These strangely dressed people are attendees at the Edinburgh Sci-Fi Convention.  I was there with the Dunedin Wind Band playing a selection of appropriate music for their entertainment early on a Saturday morning.  We players were then free to wander and wonder.  I'm not au fait with super heroes and space adventures and the world of Tolkien so 99% of the fancy dress and the literature and paraphernalia there assembled meant nothing to me.  But it was colourful and fun.

That's not quite my only outing over the last few weeks but I haven't done too much outside the house.  I went to an excellent SCO concert.  They played Mozart's flute concerto featuring the orchestra's own principal flute, Andre Cebrian, who then, accompanied by a handful of strings, gave a beautiful encore which as is often the case I enjoyed rather more than the  orchestral piece.  Everything else was great.  More Mozart, from Idomeneo.  Some Debussy and Stravinsky's cheerful Danses Concertantes.

With the photography group I went to St Giles and snapped around here and there trying to be arty.  Here's one of my efforts which may end up on a wall.

The library across the road now shows films. On Wednesdays they show mainstream stuff and I think once a month on Saturdays more recherché films chosen by someone who worked at the ill-fated Filmhouse.   I went over to see one of Godard's best regarded films, Pierrot Le Fou.  I rather enjoyed it despite the Nelson Hall's pillars obscuring my view a lot of the time.  I enjoyed it more than Bresson's 1959 film Pickpocket which I watched at home through my BFI subscription. But then although Pierrot deals with misfits and obsession as does Pickpocket it does so with a bit more humour.  Not always intentionally perhaps.

I don't think there was any humour at all in Christopher Nolan's Dunkirk which I missed when it was in cinemas but have now seen on TV.  Reading the Guardian's review I'm almost tempted to pretend that I didn't find it a long watch.  

More to my taste was Fortunes of War, a 1987 TV series that popped up on BBC4.  I'm not sure how much if any of it I'd seen when it first ran but I do remember reading The Balkan Trilogy which together with The Levant Trilogy are the books on which the mini series is based.  You could see the show as slightly zany wartime adventures but it's more an exploration of human relationships in a time of stress.  Kenneth Branagh is superb as the eternally busy English Lit teacher who devotes more time and care to sundry others than to his recently aquired wife.  As his wife Emma Thompson grapples with his loving neglect and tries to find space to express her own needs and wishes.  She's brilliant as are all the actors who portray the fascinating assortment of characters who people the story.

Other old material that I certainly hadn't seen before but which has been filling the gaps between commercial breaks on the likes of ITV3 and Drama has held me captive for several weeks.  Scott and Bailey are a pair of all action lady detectives in Manchester who despite their messy private lives solve a murder or two every week surrounded by a cast of fascinating goodies and baddies played by terrific actors.  George Gently on the other hand is closer to Dixon of Dock Green but with a harder edge as, accompanied by his ambitious and sometimes perceptive sergeant, he sorts out the villians of 1960s Northumberland.  I recorded these shows and watched them with remote poised to shoot through the comercials at speed trying not to overshoot.

A newer cops and robbers series I've binge-watched is The Gold, the story of the hunt for the Brinks Mat bullion robbers.  Again great characters both crooks and cops kept me hooked till the early hours.

Thanks to the BFI I renewed my aquaintance with The Handmaiden, a beautifully shot and performed film that panders to my current interest in things Japanese although it's Korean made and from a Welsh novel set in Victorian Britain.  I learnt that latter fact from Wikipedia which is the source of much of my knowledge these days.  Things Japanese included the fictionalised biography of Thomas Blake Glover by Alan Spence.  Glover for those who don't know was an Aberdonian loon who made it big in Japan in the 19th century.  Wikipedia tells you all you need to know about him.

The Boy With Two Hearts is a cleverly designed and adroitly performed play that tells the tale of a family's flight from Afghanistan to Wales after the mother's brave stand against Taliban rule.  It's a heart-rending story and the fact that it's true adds even more power to the piece.  It's available on NT at Home.  If you do watch it I'd encourage you to watch the accompanying short chat between the two boys from the family.  They wrote the book that the play is made from.

The trams come even closer as Leith Walk is opened to traffic for its entire length in both directions.  Bus heaven restored.

For a while my camera had been giving me problems so that I was forever having to switch it off and on again, by which time the proposed subject had often moved on.  Enquiry established that a repair would cost me pretty well as much as the camera cost to buy so I screwed my courage to the sticking point and bought a new one.  New to me that is and a lens, also new to me.  It's the first time I've owned a replaceable lens camera and I can see that that feature could develop into being an expensive pain in the neck.

The still life above is the second picture I took with it.  The first is even less interesting.

With luck the photography course I'm doing this term will help build on what I learnt last term. I'd actually intended to do a course on the use of Photoshop but not enough people signed up so it was cancelled.  Rather than do nothing photographic I decided to do something similar to what I did last term.  

Music has been good so far this year.  

The Dunedin band got going again and we're on show at the Edinburgh Sci-Fi Con in February with a selection of tunes deemed appropriate to the genre.

I enjoyed a Big Blaw Sunday afternoon session.  I heard the RSNO's Viennese New Year concert well after New Year but who cares.  They were resplendent in their white jackets.  The men that is.  It's their summer outfit really but why not bring a bit of summer into Musselburgh in January.  The concert was in The Brunton and we had an excellent meal in The Gurkha  across the road.  Very good food and swift, impeccably polite and friendly service.  

I heard the RSNO again in their more regular setting of the Usher Hall where they played a brand new piece by a young Scottish composer, Lisa Robertson, celebrating the eagles of her home by the Sound of Mull.  Then we had Beethoven's 5th Piano Concerto with barnstorming encore (no idea what it was) and Brahms's 4th Symphony.  All super.

The SCO meanwhile featured Francois Leleux as conductor and oboist.  The orchestra played a symphony by Louise Farrenc, a name unknown to me but look her up - impressive. Then some of Mendelssohn's Songs Without Words arranged for oboe.  That was absolutely lovely. Then his Hebrides overture and finally Schubert's 4th Symphony.  All very nice but the oboe arrangement made it for me.

Tommy Smith brought his youth orchestra to the Roxy for an afternoon of really good jazz.  They're a talented bunch.  The personnel changes over time as the name implies but there seems to be no shortage of fresh talent as older members move on, many of them to become professional players.  Taking his first steps as a gigging musician and playing tenor for Tommy that afternoon was Sean Megaw, a young man I've bumped into from time to time, first when he played with the Edinburgh Schools jazz band and later at the Napier Summer Jazz School.  He has just graduated from the RCS and is a wonderful player.  Also wonderful that afternoon was a singer called Laura something or other.  I'm sure we'll see a lot more of her.

