IT’S that time of year again, when many a well-heeled Edinburgher departs for three-and-a-half weeks in Provence, renting out their home for the equivalent of a year’s mortgage. Yes, the Edinburgh Festivals begin next week, bringing joy to arts lovers and short-lease landlords alike.
But what to see? Considered together, the Edinburgh International Festival (EIF), the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and their sibling festivals (for films, books, visual arts, TV and militarism) are, by a distance, the biggest cultural showcase on the planet.
Picking which shows to take in can be as tricky as deciding which of Donald Trump’s personality traits is most obnoxious. There are just so many to choose from!
However, choose we must, and, from my perusals of this year’s Festival programmes, the following productions quicken my pulse more than most. The Komische Oper Berlin is one of the most exciting, forward-looking companies in world opera, and its staging of Mozart’s The Marriage Of Figaro (Festival Theatre, August 16-18, below) is likely to be a corker.
Director Kirill Serebrennikov’s production (presented as part of the EIF programme) catapults this late 18th-century opera into the present day. Most importantly, his UK directorial debut promises to channel the considerable energy of Mozart’s original, which combines farce, sex comedy and morality tale.
In the piece, the ever-resourceful Figaro, his wife-to-be Susanna and Countess Almaviva conspire to get even with the latter’s husband, the lecherous and deceitful Count Almaviva. An evening of glorious music and song, high-octane comedy and theatrical audacity is in prospect.
Also part of the EIF’s opera programme, Scottish Opera’s promenade production of Stravinsky’s Oedipus Rex (National Museum of Scotland, August 12, 18-19) promises to be a real festival treat. Opera lovers of a certain vintage will still remember the extraordinary, visually stunning staging of this piece, directed by François Girard for the Canadian Opera Company, during the 2002 Festival.
If this drama – in which the benighted people of Thebes are visited by catastrophes not of their own making – seemed timely 22 years ago, it is truly an opera for our crisis-ridden times. The piece’s urgent pertinence will, surely, be compounded by the sharpness of Stravinsky’s modernistic music and the vocal power of Scottish Opera’s soloists and chorus.
The splendid surroundings of the museum’s Grand Gallery are bound to add atmospheric heft to an already deeply emotive opera.
Over on the Fringe programme, I’m excited to see the world premiere of Palestinian theatre-maker Khawla Ibraheem’s A Knock On The Roof (Traverse, August 13-25). Playing in Edinburgh ahead of an off-Broadway run, the drama takes its title from the Orwellian euphemism the Israeli military uses for the small “non-explosive or low-yield devices” it sometimes drops on the roofs of Palestinian civilian homes as a warning that the building faces imminent destruction.
The piece stars Ibraheem herself as Mariam, a young Gazan who practices her escape in the five to 15 minutes she will have if the Israelis ever “knock the roof” of her building. Directed and developed by Obie Award-winner Oliver Butler for New York City-based company Piece By Piece Productions, this darkly comic play is bound to connect powerfully with the current catastrophe of Israel’s relentless assault on Gaza.
Also at Scotland’s new writing theatre (and another world premiere) is Scottish playwright Douglas Maxwell’s mid-life reflection drama So Young (Traverse, until August 25). On his day, Maxwell is one of our most subtle, poetic and emotive playwrights, as evinced by his recent piece The Sheriff Of Kalamaki (which, deservedly, received the Best New Play gong at this year’s Critics’ Awards for Theatre in Scotland).
If his latest drama – in which a group of middle-aged friends reflect on the accumulated loves and losses of their lives – packs a similar emotional punch (not to say a comparable jolt to the conscience) Fringe audiences will be very fortunate indeed. This co-production by the Traverse, Raw Material and Glasgow’s Citizens Theatre is crafted by experienced director Gareth Nicholls and includes in its excellent cast superb actors Lucianne McEvoy and Andy Clark.
Same Team (Traverse, until August 25) is set to be another Scottish highlight of the Traverse programme. Robbie Gordon and Jack Nurse’s play, created with the women of Street Soccer Scotland, returns to the stage of the Edinburgh theatre following its acclaimed run last December.
