Nina Conti's Edinburgh Festival 2017

Every August, the Edinburgh Festival

attracts performers from around the globe.

There's comedy...art...

theatre...dance...

music...and monkeys.

I'm here to perform my show

and to see as much of the festival as I can.

Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome to the stage Nina Conti!

APPLAUSE AND CHEERING

Hi!

Hello, everybody. Welcome. Thank you for coming.

-You OK?

-Yep.

Can I...? No, forget it, I'll never get them on again.

NINA LAUGHS

What shall I do with my glasses now?

-Whatever you like.

-I'll just...nah, hold on to them.

-Yeah?

-Yeah.

-OK, Lorna.

-OK.

Why are you doing this to me?

I've been coming to this festival all my working life.

I want to die, Nina.

It's a really important place

to learn your craft as a comedian

and have your mini breakdowns and...

..win your awards, if you're someone else.

But...70 years ago, when this festival began,

comedy as we now know it didn't even exist.

Sounds like a halcyon time.

But now, it's everywhere,

and you can't walk down any road in Edinburgh

without seeing thousands of comedy posters.

Comedians looking quirky and covered in stars.

But how is it developing as an art form?

-I don't think it is.

-I mean, it is hugely.

It's using theatre and performance art and storytelling now.

You're just talking it up, Nina.

I think it's all narcissism.

We're going to have to disagree.

Can't we go to Hawaii one year?

One of my favourite comics, Sarah Kendall,

is challenging what can be expected from stand-up

by crafting a deeply personal family story into her show.

Do you think there's too much comedy at the Fringe?

I think most people see comedy as being the most accessible form of...

-theatre, like, the most populist form.

-Yeah.

So I would say that there would be more people sort of looking to

the comedy guide, possibly, for that reason.

I think that the way comedy is at the Fringe for the month of August

is not the way comedy is for the rest of the year,

and I think that...this, the Fringe allows it to be something else

and allows comedy to start pushing those boundaries

and bleed into different genres and...

I think people don't have that same sort of creative freedom

for the other 11 months of the year.

You know, when people come to a Fringe Festival,

most people want to see something a little bit different.

My dad had woken the whole family up at 4:30 in the morning

to see Haley's Comet.

Mum and Dad had been fighting all night.

And my dad was just filling the silence

with these facts about Haley's Comet

that he had been looking up all week.

And he said...

"To many ancient civilisations,

"comets were seen as a sign of bad luck.

"But in 1066, it burnt so brightly

"that William the Conqueror thought it was a sign of good luck."

He said, "I like that positivity."

And my mum said,

"Well, maybe you should have married William the Conqueror!"

And how on earth do you write a story like that?

I mean, that feels to me a bit like you've written a novel,

or something as difficult as I think a novel would be.

I'm a storyteller, and I think that stories...

for me are like these little roadmaps that we're given

and we turn to stories as roadmaps for experiences

and how to deal with things and who to be,

and I think that there was this story that I had

that was really resonant for me,

and I thought, "That's got to be resonant for other human beings."

In her show, Sarah talks about her friend's battle with cancer.

"..And Sally's cancer is back, and it's in her kidneys."

And my dad says, "What stars can you see?"

He always asks, "What stars can you see?"

And I look up, and, uh, it's a really cloudy night,

and I say to my dad, "There are no stars."

And he says, "There are."

"You just can't see them right now."

And he said, "Things can change in an instant.

"There's always tomorrow."

And then I say to my dad...

"I didn't see Haley's Comet."

And my dad says,

"Neither did I."

I think I relax more when I'm telling a story.

I think if I'm telling a gag,

I always sort of felt like I would live or die by each gag

and I could never build anything up.

But with a story, you invest more, the audience invests more,

you reveal more of yourself. I think it's that thing where

-you've sort of got to leave a chunk of yourself on the stage.

-Yeah.

I think that there is a trust that you develop with your audience

and it's a very sort of... It feels like a very personal relationship.

