:01:22. > :01:27.This programme contains some strong language.
:01:27. > :01:30.This programme contains some strong language.
:01:30. > :01:33.Welcome to the Culture Show at the Edinburgh Festival where we are
:01:33. > :01:38.bending over backwards to bring you the very best in comedy, theatre,
:01:38. > :01:42.art and dance. Coming up: Mark Thomas's moving tale of opera,
:01:42. > :01:45.fathers and sons. Harry and his hobby - the hilarious Mr Hill talks
:01:45. > :01:51.painting. Miriam Margolyes discovers the treasures of
:01:51. > :01:57.Catherine the Great. And why have one when you can have three? Phill
:01:57. > :01:59.Jupitus on his gruelling Festival triple bill. He's available for
:01:59. > :02:06.weddings, Bar Mitzvahs, funerals, Holy Communions - he's very
:02:06. > :02:09.flexible! Back to business. Comedian and political activist
:02:09. > :02:13.Mark Thomas is best known for bashing political and corporate
:02:13. > :02:17.baddies. But his latest work involves bringing live opera to a
:02:17. > :02:26.bungalow. I went to see him to find out why.
:02:26. > :02:29.Ten years ago my dad started to walk backwards. His feet shot out
:02:29. > :02:36.from underneath him propelling him in the wrong direction and
:02:36. > :02:39.instinctively he pulled his torso forward trying to go the right way.
:02:39. > :02:47.He would inevitably lose the battle and his arms would fly out -
:02:47. > :02:52."Argh!" And he would fall. Over the months, the falls got worse.
:02:52. > :02:57.could fall up to ten times a day. And then he started to shake.
:02:57. > :03:01.was right. When that arm went he had a kind of tremor to it. That
:03:01. > :03:03.was when I sent him to the doctor. The working class, aria-loving Mr
:03:03. > :03:11.Thomas Senior was diagnosed with the degenerative condition
:03:11. > :03:19.supranuclear palsy. Bravo Figaro! Is the story of Mark's quest to
:03:19. > :03:23.give his father one last gift - an opera in his very own living room.
:03:23. > :03:28.My dad is pushing against the arms of a chair with his hands and
:03:28. > :03:31.forcing himself upright. The concentration has caused his face
:03:31. > :03:38.to go red and his white beard stands out against his complexion,
:03:38. > :03:44.but his eyes. He has fought the battle against his eyelids and won.
:03:44. > :03:54.And his eyes are open. I had forgotten they were blue. They were
:03:54. > :04:00.
:04:00. > :04:06.crystal blue. And my dad is back in Mark, take me through the inception
:04:06. > :04:11.of this project. What was the igniting spark? I was the first
:04:11. > :04:15.person to do inheritance tracks on Radio 4. You talk about a song that
:04:15. > :04:18.is meaningful to you from a family perspective. And I realised that
:04:18. > :04:22.that aria, Figaro's aria from the Barber of Seville was this thing
:04:22. > :04:25.that my dad particularly loved and that was the thing that, as he got
:04:25. > :04:32.ill and disappeared from us, that was the thing that I started to
:04:32. > :04:35.connect with. They played that on the Radio 4 and someone from the
:04:35. > :04:41.Opera House heard it and Mike Figgis was curating the Festival at
:04:42. > :04:51.the Royal Opera House and asked me if I would do something about opera.
:04:52. > :04:53.
:04:53. > :05:02.That's where it all started. Hello? Mum, it's firstborn. Listen to me
:05:02. > :05:07.through. I've got this idea. Don't shoot it down. Dad doesn't get out.
