Despatches from a mother who started late (and is running to catch up)

Fringe Fun

The Edinburgh Festival Fringe has begun. Withnail-esque types in trailing overcoats have overrun the city, declaiming on street corners and entertaining us all with their madness. One flat in our street has turned into an art gallery, and the nearby church where Beanie normally goes to playgroup has evicted the babies to make way for a troupe of heavily-bespectacled Polish aesthetes, some of whom look like the living incarnations of Jean-Paul Sartre. It's not quite the Parisian Left Bank, but the city's great fun in August.

We got very excited when we heard the Tblisi Marionette State Theatre was doing a daily show nearby - perfect for the Bean! Though it was performed in Russian with simultaneous English translation. Potentially quite hard-core for the under-fives. But even we flinched at the story content: a re-enactment of the Battle of Stalingrad.

We did take The Bean to her first ever live performance on Saturday, The Greatest Bubble Show on Earth, running at the Carlton Hotel, North Bridge, at 12 midday until 27 August. The Amazing Bubble Man made big bubbles with people inside, a foggy moon bubble, helium-filled and edible bubbles. He illuminated, sculpted and kissed bubbles. One man's love affair with... the bubble. It lasted 45 minutes, long enough to feel we got our money's worth, but not so long that the hordes of small children there got bored.

Strolling up the High Street, the epicentre of the month-long event, Beanie and I also met The Selfish Crocodile (pictured) who actually seemed like quite a friendly fellow when we bumped into him, we had a quick chat with an adventurous pigeon that wanted to drive a bus, and watched a knight in chainmail from Sword in the Stone clank past. Ooh, I love Edinburgh in August.

Posted 06 August 2007 16:45

Edinburgh Fun Out and about Festival

Comments

Absolutely Bananas said:

Wow- looks like a great time! I would love to come over for it some year... :)

Posted 06 August 2007 21:10

Mother at Large said:

Absolutely Bananas, think you'd enjoy it. There are lots of Americans here in August. The Amazing Bubble Man hailed from your side of the pond!

Posted 06 August 2007 21:29

The Good Woman said:

We rather enjoyed the man squeezing himself through a coathanger - although I found my two year old's response to dislocated shoulders (squeals of laughter!) a touch disturbing...

Posted 06 August 2007 22:43

Mother at Large said:

Good Woman, but she's right, of course, there is something intrinsically amusing about a man squeezing himself through a coathanger....surely?

Posted 06 August 2007 23:03

Flowerpot said:

An old boyfriend of my mother's used to help organise the Ed Festival (Years ago, obviously) and I've always wanted to go. Must make the effort one day! I liked teh idea of the Blair musical!

Posted 07 August 2007 09:47

Mother at Large said:

Hi Flowerpot, perhaps in years to come we could have a bloggers' get-together during the Festival.

Posted 07 August 2007 10:31

21st Century Mummy said:

I can't wait until I can get along to the Edinburgh Fringe, it always sounds brilliant. Bury St Edmunds has had a Fringe festival for the last two years but is not yet a match. In the meantime, I'll just keep up with your posts.

Posted 08 August 2007 08:08

Mother at Large said:

21st C Mummy, I propose we add a Blog Fest to the mix, that'd be another good reason to visit.

Posted 08 August 2007 09:21

guineapigmum said:

A bloggers' fest would be good - but how about a bloggers' coffee? The boys are playing tennis at the Meadows this week and I'm heading for Victor Hugo's for coffee. Not today, stuff to do, but tomorrow I'll be in the area 1230ish. If you fancy it. I'm the one with the limp...

Posted 08 August 2007 10:02