The arts diary: new fringe shows revealed

In a “fast-moving world where no-one stays around for long”, actress and creator Molly Taylor sets out to track down the train and bus drivers who helped her get from Glasgow to London on one important life journey.

It is one of those life-as-art adventures, in which she “seeks to find and thank the people who transport us daily” to friends, lovers, work, or “moments of significance”.

Love Letters is not what most people in Edinburgh think of when it comes to public transport. “I know it’s not going to be popular here, but I’m really hoping it will win back a little bit of public opinion after the tram disaster,” says Taylor.

“During a very low period of my life, personally and professionally, I took a journey from Glasgow via Bradford and Liverpool to London and everything just changed,” adds Taylor. After finding a new job and a new love, she set out to track down “those men and women who got me there”.

Her trip involved a van ride from Glasgow, and then two train drivers and a bus driver.

Taylor, originally from Liverpool, says: “I was just intrigued to know whether they thought that what they were doing day in and day out had a massive impact on our lives.”

She’s ridden on buses, trains and tubes but “never trams”. Liverpool’s tram system, apparently rated one of the best in Britain, stopped operating in September 1957. Bradford’s last tram service ran in 1950.

“I know for the public, you only notice it when it lets you down, but actually there’s a lot of fortuitous things that happen being in the right place at the right time and without this network of people who aren’t thanked generally our lives would stop.”

Spitting feathers

The retro game app Angry Birds, in which aggressive avians smash greedy pigs with the aid of a slingshot, has been downloaded more than one billion times and, yes, culture minister Fiona Hyslop admits she “has had a shot”.

“Are you an Angry Birds man?” Hyslop inquired, eyeing an iPad at the launch of the Made in Scotland programme. Perhaps she was wishing she could lob a few furious avians across the floor at her scheduled appearance in the parliament yesterday on the contentious National Library of Scotland bill.

Price Slayer

A former rock tour manager and jockey (he claims), comedian Bob Slayer caused a major rumpus at last year’s Fringe with phallic stickers that appeared on hundreds of posters for mainstream acts, promoting K*nt and the Gang.

It infuriated big promoters and brought a visit from Lothian and Borders Police, though it won the sympathy of those tired of being visually battered by new arrays of festival billboards along railings and lampposts.

Slayer has now launched a new “statement against the commerciality” of the big venues and acts with what he calls “the Alternative Fringe” at the Hive venue in the Old Town.

“We don’t charge acts rent, we then pass that on to the punters with cheaper tickets,” he says. “We don’t expect this to take over the Fringe, but we want to put some life back into the part that isn’t run by commercial venues.”

Operating without guaranteed fees from acts, taking a leaf from The Stand in the New Town, the venue just takes a £1 cut on tickets sold. For the punters, that means £5 tickets or £12 membership for the venue’s mix of about 20 paid and free shows, including Phil Kay, Lewis Schaffer, and Slayer himself.

Scott’s eerie eyrie

In the on-going effort to make Sir Walter Scott more relevant to modern audiences, Glasgow sculptor Claire Barclay has been commissioned to create an installation for the new visitor centre at Abbotsford, his home in the Scottish Borders.

It is part of a multi-million pound revamp at Abbotsford, designed to promote Scott’s life and legacy. Barclay hints at a taste of the occult. “My work will draw upon some of the special interests that inspired Scott, including his fascination with witchcraft, a subject on which he collected a large number of books, and a recurring theme in his writing,” she says.