So . . . I am now very happily kitted out with much coveted VIP passes for some of the best private bars of the festival! You know those exclusive hideouts where stars hang in the same space as venue staff and everyone rubs along together, full of community spirit, shared experiences and ambitions!
As I am sure you can imagine it’s been a demanding weekend both for my liver and for my brain. I’ve managed keep both filled with copious heady cocktails of booze and culture! If that isn’t enough I’ve also met so many interesting people, I hardly know where to start, what to include and what I must inevitably leave out!
On Friday I popped over to The Musical Theatre@George Square accompanied by Peter Kirkup of Zero 88. There my eyes were opened to exactly how many relatively large productions a theatre can host in a day! I must say the constant stream of theatre audiences that pour through the doors of so many huge venues never ceased to fill me with wonder. Where do they all come from and what happened to the economic recession?
I was lucky enough to catch the frenetic turn around into One Academy Productions performance of Jerry Springer the Opera – see links below – and met up with two very busy lighting techs who’ve not only managed to learn an entirely new console during one of the most relentless and busy festivals in the world, but also have to deal with the day to day crisis of working long hours with lovies, technology and audiences – and we all know the toll that can take!
Musical Theatre @ George Square
So . . . a remarkably sparky and up beat Simon Hayes discusses his experience of the Zero 88 Orb . . .
And an amazingly laid back Jenny Kershaw discusses what it is to do two people’s jobs at the same time across more than one venue!
On Saturday I was over at the Assembly Halls where I met my husband’s favorite drinking partner – Didier Bareau. Responsible for the lighting in the Rainy Venue at the magnificent Assembly Halls, Didier is a man renowned for his ability to party as hard as he can work – apparently he works extremely hard!
At the age of 33 Didier is almost a veteran of the festival circuit and travels from one to another with the ease of a Romany gypsy. From Adelaide to Edinburgh to Glastonbury to Wexford, he is as happy with rock and roll as he is with opera, ballet or circus. We meet his as he prepares for one show of many that day, and talk to him about what he does and why. We also take a look at just one of the crazy turnarounds between shows.
Yesterday – Sunday – I spent the bulk of my late afternoon and evening in the decadently, gorgeous burlesque style, Assembly rooms bar! Here I drank copious amounts of gin and tonic, ate potato wedge chips dipped into dollops of sour cream and sweet chilli sauce – yummy – and listened to the very international tech staff wax lyrical about all the bonkers things they get up to on a daily basis! More to come on that later this week.
