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The Hindu
2 hours ago
- Entertainment
- The Hindu
Comedian Shamik Chakrabarti on debuting at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe
Comedian Shamik Chakrabarti began his journey at a Thursday open mic at a pub in Bengaluru in 2016, six months after he returned from North Carolina, in the US, where he worked as an engineer. He came across the open mic on social media. And after attending one of the mics in the audience, Shamik mustered the courage to perform there the following week. He was the 15th and final act of the night — performing in front of four drunk people, managing to crack them up just once, he recalls. However, that evening did not discourage Shamik. Instead, he expanded on what worked from his bit and persistently attended open mics in Bengaluru. He gained nationwide attention in 2022 as a participant on the third edition of Comicstaan, with his deadpan style of delivery and seamless writing. And now he is set to debut his stand-up comedy special, 'Despite Appearances', at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, one of the largest festivals for performing arts in the world. 'I consider myself a joke writer rather than someone who approaches comedy with a central theme in mind. 'Despite Appearances' is my second or third attempt at putting that into practice. However, over the years, it has evolved into a one-hour special with one half jokes and the other a story which has a connection to the title,' says Shamik over a Zoom call from Mumbai. A unique voice 'I started performing stand-up without reading much about its dos and don'ts. I was someone who just watched stand-up and was used to telling jokes in schools and colleges,' says Shamik, who believes in being himself on stage. 'I don't usually jump or shout a lot in real life,' he comments about his on-stage persona, which hinges on astute observations and relatable anecdotes delivered with a laid-back attitude. 'I've always performed this way. I believe the performance should feel natural and not feel like a performance,' says the comedian. His early inspirations include comedians Russel Peters and Conan O'Brien. 'In Late Night with Conan O'Brien, I came across a lot of stand-up comedians who would come on the show to do their sets. I also discovered David Letterman, legendary talk-show host and comedian, on the show,' he says. During his time in the US as a postgraduate student and later working there , the engineer discovered comedians like Demetri Martin and Brian Regan by watching parts of their performances online. 'During my time in the US, I was fully focused on my studies and job because you are there on a visa. As an Indian student, you must first find a way to make a living. So even though I was always into comedy, I never thought I would do anything with it,' says Shamik. For an international crowd The Edinburgh Festival Fringe is a three-week festival featuring theatre, comedy, dance, music, and more, founded in 1947 with an objective to make art more democratic. Over the recent years, comedians from India have performed at multiple editions of the Fringe. 'The Fringe is like a boot camp for comedy. You perform every day for about a month, watch other performers from all over the world, and hopefully get inspired,' says Shamik. 'Usually you do three nights of comedy in a row over the weekend, but this is going to be 25 days with a day off in between.' Earlier this year, Shamik performed at the Melbourne Comedy Festival in Australia and at the Soho Theatre in London, UK. 'My shows had a mix of Indian and local people in London. So, you must explain certain references that are not universal. For instance, I talk about the PAN card as part of my story, so I add a quick, fun explanation about it.' Shamik adds, 'Stand-up comedy in its current state is an older art form in the West. Since they have been doing it for so many years, you don't get any disturbance from the crowd there. There is pin-drop silence before the punchlines, and silence is a huge part of comedy. The ideal stand-up audience is the one that listens and waits for your jokes.' The comedian is also excited to watch Urooj Ashfaq and Prashasti Singh from India take the stage at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. 'It's nice to have a contingent from India. I have seen bits of their special but not the full shows, and it will be exciting to watch them.' Moving forward Shamik is planning to tour with 'Despite Appearance' across the country from September to December. He hopes to do more sketch comedy in addition to stand-up. He is currently working on The Cricheads Podcast with comedian Siddharth Dhudeja and Broke Studio Podcast with comedian Gautham Govindan. 'My only aim is to make people laugh and make myself laugh,' he says. Watch Despite Appearances by Shamik Chakrabarti at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe from July 30 to August 24. Venue: Gilded Balloon Appleton Tower-Eve.
