We are going to Edinburgh, to the Festival Fringe, on the train. The weather is quite chilly and the sky is grey. From starting the journey in a t-shirt I put on a (cotton) scarf and my denim jacket.
At York a group of middle-aged women get on the train, and tell the train manager that they are performing at the Fringe. Although I really want to, I don’t ask them what they’re doing in case it’s something like ‘Songs from the Shows’ and we have to go, because we have struck up a rapport.
The closer we get to Scotland, the lovelier the countryside becomes. We pass the Angel of the North
Lindisfarne, Berwick-on-Tweed (which just sounds Scottish). We see the sea and then dark satanic hills, covered in pines, looking like the back of an All Year Round Christmas shop, waiting for a delivery of lights.
And suddenly we are in Scotland. In order to fit in I adopt my best Janet-from-Dr-Finlay accent. ‘Will ye no have a wee cup of tea before you’re away, Dr Finlay?’ I will of course never use this question or attempt the accent.
The streets are full of posters advertising all manner of shows.
We check in to our apart’hotel which is wonderfully central, on the Royal Mile, but unaccountably has a picture of Sean Connery on the wall, as well as a modern monarch of the glen.
There is also a dishwasher.
We have already booked tickets for some shows and tonight we are going to see Pizza Shop Heroes,
a play about and acted by four young men who came to the UK as unaccompanied asylum-seeking minors. They became part of a theatre group, Phosphorus Theatre. In the play, they are now adults, all working in a pizza joint, they tell their stories, their different experiences – long dangerous journeys being ripped off and beaten up at every turn – which are extraordinary and awful and powerful.
Day 2
Cherie – My Struggle is on at 10.30am, at the George Hotel – a one-woman show, a woman in a red dress and dark hair and a wide mouth, whose name I cannot discover. It is a very accomplished show – the life and times of Cherie Booth.
I don’t know what to expect, but I realise now I want more politics – why was she Labour? What was the difference between her and Tony in their attitude to Labour politics (apart from the fact she was born to it and he decided on it after a posh upbringing)? Did she feel betrayed by his career in politics – other than by the fact she got Thanet North when she stood as a Labour Candidate – and therefore never had a chance of winning and he got Sedgefield and won?
Having said that – it is accomplished, it lasts 50 minutes, it reminds you of bits of political history you’ve forgotten – the tragedy of the death of John Smith, Gordon Brown’s strange agreement with Tony, and the terrible shock of discovering in the newspaper that your beloved dad’s got a new wife and child.
Afterwards we go to Frederick’s Coffee House. There are many steps to climb to get here. Edinburgh is so full of highs and lows. I am wearing my new M&S (black but sparkly) (unwontedly sparkly) trainers which I bought to enable the trekking around Edinburgh. They’re comfortable but my feet are very hot.
We have a flat white and a slice of (very sweet) blueberry sponge cake.
After lunch we go to see Syd, Arthur Smith’s show, an hour of memories of his father. It includes singing (he has a young woman accompanying him on the piano) – which is unexpected.
Arthur Smith has a tuneless gravelly voice. He sings Leonard Cohen and Kinks songs which I quite like but C thinks is sentimental. But Arthur Smith is about the same age as me, so many of his references reverberate with me, talk of the war, music, adverts. But his father was a policeman, which was not something that would have happened in our house.
Next we wait in the rain, under a tarpaulin, to see Sarah Keyworth, nominated for Best Newcomer in 2018. She is a young lesbian and very funny. It is extraordinary how a single person on a stage can keep you amused for an hour, how she can remember all her lines, how she keeps it fresh after doing the same set night after night.
We give the last item on today’s agenda a miss as my legs are aching. It’s an interesting looking play about a murder – but quite a long walk away. Is it wrong to determine your cultural intake by geography? I answer this question by saying we need time between events to savour the content of what we have just seen.
