Keith Bruce

Nicola Benedetti with the Academy of Ancient Music, Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh, today at 11am

National Youth Choir of Scotland, Usher Hall, Edinburgh, tomorrow at 3pm

THE “Opening Concert” of the 2018 Edinburgh International Festival at the Usher Hall tonight, with the SCO under Edward Gardner playing Haydn’s Creation, is, strictly speaking, nothing of the sort. Not only does Anna Meredith’s new work with 59 Productions, Five Telegrams, have its Scottish debut in a recording made at the BBC Proms by the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Sakari Oramo outside the building the previous evening, but the first of the annual series of recitals in the intimate space of the Queen’s Hall will have begun eight-and-a-half hours previously.

This morning’s event is also one of the biggest of those concerts, with Scotland’s violin superstar joining Cambridge-based period performance group the Academy of Ancient Music, directed from the harpsichord by its music director, and successor to founder Christopher Hogwood, Richard Egarr.

There will be nothing dry and academic about this programme of Vivaldi and Telemann, as anyone who has seen Egarr in the same role with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra on his many visits to Scotland will testify. He is not scheduled to appear during the SCO’s upcoming season, but Benedetti will take her first steps into that dual role, directing Mozart from the violin at the Usher Hall, and Glasgow’s City Hall, next April.

The chorus for The Creation, joining soloists Sarah Tynan, Robert Murray and Neal Davies, is the National Youth Choir of Scotland, founded by Christopher Bell, who steps down as director of the Edinburgh Festival Chorus after this Festival. NYCoS is leading the way for the strand of performances by youth ensembles that runs through the EIF 2018 programme and has its own concert, with baritone alumnus Andrew McTaggart, the following afternoon, performing Ralph Vaughan Williams, Michael Tippett, Thea Musgrave and Eric Whitacre.

Mary Brennan

Dance

No fewer than 24 shows, from 11 countries, are on offer at Dance Base this August - and among them is Ballet Ireland’s Giselle, something of a coup for the venue given that no-one can recall any other professional company ever bringing a full-length ballet to the Fringe. Choreographed by former Royal Ballet dancer Ludovic Ondiviela, this new version introduces a modern-day twist to the 19th century Romantic tale of a love betrayed that still lives on from beyond the grave. The venue’s intimate Studio space will mean that Giselle’s fate will not only touch you - but be within touching distance of the audience.

Among those companies making a welcome return to the Grassmarket venue is Old Kent Road, who tap into more than just hot-shoe shuffles with a new work Oscillate where the beat that grabs their feet is delivered by electronic music with an LA vibe. South African street life - complete with live music – is also coming back to Dance Base with the return of Njobo Productions (FKA After Freedom Productions) who follow up their 2016 hit, I Am Rhythm, with SOWhEreTO Africa. It’s quite some time since Andy Howitt

came on-stage in Scotland - he’s been busy down under in Oz - but he’s coming home with a full-on celebration of the late, exuberantly camp Australian performance artist, Leigh Bowery. His solo, Sunshine Boy, catches the darker side of Bowery’s life and career as well as the outrageous heights of his appearances in platform shoes, lippy and swags of attitude. Scottish work is also showcased during August - Ramesh Meyyappan’s Off-Kilter is a tour-de-force of mime, magic and mayhem while Andy Manley’s Stick By Me is a brilliant reminder that the best children’s work is a treat for grown ups too.

full programme details - https://www.dancebase.co.uk/festival-2018

Neil Cooper

Theatre

South Bend, Gilded Balloon at the Museum until August 27, 3-4pm.

Edinburgh’s own Grid Iron theatre company were way ahead of the curve in terms of producing site-specific theatre. Having set the tone for their work with early forays down Mary King’s Close with The Bloody Chamber and the cavernous spaces beneath Central Library that now houses the Bongo Club (Underbelly in August), the company have spent more than two decades exploring different ways of making theatre.

This new piece by actor/writer Martin McCormick is presented in association with the Easterhouse-based Platform venue. While it will play in regular theatres throughout an autumn tour, the show’s TED-talk style format lends itself to the National Museum of Scotland’s lecture theatre space. A quasi-autobiographical fantasia, South Bend charts McCormick’s flight to America a decade ago to be reunited with a woman he had fallen passionately in love with, only to find that in their four months apart, everything had changed, the woman most of all. This leaves McCormick penniless and confused as he goes back on the road in a personal voyage of discovery.

