"I'm asking Turkey to face its own history"

Turkish historian and dissident Taner Akçam added to Book Festival program

The Armenian genocide is probably the most controversial topic a Turkish historian can study. That's why Taner Akçam's mother wishes he had written his PhD thesis on something else. "She is so upset with me. She says, 'You just settled yourself after all your troubles – couldn't you find something else?'" Years later, he has to agree. "After so many difficulties in my life, I wouldn't have chosen these difficulties on top of them."

(Read the rest of this preview feature at ThreeWeeks.)

Andrew Alderson and Neil Mackay at the Book Festival

From 17 August. Originally published in ThreeWeeks.

"Does anyone here know anything about finance?" This small question catapulted Andrew Alderson, a former investment banker, to de facto Chancellor of the Exchequer for southern Iraq. Alderson's 'Bankrolling Basra' is by turns hilarious and depressing - by his estimation, the team of Brits that he worked with in Basra had the region stabilised before they were withdrawn. Neil Mackay's 'The War On Truth' has fewer anecdotes and more rage. The book argues that the British and American public was manipulated into the war based on cherry-picked intelligence and lies - a work of solid investigative journalism to be sure, but Mackay also finished by reading a section where he describes exactly how Tony Blair should commit suicide. Give peace a chance indeed.

Paddy Docherty and Edna Fernandes at the Book Festival

From 15 August. Originally published in ThreeWeeks.

Technical problems kept Paddy Docherty from showing us a photo where he is holding a hunk of hashish "the size of a child's head". The image, from a market near the Khyber pass, stuck with me anyway. Countless armies have traveled the Khyber on their way to India, and Docherty's book 'The Khyber Pass: A History Of Empire And Invasion' looks at the social consequences of these invasions. Edna Fernandes' 'Holy Warriors: A Journey To The Heart Of Indian Fundamentalism' examines some modern consequences of those ideas. Fernandes sees fundamentalism as partly a consequence of economic development, but on the 60th anniversary of Indian independence and partition, is still optimistic: "Indians are not looking to fight the battles of the past - they want to move forward".h

Apocalyptic Sunset

This is really how it looked. The whole city stopped to stare for a few minutes.

From Edinburgh

Tariq Ramadan at the Book Festival

From 11 August. Originally published in ThreeWeeks.

Controversy follows Tariq Ramadan to an almost baffling degree. Born and educated in Switzerland, Ramadan is probably the best-known Muslim scholar in Europe. Famously denied a visa to work at an American university, he now studies at Oxford. Ramadan's latest book, 'The Messenger', is a biography of Muhammad. He says that for interfaith dialogue we need "a revolution of trust - to be able to say, I have a question". For the duration of the reading there was this trust, and plenty of questions. His answers were patient and articulate, covering everything from a conversation with the Dalai Lama, to the intrinsic pluralism in Islam, to the role of Muslim scholars in the "western" Enlightenment, to the importance of re-interpreting religious texts. Fascinating.

Murder and Marmalade

One last theatre review, of a show that isn't playing anymore, but was some of the best fun I've had at the Fringe. Originally published in ThreeWeeks.

Something strange is happening in a West Country tea shop, and a ramshackle crew of comic characters seem incapable of getting to the bottom of it. Produced by Fringe veterans SNUG, an 'integrated' theatre project, 'Murder And Marmalade' includes people with and without disabilities - this is theatre for the sheer adventure of it. A few strong voices keep the chorus on track, and a singing narrator keeps us abreast of the nearly-immaterial plot. Matthew Fairley overplays his boy detective character to hilarious effect, as do the cackling, morphine-swilling teashop ladies. No one is looking to launch their career, so all the players are relaxed and having fun on stage. It's contagious.

Tina Cassidy at the Book Festival

From 13 August. Originally published by ThreeWeeks.

There were only four men in this session by Tina Cassidy about her book 'Birth: A Surprising History Of How We Are Born', but there were plenty of women, mostly in groups, who cast significant glances to each other or nodded in agreement as Cassidy spoke. Drawing on her skills as a journalist and her personal experience giving birth to her first child, Cassidy has investigated differences in the way birth has been handled through time and around the world, juxtaposing developments in the Western world with the development of feminism. She has few compliments for obstetricians, placing today's rising C-section rates beside a line of gruesome interferences that begins with the 'twilight sleep' used earlier in the century, when women were strapped down and drugged to oblivion. Cringe-inducing and important.

Edmund White

Since I'm covering the Book Festival for ThreeWeeks, I'm reviewing one-off readings. It's hard to know what to say most of the time, or why people would read them, so I probably won't repost all of them, but here's my first...

