Made in hell?

With all these Fringe happenings, it's easy to forget that the festival season doesn't end at shows run by amateur college theatre groups and people with stupid hair. It took my house-mate to remind me: coming home the other day with complimentary tickets to about six different International Festival events and laying them out on the kitchen table for us to decide what we wanted to see. I picked one called Made In Scotland because I figured it would be a good chance for me to have not only a broader cultural experience but also get a different look at my new home. I didn't know what kind of show it was until I rocked up and saw the stage kitted out for a full-size symphony orchestra. And realised I was the youngest person in the audience by a good sixty years.

The orchestra came on stage, all the guys wearing suits and tails, and I got excited about being the audience to such a well put-together production. It was pretty different to the slapdash approach of every other show I'd been to, which all gave the impression that the performers just rolled out of bed one day after a crazy dream and then made that dream into a play and then run that play to its logical conclusion – being in the Edinburgh Fringe festival. Then the conductor came out and the whole audience clapped for about 40 seconds even though I didn't know who he was and he hadn't done anything yet. When my hands began to ache before the show had even started, it dawned on me that I might be in the wrong place.

The first 'movement' can be accurately described as the sound version of watching a cripple run up a downward-moving escalator. There was a painful absence haunting me and I realised about ten minutes into the two-hour set what it was: I had no beer. The first part finished and the audience again took to a lenghty applause. Granted, this was easier for me to do without a plastic pint jammed between my knees, but without this stimulant it was hard to muster the desire required to continue clapping after they had exhausted what they deserved. And the applause from the rest of the audience was so lack-lustre that it merely confirmed any suspicions I had upon seeing them that they might be half-dead.

The conductor smiled, bowed, smiled, pointed at various people in the orchestra who stood up and bowed and then pointed back at the conductor, who smiled, bowed, went off stage, came back on, bowed again smiled some more and then bowed another time. This was all to the soundtrack of the entire audience clapping as politely as if they were at a game of golf and has seen someone make a bogie, compelled by some haunting social duty that they were loathe to fulfil but couldn't possibly neglect.

The second movement was easier to follow – less random horn jabs and flourishes on the flute or drums – and there was a bit to enjoy when a guy came out playing bagpipes. It evoked a semi-highland feel and I could nearly feel my Scottish heritage stirring in my guts, but the performance was still not worthy of the extra five minutes this guest added to the final applause. I wanted to leave at intermission, less than underwhelmed by the prospect of another hour of obscure classical music, but stayed out of the same obligatory politeness that had everyone else putting their hands together again and again.

After two hours, I was left with the impression that anything 'made in Scotland' is deliberately obscure, probably over-priced and expected to be appreciated for hours despite waning interest and raw hands. My actual experience of Scotland has far more in common with the rowdy beer-spilling of a Fringe event. For this reason, I award the orchestra's performance two stars out of a possible ten and only then on the basis of their sharp dress. It would have been better if they had been wearing kilts.