Festival still leads the way

Roddy Martine talks...

I have had an involvement with the Edinburgh International Festival since I was a teenager, except that in those days it was not quite such a large affair.

Then it was almost entirely about classical music and drama, with a bit of visual art thrown in. Today there are really eight Edinburgh festivals: the main International Festival, the Fringe, the Edinburgh Military Tattoo and the others celebrating comedy, books, cinema, jazz and television. It becomes a bit too much at times but I would not have it any other way.

For the month of August every year, a great cultural, and sometimes rather silly, blanket settles over Scotland's Capital, engulfing those of us who actually live here in an atmosphere verging on the unreal.

With the population quadrupling, traffic at a standstill, and pubs and clubs open all night, it makes our lives rather complicated, but most of us quiet living individuals have learned to love it.

Those who don't go off on holiday and let their apartments for enormous sums of money. So everybody is happy.

That is with the exception of some of the performers on the Fringe who, unless they get positive media exposure, often have difficulty finding their audiences.

Four years ago I met a troupe of 30 clowns from Croatia who, following a sell-out tour of Canada, Japan and Germany, found themselves performing to an Edinburgh audience of two. They were naturally a tiny bit unhappy, but I had to explain to them that it was nothing personal.

There was so much ...

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• By : Roddy Martine
• In : Roddy Martine's World
• Issue : 10
• Page : 7
• Words : 706