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Cultural Effects of the Edinburgh International Festival: Elitism, Identities,

Industries

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DOI: 10.1080/1048680032000118378

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Cultural Effects of the Edinburgh International

Festival: Elitism, Identities, Industries

Jen Harvie

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Festival: Elitism, Identities, Industries, Contemporary Theatre Review, 13:4, 12-26, DOI:
10.1080/1048680032000118378

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Contemporary Theatre Review, Vol. 13(4), 2003, 12–26

Cultural Effects of the Edinburgh

International Festival: Elitism, Identities,
1. The author gratefully
acknowledges the Arts
Industries1
and Humanities
Research Board for
Jen Harvie
Downloaded by [5.65.85.124] at 03:26 13 January 2016

supporting research for

this article and an
anonymous reader for
Contemporary Theatre
Review for providing
constructive comments
on an earlier version.
At the Annual General Meeting of the [Festival] Society on 22 February
1983 the perennial complaint about the lack of Scottish representation at
2. Eileen Miller, The the Festival was raised yet again . . . [In 1984, the newly-elected Labour
Edinburgh
International Festival Edinburgh District Council] attacked the ingrained élitism of the Festival
1947–1996 (Aldershot: and indicated that its grant could be withdrawn if the Festival did not
Scolar Press, 1996),
pp. 109 and 116. embrace a wider section of the community.
3. Iain Crawford, Banquo
Eileen Miller, The Edinburgh International Festival 1947–19962
on Thursdays: The
Inside Story of 50 Years Inaugurated in 1947, the Edinburgh International Festival (EIF) has had
of the Edinburgh an auspicious but nonetheless contested history. Its achievements are
Festival (Edinburgh:
Goblinshead, 1997),
legion: it has run every year for over fifty years; its programme has
p. 14; ‘Edinburgh incorporated many arts, always including theatre, opera, music and
International Festival dance; it has presented eminent companies, performers, directors and
Annual Report 2001’,
http://www.eif.co.uk/ conductors from around the world; it has attracted and nurtured
about/annual.html numerous British artists; and it has consistently drawn an audience,
(accessed September
2002). which is both apparently appreciative and certainly growing (around
4. ‘Edinburgh
180,000 across all art forms in 1947, and 400,000 in 2001).3 By its own
International Festival, account, it has consistently aimed to present arts of ‘the highest possible
History and standard’, a humanist agenda based implicitly on ‘improving’ its
Background, Aims and
Objectives’, http: audience.4 Despite – or in some cases because of – its achievements, the
//www.eif.co.uk/about/ EIF has nevertheless been the focus of consistent criticism; the most
history.asp?page=aims,
and ‘Edinburgh pointed and oft-repeated of this, as indicated in the quotation from
International Festival, Eileen Miller’s history of the EIF cited above, has condemned the Festival
History and as both derogatory in its treatment of Scottish culture and elitist in its
Background of the
Edinburgh implicit validation of certain arts over others.
International Festival’, Central to both of these criticisms, which are often linked, is the
http://www.eif.co.uk/
about/history.asp implication that the EIF’s ostensibly intrinsic cultural value as an
(accessed May 2003). eminent international arts festival presenting ‘great’ work is in fact

Contemporary Theatre Review ISSN 1026-7166 print/ISSN 1477-2264 online

© 2003 Taylor & Francis Ltd http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals
DOI: 10.1080/1048680032000118378
 03 GCTR100084 (JB/D).fm Page 13 Thursday, October 16, 2003 10:17 AM

13

markedly limited. Charges of elitism suggest that what the Festival

presents as self-evidently ‘of the highest possible standard’ is exclusive:
a conservative and elite menu of classical music, opera and theatre,
catered to a small, class-privileged audience. They suggest further that
the Festival reproduces this elitism, reinforcing and propagating its
imbalances of cultural power and its anti-democratic effects. Claims that
the EIF denigrates Scottish culture include the suggestion that it operates
like an invading imperial arts army, exploiting its site for heritage status
and material resources of labour, funding, audiences, and scenic
elegance, imposing imported art and ideologies, and making little effort
to appreciate or develop current and diverse Scottish cultural expression,
especially that of the Scottish working classes. This criticism was
articulated early by, amongst others, the outspoken herald of a Scottish
literary Renaissance, Hugh MacDiarmid, who wrote, ‘I have always
been opposed to the notion that cultural advance can be secured by
giving any body of people all the culture of the world on tap – and none
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of their own. . . . This false eclecticism is perhaps the outstanding fault

5. Hugh MacDiarmid, of the Edinburgh Festival.’5 While MacDiarmid refused to participate in
Galliard (Autumn the Festival, other critics established alternative events, specifically for
1949), quoted in Miller,
The Edinburgh working class artists and audiences; as early as 1951, for example, the
International Festival, local Labour movement organized an alternative Edinburgh People’s
p. 19.
Festival ‘to cover the areas the official Edinburgh International Festival
6. Hamish Henderson, did not bother to address’, most notably folk song.6
Alias MacAlias: In order to begin to evaluate these criticisms that the EIF has been
Writings on Songs, Folk
and Literature elitist and has disregarded and potentially undermined Scottish cultures,
(Edinburgh: Polygon, this article examines elements of the cultural history of the Edinburgh
1992), p. 2.
International Festival. In this brief space, it aims not to be comprehen-
sive but to pursue two main focuses: first, the conditions of the EIF’s
founding and its initial characteristics and effects; and second, some of
the cultural practices and material resources that the EIF has not itself
produced but has significantly provoked throughout its history. It
concentrates on the EIF’s early years for a number of reasons: to re-
evaluate the importance of the EIF’s initial impact for Edinburgh and
Europe; to provide some historical context for most current commentary
on the Festival which is predominantly journalistic and concerned with
present practices; and to provide a sort of paradigmatic case study by
assessing key features of the Festival that were established then but, in
many cases, have persisted. It then surveys some of the indirect effects
of the Festival, most importantly the rise of the Edinburgh Festival
Fringe. This is certainly not to attribute to the EIF direct responsibility,
let alone sole responsibility, for producing outcomes like the Fringe, but
to acknowledge the EIF’s role in provoking them and thereby playing
some role in stimulating their important cultural effects.
The EIF’s cultural impact – both direct and indirect – is more
dynamic, more varied, and often more constructive than is allowed by
criticisms that portray it as fully saturated in elitism and consistently
disparaging of Scottish culture. While debate remains focused on these
points, it neglects other areas where the EIF has produced or provoked
other positive effects or changes. In order to evaluate more construc-
tively the EIF’s varied effects, it is important to examine the Festival in
 03 GCTR100084 (JB/D).fm Page 14 Thursday, October 16, 2003 10:17 AM

