Moody in Edinburgh (3.9.88)

The essence of the Edinburgh Festival is the Fringe, and the essence of the Fringe, excess. So a one-day flying visit seemed appropriate.  The one-and-a-half hours delay caused by fuel leakage on the original 9 am flight from Gatwick ate into that day somewhat, but as at the Fringe, a certain degree of Buddhist detachment is necessary.

First, a taxi ride to the Assembly Rooms to pick up a ticket for Kate Ceberano and her sextet at midnight.  The Assembly Rooms always provoke regret and nostalgia.  Compared to the very early days of the venue when it was a real hotbed, but one achieved in an organic and at times anarchic fashion, today's Assembly Room is a tribute to dull ergonomics.
 
Then up to the Flowermarket Gallery, one of the nicest exhibition spaces in Edinburgh.  Futuristic images, images from an arty version of Blade Runner: vast dark cities aglow at night, lightning, blazes of lights.  Across to the City Art Galleries for Reality and Imagination, the main exhibition around the Italian theme of the festival; a typical and typically interesting collection of minor Neapolitan painting from the eighteenth and nineteenth century.  Not worth going out of your way to see, but worth seeing for all that.  Ate in the café there, a busy bustling place set in a high room with a particularly spacious air.
 
Also visited James Thin on South Bridge Road.  Another case of the Assemblies; the grand old secondhand department is a shadow of its former self; paltry and boring.  Elsewhere the usual popular books, the new necessities of bookselling.

Down to the National Gallery on the Mound.  The mildly controversial rich maroon wall-covering - the colour Turner wanted for his pictures but got a nondescript non-colour at the Clore - works well, though one complaint: the matching colouring of the accompanying labels are all but illegible.  The National Gallery is a wonderfully compact space.  On to the Pietro Longhi exhibition - though the latter term is being generous.  Interesting for its close observation of that crazy Venetian society which tottered to its end in 1797. Otherwise all a bit small-scale.

Back to the Flowermarket for tea - the only place to have it - then to St Columba's by the Castle via a photography exhibition at the Stills Gallery, always worth a visit.  St Columba's was, of course, the venue for my own Fringe concerts.  Although the visit was to the crypt rather than the church itself, it was an interesting act of excavation and exorcism.

The piece was Morgaine by Able Bodies.  This turned out to be quintessential Fringe stuff.  Judging by some of the background to the performance - the scratched out names on the leaflet, the changed timing - this was a cut-down version of something.  Not that you could tell.  Four young ladies hummed and chanted and keened their way through a vaguely feminist interpretation of aspects of the Arthurian legend.  It was all faintly embarrassing, but impressive as a result; this was young, tentative theatre teetering on the brink and sometimes over the edge.  An audience of 16 looked on tolerantly.

Back over to the Assembly Rooms taking in the International Exhibition of Photography, which proved to contain pretty much the collection of obvious images you would expect: naked ladies, misty fields, whimsical collocations, gnarled shepherds.  On quickly to the Picabia exhibition; poor trite stuff, redeemed by the presence of Stephen Varcoe practising for his concert there that evening.  The informality - he kept on stopping and making comments - worked well.  Perhaps other galleries should follow suit.  Food at the Assembly Rooms was even worse than remembered, something between school dinners and a greasy spoon.

On to the Playhouse, the main pretext for my visit.  There for the second performance of John Adams' 'Nixon in China', with the original Houston Opera cast.  A deceptively large theatre, cunningly built on the side of hill.  Adams himself conducted a thrilling performance.  The chorus was razor-sharp in its ensemble, the scenery grand and impressive, the stage business all that one has come to expect from whizz-kid Sellars.  The singing of the soloists uniformly impressive, but special mention for John Maddalena's totally convincing Nixon.  Contrary to some critics, I see the very bleak and simple third act as the perfect conclusion to the grandiose theatrics which precede it: surely the point is that Nixon in China, for all the mythic nature of that event, remains populated by small, insecure people.  The only failure was the miking of the singers, which altered the acoustics badly, and sometimes caused pops and squeaks.  A modern masterpiece nonetheless.

Then on to the Kate Ceberano concert. A young - 21 - Oz jazz singer, she had tremendous onstage presence, great grace, natural ability - but little character.  She constantly sounded like someone else.  Her band was rather unfocussed and sloppy.  Back across the city to Club Sandino - adjacent to the Playhouse for the final stop of the evening.  A civilised sort of club with a room upstairs mercifully without loud music, food available, chairs.  There I whiled away the hours of two, three and four o'clock of the morning, watching that unique anthropological specimen, the night-clubber; always trying to be cool, always desperately on the look-out.

Club Sandino definitely the place to be.  Adams was there, along with Maddalena and more of the motley crew.  I took the opportunity of congratulating the former, but unwilling to turn into one of those tiresome devos, took my congé fairly rapidly.  And who else should turn up but Ms Cerebrano? Definitely the place to be.  Along with her and her band, many other Australian fringers who seem to be taking the place over.  Lots of address swapping, fond farewells; it was the last day of the Festival.

And the end of the day.  The Club Sandino finally threw us out at 4.15 am.  Then the fun began; the Great Taxi Hunt was on.   I wandered up hill and down dale for nearly an hour before going to Waverley Station and calling one up.  Edinburgh at 4.30 am is surprisingly lively; lots of wandering couples, lots more snogging in the shop doorways.  A cold morning wind blew down the High Street.  Out to the silent airport, where a few cleaners prepared for the next day.  I arrived there at about 5.10 am, sat and read the new Scotland on Sunday, an attractive paper, boarded my plane and rose up through the bright morning sunshine, on to another day after one well - and truly - spent.

(4.9.88)

Index