The scene at the end of Hamlet from the International Festival at The Lyceum when the Peruvian cast persuaded a large number of audience members to get up on stage and dance with them.  They had earlier employed audience members in the play within the play scene to good effect.  It was a refreshingly different production that mixed and matched the lives of the actors, all of whom have Down's Syndrome, and the characters they played.  It helped if you knew the play though.

I found Cyrano on the Fringe an equally enjoyable treatment of the original play.  It veered a lot further away from the original than Hamlet did but it still added to the fun if you knew the original.

I saw two other plays from the EIF.  The Outrun, which is also enjoying a film treatment at present, was the story of a girl brought up in Orkney who wants to get out and see the world.  She heads off to London, gets involved in drink and drugs and ultimately returns to Orkney for redemption.  A fine production in many ways but I found it a bit boring.

The Fifth Step on the other hand was certainly not boring.  In my shallow way I enjoyed the humour leaving The Guardian to point out its more serious elements. 

The Fringe plays I saw other than Cyrano were The Sound Inside, My English/Persian Kitchen, Around the World in 80 Days, How I Learned to Drive, So Young, Conspiracy and Precious Cargo,  They were all of some interest as drama and were in general good quality productions.  No downright duds but I can't be bothered to write them up.  Reviews are available if you google them.

For the show I was in, The Kelpie, the Loch and the Water of Life, however I'll do the googling for you. Here it is.

I enjoyed Richard Demarco, Roger McGough, Zeinab Badawi and Kathleen Jamie at The Book Festival.  I missed another couple of people through misadventure, such as being delayed by the need to clear up the mess I made when I spilt the ice-cream I was making all over much of my kitchen and the inside of my freezer.

The Song of the Bulbul and Assembly Hall were two wildly different dance shows in the EIF that entertained without exciting me.  Oedipus Rex at the Museum was billed as a promenade performance but in fact I never moved from the spot.  Sheku Kanneh-Mason on cello and his mucker Harry Baker on piano filled the Queen's Hall with a varied programme that was either echt Bach or Bachlike and a cello (Alastair Savage) with a fiddle (Alice Allen) at St Cuthberts  served up an hour or so of Scottish fare.  

My 11 year old great nieces and their parents were here for the last week of the festivals.  They stayed at the hostel up the road while their grandparents stayed with me.  I saw more of them than I have done over the last eleven years and it was fun.  I think the fact that the door of my washing machine now won't close may have something to do with them but that's a small price to pay for the pleasure of their company.