On Monday I thought all my Christmases had arrived at once when not only did the painters turn up to redecorate the common parts of my block with the carpet fitters promised on their heels but roofers were seen to climb the scaffolding that has languished unconquered against the building for six or seven weeks.  Alas they banged about briefly, and I hope productively, then vanished never to be seen since.  Please come back.

I've long thought that a gap existed in my reading where Samuel Pepys and his diaries should be.  So I borrowed The Shorter Pepys from the library.  It's brick sized while the complete Pepys is house sized.  But the preface assured me that it was not "the best of Pepys".  After struggling to enjoy the book for a while I wished it had been.  So back to the library it went and the gap is unplugged.

One thing I learnt in my brief encounter was that Pepys did a lot of dining and drinking which warmed me to him.  I'm sure I do less of both but I have eaten a couple of times recently.  I had lunch with Siobhan in the former public toilet at Canonmills now known as the Tollhouse.  It was an enjoyable and sociable lunch which lasted a while but I wasn't all that impressed by the food.  Not that it was bad, maybe it was just the very tough cabbage leaves in which my main course was wrapped that soured my enjoyment.  At Beirut on the other hand where I ate with Claire before going to The Studio to see this dance and multimedia show the grub was great.   

The show was billed as a take on the Hitchcock film Vertigo. I read Wikipedia's description of Vertigo when I went home but it would have been much better had I read it beforehand.  The show was, as the review says clever but Claire reckoned the show fell short on emotional engagement for her.  For me likewise.  Maybe it wasn't intended to move us.  Maybe that's a feature of the film as well.  I'll have to check that out some time.

For the last Japanese class of the term we had to write up a recipe following the standard "Japanese recipe speak" and provide a picture of the dish.  I decided to write up a soup recipe and that I might as well make the soup and provide pictures of the various stages.  This is stage one, assembling the ingredients.

The Dunedin concert went quite well.  It was followed by some wine and nibbles in the church hall then more wine and nibbles at Siobhan's.  The following day found me having wine and nibbles at Claire's while watching the Strictly Come Dancing final.  I've seen bits of the show from time to time but this was the first time I've watched it in its almost entirety.  (Thanks to bus chaos I arrived a wee while after it started.)  I won't be holding my breath for the next series to get going but it would be churlish not to express my admiration for the effort and skill deployed by the contestants.  And it was Scotland's night. The winner by public acclaim was wildlife cameraman Hamza Yassim whose home is Ardnamurchan.

The next day I set off for The Bahamas.  From Edinburgh I flew to London and on to Miami where I spent the night.  A deal of tedium was involved in the journey but no particular difficulties arose.  The following morning I went back to the airport which was doing its best to celebrate the season with scenes like this

and met up with Ewan for the short flight to North Eleuthera.

It was a joy to land at an airport that brought back memories of Kitwe.  The terminal building was a bit grander. Hard to believe from the picture perhaps.  The principal feature that the two airports share is  that from leaving the aircraft you can get to the perimeter fence in a dozen paces and inside the terminal there are not miles of corridors and stairs and little trains and so on and so on.

We had to queue for a while since the small number of immigration and customs staff were busy dealing with an outgoing flight.  When we did get in I discovered much to the disappointment of the guy who hoped to earn a buck from carrying it ten yards from the luggage trolley to the customs bench that my luggage had not arrived.  I gave all the details to the very friendly American Airlines rep and then settled down with a coke on a cafe verandah from where I took this picture of the landward side of the terminal to wait for Fiona and Connor who were coming in from Nassau a little later.

They arrived safely with their luggage on a little plane that had been a bit cramped and whose crew had handled things a bit more casually than is the rule in major airlines.

Then we piled into a taxi and drove a few miles to a place called Gene's Dock to catch the little ferry to Spanish Wells where in a golf cart and a backie we made the short trip to this lovely house

Some of us were a bit tired after the jouney

Spanish Wells is a small place, population around 1500, with some pleasant beaches, pretty much deserted while we were there, a couple of supermarkets, a few eateries and not much more.  The mainland which is how Eleuthera is referred to by the locals is very long and thin.  We had a car for a couple of days but didn't want to spend all day in it so we only explored the northern section including going to Harbour Island.  According to our waitress at lunch there it's an island that never sleeps. A description reinforced by the speedboat style ferry that took as there.  That was certainly not true of St George's Cay on which Spanish Wells sits nor of what we saw of the mainland.  There are not too many sights to see.   So it was a quiet holiday with mixed weather.  We caught a bit of cold wind and drizzle from the weather system that brought so much chaos to the US and Connor's enjoyment was marred by a dose of flu which lasted up until the last couple of days.  Here are a few pics

The Sandbar Restaurant

Chrismas Decorations with Talking Santa

Preacher's Cave, used for services for 100 years in 17th/18th century

Beach at the bottom of our street

Ewan and the restaurant across the street

Windswept palm

Pool to plunge in.  We didn't.

Another place we didn't plunge into

Signpost to other islands

On Harbour Island beach

Boarding the Ferry to Spanish Wells

Ferry passengers

I could put in more but you get the idea.

The journey home was a bit faster than the journey out thanks to the jetstream and it was also a little more eventful.  At immigration in Miami I presented my passport expecting to be waved through but after three attempts to take my photograph unsuccessfully and after lots of staring at screens and incessant keying at a terminal the man in the booth said "stand there an agent will be with you shortly".

And indeed another immigration guy strode up grabbed my passport, which now had an orange paper stuck in it, from agent number one. He told me to stand against a wall and disappeared to return shortly trailing another passenger with him.  He motioned for me to follow.  Three steps later he threw open a door and barked "wait in there".   

Heart in mouth I asked "What's the problem?"  Astounded at my temerity he glared and said "You're due an inspection."  That meant nothing to me of course.  Could he mean a strip search I wondered. 

There were two or three dozen people sitting around and a row of open cubicles from behind which voices emanated.  I couldn't see the agents who generally called out names for people to present themselves.  A big notice forbade photography, eating and the use of phones.  Ewan had gone through some fast track residents channel so wasn't aware of my situation and I didn't want to blot my copybook by making a phone call but eventually managed to surreptitiously get a text out.  At one point an airline employee went round asking who was an American Airlines passenger.  I stuck my hand up.  He scanned my Miami-London boarding card, told me that AA now knew where I was and assured me that I didn't need to collect my luggage.  I had no intention of doing so.  It was checked through to Edinburgh.

