"STATUS QUO? SAY NO MORE. What on earth do they have to do with Robert Burns?" So Pete Irvine told the Scotsman, when he discovered the name of the headline act at this year's Burns an' a' That festival.
Plenty of people will probably agree with Irvine, whose company Unique Events ran Scotland's annual Robert Burns celebration for the first six of its seven years. Then again, since any shortcomings on the part of the new organisers will shine a posit
ive light on his own past efforts, Irvine's motives for speaking out are surely mixed, at best. You can't help feeling, too, that he is playing pot to the new organisers' kettle.
A substantial part of every Burns an' a' That programme to date has had only the most tenuous connection to Robert Burns. Last year's brochure included a Frankie Boyle-hosted comedy night and shows by Marti Pellow and bland X Factor stars the MacDonald Brothers. The Status Quo slot was filled by Deacon Blue, whose link to Robert Burns is not obvious, beyond the banal fact that they're both Scottish and tell stories. Lou Reed, one of the festival's highest profile guests to date, wisely made a point of emphasising his lack of familiarity with Burns before attending, presumably to pre-empt any ill thought-out comparisons.
The truth about Burns an' a' That is that for seven years now it has been exploiting the name of Scotland's national poet to promote tourism, while paying little more than lip service to his work. Its new director, Michael McDaid, pretty much admitted this a few weeks ago, telling The Scotsman that the event "is as much about celebrating Ayrshire and bringing people into the area as it is about Burns". Inviting the likes of Lou Reed, Patti Smith and Pete Doherty certainly gave the event an edge for a while, but this was, ironically, partly because their connection with Burns seemed so questionable. Because they had more musical credibility than Status Quo, though, few people complained.
Ultimately, the negative reaction to Status Quo is as illogical as the grumblings about Jay-Z headlining this year's Glastonbury. Both spring from a perception of the events in question that is simply deluded. The objections to Jay-Z left a particularly bad taste in the mouth; the implication that hip-hop should not be welcome at a hippy rock festival (which has actually embraced music of all kinds for years) smelled of racism. You can't help wondering if there's a hint of anti-Englishness in the objections to Status Quo, if merely being Scottish allows Marti Pellow into the club.
The row raises an interesting question though – what artistic purpose do festivals really serve? It's interesting how infrequently this is actually asked. Scotland is obsessed with festivals, and seems to invent a new one every week without much thought as to why.
The Leith Festival, which starts next week, and Glasgow's West End and Merchant City festivals, generally feel like ragbag Fringe events with no quality control. All throw vast numbers of things on to one cluttered programme in an attempt to create a sense of event and excitement, but there is little sense of what the event actually means or why we should be excited about it, beyond the catch-all justification that it is a "showcase for local talent". Their purpose, once again, is tourism and money. But that is not, ultimately, much of a purpose – art, surely, should aim higher, think bigger,otherwise it is worthless.
For a different approach, look at what Jonathan Mills is currently doing with the Edinburgh International Festival. Here is a director who believes a festival is not a festival unless there is a genuine, carefully considered, intelligent idea effectively binding its disparate events together. This year his theme is "art without borders", and he has programmed a genuinely daring selection of work from all over the world, particularly from hotspots of political and religious conflict – the former Yugoslavia, Palestine, Israel, Iran. The programme invites you to think about the common points between shows, performers, and the countries. Doing so should, in theory, lead to a deeper, more profound experience that is greater than the sum of its parts.
Of course, you could argue that Mills is playing to a particular audience, who take their culture very seriously. It is also part of his remit to take big creative risks, and he has funding that allows him to do so. But plenty of other Scottish festivals seem quite capable of trying to push the limits of what a festival can be, and showing that programming them can, and should, involve as much creative thinking as performing in them.
In the past year, both Glasgow International and the Edinburgh International Film Festival have tried to embrace big ideas that link their various events together – with mixed success, but at least they tried. Edinburgh International Book Festival has long been doing the same thing. The makers of Scotland's experimental music festivals, Instal, Kill Your Timid Notion and Le Weekend have spent the last few years building an audience who have come to trust the organisers' taste, and the thought that they put into programming.
All feel like events with something to say. If Burns an' a' That doesn't, it is less the fault of Status Quo than the fact that so much of its annual programme is one thing (a tourism-generating exercise) pretending to be another (a celebration of our national poet). In that respect, its new director's honesty is refreshing. But a more focused tribute to Burns – with one-off, commissioned projects by top theatre companies, artists and musicians – would have far more cultural weight. Is that too much to ask for?
• Burns an' a' That takes place at various venues in Ayrshire, today until 25 May. For a full programme, visit www.burnsfestival.com
The full article contains 986 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
