Arts & International Affairs: Volume 2, Number 2 | страница 19

most concern us, the best which has been thought and said in the world”
(Arnold ���� [����]). In fact, the second Lord Provost to act as Chairman of
the Festival, Sir Andrew Murray, articulated a concept of the arts in which he
promoted the Festival to the position of “interpreter” of the arts. However,
it soon became apparent that a policy of presenting the music and art of
the “grand masters” meant that there would be little room for those who
wished to create new culture, rather than interpret existing culture. There
was a fundamental conflict between the two views of culture, particularly in
terms of who defined what constituted the “highest” standard of art. These
conflicts were played out in Edinburgh during its annual festivals, and this
is what makes them so interesting for the history of culture and its uses in
post-war Britain.
At that very first Festival in ����, eight theatre groups had turned up
unexpectedly, organized performance spaces for themselves, and put on
their own shows outside the program of the “official” Festival. The Fringe, as
it was later to become known, represented what the Festival did not: it was
mainly dramatic while the Festival initially focused on music. The Fringe
was more likely to be contemporary than classical and shows generally
affordable, unlike the comparatively expensive Festival performances. The
main attraction in that first year was the Glasgow Unity Theatre Group, who
very publicly disagreed with the expensive Festival prices and the lack of
Scottish material in the program and, in challenging the Festival organizers
in this way, can lay claim to inspiring the creation of the Edinburgh Festival
Fringe (Bartie ����; Hutchinson ����).
The Edinburgh Labour Festival Committee, formed in ����, reiterated
previous calls to open the Festival to wider audiences with its call “to initiate
action designed to bring the Edinburgh Festival closer to the people, to
serve the cause of international understanding and goodwill” (Edinburgh
Labour Festival Committee ����). Comprising representatives from left-wing
organizations as well as cultural groups and community organizations, the
Committee served the purpose to present a “People’s Festival” based on the
principles of co-operation and inclusion. These calls for change appeared
at a time when the Festival had begun to attract criticism for being “stuffy”;
one newspaper critic suggesting an alternative festival program with dance
�
It is important to note here that an Artistic Director was in charge of the Edinburgh
International Festival of Music and Drama programme, with the assistance and advice of
a program committee, and only artists and performers invited could be part of the official
Festival Programme.
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