:05:07. > :05:10.Dad doesn't listen to opera. He can't even watch it because he's
:05:10. > :05:15.going blind. So I've got singers, proper opera singers from the Royal
:05:15. > :05:20.Opera House. Think about this. Could we put on an opera in dad's
:05:20. > :05:25.living room? Could we put on an opera concert in the living room,
:05:25. > :05:29.with you, for dad, in Bournemouth? And my mum says, "Oh my God, what
:05:29. > :05:35.will the neighbours think?" does your mum feel - because your
:05:35. > :05:38.mum is now the mouthpiece of your dad. She's the carer. How does she
:05:38. > :05:43.feel about him being immortalised in this show? She's kind of all
:05:43. > :05:47.right with it. But she's very protective of him. So I have to
:05:47. > :05:52.talk to her quite a lot and say, "What shall we do about this?" "Can
:05:52. > :05:55.we put a picture of him in the press?" And she's like, "Well, he
:05:55. > :05:59.can't make that decision so we have to go with caution."
:05:59. > :06:03.My mum remembers the first time she went to Glyndebourne. She said,
:06:03. > :06:06."I've sent your father up to the bar for a glass of the iced coffee
:06:06. > :06:16.and all I can hear is his voice going, 'How much?!'" But he loved
:06:16. > :06:20.
:06:20. > :06:23.the music and he knew about opera. He could tell you if he had seen a
:06:23. > :06:27.good one or a bad one, unlike 80% of the audience there who are just
:06:27. > :06:31.happy to pat themselves on the back just for turning up!
:06:31. > :06:34.I love standing up there just going, "My dad was a working class Tory"
:06:34. > :06:38.which sort of flies in the face of what people expect, do you know
:06:38. > :06:43.what I mean? There's something nice about that. Do you think his end-
:06:44. > :06:48.game would have been for a Rossini- style opera about Thatcher?! He
:06:48. > :06:53.would have loved it! I think he would have adored it. That would
:06:53. > :06:58.have been amazing, yeah you're right. The Iron Lady Opera. Yes.
:06:58. > :07:01.Bravo Figaro is on at the Traverse Theatre until 26th August. It's
:07:01. > :07:04.unlikely that those horse rumours about Catherine the Great are true,
:07:04. > :07:07.though undoubtedly she was a formidable woman. Alastair Sooke
:07:07. > :07:15.went along to look at some of here trinkets with another formidable
:07:15. > :07:25.woman about whom all horse rumours are false, Miriam Margolyes.
:07:25. > :07:28.
:07:28. > :07:30.Empress, lover, reformer, collector. Mother Russia personified. The
:07:30. > :07:35.National Museum of Scotland has brought an immaculate collection
:07:35. > :07:38.all the way from St Petersburg to Edinburgh this summer. More than
:07:38. > :07:40.600 objects from the personal collection of Catherine the Great
:07:40. > :07:43.that reveal the truths, the contradictions, the lives and the
:07:43. > :07:51.loves of one of the most extraordinary monarchs that ever
:07:51. > :07:59.lived. Joining me to uncover her story is actor and Catherine
:07:59. > :08:02.admirer Miriam Margolyes. Very nice to meet you. I just love her. I
:08:02. > :08:05.think a woman like that, who took all the opportunities that life
:08:05. > :08:08.offered, and she had so many interests - she was sexually active
:08:08. > :08:18.- and that personality has come through the ages down to us about
:08:18. > :08:20.
:08:20. > :08:25.250 years later. So she was quite a gal! Shall we go and have a look?
:08:25. > :08:28.Terrific, thank you. It's so fascinating that she was only 14
:08:28. > :08:38.when she was whisked across Europe to go and marry the man who became
:08:38. > :08:39.
:08:39. > :08:43.her husband. Before she became this. Hey! It's quite grand this. That
:08:43. > :08:50.makes me think of Elizabeth I. I have the heart and stomach of a
:08:50. > :08:55.king! And she's male there. That's the thing that I find so
:08:55. > :08:59.fascinating. It's a radically androgynous portrait. It suits her.
:08:59. > :09:01.It's all the rhetoric of old kind of swagger portraits I suppose of
:09:01. > :09:07.men, kings, rulers, controlling not just their horses but their
:09:07. > :09:17.kingdoms - their empires in this case. She's got a rather engaging
:09:17. > :09:25.
