After being immersed in all of the city’s major festivals and events, here are my best moments – and a few of the worst.
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The New Zealand Army Band appeared during this year’s Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo. (Image: PA)
The Tattoo raises the curtain
A few days before the official launch date, Edinburgh often feels as if it is not quite ready to host the world’s biggest cultural gathering as the finishing touches are being put to venues.
In its absence of an official curtain-raiser in recent years, it is the Tattoo’s opening night that really announces the return of the city’s festivals.
This year’s production, the second under creative director Alan Lane, felt like the most radical reinvention yet, with its staging and special effects, as well as the voice of narrator Richard Rankin, the latest actor to play Inspector Rebus on screen, booming across Edinburgh Castle esplanade.
Graham Mackay-Bruce as Tully with Matthew Pidgeon as Noodles in Grid Iron’s Fringe production Mayflies. (Image: Mihaela Bodlovic)
Mayflies in Leith
One of the hottest tickets of the month – and one of the best Fringe plays I saw – was Mayflies, the much-anticipated adaptation of Andrew O’Hagan’s best-selling novel, brought to life by site-specific specialists Grid Iron in a warehouse space off The Shore in my local neighbourhood in Leith.
I’m still not so sure what was more surreal – taking in a show a two-minute walk from my flat or spotting Graham Norton taking his seat in the audience.
It apparently got even more surreal at the weekend when O’Hagan himself stood in for actor Matthew Pidgeon to play the key character Noodles.
Elaine C Smith starred in Cathy at the Traverse Theatre. (Image: MIHAELA BODLOVIC)
Cathy at the Traverse
It is rare for a much-anticipated Fringe show to live up to the expectations around it.
But I had a hunch about the return of the Elaine C Smith to the Traverse’s festival line-up for the first time in 26 years, particularly given the writer was Eilidh Loan, whose debut play Moorcroft blew me away on the same stage.
Inspired by how her grandmother handled the loss of her husband, Cathy was by far the funniest show I saw over the last month and also packed the biggest emotional punch.
Meet the Media
It was hot, crowded and noisy, and I was chastised for turning up late battling my way through Saturday crowds to get to the Fringe Society’s new headquarters.
The thought of the event, which gives acts the opportunity to pitch their shows directly to journalists, is always a bit intimidating.
Then I remembered how the event captures the sheer enthusiasm of performers who have just arrived in Edinburgh and are still trying to navigate the festival.
It’s the performers who come along in costume that create a lasting impression, none more sore than Azaelia Slade, who had a show title more eye-catching than her outfit: This Is How I Got Arrested (after smuggling drugs across the border but never actually getting caught with any drugs).
Bowie night at the book festival
One of the hottest tickets in the book festival’s line-up at the Edinburgh Futures Institute was its celebration of David Bowie to mark the 10th anniversary of his passing.
Of all the surreal sights I encountered in Edinburgh over the last few weeks, there was nothing to beat Val McDermid strutting on stage with lightning bolt make-up on in honour of Bowie’s Aladdin Sane album cover.
After McDermid and Del Amitri frontman Justin Currie discussed their long-time devotion to Bowie, it was no surprise to see the crime writer join the indie-pop-punk band Lung Leg on stage for a rousing finale.
John Davidson at The Stand
There are more than a few occasions every August when I pause and reflect on my good fortune to be at a remarkable one-off occasion.
I thought I’d left it late to request a ticket to catch Tourette’s syndrome campaigner John Davidson speak in one of The Stand Comedy Club’s rooms, but thankfully the team managed to squeeze me in.
I’m not sure what I expected from Davidson, whose story has taken the world by storm since the release of I Swear, but his conversation with Jim Monaghan was my most inspirational event of the month and the only one where the main participant was mobbed by admirers at the end.
The return of Richard Gadd
It seems only yesterday that I was putting money in Richard Gadd’s bucket after squeezing into a tiny room in The Banshee Labyrinth to see his latest show.
It is actually 10 years since Monkey See Monkey Do won the main Edinburgh Comedy Awards prize.
The actor, writer and comedian has had an extraordinary rise since then, with his next Fringe show Baby Reindeer going on to be snapped up by Netflix and win Bafta, Emmy and Golden Globe awards.
Gadd’s hilarious and heartfelt speech at the new Fringe Central hub, which charted his years toiling away as an unknown performer before finding success, perfectly encapsulated the magic of the festival. But he did not miss the opportunity to warn of his fears for the future of the Fringe due to the “huge financial pressures” faced by performers.
