Line-ups

Farewell Glasgow, hello Edinburgh.

One quick train journey onwards and I'm one of those Edinburgh tourists who drives locals mad by not knowing where anything is nor where I'm going. The only consolation is that I'm not handing out flyers.

Tivoli and I found our room, found a box office, asked for a recommendation and 40 minutes later we were part of a small audience in a small black curtain-lined space for If This is Normal. Three young actors took us with them on the tender and painfully honest journey of two siblings and their closest friend, from when they started at a new school aged eight to when they went their separate ways at 18. We watched loyalty, love, respect, uncertainty, difference, irritation, sexual awakening, lust, sexual exploration, guilt, self-doubt, regret, fear, secrecy, reconciliation... It was beautifully, gently handled, especially in the exploration of issues of consent from a young man's and young women's perspectives.

It pulled us into complexities and feelings that both of us knew intimately but which were simply not discussed when we were the age of these actors - quite extraordinary. We were both in tears for much of it. 

Once we'd recovered we went to meet Whisky Foxtrot and Ursonate for a drink then another, utterly different, show - Songs in the Key of Cree. Well... Patricia Cano has an extraordinary voice, which melded beautifully with Marcus Ali's saxophone, but playwright and composer, Tomson Highway, regarded by Maclean's Magazine as 'one of the most important Canadians in history' has no stage presence and can neither write a keyboard accompaniment nor play it. A strange bit of, um, cabaret?

The four of us went on for a most convivial Japanese meal.