14

7. Lord Harewood the context of its dynamic cultural histories paying attention to its
[George Lascelles, 7th potential articulation and reinforcement of, not only elite cultural prac-
Earl of Harewood], The
Tongs and the Bones: tices and identities, but others as well.
The Memoirs of Lord
Harewood (London:
Weidenfeld and
Nicolson, 1981),
p. 183. POST-WAR REGENERATION FOR EUROPEAN
8. George Steiner, ‘George
Steiner Lecture – CULTURE AND FOR EDINBURGH
Edinburgh
International Festival
1996’, part 2: http:
Before assessing the Festival’s programmed content, for example, it is
//www.cpa.ed.ac.uk/ worth exploring the fact that it ever occurred at all, as well as some of
trans/steiner/sl2.html. the particular meanings it had in post-war Europe and Edinburgh.
The cover page and part
one of this lecture Launched two years after the end of the Second World War, the EIF’s
inaugurating the EIF’s original purposes were to serve as ‘a kind of post-war rallying point’,7
fiftieth year are at,
respectively: http: to be an ‘enactment of a European communion’8 and to bolster a badly
//www.cpa.ed.ac.uk/ damaged sense of European identity by supporting the post-war revival
Downloaded by [5.65.85.124] at 03:26 13 January 2016

trans/steiner/, and http: of European arts and culture in ‘an international artistic celebration of
//www.cpa.ed.ac.uk/
trans/steiner/sl.html (all the potential of peace after the horrors of war’.9
accessed January 2003). Its first contribution in these respects was material. The aftermath of
9. Nigel Mace,
Introduction to Sir
the Second World War had left many nations with bombed-out city
David Lyndsay, The centres and so without the resources simply to stage their theatre and
Three Estates: A other arts. In London, ‘[a]t least one-third of the theatres in the West
Pleasant Satire in
Commendation of End had suffered bomb damage’,10 and in France, ‘not many theatres
Virtue and in were actually operating’.11 The sites of other famous European arts
Vituperation of Vice,
new English version by
festivals, such as Munich and Salzburg, ‘lay, to a large extent, in ruin’;12
Nigel Mace (Aldershot: after the war, the Munich Opera Festival and the Bayreuth Festival did
Ashgate, 1998), not reopen until 1950 and 1951, respectively.13 Post-war building
pp. 1–24 (p. 13).
10. John Elsom, ‘United reconstruction prioritized, of course, not theatres, but roads, bridges,
Kingdom’, in Don communications infrastructures, schools, homes, and hospitals. While
Rubin (ed.), The World
Encyclopedia of
Edinburgh certainly suffered many of the negative effects of war, it had
Contemporary Theatre, come through with relatively little bomb damage. It retained, intact, the
Vol. 1, Europe material infrastructure – theatres, halls, equipment, hotels and restau-
(London: Routledge,
1994), pp. 890–920 rants – necessary to host a major arts festival. Combined with cultural
(p. 893). and political will, Edinburgh provided the material site and means to
11. Philippe Rouyer, stage Europe’s cultural practices. In so doing, it enabled a more meta-
‘France’, in Rubin (ed.),
The World phorical staging – or, to use Benedict Anderson’s preferred term,
Encyclopedia of imagining14 – of post-war European identity; it provided the opportunity
Contemporary Theatre,
Vol. 1, Europe, for Europeans to begin again to perform and to witness themselves
pp. 273–324 (p. 273). through extensive artistic performance practice.
12. Steiner, ‘George Steiner The EIF’s significance as an institutional agent for articulating, re-
Lecture’, part one.
13. Matty Verhoef,
building and possibly redefining post-war European culture becomes
European Festivals, even more important if we consider the relative dearth of European
trans. Sam A. Herman institutions per se – not just arts institutions – at this historical moment.
(Switzerland: European
Festivals Association, While the EIF was up and running by 1947, many important European
1995), pp. 158 and 76. political agencies, for instance, would not be launched until later; a
14. Benedict Anderson, notable example is the European Economic Community, which was not
Imagined Communities:
Reflections on the founded until 1957 and did not begin operating until 1959.15
Origin and Spread of As well as making this meaningful material contribution to the post-
Nationalism (London:
Verso, [1983] revised war re-articulation and potential regeneration of European culture, the
edition 1991). EIF made a material contribution to the post-war revival of Edinburgh
 03 GCTR100084 (JB/D).fm Page 15 Thursday, October 16, 2003 10:17 AM

15

15. Sean Greenwood (ed.), itself, significantly accelerating the city’s transition out of wartime con-
Britain and European ditions. Although Edinburgh in 1947 was not a post-war shell, it was
Integration since the
Second World War still in several respects a wartime city, still caught, like the rest of Britain,
(Manchester: in an ‘age of austerity’ that would last into the early 1950s. This austerity
Manchester University
Press, 1996), pp. viii–x. directly affected Edinburgh’s potential to host a major festival: ‘[s]ome
16. Miller, The Edinburgh of the hotels had not yet been de-requisitioned whilst others still had
International Festival, windows blacked out from wartime’,16 clothes rations limited the
p. 5. apparel that might be available for service staff,17 and restaurants were
17. Tyrone Guthrie, A Life still restrained by food rations (which were actually made more severe
in the Theatre (London:
Columbus Books, in 1946 than they had been previously).18 Fortunately, the EIF’s first
[1969] 1987), p. 273. director Rudolf Bing was able to arrange with ‘the proper ministries to
18. Paul Addison, Now the de-ration curtain and drapery materials for the hotels’,19 and to secure
War Is Over: A Social ‘special arrangements’ with ‘the Ministry of Food to ensure proper
History of Britain
1945–51 (London: supplies’ of food.20
British Broadcasting Further, the Festival brought – and continues to bring – increasingly
Corporation and
important financial capital into Edinburgh and Scotland. The EIF’s 2001
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Jonathan Cape, 1985),

