Dive into the vibrant atmosphere of the Edinburgh Festivals as The Scotsman's arts and culture correspondent, Jane Bradley, connects with performers and artists. Discover the creative energy and unique perspectives shaping this year's festival season.
Explore the diverse range of talents and performances on display, gaining insights into the artistic vision driving these cultural events. This report offers a glimpse behind the scenes, capturing the essence of the Edinburgh Festivals and the individuals who bring them to life.
#EdinburghFestivals #ArtsAndCulture #JaneBradley #TheScotsman
Explore the diverse range of talents and performances on display, gaining insights into the artistic vision driving these cultural events. This report offers a glimpse behind the scenes, capturing the essence of the Edinburgh Festivals and the individuals who bring them to life.
#EdinburghFestivals #ArtsAndCulture #JaneBradley #TheScotsman
Category
😹
FunTranscript
00:00hello and welcome to the latest edition of the Scotsman at the Edinburgh festivals I'm Jane
00:09Bradley arts and culture correspondent and I'm here today to bring you the exciting lineup of
00:12the people we've met and the shows we've seen this week we've got a lot of magic for you and
00:16a ventriloquist with his puppet Slippy and also a really special guest who'll be revealed to you
00:21in due course I'm here today at Bristow Square where I am meeting a very very special guest
00:31Violet the underbelly cow hello Violet it's so good to have you here with us today
00:39thank you so much for joining us we have spoken to our readers to Scotsman staff and asked them
00:44the burning questions that they want you to answer so are you are you ready for this are
00:48you ready to be grilled I mean not grilled that maybe wouldn't be what you want no okay so first
00:55up Violet do you like being the star of the underbelly show
01:03okay I think Violet says yes to that one okay do you prefer chocolate milk to normal milk
01:08no okay okay would you ever join a cow themed dance competition if such a thing existed
01:23very good and do you think you'd win
01:27fair national cow appreciation day was last month did you celebrate by joining a cow themed dance
01:37competition that's what I thought brilliant and finally Violet do you secretly wish you could talk
01:52well thank you so much for being here today with us Violet it has been a pleasure
01:56thank you again
02:00and that was Violet the cow from underbelly
02:03well that was absolutely brilliant meeting Violet I think that's everybody's fringe dream and she
02:07definitely had a queue for selfies afterwards now we're going to across to meet Ben Hart who is a
02:11magician who absolutely blew my mind with his magic tricks watch to see if you can work out how he does it
02:18I'm here at the Pleasants with um Ben Hart who is a magician who has a show you remarkable Ben Hart
02:23which has uh been a major hit this year's fringe I believe Ben is that right yeah I think I'm not allowed to say that myself but let's just say maybe
02:31I'm not allowed to do it so I think I'm lucky enough you're going to show me one of your tricks today
02:36I am indeed would you like to see it now yeah let's go for it why not
02:39I brought along a piece of rope let's just have a look at that for me make sure that is ordinary rope
02:43ordinary rope to me
02:44trick rope or anything like that
02:45yeah
02:45you take that back we need to cut this piece of rope into two pieces I've come armed
02:51there's the two ends there's the middle perhaps you could take the scissors for me yeah a bit of multi-tasking
02:55yeah yeah yeah there's the middle take the scissors this I've never done this sitting down cut through
03:04that yep and if you do it exactly right we should have two pieces of rope you should exactly make
03:07exactly for the top and exactly for the bottom they're not but that's okay no not quite but
03:12um I have a solution if you just take that take that massive microphone there wave it like a magic wand
03:17those two pieces are beautifully done and they're doing that together as if they were never even cut
03:23now that means we can race forwards with this I'm going to tie this piece of rope into a loop
03:27that's the first part of a knot that's another one on top I'm going to move the loop around my fingers
03:32say stop wherever you want stop yeah okay take these invisible scissors invisible scissors yes okay
03:37good I'll just cut to the right okay now if you've done it exactly right they should be exactly
03:44you can make them exactly at the top and exactly at the bottom which if I can undo them they are not
03:50but that's okay I have a solution for that as well if you take the little one there and the long one
03:55and we line them up together if you hold on to the two ends there with one hand okay you did it so
04:01well before wave the magic line for the little one hold it very tight over this one okay over there over
