Edinburgh Literary Spotlight #1: Quarantine Cabaret

Last month, as part of our Edinburgh Literary Spotlight series, we spoke to Cameron Foster from Quarantine Cabaret to find out his approach to organising an online event during lockdown, and what he was taking from the experience.

You can watch the interview itself here, or read the transcript below.

Rebecca Raeburn

I suppose we could just start discussing a little bit about what today is about. We are kicking off the first in our series - the City of Literature Trust series of Edinburgh literary spotlights. Essentially, they'll be a series of features across different platforms. So they’ll be up on Instagram or Facebook, YouTube, and will be about the creative community really, and what they're getting up to at the moment during the lockdown given that society has changed a lot and the nature of our usual events, and the way that we would access, you know, creative platforms have completely changed.

So that is why we're here today. And why Cameron has kindly joined us as the first person, the first organizer, and yeah, there'll be a lot of people over the next few weeks hopefully, and it'll be readers writers, booksellers, publishers, event organizers, who will be joining us and we can hear from them. Platforms are definitely extremely important just now. And we're aware of that and we hope that this might be able to help some people and some audiences reach people, reach their audiences.

As just a quick little descriptor: Cameron set up Quarantine Cabaret back at the start of this lockdown, which doesn't seem like long ago now, but it also does. It’s been a good month now, hasn't it?

Cameron Foster

Yeah. I mean, I think we're on I…think I was just thinking about I think it's week six. Like in terms of this is coming up as Quarantine Cabaret Six. I mean, it seems like, in some ways it seems like ages you know.

RR

Yeah I know. I think the days have been flying past but also taking a while. But I think Quarantine Cabaret has been one of those really great examples of initiatives that have been kicking off and event spaces that have kicked off really quick and with a good sense of urgency as well, which I think has been needed at this time.

And for those of you who don't know about Quarantine Cabaret, it’s a really brilliant event that takes place every Saturday night at 7:30pm on Instagram on their quarantine tab, and you'll see links to that in our profiles. It brings together some of Scotland's best music, poets wordsmiths, and people, and it’s just it’s a really good night. And I would recommend, if you haven’t already tuned in to do so. I’ll let Cameron chat a little bit more about that now.

CF

Well I suppose what you're saying there has been something that I felt was important: something happening quickly. And I think what happened kind of mid March, and obviously all the pubs and everything closed down and all the clubs and things like that. And my timeline on various social medias were just like loads of folk, really worried about what they were going to do, you know, lots of performers and poets and musicians and stuff like ‘I've just lost a month, two months, you know, or the next, you know, the foreseeable future’s worth of earnings.’

And there's people that genuinely kind of rightly are, you know, concerned about what they were probably were going to do and you know, I knew that there were still the folk out there that wanted to see them… It wasn't like you know that that the market being stripped away or that you know it was any fault of the performance or anything like that it was just the, the space that facilitates them was gone. And for a while I've been kind of thinking about, just in general about the kind of power that you have in your hand with your phone and the kind of and you know, the equipment that that gives you access to and the platforms we have in our own right and how we don't really use those, maybe as well as we could by and large. And so when those things happened, it just kind of clicked quite quickly. It was just like well, obviously if we can, we can, you know, we can get on with the show, you know, we can still, you can still do it just needs to move somewhere else.

And they, you know that if you if you still believe in the good of the internet then it's all about connecting people. So, yes, but it seems like quite a quite a natural fit for me. That was the only thing was that like… by and large, in my life, I've kind of waited until things seemed to be perfect. And it's like, oh, well, this maybe isn't. You know, you're kind of like, No, no, maybe not. And then, yeah, just you’re thinking yeah, this is the right time: somebody goes and does it in front of you. And you go, okay, no, I don't need you. So, um, this is probably one of the first things where I've just gone. I'm just going to do this and just see what happens. And there's Yeah, I mean, there's a few things that like, maybe if I planned it a little bit better than we did we did, maybe wouldn't be exactly the way that it is but but I think that think that the initial response was the kind of thing and, and I know a lot of folk that have been on the show have kind of mentioned that, that that feeling that something was being done and that everything wasn’t just grinding to a halt and that, just just anything really was was valuable. And, you know, which is one of those double sided compliments.

RR

No no I actually think that that's been part of the beauty of this as well with Quarantine Cabaret that, as you say, when you start something off the bat with the knowledge in mind, you know, bearing in mind that it's going to change as time goes on, you kind of see how it grows with the climate and and this situation that we're all in. It's so fast changing anyway that an event space like this as well, having something that can adapt to that which this clearly has, is useful because if you wait for the perfect moment… I mean it would be gone and so I think that's part of the beauty of it as well. Seeing it grow with time, and it wouldn’t be what it was if you had tried to do different things with it and that's always the case I suppose with things in life.