p. 35. Annual Report argues, ‘From its very inception the Festival’s founders
19. Sir Rudolf Bing, 5,000 recognized the role the Festival could play in the regeneration of the
Nights at the Opera country’s economy’.21 The Festival’s financial benefit to Edinburgh may
(London: Hamish
Hamilton, 1972), p. 88. have been modest at first, but its contribution in this respect was not
20. Miller, The Edinburgh quite as urgent in Scotland’s post-war economy – which experienced a
International Festival, brief reprieve in the decline of traditional heavy industries – as it would
pp. 5 and 6.
be later.22 The Festival’s economic benefit to both Edinburgh and
21. ‘Edinburgh
International Festival
Scotland has grown steadily, contributing latterly to Scotland’s mid- to
Annual Report 2001’. late-twentieth-century transition out of an economy strongly dependent
22. Christopher Harvie, No on heavy industry, and into one increasingly based in service and
Gods and Precious Few tourism, a point I will return to below.
Heroes: Twentieth-
century Scotland, 3rd
edn (Edinburgh:
Edinburgh University
Press, [1981] 1998)
POST-WAR PROGRAMMING AT THE EIF
p. 55.
In its opening years, the EIF marked a material achievement for Europe
and for Edinburgh, but that does not of course guarantee that it marked
an indisputably ‘good’ cultural achievement, not least if it was elitist,
snobbish, retrograde, or uncritical, either in its artistic expression, or, as
a result, in the ‘imaginings’ of Europe that it helped to produce and
circulate. In several important respects, it resisted being all of these –
elitist, snobbish, retrograde, and uncritical – even if it did not always
fully succeed.
Admittedly, canonical plays, produced by elite, self-designated
‘national’ companies, in fairly conservative styles, did feature in early
theatre programmes at the EIF, reflecting a commitment to promoting
‘the best’ that was pervasive in Britain’s post-war cultural climate and
was shared, for example, by many prominent theatre critics, as well as
such influential agencies as the recently-launched Arts Council of Great
Britain. However, such productions did not make up the whole of the
EIF’s initial programming and there were other ways in which it avoided
homogeneous elitism. The programme in 1947 was fairly comprehen-
sively elite, including the Young Vic’s productions of Shakespeare’s
Taming of the Shrew and Richard II, as well as Paris’s Compagnie Jouvet
 03 GCTR100084 (JB/D).fm Page 16 Thursday, October 16, 2003 10:17 AM

16

23. Unless otherwise noted, de théâtre de l’Athénée with productions of Molière’s L’Ecole des
details of EIF femmes and Giraudoux’s Ondine.23 This elitism was sustained in the
programming
throughout this article early years of the Festival, but not without exceptions. When the drama
are from the programme was announced in 1951, for example, the press criticized as
‘Programmes
1947–1996’ section of ‘unsuitable’ the potentially popular Pygmalion (1913) by G. B. Shaw,
Miller’s The Edinburgh not least because it was to star a popular British film star, Margaret
International Festival,
pp. 159–327.
Lockwood.24 Further, in its commitment to commissioning new work,
which I discuss in more detail below, the Festival avoided producing
24. Miller, The Edinburgh
International Festival, strictly canonical plays from as early as 1949.
p. 26. Early Festivals also potentially avoided at least some of the risks of
25. All eight directors, from elitism by programming diversity. The EIF has inevitably always been
Rudolf Bing in 1947 to somewhat autocratically organized because it is programmed by a single
Brian McMaster in
2003, have been male. director rather than by a panel or by artist self-selection (as is the case
26. Dennis Kennedy,
with the Edinburgh Festival Fringe). This autocracy potentially produces
Looking at monologic programmes that indulge the tastes of the director and risk
Shakespeare: A Visual being elitist if that is what his tastes favour.25 However, compared to a
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History of Twentieth-
Century Performance, festival like that in Bayreuth, founded by Richard Wagner in 1876 to
2nd edn (Cambridge: promote his own music, or like many Shakespeare festivals which,
Cambridge University
Press, [1993] 2001), likewise, have been ‘manufactured to celebrate the artistic accomplish-
p. 155. ments’26 of an individual, the multi-arts EIF is much more difficult to
accuse of being either too narrowly focused or simply self-serving.
Furthermore, the EIF potentially resists some of elitism’s greatest risks
– of reinforcing exclusivity and exclusion or prohibiting change, for
example – by offering a programme made up of many arts, from theatre
to music, dance, opera and visual art, in a variety of arts programming
that makes the EIF relatively distinctive amongst its peer Festivals. This
multi-arts programming allows the various arts to cross-fertilize and
potentially to resist ivory-tower isolation, and it invites audiences to
view various arts and artists comparatively, across categories that may
otherwise be potentially exclusive. Thus, for example, although Brecht’s
famous theatre, the Berliner Ensemble, would not appear at the EIF until
1987, forty years after the Festival’s opening, the scenography of one of
his most famous designers, Caspar Neher, would appear as early as the
27. Miller, The Edinburgh first year, in the Glyndebourne Opera’s production of Verdi’s Macbeth.27
International Festival, Of course, the coincidence of Edinburgh’s other August festivals,
pp. 125 and 159.
including the Military Tattoo, the Book Festival, the International Film
Festival, and the International Jazz and Blues Festival, greatly enhances
the potential for such cross-arts comparison and diverse expression,
from the elite to the popular.

SCOTTISH CULTURES
28. Miller, The Edinburgh
International Festival,
p. 13.
Integral to criticisms that the inaugural Festival was elitist was what EIF
29. Alistair Moffat, The
historian Eileen Miller refers to as its ‘most serious criticism’: coming
Edinburgh Fringe ‘from a number of prominent Scots’,28 this suggested that ‘the official
(London: Johnston and Festival represented a largely foreign import grafted onto an Edinburgh
Bacon, 1978), p. 22.
setting’29 and that ‘there should have been far greater emphasis on
30. Miller, The Edinburgh
International Festival, Scottish music and drama’.30 Again, this assessment of the EIF’s
p. 13. programming is merited, but only in part.
 03 GCTR100084 (JB/D).fm Page 17 Thursday, October 16, 2003 10:17 AM

17

Notably, the inaugural EIF failed to present any Scottish theatre.

