After months of performers being deprived of actual audiences and audiences being starved of live performance, it’s showtime for North Berwick’s very own Fringe by the Sea.
East Lothian’s favourite festival began in 2008 as a poke at the sprawling Edinburgh Fringe in the Scottish capital. Its founders wanted to transport the variety and excitement of the Fringe to the seaside town of North Berwick, which is exactly what happened.
This year a host of big names are set to appear at the ten-day Fringe by the Sea, which opened yesterday and runs daily at various Covid-secure venues around the town until next Sunday.
A sell-out gig featuring Janey Godley had crowds rolling in the aisles of the Belhaven Big Top last night, while the veteran Scots singer Lulu will take to the stage tonight for another sell-out performance. Tomorrow the soul singer Mica Paris, who has brought out her first album in over a decade, will headline.
Meanwhile, today at lunchtime, the renowned Scottish wildlife film-maker and presenter Gordon Buchanan presents Animal Families and Me, in which he’ll discuss his unusual walks on the wild side, from far-flung corners of the globe to on his doorstep, using his own film footage and photography.
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Other acts on the bill include Irvine Welsh, Ed Byrne, Reginald D Hunter, Lemn Sissay (reading from his book, My Name Is Why, which just won the 2021 Indie Book awards prize for non-fiction) and Eddi Reader.
There are also sets from the teenage singing sensation Connor Fyfe from Bluetile, Neu! Reekie! with Liz Lochhead, and the illustrious Scottish folk duo Aly Bain and Phil Cunningham. If baking is your thing, Bake Off winner Peter Sawkins will reveal some of his trademark tricks on Wednesday.
It’s all about the banter in a series of lunchtime blethers with the former BBC Scotland political editor Brian Taylor, when he will meet figures across art and politics, including Denise Mina, Vince Cable and Richard Demarco.
Few could have predicted when the festival began 13 years ago that this latest edition would be almost on a par, size-wise, with its Edinburgh counterpart.
Festival director Rory Steel explains: “We have more than 200 events on offer, including music, comedy, family shows, walks and environmental and wellbeing sessions. Someone mentioned to me the other day that we are now almost bigger than the Edinburgh festival. The amazing thing is that this statement is true.
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“Putting together this programme has been invigorating. So many performers are keen to get back out in front of audiences and people are excited to see live shows.
“The good thing is that thanks to needing more outdoor venues, we have actually increased capacity and that has worked well for us.”
Family-friendly shows have long been a staple of the festival and the 2021 line-up is no different. You can try a bushcraft workshop, wildlife walks in collaboration with the Scottish Seabird Centre, or myriad book talks at the Glenkinchie Lowland Stage.
The blend of well-kent faces with up-and-coming names is what keeps guests returning, Steel says. “Local acts Dr Salad and the Honey Farm will appear on the same stage and no doubt bring down the house, while tomorrow, BBC Radio 4 favourite Lemn Sissay will be moving audiences to tears,” he adds. “That’s the magic of Fringe by the Sea.”
fringebythesea.com
What else to do this weekend
Slow Light
Working between Edinburgh and Point on the Isle of Lewis, James Lumsden produces luminescent paintings that hover between abstract and landscape. Slow Light, which opens today at &Gallery in Edinburgh, is a new body of work developed over the past two years and showcases a site-specific group of paintings called Point Series — Slow Light, 2021. Until September 1; andgallery.co.uk
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Dampbusters
The Glasgow-based artist Winnie Herbstein gets in on the action in her new solo exhibition, Dampbusters, which opened yesterday at the CCA in Glasgow. Dampbusters is the third of three films exploring the past, present and future of community organising in the city, centring on the work of Cathy McCormack, a housing and anti-poverty activist from Easthall in Easterhouse. Until September 4; cca-glasgow.com
Wasps Summer Market
Scotland’s national provider of artists’ studios, Wasps, will host its summer market today and tomorrow at Glasgow’s former fish market the Briggait, with more than 50 Scottish makers and artists. The event, in the Briggait’s 1873 Hall, includes creators such as art-meets-food collective the Artists’ Tuck Shop, printmaker Ashley Cook, Thundercliffe Press cards and prints, and paper flower and bouquet maker Natalia Manczak. Until tomorrow; waspsstudios.org.uk
