Exploring Edinburgh During The Fringe
Harry Potter, history and strange street performers
Heading into Edinburgh on the tram, I couldn’t help but feel that I had missed the memo that the Fringe had a dress code and that it was hiking gear.
Everyone around me was wearing a backpack over a waterproof coat and hiking trousers or jeans. The weather forecast had predicted rain, but I felt more like I was heading into the mountains than the centre of a major city from the attire of the crowd. I stood out rather a lot with my skirt and handbag.
I had little experience of arts festivals, but I had expected there might be some more interesting clothing choices. I would have to wait until I reached the Royal Mile to find the more experimental outfits.
Disembarking on Princes Street, my companion and I decided to stroll around Princes Street Gardens before heading up to the Royal Mile. This park offers possibly the best view of the castle and how the rock on which it sits rises steeply up from the comparatively flat gardens below.
It’s well worth a detour to see the memorial to Wojtek the Bear who served in the Polish army during World War II. No, I’m not joking. After the war, Wojtek accompanied his comrades to Scotland. They feared a return to Poland would see him used as propaganda by communist authorities, so he lived out his days in Edinburgh Zoo, where he died in 1963. The memorial depicts him with his caretaker Peter Prendys and features scenes from his life.
We then followed the stream of people heading up the steep street (rather appropriately named The Mound) to reach the Royal Mile, the historic street which runs from the Scottish Parliament Building up to Edinburgh Castle. The railing separating the Gardens from the street was covered in posters advertising acts performing at the Fringe. The sheer number of shows was quite impressive — how could the city have enough venues for all these acts to perform daily, I wondered.
One poster in particular caught our attention: the title “Swamplesque: the burlesque parody — uncover all the layers” printed above an image of a woman painted green and dressed like Shrek. I can’t vouch for the quality of the show, but it certainly did a good job at standing out from the crowd of other adverts.
Once we had completed the climb, we were greeted by a group of young people in blue jumpsuits who were stood on traffic bollards and giving a rather lacklustre performance of Uptown Funk. Although this was amusing at first, once we returned to the area a bit later in the day and found they were still singing only this one song on repeat, I started to wonder if they were driving business away from the cafés and tourist shops nearby. The singers weren’t bad, but their trombone player’s performance left a lot to be desired. And who wants to hear Bruno Mars all day anyway?
We crossed the Royal Mile and headed downhill again along George IV Bridge to visit one of the city’s essential tourist stops: The Elephant House. The café opened in 1995 and soon became famous as the location where J. K. Rowling wrote the early Harry Potter books. The business has really capitalised on its link to the author (and who can blame it?), styling itself the “birthplace” of Harry Potter and catering to the tourists who flock to Edinburgh for the city’s somewhat loose connection to the series — although Rowling lived and wrote here, the novels do not take place in the city.
This hasn’t stopped a whole industry giving Harry Potter tours and selling Harry Potter merchandise from developing in the city. I’ve observed the same phenomenon in Cambridge, a city which has even less to do with Harry Potter. This technicality doesn’t seem to prevent tourists enthusiastically spending their money on fake wands and Hedwig keyrings. It’s rather telling that there are Chinese and Spanish versions of the café’s website, as this is hardly the norm in the UK.
Sadly, the café was recently damaged in a fire. But, for now, tourists can visit its second location, which is just around the corner on Victoria Street, a picturesque lane lined by brightly coloured shop fronts. When we arrived, The Elephant House had a rather conspicuous crowd around the entrance, making it hard to miss.
Popping in to have a look at the new location, we were greeted by Harry Potter merch and a takeaway menu that had certainly changed since Rowling frequented the café in the 90s.
Patrons have to head upstairs to reach the café proper. Despite it not yet being 30 minutes since the café opened, there was already a queue. The patrons didn’t seem to care that this wasn’t really where Rowling wrote Harry Potter as they passed the time posing for photos.
We decided to find somewhere without a queue and headed back up to the Royal Mile to Deacon’s House Café. This historic café was almost unchanged from when we had visited several years ago, only much busier with the Fringe crowd.
The ground floor of the café was once the workshop of Deacon Brodie, an 18th-century gentleman by day and head of a gang of burglars by night. Brodie’s double life supposedly inspired Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.
The wall of the café is decorated by a mural which depicts scenes from the novella alongside significant episodes in Scottish history while the courtyard offers a quiet spot just off the bustling Royal Mile for a cup of tea and a cake in classic British fashion.
It was while walking down the Royal Mile that I finally saw the eccentric outfits I had been expecting. The streets around St Giles’ Cathedral were packed, tourists stopping to watch an eclectic range of performers.
While gazing up at the impressive St Giles’ Cathedral, I heard someone behind me say, “it’s like Midsommar.” Turning around, I saw what he meant: a group of young women in long white dresses and flower crowns were flailing in slow motion in the centre of the street. One was even sat on the ground and caressing the cobblestones.
The usual street performers were also out in force. As we stopped to look at a living statue painted in silver, we could hear a shout of “this next one is Iris by the Goo Goo Dolls” from a busker around the corner. Looking up at the church, I wondered whether the street had been this chaotic in the days when the Scottish Reformer John Knox preached there.
We found our path blocked by a crowd so large that I had to stand on my toes and strain my neck to see what they were watching, since all I could see was the top half of a man wobbling from side to side. It turned out he was balancing on a ladder, wearing a kilt and holding juggling clubs in one hand. It seemed we had arrived just as he had paused his act to address the crowd.
After asking how many of the crowd weren’t from the UK and receiving a lukewarm cheer in response, he went on to lecture us all on how much he loved immigration and how bad fascism is. I imagine anyone who had just wanted a nice day out to forget about about the depressing state of modern Britain would have been sadly disappointed by this reminder of the tense political situation in our country.
Perhaps I was naïve to think the political lectures would be limited to the comedy venues. Besides, what possesses a man clowning about on the street to think anyone will take his political opinions seriously is a mystery to me.
Edging past the crowd, we continued down the High Street, dodging people offering us flyers every few metres. As we turned onto North Bridge, a girl complimented me on my skirt, reassuring me that I wasn’t overdressed.
It was actually a coincidence that we were visiting Edinburgh during the Fringe. Nevertheless, it seemed a missed opportunity not to go to at least one show while we were there. On personal recommendation, we decided to give 4 Funny Feckers a chance. Since the show consists of the comedian Wes Dalton introducing four different acts, we thought it wouldn’t be so bad even if we didn’t like them, as they would only be on stage for 10–15 minutes each.
The venue was the basement of the The Hanover Tap bar. To take our seats, we had to squeeze ourselves between rows of folding metal chairs that were crammed uncomfortably close together. It was easy to understand the host Wes Dalton’s success as he bantered back and forth with some eccentric audience members. The final act, the Spanish comedian Sergi Polo, left me with a feeling of envy at how easily he could crack jokes in his second language, a feat I can only dream of achieving, despite my best efforts.
So, would I recommend visiting Edinburgh during the Fringe? Yes and no. Yes, because it’s certainly worth experiencing all the inevitable weirdness of the world’s largest arts festival. No, because if your goal is to see the city itself, you’d be much better off visiting at a time when the crowds are smaller and the hotel prices less exorbitant. As much as I enjoyed doing a quick tour of Edinburgh, my next visit will almost certainly be at a different time of year.