Thus, it risked propagating the impression that while Edinburgh’s
natural and historical features – such as its physical geography, impres-
sive architecture and royal heritage – made a lovely, apparently inter-
nationally worthy, and auspicious site, its current cultural practice,
including theatre, was to be understood implicitly as provincial and
unworthy of a place amongst an international elite. What the production
history does not show is that the EIF’s relationship to Scottish culture
was, from the outset, more complicated than this. Organizers in fact
tried to include a Scottish play in the first Festival, commissioning James
Bridie to write a piece set in the period of Mary Queen of Scots. Notably,
however, the EIF did not trust the production of Bridie’s resulting play,
John Knox, to a Scottish company, but rather to Britain’s self-designated
‘national’ company, London’s Old Vic. When ‘[i]nsurmountable difficul-
ties arose between Bridie and the Old Vic, particularly with regard to
casting’, and the Old Vic refused to produce John Knox, it was not the
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Scottish play but the London-based company which prevailed, adding

31. Miller, The Edinburgh The Taming of the Shrew to their Festival programme instead.31
International Festival, Although this chain of events marked a blow to Scottish theatre in the
p. 7; Winifred
Bannister, James Bridie context of the first EIF, Bridie’s biographer, Winifred Bannister, suggests
and His Theatre it indirectly helped the play, thereby actually promoting Scottish theatre,
(London: Rockliff,
1955), p. 227. albeit outside of the EIF. The rejection of John Knox by the Old Vic and
the EIF, she writes, engaged ‘sufficient press and public sympathy to
make a cause célèbre and incidentally a publicity campaign to attract
good audiences to John Knox’ when it opened at Bridie’s Citizens’
Theatre in Glasgow, pointedly on the very eve of the first Edinburgh
32. Bannister, James Bridie Festival.32
and His Theatre, The EIF’s omission of a Scottish play in 1947 was quickly ‘remedied’
p. 227.
in one of the Festival triumphs of 1948 and beyond, the staging of Sir
33. Bill Findlay, ‘Beginnings David Lyndsay’s Ane Satyre of the Thrie Estaites, first performed in 1542,
to 1700’, in Bill Findlay
(ed.), A History of abridged for performance in 1948 by contemporary Scottish writer
Scottish Theatre Robert Kemp, and directed by Tyrone Guthrie at the Assembly Hall of
(Edinburgh: Polygon,
1998), pp. 1–79 (p. 24).
the Church of Scotland (see Figure 1). The production testified to the
34. Ruth Wishart,
EIF’s commitment to Scottish culture in a number of ways. First, despite
Edinburgh the fact that The Thrie Estaites was, according to theatre historian and
International Festival translator Bill Findlay, ‘widely considered the greatest of Scottish plays’,33
Celebration! 50 Years in
Photographs it had not been staged in almost four hundred years, since 1552.34 The
(Edinburgh: Edinburgh EIF provided both the incentive and the opportunity for it finally to be
Festival Society, 1996),
p. 46.
staged again. Second, the production ‘represented’ Scotland not just
35. Guthrie, A Life in the
through its text, but also through its company. Director Tyrone Guthrie
Theatre, p. 274. has described himself as ‘a sort of mongrel Scot’35 and was certainly an
36. David Hutchison, ‘1900 advocate of Scottish drama and theatre: he had worked previously with
to 1950’, in Findlay the Scottish National Players in Glasgow and, after moving to work in
(ed.), A History of
Scottish Theatre, pp. the dominant theatre market of London, he was the first to direct a play
207–252 (p. 224). by James Bridie there (The Anatomist, in 1930).36 The designer, Molly
37. Bannister, James Bridie MacEwen, was Scottish,37 as were many of the actors who, like Guthrie,
and His Theatre, had moved to London for the opportunities it offered in its dominance
p. 237.
of the post-war British theatre market, but were attracted back to
38. Wishart, Edinburgh
International Festival Scotland given the new opportunity presented by The Thrie Estaites.38
Celebration!, p. 47. The success of The Thrie Estaites in 1948 led to its revival at the EIF
 03 GCTR100084 (JB/D).fm Page 18 Thursday, October 16, 2003 10:17 AM

18
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Figure 1 Tyrone Guthrie’s EIF Production of Sir David Lyndsay’s Ane Satyre of the Thrie Estaites at the Assembly
Rooms, Edinburgh, 24 August–12 September 1948. Photo courtesy of Glasgow University Library, Department of
Special Collections

39. Findlay, ‘Beginnings to in 1949, 1951, 1959, 1973, 1984, 1985, and 1991.39 This set of
1700’, p. 24. reappearances might suggest that the play began to serve as a token
representation of Scottish theatre for the EIF were it not that Scottish
drama and theatre have been increasingly well represented as the Festival
has continued. In 1949, for example, The Scottish Theatre presented
Robert Kemp’s adaptation of Allan Ramsay’s The Gentle Shepherd
(1725), and in 1950 the Festival presented three productions by
Glasgow’s Citizens’ Theatre: James Bridie’s The Queen’s Comedy
(1950), the world premiere of The Atom Doctor by Scottish literary
Renaissance writer Eric Linklater, and John Home’s Douglas (1756).
Scottish drama and theatre have been continuously – if not consistently
– included and nurtured throughout the subsequent history of the
Festival, explicitly ranking Scottish culture as international in stature,
and functioning as an important site for the articulation of Scottish
cultural strength and autonomy.

RETROGRADE, OR RENEWED AND NEW

While early EIFs were committed to presenting classics by the likes of

Shakespeare, Molière and Lyndsay, their programming was not as
thoroughly retrograde as this commitment might suggest. The Louis
 03 GCTR100084 (JB/D).fm Page 19 Thursday, October 16, 2003 10:17 AM

19

Jouvet Company presented Molière’s L’Ecole des femmes in 1947, but

they also presented Giraudoux’s Ondine, written just before the war, in
1939. Further, although the company was well established and widely
40. Miller, The Edinburgh celebrated in France, this was their first appearance in Britain.40 From
International Festival, its first years, the EIF also presented plays that were new or had been
p. 10.
long-neglected, and it commissioned new plays. After 1948’s revival of
The Thrie Estaites, 1950 saw the first public performance in over 200
years of Ben Jonson’s Bartholomew Fair. And while the attempted Bridie
commission of 1947 fell through, 1949 saw the world premieres of both
Peter Ustinov’s The Man in the Raincoat and T.S. Eliot’s first play in a
decade, the EIF-commissioned Cocktail Party. The premiere of The
Cocktail Party was seen as especially significant, and precisely not
retrograde, because in it Eliot continued to pioneer a poetic drama
widely considered to be one of the main – if only temporary – innova-
41. Gilbert Phelps, tions of post-war British drama.41
‘Literature and Drama’, Alongside accepting the risk of presenting new plays and revivals that
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in Boris Ford (ed.), The