04:05there yeah yeah it starts to get hold it really tightly yeah really tightly wave that over there the
04:11little one starts to get longer and longer and longer and longer and longer until the little one is as long as
04:14long now they're both the same length the camera person they're gasping with amazement um we can
04:21race on I'm going to even them up here and we'll even them up there perfect hold out your hand
04:28make a loose fish around these two pieces okay loose fish you're going to go in together just say now
04:32when you've done it now nice we've done it nice we've done but are you going to tell me how you did it
04:41yeah no no I never reveal my trick there are some little pieces left over we'll try to recycle them
04:46so if you take the center of the rope you watch nothing will go in out of my sleeves
04:49we'll take the pieces that's one here that's one here okay now look you watch the ends you watch the
04:54middle you rub and those pieces going back onto the center leaving us with a piece of rope completely
05:02unharmed and you're going to have to tell me how you did it now
05:05disgusting
05:13that was quite amazing yeah that was that was incredible and I'm glad that now I know the
05:17trick so I could have my own friend shown it yeah they don't know this but we're filming this quite
05:21early if I fringe sound it it feels weird doesn't it magic done so early in the day it does so tell
05:28me a little bit about how you got into magic I started when I was a tiny kid I don't remember
05:33not doing magic believe me all my life which is a really bad story I need to invent a better
05:38PR origin story but definitely when I was a kid I used to go to the library and get this one magic
05:43pressure out of the library and try to do magic and as I grew up it was a hobby and it was an obsession
05:49when I was in school I knew I wanted to be a magician my teachers would wonder why I wasn't focusing when
05:54I was like they're like what's that noise Ben in the classroom oh no nothing um and that's it I've
06:01got no other skills I'm completely unemployable but luckily if you're an unemployable person then the
06:06fringe is the place to be and how many times have you done the fringe um this is my 11th year I think
06:1211th wow yeah yeah 11th year I took a couple of years off to do I was touring with a big show in the
06:18west end and blah blah blah but other than that I've done every year since I was kind of old enough
06:23and able enough to do it great well thank you so much for showing me your tricks thank you very much
06:28yeah that's amazing thank you so much thank you wasn't that absolutely amazing now we're going to
06:33chat to Lachlan Werner the ventriloquist and his friend Slippy hello I'm here at the Pleasants with
06:41Lachlan Werner and his friend Slippy hello Slippy hello oh you might have to move the mic to the other
06:48now but I don't know if I'll be heard if you if you hold it to me I think we'll be good I think
06:53we'll be good it picks up quite well oh good okay got a lot of pickups on that okay oh don't eat my
06:59mic so Lachlan can you tell me a little bit about your show yeah the show is called Wonder Twunk it's uh
07:08it's like a surreal sci-fi um circusy epic it's kind of um a huge narrative piece but with the whole
07:18story being told through ventriloquism and clowning and me just being stupid basically
07:25and how does Slippy feature what Slippy's role in it Slippy's kind of the one of the main characters
07:29I'm kind of the the best friend who's a good guiding force I'm kind of like generally cricket
07:35if he was a cute sea lion and have you worked with Slippy for a long time no Slippy is brand new for this
07:42show um I had a different puppet that I was working with for years and years um which is a witch who
07:48I did my Edinburgh debut with but Slippy is new for this year's brand yeah I'm the new kid on the block
07:53and are you and the witch friends Slippy the witch scares me silly I don't like that
07:59witch I don't want to talk to that witch I'm glad she's not here she scares me so you're never going to
08:04do a show together not likely not likely so how did you first get into ventriloquism um I was a very shy
08:13uh kid who kind of wanted to be on stage but uh yeah I found it really quite quite terrifying to
08:20speak with myself and it kind of became this fun tool when I was seven years old I started doing it
08:25and um I just loved puppets and I kind of loved the the freedom of expression of being able to say
08:31whatever you like with something else so yeah kind of started there great and can you just tell us
08:36where your show is um my show is here at the Pleasant it's at 9 50 um every night it's in the uh the 10
08:42dome the 10 dome over there and um yeah it's here every day except for 11. great thank you so much for
08:49joining us thank you hi uh I'm Tomas Cantor and in my sexy cabaret I go undercover as a sugar baby to get
