Tag: edinburgh

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Discovering Andrea Gibson

It was announced via Instagram yesterday evening that the poet Andrea Gibson had died.

A few years ago, I had the privilege of seeing Gibson live on stage. You can read the write-up from the first time in 2018, at the Mash House in Edinburgh. Unaccountably, I haven’t covered the second time; for my own future reference, this was on 20 May 2019 at the Queen Margaret Union in Glasgow.

Yet I’m struggling to add anything further than what I wrote in that first entry.

What I really want to do is encourage you to pick up one of their albums, from Bullets and Windchimes (2003) to Hey Galaxy (2018) and just listen to a few tracks. The imagery and the metaphors are delivered at a machine-gun pace, so don’t be surprised if you need to pause for breath. You can also seek out one of their collections, but – cards on the table – I think there’s more to be gained from listening rather than reading.

Andrea Gibson was someone who would never dream of demanding plaudits, but conversely, won so many fans by simply speaking about the world as they saw it. Had they lived past 49, I have the feeling we would have heard so much more over the coming decades.

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Fringe Previews

Although a digital version is available, the Edinburgh Festival Fringe still diligently prints a paper catalogue of events. This year, it runs to a total of 384 pages, with six to 12 events per page.

Since the festival doesn’t take place until 2 to 26 August, there is still plenty of time to pick shows, so I’m working out which ones are showing when I’m available.

As I do this, I’m reminded that comedy – and especially stand-up – is the dominant form. It takes up almost a third of the catalogue, and you can find it from tiny attic venues to 1,000-seat theatres.

It strikes me there must be some crossover with certain productions. Comedy and spoken word have elements in common. And then the line between spoken word and theatre isn’t always clear, while the catalogue groups together physical theatre with dance and circus. And at what point do dance and circus become cabaret or variety?

Even experienced promoters must have to make tough decisions about which category where a given show should be placed. Should a humourous theatre piece go in Comedy and potentially be crowded out by other events, or be included in Theatre where readers may be expecting a more serious production?

In any case, the popularity of the festival might be starting to ease off. It’s notorious for causing performers to make a loss, largely because of accommodation costs. Even the well-known Jason Manford and Gail Porter say they’ve been priced out.

But that’s a matter for the future. For 2024, it’s business as usual, and I look forward to going once again.

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Making an Event Flexible Without Losing the Audience

On Saturday just gone, my open-mic event Hotchpotch collaborated with I Am Loud Productions from Edinburgh.

After an open-mike segment, the three headline acts would give us their best work. With close co-operation from the venue, it was a marvellous night, and showcased the best of both organisations.

However, I did admit to I Am Loud that I was initially in two minds about whether to allow them to take over our event.

To understand my thinking, let me take you back to February this year. I received a message from a reasonably high-profile poet from the other coast of Scotland. She was putting together a book tour and wanted to include our event as place to promote it.

I was flattered she’d heard about us and thought about us, as I’d been to see her show in 2019. I realised immediately, however, this tour would not be a good fit for us. Our open-mic shows are about audience participation, with no one person featured more highly than another.

We exchanged a few e-mails and I proposed a solution of starting the book launch at 6pm, then beginning the open-mic at 7pm as usual. I would also have been prepared to host a special event separately from the open-mic. Our talks ultimately came to a halt, but I did recommend she approach another group I know, and I hear she’s going to be a headliner there soon.

So when I Am Loud wanted to collaborate, I was convinced to give the green light when I heard the open-mic element would be part of the show. This would be in a much-reduced form, with just eight slots of three minutes apiece, compared to unlimited slots of seven minutes.

In practice, though, there was a smaller audience than usual, perhaps because the regular crowd are accustomed to Wednesday events rather than those on Saturday. As such, only five of the eight slots were taken, so nobody was left disappointed.

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Callbacks and Foreshadowing

Every August, I spend time in Edinburgh at the Fringe festival, usually for a few of the many hundreds of comedy shows.

This year’s acts were as diverse as they come, including the magician Pete Firman, the musical troupe News Revue, and the brash Nick Helm. One factor they all have in common, however, is that each act references something that happened earlier in the show.

In the comedy world, a common structural element is known as a callback, in which a performer will make a reference to a joke or an event earlier in the show. The most memorable example I’ve seen was the comedian Danny Bhoy in his show Dear Epson, which opened with a letter of complaint to the eponymous company. At the end of the show, he closed with the reply he received to that letter.

Done often enough, a callback can become a running gag, making reference not just to the current show but to past shows or outside events. To this day, Jimmy Carr brings up the subject of his tax avoidance, even though it happened ten years ago.