Cambridge Guide to the were untested before a contemporary audience, early EIFs took on the
Arts in Britain, Vol. 9, risk of presenting and helping to develop new methods of performance.
Since the Second World
War (Cambridge: The most famous example is Tyrone Guthrie’s 1948 production of Ane
Cambridge University Satyre of the Thrie Estaites, presented at the Assembly Hall on a
Press, 1988),
pp. 196–236 (p. 217).
purpose-built, three-level, thrust stage designed by Tania Moiseiwitsch.
Using this stage, which was surrounded by audience on three sides,
42. Guthrie, A Life in the Guthrie sought to develop a non-illusionistic performance style.42 For
Theatre, p. 279. Tom Fleming amongst other observers, Guthrie ‘reinvented’ the Eliza-
43. Tom Fleming, bethan stage with this production and ‘laid the foundation for a 20th
Foreword, in Sir David
Lyndsay, Ane Satyre of century revolution in theatre presentation which has become world-wide
the Thrie Estaites, in the past fifty years’.43 Fleming argues:
acting text by Robert
Kemp (Edinburgh: The great joy of Guthrie’s revolution for the actor – still more so for the
Polygon, 1985), n.p.
director – is that all the old ground-rules suddenly become irrelevant.
‘Upstage’ and ‘downstage’ and ‘scissor crosses’ and ‘masking’ – the
Highway Code of proscenium-arch acting (and all the dreadful production
clichés that go with it) have to be abandoned. There are exciting possibil-
ities of liberation for actors’ bodies and actors’ brains. Guthrie’s revolu-
tion at the Assembly Hall spilled over to the audience, who found they
were part of the proceedings, the confidants of clown and commoner, Vice
and Virtue, as the high-spirited action and solemn pageantry swept off the
44. Fleming, Foreword to aisles in their midst.44
Ane Satyre of the Thrie
Estaites, n.p. More permanent versions of Guthrie’s and Moiseiwitsch’s re-invented
Elizabethan stage such as those founded in Stratford, Ontario, in 1953
and at the Tyrone Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis in 1963 are probably
better known than the Assembly Hall’s temporary stage of 1948.
Further, after fifty years of proliferation to sites like Chichester’s Festival
Theatre (1962), Sheffield’s Crucible Theatre (1971), and, famously,
45. Kennedy, Looking at London’s Globe Theatre (1996),45 this style of stage has now achieved
Shakespeare, p. 163. a new orthodoxy. Nevertheless, Guthrie’s staging of The Thrie Estaites
at Edinburgh in the late-1940s was pioneering in its time and provided
him with both the opportunity to experiment and the evidence of success
that would allow this staging to flourish.
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20

CONSERVATIVISM OR SELF-CRITICISM

Despite these innovations, it might be argued that the EIF’s commitment

to celebrating European culture ran the risk of simply reproducing pre-
war European culture, reinforcing now out-dated understandings of
that culture and stifling new European cultural expressions and identi-
ties. I would argue, though, that the EIF’s celebration of pre-war
European culture reconstructed that culture precisely so that it could
move on from a newly secured base to reinvent itself. Notably, early
imported French and German productions were staged without transla-
tion, a programming decision that might be seen as arrogant and
unwilling on the part of the mainland European companies to adapt to
a multilingual Europe. For George Steiner, however, ‘[t]he deliberate
multilingualism of the first festivals (a delight so suspect south of the
46. Steiner, ‘George Steiner border) proclaimed a European logic’ more prevalent – even ‘organic’ –
Lecture’, part two. in Scotland.46 As well as nurturing a bond of sympathy between
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mainland and Scottish Europe, and an ‘auld alliance’ between Scotland

and France in particular, this multilingualism also provided mainland
European companies and countries with opportunities to speak in ways
that many years of war had silenced, both metaphorically and some-
times literally. A prevalent conservatism in early EIF programming and
staging can likewise be seen as a direct response to the deprivations of
war and typical of initial post-war desires, not for innovations, but for
47. Addison, Now the War long-familiar things that had been denied or rationed by war, such as
Is Over, p. 33. traditional food.47
That said, certainly not all early EIF productions were conservative,
and while the EIF’s function was largely celebratory, that does not mean
it was uncritical. Donald Smith describes the 1951 Citizens’ Theatre
premiere production of James Bridie’s The Queen’s Comedy, for
example, as ‘a tract for the times’, partly because it explored European
mythology while maintaining a sensitivity to the predilections of its
largely Scottish audience, but also because it did not fall into an
48. Donald Smith, uncritical post-war jingoism. ‘Bridie’s focus on unmerited suffering’ in
‘1950–1995’, in Findlay the play, Smith suggests, ‘profoundly question[ed] the post-war
(ed.), A History of
Scottish Theatre, optimism of the Festival of Britain’,48 which also took place in 1951. By
pp. 253–308 (p. 256). the same token, the play might have questioned or inhibited the EIF’s
own risk of falling into an uncritical optimism.

INDIRECT EFFECTS OF THE EIF: THE FRINGE

The EIF’s cultural effects are not limited strictly to its own programming
and internal dynamics; they extend also to its immediate and broader
contexts. Thus, even where its own programming has either maintained
or been seen to maintain both an elitist conservatism and a resistance to
engaging with current Scottish theatre, the EIF’s symbiotic relationship
with other festivals, events, cultural practices and structures has helped
– if only, sometimes, passively – to support more popular and dynamic
expression, and a more active Scottish theatre culture within Edinburgh
and elsewhere. Again, this is not to suggest that the EIF can take all the
 03 GCTR100084 (JB/D).fm Page 21 Thursday, October 16, 2003 10:17 AM

21

credit for the practices and resources it has helped to provoke into being,
nor for the positive cultural effects they, in turn, have produced; but it
is to suggest that the EIF has been instrumental in stimulating the
establishment of these practices and resources, and that it is misleading
to consider the cultural effects of the EIF as though it occurred in
hermetic isolation, separate from the events and resources that have
grown up around it.
Most importantly, the perceived elitism of the original EIF’s theatre
programming as well as its real limitations (in numbers of plays and
companies presented) directly provoked a fringe theatre movement from
49. The Fringe would not the EIF’s very first year.49 By defining itself in opposition to the elite
accrue the name Fringe programming and conventional staging of the EIF, the Fringe produced
until 1948. Moffat, The
Edinburgh Fringe, itself as specifically oppositional and intentionally anti-elitist, dedicated
p. 17. to operating as an inclusive rather than an exclusive festival, and
50. Ric Knowles, ‘The presenting a broader range of work, by a greater range of companies,
Edinburgh Festival and
for a more diverse audience.50 In contrast to the EIF, which has always
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Fringe: Lessons for

