8 1GT Thursday August 6 2020 | the times

arts

What Edinburgh’s like

without the festivals

Many are mourning the absence of the Scottish arts

bonanza, but there is art to see and some locals are

pleased to have their city back, reports Mike Wade

I

n any other August hundreds of

makeshift theatres in Edinburgh

would begin filling up tomorrow

on the opening weekend of the

city’s International Festival and

the Fringe. For thousands who

love this time of year, there’s

pleasure in happily jostling

through the crowds to a seat. For

writers such as Zinnie Harris it’s an

annual turning point, sometimes a

career-defining moment.

Harris broke through 20 years

ago, when her Fringe play Further

than the Furthest Thing won just about

every theatre prize available. It was

the gateway to national success

and overseas tours, to TV and radio

productions, and Edinburgh’s festival

season has continued to be a constant

inspiration, “a complete blast of ideas”

that never fails to inspire.

This year the whole shebang has

been cancelled, for the first time in

more than 70 years. How will it seem

in the city where she lives? “What

would winter feel like without

Christmas?” Harris replies. “Like

summer without the festival.”

It will still be possible for visitors to

track and trace the Edinburgh spirit

this month. Beyond the city lights,

Jupiter Artland, a 125-acre garden of

delights for lovers of contemporary

art, is taking bookings for its summer

season, which as well as 35 permanent

artworks features reimaginings of

Allan Kaprow’s work, including Ya r d (a

stack of tyres in a sunken lane) and a

Black Lives Matter mural by the young

artist Saoirse Amira. At Ingliston, near

the airport, Dizzee Rascal is one of the

headliners in a series of drive-in rock

shows, part of a UK-wide touring bill.

These, though, are peripheral events.

In the city centre most manifestations

of the 2020 season serve only as

reminders of the shows we have lost.

There will be music in the city centre,

although in common with all of

Edinburgh’s summer festivals, most of

the International Festival programme

is online (of which more later). The

Usher Hall and Queen’s Hall are

closed, but Princes Street Gardens

becomes home to “a sound

installation” broadcasting classical

music for 40 minutes each lunchtime

from August 10, featuring Scottish

artists including Colin Currie, Steven

Osborne, the Dunedin Consort and

the Hebrides Ensemble.

At 10.30pm on Saturday and for the

next two nights all the best-known

festival theatres, halls and venues —

including the Castle Esplanade, site of

the military tattoo — will combine in

a project entitled My Light Shines On,

the buildings pulsing with light and

the sky punctured by hundreds of

beams reaching up into the dark.

It promises to be spectacular and

symbolic, but somewhat mournful.

The familiar happy chaos of the

streets will likewise be absent. The

Fringe Society, the charity charged

with creating some semblance of order

from a usually chaotic programme, did

not take out a licence for performance

on the Royal Mile. Sword swallowers

and fire-eaters are off the bill. The

odd busker might come into earshot,

but the temporary stages, actors in

costume and thousands of leafleteers

will be at home. One big venue, the

Gilded Balloon, has organised a

“Fringe Treasure Hunt”, but numbers

are limited.

Grid Iron, the site-specific theatre

company, hopes to perform

Dopplerafter an announcement last

week by the Scottish government that

live performance could resume on

August 24 if the virus remains under

control. The play, aptly, centres on a

man struggling to live in social

isolation.

The visual arts make a stronger

showing in the city. The National

Museum of Scotland will reopen on

August 19, with the National Galleries

expected to follow suit later in the

month. On the streets, a combined

show features Heroes of the Festivals,

in the style of Humans of New York. It

will show photographs of the

technicians and backroom staff who

help to bring the shows to life.

There will be a number of poignant

interventions, none more so than the

revival of Peter Liversidge’s Flags For

Edinburgh. In 2013 the jolly little

pendants were run up on some of the

most austere buildings in the city to

Walking up the

empty Royal

Mile has been

mind-boggling