When it comes to exporting Canberra razzle-dazzle to the world, there are few personalities who can compete with David Bates, says arts editor HELEN MUSA.

David Bates is the owner of The Famous Spiegeltent, which has this month pitched down in Edinburgh’s St Andrew Square for the first time since 2015. 

During that interim, the former Canberra High School boy turned theatrical entrepreneur and his wife Michelle, another proud Canberra export, have seen the historical 19th century Belgian Spiegeltent (Dutch for “mirror tent”) become a mainstay at cultural festivals all around the globe, including Canberra’s 2013 Centenary celebrations.

It’s no surprise, then, to learn that Bates has marked their anniversary by staging his chic production, La Clique, in Edinburgh, this time with French-Australian educated daughter Persephone Bates-D’Arbela at his side as a regular part of La Clique, while Michelle attends to family care in Canberra.

“It’s all about independent artists. It’s a platform for them,” he says of the 20-year-old show. 

“We like to think that it’s the crème de la crème, presenting artists in fresh ways, like the time Tara Boom cooked popcorn on herself… There’s nothing crude, but we are accessible

“I still play piano a bit and I do a kind of an intro act, but not as a stage personality.” 

Opening in Edinburgh playing for the Jazz and Blues Festival which runs until July 20, they’ll continue with their own season, even hosting boutique versions of Sweeney Todd and Les Miserables for the tent – “Why not?” he asks.

Bates, who still regularly pops up at Canberra arts events, cut his teeth in the local arts scene. 

His first years were spent on a sheep station in Victoria until the family decided that the future in farming was dodgy and moved to the ACT, where he first attended Macquarie Primary School then Canberra High. There he came under the mighty influence of the late theatre director and headmaster, Ralph Wilson, who staged more than 200 plays during his lifetime. 

The young Bates, whose mum‘s family was musical and whose auntie Mary had played in a dance band, was playing piano from age 15 for restaurant shows in Canberra, becoming aware of theatrical personalities such as publicist Coralie Wood, director Jon Stephens and professional actors such as John Cuffe and Tamara Ross. A Canberra winter arts festival in 1975 cemented his picture of an arts scene hot to trot.

By now he was a seasoned pianist with a knowledge of theory that expanded his taste into jazz, although he wasn’t attracted to academic studies.

Then he met Joe Woodward, who had arrived from Brisbane in late 1979 to become artistic director of Jigsaw Theatre Company.

Woodward wanted to stage a play he’d conceived, Hurdy Gurdy Ghost Gum. Bates wrote the music, they did the lyrics together, then devised the play with the actors and staged it at The Playhouse in 1980.

“Joe and I clicked.” Bates says, “so we thought we might do something commercial.”

With the help of an optimistic hotel manager, they put on David Williamson’s Don’s Party at the old Park Royal Hotel and were astonished when it ran for three months.

After that, they headed to the Ainslie Football Club where again they staged another Williamson, The Club. 

They dreamt up the name Pie In The Sky (PITS) for their company, now at The Canberra Rex, telling a reporter they wanted to establish a theatre allowing smoking and drinking, which was accessible to the general public.

Woodward needed a large woman who could sing for George’s Peepshow in 1982, so they were introduced to legendary jazz singer Madam Pat Thompson, from the south coast.

Bates then “ran away with Madam Pat and a ragtag jazz band”, ending up in Edinburgh where they performed in a Spiegeltent owned by a Scot from Newcastle.

“We said, we’d love to hire it for The Fringe and eventually I bought it from him… I paid him off for five years.”

“I don’t call myself a businessman,” Bates says, “but luckily my instinct has been good enough to keep us alive.”

His tent, with a capacity for 320 audience members, is the largest (and most famous) of these Flemish structures, which are distinctive for not being tied to the ground.

It’s true, he agrees, that if you look around, you’ll see

other mirror and stained-glass Spiegeltents, but only five of them are genuine Flemish tents.

“And you can be quite sure if a tent holds 900, it’s not a real Spiegeltent,” he says.