CF

If I'd sat down and planned it would still be in planning stages. [Both laugh]. Yeah, and it has changed I mean, like the first the first episode we did my original kind of vision for it was to do like this with the split screen thing. And we tried that on the first night and man I had just an absolute nightmare with people connecting and like I hadn't realized it like you know, you know, you see the text going up above another person's face… I didn't, where there are other people like singing and playing guitar and whatnot with text all of their faces and nobody could connect to the half and half thing. It ended up being this mad wee treasure hunt all around Instagram where I was saying right you need to go here, and people were broadcasting from their own stream and yeah, it was, it was kind of exciting. That's one way but my, my nerves no good.

RR

No, I think, you know, as the person trying to gather IT all together, I can see how that could be stressful.

C

Yeah, it was!

RR

It's a different sphere to live-hosting or anything… you know when you're there in front of the audience, as you said, you can get responses and stuff but when you're here on Instagram, it's a different ballgame and especially if it's new and you've just set it up… but it does sound exciting. It does sound fun for the people trying to go on the train.

CF

[Laughing] It was fun. But yeah, you're right it is a really different hosting experience and, I have performing experience as well. So yeah, you know, without there being any…. because there's not really any feedback in terms of, you know, like laughter or kind of even like people looking approvingly. Yeah, you know, when you're when you're hosting. Yeah, when you're hosting something and you look out and everybody's sitting like, like that, you know, you need to up your game, but if everybody's kinda like, laughing away, that's fine. But with this, there's nothing. You're just speaking to like an empty room. So it's quite difficult.

And I think that's why, like, you know, stand up doesn't really work. We've been, I've been, thinking about having some comedy on and it's not really, you know, because laughter is part of the grammar of a lot of peoples sets, then, yeah, it doesn't really work so well, I have to be a wee bit careful with the drag acts that I pick because, again, there’s traditionally there's a lot of audience interaction with them. The poets have done well, but again, I think I've had to kind of like, a bit more aware of what the format is and what the experience is going to be for folk because it is different than being in front of an audience even though you know, a bunch of eyes watching. So, yeah, it's a slightly different feel. It's I think what surprised me most though, especially like, maybe a couple of weeks ago, and last week as well, especially, is that sense of kind of like coming together as though that you still get from it? Yeah, it does feel really nice in like a community kind of thing. And not like, you know, not everybody doesn't feel also fractured and disjointed. And that's really nice. And especially at the moment it's nice to feel, you know, kinda part of something.

RR

Yeah, I think we always talk about that as well, that sense of connection and it's really important in the creative community and the literary, but it works across so many different levels. And I think we've seen that come out a lot during this crisis. You do get that sense that everybody wants to be.. and I think you said that early on, you know, that everybody wants to be part of something as well and it's not that the performers and the audiences aren’t there just now, because they are.

And it's just finding a way to connect to them and provide these kind of spaces. And one of the things that we wanted to touch upon was the routines and the different ways that we're approaching our days now, and I wonder if you could chat a little bit about if you're talking about planning and how part of this is that you're just not, you know, from the outset planning too far ahead. How are your days and weeks looking? Whilst you're, I know you'll be doing other work outside of Quarantine Cabaret, but yeah, how are you structuring, structuring it all?

CF

I have my week a bit kind of split in two because I have my daughter for a Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday during the day, and I like co parent so she's up here homeschooling for half the week, and which is kind of it's nice, Ruby is great….I’m really lucky to have such a kind of relaxed… and, and she's a really good editor as well. Actually. Yeah. So she’ll and she'll do like: ‘Nah, no, nah not not that,’ or like I'll be like you know show her a video of something that I was thinking ‘maybe I’ll have them on the show,’ and she's like {makes unsure noise}. So I’m like okay… so it’s good to have some input from her but, and it's nice to have another kind of human around obviously as well.

So the first part of the week we try and get… to be honest with you I'm usually like trying to nail down bookings and make sure everybody's happy and everybody's like ready to go for the Saturday coming and doing press and stuff like that. And because I do all the posters as well they're just doing everything, so all the bits have to kind of happen at the start of the week while home schooling as well so that's a little bit of a challenge there.

But it's okay. It gives me a bit of a routine. Thursdays and Fridays, I'm trying to expand my audience a little bit. So I'm kind of looking for different folks to maybe get in touch with and trying to get, you know, maybe people that wouldn't normally be coming to shows and things like that. So I try and do that on Thursday, and Friday's I usually try and shoot a promo on a Friday, which we've got still got to do {mumbling: I’ve been a bit slow}...

