Angus Calder’s Festival Reviews 1985-1987
In the 1980s my partner, later husband, Angus Calder, wrote reviews of the Edinburgh Festival for the New Statesman. As the Festival moved towards its 40th year, a new EIF Director, Frank Dunlop was appointed in 1984, the Book Festival was inaugurated, the Jazz Festival found its feet, the Film Festival thrived, the Fringe expanded and Scottish visual artists were celebrated in large exhibitions. And Labour took over the District Council.
Angus Calder, author in his twenties of ‘The People’s War’ a history of the World War II home front (which has never been out of print) was then an Open University Staff Tutor in the Arts, continuing to write books on history and cultural studies, and regular book reviews for The London Review of Books. He volunteered his services to the New Statesman as Festival reviewer in 1985, with my encouragement - as a subscriber, I was disappointed by its paltry coverage of the 1984 Festival. The NS were happy to have him and over the next three years he wrote seven reviews, covering art, theatre, jazz, traditional music as well as classical music and opera. In those days, two tickets were standard issue for critics, and he had willing company in myself, and his daughters, Rachel and Gowan. It’s fair to say we all had a great time! Angus’s reviews are eclectic in their coverage, and astute in their judgement: he was clear about the festival’s political and historical importance. Of the authors, musicians and artists he chooses to praise, some of them just starting in their careers, many have continued to make their mark in Scottish and world culture. He wrote reviews quickly and fluently and they are still a pleasure to read.
Frank Dunlop was the first, and so far only, Festival Director from a theatrical rather than a music background. He was keen to have the job and took over when John Drummond decided not to renew his contract. Neither Drummond’s reputation as an elitist nor Dunlop’s as someone uninterested in music is supported by the evidence. It was Drummond who in 1982 began the Festival Fireworks, the most popular annual free event in the history of Festival, in which the displays were synchronised to the Scottish Chamber Orchestra’s playing in Princes Street Gardens’ Bandstand, relayed throughout the city on Radio Forth’s broadcast. He also instituted Fringe Sunday and the Festival Parade, which Dunlop continued. Even as the debate about the city’s lack of an opera house rumbled on, both Drummond and Dunlop pragmatically supported new and refurbished performance spaces, Drummond programming concerts in the Queen’s Hall from its opening year, 1979 and Dunlop benefiting in 1985 from the refurbishment of the King’s Theatre with an new orchestra pit seating 100.
Over the next few weeks, The Edinburgh Music Review will print Angus Calder’s reviews from this period, with the permission of his literary executors, Gideon, Gowan and Rachel Calder. I’ll add some commentary and reminiscences, and would welcome your own memories and general comments. A Golden Age - or plus ça change?
I have been in touch with musician and composer, Eddie McGuire who has sent me some interesting information to which I’ll return. I’m grateful to him for the photograph from the 1984 Festival which shows Angus Calder on the right with Eddie in the middle and John Cage on the left. It was taken at a Fringe ‘Happening’ at the Fruitmarket Gallery.
You can hear Eddie McGuire’s composition mentioned in the first 1985 review in Raretunes McGuire Fiddlers Farewel : Edward McGuire : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive
