Edinburgh Festival - Day Two (Part One)

Edinburgh Festival - Saturday 11th August

After arriving back to the shed, sorry 'cocoon', that was to be our hotel for the night we scanned through the listings, made a few choices for the next day and went to sleep on the surprisingly comfy beds, or glorified, leather padded benches that they were.

Those tissues aren't there for what you think

I'd like to say I slept soundly, I wish I had slept soundly, but that was not to be the case as I was awoken to a constant whisper of 'Graham, Graham, did you see that?'. Rather than stating the obvious 'No of course not, as unlike fish I sleep with my eyes closed!' I mumbled all my brain could process at 5am,  'What?'. As my shed-mate pointed to a slight movement in the walls I tried to explain it was probably just a spider, by grunting 'spider, sleep', until I saw four claw like imprints running up the wall and had to conced there was something bigger there. Luckily this was all on his side of the shed/hut/cocoon so I went straight back to sleep.



Spider Rat

In the real morning, the morning time when people actually get up, around 10am, we reassured ourselves that it must be a pair of squirrels not rats living in the underlining of our shed, as surely rats can't climb up curved wooden structures? Anyway, encounters with wildlife aside and it was back to the Edinburgh festival for a sausage sandwich, day planning, ticket buying and sitting around in a park half-listening to a band play child-friendly hits from the 1940s such as this beauty:

So it was onto our first show of the day entitled 'Appointment with The Wicker Man'. This was a production by the National Theatre of Scotland performed in the fancy Assembly Rooms so it was all set up to be a cracking show. And that it was.

For anyone who's seen the original Wicker Man (with Sir Christopher Lee, not the 'modern' Nicholas Cage tripe), this was essentially a play within a play whereby a northern Scottish amateur drama company attempt to put on a jazzed up version of The Wicker Man, featuring Glee styled musical numbers and all. Although their leading man has disappeared so a replacement is brought in which leads to various parallels between the film and happenings within the club, climaxing in a metal (for health and safety reasons) wicker man being brought out.

Nutritious AND delicious

The small main cast of six were absolutely superb, each playing their part brilliantly and the script shone through as every comedic element raised at very least a chuckle from the packed out audience. Even if you are yet to see The Wicker Man (it's been out nearly 40 years now!), it's still a fantastic experience as my comrade who is yet to see it can confirm, claiming it to be the best thing all weekend- and he ate a deep fried Mars Bar!