BEYOND THE FRINGE
Clive Yellowjohn, bookish bohemian, on the edge of the Fringe.
It is time to buck the trend: Waterstone‘s won‘t do. it‘s bad news. I say this as a fully paid up member of Bibliophile‘s Anonymous. an altruistic. dif'fident society whose raison d‘etre is to prevent the purchasing of books.
I dropped into the George Street shop the other night to twist the manager‘s drinking arm. As we left for the Cambridge Bar I spotted Dougal (B.A. uses fictious names to
protect the innocent) browsing in the
travel section. twitchy and
furtive-Iooking. and about to make a
dash for the till. I rugby-tackled him around the waist and after he‘d picked himselfup he went sheepish.
mumbled excuses and scuttled away.
as if he’d been caught on a busting with his zip undone. The manager looked nonplussed and a beautiful friendship teetered on the edge of extinction. Thank God for the restorative power ofgin.
That‘s what the Festival does; it knocks you out of kilter. What with scraps of conversation. Scotsman reviews and heaps of handbills thrust upon you. you feel as if you‘re ‘doing' the Festival with a vengeance, though nothing I haven‘t seen has been worth seeing twice. Not that I pay much attention to it anyway though I did throw five pee in the cap of a Rose Street busker for his impassioned version of ‘I wanna hold your hand‘. I was on my way to Platform One where as Martin
Currie says, they charge you whether
you want to listen to the jazz or not.
v Q.‘ a}
e
On Sunday afternoon a tape offered
the absent resident band gratis but when ‘Iive‘ perfomers arrived it was cough up or be off. We be-d off. By then we‘d been joined by Mellow St Bruno MacLaverty who‘d been trapped in negotiations with his publisher. As far as I can make out, the publisher is keen on novels but Mac L veers towards the not conspicuoust lucrative field of street theatre. I told Mac L to set a rabid agent on the philistine and squeeze him dry. I remember being told how Mac L had been accosted by a dosser for a contribution towards a cup of tea, after leaving a Glasgow pub. Penniless. he retreated and complained to Alasdair Gray.
Leave it to me. said the author of Lanark. He strode out and lapelled the ragged-trousered tramp: ‘Look here my man‘. he said. ‘What you need is three years‘ good luck.‘
By now we were in The Rose and
Crown. involved in a conversational Jam session which wasn’t billed in the
Fringe programme. But Ican’t get used to paying to be entertained and I don‘t like sitting too long without a glass in my hand. I’m such a prude, I feel naked without one.
Much later passing along George Street after midnight. I caught sight ofthe bearded author of The French Lieutenant's Woman BUYING books. Should I tackle him? I was conscience striken but let him have his fix. What comfort is there in a Gideon bible. And that‘s when I remembered the twenty four hour reading from the Bible. It had been a long time since I‘d sampled communion wine.
“THE Lisr
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35,
v
'7: ~ l . :52 .H ,i , TheCameo—bolore “ CAMPBELLS KINGDOM anaaner
purchased by the enterprising London company Recorded Cinemas who had worked a similar transformation on the Gate in Notting Hill. Within six weeks the building has undergone a £150,000 facelift that involved extensive restoration, redecoration and refurbishment. The building now gleams with the luxuriant appeal of a state-of-the-art contemporary dream i palace and the 420-seater showcase . has opened to the public with a Scottish first-run of Martin Scorsese’s Alter Hours.
Manageress Anne Campbell and her team stress that they have an open door policy of welcoming suggestions on all aspects of programming and general matters. If there is an audience for late- night shows every day of the week or Sunday afternoon silents then the Cameo are willing to give them a try. One can only commend the new owners on their bold initiative (and frantically speedy labours) and trust that the public will reward their faith with many happy returns. (Allan Hunter)
- Reporting the demise of a well-loved but underpationised cinema has become an all too regular and dutiful task over recent years as Scotland’s once
a prodigious list of venues has dwindled to a modest coterie of hardy survivors.
1 Now, however, comes the rare and
welcome privilege of reporting on an
E.T.-llke return from the grave for the
Cameo in Edinburgh’s Tollcross which
. reopened last Saturday with a gala
- premiere of the Scottish film Heavenly
Pursuits.
, The Cameo closed in September of 1982, the victim of a particularly unhealthy period for the cinema industry
. and an understandable reluctance on
} the part of the battle~weary veteran owner Jim Poole to continue fighting
the good fight. The Poole family had acquired the cinema in 1947 and built it into a popular venue for Film Festival
, attractions, art house screenings and general upmarket films.
After four years of idle speculation
and loose talk the cinema has been
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INSIDE
Your guide to all the Festivals Venue Guide 2 The Flying Karamazov Brothers 3
FREELOAD ON THE FESTIVAL
Theatre 4 7 . . At ' ~ Th 't i The List has negotiated Sift; “w” 6" ’6 f 00$ worth 0' Tree and Christopher Lambert lo 9 ' ' Fil n 18 discounted tickets all (.33qu I.) 3 round the Festivals, Dan... :1 ' M s'c 23 “eta-Ils on page 27.' .Oflers Yoiir|guide to events outside the a subject to availability and Fesma. the individual Listings 33 Kids-‘9 , . . An 33 Sport bl management s decisions . Film-ll MediaSZ
Backlist 53 The List 22 Aug— 4 Sept1
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