It’s that time of year again when you can often feel overwhelmed by the volume of shows and the swelling of the city centre. Perhaps now is the time to take a trip to North Berwick for Fringe by the Sea.
It’s one part of the festival with a growing reputation and lasts between the 1st and 10th of August. Acclaimed director Tim Pope is appearing for an in-conversation event this Saturday with broadcaster Vic Galloway ahead of Pope’s book release, ‘I Shoot Rock Stars: Wild Adventures in the Golden Age of the Music Video.’
It was back in March 1990 that Pope made a promo video in the capital with David Bowie, whom he worked with on various projects for well over a decade. Bowie was here to perform two dates during his Sound and Vision Tour at the Royal Highland Showground, Ingliston. His guitarist on the tour, Adrian Belew, had selected Bowie’s song Pretty Pink Rose to release as a single. “It was certainly filmed in Edinburgh,” says Pope in reference to suggestions it was made in Germany. “No, these things are often wrong; I read so much crap. We filmed it near Waverley Station (Fruitmarket Gallery); the location manager was actually Andrew Macdonald, who produced Trainspotting. I really bonded with him, and he (later) offered me Trainspotting, but I thought it was just a film about a load of old junkies, which it turned out it was.”
Pope is known for his sharp sense of humour, and he admits to pushing it sometimes when working with Bowie, but the pair never fell out and kept in touch long after they stopped working together. “It was a fun relationship. I remember during rehearsals when the band was going through Station to Station. I just couldn’t resist having a go at singing it. David wasn’t there, so I got up and started doing my pub crooner meets Anthony Newley version. I didn’t know he was actually watching. The band looked a bit panicked, and he came up and joined me to sing harmony. My humour can be a bit hard-edged to my own detriment, but we never fell out; we worked together for about 11 or 12 years, which is not bad. We kept in touch, and I definitely think we would have worked together again.”
The director, who has previously worked in Hollywood, reveals some contrasting experiences working with Bowie on the 1987 promo video Time Will Crawl and his subsequent work as part of a band in Tin Machine during the late 80s and early 90s. “Bowie was the person I always wanted to work with, and I was such a huge teenage fan. It was Iggy (Pop) that introduced us; he gave me the sense that first night I was going to be on his radar. Well, that’s what Iggy told me. I was flown over to New York and the luxury five-star Carlyle Hotel (named after Scottish author Thomas Carlyle) by Concord to meet David in the Presidential suite. I wanted to put a bit of edge into the video, but he wanted the dance sequences that were going to be used in the Glass Spider Tour to be used. David forcefully let me know that’s what he wanted to do.”
A later meeting with Pope was a much less glamorous affair: “We met in a three-star hotel on the edge of the motorway. I think he wanted to go method after the Glass Spider Tour, which brought in 86 million (one of the highest-grossing of the 1980s). At the time David was categorically refusing to play his hits and just being one of the boys in the band; I think it was a way of reconnecting with himself after the overblown nature of the previous tour. We were doing the video for You Belong In Rock n’ Roll, and I did ask David, who was obviously a bright bloke, if he was taking the piss or if it was serious, and it was, but bless him if he wanted to alienate 90% of his audience; that was up to him.”
Pope is currently working on a new cinema documentary film about The Cure due for release in 2028 to celebrate the band’s 50th year. Robert Smith was invited to join Bowie for the singer’s memorable 50th birthday concert which was performed at Madison Square Garden in New York back in January 1997. Pope was once again in the director’s chair for the concert, and it proved to be a career highlight. “David had a lot of respect for the people that joined him that day, like Robert (Smith), and I know that Robert grew up listening to Bowie’s music. When they played Quicksand together, I was sitting in the front row; David was really chuffed.” He suggests there were some nerves before Lou Reed showed up to rehearse, as the pair had fallen out some years earlier. Finally, Tim was granted an audience with the Bowie of his teenage years. “That was my Ziggy moment,” he says when Reed and Bowie performed Queen Bitch right in front of him. “It was like Ziggy was back in the room; there was an overpowering sense of it. That was probably the best job I ever did; I remember the specific moment; it was tremendous.”
The full program for this year’s Fringe By The Sea in North Berwick will be available at www.fringebythesea.com
