Festival Daze[07/08/2000]

2000-08-07

The many and varied cultural offerings at the Edinburgh festival are spotlighted in this visitor’s guide show .

Produced to tie-in with the 2000 Edinburgh festival, this programme, presented by Forbes Masson and Hilary Lyon, offers recommendations and previews of the festival’s varied programme, and takes in fringe comedy, theatre, art exhibitions and the film programme.

Among the attractions previewed is a stage production of Bernhard Schlink’s acclaimed novel The Reader, adapted by Chris Dolan. Dolan’s adaptation uses three different actors to play the central role of Michael, and the playwright discusses the challenges of bringing his production to the stage.

Also previewed is the year’s film festival programme, with the festival’s artistic director Lizzie Francke singling out Lars von Trier’s Dancer in the Dark, Ulrich Eden’s The Little Vampire and in particular Alejandro González Iñnáritu’s Amores Perros as among the year’s most exciting titles. Francke also hails the British films in the programme, including Terence Davies’s House of Mirth, Pawel Pawlikowski’s Last Resort and Jamie Thraves’s The Low Down.

Other items include a preview of an art exhibition at the Bourne Fine Art Gallery, around the theme of Mary, Queen of Scots. Curator Ian McFarlane approached a number of artists to produce work inspired by the historical figure. There are also previews of the stand-up comedy shows at the festival, and a profile of musician Martin Bennett.

The first of three visits to this year's Edinburgh Festival. 1 of 3:

Edinburgh - Festival City

A taste of Edinburgh's extraordinary history as a centre for the arts.

The Edinburgh International Festival, founded in 1947, is one of the world's most celebrated cultural events, an annual feast of fine art, theatre, ballet, opera and more. Created to offer healing through the arts after long years of war, the festival brought a swell of excitement from the start. Immediately, eight uninvited theatre companies joined the festival, creating an alternative arts festival that was eventually termed the Edinburgh Fringe (where comedy would eventually become the dominant force). The international film festival, which sadly announced its closure in 2022, came into being in the same moment of artistic reformation. In this collection, we look at Edinburgh as a media, arts and culture centre, giving a taste of how these intersecting events conspired to make Edinburgh a global cultural hub.