08:56you the scoop singing Lady Gaga Chapel Rhone Dua Lipa Kylie Minogue inspired by Julia Roberts in
09:03Pretty Woman this is my sugar daddy Richard he makes an appearance dig if you're nasty people say Pedro
09:09Pascal coded it's an hour of genderqueer storytelling song dance acting comedy you name it I do it you might
09:15get a lap dance out of it sugar playing at assembly checkpoint 4 20 pm every day now for some more
09:21magic we're off to the Spiegel tent for a show by Harry Milos it's called unfair advantage and I had to
09:26sign an NDA before I was allowed to go in but it has an unusual twist if you want to find out how
09:31to actually do magic tricks this is the show for you I'm here today at the Spiegel tent with Harry
09:37Milos and his show unfair advantage which we've just had the privilege to see and we had to sign uh
09:43an NDA before we actually went into the show so that we won't tell you anything about what happened
09:47hi Harry hello Jane how are you well I don't know what we're going to talk about I don't know what you're
09:50allowed to talk about we can we can talk around a lot of it but the thing is is that because of the NDA
09:56you know I'm quite explicit about how to cheat at cards and so for obvious reasons we can't
10:01at this juncture you know be specific about that but you've just seen the show yeah absolutely so
10:06the show is all about teaching the audience how the magic that you do the card magic that you do
10:11actually works which is sort of flipping magic on its head is it not I mean yeah I think so I think
10:17that like personally I feel like a lot of magicians are quite beholden to their secrets like it's it's kind
10:23of all they've got and uh for my money like that's kind of where good magic starts not where it ends
10:30you know um like uh in the show like we talk about how things are done but I'm gonna go out on a limb
10:36and say that you left a little bit more bewildered than you did coming in I mean you know because at
10:39the end of the day the digging you deep with magic secrets the the more bewildering it is right yeah
10:44absolutely and how did you get into this in the first place I think you talked a little bit in the
10:48show about you being a child and being obsessed with card tricks yeah I mean I got my start uh
10:53actually learning how to cheat at cards like that was my in when it came to like sleight of hand and
10:58sleight of hammer the deck of cards because my mum happened to buy me a book that was half magic
11:03tricks and half cheating at cards um so I really got my start with those kinds of like false shuffles
11:10and false deals and stuff like that and that was my first use of this skill set was actually cheating at
11:16heart which I did for a very short period of time at the late end of my teens um and then pivoted from
11:21that into you know protecting fair play in private games and backroom games literally standing over
11:28the dealer's shoulder and watching and making sure that what was happening was fair and now I do this
11:33so tell me a little bit about your time in the kind of casino gambling world this was actually before
11:38you were 18 was it not yeah I was I was in these rooms as young as about 16 early on in 16
11:46and uh really that was kind of my in with these groups was sitting there you know learning how to
11:53cheat um I think I was quite lucky that first of all I didn't win a huge amount of money but also I was
11:58underage because once I was kind of rumbled and exposed to what I was doing everyone just kind of
12:02thought it was pretty funny and thought that I kind of had some guts I suppose um and yeah then over the
12:08years I've started to leave behind the casino world more and more because you can't do this show
12:13and what I was doing at the same time you kind of have to do one over the other um but also at the
12:18same time that the performing as a magician kind of came to the fore as well so I'm still friends with
12:22that industry I still know those kinds of people but uh now I do this and you're coming up to your 500th
12:28show later this month yes on the 17th of August it's my 35th birthday and it's my 500th performance
12:34of this show we we landed before Edinburgh we were in America um by we I mean me and my team my
12:40producers um we've done 183 shows so far this year before coming to Edinburgh um and then we go from
12:48here to the west end for an indefinite amount of time so we're having a hell of a year we're doing
12:53getting a lot done and just finally can I ask you obviously the card tricks are so notoriously
12:59difficult to do you've shown us a little bit about how you do them but there must be times when things
13:03don't quite go according to plan has that ever happened in front of a live audience pretty much
13:07anything that anyone can imagine going wrong in my show has happened at some point um because it's
13:12just a numbers game like especially when you're nudging 500 pretty much anything that can go wrong has
