain frontage in the middle of busy Leith Walk, nothing tells you from the outside how good

The Fishmarket

142 Duke Street, Leith, 0131 629 9055, nauticusbar.co.uk

TAKE A BREAK

Nobles Bar & Restaurant

44a Constitution Street, 0131 629 7215, noblesbarleith.co.uk

Year on year, Nobles has evolved from decent pub to dining destination. Its elegant Victorian dark panelled walls, stained glass and nautical curiosities celebrate the rich maritime heritage of Leith but there is nothing old-fashioned about the menu and weekend brunch is well worth a trip.

Roseleaf

23–24 Sandport Place, 0131 476 5268, roseleaf.co.uk

Roseleaf was an early adopter of the restaurant-quality food, craft beers, cocktails served in chintzy ways and revitalised-yet-classic pub interior combo, and continues to draw a loyal audience from across Edinburgh. Menus include brunch, Sunday roast, afternoon tea, kids’ options and an attractive vegan selection, all served in a pretty environment by chilled staff.

Flagging but no space in your itinerary for a trip out of town? Fear not.

A short walk or bus ride can lead you to a quiet spot to refresh, restore and revitalise; with plenty of refreshment, obvs

THE CUMBERLAND BAR 1–3 Cumberland Street, 0131 558 3134, cumberlandbar.co.uk A short stroll through the graceful architecture of the New Town leads you to this beautiful Victorian bar with decent food, local ales and (ta dah!) a huge beer garden.

DINE MURRAYFIELD 8 Murrayfield Place, 0131 374 4800, murrayfield.scot Walking the Water of Leith walk is one of Edinburgh’s best pick-meups. Dine Murrayfield (offshoot of the popular Dine above the Traverse) makes a cosy end-point for your stroll.

THE FISHMARKET 23a Pier Place, 0131 552 8262, thefishmarketnewhaven.co.uk Make like the locals do. Grab a classy takeaway and sit and eat your food beside the sea, followed by a walk around Newhaven’s tiny but gorgeous harbour.

THE LODGE COFFEE HOUSE 69b Braid Road, fb.com/ thelodgecoffeehouse The Hermitage of Braid is a local nature reserve; a perfect spot for blowing off the cobwebs, followed by tea and scones from this sweet wee coffee shop.

Bittersweet

Woodland Creatures really is. It’s simply a great neighbourhood bar, with a decent outside space, friendly staff and (possibly) the best mac and cheese in Edinburgh. Resistance is futile: grab a table and party on.

LEITH THEATRE

If you don't have much of an appetite when you arrive at Valvona & Crolla, you will do by the time you’ve walked through the deli, stacked to the rafters with delicious Italian produce, to the caffé. Dishes are light and fresh, with ingredients sourced almost exclusively from the handsome larder next door.

and spirits, a decent wine selection and impressive cocktail list drawing customers with a wide range of tastes. The interior is beautiful too.

MALVAROSA 262 Portobello High Street, 0131 669 7711, malvarosa.com Edinburgh has it all, including

its own beach. A walk along Portobello prom, followed by generous, traditional tapas will feel like a holiday within a holiday.

MILK AT EDINBURGH SCULPTURE WORKSHOP 21 Hawthornvale, 0131 551 4490, edinburghsculpture.org A popular walk from nearby Victoria Park, the Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop is worth a visit in its own right, especially when Café Milk provides the coffee and cake.

SABZI 162 Ferry Road, 0131 378 8361, sabsistreetfood.com It’s not in the prettiest of spots, but Sabzi sits handily close to the Water of Leith, Victoria Path and Victoria Park; and the food is phenomenal.

SMITH & GERTRUDE 254 Portobello High Street, smithandgertrude.com S&G’s second branch sees them head to Porty, with interesting wines matched with delicious cheese by the sea.

TEA & SYMPATHY 1e Ashley Terrace, 0131 337 2467, teaandsympathy.me Gorgeous neighbourhood café where the tea comes in pots, the home-baking comes on mismatched china plates and the soup comes from Union of Genius. Walk the canal path to get there.

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FESTIVAL HOT SHOTS The Edinburgh International Festival brings us another big name with its contemporary music line-up. American rapper Princess Nokia, whose hits include ‘Sugar Honey Iced Tea (S.H.I.T.)’ and ‘I Like Him’, will perform her trip-hop verses at Leith Theatre on 17 August.

Contemporary circus troupe FLIP Fabrique bring a brand new show to the Fringe this year. In Muse, highly skilled acrobats subvert gender norms as they try to answer one central question: what does it mean to be a woman? All the aerial drama can be witnessed at Assembly Hall.

Artist Jose Campos (who works under the name Studio Lenca) was born in El Salvador, grew up in the US, but ultimately settled in the UK after years of being undocumented. In a series of portraits titled The Invisibles at Sierra Metro, Campos explores his own relationship with identity, as part of Edinburgh Art Festival.

146 THE LIST | Edinburgh Festival Guide 2022 | list.co.uk/edinburgh-festival

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Kvartetto

by KATI RAATIKAINEN + TEAM

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Receptionists

by KALLO COLLECTIVE

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Lion

by CIRCO AEREO + MIMEXPLOSION

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Raging Mother

by HANNA VAHTIKARI + MARZI NYMAN

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Johnny Got His Gun

by ROSSI + HOLOPAINEN + RIIKONEN

FROM START TO FINNISH 3 ‒ 28 AUG 2022

148 THE LIST | Edinburgh Festival Guide 2022 | list.co.uk/edinburgh-festival

Fin.

→ ZOO Southside ( 20:40 )

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