New LGBTQ+ festival included McKellen in a fiery monologue and Norton in conversation, as well as a queer ceilidh and ‘kilted yoga’
Sir Ian McKellen is on stage blowing up a red balloon. For a man of 86, he has impressive lung capacity. He lets it go and watches it take a satisfyingly theatrical trajectory, rising to a height, then plummeting. “Free the spirit,” he says, in character as Ed, an elderly gay man searching for release.
There was a lot of spirit-freeing over the weekend at Pitlochry Festival theatre. In a bold pre-season move by new artistic director Alan Cumming, the UK’s most idyllic venue launched its first LGBTQ+ festival in an atmosphere of exuberance. Programmed by Lewis Hetherington, Out in the Hills was a three-day compendium of talks, scratch performances and workshops that turned a sedate theatre into a buzzy social hive.
I arrived as the audience for Coinneach MacLeod, AKA the Hebridean Baker, was spilling out. A large and colourful group were posing for a picture in the foyer, while queues squeezed past for the bar. Many were on a high after the previous night’s Queer As Folk! ceilidh, led by the Malin Lewis Trio. Others were anticipating Sunday afternoon’s conversation between trans playwright Jo Clifford and her daughter Catriona Innes. I failed to find anyone who had done Finlay Wilson’s Kilted Yoga, but it was a thing.