13:16gone wrong but you know I like to think that what I'm doing and what this show is it's a piece of
13:22theater first and a magic show second and what I mean by that is that I think it's roughly as
13:28dramatically interesting to watch me fail and then maybe recover from that as opposed to just getting
13:33it right all the time which sometimes is what a magic show feels like it feels like the least
13:37surprising part of it is that the magic trick works out you know so for me it's I do like to take risks
13:42in the show the show is so interactive and what I'm doing is extremely difficult every show I'm memorizing
13:49in order of a deck of cards every show so being able to take those risks I think gives the show
13:54a bit of an edge that magic shows don't usually have and that's what makes me happy to still be
13:58doing it after all this time great well thank you so much for joining us today and enjoy the rest of
14:03your run in Edinburgh thank you very much after the show we had a chance to catch up with Harry and
14:08using an audience member Katie Pinot he demonstrated one of his most famous tricks all right so uh obviously
14:16my name's Harry Milas I'm doing the unfair advantage of the Spiegel tent here this is Katie who just saw
14:20the show you just came out and thank you so much for coming out to do a trick with us um I've got
14:24the table the deck on the table right there and you have a favorite playing card what is that playing
14:28card a queen of hearts queen of hearts okay uh what we're going to do is we're going to see if you can
14:33find the queen of hearts right it's somewhere down here in the deck you don't know where it is I didn't
14:38like tell you where it was or anything like that okay you're gonna are you left or right-handed right-handed
14:42okay can you lift up any amount of cards that you like any amount that you want okay so that's about
14:48the middle hold on to them like I am here right now this is the really important question
14:53do you want to cut deeper or do you want to stick where you are right now I will stick you'll stick
14:59where you are right now this is the thing I want you to remember later right is that you did have
15:03the option to cut deeper but you didn't you stopped right here on the queen of parts
15:09okay yeah that's true right um here's the thing right if you were to name another card like one
15:16that isn't the queen of parts do you have another favorite card or anything like that or maybe
15:20something that's quite different you can look through if you like sure okay um all right I got
15:24one what have you got the three of clubs did you see that in here i think this is yeah okay it's
15:30there all right so this obviously this queen of parts is not the three of clubs right but if you
15:35hold out your hand for me and then you press it like that then it should change into the three of
15:42clubs right a sleight of hand that's what that is it should but actually it isn't sleight of hand
15:46it's just like it's just in your mind right because see it with that wind gust see look
15:51there that's a few hearts and that's sleight of hand and isn't it nice to be this close right
15:56that's kind of the whole idea right yeah hello my name is paul and i'm doing a show at the fringe
16:02this year over at the uh counting house in the ballroom it's 150 seats and it's sold out the last
16:07three nights it's sort of like if you imagine the love child of uh billy connelly and all of the
16:11muppets are in a cheap hotel on buck fast it's that kind of a proper fringe not mainstream okay right now
16:18over to summer hall where i catch up with roger white who has a fascinating story with an edinburgh
16:22connection which he's turned into his show because you never asked i'm here today at summer hall
16:26with roger white who is here with his show because you never asked hi roger hi thanks for joining us
16:31today thank you so much for having me can you tell me a little bit about the show which i believe
16:35has a strong edinburgh connection yeah well uh essentially uh the genus of the the idea is that
16:41i grew up in canada with a german grandmother living in the uk uh and it took me uh until my teenage
16:49years to kind of put together uh or just started asking why does my german grandmother uh live in
16:54the uk and not in germany and uh what i learned was that uh she grew up in a half jewish half christian
17:02family in nazi germany and uh came to the uk as a refugee in the late 1930s and so uh i decided i started
17:12out by doing like a series of interviews with her um kind of every time we met up i would like uh i would
17:18get my phone out and i'd record our conversations and i have a background as an artist in music
17:25i'm running my company now for about six years and uh at a certain point i decided like i gotta
17:30i gotta do something with all these interviews because they're just like fascinating they had
