Edinburgh Hogmanay
It’s never been clear how the Concert In The Gardens relates to Edinburgh’s internationally themed Hogmanay celebrations. As it is, we’ll never know if The Pet Shop Boys Cole Porter meets Kraftwerk archness would be accompanied by an all singing, all camping stage show extravaganza inspired by a Berlin darkroom, nor if rumoured surprise guest star Robbie Williams would have bounded on in liederhosen to announce his new Oompah direction.
What we got courtesy of the elements, however, was a full-on Wagnerian experience, with all the windswept Sturm und Drang required without the necessity of any accompanying operatics. Teenage singer-songwriter support act sensation Paolo Nuttini is such a whey-faced slip of a thing that one pictures him being caught in a passing 65mph gust and carried high above the clouds, where he’d have a full-blown (with the emphasis on blown) Nietzschian epiphany that would act as a catalyst for an opus of earth-shattering profundity. The Alexander Brothers, scheduled for a thirty minute pre-bells slot, would undoubtedly remain troupers to the last in EU approved fashion kilts to accompany their all too appropriate paeans to Scotland’s cruelly inclement climate.
The high winds had yet to do their worst before December 30ths Night Afore International took over George Street, however. Given that the main street theatre event was provided by the clearly disaster-conscious Theatre Titanick, one suspects it wouldn’t have fazed this troupe of high-octane entertainers a jot. In Firebirds, they provided a spectacle that was like a more acrobatic take on cartoon favourite Wacky Races as re-imagined by film director Wim Wenders during his Wings of Desire period.
As a Black Angel stands aloft on the roof of The Assembly Rooms, a Master of Ceremonies announces the ongoing parade of junkyard contraptions revving up to the side. As they stutter through the crowd, powered by what sounds like hair-dryers, their strung-together machinery whizzes, pops and rumbles along in all their eccentric glory. Pyrotechnics splutter into the night-sky, sprinkling lab-generated fairy-dust onto the throng. Magnificent men in their flying machines, daring young women on low-flying trapezes and three other crazy inventions that would put Chitty Chitty Bang Bang - still flying high in residence at Edinburgh Playhouse - to shame, vie for pole position with increasingly acrobatic intent.
Accompanied by a ramshackle brass band, as each customised float heads past Frederick Street and Castle Street towards a giant crane, only the Black Angel bars their way. What the metaphysical intentions of all this is never quite becomes clear. In the end, though, for those who follow these Firebirds to their giddy destiny over the next hour, it doesn’t really matter. What does, beyond the broadly realised one-line joke of it all, is the interventionist spectacle that, for one night only, sees George Street reinvented as an icy Mardis Gras. As the victory flag is raised and the Black Angel hoisted high, little do Theatre Titanick know how soon the heavens they’re being lifted to will open to make for the wettest and windiest of new years.
The Herald, January 2nd 2007
ends
It’s never been clear how the Concert In The Gardens relates to Edinburgh’s internationally themed Hogmanay celebrations. As it is, we’ll never know if The Pet Shop Boys Cole Porter meets Kraftwerk archness would be accompanied by an all singing, all camping stage show extravaganza inspired by a Berlin darkroom, nor if rumoured surprise guest star Robbie Williams would have bounded on in liederhosen to announce his new Oompah direction.
What we got courtesy of the elements, however, was a full-on Wagnerian experience, with all the windswept Sturm und Drang required without the necessity of any accompanying operatics. Teenage singer-songwriter support act sensation Paolo Nuttini is such a whey-faced slip of a thing that one pictures him being caught in a passing 65mph gust and carried high above the clouds, where he’d have a full-blown (with the emphasis on blown) Nietzschian epiphany that would act as a catalyst for an opus of earth-shattering profundity. The Alexander Brothers, scheduled for a thirty minute pre-bells slot, would undoubtedly remain troupers to the last in EU approved fashion kilts to accompany their all too appropriate paeans to Scotland’s cruelly inclement climate.
The high winds had yet to do their worst before December 30ths Night Afore International took over George Street, however. Given that the main street theatre event was provided by the clearly disaster-conscious Theatre Titanick, one suspects it wouldn’t have fazed this troupe of high-octane entertainers a jot. In Firebirds, they provided a spectacle that was like a more acrobatic take on cartoon favourite Wacky Races as re-imagined by film director Wim Wenders during his Wings of Desire period.
As a Black Angel stands aloft on the roof of The Assembly Rooms, a Master of Ceremonies announces the ongoing parade of junkyard contraptions revving up to the side. As they stutter through the crowd, powered by what sounds like hair-dryers, their strung-together machinery whizzes, pops and rumbles along in all their eccentric glory. Pyrotechnics splutter into the night-sky, sprinkling lab-generated fairy-dust onto the throng. Magnificent men in their flying machines, daring young women on low-flying trapezes and three other crazy inventions that would put Chitty Chitty Bang Bang - still flying high in residence at Edinburgh Playhouse - to shame, vie for pole position with increasingly acrobatic intent.
Accompanied by a ramshackle brass band, as each customised float heads past Frederick Street and Castle Street towards a giant crane, only the Black Angel bars their way. What the metaphysical intentions of all this is never quite becomes clear. In the end, though, for those who follow these Firebirds to their giddy destiny over the next hour, it doesn’t really matter. What does, beyond the broadly realised one-line joke of it all, is the interventionist spectacle that, for one night only, sees George Street reinvented as an icy Mardis Gras. As the victory flag is raised and the Black Angel hoisted high, little do Theatre Titanick know how soon the heavens they’re being lifted to will open to make for the wettest and windiest of new years.
The Herald, January 2nd 2007
ends
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