The Herald Scotland
3 hours ago
- Entertainment
- The Herald Scotland
My 30-year love affair with Edinburgh's summer festivals
Some of those participating over the next few weeks will almost certainly have spent months, if not the last year, working on shows, programmes or entire festivals. Read more: Other unsung folk working behind-the-scenes will be simply trying to ensure the city simply keeps on running on smoothly as possible. There will undoubtedly be many people living and working in the city centre who simply cannot wait for the circus to leave town. The Hub is the home of the Edinburgh International Festival. (Image: Andrew Perry) But I'm sure they are vastly outnumbered by those people who simply cannot get enough of the celebration of culture that explodes on their doorstep every August and will be filling hundreds of venues across the city now until the end of the month. I've been one of them for 30 years now. My first encounter was when I decided to stay in Edinburgh for the summer after my first year studying journalism. Baby Reindeer star Richard Gadd regularly performed in small venues at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. (Image: Supplied) I couldn't believe the transformation of the normally quiet closes and courtyards of the Royal Mile as I found them filled with noise, colour and, well, chaos. Every time I walked past The Mound I found myself drawn in by the huge crowds gathered around street performers. It was completely intoxicating, even if the only tickets I bought were for a couple of late-night shows towards the end of the month. Australian performer Tim Minchin made his Fringe debut at the Gilded Balloon 20 years ago. A later I was living near the bottom of the Broughton Street, which I quickly discovered was in close proximity to several Fringe venues. One of them was a school playground where a Polish theatre company, some of whom were performing on stints, staged a terrifying production inspired by the horrors of the war in Bosnia. George Square is transformed by venues for Edinburgh's festivals. (Image: Alistair Leith) Nearby churches were turned into venues which ran round-the-clock with music and theatre programmes packed full of international performers. The garden of one of these churches became a favourite place to hang out in between shows on countless balmy summer evenings. But the other local bars and restaurants buzzed with conversation from people from around the world. When September came, and the performers had packed up and left, it was something of a relief, but the streets seemed so much greyer than had been just a few days before. The summer was the start love affair with the festivals that I'm still as passionate about as ever. I have missed just one festival since then, when I inexplicably went on holiday to Bilbao only to find that its own summer festival - which was largely staged after dark - was on. It's since become an unmissable and all-consuming feast for the senses for me. A big part of the enduring appeal of the festivals is that so much about them feels familiar, welcoming and even reassuring. Much of that is down to Edinburgh's array of remarkable venues. Those that are here all year take on another life entirely in August, when Summerhall's courtyard, the Filmhouse cafe and the Traverse bar are abuzz with excitable chatter about the latest hot tickets or festival gossip. Others stalwarts like The Stand and Monkey Barrel comedy clubs take over as many nearby spaces as possible to try to satisfy demand from their fiercely loyal performers and audiences. Some festival hotspots are eerily quiet the rest of the year, such as the Pleasance Courtyard and George Square, but become entire festival villages in August. Other venues, such as St Giles' Cathedral, or the Scottish Storytelling Centre, which has a terrific garden tucked away off the Royal Mile, offer vital space to simply chill out and contemplate as the festival swirls around them. An undoubted benefit of the festivals is how they both open and encourage public access to places and spaces most people would probably never go to. I cannot imagine how else I would have ventured inside Freemasons' Hall on George Street, the Royal Scots Club on Abercromby Place, the Ukrainian Community Centre on Royal Terrace or the Hibernian Supporters Club off Easter Road. Although the cost of accommodation in Edinburgh is notoriously eye-watering, the single biggest selling point of the festivals themselves is how affordable they are. With more than 4000 events to choose from, the sheer level of competition has pegged ticket prices back. Hundreds of shows and events are either free or offer pay-what-you-want deals, with many other tickets costing less than the price of a pint. The average cost of a Fringe ticket is around £12, most book and film festival tickets are only marginally more expensive and the Edinburgh International Festival sells seats for as little as £10, including for on the day concessions. Many festivalgoers, especially those resident in the city, are fiercely loyal to their favourite shows and performers, returning year after year to see them. Others will spend almost their entire festival at the one event or venue. After all, a large chunk of Fringe audiences is made up of people performing or working on other shows, who know exactly what it takes to get onto a stage in Edinburgh. For me, the festival season is all about the thrill of the new and especially the prospect of seeing a star of the future emerge from obscurity. While the Fringe in particular is awash with hype for months in advance these days, there is something particularly thrilling about its first few days, when shows finally open and word of mouth takes over. I learned long ago to keep plenty of space clear in my diary for shows I have not previously heard about which suddenly become the talk of the town. I wasn't lucky enough to catch Steve Coogan, Kevin Bridges, Peter Kay or Phoebe Waller-Bridge on their way to the top, but I did see Frankie Boyle, Johnny Vegas, Tim Minchin, Fern Brady and Richard Gadd perform in some of the smallest rooms in the city. At the start of August, no-one in Edinburgh knows which performers and shows will be winning over audiences, making the headlines and taking home five-star reviews. It's probably the one thing which fills me real enthusiasm as the festival city takes shape and throws opens its doors. Even the most hardened of festivalgoers will be familiar with the sinking feeling of running out of time to catch a show the rest of the city seems to be talking about or, even worse, being unable to secure a ticket. But they will also know the thrill of a successful hustle outside a venue or a last-minute return at the box office.