:09:25. > :09:32.smug expression as well. "Look at me and take note, folks!" What's
:09:32. > :09:35.this? I find these really intriguing. They date from a little
:09:35. > :09:37.later after she had taken power. These are porcelain figures of
:09:38. > :09:41.classic Russian characters, the kinds of people you would have
:09:41. > :09:47.found in Russia at the time. And they would have been modelled by
:09:47. > :09:52.So these are porcelain figures of Russian nationalities in their
:09:52. > :09:54.national costume? Yes. And it's of a piece with Catherine's whole
:09:54. > :10:01.programme to embrace Russia, that she was more Russian than the
:10:01. > :10:05.Russians to win the love of her people. And it worked. Good for her.
:10:05. > :10:08.Catherine did everything she could to make Russia great. Her reign
:10:08. > :10:11.coincided with the enlightenment - a brave, new intellectual age that
:10:11. > :10:16.privileged modernity and the rights of man and she wanted to bring some
:10:16. > :10:19.of that radical thinking into Russia. These are all French
:10:19. > :10:24.philosophers because this part of the show talks about how Catherine
:10:24. > :10:27.the Great was the Enlighten Empress. This was a bust that she had
:10:27. > :10:34.sculpted of herself and she sent it to a French philosopher, Voltaire,
:10:34. > :10:40.and they struck up a correspondence. Isn't that wonderful? What monarch
:10:40. > :10:45.these days talks to philosophers? I think that's tremendous. I love
:10:45. > :10:48.that intellectual vitality that she displayed. She was super-smart. She
:10:48. > :10:53.was not just politically talented, she was bright culturally, inspired
:10:53. > :11:01.really. I think he called her "the brightest star of the north" which
:11:01. > :11:07.was some accolade. Dear old Voltaire. I like him. This is a
:11:07. > :11:15.mind-blowing series of objects. This was originally a dining
:11:15. > :11:17.service consisting of almost 750 different porcelain pieces. Crikey.
:11:17. > :11:24.They were commissioned by Catherine from the Sevres Porcelain Factory
:11:24. > :11:30.in Paris. Can I show you a detail that I love? You can see these
:11:30. > :11:32.medallions that have been placed inside the porcelain. They were
:11:32. > :11:37.very prestigious objects in antiquity, collected by Roman
:11:37. > :11:43.Emperors. No surprise to see Catherine the Great interested in
:11:43. > :11:48.cameos. She had a huge collection herself. This would have cost in
:11:48. > :11:54.today's prices �1 million. I can believe it. Look at all the gold
:11:54. > :11:58.leaf. They were being gathered together as a gift for Potemkin. He
:11:58. > :12:03.was the chief lover in a series of lovers that she had during the
:12:03. > :12:06.course of her life. She must have loved him very much. Potemkin was a
:12:06. > :12:12.brilliant strategist and politician and Catherine needed him to help
:12:12. > :12:17.her transform the country. She also loved him deeply. She made him a
:12:17. > :12:23.prince. And she's rumoured to have married him in secret. He was her
:12:24. > :12:32.soul mate. But he was a military leader. Catherine was such a
:12:32. > :12:39.conqueror of her territories. He did it for her. She wasn't just in
:12:39. > :12:43.love with his body, but with his military prowess. What do you
:12:43. > :12:50.think? Was he a fine figure of a man? Yes, I think he was. She
:12:50. > :12:56.thought the world of him. Good on her! Can I show you something I do
:12:56. > :13:03.like? Please do, yeah. That is that portrait of Catherine. It is one of
:13:03. > :13:09.the last that was done of her. She is about in her late 50s. To me, it
:13:09. > :13:15.is a speaking likeness. There is an awareness of age somehow in her
:13:15. > :13:22.face. A compassionate gaze. But there is something so real about
:13:22. > :13:31.her there. She is an old lady and she is speaking to me, another old
:13:31. > :13:39.lady. Catherine the Great is on at the National Museum of Scotland
:13:39. > :13:44.until 21st October. That remains the best way of
:13:44. > :13:48.cleaning cutlery I have ever seen! Afternoon. I know all too well how
:13:48. > :13:54.exhausting it is to appear at the Edinburgh Festival. I had to work
:13:54. > :14:00.for up to an hour every day. Phill Jupitus has gone one further.
