Time, travel and the fading magic of Edinburgh

Stephen Richard — Sat, 04 Sep 2021 08:20:56 +0000

Primary Author or Creator

Christopher Silver

Stephen Richard Sat, 09/04/2021 - 09:20

Additional Author(s) / Creators

Bella Caledonia

Date Published

Mon, 08/30/2021 - 12:00

Category

Art

Type of Resource

Opinion

Fast Facts

The Edinburgh festivals can be understood as a 74 year process of gentrification. The first wave landed in the fertile but seedy terrain of the post-war Old Town. Perhaps Edinburgh’s lightning-fast change over the past three decades simply fulfils a pattern. This is familiar to so many increasingly expensive cultural capitals the world over. This is a small city which has simply run out of space.

More details

But there is a deeper disquiet within Scottish culture that a palpably unrevived festival scene underlines.

What if the festivals, already experiencing a silent crisis prior to the pandemic, will simply continue to decline? What if they never return to their former glory and an already fragile Scottish cultural sector sinks with them?

Behind these concerns sits the great awkward question of whether Scotland’s cultural and political leaders really feel that there is the will, or demand, to reinvent the basis for these events. The festivals were founded with an existential mission to bring nations together after half a century of carnage, but there is no equivalent vision today.

The pandemic may be a crisis on the scale of global conflict – but the implications of recovery from it seem to point in the opposite direction – remoteness is sensible policy.

Without the magic of accessible international travel and its capacity to bring so many performers from so many places together; Edinburgh’s festivals are doomed. If this element gets discarded the city will end up like Prospero, realising, finally ... ‘my charms are all o’erthrown,/And what strength I have’s mine own,/Which is most faint: now, ’tis true,/I must be here confined by you.’

Resource Address (URL)

https://bellacaledonia.org.uk/2021/09/03/time-travel-and-the-fading-magic-of-ed…

Keywords

Performing arts

Edinburgh Festival

Language English