BRIAN FERGUSON’S DIARY

IT TOOK more than two weeks, but I’ve finally had a definitive one-off festival experience, courtesy of Peter Howson, Richard Demarco and Steven Berkoff at Summerhall.

There was chaos in the air, with no sign of Berkoff for his promised chat with Howson, or his one-man stage show.

Howson was on site and busy preparing to paint and chat, at the same time, to impresario Richard Demarco, after a film of Berkoff paying tribute to his favourite artist. Demarco being Demarco, the “in conversation” event turned into an extended lecture on the Edinburgh Festival while Howson created a remarkable portrait of the 84-year-old.

When Demarco checked how long was left for questions, he was told he was already late for another speaking engagement. But it didn’t stop him mischievously stringing things out as long as possible. The audience loved every minute of it. UNBOUND’S late-night cabaret programme was a lot shorter than planned but there was still time to encounter a contender for the most maverick performer of the Book Festival. The deliciously cheeky opening turn at the Neu! Reekie! night – “poet and

tragedian” Jock Scott – seemed light years from the celebration of Britain’s poets laureate I’d encountered at Holyrood Palace the previous week. But as I later slipped out of the venue, I couldn’t help but notice a familiar figure relaxing with a cigarette outside the Spiegeltent: Carol Ann Duffy, perhaps pondering what the Queen would make of Jock and the mysterious bottle of Irn-Bru fuelling his performance.

IT IS not only lawyers and

sell-out crowds that have been attracted to Clive Anderson’s Fringe show. What Does the Title

Matter Anyway? was the hastily-agreed name for the production which reunited Anderson with stars of his old TV show, Whose

Line Is It Anyway?, after the production company which owns the rights objected to

Whose Live Show Is It Anyway?

Spotted checking out the competition was Paul Merton, who has his own long-running improv show at the festival.