ARTS The Edinburgh season starts earlier and earlier; indeed, for the first time this year, as far as cineastes are concerned, it’s already over. The Film Festival struck out into June, leaving just eight or nine other festivals to slug it out in August. It’s the two main ones that will principally be exercising me, of course: the International Festival, which kicks off next Friday, and the Fringe, which officially begins tomorrow, although many venues have been previewing since Wednesday. In all candour, though, I’m writing this column in London some days before my journey north.
Nevertheless, I already know that by the time you read this, thanks to the prestigious Traverse Theatre’s trait in recent years of “stripping” its press performances across entire days, I shall have spent Friday deep underground in the Traverse 2, and will be preparing for a scarcely less subterranean Sunday in Trav 1. It’s a disconcerting way to begin one’s Edinburgh, in a kind of theatrical isolation tank. When I was a smoker, I would seize every opportunity to escape for a cigarette. These days, as far as the Trav is concerned, I take open-sky breaks.