Each show, bizarrely, feels incredibly personal.

Joseph Morpurgo's show Hammerhead

playfully questions what the very idea of a stand-up show is,

mixing audience interaction with technology

to create something tricksy and hard to define.

OK, so. "How did you structure the show?"

OK. So. Most shows, as you know,

have a beginning, a middle and an end.

And our show, of course, has a beginning,

but as well as moving forwards in time,

we're also moving backwards in flashback

which means the beginning is technically a middle.

You see what I mean? Yeah, she does.

And then, as well as an end,

there's also a vice-end, a co-end and a deputy end.

The latter of which is a traversable wormhole

back to the beginning of the start,

which is actually a middle sheathed in an ending.

Now it gets interesting.

Act one, act two, act three, act pi...

..and then act four, which is a real-time flashback

of everything you've just seen, so same thing again.

Were you deliberately

trying to break the form of a comedy show?

You start with a premise, you set yourself its limitations,

and then you just try and explore as deep as you can go within that.

Hopefully through that process

you discover something that's, um, like, unusual, or unexpected.

I've been undone.

Truly undone by vanity.

In the candent heat of intellectual urgency,

I have misconstrued all...

-GERMAN ACCENT:

-Did somebody say strudel?

Do you think that there's too much comedy at the Fringe this year?

I think it's easy, personally, to become an aficionado

and then a connoisseur and then to become a bit jaded

-because you've seen so much stuff.

-Yeah.

But I remember what it was like when I first came,

and just to step into this, like, amazing realm...

If you've never seen a clown show or a sketch show or a stand-up show,

I think the fact there is, like, an endless, like, smorgasbord

of stuff to see is a good thing.

-# Tim!

-Oh, oh, oh, oh

-# Chartered surveyor, Tim!

-Oh, oh, oh, oh

# Surveying solo!

# Sound, sound, structurally sound

# Too much pebbledash, structurally sound

# Issues with the party wall This one's been condemned

# Five pounds! #

Confounding our expectations further is Wild Bore,

an absurd theatre piece where an international trio of performers

take reviews from their previous works to create a show

that has a laugh at the critics' expense.

One reviewer said it was the worst theatrical experienced of his life.

Another said, "Kill me. Kill me now."

And it was also pegged as

"a startlingly early frontrunner for worst show of the year."

It opened on 7th January.

The show is a montage of real quotes from real critics,

taken...real reviews of real shows.

We frame it as though it's about the show you're watching right now,

but obviously it's from our past reviews,

other people's past reviews, etc.

For no apparent reason

we have come into a darkened room to watch a theatre show.

You may as well have written that for no apparent reason

Hamlet holds the skull of Yorick in his hand for no apparent reason.

You may as well have written that for no apparent reason

she doth speak in iambic pentameter for no apparent...

Yeah, there's no reason for that.

So the show seems to mix, like,

performance art and theatre with comedy.

Is it consciously one or the other, or are you making a mixture?

I think we're making a mixture.

Although I consider myself a theatre-maker,

there's, you know, comedy runs through all the work that I do.

If you want to make people laugh

and you're in a theatre context or you're in a...comedy context

you do have to understand sort of like the form...

The expectation, different tropes, different rules to that form.

But I think it's funny that...

In certain settings, like in Edinburgh,

if you say, "I'm going to see comedy,"

you picture one person on stage standing up with a microphone.

-And that's silly.

-I think the show could sit just as well, you know,

at a theatre festival as it could at a comedy festival.

So while comedy is really ballooning,

there are so many kind of subheadings to it now.

We've seen storytelling and performance art

and then this very hi-tech and audience-experience-involved thing.

I mean, there is a lot of comedy, but it's always evolving,

and I would say that at this time of social divide,

the laughter and the unity that that brings is more important than ever.

This year is the 70th anniversary of the International Festival.

The programme celebrates the courage and ambition

of the original gathering of artists.

One of the highlights is Benjamin Clementine

who brings his soulful and uncompromising musical style

to Edinburgh.

