Skip to content

FringeGuru

Home arrow Woodstock Taylor arrow Let's Do Launch
 
Let's Do Launch
Published on Tuesday, 10 August 2010

Woodstock TaylorThe Edinburgh Festival Fringe inhabits an alternate space-time continuum in parallel to the rest of the world/year. Every year a little larger and a tad more corporate. Each year new, similar faces joining some of the same faces as previous years, a little but not much older and more weathered, almost as though the rest of the year hadn't really happened and the month of August was just on a permanently expanding loop. Fringe press launches, like previous entire Fringes, can tend to bunch together in the memory after a while until one can't be sure which was which, where or when. It's like aversion therapy for those obsessive-compulsives like myself who find it difficult to tell a story without providing precise calendar date and location.

Someone who's chronicled an astonishing share of those changes (and made better notes) is society photo-journalist Roddy Martine. His exhibition “Scenes From A Life” is on at Henderson's vegetarian restaurant and gallery in Hanover Street. The private view was as much of a trip down memory lane for most of those attending as it must have been for Roddy to assemble – snapshots of the famous, great and good framed and annotated, peering into the restaurant in 2010 from the late twentieth century oblivious to the advancing age of their contemporaries – and in some cases their older selves - peering back at them. The cast list, both in the room and on the walls, reminded me a little of the atmosphere of the Assembly Rooms in the 1970s when it still housed the (International) Festival Club and Press Bureau: essentially a gentlemen's club for the arts elite with visits from posh celebrities. It's more than just faces in this collection – with a small backstory to each picture Roddy's captured the flavour of a passing era and milieu.

Henderson's itself has barely changed since the sixties apart from a steady but conservative expansion extending across Prince's Street to the crypt at St John's West End church. Unsurprisingly this congenial space is also a Fringe venue during August; one of the launches I went to was Will Pickvance & Friends' nightly cabaret club. Hosted by pianist and songwriter Pickvance, it's already building a warm and slightly surrealist vibe (yes, I went back, of which more anon). Violinist Feargus Hetherington played a blinding Pugnani/Kreisler "Preludium and Allegro" after which my old Edinburgh Songwriters buddy Gavin Bolus was wheeled on via forklift trolley to deliver a spirited rendition of his timeless classic “Rose Street Rose”, which I first heard in a different cellar circa 1995. Once again the years started to melt together like a box of Thornton's on a radiator.

Right along from St John's, in Prince's Street Gardens, the ever-growing Assembly has created a blended venue by erecting a Spiegeltent around the Ross Bandstand. There's a Venn diagram waiting to be drawn about this somewhere, by someone. Assembly's gala launch, celebrating 30 years since the Assembly Rooms became a Fringe venue, culminated in a party here after an extended showcase at the also-colonised Assembly Hall. Mostly under-40s dancing to loud baby-boomer hits inside the tent, the music travelling out at sufficiently low volume to entertain the over-40s sitting outside. A few familiar faces and plenty of opportunity to indulge in my favourite Supervenue sport – peering into the eyes of those who are staring right through or past you in search of Someone Important, rendering you partially or completely invisible without even the aid of a cloak. It's an awesome pastime when you actually don't care. There was more of the same at the Gilded Balloon 25th anniversary do at Teviot Row Students' Union (which used to be the Fringe Club), made even more fun with the aid of very nice canapes and mojitos.

C venues' launch was jolly, though I had a bit of a job figuring out where “C Plaza” was. Turns out it's the George Square Theatre. There was a nude man standing halfway up the stairs for most of the duration. Next day I caught the second half of the Pleasance opening showcase before repairing to Fringe Central (part of the Appleton Tower) for the official Fringe press launch, where colleagues Richard, Craig and I sat like jobcentre interviewers - or speed-daters - as we and other media representatives were sold to by a continuous stream of performers for several hours. The artists queued decoratively for their turn and we listened attentively, trying not to allow one pitch to blend into another. Much tidier and considerably less boozy than similar events of yore.

On to the Pleasance party at Pleasance Ghillie Dhu (The Ghillie Dhu). Gladrag on, I arrived only to learn that it wouldn't be starting till quite a bit later. So I went across to see Will Pickvance again and ended up performing a couple of songs before heading over the road again to the party. Once inside I really couldn't tell whether there was a party on or not – it looked just like a regular bar night, and not a single face I knew. So back I went to enjoy the rest of Pickvance's show, where I saw some great guest acts including poet Mab Jones (who does a rude Pam Ayers tribute amongst other stuff) and had a really nice time.

I'm getting used to the alternative geography of festival-time. But on the time front I'm failing to recognise a few people I know because we're all that bit older, while seeing faces from the past in people I don't know because nothing really changes that much. I hear a lot of the comedy crowd talking of Edinburgh as though it is actually the name of the month and it occurs to me that this could – and perhaps should – be taken up more widely. Let's start a campaign for August to be re-named Edinburgh, worldwide, and fuzz up that whole space and time thing just a little bit more.

About This Blog

About Woodstock Taylor 

Musician, writer and broadcaster Woodstock Taylor has an association with the Edinburgh Fringe dating back over 30 years. Her various roles over that period include performer in numerous shows, promoter, hanger-on, flyerer, publicist, consultant, member of the audience, theatrical landlady, guidebook author and critic/reporter for The Scotsman and BBC Radio.  In this blog, Woodstock chronicles the meanderings of a veteran Fringe-goer.