Fringe

Had a day out in Edinburgh, soaking up some of the Festival atmosphere and taking in a couple of events.
After some time around the city this morning (when it seemed pretty quiet, surprisingly) we wandered up to the Royal Mile where it was considerably busier by lunchtime. Lots of intriguing and entertaining performers, and of course the usual large amount of people handing out flyers encouraging you to come to their performances.

We saw a theatre piece called Last Dream (on Earth) - www.lastdream.org - at the Assembly Halls - it juxtaposed the experiences and risks taken by Yuri Gagarin, first human in space, with those of present-day refugees crossing the Mediterranean Sea from Morocco to Spain in a dingy. Performed on a simple stage by 3 actors and 2 musicians, the audience experienced the whole thing through headphones, so it was a bit like a radio play. Maybe not completely successful in drawing the two stories together, but an interesting and thought provoking piece.

We also went to see the 154th Edinburgh International Exhibition of Photography - www.edinburghphotographicsociety.co.uk - which displayed prints of around 200 exhibits. Some really good pictures, but to be truthful I was a bit underwhelmed overall. Too many of them seemed to be overly digitally manipulated or coloured, which I personally found to be quite a disappointment; maybe just my taste, as there was no faulting what was on display, but for me just a bit too much perhaps to do with post-processing technique than subject matter.