# Your cup is full Your cup is full

# What have you not yet achieved?

# It is obvious that you're trying

# Dubious stop or you will die here

# You're pretending but no-one is buying...

# London, London London is calling you

# What are you waiting for?

# What you searching for? #

Clementine's first tour de force won the Mercury Prize in 2015.

Always a songwriter to defy characterisation,

his new self-produced second album, I Tell A Fly,

is no exception.

I've just listened to your album twice through,

and I think it's incredible. Where did it come from?

My inspiration, my influences,

which is what's going on around me.

-In the world?

-Yeah, yeah.

And that's what inspired me to write that second album.

For example, you know, writing the song about...

..Aleppo - I've seen people getting bombed, children crying,

running away from, you know, a catastrophe.

I was bullied in school, so if I was bullied in school

and that trauma has stayed with me for over ten years,

I could use that to talk about Aleppo,

because of course what I experienced is

nowhere near what the children of Aleppo are experiencing,

but if it's that small, then imagine Aleppo, the children of Aleppo.

# Oh, leave me, leave me Oh, leave me, leave me

# Oh, love me, oh, love me

# Leave me alone... #

And, as a kid, did you escape to music?

Certainly. I think music was...

..my only, erm...

way just to forget everything

and to pretend nothing happened.

And, you know, when I played music, when I played the piano,

I always cried, because it was a feeling of...

I felt peaceful, you know, and it brought so much emotion...

-..out of me.

-I wanted to ask you about your voice, as well.

So, your voice...

I hated...

..singing, because I felt that...

The people that I listened to...

-were, you know, Pavarotti, Maria Callas...

-Right.

..you know, Andrea Bocelli, Lucio Dalla.

It was Italian music, you know.

There were times that I would just really try to sing along a little

bit, but, you know, I got troubles with my neighbours always, yeah?

I always did it when my parents were not around.

But, again, you know, my neighbours would come and bang the door

and tell me to shut up.

# So, Billy

# It's forgiven

# Billy bully, bully Billy, it's all right

# Oh, it's fine... #

So, then, your own style of singing, that just came along with the music?

Yeah, it came along as a consequence

when I had to, you know, find a way to survive.

-You don't really want to sing, as a normal human being.

-Why not?!

-You know, you just want to listen to music, I think.

-Really?

-People love singing.

-If it was left...

The reason why I'm singing is because of consequences,

it's not because I want to sing.

Of course, I like singing, but it's not...

..it's not what I'd hoped for as a kid.

-I have to sing because I have something to say.

-Mm.

It's the reason why I'm doing it.

-I use music to communicate with people.

-Mm-hm.

-You know?

When things were dire, you know, I had to open up to people,

-and I couldn't do that without music.

-Mm-hm.

And I don't think I can still do that without music.

Do you think you'd do music without...pain?

I think it would be impossible.

I think that as soon as I'm done with what I want to say,

I would stop.

# Can you feel the thunder that Aleppo feels?

# Billy

# Oh, I believe

# I believe, I believe

# Can you feel the thunder that Aleppo feels?

# Can you feel the thunder that Aleppo feels?

# Can you feel the thunder that Aleppo feels?

# Can you feel the thunder that Aleppo feels? #

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

One of Edinburgh's most famous sons

has come back to the festival this year.

Trainspotting author Irvine Welsh has teamed up with actor and

director Nick Moran to bring us a play that examines what happens

when real-life gangsters come face-to-face with the art world.

Performers is the story of two East End villains auditioning for

parts in the classic arthouse film Performance,

starring Mick Jagger and James Fox.

Oi! We're not here to talk about art and bacon.

We're supposed to be here to talk about pictures.

And we're definitely not here to talk about naked pictures.

Banned immediately upon release,

Donald Cammell's cult classic challenged social norms

and is widely considered to be a seminal piece of British cinema.

Me!

Me.

Do you call that equitable?

