The festivals have to a greater or lesser degree all gone online this year and this slightly fuzzy picture is one I snatched from my screen. It was part of the Zoo venue's online presence and is a show called Correction that I saw there in 2015. Here's what I said then:
" Always something different on the Fringe. Can you imagine enjoying a
show where seven people stand in a line having had their footwear nailed
to the floor and sway about very athletically, indeed dance, while four
clarinetists play behind them?
No? Well it's surprisingly entertaining. I went with some of my clarinet class to see Correction last night and enjoyed it though not quite as much as the hollering, whooping crowd of supporters behind us did. "
This was a film of the 2015 show to which my reaction remained the same but there was a seven minute bonus coda for 2020. The coda was provided by the Czech company doing similar acrobatics individually in lockdown isolation. I particularly enjoyed the girl who shimmied about with her feet stuck in her kids' sandpit.
Other than that I've seen very little EIF or Fringe action but quite a lot of the Book Festival. The format of two people sitting chatting about a book works pretty well online though like everything else it's the atmosphere that one misses and that buzz in the streets that makes Edinburgh such an exciting place to be in August.
Claire reminded us in her blog that this year is the tenth anniversary of her production of The Tempest on a barge in the Water of Leith. That's a prime example of how much fun taking part in a Fringe show can be. A wonderful venue and crew, fine set of actors and musicians, enthusiastic audiences and lots of after show socialising.
So back in the wilderness of the 2020 festivals I've had to be content with at home viewing though I've had some socialising. Lunch out twice, once at The Ivy. I was very pleased to eat there, even though I was a backup companion for someone who couldn't make it. There was quite a buzz when the place opened and tables were hard to get. I don't know how long that has lasted but last Monday it was very busy, thanks in part I'm sure to the Chancellor's ten quid contribution. Not that that goes far at The Ivy. The food was excellent though.
This weekend I've enjoyed a sumptuous barbecue and during the week there was a Book Festival event called Scran and Stories that involved food. The company producing the event provided free meals for some and recipes for others, the idea being to eat the food while listening to stories, mostly poems in fact, from people based in North Edinburgh and Musselburgh.
I got the recipes and made a cauliflower and lentils dish which I did eat while I watched and listened. The poems were a mixed bag. Our Thursday online theatre going group watched and shared opinions afterwards. Agreement was not universal.
This week we are due to watch Declan at Traverse 3 which is what they are calling their online space. It's a version of a play called Mouthpiece which played at The Traverse in 2018. I was not all that enthusiastic about it then so we'll see.
Just before I expand on the Book Festival let me mention Albion by Mike Bartlett. Reviewers will tell you this is all to do with Brexit but you needn't worry about that. It's fun on its own account as a story of wishes unfulfilled, an attempt to recover or recreate a real or imagined past, mother daughter dynamics and various other things. It's superbly well acted in a simple garden setting around which flowers are planted as spirits and ambitions rise and then taken off as the dream drifts away.
So books. I'm just going to list everything with a brief comment as an aide memoire for my dotage.
The Edwin Morgan Poetry Award - Twenty thousand smackers and a lesser runner up prize for poets under 30 working in Scotland. I liked the winner's poems (Alysia Pirmohamed) and I loved the delight with which she learnt the news but my preference was for the runner up (Colin Bramwell).
Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell - Shakespeare had a son called Hamnet who died young. The novel deals with the family situation, the plague world of the time and especially his mother Agnes.
The Windrush Betrayal by Amelia Gentleman - Could anything be more disgraceful than the bureaucratic nightmare that led to people settled in the UK for decades being thrown out after being dismissed from jobs, refused medical treatment and otherwise maltreated. Perhaps only the treatment of asylum seekers exemplified by the recent death of Mercy Baguma in Glasgow. Where has British compassion gone?
The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree by Shokoofeh Azar - Iran is another example of a once great civilization gone astray. The novel traces the history of a family against the background of the decade following the 1979 revolution. The author found asylum in Australia and found a translator who remains anonymous for fear of reprisals.