Canada?’, Canadian been programmed by a single director, the Fringe has resolutely main-
Theatre Review, 102 tained its commitment never to operate, ‘under any circumstances, any
(Spring 2000), 88–96
(p. 90). form of artistic vetting’.51 In its first year, the EIF presented no Scottish
51. Festival Fringe Society, theatre companies or plays, an entirely canonical repertoire, strictly high
How To Do a Show on cultural forms of theatre, all within the conventional theatrical contexts
the Fringe (Edinburgh:
The Festival Fringe
of the Lyceum with its proscenium arch stage. The Fringe’s first year, in
Society, 2000), p. 52. contrast and direct response, included: predominantly Scottish compa-
nies, among them the Glasgow Unity Theatre and the Edinburgh
Peoples’ Theatre; several Scottish plays, including Robert MacLellan’s
The Laird o’Torwatletie and James Bridie’s The Anatomist; a Scottish
translation of a major European play, Gorky’s Lower Depths; less
canonical, more ‘experimental’ theatre by a greater range of playwrights
such as T.S. Eliot and Strindberg; a broader range of forms, including
such a popular form as puppetry; and unconventional spaces, such as a
restaurant in a cinema, where puppet shows were performed, and
52. Moffat, The Edinburgh Dunfermline Cathedral, where Everyman was staged.52
Fringe, p. 16. The inaugural EIF not only provoked the Fringe, it also indirectly
guaranteed the Fringe’s initial success – or, at least, its recognition – by
attracting large audiences as well as enormous press attention. Miller
records that the ‘first Festival was widely reported in the world’s press,
53. Miller, The Edinburgh 275 journalists representing 153 newspapers being present’.53 While not
International Festival, all of these press representatives deigned to cover events outside the
p. 12.
official Festival, many did, and ‘several of the [Fringe] shows received
54. Moffat, The Edinburgh good notices’.54 This scale of press attention has continued beyond the
Fringe, pp. 15–17. inaugural year. In 1988, Joyce McMillan observed, ‘in these three
August weeks, when the London “season” is over and the arts establish-
ment decamps en masse for the north, Edinburgh effectively becomes
the greatest arts metropolis in the world, and the major centres of the
55. Joyce McMillan, The
Festival [EIF and Fringe] . . . experience a concentrated attention and
Traverse Theatre Story high-profile media exposure otherwise unknown outside London or
(London: Methuen, New York’.55 In 2001, the EIF press office accredited nearly 400
1988), p. 87.
journalists and claimed significant editorial coverage in ninety-four
56. ‘Edinburgh
International Festival newspapers, over sixty magazines, and twenty-seven television, radio
Annual Report 2001’. and other media organizations.56 Given this guaranteed presence of
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22

57. It first outsold the EIF as press representatives and theatre-going audiences, the financial risk of
early as 1974 (Moffat, preparing work to show in Edinburgh during the run of the EIF has long
The Edinburgh Fringe,
p. 98) and has had paid off for many participating Fringe companies, a consideration that
comparable press is arguably more important for Fringe companies than for those
attention at least since
the early 1970s (George appearing at the official Festival because the latter frequently receive
Bruce, Festival in the substantial state subsidy as well as a fee from the EIF.
North: The Story of the
Edinburgh Festival
Although the Fringe has long since surpassed the EIF in both size and
[London: Robert Hale press coverage,57 and is therefore not as reliant on the EIF for attracting
and Company, 1975], audiences and critics as it once was, the EIF maintains structural sig-
p. 221).
nificance for the Fringe as does the Fringe for the EIF. For Owen Dudley
58. Owen Dudley Edwards,
‘Cradle on the Tree- Edwards, ‘each is now unthinkable without the other, and each is in
Top: The Edinburgh great part the product of the other’.58 Both, for example, continue to
Festival and Scottish
Theatre’, in Randall
attract complementary audiences and press coverage, share a lobbying
Stevenson and Gavin function with regard to civic and state planning and support, and benefit
Wallace (eds), Scottish from Edinburgh’s promotion as a ‘festival city’.59 The EIF directly
Theatre Since the
supports the Fringe (and vice versa) through co-productions and by
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Seventies (Edinburgh:
Edinburgh University sharing production costs. In 1982, for example, the EIF and the Fringe
Press, 1996), pp. 34–48,
p. 35. shared the Assembly Rooms as a production venue and both presented
59. The EIF, the Fringe, and the butoh company Sankai Juku, blurring distinctions between the
the Tattoo first ran a co- Fringe and the EIF.60 Further, the Fringe stands to benefit from the EIF’s
ordinated ‘Edinburgh –
the Festival City’
greater investment in marketing, which stood at £400,000 to the Fringe’s
campaign in 1983 £227,000 in 1991.61 These benefits are both direct, as when the EIF’s
(Michael Dale, Sore programmes promote the Fringe as they have done regularly from 1969
Throats and
Overdrafts: An onwards,62 and indirect, as the two events continue to share audiences
Illustrated Story of the and press attention – even where that attention is negative. In his last
Edinburgh Festival
Fringe [Edinburgh:
year as EIF Director, Frank Dunlop (1984–1991) notoriously referred to
Precedent Publications, the Fringe as ‘a third-rate circus’, ‘smug and self-satisfied’ and ‘reminis-
1988], p. 17). This cent of a modern Tower of Babel of the arts’.63 Far from damaging the
enterprise has since
been taken up by the Fringe, though, Dunlop’s comments stimulated press attention for both
city of Edinburgh. See the EIF and the Fringe, and provoked spirited defence of the Fringe.
‘Edinburgh Festivals’,
http://www.edinburgh- Edinburgh’s Lord Provost, Eleanor McLaughlin, for example, argued
festivals.com/ (accessed that Dunlop’s ‘statements on the Fringe [were] nothing short of out-
September 2002). rageous’.64
60. Miller, The Edinburgh
International Festival,
pp. 107 and 271; Dale,
Sore Throats, p. 21. INDIRECT SUPPORT FOR SCOTTISH THEATRE
61. Heather Rolfe, ‘Arts
Festivals’, Cultural
Trends 15 (1992), 1–20 The EIF has also indirectly supported Scottish theatre and culture in
(p. 16). ways not immediately evident in its own production history. This is most
62. Moffat, The Edinburgh vividly evident in the work stimulated by and produced on the Fringe,
Fringe, p. 51.
from the shows it has included, to the writing and companies it has
63. Quoted in Crawford,
Banquo on Thursdays,
generated. In 1947, well over half of the shows on the Fringe were by
p. 218, and Miller, The Scottish companies. In 1996, despite the Fringe’s exponential growth
Edinburgh and incorporation of more and more non-UK companies, Scottish
International Festival,
p. 137. companies still contributed almost thirty per cent of the Fringe’s
64. Quoted in Miller, The shows.65 Some of this work has intentionally focused on Scottish culture
Edinburgh and identities. From 1952 to 1955, for example, in ‘a direct challenge
International Festival,
p. 137. to what he saw as the anglicisation of Scottish theatre and the lack of
65. Edwards, ‘Cradle on the “native drama” ’, Duncan Macrae devised the Scottishows, variety
Tree-Top’, p. 40. shows intended to be ‘Scottish in style, form and content’, which ran for
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23

