All Festivaled Out

 This is me.. in the theatre... waiting to see Andy and Mike's Tick Tock Adventure.  Being only 1 years old, I'm not exactly star struck as yet, even if Andy does share top billing (with a cloth cat) for my most favourite TV show: Andy's Wild Adventures.  Forget the telly, however, for I am most certainly all-festival-ed out.   Over the space of 4 weeks, basking in summer sunshine, I queued patiently at the Half Priced Hut, raced to out of the way venues, belly-laughed at the avant garde, stared in total horror at the street performers and sat, eyes out on stalks, at all manner of different genre.  I am 1 years old.  My name is Madeleine Ireland, and I have totally done the festival.  

Pleasance Venue - waiting for The Snail and the Whale

My mummy's favourite was Seusical - a big cast production which crossed the Cat in the Hat with Horton hears a Who.  Mummy was tearful at the end, though not as much as in The Snail and a Whale.  The nostalgic undercurrents were rather lost on me, however by this point, I had figured out the clapping lark, and would applaud loudly at any suitable interval.  It is a first step, and my mother is justifiably proud, even if she recognises it does not necessarily signal critical appraisal, it is quite clear that I am delighted by it all.

A number of surprise hits were discovered as we endeavoured to put ourselves out there, thinking most deftly outside the box.  Easy, given I had never done a festival before.  Cloud Man - a professional story telling aimed at over 4s - was a surprise hit.  Who would have thought I would sit through it all so completely riveted.  Then there was the Island Story - the sort of thing they tell you is brave and experimental.  Three performers, no words, using physical dance to explore what it would be like to be washed up on an island where no one spoke the same language.  Sounds heavy?  Well, I'm not that into language anyway, having not really progressed beyond half a dozen words myself.  I loved it - had an absolute ball - and giggled throughout.  

The musical theatre was more of an obvious choice.  The Boy and the Bunnet - a captivating new piece of traditional Scottish music to tell the story about a little boy who gets lost and found again - was a hit with Mummy in a most grown up venue: the Spiegeltent on George Street.  (I think she sneaked back for some of those interesting orange cocktails later on without me). Giddy Goat was funny.  Accident prone Mr Vinegar had the most annoying tunes ever.  Both The Jumblies and Hairy Maclary were a scream - literally.  The former, based on the works of Edward Lear, had the scariest imaginary birds you have seen, whilst in the latter, the big boxer dog was blinking terrifying.  Maybe it was because we were sitting in the front row.

During the festival, Edinburgh was huge fun.  Inexplicably, East Lothian ran a fortnight of events in St Andrew's Square to encourage me to go to East Lothian - though all it did was encourage me to go to St Andrew's Square.  There was a beach, and sunshine too.... and Highland games and pony rides..  and the odd free icecream.  The Royal Mile was always full of magicians and acrobats, jugglers and sword swallowers.  Everything was so exciting.

Scary?

We also did the Book Festival.  No - I am not too young.  I like books.  They are almost my favourite thing - after animals.  I have developed a new line in picking up my parents' hands and placing books in them.  How else are you meant to indicate you NEED a story?  The most exciting event there was the lovely Maria Carnie, who told us and sang to us about the amazing adventures of Blitzy Boy.  She is always great fun to watch.  We also went on a magic carpet journey across the world with bits and pieces gathered by NMS.  Not everything was good - here's me, looking on horrified at the ladies from Craigmillar massacring some Scots Rhymes.  It was free, but to put it frankly it wasn't worth the opportunity cost.

I had a brilliant first Festival season.  It was such good fun to see so many talented people, and all for a song.  We didn't spend more than £50 on tickets all in.  I can't wait for next year!