Eventually a garbled version of my name was called out with a cubicle number.  I went up.  My passport was in the air on the end of an arm.  I still couldn't see the person but the voice declared "You're good to go buddie"or maybe it was "brother".  I made my  way to the exit where there was yet another check on my passport.  This time the agent asked about my travel and whether I was travelling alone. That he suggested was why I was temporarily detained.  Still doesn't make sense to me.

Anyway I caught the flight, watched quite a good film (Where the Crawdads Sing) , was served a frankly tasteless meal which I subsequently slated in the review BA asked for.  We hit London on time.   The Edinburgh flight left punctually and I got home about midday.

What have I done since then?  Nothing worth recording except Phil's succulent, melt in the mouth stew with dumplings for lunch on New Year's Day and his scrumptious mackerel pâté served on Naomi's delicious homemade bread.

As delicious tasting as it was beautifully presented this was the pudding of the Christmas menu I chose on a trip to Glasgow yesterday.  The restaurant was Ardnamurchan in Hope Street.  The tables were laid out with Christmas crackers so it seemed only fair to choose from the Christmas menu.  I don't suppose a haggis bonbon starter could be decribed as traditional Christmas fare but the turkey and trimmings and Christmas pud that followed them certainly can.

I was in Glasgow to go to a production of Merrily We Roll Along at the RCS.  Ardnamurchan was handily just around the corner for lunch beforehand.  I accompanied my turkey with a couple of glasses of South African Shiraz.  That proved slightly unwise because I drifted off at one point and missed part of act 1 from what was a really excellent production.  The student cast were marvellous as was the band, set design, stage management, you name it.  If I were forced to pick a fault I'd say the lighting was occasionally misdirected, or maybe the actors didn't find the light.

The Grads production of A Christmas Carol was not up to that standard but it had some good things in it.  I liked the choir, the costumes, most of the acting and much of the movement.  The staging was let down by a too insistent elaboration of settings.  Did we need those fireplaces moving on and off?  The setting of the Cratchit's Christmas dinner seemed odd to me; squeezed into a corner when it should surely have been centre stage.

The last out and about session of my photography course saw us paradoxically indoors at the City Art Centre where there were three distinctly different photographic exhibitions on show.  Glean is a collection of the work of fourteen women photographers/filmmakers active in Scotland in the early 20th century.  It's a fascinating look at the ways of life that have vanished since then, an important historical record.

Ron O'Donnell's set of Edinburgh interiors was also a record of what has vanished.  This time I was familiar with some of the places he had photographed.  It was quite odd to look at the interior of the former Crawford's North Bridge tearoom empty of people (as were all his pictures) then glance through the gallery window to your left and see from the outside a couple of the windows that featured in the photograph.

The third exhibition was at least partly about what has vanished.  It contained pictures taken by Paul Duke on a return to his roots in Muirhouse.  Much of the environment in which he grew up had gone but not all of it.  He talks about the project here .

I was back in the City Art Centre a couple of days later and although I revisited those exhibitions I was focussed on Auld Reekie Retold which is a brilliant display of objects held in the city's various venues and uncovered in an extensive inventory and cataloguing project that has been going on for several years. I'll be back again before the exhibition closes in February and recommend it to those of my readers who can get there.  For those who can't here's a video about it. 

Arkle held their annual "evening" for the first time since Covid struck.  Mulled wine was consumed, chitchat occurred and Michael announced the programme for 2023.  I don't think I'm likely to take part in any of them but we'll see.  The Grads did likewise the following evening but I wasn't free to go.  There's a chance there may be an opportunity for me in one of their Fringe shows. 

I cooked for Ukraine and my holubtsi were eaten.  I hope with pleasure.  I quite enjoyed the bits I ate but I'm generally keen on my own cooking.  A few days ago I made what I consider to be a very tasty soup.  Oddly it was done as part of a Japanese class exercise though none of my classmates got to eat any of it.

I've been to a couple of concerts and next week I'll be playing in this one. 

A visit to St Mary's Cathedral in Palmerston Place gave me a lot of practice in fiddling with the camera settings that I have learnt about but didn't result in my taking any particularly interesting pictures.  At least in this one what I have photographed is not hidden in stygian gloom.

One place that has certainly not been gloomy is St Brides where I've seen a number of gigs since I last posted.  I wrote about an event in the Jazz Festival in July that involved young players from around Europe in an amazing improvised piece.  Scotland's contribution to that came in the form of a handful of players from the Glasgow scene, mostly RCS students.  The impressive sax player amongst them was a girl called Rachel Duns so when she was listed in the Autumn line-up I was keen to hear her again.

The band she led, playing almost exclusively music she had written, were excellent especially to my ears the piano player.  Rachel herself played sax and flute and sang.  I could have done with more of the sax and less of the singing but that's just me.  

Band leaders always introduce the players but it's usually limited to "...and the wonderful Mr X on the....." but Rachel expanded on that telling us somewhat more about the players and her relationship with them.  It was really sweet.

The first half of that bill was made up of Martin Kershaw on saxes, Colin Steele on trumpet and Ross Milligan on guitar.  They played their own compositions (and maybe a standard or two) in a gentle, relaxed style clearly at ease with the music and with one another.

In another two part gig I heard more young Glasgow based players.  The talented pianist Ben Shankland and his trio which included the double bass player Ewan Hastie who only a week later I saw winning the BBC Young Jazz Musician of the Year award on TV.  

I bumped into another award winner at that gig.  A young sax player I know through the Napier Jazz Summer School and other sax related milieux.  He's just graduated from the RCS and won a special cash award in his final year that's giving him a bit of support as he tries to make a living as a gigging musician.

The second half of that evening featured the Brian Molley Quartet.  Brian is one of the sax players I most enjoy listening to.  His music is modern jazz influenced by the music of other cultures but based firmly on a century of tradition justifying the title of his latest album "Modern Traditions" which I went home with.  It's a great listen.  They are taking that music around Europe this week.  In Frankfurt tonight but you can also find them on Youtube.