:14:00. > :14:08.Instead of the classic 60 minutes of labour, he's gone for three
:14:08. > :14:12.shows at this year's Festival. Phill Jupitus is no stranger to the
:14:12. > :14:19.Edinburgh Festival. This year, he's the only performer doing three
:14:19. > :14:23.shows back-to-back. First, he performs as a camp Conservative
:14:23. > :14:28.Minister in Coalition, a fictional account of the disintegrating
:14:28. > :14:36.relationship between the Tories and the Lib Dems. For every political
:14:36. > :14:43.crisis there is always the simple solution. It is always wrong!
:14:43. > :14:49.stage at 3.30pm, he has 30 minutes to dash to his next performance. I
:14:49. > :14:59.caught up with him. You are on a mission. I am sorry. You have to do
:14:59. > :15:04.it! Phill's free show is a mixture of poetry, chat and music. You have
:15:04. > :15:11.to go. I'm running late. I'm tired already. Fantastic. He started out
:15:11. > :15:17.as a performance poet in the '80s. This show takes him back to his
:15:17. > :15:27.roots. My nerves increased. Sir Paul at peace calmed me down with a
:15:27. > :15:28.
:15:28. > :15:38.friendly hey, I know you, you are off the telly. And without thinking
:15:38. > :15:40.
:15:40. > :15:45.I replied, "And I know you, mate, you're in the fucking Beatles!"
:15:45. > :15:52.Less than two hours later, he is back on stage in his stand-up show.
:15:52. > :15:56.Tonight, he elects to open as a German U-boat commander. How many
:15:56. > :16:06.boats did I sink? None. I'm a pacifist! Now, you may think what
:16:06. > :16:07.
:16:07. > :16:17.are you doing being in the Navy? Well, I am fighting my problem face
:16:17. > :16:19.
:16:19. > :16:27.to face, I'm claustrophobic! What you are doing this year is about
:16:27. > :16:34.trying to bust out of that feeling that you have been straight
:16:35. > :16:41.jacketed -- straitjacketed by the panel shows. I think so. Why not
:16:41. > :16:45.use that than think, "I must do a show, I must - let's focus on this
:16:45. > :16:51.this year." As soon as the play clicked in, it was three shows.
:16:51. > :16:54.What is the thrust of Coalition? Britain is not working? It is set
:16:54. > :16:57.in a couple of years what would be the natural end of the coalition.
:16:57. > :17:01.What makes the play work is that it is not out of the realms of
:17:01. > :17:06.possibility. The things that happen in the play in terms of how the
:17:06. > :17:11.coalition falls apart could happen in real-life. You start with that.
:17:11. > :17:20.You are into... Porky the Poet. is a great show. It is connecting
:17:20. > :17:26.you with your youth? Yes. That comes across as a lovely nostalgic
:17:26. > :17:31.feel to it? It was how I started. You have to embrace your past.
:17:31. > :17:37.I do one from the past, but it is bringing that side of your
:17:37. > :17:42.personality out again, the one wordy side of me. I know for a fact
:17:42. > :17:48.that you are not done for tonight. No. No. How many more tonight?
:17:48. > :17:56.have two more tonight. I'm doing set list at midnight and... Nutter!
:17:57. > :18:05.And Best of the Fringe at 1.00am. Then you will sleep the sleep of
:18:05. > :18:09.the funny... No, I will strip naked and I will stand there. I can get a
:18:09. > :18:13.crowd together! How many do you need? If you would like to check
:18:14. > :18:20.that out, watch Coalition, or him in character at the Stand
:18:20. > :18:30.throughout the Festival. Dance now. Yes, I have trained! Not in
:18:30. > :18:34.