"I always feel the imagination is greatly overrated". Strange words from a novelist, but Edmund White is more interested in playing with facts than making things up, and it has served him well. Best known for his biographical fiction, and for his portrayal of gay men, White's latest novel 'Hotel de Dream' imagines the last days of American writer Stephen Crane, as Crane dictates a final novel to his wife. We were read an excerpt where Henry James makes a delightful cameo. Also something of a critic, White litters his speech with literary references, yet never talks down to the audience. "As you recall from 'War And Peace'," he says at one point - not exactly, Edmund, but we're glad you think so.

See the rest of ThreeWeeks' coverage in our latest print version or online.

Walking home from Charlotte Square Gardens

From Edinburgh

Heelz on Wheels

Originally published in ThreeWeeks.

Like Rocky Horror with wheelchairs, this show tells the story of Butch, whose dreary existence in a crumbling Northern town is brightened by the discovery of a shoe shop full of "sex, crips and queers". There are plentiful sequins, minimalist, poetic dialogue and music - Sally Clay's beautiful, versatile voice is worth the price of admission on its own. The small cast had the audience with them every step of the way, even through a singalong version of "We're All Just a Tiny Bit Like Hitler". But I wish the plot was clearer - I couldn't tell you much of what happened in the shoe shop. Even so, it was all over much too quickly - I would have happily watched for another hour.

Heelz on Wheels is playing at the Theatre Workshop until 26 August (not 19 August), every day at 8:00pm. Buy tickets here.

Blood from Stone

Originally published in ThreeWeeks.

Some shows are less than the sum of their parts. This musical about a museum where the statues come alive at night is full of players who can evidentially dance, sing and act, yet we only catch a glimpse of their potential. Plot points are the first distraction - the sculptures claim not to remember being the mythological figures they resemble, but then freely refer back to their myths - Daedalus, for instance, mourns constantly for his lost son Icarus. The cast is forced to sing outside their range, and often drowned out by their accompanying band. The melodies sound almost improvised, and the dialogue is sprinkled with flowery, meaningless metaphors. I left with new appreciation for the quiet stillness of real-life sculptures.

Blood from Stone is playing at C too until 18 August, every day at 5:30pm.

Flesh

Originally published in ThreeWeeks.

This is youth theatre at its best. Commissioned by Westminister Abbey, 'Flesh' brings together students from three secondary schools in London to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the abolition of slavery. Using the story of one man, music and movement, they pack dozens of perspectives on the slave trade into this short production. Clarity suffers a little in the compression - a reference to Haiti's slave rebellion seems hastily tacked on. But the mixed view of white abolitionists is especially welcome, and if the acting is not quite professional in quality, the music is as good as any you'll hear at the Fringe as there are some fantastic voices in this cast. A timely and important piece of theatre.

Flesh finished its run on 11 August.

Corpus Christi

Originally published in ThreeWeeks.

I expected controversy from this re-imagined New Testament tale - something cynical and cutting edge. What I didn't expect, or expect to enjoy, was sincerity. The company loves this story, they tell us so straight away - and by the end, you will love it too. In this version, our saviour (Joshua) is born to rotten parents in modern-day Texas. The other twist - that Joshua, and some of his apostles, are gay - is just a background to the familiar story of love, forgiveness and betrayal, which is exceptionally well-acted and unexpectedly funny. When the setting moves from Texas to ancient Israel and back, the time travel is left unexplained, but the audience is too charmed to care. This play will make a believer out of you.

Corpus Christi is playing at Bedlam until 25 August, every night at 10pm. Buy tickets here.

Exits and Entrances - Athol Fugard

Originally published in ThreeWeeks.

If there is peril in writing a play about the theatre, writing yourself in as a passionate, idealistic playwright must be nearly fatal. But this is what Athol Fugard does in his latest work. 'Exits And Entrances' is based on Fugard's relationship with the Afrikaans actor Andre Huguenet - "South Africa's Olivier". Morlan Higgins fills the theatre as Andre - you can hardly tear your eyes away, which is just as well because there isn't much complexity to Fugard, and Andre has a lot of long speeches with excerpts from famous plays ('Hamlet', 'Oedipus Rex', etc). It's a performance worth the price of admission, but make sure you're in the mood for serious theatre - by the curtain call, even the actors looked a little bored.

Exits and Entrances is playing at Assembly @ George Street until 26 August, every day at 3:20pm. Buy tickets here.

In My Father's House

Originally published in ThreeWeeks.

Part cooking demonstration, part improvisation, 'In My Father's House' is ostensibly about plums, but might have more to do with death or religion, if you're looking for deeper meaning. The performers are in character from the moment we enter the theatre - but who are these characters, exactly? If you need definite answers, this is not the production for you. With only a bare wisp of a plot, the women of Kindle Theatre use their considerable talents in voice, movement, music and audience interaction, the emotions evoked ranging from delight to discomfort. It's never boring, but a certain amount of nervous laughter from the audience seems inevitable. This is theatre that gets you up on your feet to sing, and leaves you with sticky fingers.

