Giants in The Forest (Chapter 2.1: Get Lost)

My contact in Peebles isn't entirely unknown to me: Caroline Adams works at the Eastgate Arts Centre, one of the many venues beyond the central belt that I like to keep an eye on, for touring shows. Inevitably, I ask her about the theatre programme - the Giants in the Forest do connect to this - and she points out that a slightly different sort of performance happens in Peebles, a step removed from Glasgow and Edinburgh.

In the cause of forwarding vapid generalisations about the places I am visiting - like the big arts journalists do, - I am comfortable when it comes to theatre. Caroline says that the work that comes to Peebles is more populist (September sees a version of A Chorus of Disapproval and there's a poster for a Joyce Grenfell tribute in the cafe). . That seems to be more a matter of content (country and western music gets a few slots in the programme) than form: I see that David Leddy is taking his festival show there soon, and that's part of the Traverse's season.

It strikes me more as a matter of scale - Peebles is a hub for the outlying villages, and there needs to be a big enough pull to get people out for the evening. Frankly, given the beauty of the area (and Caroline agrees when I say the Borders are 'underrated'), theatre seems a bit of a distraction.

Besides, there is a Rumi festival coming soon, a Mapplethorpe exhibition down the road... and The Dark Forest Event in the autumn. Caroline shows me some of the designs for the Dark Forest - they are decorating the area around the Giants, and there's a similarity to the plans for Bowhill's event. She flicks over some relatively 'picture book' sketches, before showing me the final plans.

There is a charm and seriousness in the schemes: they have avoided the stereotypical dell and are aiming for something more appropriate for the site. A storyteller will be working on how the Giants got there, and a whole faery realm is going to be designed...

I start to walk out of town towards the location. It's a simple route, straight down the main road. It's well sign-posted, Glentress Forest is a locus for mountain bike trails and has one of those 'Go Ape' playgrounds in the treetops. I get lost in about five minutes.

There's a lovely looking path that veers to the left, and takes me under a sweet bridge. It's nice ground, ideal for cycling and there's a few people going this way. After half an hour, I check on my Google Map. Yes, I am miles away.

On the positive side, had I been cycled, I would probably be well on my way to the west coast before I had checked - we'll see a few examples of this when I roll out the bike next week. There was a little squall, which meant that I was quite happy waiting in the dark of the tunnel, watching the wind whip up the leaves and, when I finally emerged back onto the main road, seeing that my bus back to Edinburgh went along the same route.



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