The Edinburgh festivals are back for another month of cultural feasts with thousands of shows across the city. Alan Chadwick has been out to take a closer look at some of them.
Penthesilea
The theme of this year’s Edinburgh International Festival is ‘Rituals That Unite Us’.
And there are few rituals that bring people together more these days than rock concerts.
Penthesilea, by International Theater Amsterdam is at the Edinburgh International Festival
To that end, director Eline Arbo’s take on Heinrich von Kleist’s Penthesilea for International Theater Amsterdam, which receives its UK premiere here in a hybrid mix of modern-day gig theatre and ancient world classical tale, slots nicely into the programme.
Arbo succeeded Ivo van Hove as artistic director of ITA and is known for her music driven brand of theatre (she works closely with her partner and collaborator, composer and musician Thijs van Vuure).
Think of this production as her eras tour. The era in question being around the 12th or 13th BC.
And if anything the music, including Joy Division’s She’s Lost Control and Love is Blindness by Jack White, is one of the best things about the production.
This is played live on stage by a wonderfully proficient ensemble cast whose instruments intermittently drop down from the flies, and could probably fill arenas touring as a band if they wanted to.
Smitten with the Greek hero Achilles, who she meets on the battlefield (Amazon Queen Penthesilea can only have sex with a man she’s defeated in battle), Penthesilea is a battle of the sexes tale focusing on the fine line between love and hate.
One in which bellatrix meets boy, bellatrix and boy become obsessed with each other, then decide that the only way to scratch the itch is to murder one another.
Though I can’t help thinking in a tragic love story about two star-crossed warriors ‘god of the sun’ Achilles and ‘child of the moon’ Penthesilea, Arbo misses a trick not finding houseroom for Total Eclipse of the Heart.
Performed in Dutch with English subtitles by a cast dressed in black S&M punky outfits, and played out on a minimalist dimly lit stage, punctuated at times by blinding flashes of light, the changes in tone and injections of humour throughout the two-hour performance jar.
One minute you feel yourself drawn into the dark and foreboding world of the Trojan War, as Ilke Paddenburg’s Penthesilea and her army wreaks chaos and slaughter on both the Greeks and Trojans in a lust in the dust, blood soaked, quest to renew their tribe through sexual conquest. Talk about smash the patriarchy.
The next you could be mistaken for thinking you’re watching outtakes of banter between Shakespeare’s Beatrice and Benedick, or 1990’s rom com 10 Things I Hate About You.
As events reach their climax on a stage covered in blood, as gigs go Arbo’s Penthesilea is not bad. But as a riveting piece of storytelling, it’s less convincing.
■ The Lyceum, Aug 5 and 6.
Duck
Elegantly staged on the set of a wicket, there’s lots to recommend in this one man show about cultural identity from playwright maatin.
Not least an excellent central performance from Qasim Mahmood as cricket obsessed 15-year-old British Indian schoolboy, Ismail, or ‘Smiley’ as he’s known, whose dreams of sporting glory, and relationship with his father, are vibrantly brought to life here.
Set in the summer of 2005 against the backdrop of the 7/7 bombings, and an Ashes test, Duck finds ‘Smiley’ promoted to the school first X1. Bowled for a duck on his debut, his disappointment is coupled with anger at what he considers racially motivated snubs from the new coach.
A few false notes are struck. Much emphasis is placed on the coach referring to Ismail as ‘boy’. I’d imagine most teachers at public school address pupils that way. The police randomly arresting a schoolboy playing truant beside a duck pond on the day of the bombings feels shoehorned in..
But these aside, Duck is thought provoking fare.
■ Pleasance Courtyard until Aug 26.
Andrew Pierce V Kevin Maguire
Daily Mail columnist Andrew Pierce takes on Kevin Maguire from The Mirror
Political commentary has grown considerably in size at the Fringe.
And I don’t just mean stand-up comics taking pot shots at the Government (It’ll l be interesting going forward to see if Keir Starmer’s Labour Government gets the same rough treatment that has been dished out to the Tories over the past 13 years).
Alex Salmond, David Davis, Humza Yousaf, Liz Truss, and Mhairi Black are just a few of the familiar faces to expect this year.
Throwing their hat into the ring this week are ‘best of frenemies’, Daily Mail columnist Andrew Pierce, and Kevin Maguire from the Mirror, who will be doing battle royal debating all manner of hot topics and burning issues of the day.
It may not be Buckley vs Vidal. Or even Hitchens vs Hitchens for that matter. But expect sparks to fly in what promises to be a lively hour of no holds barred cut and thrust-with my money on our boy to carry the day.
■ Assembly Rooms, Thursday to Saturday.
Alison Larkin: Grief… A Comedy
Alison Larkin’s show turns grief into laughter
Adopted by English parents (her birth mother was from America’s deep South), a sense of abandonment, and failure to establish intimate relationships seemed to be writer and performer Alison Larkin’s lot in life.
Until a chance encounter with an Indian climate scientist she met when she was in her fifties and living in the US, changed all that.
And Grief… A Comedy is a chatty exploration of her discovery that there was a soulmate out there for her after all. Only to then have happiness snatched away from her when he passed away not long after planning their life together.
If this all sounds a bit grim it isn’t. And Larkin’s tale – punctuated with culture clash observations as she makes flesh a variety of character s- focuses on the positive.
The show gets off to a shaky start but soon settles into its groove. But you can’t help feel the piece is more inspiring and cathartic for Larkin than it is for her audience.
■ Assembly George Studios, until Aug 25
Bamberger Symphoniker: Hans Rott’s First Symphony
Cultural ambassadors for Bavaria and all of Germany, internationally renowned Bamberger Symphoniker are in town for what promises to be a mouthwatering residency at the Usher Hall this week as part of the classical music strand of the Edinburgh International Festival.
The Symphoniker get the ball rolling tonight under the baton of conductor Jakub Hrusa. He’s joined by mezzo soprano Catriona Morison in a programme highlighting Austrian composer Hans Rott’s little known masterpiece, alongside work by Mahler, and Rott’s teacher, Anton Bruckner. The focus is very much on Dvorak the rest of the week.
If you need any further inducement, there’s the added bonus of a 20 per cent discount if you buy tickets for all three of the Symphoniker’s evening performances.
■ Usher Hall, August 6.
