A few hours before the first Edinburgh International Festival curtain-raiser at George Watson’s School, the Fringe's official opening event was more low-key but just as entertaining. Comedian Mark Watson , the latest Fringe figure to accept the challenge of delivering a welcome address to participants, took the audience at the Virgin hotel in the Cowgate through more than 25 years of memories since an initial trip inspired by a Fresher’s Week conversation at university. Watson reflected on his many “life landmarks” at the Fringe, including proposing to his then girlfriend in the Cowgate after a successful attempt to stage the world’s longest stand-up show, which ran for 24 hours.
He said: “It shows you how long ago this was that the father of the bride-to-be found out on Teletext, which is maybe not how you’d want it to happen.” Watson told how he seen “most of the greatest art of my life” in Edinburgh, but also some of the worst, including a “really shit play about a boat.” He said: “An audience member got up halfway through, unable to bear it anymore, but mistakenly chose a locked exit at the front of the auditorium and for an excruciating 60 seconds was standing on stage with the cast as if volunteering to try and make the play better.
” Turning adversity into a PR opportunity is nothing new at the Fringe but was happening on a grand scale as opening day shows were affected by power cuts. Many performances went ahead in some form outside venues, including Who Do Ya Love?, the story of Harry Wayne Casey, the musician and songwriter who founded disco and funk outfit KC and the Sunshine Band in the 1970s. Casey, who has developed the show with writer JF Lawton and travelled from the United States for the lunch, ended up joining its eight-strong cast to perform some of his band’s best-known hits at the top of a flight of steps on George Square.
Despite its 10.30am start, the Pleasance opening gala attracted a big crowd, including Fringe elder statesman Arthur Smith. His face and voice may be instantly recognisable to many at the festival, but not to the event’s host, rising comedy star Ania Magliano.
Smith’s gentle, slightly off-the-wall heckling, including an attempt at a knock-knock joke, left her completely baffled. But, no doubt being put right backstage, she returned for a second helping of jousting with Smith – and to admit her embarrassment after asking the audience if everyone knew who he was. The Scottish theatre world was out in force for one of the most anticipated premieres - the stage adaptation of Orcadian writer Amy Liptrot’s memoir The Outrun for the International Festival.
As one would expect in Morningside, the Church Hill Theatre has a sizable tea room, complete with a piano and a mini-library in one corner. Titles available include Victorian Flower Gardens, Illustrated Atlas of the World, The Oxford Companion to Wine and Guide to the Dissection of the Dog. But on the bottom shelf was the trilogy of Fifty Shades novels – offering a night in Morningside almost as steamy as the one in the stiflingly hot auditorium.
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