Here's what's on offer as Edinburgh festivals back with a bang

That felt like a hammer blow to a Scotland that was already reeling from the terrible loss of life, damage to health and dreadful social consequences of Covid. Indeed, this time last year, there was understandable despondency about the future for the performing arts.

Indoor theatre venues, with their audiences seated in close proximity to each other, would be among the first public buildings to close and, we feared, the last to re-open. So it has proved.

However, thanks, primarily, to the remarkable ­vaccine rollout, the return of live, in-person (and, in some cases, even indoor) theatre has come quicker than many of us had feared. The Scottish ­Government’s current rule, that audience members in indoor venues must wear face coverings and be seated one metre apart, makes theatre a difficult proposition, in commercial terms.

That said, in public health terms, it’s preferable to the reckless free-for-all being promoted in England by the Johnson administration.

So, the Edinburgh festivals make their Covid-era return, carefully, tentatively and with a mix of live, in-person productions and online offerings. The goal for 2022, surely, is an EIF and Fringe that are ­constituted overwhelmingly, if not almost entirely, by in-person work.

What follows, therefore, is a guide to some of the potential highlights in live, in-person performance in the 2021 festival programmes.

The headline theatre production in Edinburgh this month is, arguably, Enda Walsh’s Medicine ­(Traverse Theatre, August 4-29). Presented as part of the EIF, it is the latest drama from the pen of the writer of the bleakly hilarious Edinburgh Fringe hit The ­Walworth Farce.

Boasting a strong cast led by the famous Irish film actor Domhnall Gleeson (Brooklyn, The Revenant, the Harry Potter series; pictured below), the play tackles the subject of mental health from a darkly comic perspective. Walsh has earned comparisons between his theatre work and the plays of the great absurdist Eugène ­Ionesco. Medicine seems set to enhance that ­reputation.

The play begins with our protagonist, John Kane, sitting on a hospital trolley. Soon he finds himself ­encountering a diverse series of characters, ­including a jazz percussionist, two women called Mary and, ­inevitably, a giant lobster.

There will, one suspects, be humour of a very ­different kind in Sex Education Xplorers (S.E.X.) (Summerhall, August 6-29), by theatre inventor ­extraordinaire Mamoru Iriguchi. Part of the excellent Made in Scotland showcase, and aimed at audience members aged 12 and over, the show promises to be “an eye-opening experience for teenagers, and everyone who missed the sex education they deserved at school”.

Iriguchi’s previous show Eaten was a piece of ­theatre for children in which a large lion and a super-sized jobby (Dr Poo of the Pooniversity) ­provided a fabulous lesson about the food chain and ­biodiversity. On the strength of that clever and utterly bonkers production alone, I’d say ­Iriguchi is ­exactly the right person to bring ­creativity and humour to bear on the often bad-tempered and reductive ­culture war over sex, gender and sexuality.

Also in the Made in Scotland ­programme, Swallow the Sea Caravan Theatre (Summerhall, August 6-28) promises the kind of immersive, audio-visual experience that we see all too rarely in Scottish theatre. Performed without words, Swallow the Sea deals instead in puppetry, object theatre and evocative imagery and soundscapes.

The company presents two works, ­including the world premiere of Threads, a piece which seeks to evoke the interconnectedness of human life. It could prove to be a timely work of reflective theatre in this era of climate chaos and viral ­pandemic.

The same could be said of Grid Iron theatre company’s show, Doppler ­(Newhailes House and Gardens, ­August 6-23). Although, being based upon ­Norwegian author Erlend Loe’s novel of the same name, this outdoor production is very different in form from Swallow the Seas’s work, it is addressing a very similar subject.

The titular protagonist, an archetypal middle-class, professional Norwegian (played by the superb Keith Fleming), takes a tumble from his bicycle and bumps his head. The accident, he believes, gives him clarity about the disastrous direction of greed-fuelled, 21st-century capitalism.

Consequently, Doppler takes ­himself off into the forest, to live a sustainable life. We, the audience, are invited to watch the results.

Later in the month, the EIF stages the in-person premiere of Lament for Sheku Bayoh (Lyceum Theatre, August 25-28). First presented online by the Lyceum last November, the play is Black Scottish writer Hannah Lavery’s reflection on the death of Scots-African man Sheku Bayoh, who died in police custody in Fife in 2015.

Bayoh hailed from Sierra Leone, from where he fled civil war as a child. He made his life here in Scotland; photographs show him proudly wearing a kilt.

He died in Kirkcaldy following his ­restraint by as many as nine police ­officers. There were 23 separate wounds on his body.

The dead man’s family continues to fight for justice. A public inquiry into the circumstances of his death, chaired by Lord Bracadale, is currently under way.

In the stage show, actors speak Lavery’s lament, which is accompanied by ­photographs illustrating Bayoh’s life.

There is further theatrical treatment of a real life tragedy in Piccolo Theatre’s Screen 9 (Pleasance at EICC, August 10-29). The play is a work of documentary theatre about the infamous 2012 shooting incident in a cinema in Aurora, Colorado at a late night, state premiere screening of the film The Dark Knight Rises. Twelve people were murdered and 70 injured in the attack.

Piccolo began as a student ­company at Durham University in 2017. Screen 9 was written by the company’s co-artistic ­director Kate Barton. She and the ­company’s co-founder George Rexstrew promise a “cutting-edge, thought-provoking” production.

There are a few in-person productions sprinkled through the Traverse ­Theatre’s Fringe programme. Still (Traverse, ­today until August 22) by Frances Poet is a new, hard-edged comedy in which five ­Edinburghers “stagger towards each ­other, hoping to be transformed”.

