I was last in Edinburgh nearly 20 years ago. Mand & Sum were living here and I dossed on their loungeroom floor for a month or 2 over the Festival. And now we were back for 2.5 short days to see some Fringe shows and beautiful magical Edinburgh.
We wandered around, gravitating to the Old Town and especially to the multiple layers and levels of the old city and the labyrinthine closes (alleys). We signed up for a slightly cheesy tour of “Real Mary King’s Close” down levels and floors into one of the famously haunted old closes completely built over in late 1800s. Anyone who has been to Edinburgh will remember how the layer upon layer upon layer of history especially for the last 500 years is so visible and accessible.
We even braved the Castle – arriving at opening time in an attempt to beat the crowds. But no, Edinburgh at this time of the year is truly heaving and groaning with baseball cap wearing bus loads of tour groups, as well as all the Fringe visitors. Even a pink clad group of young Chinese ballet dancers.
Along the Royal Mile we battled through the ‘flyerers’ touting their shows. Just one indication of the passage of 20 years was my consistent amazement at how the Fringe seemed to have been turned over to 16 year olds. The Royal Mile in particular was awash with earnest young drama students in slightly bad costumes and bearded young men with instruments.
One morning we were in a cafe sitting very close to two young women and couldn’t help but overhear their conversation. As it went on Tim & I were both amazed by the self absorption of one of them – “I really see myself primarily as a theatre actress” or “I have a start of an idea for a show blah blah blah” and we wondered would she ever ask her friend something about herself! But it soon became clear that she was being interviewed by an agent or booker – our mistake!
I’m glad we booked a few shows from home otherwise the overwhelm of choosing from a few thousand shows on the spot would have been immense. Mostly they were hits, not misses, with the Cambridge Footlights Revue (chosen in homage to Stephen Fry et al) one of our faves. Limbo a mad sexy heart-in-the-mouth circus was another.
