Arts Diary: New tide washes the coast of Fife as the literary meets the Littoral

By TIM CORNWELL
Published on Thursday 9 February 2012 00:00

A new literary strand beckons for the East Neuk Festival this summer. Two former directors of the Edinburgh International Book Festival, Jenny Brown and Catherine Lockerbie, are to curate Littoral, featuring walks, readings, conversations and chats with Scottish and international writers.

The East Neuk Festival is best known for its music in evocative settings, centred on Fife’s prettiest fishing villages. They will continue, of course, with the likes of Llyr Williams and the Scottich Chamber Orchestra.

But Littoral features the likes of nature writer Richard Mabey, normally based in East Anglia. He’ll lead a Sunday morning walk along part of the Fife Coastal Path, and also appear in discussion with Richard Holloway at Crail Church. Holloway himself – not an unknown figure on Scotland’s festival circuit – will talk on his new memoir, Leaving Alexandria.

The poet Kathleen Jamie and the poet and novelist Andrew Grieg will also confront the meaning of place and the natural environment. Jamie’s in conversation with Sara Maitland, author of A Book of Silence, who will also lead a walk of her own. Branching out through Kellie Castle’s walled gardens, she’ll explore tales by the Brothers Grimm on their 200th anniversary. Tom Pow’s latest work is about the changing and dying villages of Europe, and he and Greig will appear in a new festival venue – the Smuggler’s Inn – in Anstruther, where Greig grew up.

“In past years we have woven threads of the East Neuk’s history and character into reading events, with ghost stories, poetry, and the like,” says festival director Svend Brown. “But this year we are embarking on a major exploration of how the natural environment feeds the creativity of some of the finest writers around.” The festival runs from 27 June to 1 July, and gets its official launch this Sunday.

Living in Lalaland

Artist Kristina E King moved to these parts from Southern California a year or so ago to pursue her postgrad studies at the Edinburgh College of Art. It’s just a tad colder and darker, but she claims Marchmont feels “just like San Francisco”.

In Lalaland, a group show opening at ECA’s Evolution House on 23 February, King has invited 23 artists to explore the idea of “lala”.

Lalaland, says King, refers “to a state of mind where someone is involved entirely in their own world” but is also a popular term for “the attitude of the denizens of Los Angeles”.

Having spent a few years in Lalaland myself – some say I never left – I have a soft spot for the place. Its art, King says, is deeply infected by the Hollywood movie culture: “With its 300+ days of sunshine, and over 120 languages spoken there every day, LA can be described as an ever-shifting dyslexic, three-dimensional jigsaw puzzle.”

King is studying in the Art, Space & Nature department at ECA, part of its school of landscape architecture. The exhibition, part of her thesis, is meant to create a bridge between Southern California and the Scottish art scene.

It features artists who have either left LA, or still live and work there. One, Kevin Lacey, is sending one of his “invented instruments”, a stringed thing made from California redwood trees. Another, David Schafer, has despatched a sound installation, with the soundtrack of a film by Italian director Michelangelo Antonioni digitally manipulated into a single loop. A third, by Betsy Davis, who like King moved here from LA, is a lasercut multicoloured, translucent Perspex piece, called Rainbow. All very, well, lala.

Andrew stands up

His day jobs have ranged from working as a DJ on an Aberdeen radio station to fielding probing inquiries as a press officer for the Fringe and the National Theatre of Scotland. In March, however, Andrew Learmonth is making his debut at the Glasgow Comedy Festival. He was a finalist in the Scottish Comedian of the Year contest in 2009, but this is his first full-length solo show.

“It will have stuff in it about David Cameron, Mumford & Sons, comedy, Scottish independence, Jimmy Savile and getting paracetamol off a hotel receptionist,” he promises.

In the spirit of the Fringe, the cry went up for Learmonth to hand over his best gag. “I barely do funny,” he responds. “How’s this: Dancing in night clubs is a bit like having sex with a 17 year old. Fine when you’re 17, but when you get to 30 people start talking.’”

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