Edinburgh Festivals diary: A choral tribute to Violet the cow, and the new generation of Korens

Week zero is a round of Fringe launches where venues showcase the best of their work to an audience mainly made up of press and industry. It’s a whirlwind of excitement, madness and a lot of free tote bags.

First up was Underbelly. After getting unmercifully ribbed in this diary last year for reading out his address book in lieu of an inspiring speech, founder Charlie Wood promised me something more entertaining this August - and wow, did he deliver.

Charlie and fellow Underbelly director Ed Bartlem took to the stage to celebrate the 20th birthday of Violet, the venue’s iconic upside down purple cow. But they did not just pay tribute to Violet in words, indeed not. Instead, they sang.

Problem is, it turns out neither Ed nor Charlie can sing. But that didn’t matter. Along with performer Sammy J, who can sing, they performed an original song all about Violet - who, it turns out, Ed named his actual daughter after, when she was born, five years after the conception of her Underbelly incarnation. Not weird at all.

It actually turns out there is also a member of Underbelly’s box office staff, also called Violet, who also turns 20 this year. I understand a joint celebration is planned for later in the Fringe.

“It’s a big, purple, upside-down inflatable cow/They called us crazy, but who’s laughing now?” proclaimed the words beamed onto the big screen for us all to join in.

Excellent effort, boys.

Assembly’s launch was characteristically lengthy, not just because of founder William Burdett-Coutts’ notorious speech, which host Reuben Kaye challenged him to limit to six minutes - warning the “snipers on the balcony” were scheduled to fire at seven and a half minutes - but because there were no fewer than 12 (admittedly amazing) acts in the showcase.

“He powered through that speech, didn’t he?” Kaye asked the audience later. My calculation was it lasted 12 minutes, seven seconds, so no, he didn’t - not really. A lovely 12 minutes, seven seconds it was, though.

At Gilded Balloon on Thursday night, everyone was just happy to be back in Teviot after a two year refurbishment.

Directors Katy and Karen Koren kicked off the fun with a snippet from their annual Fringe show entitled “Timeless Mother and Daughter Bickering”, which runs every day of August in Teviot from 9am until late.

Reflecting on the reopening of their flagship venue, Katy admitted she was getting emotional.

“It made me realise that what we do is important,” she said, adding that she and her husband have a three year old daughter, Penny. “The world is scary. I worry about the world that we live in. I realise that the platform we give our artists to express themselves is very important.”

Karen, who had managed only to interrupt her daughter twice during the first part of the speech in something of a record, also got a bit soppy.

“Thank goodness I managed to do something right in my life,” she said of Katy as she took over the mic.

“There are plenty of Korens in this family business and they’re all here tonight - apart from the wee one. But Penny will be here very soon, ordering us all about.”

“Chip off the old block,” added Katy, indicating her mum.

Could there be another whole generation of mother-daughter-Koren-Koren Gilded Balloon ownership ahead of us? Brace yourselves.