It's probably, along with Lindsay Anderson's If...,

which was round about the same time, and Kubrick's Clockwork Orange...

I mean, I think these are the three films

that kind of staked out a pretty unique kind of

territory in British cinema, because they're not trying to be

Hollywood, or they're not even trying to be European arthouse.

You know, and they had that mixture of kind of, you know,

the kitchen-sink realism with the fantastical and the trippy,

and that whole stylisation has gone

right through from Quadrophenia to Trainspotting.

And it's a film that deserves to be seen a lot more than

it has been seen.

I don't want any invalid, washed-up

cabaret artistes in my beautiful basement.

It's Donald Cammell trying to get authenticity in his film

but being completely unaware that just by doing that,

by having that as a thought, it's not inventive.

It's patronising to try and think, "We'll get the real thing in."

And the joy about the play is it's sort of revealed.

Everybody's playing something that they can't ever really be or

they can't completely maintain.

The way that time period, the sixties,

when you had the sexual revolution, the class barriers breaking down,

people were kind of thinking about their identity and split

identities and the management of their identity in everyday life

to an extent for the first time,

to an extent that they really weren't after the war.

You could forge your own identity and just sort of...

with a bit of conviction convince people that's who you really were,

and that's why the play works so well.

These guys can suddenly be famous, they can be in a film.

It's only a bit of acting. No-one's going to get hurt.

I don't believe you, Alf. You surprise me, you do.

You really surprise me.

I'm...

Well...

I'm surprised.

In the '60s, so much British art was about class,

but today it's much more complex than that.

And perhaps it's not surprising that shows about identity

and belonging and the breaking down of borders

and boundaries are the big themes of this year's festival.

Border Tales examines multiculturalism in Britain

through dance, music and stories.

It is a show about identity and multicultural living.

It's quite remarkable to be bringing your actual personal

stories to the work,

and it means also digging into your own background,

maybe things that you've even taken for granted,

things that you don't notice any more, and really mining that,

and I think that's incredibly powerful.

From east London, visceral dance piece Blak Whyte Gray is

based on conversations about identity and heritage

the choreographer Michael Asante had with his Nigerian father

and explores the struggle for liberation from colonialism.

I've been struck by all these shows exploring our myriad British

identities, but there's one artist shining a particularly personal

and political light on this theme.

Selina Thompson's powerful evocation of slavery and its dreadful

legacy are explored in her extraordinary one-woman show Salt.

Preparation for this show began with a real-life gruelling

journey retracing the transatlantic slave trade

route below the deck of a cargo ship.

We are all descended from enslaved people.

On a form, I tick "Black British".

If you ask me where I'm from, I'll say, "Birmingham."

If you ask me where I'm really from, I'll think, "Me mum."

There's loads of really extraordinary

work at the festival this year that's kind of looking at race

and identity, lots of work from black women.

It's really awesome to feel like part of...

part of a moment in time where lots of people have kind of wanted to...

speak honestly and frankly about...

..this history but also the present and to imagine the future.

And what were your current motivations for making this piece?

It's been really eerie being up here with this show this week

while everything's been happening in the States.

It's felt... It's very eerie to be working on this show while something

like Grenfell, that had massive racial implications, was happening.

It feels like a very potent moment.

But I think it would have felt potent for me last year.

He tells me that the continent will never progress.

He tells me that the people are feral children.

He tells me to be wary of Africans, who, he tells me,

will hate me worst of all.

He finishes up by telling me that racism is ancient history.

He knows I will say nothing.

It is cartoon racism, brutish, impolite racism,

not the smooth, slick, confused racism of my nice liberal friends.

What was the journey like for you?

-Whoo! Erm, great material for a show.

-Yeah.

-A very difficult time in my own life.

-How long did it take?

So, the whole thing took about two months, just over two months.

And I think it's the kind of thing which...

It would have been difficult even if everything had worked

out perfectly, because I think to retrace...

..the physical locations of the middle passage whilst

thinking about all the things that took place there historically

was always going to be extremely painful.