Figure 2 Sandy McDade, Helen Lomax and Louise

Ludgate in Rona Munro’s Iron, Traverse Theatre,
Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2002. Photo: Douglas
Robertson
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Figure 3 Phil McKee and Selina Boyack in Anthony

Neilson’s Stitching, Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh
Festival Fringe 2002. Photo: Douglas Robertson

66. Smith, ‘1950–1995’, three weeks in Edinburgh during the Festival.66 Many Scottish writers
pp. 256–257. and companies have since premiered their work on the Fringe. Only a
brief selection of recent and current writers might include John Clifford,
67. McMillan, The Liz Lochhead, Marcella Evaristi, Simon Donald, Chris Dolan, David
Traverse Theatre Story, Greig, Iain Heggie, Gregory Burke, Rona Munro and Anthony Neilson
back cover.
(see Figures 2 and 3).
68. Smith, ‘1950–1995’, The EIF and the Fringe have also helped to build in Edinburgh and
p. 264.
beyond a theatre infrastructure that develops Scottish theatre and
69. See Marina Garattoni,
‘Scottish Drama at the theatre in Scotland not only during the weeks of the Festival but year-
Edinburgh Fringe until round. Exemplary in this respect is the Traverse Theatre, founded in
the Seventies’, in
Valentina Poggi and 1963 with the aim of keeping ‘the spirit of the Edinburgh Festival alive
Margaret Rose (eds), A throughout the year’67 and ‘inconceivable’, in the opinion of Donald
Theatre That Matters: Smith, ‘without the existence of the International Festival’.68 The
Twentieth-century
Scottish Drama and Traverse has increasingly built a reputation as a home of new Scottish
Theatre (Milan: playwriting, especially under directors Chris Parr in the late-1970s and
Edizioni Unicopli,
2000), pp. 171–187 Ian Brown in the 1990s.69 Numerous other Scottish theatre companies,
(p. 183); Theodore whether dedicated to Scottish drama or not, have been sustained and
Shank, ‘The Playwriting
Profession: Setting out
stimulated by the EIF and Fringe. Smith argues that:
and the Journey’, in the prime importance of the [Edinburgh festivals and Glasgow’s Mayfest]
Shank (ed.),
Contemporary British to the contemporary history of Scottish theatre has been their capacity to
Theatre, 2nd edn co-promote, and also co-produce, the work of Scottish companies. The
(London: Macmillan,
[1994] 1996), marketing muscle and audience capacity of an Edinburgh Festival or
pp. 181–204 (p. 187). Mayfest run has effectively kept large-scale, large-cast professional theatre
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24

alive through lean times. The resultant sense of artistic ambition has
benefited projects as culturally diverse as Glasgow Citizens’ Last Days of
Mankind, TAG’s A Scots Quair, the Tron’s version of C.P. Taylor’s Good
70. Smith, ‘1950–1995’, and the Scottish Theatre Company’s Waiting for Godot.70
pp. 299–301.
The EIF has also contributed – if, again, only indirectly – to the devel-
opment of other significant theatre events in Scotland, like Glasgow’s
Mayfest. This festival of Scottish popular and international theatre and
dance ran from 1983 to the mid-1990s and partly defined itself in
distinction to the EIF by linking itself to popular theatre traditions, May
71. Smith, ‘1950–1995’, Day celebrations, and Glasgow.71
p. 290. Further, the original August Edinburgh festivals – which include the
EIF and nascent forms of the Fringe, the Edinburgh International Film
Festival and the Edinburgh Military Tattoo – have helped to build in
Edinburgh a festival culture that now spans many more art forms and
runs virtually throughout the year, allowing for many more different
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kinds of cultural expression and participation. Since the early-1980s, the

Edinburgh Book Festival and the Edinburgh International Jazz and Blues
Festival have also run during the time of the EIF. Events that occur at
other points in the year include: the Edinburgh Mela, an Asian festival
that directly follows the EIF; Edinburgh’s Hogmanay (December/
January); the Scottish International Children’s Festival (May/June); the
Edinburgh International Science Festival (April); and the Edinburgh Folk
72. ‘Edinburgh Festivals – Festival (April and November).72
Festivals Overview’,
http://www.edinburgh-
festivals.com/
festivals.cfm (accessed
September 2002); Dale, THE EDINBURGH FESTIVALS AS ROLE MODELS AND
Sore Throats and HOT HOUSES
Overdrafts, p. 10;
‘Edinburgh Mela’,
http://www.edinburgh- The Edinburgh festivals have also served as a model for other events and
mela.co.uk/ (accessed
October 2002). festivals in the UK (as well as worldwide), partly because of their
specificity and longevity, and partly because of their success. The EIF
was not the only UK festival to launch soon after the Second World War:
others included the Cheltenham Festival, founded in 1945, the
Aldeburgh Festival, 1948, and the Bath Festival, ca. 1948. However, the
EIF was distinctive amongst these others because, unlike them, it was
not just a music festival but included opera, dance, and theatre. Thus,
the EIF provided a model for other multi-arts festivals that would come
later, such as the Brighton Festival, founded in 1967 and now ‘the largest
73. Verhoef, European arts festival in England’.73 The number of festivals in the UK increased
Festivals, p. 88. exponentially in the 1980s to well over 500. In a national survey of UK
festivals conducted in 1991, ‘The proliferation of arts festivals was an
issue raised by many festival directors, one of whom expressed the view
that, because it is portrayed by parts of the media as a “bonanza of fun”,
the coverage given to the Edinburgh Festival had been partly responsible
74. Rolfe, ‘Arts Festivals’, for this proliferation.’74
p. 18.
Finally, the EIF has helped to expose theatre work to diverse audi-
ences beyond Edinburgh because it and the Fringe in particular provide
opportunities for performance to attract the critical attention and
agents’ notice that leads to post-festival touring opportunities. Following
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25

