IN THE never-ending search for that multi-sensory, total immersion arts experience, Mike and Kim Forsyth’s foray to Fife this weekend could raise the bar to a new high.
If all goes to plan, the couple will take off from the East Fortune Airfield in their microlight plane tomorrow lunchtime, touching down half an hour later at RAF Leuchars to enjoy a triple bill concert in a Hardened Aircraft Shelter (HAS) on the
base.
The HAS is the newest venue for the East Neuk Festival, which runs until Sunday. Acoustically it boasts a five-second reverb, which is said to be about half-way between a living room and a cathedral, and it will play host to a line-up of: the Orlando Consort (a medieval a capella ensemble); the Mongolian throat singers Huun Huur Tu; and a Scottish bagpiper.
Mike Forsyth is a website developer, a classical music fan and Edinburgh International Festival regular. The couple are members of the East Fortune microlight club, and flew to Jura and round the islands a few weeks ago.
“It’s a wee trip over the Forth, rather than a rather extensive drive,” he says. “I’ve seen Mongolian throat singers in Edinburgh before and it seemed quite a wheeze to see them in a hangar in Leuchars.
“It’s win-win: we get to land at RAF Leuchars [the couple have special permission to do so] and we get to be part of the festival. We are flying in, watching it, and flying out again. It’s a about a half-hour trip, and the forecast is looking OK.”
Other new venues, alongside the churches often used for the East Neuk Festival, include Kinkell Byre, overlooking St Andrew’s Bay. There are ghost story readings in eerie venues, too – including MR James’s Whistle and I’ll Come to You at the Ship Inn in Elie. More details from:
www.eastneukfestival.comThe show must go onLINDA Fabiani, the Culture Minister, is gamely keeping up appearances. Last week, the opera-loving MSP took in a visit to Scottish Opera’s Falstaff, treating her private secretary to a new experience. “Darren had never been at opera before and I loved going with somebody to something they have never experienced and getting the feel of it,” she says.
This week, she obligingly posed with jazz musicians to announce the Scottish Government’s backing for a first Scottish Jazz Expo at the Edinburgh Jazz Festival.
But all is not rosy: with rumours running over a summer reshuffle, those in the know have declared Fabiani “tops most hit lists”, in the words of our own David Maddox.
It comes after the embarrassing, even bizarre, failure of the Culture Bill to establish Creative Scotland, voted down over questions on its finances.
Could Fabiani save her job by getting the Culture Bill back on track? She declines to join the “speculation”. The Culture Bill was passed by two parliamentary committees, she says, and its principles backed in parliament. “There was then an issue about finances, which to me was based on some confusion,” she says, adding that work on the timetable for Creative Scotland to appear next spring is going “full steam ahead”.
Under parliamentary rules, the bill can’t be reintroduced for six months, but Fabiani says: “The will was there for it to go forward so I’m absolutely convinced it will.”
Getting in earlyFRINGE junk mail has begun to arrive – the little goodies that companies send with their press releases, desperate to stand out from a crowd of 2,000 or so shows. Trophies to date: a two-inch long blue-banded plastic snake, a brown paper package tied up with string, and Post-it notes.
Bridging Arches’ gapTHE Arches has found a replacement for founding director Andy Arnold, who left this year after 18 years for The Tron. Jackie Wylie, currently arts programmer for the venue, will take over with immediate effect. She previously joined the team in 2004, having appeared as a young performer in the studio theatre.
The full article contains 690 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