In My Father's House is playing at C SoCo until 26 August, every day at 5:15pm. Buy tickets here.

Little Shop of Horrrors (ExADUS)

Originally published in ThreeWeeks.

How many missed notes does it take to turn off a full house? Not many, it seems. ExADUS Theatre Company's production of the darkly comic musical 'Little Shop Of Horrors' is fast-paced and well-rehearsed, with creative staging and several good performances. Thomas Holmes is particularly effortless as Seymour, letting us both laugh at and sympathise with the tragic hero. But Holmes' talent can't save us from other cast members, whose occasional drifting pitch and jarring volume saw some audience members cringing and leaning backwards. Incorporating the 'Men In Black' into the background of the production was a creative touch, but having them yell at the audience on the way out was too much - we were already eager to leave.

Little Shop of Horrors is playing at Augustine's today at 2:30pm.

Mind the cracks

The last eleven months, when Edinburgh seemed to do little but renovate, repair and plan for the Festival, it was easy to forget that the month of August itself has little to do with the people who live here. Much of the audience is from away, as are the performers and a substantial number of organisers and writers.

It's an awkward embrace, sometimes. Take this tip from the ThreeWeeks Ladies McMonthly column:

Fresh fruit and veg are scarce in central Edinburgh which may leave you feeling bloated and static stooled. Our tried and tested remedy involves heading for one of Edinburgh’s charming late night kebaberies...

...there follows some unpleasantness about food poisoning. It probably doesn't need saying that I have no trouble buying vegetables near my downtown flat. But, the joke goes, Scotland isn't sophisticated enough for greens. Or something?

It almost makes me appreciate our local nationalist chalk writer, who keeps "End London Rule" scrawled across Hume on the Royal Mile. If it makes a few visitors think about local politics for a few minutes, it might forgive said writer's relentless lack of creativity.

But sometimes the commentary is mostly cute. Take this ad for a sketch comedy show, chalked on the Royal Mile.

From Edinburgh

Well, I giggled. Maybe it's the latent foreigner in me. The first thing I did in this city was trip on some cobblestones and scrape myself up in the middle of traffic.

On reading homophobic writers

I'm covering the Edinburgh International Book Festival now, which is pretty exciting - that tent in Charlotte Square Gardens is like an alternate universe based entirely on books. :)

My first reading was a discussion with Tariq Ramadan. He's a Muslim scholar currently at Oxford, one of the best-known in Europe. It was a fantastic session - I'll post more about it once I've written my ThreeWeeks review.

There is much that we agree on, but I know, from reading elsewhere, that he believes that homosexuality is "wrong". I would like to read some of his work, but I will probably feel strange about it. It's a feeling Ramadan probably knows better than me - his Ph.D. was in Western philosophy, and I'm sure he has studied people he knows are racist. We pick and choose valuable points from work that we cannot be fully reconciled with.

I will never read a book by someone I agree with on everything. But there's something more fundamentally offputting about reading an author who would probably prefer that I didn't exist. All in all, it left me feeling a bit sad.

Faith, Hope, and... Genocide?

Originally published in ThreeWeeks.

A play about genocide is not the first place you would look for a story of faith and forgiveness. But the tagline to Leslie Lewis Sword’s one-woman show ‘Miracle In Rwanda’ is “finding God in genocide”, and she sees no contradiction. The show, Sword’s Fringe debut, tells the true story of Immaculée Ilibagiza. Ilibagiza lost her family in the 1994 Rwandan genocide, but she escaped by hiding with seven other women for 91 days in a bathroom. While she hid, up to 1 million Tutsis and moderate Hutus were slaughtered.

Read the rest of the feature here.

Like Watching A Car Wreck

Originally published in ThreeWeeks.

What gives a car a “fascinating sound”? For Christian von Richthofen, the percussionist who destroys vehicles, in rhythm, each night during ‘Auto Auto’, the answer is obvious. “How it’s built, what it’s made of. And of course cheaper cars sound better, because there is not so much material inside,” he says. “Never play on Mercedes or Rolls Royce - they sound like crap.” Less material means more sound from the hammers and electric sander, all the better to perform music from Tchaikovsky to Benny Goodman, with the help of collaborators Rolf Clausen and Kristian Bader.

Read the rest of the feature here.

East End of Princes Street

Taken late evening, a few weeks ago.

From Edinburgh

Stonewall

Originally published in ThreeWeeks.