The First Woman by Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi - The story of a headstrong young Ugandan woman finding her place in the world according to the festival blurb. I'm sure I enjoyed the discussion but I'll need to watch it again or maybe just cut to the chase and read the book.
The Shadow King by Maaza Mengiste - Historical fiction based on real family fact about Ethiopian resistance to the Italian invasion in 1935. It focuses in particular on the part played by women in the actual fighting. The discussion was illustrated by various great photos of the fighting ladies, some from the author's family if I remember rightly.
The Advetures of China Iron by Gabriela Cabezón Cámara - It's a buddy road trip novel in which the buddies are the neglected wife of Martin Hierro ( hero of the gaucho foundation myth) and a Scots girl called Liz. They travel and roister together in an Argentina never colonised politically by the British but in which British business held the upper hand. The translators told us how difficult but how much fun it had been tackling the lesbian sex scenes.
The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa - My current interest in Japan led me to this but I was delayed in getting to it then diverted from it and unfortunately it's not on their "Watch Again" list so had I been waiting impatiently for ten years for the translation to appear I'd be slitting my wrists. Fortunately I'm unharmed by the loss.
On the Road by James Naughtie - A really stimulating discussion between Alan Little and Naughtie about his memoir of US politics from Reagan to Trump.
Suzanne Bonnar and Joy Harjo with Jackie Kay - Not a book focussed event but a chat and and some poetry reading between Scotland's Makar and America's poet laureate with a song or two from Suzanne thrown in. Very lively on Jackie's part but not hugely memorable.
James Tait Black Prizes - I missed this and it's not on "Watch Again" but the results are here.
Scabby Queen by Kirstin Innes - A memoir of a fictional Glasgow singer looking back from her suicide at her life against the background of the last fifty years of life in Scotland. It sounds an essential and an entertaining read.
Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo - Three thousand people tuned in to hear Nicola Sturgeon talking to Evaristo about her book. Joint winner of the Booker prize in 2019 her novel has been described as essential to the understanding of modern Britain so I suppose I'd better read it though despite the interest aroused by the discussion I'm not sure that it's quite my thing.
Actress by Anne Enwright - Recently serialised on Radio 4 this novel is about Katherine O'Dell a larger than life Irish actress and her relationship with her daughter Norah. A thoroughly good read judging by the exerpts I heard on the radio.
Livewired: The Inside Story of the Ever-changing Brain by David Eagleman - I've long been fascinated by the workings of the brain and by dreaming in particular. In this book Eagleman puts forward the theory that dreaming is designed to keep those parts of the brain concerned with visual perception from being cannibalised by other parts of the brain while we are asleep. This is a theory I've never heard before. It seemed to make sense as he spoke about it but I'm sure it needs further investigation.
Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart - A book about a sensitive boy growing up in Glasgow with an alcoholic mother, it's been hailed as a great new Scottish novel by the critics. Stuart's first book but ten or more years in the making. The discussion he had with Damian Barr about it and about the childhood experiences that lay behind it was lively, moving and instructive. Barr himself is no stranger to a difficult childhood which made the exchange even more powerful.
The Death of Comrade President by Alain Mabanckou - A Congolese writer I knew nothing of who works in the States as so many African writers have done though he's perhaps unusual in coming from francophone Africa. I didn't learn much about the novel other than that it's very likely an addition to what we migh call post colonial disappointment literature. On the other hand I learnt a fair bit about Mabanckou and his literary influences and determined that I must read again Camara Laye's delightful story of an African childhood, L'Enfant Noir.
Breasts and Eggs by Mieko Kawakami - Another Japanese novelist's first appearance in English. Japanese society retains a reputation for being stuck in patriarchy mode and this novel undercuts that. Its heroines are intent on claiming rights for themselves in modern Japanese society.
How to Stay Sane in an Age of Division by Elif Shafak - I attended this event because I had read and enjoyed Shafak's novel The Bastard of Istanbul. The book under discussion however is not a novel but an extended essay on the problems of our age. She's an obviously articulate, intelligent and perceptive thinker whose reflections I would recommend to our political masters and from which all of us might gain.
