TATTOO FACT FILE

The Performance and the Edinburgh Tattoo

Occasionally, very occasionally, it has been known to rain on the Edinburgh Military Tattoo. (The Business Manager has just read that, and exploded like an outraged heavy artillery shell. 'Never!' he boomed. 'It is never wet for the Tattoo.' Well, it is his job to attract the crowds - and to do him full justice the records show that you have better than five chances in six of fair weather.) Yet it is perhaps the inclement evenings which particularly enhance the rapport between audience and performers. There is a feeling of mutual sympathy which forms an even stronger bond than usual. As one piper put it between shows on a damp Saturday: 'It's just water, only skin deep. The audience is probably sorry for us but at least we're on duty. They're here to enjoy themselves, so I hope the weather doesn't ruin their evening.' In a revealing comment another piper said 'I'd rather have rain on the esplanade any day than the dust at the Royal Tour. See that dust, it gets in the pipes and all over your uniform, and it gets up your nose.'

Perhaps the worst thing about wet weather is that it makes the stones so slippery. In particular the drawbridge cobbles become treacherous, like sloping sheets of ice beneath the Pipers' brogues. Water also soaks into the wood and sheep-skin of the bagpipes. The priority after those few wet shows is to dry the pipes out thoroughly and fast. Next comes the uniform, which must be pressed immediately so that it does not dry out of shape, neither the cut of the doublet nor the hang of the kilt spoilt. The pipers' feather bonnets also need special attention. Privately, Tattoo performers will tell you that if there has to be rain, they would prefer it on Saturdays; yes, there are two shows to do and a late finish, but the uniforms have the whole of Sunday and Monday to dry out completely and the troops have a long lie on Sunday.

For what it's worth, the weather seems genuinely not to worry the Tattoo crowd. 'The rain didn't spoil it one bit, it was brilliant', was a typical comment from one Yorkshire family, while some Australians said 'We came prepared with waterproofs. It was a wonderful show; the weather didn't matter at all - it's part of the scenery in Scotland.' And one rain-soaked Italian at the same performance left proclaiming 'Terrific! We come again!' He certainly will - and next time it's sure to be dry. Whatever the weather you are assured of seeing a magnificent spectacle when you come to the Tattoo; but what won't you see? One easy answer is that you will not see about half the Tattoo personnel, for almost as many people are involved behind the scenes as appear on the esplanade.

Key figures in this invisible army are the Arena Master and the Tattoo Regimental Sergeant Major. It is their responsibility to ensure the smooth running of the show, with performers on cue and in good order, props ready in good time, entrances and exits always unobstructed. The Arena Master is the officer directly in charge of all personnel on the esplanade; the Tattoo R.S.M. is his trouble-shooter, constantly on the move between strategic points to make sure there are no log jams in the flow of the performance. The job of Tattoo Regimental Sergeant Major devolves ex-officio upon the R.S.M. of Edinburgh Castle, who is perhaps the Army in Scotland's most prestigious non commissioned officer. This man is a stickler, the unforgiving critic who awarded the dress rehearsal only sixty marks out of a hundred. Now that we are into the run, he says most performances earn around eighty. 'You always give points, you don't take them away,' he says, 'so those eighty points have really been earned. But there's always room for improvement. Ninety nine point nine per cent of the audience will never notice, but almost every night there is some small hiccup or error. Say a flag jamming up its staff; or last night, one of the costume groups marched off-centre up the esplanade. That's why you need someone like me; I make sure that if there is an error it doesn't happen again.'

The Tattoo R.S.M. has an arena party of fifteen to act as stage hands, setting and striking props. He also uses four marshals to control the main arena entrances and exits. Special effects such as explosions and cannon fire are usually in the hands of sappers. The Engineers can convincingly simulate, for example, a battle involving light artillery and armour. But there is much more to it than simply setting off explosive charges. Obviously the spectacle must be balanced with total safety for the audience and performers. And clearly any performers and vehicles taking part in an action sequence have to reach their allotted places in the arena before the explosives are planted; it would be utterly unacceptable to have them manoeuvring over live charges. The arena party therefore has to place the explosives as 'battle' rages around them, but that is not the end of the sappers' troubles.

The wrath of the Tattoo Regimental Sergeant Major, the Arena Master and the authorities at Edinburgh Castle would be something to behold if the hallowed tarmac of the esplanade were so much as stained, let alone melted, by any of the pyrotechnics. The design, positioning and timing of these special effects are critical. Indeed it goes without saying that timing is crucial for everyone involved throughout the performance; for instance the arena party must carry out its duties unobserved. A few seconds delay and up to a thousand kilowatts of lighting can catch a laggard stage hand belatedly striking a prop. That is enough electricity to power a thousand electric heaters or light ten thousand domestic bulbs.

To work the Tattoo's lighting the electricians rig more than forty miles of heavy duty cable, enough to stretch from Edinburgh to Glasgow. And working the lights during the performance, unregarded by the audience, are volunteers from the Territorial Army. They have perhaps the most thankless task at the Tattoo, especially in wild weather. They are completely without shelter, exposed high on their lighting towers to anything the elements can throw at them.

Equally exposed is the Tattoo's famous lone piper. Nowadays the duty is shared among senior pipers from the military bands at the Tattoo. When the lone piper took his post high on the walls of the Half Moon Battery it used to be a nerve wracking experience. He stood on a small platform about a yard square cantilevered over the ramparts. The only visible protection was a rope at about knee height around the platform which would surely have tripped the piper over the wall rather than saved him from the hundred foot drop. A safety harness was available but for various reasons it was often spurned. One former lone piper recalls "... a sadden gust of wind catching his plaid like a sail so that to avoid overbalancing and being blown into the abyss he had to take a pace forward. He finished the music and gave the salute with his toecaps jutting over the edge as the lights were doused, leaving him in total darkness to make his way to safety.

In recent times the lone piper has been moved to an even more prominent position on the roof of the Scottish National War Memorial, so distant from the esplanade that some people have wondered whether the piper actually plays the 'lights out' or merely mimes while the audience hears another, hidden piper or even a recording. ln fact it really is the lone piper you hear at the end of the Tattoo.

Heard but never seen at the Tattoo is that crucial member of the back-stage team, the commentator. Joining the Tattoo as Narrator in 1992 was the distinguished Scottish broadcaster Alasdair Hutton. He is acutely aware of the unique demands made by this show and of the profound difference between the television or radio studio and the Tattoo commentary box. 'If anything, one is even more alert than daring a broadcast,' he says. 'You can see and hear the audience and there's an immediate feedback. You know at once if you make a howler. The challenge is to be accurate and informative without being intrusive.'

Without being intrusive ... that applies to so much of the Tattoo. The audience should never be disturbed by the Royal Military Police constantly maintaining total security. You need never consider the accommodation, catering and transport arrangements, or around eight hundred Tattoo personnel, nor worry about the inevitable personal, compassionate and welfare problems which arise when so many people are gathered together far from home, even far from their native lands, for the entire run of the Tattoo. It is in all a vast undertaking. The Tattoo Regimental Sergeant Major summed it up simply at the end of one season. On the West End or on Broadway they just couldn't do it. No theatrical producer in the world would dream of putting on fifteen acts with three days' rehearsal and expect the public to pay. On the esplanade and behind the scenes, this show runs on military discipline and nobody else in the world could put it all together like the military.'