Edinburgh // Current

Mind of Obsession Blooper Reel

Official Outtakes Reel from the Student Fan adaption of Robert Hamer's 'Kind... more

TaylorMadeProduction
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8 months ago
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Pub blaze kills firefighter in Edinburgh

A firefighter from Lothian and Borders Fire and Rescue was killed on Sunday and... more

smurph25
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8 months ago
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Spoilers Aren't Intrinsically Evil

Mark Fisher writes, "When I wrote a blog a few days ago about theatrical deaths, a couple of readers complained that I should have included a spoiler alert. There was merit in what they said: death is usually a big event in a play, so if you talk about it you're likely to give away key twists in the plot. Sorry if I ruined your night.

But how much information is too much? What balance should a writer strike between safeguarding the joy of discovery for those who haven't yet seen a play, and talking in such generalities that the writing becomes meaningless? Before I give examples, I have to give a spoiler alert. If it troubles you to know too much, don't read on, but I can't write about spoilers without spoiling things.

Let's take the case of 'Orphans,' Dennis Kelly's thriller at the Traverse theatre in Edinburgh. This is a play that depends for its tension on the is-he/isn't-he enigma of a character called Liam, played by Joe Armstrong. He starts off as a good samaritan who has helped a man in distress, but it's not possible to say how he ends up without giving away the plot.

In her Guardian review, Lyn Gardner keeps it enigmatic, giving away little more than "one bad decision leads to another". Joyce McMillan in the Scotsman, however, cuts straight to the chase: "The clearer it becomes that Liam's original story of helping a wounded man is a lie, and that he has in fact carried out a brutal racist attack, the more Danny wrestles with the question of whether he should call the police."

McMillan appears to believe that once a play has opened its plot is in the public domain, and therefore fair game. If you regard the job of a reviewer as little more than a consumer's guide, this belief is contentious. If, on the other hand, you want critics to engage fully with a work, then they must be free to talk about what happens, and what it signifies.

The answer is not clear-cut – it varies from show to show and writer to writer – but it raises a second question: how much damage can a spoiler actually do? Examples of a show asking the public not to give away its plot are rare: the West End play The Mousetrap, the book Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and the film The Sixth Sense rely heavily on suspense. There must be millions of people who enjoy those works on repeated sittings, even when the element of surprise is gone.

A work that depends on surprise alone is shallow indeed; so how much are you really put out if you know the details in advance? As a feature writer I'm often privy to this kind of information – after I've prized it out of artists who believe their work's power depends on a secret plot twist – but I rarely wish I'd been kept in the dark when it comes to seeing the show.

As an act of consideration, I won't reveal the coup de theatre in Silviu Purcărete's Faust, opening at the Edinburgh international festival, but even telling you that such a coup exists will alert you to it and subtly change your experience. Is that so bad?"Mark Fisher writes, "When I wrote a blog a few days ago about theatrical deaths,... more

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7 months ago
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Fire crews fight Edinburgh blazes

Hundreds of people had to be evacuated from Edinburgh city centre when fire crews were... more

unadopted
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1 year ago
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Dunbar Lifeboat Service 200 Years

Dunbar Lifeboat Service celebrates it's 200th Anniversary in 2008. The station... more

TaylorMadeProduction
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8 months ago
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Chinese New Year

During college time as Camera Operator and Editor, I experienced the Chinese New Year... more

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8 months ago
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Edinburgh Fringe on benefits

"Fringe Sunday has been cancelled, as have the opening and closing parties for performers; the Cavalcade has been greatly cut back; there is a dearth of sponsors; and, heaven forfend, Soho House will no longer be providing free champagne for its members staying north of the border during festival time. The recession is certainly having an effect on what is being called the credit-crunch Fringe, which gets under way in Edinburgh next weekend.

But if things are looking grim for the world's biggest arts festival, new chief executive Kath Mainland is putting a brave face on it. She was appointed following the resignation of Jon Morgan after just one year in the job, in the wake of 2008's ticketing fiasco, when a new box-office system failed disastrously: people didn't receive tickets they had paid for, and tickets for some shows were sold twice over. The furore attracted acres of negative publicity for the Fringe Society and necessitated a £250,000 public bailout.

