EDINBURGH — COLIN FOX is a member of the Scottish Socialist Party and a member of the Scottish Parliament. He was also one of the organisers of the Edinburgh People's Festival. This article is based on an interview with Fox, conducted by SIMON WHITTLE, that appeared in Scottish Socialist Voice, and from statements Fox made to the Scottish press. Fox will be touring Australia and New Zealand in November.
The Edinburgh Festival is the world's biggest celebration of the arts. It was a product of the 1945 British Labour government, which instituted it after the second world war to lift the spirits of the people. But within four years, it had been hijacked by the highbrow art of the "Edinbourgeoisie".
The 1950 festival was full of classical music and opera. That's fine — but it wasn't for the Leith dockers or the local miners. So Hamish Henderson, Ewan MacColl, Labour councillor Jack Kane and others decided that it wasn't enough to carp and criticise the festival, so they did something about it themselves. And the original People's Festival was born in 1951.
The original festival ran for a week. Prices were kept to around a penny and its program included a Unity Theatre production of Joe Corrie's In Place of Strife and McColl's anti-nuclear play Uranium 235, performed by the Theatre Workshop. The climax to the 1951 festival was a People's Ceilidh.
The Edinburgh Festival and the Festival Fringe have become too commercial and expensive. It's no longer aimed at the Edinburgh people and it can't pretend it is an event for the people of the city. It has become nothing more than a tourist attraction. Nothing takes place outside of about three streets.
It's quite ironic because the Fringe was born out of criticism that the Edinburgh Festival was elitist and now it faces the same charge. We now have the situation where tickets sales for the Edinburgh Festival Fringe have surpassed the 1 million mark. But it's repeating the mistakes of the original festival. TV comedy producers Hat-trick and Avalon spend hundreds of thousands of pounds promoting their acts. These companies are saturating the Fringe.
As the July 20 Scottish Sunday Herald pointed out, the festivals attract big names other than the artists: "Last year, Edinburgh's population swelled by 250,000 as the city enjoyed record attendances at the Festival, including the jazz, book and film festivals, as well as the Fringe. With the prospect of another bumper year, a myriad of private companies have clamoured to have their brands associated with the biggest cultural event of its kind in the world.
"Scores of firms including Beck's, Smirnoff, IBM, Scottish Widows, Marks & Spencer, Lloyds TSB Scotland, Bank of Scotland and the Royal Bank of Scotland have ploughed money into the event to ensure their services have a presence."
At the "Whose culture is it anyway?" debate, held on August 14, the director of the Edinburgh Fringe Paul Gudgin admitted there was a "market" for the People's Festival. Edinburgh is a working-class city, even if the middle classes are more prominent than in Aberdeen and Glasgow.
The vast majority of the population of Edinburgh don't engage with the festival. That's why we relaunched the Edinburgh People's Festival in 2002. That, and respect for Hamish Henderson, who died earlier in 2002. There was also the symbolism of the venue we chose — the Jack Kane Centre, which is in Craigmillar, the poorest housing scheme in Edinburgh.
Last year's People's Festival ran for just one night. This year, we expanded the festival to one week (August 10-16) and took it around different working-class neighbourhoods, like Wester Hailes and the Midlothian former pit village of Loanhead. More than 700 people turned out for Peoples' Festival events; ticket prices were 2 pounds or free (without any corporate sponsorship). Next year, it should be even bigger.
The August 14 debate brought together a vast array of talent like theatre impresario Richard Demarco, actor Tam Dean Burn, 7:84 Theatre co-founder Robert Rae, writer Kevin Williamson, literary critic Joy Hendry, author and historian Angus Calder, and Tommy Sheppard of The Stand Comedy Club.
It's clear that working-class people attend stand-up comedy and music festivals in huge numbers — but why not opera and classical music events? I think it's partly to do with the atmosphere. There's a cultural snobbery in these places. Look at the theatres and opera houses — even libraries — the language, even the signs used in these buildings, works to exclude working-class people. It sets up barriers.
Festival venues are just as symbolic. The Edinburgh city centre is now saturated with venues. They're hired by the minute! But 300 metres away, there are community centres and schools lying empty during the festival. The People's Festival was criticised by Scotland on Sunday theatre critic and Scottish Socialist Party (SSP) member Mark Brown, who said that football was a working-class game and was expensive — so why criticise the festivals?
But Brown undermines his own argument. Football used to be a pure working-class game, but now it's all about money. It costs 20 pounds to get in, which excludes big sections of the working class, including many low-paid workers, people who are unemployed or are on disability benefits. What do football clubs do for their communities? I don't see Rangers or Celtic benefiting Govan or the East End of Glasgow.
Brown described me — and the People's Festival — as "an embarrassment to the SSP". If he'd just phoned me, he'd have found out that we are trying to improve the festival, not work in the opposite direction — improve on it, expand it and open it up to everyone.
Overall, the People's Festival was a wonderful experience and a wonderful success. There's masses of people who want to be involved next time. No-one who wanted to appear at the People's Festival was turned down. I'm extremely proud of that.
[Visit <http://www.scottishsocialistvoice.net>.The People's Festival web site is at <http://www.edinburghpeoplesfestival.org.uk/>.]
From Green Left Weekly, September 24, 2003.
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