AROUND TOWN
For the latest news, listings and reviews, go to list.co.uk /aroundtown
in Scotland taking the concept of roadworks to dizzyingly extensive new heights.
MERCHANT CITY FESTIVAL Nine days of music, theatre and dance in the heart of Glasgow Edinburgh may like to pretend it has the biggest, brashest and best summer arts festival this side of the apocalypse, but Glasgow doesn’t take it lying down. To mark the Commonwealth Games last year, the bold and glossy annual Merchant City Festival (going strong for 14 years) was bumped up from its standard four-day affair to an 11-day whopper. This year they’ve scaled back a tad and the festival comes in at a slightly more restrained, but still juicy, nine whole days of outlandish, arty community fun. As well as pirouetting construction
vehicles, visitors can enjoy plenty more outdoor events at SURGE, the festival- within-a-festival exploring street arts, dance, physical theatre and circus performance, this year focusing on the themes of friendship, fame, ecology and the absurdity of war. If the street art extravaganza all gets a bit too overwhelmingly conceptual, little ones and their guardians can shelter at the family zone in Merchant Square, while more adventurous souls enjoy a full programme of fashion and design events, dance, comedy, live music, guided walks, crafts and food and drink stalls.
Probably the highlight of the action will be Fragile, the world premiere of a large-scale street performance collaboration between Motionhouse, Conflux, Merchant City Festival itself and Gulbenkian theatre at the University of Kent. The combined efforts of these arts world luminaries is a piece in which over 25 performers (a combination of locals and international pros) interact with ‘a host of machine-dancing JCB diggers’, according to Conflux director Alan Richardson. Clearly Edinburgh’s tram fiasco isn’t the only project
R E E T A C M N A L A © O T O H P
The aim, as always, is to make Glasgow feel as vibrant, diverse and international as possible. The Edinburgh Festival may kick off immediately afterwards, but the Merchant City extravaganza is an increasingly tough act to follow. (Charlotte Runcie) ■ Various venues, Glasgow, Sat 25 Jul–Sun 2 Aug.
4 Jun–3 Sep 2015 THE LIST 57