The last live gig I went to was quite unusual.  Pianist Paul Harrison and his band played film score music in the first half from composers like John Williams, Ennio Morricone and Bernard Herrmann.  So far so normal.  But in the second half they screened a 1915 silent version of Alice in Wonderland for which Paul had composed a musical accompaniment.  It was all quite interesting and no doubt wonderful for silent movie buffs.  But I'm not one of those.  Something that did amuse me was the dearth of credits compared to the several minutes rolling through an army of names that we see nowadays.  One intertitle for the cast and one for the crew.  This latter featured a "picturizer" who I assume did everything that needed to be done camerawise.

A lot of the gigs were available online so I watched some that I didn't see live. I particularly enjoyed a singer called Cara Rose.  

Music of a different stripe was on at the Usher Hall where I heard Grieg's bravura piano concerto, some beautiful music by James Macmillan and some Beethoven.

Music of an even more different stripe at the Festival Theatre where I saw an opera called Ainadamar.  It's about Lorca and his refusal to leave Spain with Margarita Xirgu when Fascism took over.  She had played the part of the 19th century heroine Mariana Pineda who was the subject of Lorca's first play.  This refusal had disastrous consequences for Lorca and Margarita devoted much of her life in exile from Spain performing the role in his memory.  I enjoyed the show reasonably well though I felt it necessary to buy a programme at the end to fill out what I'd gathered from watching it.  I think I enjoyed the music and dance but even at this short distance in time I can't bring any of it back to mind apart from a bit of flamenco at the beginning.  The staging was great.  A sort of column of strands that could be held aside allowing actors to move through or simply parted by their passage.  There was a central platform made up of a number of elements which could be shifted about.  Lovely lighting of course. Quite a visual spectacle.

Leith Theatre did a production of a dramatisation of Vanity Fair that I enjoyed.  I understand the reviewer thought there was too much tell and not enough show but I didn't mind that.  It's a discursive novel afer all and it would have been a challenge to get the battle of Waterloo on stage.  Even the TV adaptations I've seen couldn't manage that.

Our periodic Thursday evening on-line play watch and Zoom after-chat this month featured a Philip Pullman novel or maybe novels combined (I'm not familiar with his oeuvre) called Book of Dust.  It was a terrific production from the Bridge Theatre with a fine cast and whilst a kid's adventure yarn even with added swearing isn't exactly high in my interest list I did enjoy the show.

A couple of meals out were delicious, one at Noto and one at Contini's.

This morning I've watched a funeral online from Northampton.  The deceased was a retired priest who was a friend of a friend and who I'd met a few times.  A lovely man I'd like to have known better.  The service and setting were also lovely so I'll leave you with a screenshot of the affair.

 

My photography class went to the Botanic Gardens this week and this is an arty shot I took there. The picture was taken to see the effect of a slow shutter speed in a close-up of leaves that were being blown about a bit by the wind. I can't say I find it terribly exciting but John who's running the course thought it was quite successful.

Things have been fairly quiet since I got home from Hadrian's Wall.  I've had another Covid jag and a flu jag and my annual health check.  That doesn't consist of much but it reassures the practice that I'm still alive and if not kicking then at least moving my legs.

There's a little Autumn jazz festival on.  I had a ticket for Matt Carmichael for the evening following my Covid and flu jags.  It was a filthy night.  I was full of the cold and had a smidgeon of a light headache so a gave it a miss.  The first gig I got to was at the Traverse.  Ali Affleck singing with a group that included the excellent reeds player John Burgess and featured guitarist Duvud  Dunayevsky who plays in the style of Django Reinhardt.  It was a very enjoyable evening.  I navigated the most recent bus route changes to get to and from St Brides last night for a brilliant gig from a band called Mezcla.  I came home clutching their CD.  Next weekend I'm at St Brides again for more.

Until recently I would have said that I liked Haydn's symphonies but I seem to have gone off them judging by my response to the two I've heard recently, one from the RSNO and one from the SCO.  Fortunately on both occasions there were other pieces on the programme that I did enjoy.  The first classical record I ever owned, maybe even the first record of any sort was Beethoven's 5th Symphony.  I still enjoy it and was very pleased to hear it in the Usher Hall from the RSNO.  

The SCO had a concert this week which included a variety of pieces concluding with a violin concerto by Kurt Weill.  I love Weill's work from The Threepenny Opera and other things like Street Scene but this concerto was new to me. Usually the violin soloist plays with a symphony orchestra but Weill's orchestra is a wind band.  It was great.  I had a good view of the percussionist who had quite a lot to do and was thoroughly enjoying herself both when she was playing and when she wasn't.

I've enjoyed a number of the shows that the BBC have brought out of their archives to celebrate their centenary.  Sunset Song I've mentioned before and some Jean-Paul Sartre but I've also been entertained by Kenneth Branagh in The Billy Plays and now I'm watching with interest and pleasure How Green Was My Valley.  There's also a lot of comedy, too much to list but is there not a PhD to be gained by someone comparing and contrasting those two brilliant political satires Yes Minister and The Thick of It.

I had what I thought was a great success in getting the company who dug a hole in the road opposite my flat to finish the job after months of it lying there filled but not re-surfaced and surrounded by three bits of orange plastic fencing which were continually being blown or knocked over.  But I fear I celebrated too soon.  Not ten days later a team arrived, discussed with much waving of arms and pacing about what looked like a plan to dig up most of the pavement in front of the block opposite.  They got as far as putting up a lot of purple plastic fencing and signs reading "Footpath Closed"  before they spotted the newly re-surfaced hole.  They then opened a manhole, stuck long sticks in, jiggled them about, hovered a box of tricks over the area, got down and pressed their ears to the ground.  Finally they took down all their fencing and drove off leaving four traffic cones on top of the former hole.  Those have subsequently been removed by someone who wanted to park their car there.

I await the dig. 

Here's another arty shot that I do like.

This extraordinarily garish structure has been erected on the site of the northern gatehouse of the Roman fort of Housesteads on Hadrian's Wall to celebrate the 1900th anniversary of the start of the building of the wall.  Luckily the intention is to take it down later this year rather than leave it there for another 1900 years so Hadrian can stop turning in his grave.

I've long intended to visit the wall and have at last made it.  I spent a weekend in Hexham, which I found to be a charming town with some grand old buildings and a lovely park and decent places to eat and drink.  There is a bus service that connects various points of interest aong the wall.  I used it to visit two forts, Housesteads and Vindolanda and thoroughly enjoyed them both.  Vindolanda has a terrific museum where I could have lingered longer than I did but didn't feel up to spending another two hours in it which I'd have had to given the bus timetable. (Greatly reduced over the years according to one of the custodians).  