But we were then dealing with a ship full of officers

and crew members who were racist and very hostile.

This is the master.

I despise calling him master.

His power is maintained by aggression and intimidation.

He bullies his officers...

who alienate his crew...

and terrorise the woman, shouting at her, so she shouted at me,

and we're still at sea in the morning.

Where does the salt come from?

I wanted salt because it has so many gorgeous connotations.

So, firstly on a really bread-and-butter kind of thing,

salt as in tears, salt as in sweat, salt as in the sea.

But also the role that salt plays in healing, the fact that, like,

salt is one of the quickest healing things that there is, but it hurts.

But also, I wanted a physically difficult task.

Like, I wanted something where...

..you would sit and it would feel...

There would be a very visceral sense of somebody working in front of you.

-VOICEOVER:

-Modernity as we understand it is, like, founded

on colonialism and founded on the slave trade.

And it's going to sound really big and over the top, but the only way

that you change any of that is like a complete overhaul of the world.

So it's a cheerful show and everybody skips

-out of the theatre at the end...

-NINA LAUGHS

..feeling optimistic and happy about life!

The art festival is also exploring this issue by looking

at Scotland's historical role in the transportation of slaves.

Inspired by Robert Burns' poem The Slave's Lament,

artists Douglas Gordon

and Graham Fagen are exploring surprising links between Burns,

the famous champion of egalitarianism, and the slave trade.

Gordon's work Black Burns is a response to a white marble

statue of Robert Burns present in the National Portrait Gallery

and aims to humanise the bard by making

the truth of his character more explicit.

No matter whether it would be a big abstract piece,

I like to know what things are made of.

A lot of Robert Burns himself was about being honest and open

and trying to pull himself apart as a man in order to...

you know, the everyman idea that "a man's a man for a' that".

It's quite a brutal piece of work. Is he shattered? Is he broken?

Or has he just been opened up?

It's highly polished on the outside,

and then we see what's underneath the surface.

Where's the real figure? Where is the real fellow?

# It was in sweet Senegal That my foes did me enthral... #

In the adjacent gallery to Black Burns is Graham Fagen's

work The Slave's Lament.

Fagan has created a version of the poem with a haunting melody

sung by reggae artist Ghetto Priest.

# And must never see it more

# And alas! I am weary, weary, O

# Torn from that lovely shore

# And must never see it more

# And alas! I am weary, weary, O... #

The poignant poem charts the journey of a slave aboard a ship

from Africa to Virginia.

And yet Burns, legendary man of the people,

almost went to work on a slave plantation.

I discovered that Burns had booked a passage to go to Jamaica to

work on a plantation.

So I felt I had to deal with that as an artist,

I had to start a conversation.

And I suppose that's when I met up with Ghetto Priest.

And what has your experience of this work been like?

Deep. Profound, to say the least,

because I really believe, in my crazy head,

that it's viable with all this

that that 17th-century man called upon me to do this for Graham.

-Yeah. Crazy.

-But he's stripped the flesh from one man.

-Mm.

Burns, Black Burns. I'm the black Burns!

Graham's work was made before I did mine, so I'm just copying him!

I hope nobody falls on it and gets impaled.

But, you know, there could be worse ways to go.

Getting impaled by Robert Burns beyond the grave. Not bad.

I don't think that anybody could ever point to anything in Burns

and say it's pretentious.

As opposed to me!

I always feel like in Edinburgh the first week of the festival

is in a different city from the final week,

because you've been on such a journey.

I've seen such a huge array of stuff.

It's definitely exhausting, but I'm never going to get tired of it.

And then always at the last minute

you find something else completely different...

How you feeling out there?

..such as one of this year's top-rated Fringe hits, Acelere,

the latest gravity-defying show from Circolombia,

mixing Latin-American dance, soulful singing

and jaw-dropping acrobatic stunts.

It's a nonstop circus party to warm your heart.

SHE SINGS IN SPANISH

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE