The only non-blogger in Edinburgh! Part 1

Edinburgh; festival time. It’s a world of its own really. The Madrid crash registered only about 12 hours after it happened and normally I’d have been aware of it, almost as it happened.

Since most of the media decamp northwards at this time of the year for the Festival, the Fringe, the Book Festival, the Television conference and even the politics Festival there is no shortage of comment and reportage, although not from me. Sitting in the book festival café in a brief interval between the curtaining rain, I realised that the familiar looking bloke on the next table was, indeed Ming Campbell and that the huge laugh during Yasmin Alibhai- Brown’s one woman show emanated from Christopher Biggins.

Yasmin, who we met about five weeks ago, on holiday, told us about her show so, of course, we went. It’s the story of her early life in Uganda and her relationship with Shakespeare. It was really excellent. Informative, clever and amusing. The friends we went with, who had recently been to Uganda, loved it and we all felt we want to find out what happened next.

We’ve seen some good stuff. On the Waterfront, directed by Berkoff (a man who I think is a genius) was very good indeed. Our only quibble would be that the actor playing Johnny, the criminal leader shouted all his lines. A measured menace might have been more effective (and made some of the words more audible). A Life in the Theatre was also a great show with excellent acting by the two players and the one-man Lies Have Been Told about Robert Maxwell was a marvellous 90 minutes.

Each year I begin to think that I can probably give Edinburgh a miss. And now I’m hearing people saying “next year” with an ease that suggests that maybe not just yet.