11/08/2012

Tom Sutcliffe and his guests Billy Kay, Hannah McGill and Kathryn Hughes review the cultural highlights of the week from the Edinburgh Festival including Pixar's new animated story, Brave, an American story with a very Scottish flavour. Pixar's first film to be set entirely in the British Isles it is also the first to boast a female lead. Kelly McDonald plays fiery red head Scottish Princess Merida. She is joined by other Scottish stars, Billy Connolly as King Fergus, Robbie Coltraine as Lord Dingwall and Kevin McKidd as Lord MacGuffin - aswell as Emma Thompson and Julie Walters.

The British premiere of Morning by award winning British playwright Simon Stephens opens at the Traverse. Developed with young actors from the Junges Theater in Basel and the Lyric Young Company in London Stephens play begins as Cat prepares to go off to university, a prospect that is depressing her best friend Stephanie. Described as moving from brutality to banality, the play charts disillusion and alienation amongst urban youth.

The panel also discuss the National Theatre of Scotland's Appointment with the Wicker Man at the newly refurbished Assembly Rooms, a spoof of the 1973 cult film The Wicker Man, The Best of Edinburgh Showcase Show at the Pleasance Courtyard and Dirty Great Love Story also at the Pleasance.

NVA Speed of Light invites the audience to take part in a walking version of son et lumiere on Arthur's Seat - their advertisement for runners asked "Ever dreamed of running in a light suit as part of a choreographed mass movement on Arthur's Seat. Well this is your chance." Saturday Review joined the audience participants during the dress rehearsal, donning light sabres and suitable walking shoes to brave the rocky crags.

And a series of public art commissions including Andrew Miller's artist's pavilion in St Andrews Square, The Waiting Place, Callum Innes's Regent Bridge, Kevin Harmon's 24/7, Martin Creed's Work 1059 the Scotsman Steps, the Rose Street Film Programme and The House of Fairytales.

And Indian writer Manu Joseph's second novel "The Illicit Happiness of Other People" is set in a Madras tenement and explores the fall out of a family tragedy. It explores the pressures arising from living cheek by jowl with neighbours, as well as probing the quixotic nature of what we understand by the truth.