:18:34. > :18:42.movement! The highlight is the Deborah Colker Dance Company. This
:18:42. > :18:49.is them in rehearsal. The Festival has always showcased
:18:49. > :18:54.the best in dance and this year is no exception. Over the next few
:18:54. > :19:01.weeks, the stages of the city will be alive with a thrilling spectacle
:19:01. > :19:11.of dance moves from a mixture of countries. First, straight in from
:19:11. > :19:20.Rio de Janeiro is the Deborah Colker Dance Company. It is one of
:19:20. > :19:30.Brazil's hottest cultural exports. She's choreographed videos for MTV,
:19:30. > :19:33.
:19:33. > :19:43.won an Olivier Award and is the first woman to create a show for
:19:43. > :19:43.
:19:43. > :20:33.Apology for the loss of subtitles for 49 seconds
:20:33. > :20:36.Why were you so drawn to this story? When I read the story of
:20:37. > :20:45.Pushkin, I would fall in love with the characters, how Pushkin
:20:45. > :20:52.described them in the beginning and the transformation. It is amazing.
:20:52. > :21:02.In the end, she is the dominant woman! LAUGHTER No, it is someone
:21:02. > :21:12.that really chooses her destiny. The story at the heart of the novel
:21:12. > :21:22.is of a country girl who falls in love with a cosmopolitan. Years
:21:22. > :21:24.
:21:24. > :21:30.later, the tables are turned. Will love prevail? It is a tragedy. It
:21:30. > :21:40.is about love. It is about life. Really, I felt that it was one
:21:40. > :21:42.
:21:42. > :21:46.story that doesn't matter that it was not from the 1970s. You have
:21:46. > :21:52.put Pushkin at the heart of the dance? You have made him a
:21:52. > :22:01.character? Yeah. How did you decide to locate him in the midst of your
:22:01. > :22:11.other characters? This is something - I like my decision. Onegin did a
:22:11. > :22:16.
:22:16. > :22:22.version of Tchaikovsky. One film was done, very British. I like that
:22:22. > :22:26.very much. I am the first one that really decided to have Pushkin on
:22:26. > :22:33.the stage because if you read the book, you understand my point of
:22:33. > :22:37.view. He is - sometimes you don't know who he is talking. It is
:22:37. > :22:42.Onegin, it is Pushkin. Who is saying this?! What's happened? Who
:22:42. > :22:48.is changing? You understand? That means that he is part of the story.
:22:48. > :22:52.Also a very strong conception is that extraordinary construct - the
:22:52. > :22:58.tree in the middle of the stage, which is so unique. Tell me how you
:22:58. > :23:05.came up with that? The tree is the symbol of nature that Pushkin talks
:23:05. > :23:12.about. And also it is like branches. This makes different places on the
:23:12. > :23:16.stage. This is the house of Tatyana. This is the garden. No? And to
:23:17. > :23:26.bring this kind of imagination. your decision to dance in it, was
:23:26. > :23:31.that inevitable? Did you have to be part of this? This wasn't easy. To
:23:31. > :23:36.the end, do I need to dance or not? I need to be on the stage with this
:23:36. > :23:46.company. I'm a grandmother! Can you believe this? No! It is time to
:23:46. > :23:48.
:23:48. > :23:55.stop. For over a decade Harry Hill's TV
:23:55. > :23:59.Burp has been satirising everything on the small screen. Harry Hill is
:23:59. > :24:09.in Edinburgh with an exhibition of his paintings and Michael Smith
:24:09. > :24:13.
:24:13. > :24:21.went along to talk to him. After being a doctor, he changed to
:24:21. > :24:31.Harry Hill and decided to become a stand-up comedian, as you do. He
:24:31. > :24:36.