Should there be a next time I'll walk a section. 

Ewan and I had a day trip up to the Highland Wildlife Park so that he could, inter alia, see the Macaques that he'd gifted me adoptive fatherhood of.  We were extremely lucky in that respect because the monkeys were gathered en masse by the path that runs past their enclosure unlike when I was there before.  We had an excellent day, seeing lots of animals.

It was the day after the first session of the photography course that I'd signed up to so I took lots of pictures trying to use the knowledge that I'd gained the previous day.  Then and on the two subsequent classes I've attended it's been primarily, even entirely, learning how to find and operate a number of the multitudinous features that my little camera has.  Others in the group have much bigger and more serious looking cameras but they'd be wasted on me at the moment.

Perhaps by the time I go to Japan next year I'll feel that I can handle one.  I'm not now going there for the 19th World Saxophone Congress because after two postponements due to Covid, economic downturn, the war in Ukraine etc it's been cancelled.  The International Saxophone Committee have been canvassing opinions about where to go from here. They make interesting reading.  You'll see that it's not only me who is dismayed by the cancellation and anxious that a way should be found to continue the periodic worldwide gatherings.  There's a mildly bright side in that I won't now need to be away in July so could be available to rehearse for the 2023 Fringe.  I'm thinking about visiting at cherry blossom time instead.

The congress cancellation is not the only cultural blow to hit me.  The charity behind Filmhouse, the Edinburgh International Film Festival and the Belmont in Aberdeen has gone bust.  The cinemas closed overnight and next year's film festival is in doubt.  Just a week before Filmhouse closed I saw there Buñuel's "The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie".   A beautiful new print and an enjoyable film.  Better people than me say it's a work of genius so maybe it is.

I went to the anatomy exhibition at the museum which didn't engage me quite as much as I had expected whereas I found seeing the Gutenburg Bible at the National Library gave me a little thrill.  But the soup at the museum was excellent.

Nicola Benedetti who has just taken up the role of EIF director was playing with the SCO at the Usher Hall in a super concert that I thoroughly enjoyed unlike an RSNO concert that didn't really appeal to me.  I'm not sure why I went to that one since it featured works on harpsichord and on organ neither of which instruments particularly appeal to me.  

Theatrewise I've had a few wee treats.  Rona Munro's James IV opened in Edinburgh.  I found it mildly disappointing in comparison with the previous plays in the sequences which I remember (rightly or wrongly) as containing much more about the events and the politics of the reigns. I think the keynote line of the play which we heard at the beginning and at the end was "we were real" or something like it.  So the focus was on the imagined personalities and relationships of both the real and the invented characters.  I thought it was quite successful in that respect and I enjoyed the play but I regret the change of focus.  Even the disaster of Flodden got a pretty cursory treatment though I suppose we may find that featuring as a foundation stone of James V when that is unveiled.

I came across a piece by Mark Fisher in which Rona Munro talks about her aims for the play which don't seem to include much about the events of the reign so suck boo to me.

Noises Off is a splendidly amusing farce that I saw on the last night of the Pitlochry Festival Theatre's summer season.  It was a good trip.  I enjoyed the play.  I like what the theatre is doing to upgrade its front of house facilites and I had a very comfy sleep in the Backpackers Hotel - note not Hostal.  Then there was Kenneth Branagh on the telly in the Billy plays that he performed in shortly after leaving drama school and which the BBC ran as part of their centenary celebrations.  They were well worth the rerun.

Lastly The Satyricon from EGTG and Arbery Theatre.  The play wasn't nearly as silly as my memory of it from a read-through suggested and I thought the production was terrific.

Finally here's another shot of Roman remains with a bit of lovely Northumbria in the background.

 

For about a week after the festivals I did nothing much.  I read a bit and watched TV.  I saw a wonderful version of Sunset Song that the BBC made in 1971 when I was abroad so I had never seen it.  I've since discovered that in the early 80s while I was still away they filmed Cloud Howe and Grey Granite, the other two books in the trilogy.  I do hope they broadcast them again.  

Then the queen died and I set off for a lovely weekend with fellow saxophonists at The Burn where The Scottish Saxophone Academy has organised twice yearly get-togethers for a while now.  I thought its grounds were looking particularly well cared for this September.  The food was excellent and its wifi was definitely 100% better than it has ever been over the years I've been going.  David, the manager, told me it will be even better next March which is when I should be there again.

Leaving all that aside I had decided to spend a couple of days in Montrose afterwards instead of coming directly home.  The picture above is from Montrose museum where they've had the brilliant idea of creating facsimiles of a couple of Pictish stones that they have and painting them up.  So instead of peering at distinctly worn carvings and thinking "well if the label says that's Delilah cutting Samson's hair down in the bottom right I suppose it must be"  you can actually see it.   

I thought it was a terrific museum.  I was only there because the House of Dun that I intended to visit wasn't open on the days I was in Montrose.  After the museum I took a bus up the coast to St Cyrus where there's a nature reserve and a breathtaking beautiful beach.  I didn't actually go onto the beach because my approach from the village led to the top of a cliff.  There was a very narrow treacherous looking path down.  I was not well shod for descending especially since my big toes had been shot to pieces on some slopes I'd encountered the previous day.  

Next time I'll get off the bus just after the North Esk bridge and walk along the beach from there. Here's what it looks like.  You can see the mouth of the North Esk top right.

After that I went further up the coast to Stonehaven passing through a number of pleasant looking places including Inverbervie, birthplace of Hercules Linton who designed the Cutty Sark.   Stonehaven has its own place in the history of Scotland, boasting not only the chip shop that invented the deep fried Mars bar but is the birthplace of Robert William Thomson who invented the pneumatic tyre forty three years before another better known Scot, John Boyd Dunlop reinvented it.  

I had a nice drink in the sunshine by the harbour before setting off back to Montrose.

The previous day I had walked out from the town via the fringes of the Montrose Basin and through Ferryden with its views of the modern harbour out to the Skurdie Ness lighthouse.  A very pleasant walk over which I took my time and enjoyed having a seat every now and then to contemplate land and sea.

When I walked back I didn't go into Montrose but headed a mile or so down the road to the south to a visitor centre where there's a great view of the basin, a little exhibition about its wildlife and excellent coffee.  You can sit for a long time peering through the telescopes and binoculars provided at what's going on on the mudflats and in the water.  I did.  I'm not too hot on bird identification and there were lots I couldn't name though I spotted a beautiful curlew and some cormorants.  For a while I watched a bunch of seals doing nothing very much.  Occasionally one would shuffle a few yards off then plomp down again for a rest that seemed out of proportion to the effort it had just expended.

