Festive season

I was at an American-Scottish gathering in Atlanta, Georgia, when an attractive young lady wearing a skirt, waistcoat and bonnet in the Buchanan tartan approached me and asked if I could tell her about the Scottish dancing and piping events at the Edinburgh Festival.

I hesitated. “The Edinburgh Festival is a multi-cultural event showcasing international opera, dance and theatre,” I replied rather pompously.

She looked unimpressed. “Why would I want to go to Scotland for that when I can go to Philadelphia or Chicago?” she said. “In that case, what you would probably want to see is the Edinburgh Tattoo,” I told her. “It is one of the most amazing and colourful outdoor musical spectacles in the world. There are massed pipe bands and it celebrates the best of Scotland.”

“That sounds more like it,” she said, and later on, after she had been to it, she wrote to say that the Edinburgh Tattoo had been the most unforgettable night of her life. “The other Festival shows were not that bad either,” she added. Which goes some way towards explaining why the Edinburgh Tattoo in its 52nd year has once again been a sell-out. Taking place on the esplanade of Edinburgh Castle, it annually packs in an audience of 217,000, and even if it's pouring with rain, the show goes on regardless.

Moreover, the Tattoo has become genuinely international. In March 2000, the producer, production team and 300 musicians were given permission by the UK Ministry of Defence to fly to W...

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• By : Roddy Martine
• In : Roddy Martine's World
• Issue : 4
• Page : 7
• Words : 782