McCormick has previously worked with Grid Iron as an actor, although his increasing profile as a playwright has led to a collaboration that sees him combine both talents, with Jess Chanliau playing all the other parts. Grid Iron artistic director Ben Harrison’s production integrates live foley work into a personal but fantastical road movie for the stage.

As well as overseeing South Bend, Harrison will also be directing Let’s Inherit The Earth, a new play by Morna Pearson presented at the Pleasance in a co-production by the Highland-based Dogstar company and the Stockholm-based Profilteatern company. There will also be a revival of Egg by Paper Doll Militia, based on Harrison’s original direction and staged at Summerhall.

www.gildedballoon.co.uk

Rob Adams

Fringe Music

The Red Guitar, theSpace at Niddry Street/Misha’s Gang, theSpace at Surgeons Hall (both runs end August 25)

Two of the outstanding Fringe Music finds of the past two years return.

John Sheldon first brought his red Stratocaster, with its guitar case full of stories, here in 2016. He stayed away last year, honing an already sharp and focused show further.

The Bostonian was not only good enough, at seventeen, to play with the none-too-easily pleased Van Morrison, he had a hand in the creation of Moondance in the summer of ‘68 before going back to school. James Taylor was another early associate and one of Sheldon’s best tales concerns another pal, Jim Hodder, who was Steely Dan’s drummer in Reelin’ in the Years days, inviting Sheldon to sit and watch the session that produced that very song.

Masterly storytelling, honest personal recollections, wry wit and nimble playing on the eponymous guitar merge in fifty minutes that pass way too quickly.

The unassumingly named Misha’s Gang is a string orchestra from Moscow that would enhance the official festival’s programme, never mind the Fringe’s. Their playing is sublime, with the kind of group understanding that informs the best string quartets, and their range of material – which changes with every performance – varies from heavyweight orchestral pieces to tangos to the version of Flight of the Bumble Bee they played at their Herald Angel presentation last year that left a roomful of their peers awe-struck.

As well as their main afternoon show, they’re playing morning children’s concerts (until August 14), light-hearted, hair-letting-down gigs (August 19-25) and a series of evening concerts in Old Saint Paul’s (August 9, 10, 11, 18, 25). And if you live in Stirling or Inverness and can’t get to Edinburgh, catch them at Albert Halls (Sunday 26th) or Eden Court (Tuesday 28th).

Gayle Anderson

Fringe Comedy

Frankie Boyle

Edinburgh Playhouse.

August 7-10

Zoe Lyons

Gilded Balloon

Until August 26.

One of the hottest tickets in town, Glasgow's very own Glib Yin unleashes the third vitriolic volume of his eight-volume Prometheus series in this short, sharp and shocking run. Prepare for a master-class in mockery as serial offender, Boyle casts a cynical eye on anything and everything that rips his knitting. Like his TV series, New World Order -minus the edit button- he'll leave no political U-turn unstoned. Deliciously dark, wickedly funny and most definitely not for the faint-hearted. That strange noise you can hear? It's the sound of an audience laughing and recoiling at the same time. If you're not lucky enough to catch the king of comedy whiplash in the capital, he's heading back up the road to Glasgow's Theatre Royal with this show from August 16 to 25.

The hugely popular comic returns all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed after a Fringe sabbatical last year. Lyons is a seasoned performer at the top of her game so expect sharp one-liners, brilliant observational humour and rollicking audience interaction. The modern world is currently giving her cause for some serious head-scratching. In Entry Level Human she asks important questions about our relationship with modern technology. Is the world going to hell in a handheld? Are we now being controlled by our machines? Will we ever stop taking selfies long enough to care? All this from a woman who admits she can't even operate her own toaster. Be prepared for honest, unfussy stand up and guaranteed giggles from a comedian who does exactly what it says on the tin. Those toaster skills need to be improved pretty sharpish though if she plans to whip up a storm in the new series of Celebrity Masterchef.