75. Randy Malamud, T.S. early Festivals, for example: the success of Guthrie and Moiseiwitsch’s
Eliot’s Drama: A
Research and
staging of The Thrie Estaites paved the way for their methods of staging
Production Sourcebook to be developed elsewhere; and Eliot’s 1949 EIF-commissioned Cocktail
(New York: Greenwood Party toured to Brighton, New York and (with a different cast) London,
Press, 1992), pp. 116
and 141. while his 1953 EIF-commissioned Confidential Clerk toured to
76. For more information Newcastle, London and (with a different cast) New York.75 This kind
on the British Council’s of transfer has proliferated with the expansion of the Fringe. Numerous
Edinburgh Showcase
see Jen Harvie,
shows are now presented post-Fringe, especially in London and abroad,
‘Nationalizing the the latter largely as a result of the British Council’s biennial Edinburgh
“Creative Industries”’, Showcase established in 1997 in which the Council promotes current
Contemporary Theatre
Review, 13.1 (2003), British work to Council officers and theatre programmers visiting from
15–32 (pp. 23 and 27), outside the UK.76
and the British
Council’s magazine
publication On Tour:
British Drama and FESTIVAL FUTURES
Dance.
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77. Welsh is quoted in

James Morrison, ‘Welsh Despite their many achievements, the Edinburgh festivals continue to
Backs Rival Festival for provoke criticism. The novelist Irvine Welsh recently accused them of
Locals’, Independent
(11 August 2002);
turning his city into a ‘cultural desert’ and a ‘shortbread Disneyland’,
Michael Billington, and Guardian critic Michael Billington has lambasted the Fringe for
‘Why I Hate the Fringe’, becoming ‘overweening, grotesquely outsized and highly commercial-
Guardian (25 July
2002). ised’.77 I explore these important criticisms in detail elsewhere,78 but I
78. See my chapter on the would like to note here that while they may in part be true, the festivals
Edinburgh festivals, nevertheless continue to produce many constructive effects as well.
globalization and
democracy in Jen
Where the initial festivals helped move Edinburgh out of a climate of
Harvie, Performing post-war austerity, more recent festivals have helped to move Scotland
British and Irish out of a declining industrial economy. By 1955, the Festival was already
National Identities
(Manchester: credited with significantly stimulating Scottish tourism: the Scottish
Manchester University Tourist Board reported that ‘84,416 people had been accommodated in
Press, forthcoming).
hotels and boarding-houses and a further 108,000 had come to the city
79. Miller, The Edinburgh
International Festival,
on coach tours’.79 By 1983, the Festival was estimated to bring the city
p. 38. £20 million annually.80 By 1997, the financial benefits of all of
80. Miller, The Edinburgh Edinburgh’s August festivals reportedly amounted to ‘£125 million of
International Festival, expenditure in Edinburgh, and sustain[ed] the equivalent of nearly 4000
p. 110.
jobs across Scotland’.81 In 2002, Edinburgh City Council leader Donald
81. ‘Edinburgh
International Festival Anderson claimed the August festivals earned the city £150 million
Annual Report 2001’. annually. ‘It really has helped to boost our economy’, he acknowledged,
82. Donald Anderson ‘We are now the fastest-growing city economy in the UK.’82 Of course
quoted in Brian Logan, these financial benefits have their limitations: they do not precisely
‘Show Me the Money’,
Guardian (26 August replace Scotland’s heavy industries because they require different labour
2002). and resources from those previously needed, and they privilege Edin-
burgh over other areas of Scotland that have been more damaged by the
decline of Scotland’s heavy industries. Nevertheless, their impact has
been considerable in Edinburgh and has at least been felt beyond the
capital.
The EIF continues to attract charges of elitism, including financial
elitism: in 2002 it first charged one hundred pounds for tickets (for
83. Andrew Clark, Wagner’s opera Parsifal directed by Peter Stein, conducted by Claudio
‘Maestro with a Touch
of Prejudice’, Financial Abbado, and co-produced by the EIF and the Osterfestspiele, Salz-
Times (3 August 2002). burg),83 but it also strives to offer material that is widely accessible, in
 03 GCTR100084 (JB/D).fm Page 26 Thursday, October 16, 2003 10:17 AM

26

terms both financial and cultural. In 1991, it reported attendance of over

84. Rolfe, ‘Arts Festivals’, 100,000 at its free events,84 and it continues to build its education and
p. 10. outreach programmes to help develop audiences’ engagement with the
85. For information on work it presents.85 It also continues to innovate, especially by commis-
recent education and
outreach activities, see
sioning directors known for their theatrical inventiveness. Notable
‘Edinburgh recent (and risky) commissions include Robert Lepage’s 1994 Seven
International Festival, Streams of the River Ota and 2000’s production of Ramón del Valle-
History and
Background’: http: Inclán’s The Barbaric Comedies directed by Calixto Bieito. It also
//www.eif.co.uk/about/ maintains a commitment to Scottish theatre. It has recently presented
press.asp?page=2000T
wo (accessed September
dramatizations of some of the most influential Scottish novels, including
2002). the TAG Theatre Company’s adaptations by Alastair Cording of Lewis
Grassic Gibbon’s A Scots Quair (1993) and Alasdair Gray’s Lanark
(1995). It has also commissioned and premiered several young Scottish
writers’ plays, including David Greig’s The Speculator (1999) and
Douglas Maxwell’s Variety (2002).
The EIF deserves to be criticized for being elitist and slightly patron-
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izing towards Scottish cultures; however, it also deserves credit for at

least partially resisting these problems and for achieving other important
culturally productive outcomes, such as helping to ‘imagine’ post-war
European cultures, stimulating a broader festival culture in Edinburgh
and the UK, and helping to develop a theatre infrastructure in Scotland.
Given the dynamism of the EIF’s effects, it is important not to become
complacent about those effects, and to continue to scrutinize them in
their ever-changing cultural contexts. As Welsh and Billington insist,
there is certainly reason to scrutinize the current effects of the prolifer-
ation of the Fringe in particular, not to mention the justification this
proliferation might seem to provide for the EIF to retrench into elitism.
Such scrutiny might explore, for example, how these changes to the
Edinburgh festivals could be understood as expressive and symptomatic
now, not so much of post-war European culture, but of millennial global
cultures, where capital, people, and cultural products travel with an
apparently ever-increasing fluency but also with new risks of facilitating
86. See Harvie, Performing
British and Irish cultural ‘invasion’ and of propagating elitism – or, as Welsh and Billing-
National Identities. ton suggest, base populism.86

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