Bel closes the film festival
I was pretty unfamiliar with the work of Kenyan-Scottish singer-songwriter Beldina Odenyo before I saw her remarkable performance at the Usher Hall in Edinburgh at the Scottish Album of the Year ceremony in 2021.
A few weeks later I was pulling together tributes to the musician after her family announced she had passed away.
The world premiere of a documentary painting a portrait of Odenyo’s life and career had all the makings of a special occasion when it was announced as the closing gala of the Edinburgh International Film Festival.
I’m not sure I’ve ever been at an event which was so emotional from start to finish, not least because of the presence of her family, friends and fellow musicians who appeared in the film.
Mere Mortals at the Playhouse
It took until the final weekend of the festivals to encounter a production that had a genuine “wow factor”.
One of the few must-see events in my diary months in advance, San Francisco Ballet’s latest production Mere Mortals, which was billed as an exploration of “the perils of our tech-obsessed age”, sounded both tantalising and terrifying when it was announced by the Edinburgh International Festival.
Performed before a 3000-strong audience in the Playhouse, the show was about as far removed from a traditional ballet as it is possible to imagine.
The costumes, the choreography and visual effects felt like something from another world. No wonder the EIF audience roared with approval when the lights went up.
The return of Trainspotting
An astonishing thirty years after catching a sneak preview of the film at the Cameo before its world premiere, I trotted up the steps of the Central Hall just around the corner to hear Ewan McGregor look back on how his career unfolded since he worked with director Danny Boyle on both Shallow Grave then Trainspotting.
But the main event of the night was a 30th anniversary Trainspotting shindig, the biggest event to be held in Leith Theatre since its last run of Edinburgh International Festival shows in 2022.
A sea of orange bucket hats, which were given out to ticket holders when they arrived, fired up a party atmosphere which exploded when McGregor, Ewen Bremner, Kevin McKidd and local hero Irvine Welsh arrived on stage for a live commentary to accompany a screening of the film.
The fire fall-out
When I woke up to news that the former Debenhams department store on Princes Street on July 9 the last thing I thought was that the thoroughfare would be closed for most of the festivals.
I was still in the islands a week later when I read with dismay on my phone that the work to make the building safe was likely to continue “into August”.
The week before Fringe venues were due to open, the city council admitted that work was expected to continue “for at least three weeks”. As the Fringe was about to enter its second weekend, the picture had shifted again, the council said it was now hoping to get Princes Street reopen “by the end of August”.
In the end, getting buses and trams back onto Princes Street felt like a minor miracle given the confusing communications and apparent lack of urgency in the council’s actions.
When the Edinburgh Art Festival took matters into its own hands by putting on a free shuttle bus service it felt truly excruciating.
The dates debacle
As soon as I heard last autumn that the Edinburgh school holidays would be ending just a few days into the Edinburgh International Festival and the Fringe I knew there would be trouble ahead.
The third week of the Fringe had felt like a slog for more than a decade due to the obvious dip in audience numbers after the schools return, but this year was the first time I can recall the holidays ending in the first week of the festivals.
The huge local audience for the festivals was never more obvious this year after a bumper start which saw the Fringe’s highest single day ticket sales recorded on the second Saturday before audiences really tailed off in the third week.
Bizarrely, the only people who seemed to respond to the school holiday situation were the Lady Boys of Bangkok, who had already packed up and left the city a week before everyone else.
The schools will be returning in the second week of the festivals next year, but that will still mean the holidays will be over halfway through the run of thousands of shows.
Visitor levy let-down
After years of discussion and debate, Edinburgh’s visitor levy finally became a reality just days before the summer festivals got underway.
Despite much-repeated promises that the main arm of the new charge, which added five per cent onto accommodation bills, is to “sustain Edinburgh’s status as one of the world’s greatest cultural and heritage cities” all it appears to have done is drive a huge wedge between event organisers and the council.
After keeping arts organisations on standstill funding for the best part of a decade, the council decided to use some of the visitor levy income, which is expected to generate up to £50m a year for the council, to boost their core funding.
However, a proposed five per cent cap would have meant the book festival getting a £2500 share, the art festival being allocated £1000 and the film festival being recommended for an uplift of just £750.
Officials were sent back to the drawing board after a backlash by councillors, the festivals accused the council of risking Edinburgh’s global reputation and the council rebuked them for media coverage of the whole shambles.