Festival Diary: The American child star directing a Fringe comic caper

The Fringe crowds have been flocking to a lunchtime play inspired by the story of Scottish child star Lena Zavaroni.

But a former American child star is also involved in this year’s festival – albeit off-stage.

Jesse Tendler is directing the London-set comedy caper 2-Faces, which follows a pair of Interpol agents investigating a series of international art thefts.

The Greenside show is just the latest chapter in a career which began at the age of four.

His earliest roles included starring in American comedies like The Thorns and The Ellen Burstyn show, while he starred opposite Hollywood legend Kirk Douglas in the film The Secret and has his voice featured on Grand Theft Auto video games.

But it was the one that got away that unsurprisingly Tendler is still a bit sore about more than 30 years later, despite currently juggling acting, directing, producing and script doctoring. He got down to the final two young actors before losing out to Macaulay Culkin for the lead role in Home Alone.

There was a notable increase in the turn-out at the UK Government’s annual festivals reception.

It could be a complete coincidence that the gathering was held just a few months after a surprise announcement in the Spring Budget of new funding – with the £8.6 million shared between the International Festival and the Fringe Society.

Nonetheless, the great and the good of the festivals were out in force, including the Scottish Government’s own culture secretary Angus Robertson, who is under pressure to end more than a decade of “standstill funding” for the festivals.

But the crowd quickly dispersed when it became clear that the Ukrainian dance group booked to entertain guests would involve audience participation in their act – and would not take no for an answer.

There is audience participation of a different kind at the EICC, which is playing host to one of the Fringe’s biggest and most powerful theatre productions.

Its vast basement space is gradually transformed for Dark Noon, which sees seven South African actors telling an alternative history of America.

Word is spreading rapidly about the recruitment of audience members as extras for the show, which is partly played out on a large screen behind the stage.

Although I was pre-warned about the risk of sitting on the front rows, I hear reports of growing queues of ticketholders turning up early to stand the best chance of getting up close and involved in the drama.

While Dark Noon drew a standing ovation at the EICC, the Usher Hall must have notched up its first ever near-horizontal ovation.

Replacing stall seating with beanbags is one of the innovations introduced by Nicola Benedetti in her first year at the helm of the Edinburgh International Festival.

Among the familiar figures sprawled all around the multicoloured cushions scattered around was former EIF director Jonathan Mills as conductor Ivan Fischer held court in the auditorium surrounded by the Budapest Festival Orchestra.

A cause close to the heart of all at Underbelly is the Big Brain Tumour Benefit at the McEwan Hall. Host Larry Dean, Kiri Pritchard-McLean and Abandoman have joined-up a line-up which includes Frank Skinner, Ivo Graham, Adam Kay, Chloe Petts, Hal Cruttenden, Lara Ricote and Emmanuel Sonubi.