Lots of Festival activity got underway this weekend and I sampled some on Saturday.  It was a lovely day and my attention was caught by huts, marquees and crowds in St Andrew's Square so I wandered in to investigate.

It turned out to be a marketing event for East Lothian tourism not a festival event.  There were various stalls advertising the delights of The Museum of Flight, Port Seton Holiday Park etc.  There was a family friendly farm showing off their pigs and goats and providing donkey rides.

A sandpit for toddlers had been set up.   It seemed to me a pity they'd fenced off the pool so no paddling was possible.  In imitation of Paris Plage I'd have made it a proper toddler's beach. 

One young man assured me that the large plastic fish he was carrying around was his day's catch and had it not been for his mum's well timed intervention he'd have returned it to the water from whence he claimed it had come.

Adults had not been forgotten.  Glenkinchie distillery was there extolling the virtues of their product and may have been giving away samples as they do when you visit though I didn't check.

However that visit was incidental to my festival going.  I saw a clarinet recital in St Giles which was pleasant if unexciting and a filmshow I'd rate similarly.  But these at least were free and I saw another free show in a cellar bar in Broughton Street that was excellent.  Billed as Andy and the Prostitutes - The Musical it was disarmingly introduced as not being a musical but some music and a bit of a story.  The story purported to be the eponymous Andy's life from his disappointment at realising that his father was not a Gedi knight through the travails of love and drugs and crime.  We were assured from time to time that it was just a story and the whole was punctuated by amusingly scurrilous songs and lively music played energetically on banjo, violin, guitars and a combination seating unit/ethnic drum.  Add to that a wildly dressed musician's friend in the audience banging rhythm sticks together.

I don't remember how Walt Disney came into the story but they sang a song whose refrain was Uncle Walt was a paedophile.  At the end of the show a guy came up to congratulate them saying "I live in California and I always thought uncle Walt was a paedophile".

Then a fairly feeble comedy, Lingua Frank, for which I paid good money but with a friend in the cast it was worth supporting.

Finally a super show advertised as a 60 minute history of the Blues starting with the quietly sad strains of a plantation harmonica building up through developments of the 30s and 40s on to rock and roll and beyond.  The later music wasn't entirely to my taste but I couldn't fault the band.  They were first class and their presentation was faultless.  Go see the show.

And why not the Grads shows which opened last night. After playing in tonight's performance of  Dr Faustus I'll be seeing Nobody Will Ever Forgive Us.  I loved when I saw it at the Traverse a few years ago and I'm sure Claire's production will be excellent.