Many stand-ups speak in a rambling manner, so such back-referencing provides a little clue that the rambling is not entirely aimless and that there’s some structure to be found.

A similar technique can be used in prose, where it’s more often known as foreshadowing. There is often a balance to be found between making it too obvious and giving away a later plot point, or making it so subtle that the reader misses it.

A story that manages to walk that line is The Lottery by Shirley Jackson for a good example. The stones mentioned casually near the start of the story play a significant part as the narrative concludes.

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Back on the Festival Circuit

On Saturday, I was invited to perform at the inaugural New Pitsligo International Spoken Word Festival. It’s not the obvious location for an international festival. It’s easy enough to reach Aberdeen by train, but to reach New Pitsligo involves at least two connecting buses, many of them via Fraserburgh.

I was given a 4pm slot to perform in the Public Hall. In practice, it was closer to 5pm because the small delays by previous acts had built up to a much longer delay during the afternoon.

I presented new material, namely found poetry, constructed from sources including a calculus textbook and e-mail subjects. It took a few of my 15 minutes to warm up the audience and win them over, but they seemed to enjoy it by the end.

I have a few other festival-type events coming up soon, including a collaboration with an Edinburgh-based poetry group and a Dundee Fringe in September, and I look forward to seeing what comes of those.

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When the Ephemeral Becomes Lasting

Having been on the comedy circuit since 1994, Janey Godley has risen to far greater prominence over the last couple of years.

For a long time, she’s been overdubbing footage of politicians with a humourous counter-narrative. But these really took off when she applied this to the Scottish First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, giving COVID-19 briefings. Here’s an example that’s not safe for work.

Early in the series, a number of running catchphrases were established, many of which appeared to be improvised. One of them caught on more than any other, namely ‘Frank, get the door’, which was said as the First Minister left the stage. Godley has now used this as the title of a compilation book.

I’m sure everyone’s been at an event or gathering where an in-joke was established and built upon as the night went on. Most often, the joke is forgotten in a day or two, but sometimes it carries on, gaining arms and legs along the way.

A good example is from a poetry pal. Ross McCleary runs a Twitter account where the majority of the material revolves around recurring themes, including – but not limited to – the video for the Robbie Williams track Rock DJ, Hump Day as a nickname for Wednesday, Infinite Jest, and LinkedIn cliches.

Yesterday, I took part in an impromptu discussion surrounding another account called Edinburgh Watch, known for constantly retweeting messages from the city. Ross jokingly suggested writing a poetry show about ‘the death of Edinburgh Watch’, with other people suggesting elements that the narrative could have.

However, he’s also one to round up collaborators and take seemingly silly ideas to fruition. Previous projects have included reading poetry dressed as pandas, and a show set in the same universe as the old Fererro Rocher adverts.

It’s entirely possible, therefore, that something lasting might come from all this idle joking about Edinburgh Watch, and I look forward to seeing the end product.

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The Poetry, the Play and the Party

On Friday, I attended the Burryman festival in South Queensferry, a short train trip from Edinburgh. This is a tradition where a man from the town is dressed head to toe in burrs and marched around the streets, and it’s considered good luck to offer him whisky. The origin is unknown, but is believed to be around 400 years old.

Much as I’d like to devote the whole entry to this amazing day, I mention it only in the context of live events. This time last year, there was doubt over to whether it could go ahead because of crowd control regulations. It did happen, with the police making sure folks kept their distance.

This year was a different story, largely because early August marked the return of many live events in Scotland. As I knew I wouldn’t be too far away, my first event was Loud Poets at the Scottish Storytelling Centre in Edinburgh. I was particularly excited for this, as I knew a few folks taking part, either on stage or front-of-house.

Three poets and a host played in front of an auditorium at perhaps two-thirds capacity, and they seemed relieved to be back in person. One in particular, Paul Case, relied more on memory than written work, and it reminded me that this is a habit I need to relearn because I haven’t had a need to remember my work over the last 18 months.

Then on Saturday, I was invited to a dress rehearsal of a play at Dundee Rep Theatre: Hindu Times by Jaimini Jethwa. The rehearsal took place in a studio rather than the main stage, with no sets and minimum special effects. I enjoyed being part of this select preview group, and I’ll definitely recommend the play once it launches to the wider public.

The Storytelling Centre and the Rep both enforced distancing and face coverings, but Generator Projects took a more laissez-faire approach. To celebrate 25 years of workshops and exhibitions, they laid on an outdoor show of poetry, dance and music. I also had plenty of opportunities to catch up with others from the literary community before complaints from residents closed it down at 9pm.

