The art of the matter

Nobody should be in any doubt that the Edinburgh International Festival (EIF) is the jewel in Scotland’s cultural crown.

Or, to put it another way, that it is Scotland’s most visible and important manifestation of soft power. Which means the EIF is insulated, to an extent, from the severe budget cuts currently affecting the arts community in Scotland.

Not that there hasn’t had to be some trimming and cutting back on the part of the organisation, as Festival Director Nicola Benedetti admits in a wide-ranging interview with Herald arts writer Teddy Jamieson.

“Given the current uncertainty of public art funding in Scotland we have planned prudently for the 2025 festival, which means practically we will present a more compact programme and be increasingly reliant on income from earned ticket sales and the generosity of those who support us,” she tells him.

One casualty has been the well-liked EIF curtain raisers, mass-participation opening events such as 2015’s Harmonium Project, which saw a John Adams choral work performed inside the Usher Hall while fantoosh projections lit up the venue’s exterior. Or Deep Time, from 2016, which celebrated the work of pioneering 18th century geologist James Hutton with an epic light-show on Edinburgh Castle and an equally epic soundtrack from Glasgow post-rock legends, Mogwai.

All agree that Ms Bendetti has been a breath of fresh air for the EIF. If she didn’t exist, you couldn’t really make her up: she’s the first woman to head the organisation, the first Scot also, and one of the world’s finest violinists to boot. A different director may have thrown more focus on theatre, say, or dance. But nobody should complain about a festival playing to the strengths of the person running it.

A notable aspect of Ms Benedetti’s tenure so far has been her use of slogans to distil the themes she has gathered together or identified as being worthy of note. Last year it was Rituals That Unite Us. Next year’s festival will run under the banner The Truth We Seek. Sure, both slogans are nebulous but the second in particular is generous enough to carry a sting – the sort of sting that art is great at delivering and governments and vested interests hate to have to listen to. Especially if they think they’re paying for it. Is the truth we seek the same one we wanted spoken to power?

In that regard another line from the interview sticks out. In 2027 the EIF will celebrate a milestone anniversary, having been founded in 1947. “We are driving towards our 80th anniversary in a couple of years,” says Ms Benedetti. “We have an ever increasingly ambitious plan.”

We have to assume that landmark 2027 festival will be adequately resourced. Assuming also that Ms Benedetti is still in post, what will that year’s slogan be? What does she mean by ‘ambitious’? We’ll be two years into a Trump administration at that point. The Middle East will likely be no closer to a just settlement of the Palestinian question than it is today or was yesterday. The far-right across Europe could be more entrenched in the body politic. Russia could be emboldened, Ukraine denuded of territory and morale. What known unknowns and unknown unknowns are also in the offing?

Ms Benedetti notes that the EIF was born “immediately off the back of direct conflict and combat and genocide, and the most horrific atrocities human beings are capable of.” Ninety seconds on your news feed will tell you some of that, if not all, still applies today. More than funding this or that orchestra’s visit to Edinburgh, more than enticing this or that corporate sponsor to reach into its pockets, the courage and imagination with which the EIF addresses those ills will be the real test of its efficacy.

Here you can read Teddy’s interview and more on the EIF’s latest announcements for its 2025 programme, including the world premiere of Scottish Ballet’s new production, Mary Queen Of Scots.

Roseanna Leney and Charlotta Öfverholm rehearsing Scottish Ballet's Mary, Queen of Scots (Image: Mihaela Bodlovic)

London links

The Herald asked last week: are we being served by BBC Scotland drama? The emphasis there was on the viewer, for which read the licence payer. But a new report published by funding body Screen Scotland to coincide with the implementation of the Media Act 2024 examines the same issue from the point of view of the production companies which either make, or collaborate heavily on, most of what passes for BBC Scotland drama.

The report covers the period from 2014 to 2022 and makes for sobering reading. It found, for instance, that “much of the BBC’s ‘Scottish’ network quota has been commissioned from London and produced by London head-quartered production companies via Scottish branch offices.”

Wait, there’s more. Of the top 15 producers of Scottish content by episode number, only five were headquartered in Scotland, and of the 11 companies most used by the BBC only two were headquartered here. On top of that, “80% of the total episodes made by the Top 15 [production companies] for the BBC were commissioned from producers headquartered in London” found the report.

Food for thought ahead of the BBC’s licence renewal in 2027. The report, for the record, was conducted by “boutique strategy consultants” Oliver & Ohlbaum Associates Ltd. They are based in – wait for it – London.

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And finally

The Herald’s critics have been busy. Keith Bruce was at City Halls in Glasgow to hear the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and its Spanish principal flautist Andre Cebrian perform Mozart’s Flute Concerto, as well as music by Arnold Schoenberg and Johann Heinrich Schmeltzer.

Elsewhere theatre critic Neil Cooper took his seat for two very different performances. At the King’s Theatre in Glasgow it was 101 Dalmations: The Musical, a production drawing on Zinnie Harris’s stage adaptation which itself owes more to Dodie Smith’s original novel than to the animated Walt Disney version. At Edinburgh’s Traverse Theatre it was The Tailor Of Inverness, Matthew Zajac’s acclaimed one-man show about the life of his Polish-Ukrainian father, which arrived in the capital following a sell-out four week run in London.