The greatest artist chronicler of our times: Grayson Perry, at the Edinburgh Art Festival, reviewed

The busiest show in Edinburgh must be Grayson Perry: Smash Hits which, a month into its run, still has people queuing at 10 a.m. His original title, National Treasure, was rejected because ‘national’ is a politically loaded term in Scotland. But Perry’s lens is resolutely fixed on England and Englishness. Seen from a Scottish perspective, this riot of rococo folkishness is familiar and exotic.

The exuberant exhibition, which is curated by the National Galleries of Scotland but showing at the Royal Scottish Academy and ends on 12 November, slaps the viewer around the face with its huge narrative tapestries, prints and pots. It gallops thematically through four decades, weaving Perry’s own origin tale with the story of England: high and low, rich and poor, ancient and modern. In his beautiful, queasy, messed-up country, Richard Dadd and William Hogarth are reborn to share tales of tax evaders, divine teddy bears and hollow social-media warriors.