Opinion: Joseph Farrell: Statues show our ever-changing judgment of history
THE Party slogan in Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-four has renewed relevance in debates over the preservation or toppling of statues in the aftermath of the BLM demonstrations. 'Who controls the past controls the future; who controls the present controls the past.' Most commonly, this re-arrangement of a cityscape follows regime change, which invariably requires not just control of the future but also a rewriting of history. The icons of the past must go.
The Edinburgh Fringe may be over but its energy goes on
THE energy generated by the Festival does not drain away gradually, as happens with other human activities, but keeps pumping and throbbing even as the fat lady is singing her last song. On Wednesday, I managed to take in a beautifully fashioned, hard-hitting, satirical-political play, Brexit, a pulsating performance by Irish stand-up comedian, Joanne McNally, and finally The Prisoner, an arresting work conceived by Peter Brook and co-written with Marie-Helene Estienne. That work-rate is not going to win any medals in a town where some fleet-of-foot individuals manage to fit in some 20 shows between sunrise and sunset, but they were a strong reminder of the draw of story-telling, in whatever form it is told.
Edinburgh festival's rich array of works look backwards as well as forwards
IT was, the authorities assure us, on a visit to Edinburgh for an early festival that William Shakespeare coined the phrase “all the world’s a stage”, and if he could see the city now when every nook and cranny indoors and out is pressed into service as a performing space, he would feel his judgement confirmed. Every room has become a venue, while the streets provide such a wealth of entertainment that, even apart from the many free events where Irish comedians discourse and philosophy is debated, the visitor could at no expense enjoy gawking at witches near the castle where once their sisters were burned, witnessing Pussy Riot from Russia on the steps of the National Museum, seeing trapeze artists on the Royal Mile and fire-eaters alongside the National Gallery.
The shows worth waiting for at this year's Edinburgh Fringe
Joseph Farrell gives us a taste of what Edinburgh has to offer this month
Dario Fo's theatre has had a deep impact on Scotland – and he deserves recognition
DARIO Fo’s theatre attained great popularity in Scotland, where his impact was deep and may well be lasting. There is something mysterious in this.
The integration game: how Italo-Scots shaped our nation
THE first immigrants from Italy in the modern era arrived more than 100 years ago, a long enough time to allow them to form a community of Italo-Scots, to integrate and make their mark. Theirs is a story of success, but the community has also experienced episodes of intolerance and discrimination, as well as moments of deep tragedy.