Yet, says Mainland: "I'm cautiously optimistic about what will happen this year, as all indications are that people are staying at home rather than travelling abroad, and Edinburgh has so much to offer. Nowhere else can you get this range of culture in one place at one time. We were very much heartened that the Fringe brochure is just as full this year."

Performers may want to come, but sponsors don't seem so keen. The Edinburgh Comedy Festival – launched last year at the "big four" Fringe venues of the Assembly Rooms, Gilded Balloon, Pleasance and Underbelly – still doesn't have a sponsor; Assembly has lost its beer backer, Belhaven; and the rebranded Edinburgh Comedy Awards (formerly the Perriers and latterly the if.comeddies) don't, at the time of writing, have one at all. It seems a poor omen but, says Mainland, "Sponsorships do come to an end."

One wouldn't expect anything but soothing words from a chief executive in difficult times – yet others are also optimistic. Advance sales across the Edinburgh festivals, including the International, are holding up, say the organisers, and comedian Stephen K Amos, a long-time Fringe favourite, concurs: "My advance sales, and those of a lot of comics I've spoken to, are very healthy; people just want to have fun, and Edinburgh has a lot to offer."""Fringe Sunday has been cancelled, as have the opening and closing parties for... more

St_Alia_10191
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7 months ago
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Pornography and Prejudice: Jane Austen's Dirty Talk

"What is this inescapable desire we have to mess around with Jane Austen? The poor woman has been through the mill of late, with the literary world seeing Elizabeth Bennet contending with the undead in Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, and the Dashwoods about to take on tentacled sea creatures in Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters. Meanwhile, onscreen, Elton John's Rocket Pictures is working on Pride and Predator.

So far be it for theatre to miss out. Fresh from a run on the Edinburgh fringe, Jane Austen's Guide to Pornography arrived at Battersea's Theatre 503 last week with an all-male cast and not a little innuendo. Steve Dawson's piece pitches a gay pornographic playwright, tired of only churning out one-liners and sex, up against Austen herself, who is near death, bored with her stories and "awaking screaming at the thought of another Mr Darcy". The pair look for inspiration from each other: Jane wants a bit of raunch in her new novel, Brett the playwright wants to inject true love into his writing.

There are some predictably nudge-nudge elements – ooh, let's make Jane Austen say "enormous cock", that'll be hilarious – but it actually works pretty well, particularly when Jane and Brett are squabbling over storyline ideas. It's silly, but it's also funny: "No one has ever fainted in my novels except for Emma, and that was the only one and not because she met this 'Dick' person," Jane tells Brett firmly. The burgeoning romance between the two actors/characters dreamt up by Jane and Brett is sweetly believable, ending with a clever twist on the "Marianne sprains her ankle" scene from Sense and Sensibility. Perhaps the mention of felching – "it sounds frightfully Mediterranean," says Jane – will get the Jane Austen Society up in arms, but the play is actually a very affectionate portrait of the author, so I hope not.

It does make me wonder, though, about this trend to sex up Austen. Someone has even written a book of "deleted sex scenes". Perhaps it's the buttoned-up nature of her characters – the closest we get to a bit of frolicking in Austen is probably Mr Knightley drawing Emma's hand through his arm. Maybe it's just immature and deliberately provocative, but I think our appetite for postmodern character cutting and pasting comes down to the genius of good writers. In Austen's case, we love her characters, we believe in their romances: we want to know – and see – more.""What is this inescapable desire we have to mess around with Jane Austen? The... more

St_Alia_10191
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6 months ago
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monster in the toilet

A lovely animation film by A.A.Leszczynska of the Edinburgh College of Art. I love... more

beautybyjill
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7 months ago
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3 comments

Funniest joke of Edinburgh Festival goes to a Hedgehog

Of all the thousands of jokes that are told at the Edinburgh Festival, one involving a... more

AnnieMole
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7 months ago
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8 comments

Edinburgh Festival Fringe

The Fringe is the largest event of the year and features a massive amount of acts... more

TaylorMadeProduction
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8 months ago
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David Tennant Joins Simon Pegg in John Landis' Burke and Hare

Back in August, the news... more

atomiclegion
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5 months ago
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Mind of Obsession Behind the Scenes 30 Mins Look

Behind the Scenes Video of the Making of Mind of Obsession: Louis Williamson (Nazir... more

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8 months ago
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Fringe Boom from Economy Bust

"Tickets sales for this year's Edinburgh festival fringe have hit a new record, after a surge in the number of people spending holidays at home and looking for an escape from the gloom of the recession.