I have a few more live shows lined up in the near future, and I hope they’re just as enjoyable.

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On Roles and Pigeonholes

In 2016, I graduated with an MLitt Writing Practice and Study degree from the University of Dundee. At the time, I was in the mindset that I wanted to write in as many different styles and formats as possible.

This wasn’t a problem until it was time to pull together all my work into what the syllabus described as a ‘unified dissertation’. In other words, the whole document had to flow, but my pieces were too dissimilar to achieve this easily. With the help of two tutors, we eventually solved the problem, but I still didn’t like having to adopt one role or to be pushed into one pigeonhole.

I only began to change my stance earlier this year when a friend posted a video of a TED talk about sugar addiction, which inspired me to start writing a spoken-word show about the struggles I’ve had with my weight. And for the first time, I felt as though I’d found a niche that I enjoyed occupying, and that I had plenty of material to fill.

That said, I’ve lost a lot of weight since starting to write that show. This is an achievement, but I feel as though it’s defeating the point of the narrative.

Notebook in which I log my weight every week
Notebook in which I log my weight every week

On Saturday, I went to my first Edinburgh Fringe shows of the season, all of which reinforced my dedication to sticking with my niche for as long as it takes.

The first two were by people I know, and could only have been written by them. John McCann has a deep understanding of politics in Northern Ireland and has penned a monologue called DUPed, all about the Democratic Unionist Party. Meanwhile, Amy Gilbrook in Nutshells touches upon her experience of not fitting in. And while I don’t know Alan Bissett personally, it’s difficult to imagine anyone else emulating Moira Bell in The Moira Monologues or More Moira Monologues.

These shows are playing on selected dates throughout August.

Despite my promise to stay in a niche for the foreseeable future, I realised this week that some of my favourite novels have one thing in common. I’m attracted to those one-off stories where a sequel is unlikely because the story is so self-contained, such as A Clockwork Orange or The Bell Jar.

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Gibson and Goodfellow

On Wednesday, I saw one of my idols at The Mash House in Edinburgh. Andrea Gibson is a non-binary poet who uses the singular ‘they’ pronoun. This was the very city where I’d been introduced to their work.

It seemed to be the convention that the audience sat on the floor, so I was battling with needles and pins for much of the evening, not to mention a wet patch where someone had accidentally kicked over my wine.

But in spite of the setbacks, the gig itself was amazing. I enjoyed Gibson’s often dense wordplay and imagery, which engaged and touched us in equal measure. Many of the poems were accompanied by recorded music.

Just about everyone in the audience queued up to have merchandise signed after the gig. I didn’t, but I wanted to tell them how much their work had helped me write mine. From nowhere, I found myself ready to cry as I spoke. They seemed to be genuinely appreciative of the thought.

The support act was Suky Goodfellow. I’d heard of her before but this was the first time I’d encountered her poetry. She commanded the stage as she spoke about wealth creators and why swear words shouldn’t be rude.

If I have the opportunity to see Gibson and/or Goodfellow again, I shall definitely take it.

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The Local Circuit

Last week, I talked about an open-mike night that I run in Dundee. However, the majority of the events I attend happen in Glasgow or Edinburgh. These cities are not prohibitively far away; I can reach either one by bus or train.

The problem is that I have an office job and I’m generally required to work until 5pm. I’m often obliged to take the train to arrive on time, even though bus travel is almost always cheaper. Coming back on the same night poses other challenges: do I book a cheap late-night bus where I need to hang around after the event finishes, or do I spend more on a train ticket I can use at any time?

Scottish Poetry Library, Crichton's Close, Can...
Scottish Poetry Library, Crichton’s Close, Canongate, Edinburgh Designed by Malcolm Fraser Architects, shortlisted for Channel 4’s Building of the Year 2000 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Many poets do make a point of stopping in Dundee, but it would be great to have more of a home-grown scene. There’s a well-established poetry circuit between Glasgow and Edinburgh where acts from one city will regularly perform in the other, and so it would be great to have Dundee contributing to that route as well as being an equal player.

Among other initiatives, a couple of folks I know want to host a cabaret night, and a third is proposing a regular playwriting evening, so I think there’s definitely an appetite for doing something right here. I don’t know much about the scene in other major Scottish cities, but the potential is enormous.

Regardless of the logistics, it’s often a rewarding experience to be at spoken-word events.

A couple of weeks ago, I saw the Jenny Lindsay show This Script & Other Drafts  in Glasgow; on Friday just gone, I was back in the city for a trans and non-binary event. On both occasions, I had an excellent time and I caught up with people I haven’t seen for a while. Leyla Josephine’s Hopeless is on the cards for Friday coming.