Soft-power push as Edinburgh festival welcomes an Aussie invasion

The Edinburgh International Festival and Fringe are about to see the biggest showcase of Australian talent there in 75 years.

Acrobats from Adelaide group Gravity and Other Myths at Murrayfield Stadium in Edinburgh, where they will present their show Macro to a crowd of 16,000 on Friday night. Picture: Ryan Buchanan

While our athletes are busy collecting gold medals at the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, they are not the only Australians making an impression on the world stage.

This weekend the Edinburgh International Festival gets under way, and the Aussies are out in force. Edinburgh is one of the oldest and most prestigious performing arts festivals, with an enviable program of classical music, opera, dance and theatre. Together with the noisy and stuffed-to-the-rafters Fringe, with comedy, experimental theatre and contemporary music, Edinburgh is a magnet for arts lovers and a market for talent spotters and other presenters.

And it is about to host the largest concentration of Australian artists in the festival’s 75 years. On Friday night at Murrayfield Stadium, Adelaide troupe Gravity and Other Myths will present its festival opener, Macro. Involving highly skilled acrobats, the Djuki Mala Indigenous dance group, as well as local musicians and a children’s choir, it promises a spectacle at least as big as its name.

A scene from the play Counting and Cracking, which is going to the Edinburgh International Festival

Australians are throughout the festival program. Multi-awarded theatre epic Counting and Cracking, the play by Sydney’s S. Shakthidharan, gets its first international outing, telling a story of Sri Lanka’s civil war and a family’s immigration to Australia.

Another play, You Know We Belong Together by Julia Hales, a theatre artist from Perth with Down syndrome, asks why her favourite soap opera has no actors like her in it.

The Australian World Orchestra, a festival-style outfit that brings together about 50 Australian musicians from ensembles around the world, will perform in Edinburgh under the baton of legendary conductor Zubin Mehta before heading to the Proms in London.

Add a month-long program of performances at the House of Oz – including leading Shakespearean John Bell, oud virtuoso Joseph Tawadros and contemporary circus Circa – and it’s a solid show of Australian prowess that’s not confined to the pool or track.

Australians have long made the trek to Edinburgh at festival time, from Baz Luhrmann’s opera production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, to Tim Minchin’s breakout comedy set, and more recently Sydney Theatre Company with its stage adaptation of The Secret River.

At least three forces have converged this year to produce the flight of Australian artists to Britain. First, the pandemic has caused a backlog of tours and pent-up demand, so there’s an element of catch-up in touring activity to Britain and elsewhere.

Actor John Bell is taking his one-man show A Few of My Favourite Things to the House of Oz, a showcase of Australian talent. Picture: John Feder

Second, the Edinburgh festival is under the direction of Fergus Linehan, an Irishman who previously delivered four very popular editions of the Sydney Festival. This year is Linehan’s farewell to Edinburgh – he’s planning to return to live in Sydney with his family – and also the festival’s 75 anniversary. With his final Edinburgh flourish, he wanted the main program strands to have an Australian presence.

Third, the Aussie invasion has been underwritten by a cultural exchange project called the UK/Australia Season. The two-way dialogue brought British artists to Australia earlier this year and now it’s our turn. In terms of the spread and scale of performances, the Aussie contribution is substantial and reaches beyond Edinburgh.

The Season includes tours by renowned Back to Back Theatre; the ANAM Quartetthaus taking up residence on the grounds of the Royal Albert Hall in London; concerts by the Australian Chamber Orchestra; and a London performance of A Winter’s Journey, the version of Schubert’s Winterreise sung by British tenor Allan Clayton and featuring projected paintings by Fred Williams.

Members of the Australian World Orchestra. Picture: Daniel Boud

These Australian creative exports wouldn’t have happened without the persistence of program director Michael Napthali, and contributions from donors with ties to both Britain and Australia, including aviation millionaire Lord Michael Glendonbrook, House of Oz patron Georgina Black and Sydney philanthropist David Gonski, who is co-chair of the Season’s board of patrons. The Season is backed by the Australian government and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

Why do it? Performing arts companies will tell you that international touring is an essential part of a company’s growth and development. Getting in front of an unfamiliar audience in Edinburgh – or in London, Paris or New York – keeps performers on their toes.

Comparing notes with artists in other cities means our companies can benchmark their performance standards and build a reputation – and it shouldn’t be assumed that Australian artists are inferior to their international peers.

Groups such as the Australian Ballet and the Australian Chamber Orchestra, which tour regularly, have seen the benefit of building a following in cities where they perform.

For the nation, too, tours of performances and exhibitions by Australian artists pay dividends. Cultural diplomacy is the sub-branch of soft power that seeks to enhance Australia’s reputation abroad and present a positive image to foreign governments, businesses and individuals.

Through cultural tours, and our exports of screen entertainment, books and music, Australia presents itself as a nation that values creativity and artistic expression. International audiences and visitors are curious about what makes Australia unique, especially our Indigenous cultures.

The UK/Australia Season builds on a relationship that is as old as the colonial settlement of this continent, and asks the question: Who are we now? What does the future of our two nations look like? They are the larger cultural questions to ponder, but there’s also an economic imperative. The Season coincides with the recent signing of the free trade agreement with Britain, which DFAT says will bring a 53 per cent increase in trade between our nations.

Of course, our efforts at cultural diplomacy should not be directed only to the nation we once referred to as the Mother Country. As international travel and trade resume after pandemic lockdowns, and as the world faces new geopolitical realities, we have to give our attention to where it will be of benefit, including to our immediate region.

Still, Australia’s presence at the Edinburgh International Festival and elsewhere in Britain in coming months is reason to celebrate. The exodus of Australian artists to Britain used to be driven by cultural cringe. Not any more.