:24:36. > :24:44.made his name in this city. He took his bizarre brand of humour to the
:24:44. > :24:50.mainstream and he managed to give kudos to You've Been Framed!
:24:50. > :24:56.Harry's career taken another strange turn. He is here in
:24:56. > :25:06.Edinburgh for the first public exhibition of his paintings. In my
:25:06. > :25:07.
:25:07. > :25:16.hobby, he's turned his hand to creating an al ter Nat reality --
:25:16. > :25:24.alternate reality. This is Philip Scholfield. This is what I thought
:25:24. > :25:28.was perhaps his nightmare. He has to think on his feet the whole time.
:25:28. > :25:33.There is something very dark going on with all this business. Yeah. I
:25:33. > :25:43.used to have that joke where I used to say, "If mummy loved me, why is
:25:43. > :25:50.she not breathing?" That was quite dark. LAUGHTER This is Colleen
:25:50. > :25:55.Nolen. From Loose Women? Yes. There is an article about how her rabbit
:25:55. > :26:04.had been killed by thugs. LAUGHTER You find that funny? Just the way
:26:04. > :26:14.you said it! I got the picture of the rabbit. Why the optical? I like
:26:14. > :26:14.
:26:14. > :26:18.the science diagrams. There's a few of those in these. This is the
:26:18. > :26:28.Jarvis Cocker nut! I was involved in a charity event where I was
:26:28. > :26:28.
:26:28. > :26:33.manning a coconut shy and he was manning the dodgems. My wife won a
:26:33. > :26:39.coconut, right? And because Jarvis had been there on the day and I had
:26:39. > :26:45.met him, I thought I would paint his face on one. Then I thought I
:26:45. > :26:53.would have a series of Brit Pop coconuts. There is a fourth. It is
:26:53. > :27:02.not a good likeness. That is when he was a bit older. In the future!
:27:02. > :27:07.LAUGHTER It is not quite there. So who is the dog? Her name might
:27:07. > :27:16.have been Lola. Why is she so sinister? She is like a sort of
:27:16. > :27:24.plucky little dog and it is a - she had been around at various points
:27:24. > :27:29.in history. So I thought maybe it was her... Spoiled it for Fergie
:27:29. > :27:39.and Andrew. She had taken the ring! LAUGHTER I don't know what her role
:27:39. > :27:39.
:27:39. > :27:43.is. Maybe she has a role of the media. OK. Right. LAUGHTER But she
:27:43. > :27:47.is Lola the media dog. To be honest, I don't give it a lot of thought. I
:27:47. > :27:57.think with that - I did work that one out before I painted it. A lot
:27:57. > :28:01.
:28:01. > :28:05.of the time I start on the dog. lot of the subject matter does seem
:28:05. > :28:11.to be the pop culture? I don't go out much! I receive all my
:28:11. > :28:16.information through the Daily Mail. Right. Tell me about Chris Tarrant?
:28:16. > :28:22.Once I got the hang of painting his face, I couldn't stop doing it.
:28:22. > :28:27.Where is his hand? In the photograph he had his hand, it was
:28:27. > :28:35.cut off there. This isn't quite as accurate. LAUGHTER I imagine, I
:28:35. > :28:41.don't know. In your stand-up there is a lot of reference to hands
:28:41. > :28:48.being mutilated. Your son had a rather different-sized... Gary and
:28:48. > :28:52.Sam, his son. LAUGHTER Yes. noticed that? Yeah. He was born
:28:52. > :28:57.with one hand a lot bigger than the other. It has not been a problem
:28:57. > :29:01.until we have started to teach him how to tell the time. LAUGHTER
:29:01. > :29:11.know I would say, "Where's the big hand?" He would take that the wrong
:29:11. > :29:17.
:29:17. > :29:22.way! You get that one for free! LAUGHTER My Hobby runs until 2nd
:29:22. > :29:29.September. Harry will be embarking on a national tour next year. Join
:29:29. > :29:37.us same time next week where I'll be talking to Niall Rogers and we