17:34hours and hours of interviews and so uh we made this show which is effectively uh uh the show is a
17:41dance and physical theater uh and it's got a soundtrack it's really kind of trippy sounds soundtrack
17:48i think kind of like boards of canada um or like a a shoegazy kind of uh soundtrack with these
17:55conversations that i'm having with my grandmother and then there's a physical element to the show
18:00which is movement um and all of the movement in the show all the choreography is sort of sort of
18:05extracted from memories so from old photographs from uh images from letters um and then uh there's a
18:13whole sequence from the 1936 olympics because when you come and see the show uh there's a section
18:18in uh where she talks about being at the olympics in 1936 yeah and she lived in edinburgh when she
18:23when she came to the uk which is in scotland yeah she came uh she came to edinburgh because um
18:28there was a school here a medical school it's called the polish medical school which effectively was
18:34uh uh before uh the war ended they thought that that all these these polish people that were here
18:41would uh as refugees would go back to poland and so they wanted to have kind of doctors and lawyers
18:47and all this kind of stuff so they they started this university here um unfortunately after the war
18:52the russia russians got poland and so those people never went back to poland uh and so yeah she lived
18:59in edinburgh for about about 10 years before moving to the uh to england sounds absolutely fascinating
19:04thank you so much for telling us all about it thanks for joining us thank you so much for coming and
19:08we'll see you there hello my name is ben martin model i am creative producer and also the writer of
19:18casino and i'm beth key and i am co-producer as well of state of that theater with ben it's a comedy
19:25about um five hospitality workers and who are kind of going through the trials and tribulations of
19:31working in hospitality the idea behind the piece is to be very comedy driven and because it's about how
19:37money changes people and in today's system that is systematically set up to do so we wanted it to be
19:45entertainment driven we wanted it to be relatable because a lot of people students especially have
19:52all got hospitality jobs to fund their lives and their students especially creative ones
19:56um and i know a lot of people in the cast if not all of the casting crew all have hospitality jobs on
20:02top of the friends jobs just now so we wanted the play to be fast-paced comedic and all in all just
20:10entertaining yeah there also is a driven message of um capitalism and yeah like you said how money can
20:16change people um once they get their hands on it basically ben and i are both acting in the piece but
20:22um all together we have five actors and one director and two stage managers and we also have a gaggle of
20:32people that have helped the show become what it is we've had the amazing charles wilkie who's working
20:36at the traverse he built the set we have the amazing jack reed to help design all the lighting the sound
20:41cues with our stage managers off in them and we have our amazing talented cast who are no longer students
20:47but they're all graduates very recently from queen margaret so i would like to shout out queen margaret for all
20:51the help that they've given us as well i think the main thing that we're looking forward to
20:54is being able to put on work and provide work for early career artists and everyone in the casting
21:01crew here i've just either qualified and graduated from uni or have been grad newly graduates for a
21:08couple of years now so to be able to provide work to provide entertainment in the theater and really
21:14build grassroots theater and give opportunities at the fringe is one thing i'm looking most forward to
21:20yeah um this is um the first fringe performance i've been involved in or and have been in so
21:26yeah i'm just very excited to see everyone's hard work be put on the stage and yeah again just um
21:33put showcase all of our work to an audience and yeah i'm just going to show off what we've been doing
21:39over the last couple months we are here at surgeons hall the space uk venue very fortunate to be here we're
21:45at the fleming theater at the very bottom of the court and our shows are on the 11th to the 16th and
21:50it's at 9 20 p.m yeah and we also have another show um also um ben is in this one and um our director
21:59of casino has actually written this one it's called olipops it's going to be at the triplex um and it's
22:04going to be the 18th to the 23rd so if you like casino you can come along and see that one too
22:09thank you so much for joining us i really hope you've enjoyed what we've been doing this week
22:15and our look at the festivals stay tuned to the scotsman website where we'll be bringing you more
22:19behind the scenes interviews and insights into what's going on at the festivals this week
Be the first to comment