The essential early picks of the Fringe
Plus: Harvey Nics set to be rescued by Sports Direct tycoon Mike Ashley
Welcome to your midweek edition of The Inquirer.
Did you see it? Maybe as a vague outline at the bottom of your corn flakes box pinhole camera? Or a glimpse through your specially-acquired eclipse glasses? No, just clouds? Same here.
Which Fringe shows are as hot as a fire-eater’s mouth? Which should you body-swerve faster than an over-eager flyer team on the Royal Mile? (Sorry, flyer folk, we know you’re only doing your job!)
Today is the day that all you bewildered Festival-goers have been waiting for, it’s Will Quinn’s guide to the early hits of the Fringe. That’s all to come later, after your usual updates.
There’s been a lot of praise for Sarah’s McArthur’s members-only long read from yesterday: 250 years of the most influential book to come out of Edinburgh
“It’s a superbly written piece about one of the most important figures in world history,” said Donald.
Join us and take a fresh look at one of the great figures of the Scottish Enlightenment, Adam Smith, and how his thinking helped shape the modern world.
Your Edinburgh Briefing
HOW MUCH? The rising cost of food and drink on the Fringe is proving a hot topic. Common prices of £7 and £8 for a pint of lager and £10 to £12 for wraps in and around many Fringe venues have sparked much social media commentary and are highlighted in this report on the BBC.
HARVEY NICS RESCUE: It would have been unthinkable just a few years ago, but luxury department store chain Harvey Nichols has found itself on the verge of collapse. The latest victim of the demise of the traditional high street has been struggling for some time. However, the chain is set to be saved by retail billionaire Mike Ashley. Ashley’s Fraser Group, formerly First Direct, is expected to confirm the deal today, in a move that would secure the future of its Edinburgh store. The prospective deal has raised inevitable concerns of cost-cutting at the stores, which stock high-end brands such as Armani Beauty, Balmain, Cartier and Juicy Couture, with Ashley having offered assurances about honouring commitments to suppliers.
DARTS AND TV: One of Leith Walk’s longest-standing independent traders, the unique Borlands Darts and Television, is up off for sale. The shop is best-known for its unique combination of markets and has served generations of city darts fans. First opened in 1925, the selling agents Garden Stirling Burnet say the property “may offer potential for conversion to residential accommodation”.
HOTEL ON TRACK: A 10-storey hotel would replace a three-storey office block alongside the tram line beside Leith Docks. The proposals replace an earlier plan to build flats on the Rennie’s Isle site. FaulknerBrowns Architects have published details of the proposed 121-bedroom hotel, including a giant mural, ahead of submitting a planning application.
HOMELESS HOUSING: The Gorgie Social Club, on McLeod Street, will be demolished to make way for 97 studio apartments to provide temporary accommodation for homeless people. The proposals by Unum Partnership and FK100 include on-site care and management.
MSP’S APOLOGY: Q Manivannan, the new Edinburgh and Lothians East MSP, has apologised for any hurt caused by them talking of rape being “demonised” and “a spectrum of things”. The comments made in a podcast recorded before they were elected have been widely criticised for appearing to suggest some forms of rape are less serious than others. In the interview, the Green MSP, who says their comments have been taken out of context, told the interviewer: "It is a spectrum, none of which is any less or worse, but it is a spectrum of things that constitute one homogenised word 'rape'."
ROADS OPEN, ROADS SHUT: The recent good weather means the hope remains that Princes Street could be reopened within about a week. We hate to introduce any cloud to this bright horizon, but you should know Waterloo Place is set to be partially closed for three months for a £3m sewer upgrade. The closure will affect westbound traffic for 11 weeks from 7 September.
WATER VIEWS: Dr Scott Arthur, MP for Edinburgh South West, is seeking a meeting with Scottish Water to discuss sewage pollution being discharged into the Water of Leith via the Murrayburn. The MP ran a survey answered by more than 450 people about the river and its environs, which clearly demonstrated positive feelings towards the waterway, with main concerns being the sewage issue and conflicting interests of the various user groups, such as pedestrians, cyclists, dog walkers and horse riders. Improved signage is to be piloted to deal with this issue.