So last week, I did it. I mean, you're stuck in your house, right? So last week was The Good, The Bad, the Ugly and I had like a cowboy hat and a hairdryer for a gun. And you know, I've been watching… I've been watching some Clint Eastwood the days before. I’m just trying to have fun with it. And yeah, Saturdays is just like trying to get them yeah, you know, try and have the morning to myself but then basically just spend like an hour before the show just getting everything set up and and singing and there's no Business Like Show Business.

RR

Perfect! Was that the first thing you were like if I can't do that at the beginning of this all, then?

CF

Yeah, this is it: I’ve gotta get something out of this at some point. Right. So it might as well be. It might as well be that. I don't know my neighbours enjoy it particularly but, you know. Yeah, that's the way it goes. But yeah, it's been kind of useful to kind of divide my tasks up in a kind of roughly, you know, daily tasks and on one hand, try and stick to that but on the other hand try not to beat myself up too much if I don’t manage that like. You know, if I don’t get the press release out on a Tuesday night and it has to be a Wednesday morning then – [Yeah, you're not being-] Yeah, exactly. This is the way things are going at the moment. You just have to kind of do it. And to be honest, there's not loads of press out there at the moment, you know. You just got to kind of do the best you can you know? Hopefully, I don't know. I mean, I could be doing way, way better. Maybe. Maybe it could be, you know, thousands of people watching these cabarets!

RR

[Laughing] No, I agree with all of that; it is hard. And you can only do what you can do. And well, you've been doing a lot. You've been you know, that's a lot of like content, and output you've been doing every week. And so with all of that in mind as well: this week is the sixth week, I think you said, do you have highlights looking back at all? I mean, I'm guessing every night and every performance and act as you'll see is a highlight…

CF

[Laughing] Yeah, don't start picking favorites in case people are watching… [Mumbling] last week were really great and I was really chuffed to be able to have them on. But no, everybody last week, I think the most satisfying thing is when you get like a really nice flow of acts. It's not necessarily, you know, every individual's good and they have their own strengths and, and, you know, I wouldn’t booked them if I didn't think you wouldn’t get a good show, so and everybody's really riden to it and I think that's, that's been great. But personally from my perspective, the most satisfying thing is when it kind of flows together you know, because I've put them on the order. That's the little bit I've had control for and last week felt like a really nice flow, kind of like it started off really warm and then there's some really nice wee emotional pieces and then you know, and then there's a bit of kind of lighter comedy and then some really good poetry and then a really kind of warm finish at the end as well. Yeah, that that sense of community. So yeah, I don't know. It's just been really nice.

I suppose my instinct to get everything started was just to try and put some money in people's pockets. Yeah. You know, that was that was it because the donation part is a big part of it and, and trying to get folk to donate and, and just help folk out a wee bit because like, you know, I’ve been broke plenty of times and you know, 50, 60 quid can make a big difference sometimes. And yeah, so that was my instinct just to get that done but what’s kind of been nice about it is that growing feeling; the community and that kind of like and also for the, the performers involved like that, that kind of…sort of fulfilling their need to perform, I suppose. Yeah, you know, and I'm creating a platform where they can do their thing, and, importantly, enjoy it. Certainly, a few folks have got back to me and said that they just really needed to put stuff out there. So that’s been a nice surprise.

RR

No, yeah, I think that's a really good point, actually, you know, part of that creative process for so many different mediums, be it writing and songwriting and poetry as well, is that you want to get that word out there. And that is part of that: having the response to it. And sometimes I know that people have said before that they feel like they can’t even move on from a block of work until they've put it out there, and it's been heard by people in whatever form. So yeah, that's definitely one of the really good benefits of this, given that so many different event spaces have been shut down and cancelled. Well, all I'm guessing, apart from everything online…

CF

[Laughing] There’s maybe a soap box in the corner somewhere that you could busk in? I don't know if there's anybody doing that. I hope not,

RR

Yeah, no.[Laughs] And so I suppose one of the things that we have been talking about as well at the trust is how we think that the landscape might be changing for not just the literary sector as well, but the creative sector in the future beyond this, so, in the future, when hopefully, we're, I don't want to use that annoying phrase everyone's saying “once it’s all over”, but once things are running a little bit more normally, how this might impact that, because we imagine that it will impact the shape of future events and access. I don't know if you have any thoughts about that, since you're actually running something weekly now and you're involved in part of such a regular output?

CF

I think that's a really difficult one because yeah, this is a you know, this is a response to a very specific context. You know, and it's, and it's not going to in any way replace live events now, or live events when life and everything does go back to normal as it were. And, yeah, yeah, I don't really know if it's going to have a lasting, lasting effect. I kinda hope it does. Because you put your access there, you know, there's people that can't get to the gigs. Yeah, and there's people that don't feel comfortable going into, you know, spaces, like, literally spaces, poetry spaces, things like that, you know, then there’s people that just can't really arsed sometimes and that's fine too. But if it's if it's right there in front of you, then then you know, you can you can dip in and dip out and then kind of experience it on your own terms, which is, which is really, I don't know, I think that's really beneficial.

