August 16th 08 - Edinburgh Festival Day2

Today we set off into Edinburgh and headed over to the Pleasance, a Fringe venue on the southern side of town. The atmosphere there was great, lots of fun and lots of very interesting characters around either getting ready for shows or handing out flyers to upcoming performances.

We started off with lunch of Waffles with strawberries and chocolate for me, and Toffee and banana for Ruby before looking through our accumulated flyers and deciding on a play called Dad's Money. We weren't disappointed. It was really good. The story was of two Somerset brothers who, after loosing their Dad go looking for the tin of money he had kept throughout his life. Both brothers found it hard to trust the other and would constantly fall out while recounting how they'd both failed their Dad during his life. Their desire to find the money in the cellar of their Dad's house leads them in a bit of a predicament as waters from a flooded field start to fill the cellar. I'll leaver it to you to go and see the play to find out what happens at the end, but you will enjoy it. It's no comedy, even though there are enough funny lines in there for you to warm to the characters, but the story was very well told and the twist at the end was a great touch. Recommended.

After the play we headed off to the Royal Mile area again to soak up the performers on the Fringe. On the way we bumped into Shakespear himself listening to his iPod...only in Edinburgh!

One of my Flickr contacts had told me about a play that was showing at the festival which was being performed by her drama group. Unfortunately she was unable to take part in the play but she recommended we go see them anyway, so we did. They were the Filch and Blunder group and they were doing a play called The Village Idiots. They were brilliant. They story was of two young lads who stole a bag from an old lady's shoulder at the bus stop. What they find in the bag makes them feel guilty enough to try and track down the old lady to give her back the bag. The plays tells the story of their adventure to hand back the bag and the characters they meet along the way. The players all wear exaggerated face masks and as there is no dialogue all the story is told using body movement, gestures and music. Even though you know the masks aren't moving you swear they are as the body language and acting is so convincing. I'll definitely be on the look out for these guys again when we go next year. Brilliant.

That evening, after another lovely meal out, we headed over to see Antonio Forcione at the Assembly Rooms. He's an Italian acoustic guitarist and he was breathtaking. I loved it. What an amazing performance. He played the guitar like nothing I'd ever seen before, so fast and making notes from it you wouldn't believe. We were in the second row of a packed auditorium and the atmosphere was superb. He was accompanied on stage by Adriano Adewale, a Brazilian percussionist who was incredible to watch. He played drums, pumpkins, bells, bottles, pebbles, sticks, feathers, you name it he had it there to play. Between them they just held you attention for much too short an hour. I can't wait to see them again, if you love a good spectacle and enjoy your music then this is one show you have to go and see!