TWIN PEAK: Sciennes Primary School has welcomed the most twins to the new primary one intake of any city primary – with no less than three sets of double-trouble starting out today. They are amongst the 187 classes of primary ones starting out at school as the summer holidays end, at the capital’s 91 primary schools.
Community may bid to take on Georgian shipbuilder’s mansion
It has housed the uncle of a Prime Minister, a museum and a succession of parkies, but now Starbank House may be ready for a new role.
The mansion in Trinity was built in around 1815 for Granton shipbuilder Alexander Goalen, whose nephew William Gladstone would grow up to be the celebrated Victorian Prime Minister.
Now, the Friends of Starbank Park, who have maintained the beautiful park in the former grounds of the mansion since 2013, are considering plans to take on the house as a potential community space.
The building has an interesting local history. Leith Town Council bought Starbank House following the death of Goalen’s son, Walter, in 1889, and opened the grounds as Starbank Park two years later. The house became the home of the park keeper, while part of the building was used used a museum, between1920 to 1932. The collection displayed there was transferred to Huntly House Museum in Canongate following the demise of Leith Town Council.
The Friends of Starbank Park have set up a Steering Group to consider how the building could be used and what activities would be most valuable for the local community. They have set up a survey to gather ideas and are inviting input from residents, park users, and anyone with suggestions for making the most of the potential community space.
It takes about two minutes to complete the anonymous survey, before 5 September, which can be found here: https://tinyurl.com/Starbank-House-survey
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The essential early picks of the Fringe
by Will Quinn
We are officially in the thick of it. The Royal Mile is a wall-to-wall gauntlet of flyering, venue queues are winding round cobbled corners, and the smell of lukewarm draught beer and street food hangs heavy over George Square. By now, the opening-week hype has settled, and the real business of the Fringe is underway: separating the genuine theatrical triumphs from the over-promoted gambles.
Over at The Quinntessential Review, the team of critics has been pounding the pavements from Stockbridge to Cowgate, taking in everything from early-morning kids’ puppetry to late-night comedy trauma-dumps. We’ve reviewed a vast, impressive (if I do say so myself) crop of theatre, comedy, and dance already this August - and while they aren’t all five-star juggernauts, they represent a remarkably strong field. And, between you and me, the Fringe has always been full of 3 and 4 star shows I’d much rather see again, than their ‘perfect’ counterparts.
If you’re currently standing in a box office line wondering where to spend your ticket money, here are the shows I thought Inquirer readers needed to know about first - along with a crucial warning on those running on strictly limited schedules. Alright? Let’s get on…
Comedy & Clowning
We start with the heavyweights of the comedy circuit, where the line between stand-up, storytelling, and outright madness is always blurred in August.
Top of the pile is Elf Lyons, whose show The Woman on the Edge at Pleasance Courtyard proved that our pre-Fringe anticipation was totally justified. Channeling Hitchcock’s Vertigo, NASA space missions, and an operatic breakdown following a broken engagement, Lyons delivers what I declared “a masterclass in full-bodied, compassionate yet ruthless surrealist comedy”. Moving seamlessly from lip-sync and mime to a bouncy castle (why not?) and verbatim operatic rants about ex-partners’ excuses, it is an audacious hour from an artist at the zenith of her powers.
For pure, unadulterated Scottish stand-up royalty, Craig Hill’s You’re Not Even Safe Up the Back! at Just the Tonic at the Greyfriars Charteris Centre is an absolute riot. Marking his 27th year at the Fringe, the kilted whirlwind proves just why he’s considered a Scottish national comedy treasure. As QR reviewer Catherine Coutts noted, “The content is not just close to the bone – it drills through the bone and comes out the other side.” It’s smutty, affectionate, and relentlessly hilarious.
Over at Underbelly Bristo Square, Australian favourite Sammy J brings what is easily “one of the most polished, accomplished shows of this year’s Fringe” in Hero Complex. Unpacking a bizarre real-life mystery involving federal police, a teenage friendship with a school gardener, and a stash of The Phantom comics, Sammy J deploys decades of saved video diaries and witty ditties to construct a masterclass in narrative comedy. A word of warning, though: Sammy J is playing a limited engagement through Sunday 16 August, so do not linger - and whatever you do, don’t Google the backstory beforehand; just go and revel in a story where truth is far stranger than fiction.