I bussed back to town and set off to find a beach.  I walked a long way and the tide was in so no stroll on the sand.  Then I walked the long way back to the George Hotel where I was staying, had a tasty meal from their "small portions" menu.  Big enough for me but just a snack for the sturdy North Sea workers who form a good proportion of their visitors.  After that it was feet up and TV for the latest in the royal death drama.

An hour or so after I got home from Montrose Ewan arrived from the States.  He more or less immediately headed off to St Andrews with a friend to play golf, coming back in time to enjoy more sport at the weekend (on TV this time) when we watched the Camanachd Cup final and the Davis Cup together. 

Fiona's sister's husband Julian, who was one of the nicest guys you could ever meet, died last year when funerals were sorely restricted.  It was decided to hold a memorial for him this month and Ewan and I went down to Yorkshire, via Keswick, to attend.  The event was held in a Iarge country inn on a hillside with a grand view to the north over the Calder valley.  There were lots of guests the vast majority of whom I didn't know.  A number of his friends and relatives made interesting and entertaining speeches reminiscing over years gone by.  I certainly learnt a few things I hadn't known about him and his daughter said to me that if she'd known her dad was such a tearaway in his youth she'd have kicked over a few more traces in hers.  I contributed with a cut down version of Tam O'Shanter, a poem he loved, and got back to Edinburgh that evening only slightly disrupted by the UK's wobbly train service - refund agreed and awaited.

Before heading south we watched the state funeral on TV.  What a superb spectacle.  Every move faultless and precise.  BBC presentation likewise and praise be they allowed us to watch the procession to the abbey and the service without commentary. 

There was a send-off of a different kind on view at the weekend when Roger Federer played his last professional tennis match in the Laver Cup.  This is a team competition between Europe and the rest of the world which has a unique and attractive format and which was instigated and designed in part by Roger.  His doubles match with Rafael Nadal as partner didn't start till about 10pm so by the time we got through tearful goodbyes, hugs and entertainment I didn't get to bed till about 1.30am.  But I'm glad I saw it.

Our Thursday on-line theatre get togethers held during the pandemic have been revived but given that people are out and about again in the evenings I think attendances will be sporadic.  Only three of us made it to the first one.  It was an odd production from the Bristol Old Vic that was a mix of music gig and story telling with a bit of chat to the audience thrown in.  A story of the friendships and troubles of a group of teenagers growing up in rural Devon it didn't much appeal to me but for those with whom it struck a chord it might well have meant a lot. 

I also saw live theatre at the Brunton with Claire and her mum.  This was a show called 549: Scots of the Spanish Civil War.  The staging, lighting, sound, physical organisation and performance were exceptional in this highly energetic and admirable show about four men from Prestonpans who joined the International Brigade in Spain in 1936.  As usual Mark Fisher reviews it perfectly albeit the review is of an earlier production in Prestonpand town hall where I doubt that they were able to achieve such fine lighting. That merits a fourth star. Here's what he has to say.

My central heating came on this morning.  Should I reduce my thermostat to save gas?

Although I didn't much care for Dance Nights, I do like the venue it took place in and was reminded of enjoying shows there in previous years so I had a squint at what else they had on. 

One show that I particularly enjoyed a year or two ago was Are We Not Drawn Onward to New ErA and I found that Belgian theatre company Ontroerend Goed who did that show were here again with two shows.  So I booked a seat for one of them, Every Word Was Once An Animal.  It was odd but as often is the case Mark Fisher put his finger on it and has reviewed it in the same style as it was played.  I'd give four stars to his review but perhaps not to the show, or at least to my enjoyment of it.

One neat trick was that at one point the audience were asked to look below their seats for a letter.  I did and lo and behold there was an envelope lying on top of the jacket and bag I'd put there.  The envelope contained a card with a picture of a cut onion on one side (the picture above) and a letter on the other side (the picture below).  It relates to a scene in the show in which a letter is received from "Emma" who asks amongst other things what the show is about.  Answers on a postcard please.  Well here's the postcard.

After the puzzlement of that show came the puzzlement as to why Mary Queen of Scots insisted on seeking safety in England against the advice of all and sundry.  That act together with marrying Bothwell was the answer given by one of three writers to the question "What do you wish Mary hadn't done?"   Rosemary Goring's Homecoming is a biography that focusses on Mary's period of rule and places associated with her from Holyrood to Loch Leven.  Sue Lawrence's novel The Green Lady is about the women around the queen particularly Mary Seaton.  Andrew Greig's novel Rose Nicolson which I have read is a historical romance set in the turbulent years following Mary's departure to England.  As well as being a cracking story it is beautifully written as Greig's reading of an extract reminded me.  They had a lively and interesting discussion.

Hard on the heels of that event came Philippe Sands talking about his book The Last Colony.  This is about Britain's expulsion of the inhabitants of the Chagos Archipelago to give the USA a strategic base in the Indian Ocean on Diego Garcia and the numerous lawsuits and appeals to the UN that have ensued.  Britain has in essence been ordered by the international community to expedite the return of the Chagossians to their homeland but has consistently failed to do so.  Sands is an articulate and persuasive speaker as befits a prominent QC and is a powerful advocate of the islanders' cause which he has championed both inside and outside courts of law.  In response to a question from the audience about comparisons with the Falklands he suggested that had the Chagossians been white the story would have been very different.

My final Festival event was once again a booky one.  Brian Cox being interviewed by Nicola Sturgeon about his autobiography Putting the Rabbit in the Hat and about his current successes. The session was lively, entertaining and peppered generously with anecdotes.  Nicola's good humoured chiding of his previous allegiance as a "New Labour Luvvie" became something of an SNP lovefest as he professed his support for the cause of Scottish independence. The ovation at the end was undoubtedly a genuine expression of admiration for the man and his work and formed a triumphant fall of the curtain on what has been a wonderful three weeks.  Roll on the 2023 festavals. 

Halfway through the bin strike this is how the city looks.  The refuse workers are amongst the most valuable and least valued of the city's employees and in my opinion should be given what they asked for if not more.  The well-heeled burghers of Edinburgh can afford it.  But am I wrong in believing that the Council said they had a contingency plan that would keep the streets clean?  No matter.  The mess is not self-generated nor the fault of the council nor of aliens from outer space.  It's made by the city's residents and visitors.  Don't the residents have the wit to take litter home with them and keep it there till the strike is over?  Don't they care what the place looks like?  Obviously not.  Harder for visitors but even they could take litter back to their hotels, B&Bs or rented flats.

