Meet the theatre director reinventing Edinburgh's Tattoo

The Herald Scotland

4 days ago

Alan Lane, a self-confessed 'mad fan' of the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo, spent the best part of 18 months plotting and planning how to reboot the world-famous event in its 75th anniversary year 'without messing it up.'
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The long-time theatre director was hired to take the event into a new era after a global recruitment drive for a new mastermind to 'build new generations of fans' and lead the development of future shows 'which meet, and where possible, exceed audience expectations.'
The resulting show combines reworked 'greatest hits' and 'sacred cows' from the Tattoo's past 75 years with new a series of innovations.
Actor Terence Rae plays the new role of the storyteller in this year's Royal Edinburgh Miliary Tattoo. (Image: Jane Barlow/PA Wire)
These include the introduction of an actor as storyteller on the esplanade, a light-hearted animated sequence on the castle walls, the Tattoo's first ever drone effects and hundreds of choir singers joining the 9000-strong audience in the stands around the arena for the finale.
The Tattoo is also honouring 'everyday heroes' from all walks of life throughout the show, including projecting their faces onto the castle, while the Ukraine Naval Forces Orchestra are among the special guests appearing throughout the three-week run until August 23.
Mr Lane's musical programme features a mix of classic Tattoo anthems such as Loch Lomond, Scotland the Brave, Amazing Grace, Highland Cathedral and Auld Lang Syne with Scottish pop and rock hits by The Fratellis, The Proclaimers, Lewis Capaldi, Simple Minds and Travis, as well as Tartan Army favourite 'Yes Sir! I Can Boogie,' by seventies disco favourites Baccara.
(Image: Duncan McGlynn)
The Yorkshireman took over last spring from New Zealander Michael Braithewaite, after the event director, producer and musician who led the Tattoo's recovery from a three-year pandemic enforced hiatus.
The first non-military figure to oversee the Tattoo programme, his tenure saw new special effects light up the facade of the castle and the esplanade, a new 'electropipes' sequence set to dance music, and the use of more pop and rock music in the show, along with themes from films and video games.
The Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo is celebrating its 75th anniversary this year. (Image: Jane Barlow/PA)
Mr Lane, who landed the Tattoo job after 24 years in charge of the Leeds-based theatre company Slung Low, has previously been involved in large-scale outdoor events in Hull, Leeds and Liverpool.
He can trace his involvement in the arts industry back to the Tattoo, the first ever live show he attended as a child, which he was taken to by his father, who was in the Royal Air Force.
Mr Lane had planned to join the Army himself but was forced to shelved his military career after being diagnosed with cancer when he was just 22, but became an Army Reservist 10 years ago and is a troop commander with the 75th Royal Engineers.
Highland dancers are performing in the 75th anniversary edition of the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo (Image: Jane Barlow/PA Wire)
He said: 'I wanted this job because I really love the Tattoo. I'm a mad fan and I think it's the most exciting show in Britain. There is a real responsibility to not mess it up.
'There's nothing like this event anywhere else. We have more than 900 per performers and 9000 people in the audience. If you like Scottish traditional music, military music and bagpipes there is nowhere better in the world to hear it.
Performers march off Edinburgh Castle esplanade during the finale of this year's Tattoo. (Image: Jane Barlow/PA Wire)
'The first thing I did was look at the things our audiences expect – the things people know us for and love us for. I had to make sure the show delivers for people who know what they want from the Tattoo. I took that really seriously.
'But I also think it is the job of artists to give audiences something that they don't know to ask for.
The Ukraine Naval Forces Orchestra is appearing in this year's Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo. (Image: Jane Barlow/PA Wire)
"If we only do the first, the Tattoo becomes a museum piece, and no-one wants that. If we only do the second, it becomes a vanity project.
"We can celebrate the past of the Tattoo and imagine the future. But doing them both authentically, without them being gimmicky, is really important.'
The full cast of the Tattoo are only together for four days of rehearsals before the first audience arrives at the esplanade for the show's preview night. However planning for the show and its content gets underway well over a year in advance.
He said: 'The first thing I did when I arrived was asked for a castle to be made. We've got a model and we move toy soldiers around the esplanade.
'In my previous job I would nearly always start with a blank canvas. I could do whatever I wanted as long as it came in on budget and opened on time.
'The Tattoo is a different proposition and is infinitely more challenging. We have so many stakeholders and they all have to have a sense of ownership of the show.
'We've looked at all the classic bits of the Tattoo, and how we can reimagine and reconfigure them, and look at them in a contemporary light. The show has to celebrate the past and also imagine our future.
He said around 80 per cent of this year's show would feel familiar to the many ticket-buyers who regularly return to the event.
He added: 'There is a bucket list audience for the Tattoo. For some people, coming to Edinburgh will be a once-in-a-lifetime thing.
"We know that a large chunk of our audience are coming to Edinburgh because the Tattoo is on. They will have seen it on TV and it is their dream to come to Edinburgh for the show.
'But there are other people who come to the Tattoo every year because it is their most favourite thing in the world.
'We've had a lot of fun working out what is a sacred cow and what isn't a sacred cow. We have a list of things on a wall in our offices of things that we can't mess with.
'We might only evolve 20 per cent of the show. But if you change 20 per cent of any show it you profoundly change it."
Mr Lane has previously worked with Buckingham Place, the Royal Shakespeare Company, the Barbican arts centre in London, the Lowry arts centre in Manchester, the National Theatre of Croatia and Singapore Arts Festival.
Perhaps the biggest change this year is the return of a narrator for the event for the first time since the last pre-pandemic event in 2019. The dropping of a commentary was one of the most controversial aspects of Mr Braithwaite's tenure.
The roaming role is being played by Glasgow-born actor Terence Rae, star of the recent Rebus TV series and the new Outlander prequel series Blood of My Blood.
Mr Lane said: 'The Tattoo has always been made up of military music and precision, traditional arts from Scotland and international guests. That's staying the same.
'But we will have a theatricality in the show that we've maybe not had before and storytelling that our audience has demanded.
'Michael was a musician. He understands the world through music. I understand the world through words and stories.
'The Tattoo does a number of things for our audience which are incredibly emotionally powerful.
"It was really important to me to frame the emotion in the show and why we are doing things. I think our audiences enjoy clarity and want to know why something is in the show.
"We have a live storyteller on the esplanade for the first time this year. Terence Rae is an absolutely brilliant actor. There aren't any huge speeches, but he explains what is coming up and why. He is joining the dots."
A recent innovation at the Tattoo being taken forward by Mr Lane is a showcase for modern-day Scottish traditional music anthems in the show's finale, which has featured tracks by Runrig, Tide Lines and Skerryvore in recent years.
This year's show features versions of the Karine Polwart song Travel These Ways and the Skipinnish track Eagle's Wing.
Mr Lane added: 'One of the great things I have inherited from Michael is a love of the contemporary Scottish traditional scene.
'It's a movement that has real energy at the moment and I'd find it really hard to imagine a show that doesn't incorporate that energy at scale."
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