Book Festival round-up part 2
Writing and performance from all corners of Scotland
By Hugh Simpson
Now firmly at home in the Edinburgh Futures Institute, the Book Festival continues to feature theatre-related events, performances and much else of interest.
To coincide with its theatre adaptation in what is very much the month of The Outrun, there was an appearance by writer and stage adapter Amy Liptrot and Stef Smith.
The play’s genesis from its first appearance at the Book Festival as part of Playing With Books was traced, with the grandly sweeping finished version ending up as very different from the book. Liptrot, due to her close involvement with the concurrent film, had very little to do with the play, but seemed pleased enough with the finished script and staging – which was obviously a huge relief to Smith.
Amy Liptrot a the EIBF 2024. Pic: Mihaela Bodlovic
Smith’s insistence on theatre being a collaborative venture meant she was reluctant to take much credit for the outcome, and there was perhaps less insight into the creative process than some might have wished. Liptrot, meanwhile, stressed that the person who wrote The Outrun was a different one from who she is today.
Liptrot also appeared in Personal Geologies, an event celebrating Orkney and Shetland writing with Jen Hadfield and Roseanne Watt. All three writers have spent long periods away from the islands as well as time there, and there was much illuminating discussion about how their writing is informed by a sense of place. The difficulties of writing about real people was also explored, notably about how a duty to respect them clashes with a writer’s duty to their own art. This event was notably well chaired by Christine de Luca, who not only (literally) wrote the book when it comes to Northern Isles poetry, but showed that she had read the participants’ work with intelligence and sympathy when it came to leading the discussion.
Not all elements need a chair, of course. Liz Lochhead: A Literary Trailblazer was helmed by Lochhead herself, accompanied by frequent collaborator Steve Kettley on saxophone. Showcasing her A Handsel: New and Collected Poems, Lochhead revisited work from all stages of her career, with Kettley providing music for those she describes as ‘entertainments’ rather than poems proper.
musical element
Lochhead, of course, is a major figure in Scottish theatre and has been involved in revue as well as poetry. She is always great value in performance, especially when chiming with her audience on In Praise of Old Vinyl, with its ‘sampling’ of classic pop lines, or the Songs For a Dirty Diva.
There was also a large musical element to Billy Kay: An Ayrshire Legend. Kay, the writer and broadcaster, who has done as much as anyone to promote the Scots language, was joined by singer Robyn Stapleton. Kay read passages form his memoir of an Ayrshire childhood, while Stapleton provided the musical illustrations from Burns and others. Kay describes the Burns songs as ‘Ayrshire anthems’, and there was a genuine warmth to the whole exploration of the folklore, literature and culture that shaped his identity.
Billy Kay at the EIBF 2024. Pic: Roberto Riccuti.
Poetry from yet another different part of Scotland formed the basis of Colin Bramwell & Gerda Stevenson: Celebrating Aonghas Dubh. Skye-born Aonghas MacNeacail, Aonghas Dubh (or ‘black-haired Angus’) was a giant of Gaelic poetry, but it was his English poems, collected in the recently published Beyond, that were the focus here. MacNeacail played God (literally) in the Book Festival’s 2011 premiere of Alasdair Gray’s Fleck. That reading also seemed to feature every distinguished writer in Scotland, including Stevenson, the writer-actor-director-singer and MacNeacail’s widow.
Bramwell, meanwhile, is a poet originally from the Black Isle who was a friend of MacNeacail, and to whom it fell the task of distilling a collection from an unpublished archive. This apparently consisted of large IKEA bags featuring scraps of paper mixed in with tax information.
Not only did this event, chaired by Cathy MacDonald, serve as a remembrance of a great poet, it was also instructive regarding the process of editing and selecting a collection. Both participants were clear, for example, that to publish everything a poet wrote, with no consideration as to quality or the poet’s own wishes, is to do a profound disservice to the writer and to poetry.
over-respectful
More general cultural coverage was promised in Scott Hames, Joyce McMillan & James Robertson: Scottish Writing After Devolution, an event chaired by Ruth Wishart that also featured Kieran Hurley. While the individual contributions were always of great interest, this suffered from a problem that can transpire when there are five such articulate people on stage and only an hour to discuss such a big subject. Important points were raised and there wasn’t always time to develop them.
Wishart said at the end that she was off to herd cats as a comparative relaxation. However, the issue was more that some of the participants were over-respectful, not wanting to stick their heads above the parapet and fracture the fragile political consensus that many of them referred to having existed in Scotland since the independence referendum. If any conclusion could be drawn, it was that the connection between writing and devolution since the Scottish Parliament was set up is that there isn’t one. Or that it’s too early to tell either way.
Welcome to the Edinburgh International Book Festival. Pic: EIBF
A more sedate time was had at Leslie Hills: A Love Letter to Edinburgh, in which the film producer discussed her recent book 10 Scotland Street, tracing the history of one New Town House over 200 years. In the company of her friend Val McDermid, Hills touched on a wide range of people and events, displaying the kind of rabbit-holes and wild-goose-chases historical research of this kind can lead you into.
What was perhaps most interesting was that this is Hills’s first book; as a result, she has not developed the ‘book festival persona’ some writers cultivate. As a result, her responses were less rehearsed, and subsequently less guarded, than is often the case, which made for more honest reflections than sometimes occur.
Whether first-time writers or polished performers, however, there is always something of interest at the Book Festival. And it’s amazing how quickly a new site has replicated that old feeling of at once seeming buzzy and convivial.
The Book Festival continues until 25 August.
Website: https://www.edbookfest.co.uk
The Leslie Hills event is one of those available to watch online until 31 December on a pay-what-you-like basis.
ENDS