This glitter-drenched production recalls the events that led to a 1969 raid on the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in New York; a raid which turned into a riot, then days of riots, and then the first Pride parade. It's no Andrew Lloyd Webber - the sixties girl group soundtrack is lip synched, and the dance sequences wouldn't hold up on Broadway. But the punchlines hit home, the costumes are fabulous, and all the queens (especially Rikki Beadle-Blair, also writer and director) just ooze charisma. Blair's script juxtaposes the integrationist gay rights groups of the time with the gutsy street kids and sex workers who actually pulled off Stonewall. But best of all, this sophistication in the script didn't keep the audience from smiling, laughing, and, by the end, standing to cheer.

Seeing Rikki Beadle-Blair reminded me of his short-lived Channel 4 series, Metrosexuality, which I love love love. We like to show this series on special occasions at the anti-homophobia peer education program I used to work with in Toronto. It wish it was as well-known as Queer as Folk, because it does everything better.

Also check out Cate's post about going to see Stonewall - we went together, and it was a bit weirder than I had room to say in the review. Several groups walked out in apparent disgust...

Stonewall is playing at the Pleasance Courtyard every night at 5:50 until 17 August. Buy tickets here.

Cherry Smoke

Originally published in ThreeWeeks.

Superb performances unfortunately serve to underline the problems with James McManus' script, in this drama about amateur boxing, abuse and devotion. We follow no-good Fish from childhood to disaster, and the boxing aspect is well-integrated and interesting. Jason Planitzer is fantastic as Fish's long-suffering brother and kudos goes to the actors for flawlessly executing 85 minutes of complex dialogue, in dialects built to match their down-and-out characters. So much the worse then, that McManus gives them such unbelievable things to say - at one point, a stomach ache is caused by "something vicious behind the eyes". Autumn Ayers also deserves a more complex character than the can't-live-without-her-man stereotype. But withhold your judgment and go see the show - this young company is one to watch.

Cherry Smoke from Barebones Productions is playing at C cubed, 2-26 August at 4:35pm. Buy tickets here.

Collywobbles

Originally published in ThreeWeeks.

Early in his show, Stan Stanley greeted some latecomers with the line: "We're having an awkward moment". Unfortunately that was too true. Stanley's Fringe solo debut, a self-deprecating stand-up routine about embarrassment and awkwardness, had solid moments rather than a solid whole. You get the sense that Stanley is charming and funny in the pub, but not yet comfortable on stage. He began counting down to the end of the show before I did, and seemed almost embarrassed by some of his own punchlines. Some were funny, yet even then we, the audience, didn't feel moved to laugh all that much. With more practice, this show might improve dramatically. As it is, I left with my face aching, but mostly from smiling encouragingly.

Collywobbles is playing at the Underbelly, 2-26 August at 2:20pm.

Heaps of Reviews

Fringe Review has compiled a list of nearly all the review sites. The volume is a bit overwhelming, but do have a poke around.

My choice this morning is View from the Stalls - there is lots of intelligent content up already.

Into the Hoods

I went to see this show after catching a preview at The List's Fringe launch party. It's returning from last year, when apparently everyone loved it. I was not disappointed.

Zoonation's "narrative street dance" is the whole package - fantastic breakdancing, obviously, but also fun, subverted fairy tales, clever minimalist sets, even a sprinkling of cute local children from their hip hop empowerment work in schools. There was some solid drag. I especially appreciated seeing lots of women, and not just as backup dancers - until now, my only exposure to women breakdancing had been through Shameless favourite shebang!

Buy tickets (while you still can!) here. Bring earplugs.

Who else is blogging the Festival?

Here's what I've found in the way of interesting-looking, regularly updated sites.

The Edinburgh Blog has switched over to Festival coverage for the month of August, with mostly Fringe reviews.

Fest, one of the review papers, has a blog on their site. Julian Fox is posting, along with some of the writers. I've been enjoying it so far.

The Podcast Network is producing regular episodes, but is worth a visit even if you know you'll never listen in - there are regular posts interspersed.

The Gray Dot also has a couple Festival-related posts up. And since this Cate's zillionth festival, I'm sure she'll continue to be more insightful than me.

Any other suggestions? Please post in comments. :)

Blogging the Festival

Over the next month I'll be posting a lot about the Festival, the world's biggest arts event and Edinburgh's year worth of cultural life shrunk down into the month of August.

The Festival transforms Edinburgh completely - every spare meeting room becomes a bar, and every kitchen becomes a room for let. It actually includes several unrelated festivals, including the International Festival (formal, more fine arts) the Fringe (the world's first and biggest), as well as events for the publishing and TV industries, even a politics festival.

The Fringe is the largest - according to the website, this year there will be 31,000 performances of of 2,050 shows at 250 venues. The Fringe alone estimated to bring £75 million to Edinburgh's economy.

Today is the first day of the Fringe, and things are getting pretty surreal. About a hundred schoolgirls from Taipei have been practising some sort of drill in my parking lot which is a bit like baton-twirling, but with rifles.