I don't know how they are doing it but the Book Festival are keeping the Art College grounds litter free.  There's a lesson there.  Swayed by the enthusiastic advocacy of Katherine Rundell I bought her biography of the poet John Donne and have swiftly read it. Not quite so carried away by the book itself though if I ever look at his poetry again I may find it has cast some light.

Thomas Harding and Kojo Koram did a double act discussing their books White Debt and Uncommon Wealth.  Both could be called exposés of British colonial history.  Even though we have increasing knowledge of our past there is still a lot to learn especially of its relationship to the present which is what Koram's book in particular aims to do.

Away from the festivals I went to see the streamed to cinemas play Prima Facie.  In it Jodie Comer gives a brilliant performance as an ace defence barrister specialising in sexual assault cases for whom the tables are turned.

I also went to the dentist for my twice yearly check-up.  My teeth are ok but it's costing more to learn that.

Back at the Book Festival I found myself in a position that I had occupied four years ago when I went to an event featuring an author I'd never heard of talking about books I'd never read and realised that everyone else was an adoring fan with an intimate knowledge of the oeuvre.  Then it was Lindsey Davis and her detective stories set in ancient Rome.  Now it was Abir Mukherjee and his detective stories set in the later years of the British Raj in India.  Then I bought the first book in the series, enjoyed it well enough but didn't proceed to the second.  Now I've bought the first book in the series, A Rising Man, and we'll see how it goes.  The event was fun though.  Mukherjee, a west coast Scot, and Denise Mina, one of our queens of crime fiction and another west coaster, kept us entertained with wit and humour.

Not so entertaining was as british as a watermelon.  I struggled to think of what to say about it, then I read Mark Fisher's review and he says it all.

The programme for When You Walk Over My Grave tells you that the text was written in blood.  This turns out to be an untruth as is much of Sergio Blanco's play.  It is said to be a work of autofiction in which I think the fiction much outweighs the autobiograpy.  I certainly hope so.  It was funny, more chuckle than belly laugh, and intriguing in the way it dipped in and out of the action of the story and a discussion of the writing of the story.  The story itself is that Sergio has decided to commit suicide in one of those discreet Swiss clinics and have his body sent to London to give pleasure to a young necrophiliac.  Wikipedia doesn't seem to have caught up with him but you can learn a little bit about the man and his works here.     

After that show I went off to meet Claire for Night Dances.  The Irish Times declared on some occasion, perhaps after a pint or two of Guiness, ‘Raucous, loud, sweaty… a thrilling hour of relentless dancing and music’  It was certainly loud, so loud that we were given earplugs as we went in. Could they not just have turned the volume down?  It was relentless and I'm sure the dancers were sweaty but I didn't find it thrilling. It lacked anything in the way of narrative or development of ideas and had no emotional content that I could discern.  The dancing had very little grace or precision.  Turning to the Guardian review I see that I have missed the point.

In talking about his book Born in Blackness, Howard W French makes a very powerful case for the Atlantic slave trade having been the fount and source of our modern world.  The wealth generated in countries (the white ones that is) that carried on the trade he argues facilitated the development of industry and the pursuit of knowledge that led us to where we are today.  I look forward to reading the book once it comes out in paperback when it won't be quite so pricey.

French contributed with Dipo Faloyin and Tsitsi Dangarembga to a Book Festival session called "Africa's Rich Diversity" that went well beyond discussion of slavery.  The starting point of their conversation was the need to get beyond the stereotypical views of Africa that tend to be prevalent in European and American minds. It's not all poverty or safaris.  They reminded us that the national boundaries within Africa are a colonial invention that paid no heed to the coherence of the pre-existing communities.  They rejected the "white saviour" attitude that colours some peope's idea and the view that westerners know what's best for the inhabitants of "the dark continent".  Perhaps most interestingly they pointed out that China has crept in where westerners couldn't be bothered to tread.  We're bothered about that situation now though. Dipo's book Africa is not a Country will be out in paperback next year if like me you don't want to stump up for a hardback.  No room on the bookcase anyway.  Tsitsi's book of essays Black and Female is a hardback that won't take up too much room and is correspondingly inexpensive.

You Know We Belong Together is a warm, poignant and touching play that celebrates the everyday lives of people with Down's syndrome.  The writer and main actor, Julia Hales, has Down's syndrome and has long held an ambition to perform in the Australian soap Home and Away. The play is performed in a mock-up of the soap's Summer Bay diner and Julia performs with people on stage though a number of the cast had to cry off because of Covid.  She introduces filmed interviews with friends who also have Down's and who delight us with their humour and determination to be themselves and be independent and to live and most especially love.

My one and only black tied orchestral concert was given by the Helsinki Philharmonic.   They started with Vista by a living Finn, Kajia Saariaho.  It was loud, fast, shrill, cold and slightly terrifying.  Looking her up on Wikipedia I'm not surprised to see her connection to IRCAM.   The second piece was Tapiola by Sibelius. This wasn't terrifying but it's a pretty dark piece and not likely to be one of my desert island discs.  Finally we heard the Piano Concerto 'Gran Toccata' by the Swiss composer Dieter Ammann.  This is very lively. Wild might be a better adjective.  I enjoyed it.  It's on Youtube if you've half an hour to give it a shot.  Or you can listen here to the same soloist and forces as played it in the Usher Hall and if you like buy a recording.

Having disposed of the Film Festival in my last post I'll get back to a more chronological review of my festival going including the Book Festival which for the second year running is, as you can see in the photo above, at the Art College.

After the Grads' shows my next theatrical experience was Room in the EIF.  This show really does defy description.  The stage crew come on at the end to take a bow with the cast and thoroughly deserve it for their slick management of the complex manipulation of the set demanded of them throughout.  This interview with James Thierrée, the creative genius behind it, gives you an idea of the show.  My comment - fun, incomprehensible, on the long side.

The following morning, a Sunday, I rose early enough to get to the Art College by 10.30 to hear Henry Marsh the brain surgeon in the Book Festival.  Unfortunately thanks to an incorrect placement of the event in my diary I was 24 hours too late.  The silver lining to this cloud was that I was able to pop over to the Filmhouse and see one of the Kinuyo Tanaka films.