The Fringe Society said more than 1.85m tickets were sold for this year's event, an increase of 9% on the previous record, set in 2007, and 21% higher than for last year's disastrous event, which was hit by problems with its box office.

The scale of the improvement surprised fringe organisers. Many producers and residents had feared the significant upheaval by tram works cutting through the city centre and a dispute by refuse workers that left rubbish piled on kerbsides in the run-up to this year's festival would frighten off some visitors.

Kath Mainland, the event's new chief executive, said: "As this year's festival draws to a close, we can look back on a month of exceptional ticket sales and one of the best festivals in my 20 years in and around Edinburgh."

Many of the city's top venues reported steep increases in audience numbers. The Gilded Balloon said its sales rose by 15% from last year, boosted in part by staging large events such as the comedian Bill Bailey at the 3,000-seat Playhouse, one of Edinburgh's largest theatres.

Karen Koren, the venue's director, said many more local residents had bought tickets this year. Edinburgh's confidence has been hit by the collapse of Royal Bank of Scotland and HBOS last year. "My feeling is that the credit crunch, people not going away and the weather – although it hasn't been great, has been a lot better than last year – has all helped," she said.

The Stand comedy club, which put on critically received theatre for the first time, said its audiences had grown by 20%. Tommy Sheppard, the venue's director, said: "It's been a record-breaking year despite the fact we've had to operate behind an iron curtain imposed by the city's tram builders."

This year's fringe, which featured a slightly larger number of shows compared with last year, with 2,098 productions, also featured a far larger number of recession-busting cut-price shows and cheap deals to draw in audiences. The number of shows on the so-called "free fringe" jumped from 350 last year to 465 this year, and they were held at a larger number of venues. While some shows were selling all their tickets for £5, the Underbelly comedy venue cut its prices for two nights a week.

Mainland said: "From the fringe's point of view, this is absolutely fantastic. We needed to re-establish confidence."""Tickets sales for this year's Edinburgh festival fringe have hit a new... more

St_Alia_10191
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7 months ago
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Edinburgh is RESCUED! [Invisible Children]

Billy Boyd, better known as Pippin, has come to the Rescue in Edinburgh.

lordsbassman
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11 months ago
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Passer-by finds woman's mummified head in shopping bag

A human head which appears to be mummified was found in a bag in Edinburgh today. It... more

mischabarrett
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1 year ago
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Insane bike tricks + Band of Horses = The Best Thing Ever

Make sure to watch from start to finish... really really amazing stuff! Shot in and... more

sarahlane
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11 months ago
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3 comments

Seven hour rape ordeal for tourist in Edinburgh

An Australian woman has been subjected to a horrific seven-hour rape ordeal after... more

SW2
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1 year ago
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Mamma Mia Star Stars In Student Film

An Edinburgh film student has managed to recruit Mamma Mia star Ashley Lilley for his... more

Gregsalter
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9 months ago
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Ancient instrument reproduced with help of new software

"Scottish scientists using special software have managed to reconstruct an... more

St_Alia_10191
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10 months ago
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TAGS

tagged w/ Edinburgh

Mind of Obsession Blooper Reel

Pub blaze kills firefighter in Edinburgh

Spoilers Aren't Intrinsically Evil

Fire crews fight Edinburgh blazes

Dunbar Lifeboat Service 200 Years

Chinese New Year

Edinburgh Fringe on benefits

Pornography and Prejudice: Jane Austen's Dirty Talk

monster in the toilet

Funniest joke of Edinburgh Festival goes to a Hedgehog

Edinburgh Festival Fringe

David Tennant Joins Simon Pegg in John Landis' Burke and Hare

Mind of Obsession Behind the Scenes 30 Mins Look

Fringe Boom from Economy Bust

Edinburgh is RESCUED! [Invisible Children]

Passer-by finds woman's mummified head in shopping bag

Insane bike tricks + Band of Horses = The Best Thing Ever

Seven hour rape ordeal for tourist in Edinburgh

Mamma Mia Star Stars In Student Film

Ancient instrument reproduced with help of new software

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