Edinburgh - On the Fringe

The Edinburgh Festival, combined with the Fringe Festival which has grown up around it, is a world famous performing arts festival which showcases the best in stand up comedy, theatre, music and more.

I caught the last weekend of the festival with a group of friends from London (thanks to Simon for organizing such a brilliant weekend!) and we had a cracking time. The atmosphere in Edinburgh during the festival is electric - on every corner there are artists passing out fliers to their shows and the Royal Mile is overtaken by street performers, fire eaters, acrobats, singers and magicians.

On Friday we checked out Edinburgh and got our bearings. Seven of us had rented a flat in New Town, about a 15 minute walk straight up hill to the high street. The location was perfect. Edinburgh, as I had long suspected, is a city after my own heart - very walkable, easy to navigate, with lots to do and see but not so much as to be overwhelming.

What was overwhelming was the vast array of performances on offer - the Fringe Festival this year featured 2,098 shows in 265 venues! Most afternoons we sat in a courtyard-turned-beer garden which had been set up near some of the performance venues with our glasses of rosé and pints of beer and did our best to sort through the virtually endless stacks of handbills we had been handed by enthusiastic promoters and the huge catalogue of Fringe offerings. In the end we might as well have thrown a dart at the list to decide which of the myriad shows to buy tickets for (every show had been given four stars by someone) but between all of us we were able to pick some real gems.

On with the Show

Best of the Fest
We arrived on Thursday night just in time for the midnight showing which featured five different comics performing at the Fringe Festival. Stand up, as it turns out, is not really my cup of tea but it's good to branch out. Some of the comics were really funny and it was a great way to get in the Fringe spirit and kick off a long weekend.

4 Poofs and a Piano: Smoke and Mirrorballs
I found this comedic cabaret by four queens charming and funny (my friend Arjun thought it was a bit much). They sang songs that made all but the most unflappable audience member blush...

Colin Hoult's Carnival of Monsters
This one man show (well, not exactly, he had a few back-up performers but it was written and mostly performed by Colin) was staged in tiny box of a venue - there were only about 20 of us in there - and Colin was brilliant. It consisted of a little bit of poetry, a variety of strange and entertaining vignettes and of course monsters. Colin also insisted on audience participation which was a bit nerve-wracking for his victims but had us all rolling with laughter by the end.

The Byrne Supremacy
Jason Byrne is a well known Irish comedian and his show packed one of the larger auditorium venues (an impressive 28,000 people saw his act during the festival). I liked him because he was funny without being too crass. Of course as an Irish Catholic many of his jokes revolved around family, religion and guilt - humorous and relatable. Jason also got laughs by involving the audience - he brought two young doctors up on stage to help with the old "saw my assistant in half" trick that, as a magic trick, was less than flawlessly executed but was still very funny.

Bryn Terfel
The only non-Fringe performance we attended was a concert given by a famous Welsh bass-baritone opera singer. With a pianist accompanying him, Bryn sang a variety of old standards and finished with a suite of popular folk songs from the British Isles (including Loch Lomond, Danny Boy and Molly Malone) at which point he made all of us stand and join in. Good fun and what a voice! The show was in Usher Hall, a grand concert hall in the heart of the city which provided great acoustics and atmosphere. After some of the sillier comedic performances we had attended, Bryn's concert balanced out the weekend nicely with a bit of culture.

Haggis, Neeps and Tatties

The restaurant scene in Edinburgh did not disappoint. The two most noteworthy establishments we visited are below.

The Witchery
The Witchery is a venerable Old Town Edinburgh institution located at the top of the Royal Mile and close to Edinburgh Castle. We entered the historic sixteenth century building and descended a stone staircase into an enchanted dining room. Surrounded by bagpipe-playing cherubs and other opulent, traditionally Scottish decor I felt obliged to order the haggis, neeps and tatties as a starter (I know what you're thinking but believe me it was delish). I began the meal with my all-time favorite, a dirty martini. Dirty martinis are a great litmus test by which to judge a bartender's competence and the ones at the Witchery were excellent. Any restaurant that makes a dirty martini that tasty is worth another visit. A divine summer fruit pavlova completed the meal. The meal was grand and the Witchery would work equally well for large groups (like ours) or a romantic dinner.

The Witchery by the Castle
Castlehill,
The Royal Mile
Edinburgh
EH1 2NF

Balmoral Hotel
Sunday afternoon tea in the Drawing Room at the Balmoral is an extremely civilized way to end a weekend in Edinburgh. You can begin with a glass of champagne if you are so inclined and then they bring out the usual assortment of finger sandwiches, scones with clotted cream and jam, and sweets. Don't be fooled that this is a light afternoon snack, afternoon tea is a huge meal. The service at the Balmoral was on the whole courteous and prompt, just don't try to convince the waitress to you bring extra ham sandwiches...

The Balmoral
1 Princes Street
Edinburgh EH2 2EQ

On the whole, an excellent weekend in a beautiful city. The only down side was that I was so occupied with the Festival that I didn't visit Edinburgh Castle or do the walk through St. Mary's Close (the old caverns and tunnels under the city). Clearly I will have to go back....

Thanks again to Simon (our master of ceremonies), the Aussie contingent, Ali, Arjun, Graeme and Carrie for a fantastic weekend on the fringe!

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