Who took Edinburgh Fringe by storm, Liz Truss or her impersonator?

Although there are guiding hands at work curating the cultural offerings available in the Edinburgh Festival, at the personal level it’s a self-curated experience.

You pick what you like the look of and what your budget (and the time of the last train home) will allow. So as you rush from a circus show by heavily-pierced Australian acrobats to a live recording of a podcast about fly-fishing, you can often be struck by the absurdity of the juxtapositions.

Your next thought then is: ‘Only in Edinburgh in August, eh?’ It’s like the whole of the internet has grown arms and legs, printed flyers, and turned up in town with a suitcase on wheels.

My Festival 2024 experience begins on Monday with a trip to see former UK Prime Minister Liz Truss. She’s due to give her tuppence-worth as part of the All Talk series of political interviews hosted by broadcaster and commentator Iain Dale.

Hang on, though, isn’t that Ms Truss I see standing outside the venue as I saunter down Morrison Street, trademark blue dress matching the summer sky to a tee? Er, no. It’s comedienne and noted Truss impersonator Nerine Skinner, who has taken this opportunity to hand out flyers for her Truss-themed show.

Will she pose for a photograph? Of course she will. Is it true she killed the Queen, as Private Eye is fond of saying? “I only shook her hand,” she tells me. “But I do have quite a strong grip.” And what does she think of Suella Braverman, the woman she appointed to the role of Home Secretary? “She’ll never be Prime Minister.”

For the record (and because I promised her a plug), Nerine Skinner’s show is called The Exorcism Of Liz Truss and it’s in the Just The Tonic programme at the Caves.

As for the woman herself, she turns out to be fluent, combative and oddly likeable – in a likeably odd way. There are probably tougher crowds on the Fringe but she has no problems dealing with this one. “Why did you sack Kwasi Kwarteng?” someone shouts at one point. “Read my book,” she counters with a grin, referring to her 2024 tome Ten Years To Save The West. You can read more on my encounter with the former PM here.

Day one ends at the Playhouse for something completely different, a performance by Brazilian dance company Grupo Corpo. Formed in the city of Belo Horizonte in 1975, they bring two pieces to the Edinburgh International Festival (EIF), both UK premieres.

Gil Refazendo is performed to music by (and is a sort of tribute to) the great Brazilian musician Gilberto Gil, and sees the company perform a fluid, mesmerising take on traditional dance.

The second piece, Gira, is less measured – a kinetic, often frantic celebration of the rites of the Afro-Brazilian Umbanda religion, this time sound-tracked by music from Sao Paolo band Metà Metà. I stumble out of the Playhouse expecting the sounds and sights of a Rio carnival in full swing but all I see is a passing Uber Eats rider and the statue of Arthur Conan Doyle that stands by the tram stop. Still, only in Edinburgh in August, eh?

The reviews are in

The Herald’s theatre critic Neil Cooper has been busy in stalls and grand circle as he wends his way around the opening weekend of the Edinburgh Festival. Here you can read his reviews of Traverse Theatre Fringe show A History Of Paper as well as EIF shows The Outrun and Penthesilea. The first of those is an adaptation of Amy Liptrot’s Orkney-set memoir, here directed by former National Theatre of Scotland chief Vicky Featherstone, the second a take on the story of the Queen of the Amazons by well-regarded Dutch company Internationaal Theater Amsterdam.

Elsewhere Keith Bruce is on the opera and classical music beat. He offers up a five star review of the EIF opening concert at the Usher Hall, a performance of La Pasión Según San Marcos by Argentinian composer Osvaldo Golijov which only premiered in 2000 and is regarded today as one of the undisputed classics of the 21st century.

Read more:

Herald Arts | A whole 30 years since first T in the Park – has anything compared since?

Performed in Spanish, Latin and Aramaic and also featuring roles for dancers, its Edinburgh performance draws on the talents of the Schola Cantorum de Venezuela aided by musicians from the Royal Scottish National Orchestra and young singers from the reliably awesome National Youth Choir of Scotland.

Keith has also taken in a production of Carmen by Parisian company Opéra-Comique starring Gaëlle Arquez, the French mezzo-soprano who has “staked her claim to be the definitive Carmen of our time.”

If comedy is your thing and indecision your vice, you can check out The Herald’s guide to what could be the hottest stand-up tickets in town, or read another hit-list sifting through the acts making their Fringe debuts. Among them are 81-year-old advertising executive-turned-comic Jess Stark, and former SNP MP Mhairi Black whose show has already undergone scrutiny from The Herald’s Alison Rowat.

City limits

Though it pretends not to, Edinburgh does welcome its annual August arts jamboree and Edinburgh natives likewise.

Why? Because they’re pragmatists who, while they may have no care for the sound an orchestra makes, are fond enough of the accompanying ker-ching from the city’s cash registers as other people pay to listen.

That said, the capital is also home to a critical mass of culturally savvy types. I’ve interviewed enough EIF directors over the years to know how high an opinion they have of Edinburgh audiences. I guess 75 years of hosting the world’s best and biggest arts festival will do that to a place.

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But there are factors and other pressures – economic, demographic, societal – which affect not just Edinburgh but all tourist-friendly cities like it. Currently we’re seeing in destination spots such as Barcelona, Palma, Amsterdam and Venice a rejection of tourism.

At grass-roots level it’s protestors squirting visitors with water pistols, at executive level it’s restrictions, bans and gentle encouragements of the official sort. Biting the hand that feeds? Maybe. In a thoughtful and thought-provoking piece, The Herald’s Rosemary Goring chews over some of these issues as they relate to.