So I think it's one of those things when you've got like a new media, and I know we've had the internet for a while but in the grand scheme of things is, is kind of still a new media that it is not until something occurs that you really see the power of it. They start to, you know that it moves forward. And maybe this is the thing, you know, maybe this is the thing that, that people see the real benefit of the internet as a kind of connectivity in entertainment too. I'd like to think that there's a space for these kind of online things, and people would still watch them, but also, I know folk are gagging to get back out and get in a room together and, you know, somewhere sweaty with a beer and just be like [laughing] yeah, you must miss all the smells. And, you know, I'm missing seeing like people's, just like when you're finished doing a show, and you kind of walk out you see, folk kicking about and just the kind of look on their faces. Like, people looking kinda happy and like they've had a good night. That's, you know, I really miss that. So, and it's not going to take the place of that but it would be cool if you know in a couple years’ time, there was maybe one or two shows that are sort of similar to what I'm doing and maybe a bit more polished perhaps that would be fine ... And that you know that there was some there was a kind of broadcasting platform for folk that aren't getting on regularly getting on like mainstream news and stuff like that, you know, mainstream media

It's a bit of an equalizer. You know, you can really see what the, like YouTubers and stuff like that. Just some kid sitting in the room playing video games can get like 18 million followers. Yeah. So, no, I don't know. There's the potentials there. So yeah, maybe needs a wee bit of thought I know. But I think I think it's valuable.

RR

Yeah. Yeah. Well you’ve put a lot of work into So it would be good to, you know, I mean, we don't know how long… we keep saying it. We don't know how long we're going to be here anyway. So it's nice that it's here now and that people do have a space and you know, thanks for providing that space as well. I'm not saying it’s for me, you know, and it is a good, it's a great thing. And yeah, so I think this week, tomorrow night, we have another Quarantine Cabaret at 730. [Yeah. Yeah.] Tell us a bit about that?

CF

Yes, this week’s line-up is pretty tight. I'm pretty chuffed with it. Jana Gabrielle, who’s a French Cameroonian singer, she lives in Glasgow. And she's got beautiful voice and just a really kind of chilled, soulful kind of vibe. So she's going to be opening the show. And really looking forward to that. We've got we've got Ross McCleary. Who, if you're, I don't know if you're on Twitter, but yeah, he gets like, yeah, quite a lot of fun. So he'll be doing some poetry I think of some sort. Spoken word, and that's gonna be good. We also got, oh we’ve got, I don't know what I don't know what name to call her, we’ve got Madame MacLany. And she's going to be teaching us the dangerous art of seduction.

RR

[Laughing] Nice!

CF

Yeah, I’m interested to see how that pans out. But you know, there's, there's people out there that are going to need that when the lockdown is lifted. So, you know it's a public service! Sam Small is going to be doing some poetry, and I'm a massive fan of Sam Small I think he’s amazing, I'm looking forward to that as well. And then Lou McLean, who's a singer songwriter from Leith.

There was a BBC documentary about her last year and we had a Leith Late thing in June last year, the middle of last year, and she she's wicked. She's really good so I’m really chuffed that she said she do it. So it’s going to be a tight wee show, absolutely. Just a couple hours to get through everybody. This is gonna be a really good night. A lot of fun and you know, donations are always open. So if there's anybody watching, that feels like they've got an extra, extra heavy wallet at the moment, then we can offload some to quarantine cabaret.

RR

Well, that's great. We'll share links to that page as well on our social media and website. So that will be there, but they can find it on your Instagram and social media as well. And yeah, no, that's all great. Thank you for joining us –

CF

And thanks very much for starting this up because I think that one of the things that I was kind of feeling was that we all kind of see our kind of role in the bigger machine a wee bit easier now that everything's been kind of stripped away. And I think that all the different support roles that like that I'm doing and that you guys are doing and all these things are really important. And so this is a really nice idea. And I was really chuffed that you asked me.

RR

Oh, no, it's always nice to have you and we're gonna as well I just want to say that this will be be saved and recorded and if it's alright, we'll have it so that we can share it online. So in case - because not everyone can always join in live - and, you know, I understand that there’s still work and people are still busy and doing stuff. And we'll also have it transcribed. So we will have it as like a kind of interview Q&A piece online on our website as well for those who don't want to sit and watch our faces, which is fair. And so yeah, this this will still exist. It'll still be out there and we can share about. But yeah, I suppose that's us. And, again, yeah, thanks for joining us.

CF

No problem.

RR

Yeah, it's been good and I'm looking forward to tomorrow night!