Edinburgh 2008 - the shows

*we didn't actually see a show here, but I liked the pic!

This year, we had longer than ever in Edinburgh, but we didn’t try and kill ourselves by running from one show to another. We took time to eat (and shop). In fact our first show wasn’t a ‘show’ at all but the Vanity Fair Portraits photography exhibition at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery. We’d intended to go and see the Tracey Emin exhibition, until we realised that it was at the Gallery of Modern Art, out of the centre, and we ditched the idea of the Impressionists, as it wasn’t going to match the Musee D’Orsay. ‘Vanity Fair’ was fabulous, but we didn’t really have time to do it justice, as we had to hail a taxi, and cross town to our first ‘proper’ show...

Potted Potter***
‘All 7 books in 70 minutes’ - Yes, I know! And there were a lot of kids in, but there were a lot of adults too, and some of the jokes were distinctly adult orientated. We played a fairly violent game of quidditch (we were Slytherin); I learned that book seven is really all about death, and camping.

Ha Ha Hamlet**
A bit of a mistake, we should have known by the title really. We are now wary of booking anything at the Gilded Balloon, having never seen anything good there. It was ‘energetic’, and they tried hard, and it wasn’t the worst show I’ve seen in Edinburgh.

Aeneas Faversham Forever*****
In contrast, this was brilliant. A spoof Victorian murder mystery, performed by the Penny Dreadfuls. Very skilled performances to a packed audience. And I got a ‘henchman of the month’ badge.

Old Rope**
Late night comedy cabaret, which we went to mainly for Rich Hall. He was excellent, and Richard Herring was also very funny. The female comic, though, wasn’t funny, just drunk.

Shakespeare for Breakfast****
Better than last year’s show. This time we had characters doing The Weakest Link and The Apprentice, which worked really well.

Simon Callow, 'A Festival Dickens'***
The longest show – it even had an interval – in the largest space. Simon Callow performing two stories from Dickens. He was very good, and his timing and pace was excellent. I did have a bit of a problem with material, though, which was Dickens at his most self indulgent. The child died, then the wife, and then the dog! But it pressed all the right buttons, and I cried – it felt a bit like the end of Blood Brothers!

Idiots of Ants****
Great fun. They have a real charm about them, and they’re clever. But they were in the tiniest of venues, Pleasance Beside, which was nothing more than a glorified portacabin. Some great sketches – ‘Wally’ at the Literary Festival, and the cockney ghosts being particular highlights.

So, overall, was it a vintage year? Possibly not, yet I’ve given shows better reviews than other years. Maybe, after 3 years, I’m already becoming a little jaded. The first year, it was all new, and the sheer excitement of being in the middle of all that creative energy was a thrill, last year was such a crazy hectic chase that made it all part of the fun. This year, the weather quite literally put a dampener on it, but also it is getting very expensive. Director Boy was right, you can’t really afford to take many risks when shows are getting on for £10 a shot. Maybe the trick is to go at the very start, when many shows are ‘two for one’, and hope to discover a few 'gems'. All that said, I know I’d miss my Edinburgh ‘fix’ if I didn’t have it.

This year's Edinburgh

The overall impression – cold, and wet, which sadly reduced the chance for celeb spotting in the Pleasance Courtyard*

It also seemed much less busy than last year as well, maybe because we went at the beginning of the week.

Anyway, this year’s lessons:
· Plan ahead if you want to see ‘quality theatre’ – by this week, the ‘hot tickets’ will have sold out, unless you’re prepared to queue for returns
· The National Gallery of Scotland, the Gallery of Modern Art, and the Scottish Portrait Gallery are in different buildings, and long way apart
· Taxis – cheap, plentiful, and the best way of getting from one side of town to another, when you realise you have only 15 minutes to get to the next show
· ‘Self service’ ticket machines aren’t always ‘self service’
· Beware of shows at the Gilded Balloon
· An umbrella needs to be added to the list of essential equipment
· Be prepared for all temperatures from boiling hot (venues) to freezing (Pleasance Courtyard in the rain)

*’celeb’** count, only two – Rhod Gilbert, and Elliott from Idiots of Ants
**I use the word loosely, as both were performing there.

It's been a while...

Miss me? Nah, didn't think so.

I've been kind of busy. Work, social, work, more work. Not enough time to sit and think let alone blog, but I will be back, hopefully over the coming bank holiday weekend.

In between the driving and the work, I've been to Liverpool (for pleasure, as well as for work) and to the Fringe. I've tried to go walking, and have wondered what the heck has happened to summer.

Normal service will (eventually) be resumed.

What I did on my holiday

After Stratford sort of took priority over the last week, (what, I got distracted by Shakespeare and David Tennant, who’d have thought it!), it’s back to the holiday. I do enjoy being able to share holiday pics on line.

Anyway, our cruise… we went from Genoa, to Naples, to Palermo (Sicily), to Tunis, to Palma, to Barcelona to Marseille, and back to Genoa, in the space of a week. For something that was supposed to be relaxing, in that we got transported to all these places and only had to unpack once, it was absolutely exhausting.

When we chose the cruise, we selected one which took us to a different port everyday, thinking that days at sea would be ‘boring’. As it turned out, it would have been nice to have had the chance to relax. Yes, I guess we could have just stayed on the boat in port, as some of the Italian families did, but where would the fun have been in that? I came back feeling I needed another holiday. But I’d seen a lot.

We went with an Italian cruise line, so there were only about two dozen Brits on board, but lots of Italians, also French, Spanish, Germans, Austrians, Canadians, Estonians, Americans (usually living up to their reputation and being loud and obnoxious), so we got to talk to lots of nationalities, though we didn’t use much Italian as most of the crew were from Indonesia.

My highlights were:
On board
· Just looking at the sunset over the sea
· Dressing for dinner (though only 3 nights out of 7, what’s that about?)
· Posing in the posh frocks at any opportunity
· Walking the almost deserted decks after dinner
· The Atrium where the string quartet played every evening, and you couldn’t tell you were on a boat (well, when the floor wasn’t lurching, that is!)
· Talking to two guys from…York!

In port
· Eating pizza in Naples

· Tunisia – I was in Africa, I could hardly believe it

· A fabulous café in Palma
· A rooftop restaurant on La Rambla, Barcelona, where we met our Estonian dinner companions
· La Sagrada Familia – pictures just don’t do it justice. You literally do catch your breath when you see it.
· Aix en Provence – Cezanne lived there, he even bought a flat, but our guide was far to interested in the cathedral to tell us anything about him.

I guess this sort of holiday is a ‘taster’, to discover places that you then want to go back to. I was pleasantly surprised with Palma, and I’d love to see more of Barcelona, as I felt we only scratched the surface. I fell a bit in love with Provence, I want to see more of the area, I want to go to the Chateau D’If, (I need to re-read the Count of Monte Cristo), Arles and Avignon.