Scotsman
4 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Scotsman
To See Ourselves by Alistair Moffat review: 'a double-layered approach to writing history'
Sign up to our Arts and Culture newsletter, get the latest news and reviews from our specialist arts writers Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to The Scotsman, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... As its subtitle suggests, this is a book that attempts to ride two horses at the same time. On the one hand, Alistair Moffat sets out to chart the various social and political changes that have taken place in Scotland over the last 75 years, yet this is also a personal account, an almost-memoir, so to varying degrees the macro-scale events described are also filtered through the author's own experiences. Alistair Moffat | Ryan Rutherford This kind of double-layered approach to writing history has the potential to go horribly wrong: too much "me", and the author runs the risk of seeming self-important; not enough "me", however, and there's a risk of ending up with something that reads like a school textbook with a few token anecdotes bolted on to spice things up. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Happily, Moffat succeeds in pulling off this tricky act of literary horsemanship - partly because he gets the balance between these two aspects just right, but also because his life story just-so-happens to embody so many of the important changes that have taken place since the end of the Second World War. The fact that he grew up in a prefab council house in Kelso, for example, means he can talk first-hand about the social housing initiatives of the mid-20th century; as a beneficiary of a free university education, he can speak to the huge possibilities this far-sighted policy unlocked for a whole generation of young people; thanks to his spell as director of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe from 1976-81, during which time he successfully negotiated for the Fringe Club on the Royal Mile to stay open until 2am, he is well placed to write on changing attitudes to both alcohol and entertainment; and his time as Director of Programmes at Scottish Television means he can write with authority on the seismic changes which have swept Scotland's media landscape. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Moffat has played an active role in politics too - indeed, has perhaps played a more pivotal role in Scotland's larger story than many people realise. Having campaigned (unsuccessfully) for Gordon Brown in Edinburgh South in the General Election of 1979, the two men remained friends, and in the run-up to the 2014 Independence Referendum both were of the opinion that the vote would be close, and that Brown urgently needed to express his views about it to David Cameron. With the Prime Minister refusing to engage, however, Moffat contacted Conservative MP and fellow Borderer Rory Stewart and, Moffat writes, "the blockage was quickly removed." Next sentence: "Centrally important at that moment was 'The Vow...'" Would The Vow have been made, then, without the hasty bridge-building effected by Moffat and Stewart? Either way, this passage neatly encapsulates the great trick this book pulls off again and again: demonstrating how the great arc of history is often rooted in apparently minor details.
