I always recommend the circus. Each year, the world’s best acrobats, trapeze artists and contortionists come to Edinburgh and dance along the boundaries of what human bodies can do. Or an afternoon in Hunter Square, where I once saw a street performer climb blindfold onto an eight foot unicycle and juggle chainsaws. Or Summerhall, home of theatre’s radicals.
Everything everyone says about how terrible the Edinburgh festivals are, is true. They push up rents and exploit volunteer labour. Tickets are too expensive, performers get too little. A bed and a venue here in August can cost thousands – it’s much easier to bring a show if you (or your parents) have serious cash. They are built on carbon-heavy international travel.
Yet everything that everyone says about how wonderful the Edinburgh festival is, is also true. I took my 19-month-old daughter to her first show – Cirque Beserk – where she pointed and shouted “WOW” and “WHAT?” and, at the trapeze, “SWING”. I left Josie Long’s show dehydrated from crying and cry-snot laughing. At Jonny and the Baptists I took a large slug of my water just before a perfectly timed crack about the Queen, a silly joke you’d never get on the Beeb because it punches up too far, and the drink ended up down my sleeve.