Directed by Bryony Shanahan, this story of five women trying to win the Homeless World Cup was praised for its authenticity and captivating theatricality when it was nominated for Best Ensemble and Best Director in the 2024 CATS awards. Following on from the success of Eilidh Loan’s brilliant Moorcroft, Scottish theatre seems to be doing almost as well at football as the stars in stripes of St Mirren FC.
If, like me, you contrived to miss its original run, Same Team would seem to be a must-see during this year’s Fringe.
If you’re looking for a show for children aged six and over, you’ll be onto an almost certain winner with The Last Forecast (Assembly @ Dance Base, August 3-18). Staged by Scotland’s leading children’s theatre company Catherine Wheels, choreographer and dancer Bridie Gane’s piece may or may not take its title from the chilling final line of Harold Pinter’s poem Weather Forecast.
Either way, her piece shares with Pinter a concern with human destructiveness. In Pinter’s case, it’s the threat of nuclear war, in Gane’s, it’s the climate crisis.
In the show, we are invited to look in on the island habitat of Gael, a little creature (somewhat like a gecko) whose peaceful life is upturned by a stranger settling on the island. However, the potential for co-existence between Gael and the newcomer is threatened by the forecast of a rise in the water levels around the island.
More salutary observations are promised by Kafka’s Ape (Summerhall, August 1-26). This solo piece, performed by Tony Bonani Miyambo, is adapted from Franz Kafka’s short story A Report To An Academy by Phala Ookeditse Phala and Miyambo himself.
In this multiple award-winning monodrama Miyambo plays the titular ape, who goes by the name of Red Peter. Peter has learned to adopt the outward appearances of the socialised human, including language.
As he delivers a lecture at the “Species of the World” conference (at which we, the audience, are attendees) the piece offers multiple challenges to human society’s assumptions of species supremacy, civilisation and much else besides. Having already been garlanded with international accolades, this fascinating production seems bound to be a highlight of the Fringe programme of the excellent (but, sadly, endangered) Summerhall venue.
The sheer scale and breadth of the Fringe means that it always has the potential to overturn expectations. The Mexican “séance meets musical” Comala, Comala (ZOO Southside, August 2-25) is a case in point.
An adaptation of the famous novel Pedro Páramo by Juan Rulfo, the show will challenge many a Western notion of musical theatre. Boasting a theatrical text by playwright Conchi León and music by Pablo Chemor, the piece employs ancient folklore and traditional musical instruments.
The show tells the tale of Juan Preciado, the man who travels through the worlds of the living and the dead on a quest. The protagonist is trying to make good on his promise to his mother, to whom he pledged (as she lay on her deathbed) that he would wreak revenge on his long-lost father.
If you want to experience a great dance piece during next month’s festivities, the spiritual, culturally ambitious production Songs Of The Bulbul (Lyceum Theatre, August 9-11, below) by acclaimed, Leicester-based Aakash Odedra seems destined to fit the bill. A world premiere as part of the EIF programme, it promises “a mediative exchange between the Indian classical dance Sufi Kathak and Islamic poetry.”
Samsara – the piece that Anglo-Indian choreographer and dancer Odedra brought to the EIF in 2022 – received universal acclaim. Songs Of The Bulbul promises to wow audiences and critics just as comprehensively.
Finally – for those who enjoy the intimacy, sometimes the meditative space, at other times the emotional intensity of chamber music – allow me to recommend the EIF’s remarkable series of Queen’s Hall concerts. Recorded, for the most part, for broadcast on BBC Radio 3, these 11am concerts feature many of the world’s finest chamber performers, from soloists to string quartets and chamber orchestras.
Literally everything on this year’s programme looks superb. In particular, I’m looking forward to Il Pomo D’Oro and Jakub Józef Orliński (August 3) giving a recital of early-Baroque Italian music, including work by the great master Claudio Monteverdi.
I’m equally excited to see the magnificent Takács Quartet (August 16) playing a programme that includes a string quartet by Schubert and the European premiere of Flow by American composer Nokuthula Ngwenyama. As the Festival gets towards its end, the Japanese violinist and the American pianist Midori and Özgür Aydin (August 23) offer a programme of Mozart, Fauré and Strauss.
These are just three of 19 concerts in the series. For classical music lovers, the Queen’s Hall series is the perfect way to begin a day at the Edinburgh Festivals.
The EIF programme can be found at: eif.co.uk For the Fringe programme, visit: edfringe.com