The writer of Fringe hit play Adam, Poet’s latest drama promises to bring humanistic humour to the physical and emotional challenges of life, ranging from chronic pain to pregnancy and alcohol-induced memory loss. The production in prospect sounds something like a soap opera on steroids.

Directed by the Traverse’s ­artistic ­director Gareth Nicholls (who directed the brilliant Ulster American in 2018), the production boasts a top class cast, ­including Molly Innes and Gerry ­Mulgrew. The cast also includes excellent actor-musician Oguz Kaplangi, who has also composed the musical score.

There is outdoor fare in the Traverse Fringe programme, too. Julia Taudevin’s MOVE (Traverse at Silverknowes Beach, August 3-7) considers the many implications and meanings of migration through the stories of five female characters.

Combining storytelling, an evocative soundscape and Gaelic song, the piece plays alongside the sights and sounds of the Firth of Forth. The show is the first production by Disaster Plan, the new theatre company created by Taudevin and Kieran Hurley. It is a co-production with Slung Low theatre company and the Traverse.

Also al fresco is the promenade theatre production Niqabi Ninja (August 12-28). The piece is writer Sara Shaarawi’s response to the mob sexual assaults against women that took place in Tahrir Square, Cairo between 2012 and 2014.

The show, which takes the audience member around the streets of central Edinburgh, is described as “a graphic-novel style revenge story”. Departing from outside the Usher Hall music venue on Lothian Road, it combines an audio soundtrack (to be listened to on headphones) with street art.

Some way west of the Lothian Road, at the Tynecastle Park home of Heart of Midlothian FC, This Is My Story Productions present Sweet FA (August 5-29). The play brings to life the 1916 struggle of a football team of women factory workers for their right to play the sport they love.

The production is created by the same people who brought us the acclaimed World War I drama A War Of Two Halves, also at Tynecastle, in 2019. A moving and educational piece of theatre seems to be on the cards.

Fringe venue group theSpace is notable for the number of in-person productions it’s staging this year. Theatre company A Drunken Sailor, producer of solo show Femme Ta Bouche (theSpaceTriplex, ­August 6-21), boldly compares the piece to the work of the great filmmaker Pedro Almodovar.

The play takes us inside the difficult life of performer Femme, who, instead of being on stage on Broadway, is living with cancer and resting in her ­grandmother’s trailer in Arkansas. However, the time she has had for reflection gives her the idea for a fabulous, bigotry-busting ­performance at the gay conversion camp she attended in her teens.

Also part of theSpace programme is the intriguing Shakespeare’s Fool (theSpace @ Symposium Hall, Aug 16-28). The play is a re-imagining of episodes in the life of William “Cavaliero” Kempe, the so-called “dancing clown” of Elizabethan England.

Kempe is believed by some to have originated some of Shakespeare’s most ­famous comic characters, including ­Bottom (from A Midsummer Night’s Dream), Dogberry (from Much Ado About Nothing) and Falstaff (from the Henriad plays and The Merry Wives of Windsor). However, when we meet the jester, he has had a disastrous falling out with the Bard of Stratford and is about to give his final performance.

THE Scottish Storytelling Centre (SSC) is also offering a fair few in-person shows. Miss Lindsay’s Secret (SSC, August 6-30) promises to be an intimate and atmospheric piece about Scotland’s colonial, diasporic history.

Combining storytelling with live, original music, it tells “the tale of a Scottish seamstress [which] binds the gentle hills of Glenesk to Canada’s heady Klondike gold rush”. Created with the support of Glenesk Museum, the show integrates ­significant artefacts into its storytelling.

At the same venue, for children aged eight and over, superb Scottish storyteller and theatre-maker Andy Cannon revives his celebrated show Is This a Dagger? (SSC, August 6-29). Dynamic, funny and brilliantly performed, this tremendous show retells the story of Shakespeare’s Macbeth, with an insightful emphasis on the historical facts. Look out for some clever and hilarious play with brightly coloured eyeglasses.

Also for children (aged five and over) is Granny Smith (French Institute in ­Scotland, August 6-30). A solo work of comic and mask theatre, it is performed in both English and French by Tracey Boot (artistic director of French company Theatre Transformations).

Setting her piece in Granny Smith’s kitchen, Boot offers children, and their accompanying adults, a production that is great fun, while also providing an ­education. “A show full of humour and gentle instruction on language and ­cooking” is in prospect.

Pip Utton (the man who brought us the scintillating Adolf) has been one of the finest performers of the Fringe monodrama for more than two decades. This year he is reviving Bacon (Pleasance Courtyard, August 6-13), his bio-play about the tempestuous artistic and less-than-private lives of the great painter Francis Bacon.

On the opera front, David McVicar’s stunning Falstaff (pictured below) for Scottish Opera (Festival Theatre, August 8-14), ­transfers from Glasgow to Edinburgh (where it plays as part of the EIF programme). ­Already sold out, returns will be as valuable as a Willy Wonka Golden Ticket. However, given the acclaim for the production, one would hope that Scottish Opera will revive it before too long.

Needless to say, there are far fewer live, in-person shows in Edinburgh this month than in a “normal” year. Add to that ­reduced audience sizes, and many shows will already be close to selling out, if they haven’t already done so. Tickets for some shows will be like proverbial hens’ teeth. Early booking is advised.

For EIF shows, visit: eif.co.uk. For the Fringe: edfringe.com