Scotsman
8 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Scotsman
Still same buzz of excitement for our summer festivals
The Royal Mile during the Edinburgh Festival Fringe I was lucky enough to be appointed as Edinburgh City Council's festival and events champion for many years when I was a councillor in Edinburgh. Sign up to our daily newsletter Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to Edinburgh News, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... In my 29 years of service I was given the opportunity to represent the city council at scores of events and festivals and always looked forward to the month of August when Edinburgh truly came alive. Although my days as festival and events champion are behind me, I still nevertheless get the same buzz of excitement as our major summer festivals gear up and prepare for the biggest cultural festival offering in the world – and this year is no exception. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad The Edinburgh International Festival opens on Friday. Founded in 1947 it showcases the performing arts in a programme that is unsurpassed anywhere in the world. It features some of the greatest performers of today. Dance, opera, music and theatre take centre stage, firmly establishing Edinburgh's international reputation as the place to be to enjoy the best performances on offer. The Edinburgh International Fringe, also founded in 1947, is also set to take off on Friday. Artists and performers take to the stage in hundreds of venues throughout the city as well as putting on free street performances at various designated venues. This Friday will also see Edinburgh Castle host the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo. Having been privileged to serve on its board of directors for a number of years I am well aware of the impact that it has, not only in promoting the city and Scotland, but also in bringing together performers from around the globe in a spirit of celebration and friendship. The Edinburgh Art Festival, the largest annual festival of visual arts in the UK, opens next week and will present a full programme of exhibitions, events and projects. The Edinburgh International Book Festival, founded in 1983, opens its doors next week with a programme of on-stage conversations, workshops and masterclasses, enhancing its reputation as a major public participation forum for the expression of differing views with writers and experts on a range of topics. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad The Edinburgh International Film Festival opens on the 14th of this month and is known throughout the world for discovering and promoting the best that international cinema has to offer. The Edinburgh TV Festival starts on the 19th and is promoting more than 60 keynotes, debates and masterclasses in addition to providing the opportunity to network with operators from around the world. The Foodies Festival at Inverleith Park opens on Friday with cooking demonstrations from celebrity chefs, cocktail tasting, street food stalls and live music as well as other attractions. I have served on the boards of several of these festivals and this has provided me with an invaluable insight into the hard work and dedication of the festival promoters and staff who are second to none in the arts and entertainment industry. Without them Edinburgh would not be heralded as the host of the biggest and greatest culture festival in the world – their contribution is immense and cannot be understated.
Scotsman
8 hours ago
- Scotsman
Summer City team ready to welcome visitors from across the globe
Street performers on the Royal Mile at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe (Picture:) Having been in post since December 2024, leading the Police Scotland Partnership portfolio in Edinburgh, I have enjoyed working with internal and external stakeholders to deliver an effective policing service in the city. Sign up to our daily newsletter Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to Edinburgh News, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... There have been several challenges during this time, and I have been heartened by the collective response to continue to keep our communities safe across Edinburgh. I lead a fantastic team of officers and staff who work relentlessly to deliver an effective policing service. We have seen an unfortunate rise in gang related violence across Scotland, and within the city. The Police Scotland response, Operation Portaledge, was instigated to protect communities and bring those responsible to justice. We have executed more than 50 arrests as a result of the operation. Our teams have delivered a community reassurance plan, with additional targeted and intelligence led patrols. We have had support from specialist departments across the country, offering public reassurance. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad There has been a well-publicised rise in retail crime across the UK. As the strategic lead for retail crime prevention and investigation in Edinburgh, my teams have worked closely with retailers to deliver initiatives to prevent and detect retail crime. Since the establishment of a new retail crime initiative, we have seen 44 people arrested for numerous offences. We have also implemented 'Shopwatch' in the city centre, with our partners Essential Edinburgh. This is a radio system, which allows retailers to share information and intelligence, and also communicate directly with Police Officers and CCTV operatives. This initiative has led to retailers feeling safer in their workplace, increasing confidence in policing. We will continue to work innovatively, to improve conditions in retail premises across the city. As a police service, we have a legislative requirement to ensure the care and welfare of people, places and communities. This includes our response to supporting people in the community experiencing mental health incidents or trauma. In Edinburgh, we are working constructively and creatively with health and ambulance service colleagues to improve our processes and ensure members of our communities receive the right care from the right people at the right time. Officers dedicate significant hours to supporting people in distress, and we want to ensure the processes in place, support the person as well as our hard-working officers. Following a significant amount of planning, we are ready to welcome the Edinburgh International Festival, Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo and associated events to the city. I will lead the Operation Summer City team, supporting the safe delivery of the events and supporting our visitors. As ever, our officers are looking forward to engaging with people from across the globe, welcoming them to enjoy all that the city has to offer. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad We have enjoyed a very positive start to 2025, with continued engagement with our partners and communities. Our officers continue to deal with challenging and dynamic incidents in the city and do so each day with outstanding professionalism. It is vital to maintain and develop new relationships, to contribute to ensuring Edinburgh remains a safe place to live, work, and visit. Please follow us on Facebook and X where you can keep up to date with what the policing team are doing across Edinburgh during the spring and summer months.
