By Fiona Walker
IN a hotel lounge, I am shamelessly eavesdropping on Cliff Richard and Gloria Hunniford as they prepare for a Q & A session at the Edinburgh Fringe. They are mapping out areas of interest for the interview to ensure they will entertain their audience later in the day; it is a conversation that’s going to be made public in a few hours, so I’m not betraying any secrets here. Cliff is very candid, and subjects range from his opinion of rap music (not especially high) and how celebrity affected him (his first major outlay was to buy his parents a television) to his reasons for going solo and how his well-documented faith helped him through his most difficult times. I wish we could attend the session, but it wasn’t until a few hours ago that we even knew it was happening and tickets have sold out. He comes across as a genuine, warm and thoughtful person and I am struck also by Ms Hunniford’s professionalism, even though they clearly know each well.
We’re not in Edinburgh for the festival but, as the city is decorated with posters for the numerous shows presented throughout August, it is impossible to ignore. A friend who lives here gives us a whistle-stop tour of the venues in the city centre and a potted history of the event, which was inaugurated after the Second World War to reunite people through great art and has grown every year, until this summer saw some 3,000 performances.
The reason for our visit to Scotland is to attend the Royal Edinburgh Tattoo. Ever wondered why it’s called a tattoo? Me neither, but I’ll tell you anyhow. It was an early 17th century Dutch phrase and refers to a signal sounded by drummers or trumpeters to innkeepers, instructing them to doe den tap toe or ‘turn off the tap’ and for soldiers to return to their barracks. So now you know.
Today the Royal Edinburgh Tattoo uses music, dance, poetry and imagery created by performers from around the world to celebrate connections between military and cultural communities. The theme this year is ‘Stories’, and 800 performers are taking part.
To be honest, I was slightly worried that this might be a rather monotonous show, with marching band after marching band performing repetitive routines in the massive arena in front of Edinburgh Castle, but instead it turns out to be a fabulous, spellbinding and varied spectacle.
Highlights include His Majesty the King’s Guard Band and Drill Team of Norway; not the catchiest title, but a breath-taking performance. Their precision drill brings to mind Domino Dancing, with each crisp movement replicated along their lines in perfect time, be it the raising of a leg, the movement of an arm or the turn of a head. Should one inadvertently fall over (I know they won’t, this is a well-polished routine, but permit me to imagine) I can see that each would tumble in turn like a row of human dominoes. They are mesmerising.
The lighting turns the floor of the showground to sand and the evocative sound of steel drums echoes around the stands as the Trinidad and Tobago Defence Force Steel Orchestra takes to the stage. The Caribbean atmosphere is reinforced by dancers in carnival costumes, fire eaters, stilt walkers and limbo dancers dropping their torsos impossibly low as they shimmy below bars set aflame in the evening light. Improbably, a couple of welders join in this feast of entertainment, their grinders creating showers of sparks in time to the music.
The Tattoo Dancers pour onto the arena to prove that Riverdance isn’t the only Celtic extravaganza when it comes to high kicks and effortless leaps and The United States Air Force Band creates yet another atmosphere as it recalls a bygone era with favourites from the war years. With the Swiss contingent comes massive Alpenhorns, their deep rumbling notes in contrast to all that has gone before.
The Royal Air Force Massed Military Bands are faultless in their precision, but this is Scotland, and when hordes of kilted pipers surge down through the castle gates and fill the arena with both colour and sound it is impossible not to be impressed. How did Scotland ever lose a battle? The volume of the bagpipes on the battlefield alone would surely have inspired their enemies to run for the hills. And yet the lone piper, who closes the show, releases an evocative, sensitive, and haunting melody as he stands isolated atop the castle walls, the spotlight highlighting his performance in the darkness of an August night. Seven thousand people sit in awed regard until the final note fades away, and then just a moment of silence precedes an avalanche of rapturous applause.
What a show, what a spectacle, what a city.