That evening I went to Leith Theatre to hear the Sons of Kemet.  A sort of jazz band with the unusual combination of saxophone, tuba and two drum kits.  The saxophonist also plays beautifully on a flute like instrument.  The tuba player is unbelievably skilled, bending his instrument to produce sounds soft and sweet and harsh and loud by turn.  They can play quietly but generally they didn't.  Such amplification seems unnecessary to me but luckily I had earphones in my pocket which kept the volume tolerable otherwise I'd have had to leave and miss 90 minutes of wonderful music making.

Muster Station by the site specific masters Grid Iron was brilliant.  We waited initially in what seemed like a tropical greenhouse but was in fact just the entrance corridor in Leith Academy. When the show got underway we were marshalled harshly through passport control like booths in the school sports hall that split the audience into four groups that were subsequently herded separately around the school and exposed to various scenarios.  The premise revealed itself to be that the UK was about to be submerged by a giant wave and we were seeking refuge.  The final destination was back in the sports hall which had been transformed into the sort of temporary refuge that you see on news report with blankets strewn on the floor for people to huddle together on.  I have to say it was rather more beautiful and tasteful than anything you'd see on the news.  Thanks to my correct answers to questions about Finland at an earlier stage (where refuge was being sought) I and some others had earned a special status.  We were given life jackets and moved to a special enclosure in a corner of the hall.  Unfortunately I then lost most of the ongoing development of the show because of the acoustics of the hall.  But it was a great experience.

Olga Wojtas is an Edinburgh writer of whom I had never heard who has written a number of comic crime novels featuring a time travelling incompetent detective, a graduate of the Marcia Blaine School for Girls. (That may spark a memory for some).  Miss Blaine makes an appearance in the novels too I learnt at Olga's talk at the Book Festival.  I bought her latest to check whether I find it as funny as her fans do.  Apparently her books were not accepted by a German publisher who declared them too zany for the Germans.

Coppélia from Scottish Ballet was superb.  It's a complete reworking of the original that preserves the essence of the plot.   I expected the setting and choreography to be different, and by jove they were, but I thought to myself very early on that surely the music had never been so powerful.  It hadn't. A new score that incorporates some of Delibes as well as all the tricks of the synthesiser age. The Guardian called it "...a successful stride into ballet's future".  Keep your fingers crossed that it is and read their review.

Anything connected to Cuba generally attracts my attention so no surprise that I went to hear Karla Suarez talk about her novel Havana Year Zero.  It's set in 1993, a year of economic crisis in Cuba, and is about the search by a disparate cast of characters for a document that will prove that the telephone was invented in Cuba.  There is apparently a strong argument that it was but that's not the point of the novel which amongst other things the blurb tells us is about "how people cling onto meaning in a country at its lowest ebb".  Coincidentally I recently bought a book (not yet read) which is the real story of how seven ordinary Cubans born in the 70s and 80s have coped with life there.  It's called How Things Fall Apart which chimes well with Suarez's novel.  As for that, it was a pleasure to listen to the vivacious Karla's Spanish quite apart from learning about her book.

That evening I was at the Usher Hall to hear Jordi Saval and his group of musicians give a programme of the type of music that Ibn Battuta, the medieval Moroccan traveller, might have heard on his extensive travels through Asia and Europe.  It was a good listen.  I had a ticket to hear Saval present Turkish music of the same sort of period at the Queen's Hall the following morning but couldn't go though I've subsequently heard the concert thanks to BBC Sounds.  It was lovely.

I went to Arkle's two shows.  Silent Night was the story of a family spending Christmas Eve in an Anderson shelter during the London Blitz.  It was reasonably well performed and staged but was the sort of play you might pick out from a list of available plays suitable for amateurs who need to deploy 3m, 2f.   Their other show, Tay Bridge by Peter Arnott was better material, the back stories of seven individuals on board the ill-fated train.  It was very well performed and staged with superb tableau moments as the cast were buffeted by periodic jolting of the train and then cast into the sea.  The accompanying light and sound effects were excellent.  Standout performances from Esther Gilvray and Therese Gallagher.

International Theater Amsterdam were due to bring three plays to the EIF which they would perform in Dutch.  All three were based on books so I determined to read the books in advance to get a Fosbury flop over the language barrier.  I got some way through The Magic Mountain yawning the while.  Then the show was cancelled so I didn't need to finish the book.  A Little Life turned out to be a convenient and appropriate birthday present so I didn't even start that one.  I did read The End of Eddy and I suppose it helped me to understand what was going on in the production.  However I much preferred the book and I am sure that was because as Hugh Simpson wisely says in this review -  "It is all done with the maximum of enthusiasm, but the lack of light and shade does mean that a certain profundity is lacking."

As for A Little Life language was not a problem except to the extent that I found it difficult to differentiate between the voices and found myself quite often checking the actor's mouths to see who was speaking.  Was that because they were speaking a foreign language?

The play was great, all three hours and fifty minutes playing time.  Even the twenty minute interval was enjoyable because most of the cast stayed on stage and pottered about doing things in character.

The play centres around the lifelong trauma suffered by Jude, one of the four friends whose relationship is the lifeblood of the story.  Blood there is in abundance as Jude self harms, the result of the horrific abuses he suffered as a child and young man.  These are shown in all their graphic detail in flashbacks.  Ramsey Nasr who plays Jude meets and transcends the extraordinary physical and emotional demands of the part triumphantly.  It's no wonder that he was given Holland's highest acting award in 2015 when he first played the part.

Over the weekend at the Book Festival I heard Marc David Baer talk about his book The Ottomans (which the library have obtained for me more quickly that I either expected or wanted), Abdulrazak Gurnah talk wisely and well about his life and work, Gulbahar Haitiwaji (with help from her daughter) talk about her internment by the Chinese in one of their so called re-education camps and Alan Cumming give an entertaining and humorous insight into his activities and attitudes.

After a couple of hours chatting with old friends in a pub on Sunday afternoon Fiona (here for a chum's golden wedding do) and I went to the Hub to see Liz Lochead's Medea.  It was an interestingly staged production with the bulk of the audience standing around a narrow thrust stage. The principals provided fine declamatory performances and the chorus, who at some stages mingled with the audience, gave the insightful commentary on the action that is their responsibility in Greek theatre (ancient that is).  I enjoyed it but as I admitted to Fiona I felt nothing.  My withers were not wrung.  So we can't give it more than three stars however generous we feel.