Brian Ferguson's Festival Diary: ‘My column helped inspire discussions on whether Mouthpiece could have another life’

The Traverse Theatre's gripping hit has returned to Edinburgh, reimagined for the digital stage

Declan is available for audiences to experience through the Traverse Theatre and Edinburgh International Festival websites for a limited period from Monday, August 24.

It’s exactly a year since Stephen Fry enjoyed a double birthday celebration in Edinburgh – first at the Scotsman Fringe Awards and the following day, when Edinburgh Comedy Awards director Nica Burns produced a cake in his honour. But my lasting memory wasn’t of meeting Fry but the surreal year-long chain of events triggered after the big winner at the awards was unveiled.

Traverse Theatre play Mouthpiece had already been one of the hottest tickets at the Fringe when it was named winner of the coveted Carol Tambor Award, which sees a show from Edinburgh go to New York.

I’d missed the show on its initial run at the Traverse the previous winter and throughout last August, despite the relevance of its central theme – the two sides of Edinburgh that exist in ignorance of one another – being hugely relevant to the debates raging that month about the impact of the festivals, who they were for and whether they excluded many of its citizens.

I owed the Traverse a big favour for somehow squeezing me in to the final performance of Mouthpiece last August. But the story of how struggling New Town writer Libby is pulled back from the edge of Salisbury Crags by Declan, a gifted young artist from an Edinburgh housing scheme and the uneasy friendship they forge, remained with me long afterwards.

I wrote a column a few days later exploring the issues it raised about the gulf between the two sides of the city, and how it seems to widen further every August. It also felt like the perfect play to place at the heart of the debate about how much of Edinburgh is reflected in its cultural events.

That debate had reignited by the start of August this year, when the Edinburgh International Festival announced that its online festival would feature a brand new version of Mouthpiece, reuniting audiences with Declan and his take on his city, in a film co-commissioned by the Traverse from Lorn Macdonald, who starred in the original play.

Just before its launch this week, the Traverse got in touch to let me know that my column helped inspire discussions on whether Mouthpiece could have another life and that the film Declan – which has been wowing the critics since its release – was the result. As for that favour I owed the Traverse, we might now be quits.

After a month in front of the laptop, I set off for Edinburgh Airport for the first of the drive-in events being staged there by the Edinburgh International Film Festival and Unique Events.

With the eerie setting of a deserted car park overlooking distant planes, an unexpected detour via a coronavirus testing centre, masked security guards and ominously dark clouds overhead, I felt I was in a movie myself. Then the spirit-lifting magic of Sunshine on Leith cast its spell and inspired thoughts of the thrill of experiencing music, song and dance again in the city for real next August.

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