Edinburgh Diary: Day Nineteen

Good news. My free wireless internet has magically re-appeared, which means I no longer have any excuse for not making posts.


I've just left Eimear to a taxi after our weekend of fun here in bonnie Edinburgh. Unfortunately, because I was working a couple of shifts, she had to entertain herself a fair amount but there are far worse places to find yourself left to your own devices than Edinburgh at this time of year.

We caught a couple of comedy shows together (Stephen K. Amos and Adam, Jason & Friends) and she went to a few others while I was working (Maeve Higgins and Ed Byrne). We also went to the Camera Obscura, the café where J.K. Rowling wrote the early Harry Potter books, saw a great independent film called 'Breakfast with Scot' and checked out the various street performers on The Royal Mile. 'Twas really cool that she came. She's been the first (and potentially only) visitor I've had since I've been here. I just wish I'd had more time off work so we could have gone out properly and partied up a storm.


This week I've seen at least one show a day including a strange dance/performance art/experimental theatre show called 'The Blank Album' (see above), a hilarious character-comedy show called Count Arthur Strong about a fictitious sixties British television personality and a wacky production called 'Pot Noodle: The Musical'.

The best show I saw this week though was 'Scaramouche Jones', a one man show, written and performed by Justin Butcher. The story is hard to describe but its basically about a strangely white-faced boy born to a gypsy woman and the seven white masks of his lifetime that include, among others, being enslaved to an African snake-charmer and working as a gravedigger at Auschwitz. Butchr's turn as the tragic hero was honestly one of the most powerful theatrical performances I've ever witnessed and director Guy Masterson certainly seems to deserve the reputation that precedes him. This production previously played in Ireland so, if it comes back, you must go see it.

I've tried to catch a few of the many exhibitions taking place around the city. The Vanity Fair Portrait Exhibition was awesome. The photos of artists, writers and vintage Hollywood icons of the 1920's and 30's were great to see and all the more impressive when you consider how much more arduous the photographic process was back then.

Gloria Swanson

Louis Armstrong

I was obvlivious to the fact that Vanity Fair actually ceased production in the late 1930's, only to make a comeback in the 1980's and provide us with these iconic images:

Sean Connery and Michael Caine


Hilary Swank

Julianne Moore

I also checked out the Andrew Grassie and Kay Rosen exhibitions. My knowledge of art terminology is somewhat lacking but I think I'm right in saying there was a touch of post-modernism to both exhibitions.

Grassie's work comprises mostly of paintings of other exhibiitions (both factual and fictional) that are painted in such fine detail so as to look like photographs. I found it quite interesting but some of the notes left in the comment book were very critical of his 'self-absorbtion' and 'smarminess'. Different strokes, eh?

A painting by Andrew Grassie of other artworks.

Kay Rosen's pictures are generally based around playing on words, using colour and shape. I thought some of the pieces were very clever but seemed a bit limited or gimmicky to base a whole exhibition around this sort of thing.

Blurred - Kay Rosen