🪩 Edinburgh Culture Minute: 11 - 17 June 2025
Book Festival line-up revealed, Hidden Door open until Sunday, Shakespeare in Saughton Park Gardens + new local creative jobs
Welcome to the 92nd weekly the Culture Minute: a round-up of Edinburgh’s local creative news, events, jobs and opportunities. If the email gets cut off, please click here to read it online.
And if I’ve missed anything please get in touch. Thanks again to everyone who contributes!
👀 The most-viewed links from last week’s Edinburgh Culture Minute:
- 💀 New St Giles’ Cathedral exhibition of faces of ‘Edinburgh’s Medieval citizens’.
- 🎨 Hidden Door festival full line-up.
- 🎬 Filmhouse progresses towards reopening this month.
News:
📚 This year’s programme for the Edinburgh International Book Festival is now live. - Find it here.
⮑ Director Jenny Niven says this year’s festival theme of repair ‘seeks to explore the many things around us which feel broken, and how we might seek to fix them’:
“At a time when important conversations can feel impossible to have without igniting conflict and anger, we want the Edinburgh International Book Festival to provide a safe place for challenging but considered discussions. This year our programme features over 600 writers and artists from 35 countries, who have a wide range of perspectives on topics of personal, social and global importance. We invite you to come and learn something new, feed your curiosity and to broaden your horizons.”
⮑ The first day includes the Loud Poets Grand Slam Final, while the closing event sees crime-writing supergroup, Fun Lovin Crime Writers, ‘murdering songs for fun’ in the Spiegeltent. - Tickets go on sale on Saturday 21 June.
🎨 Opening today at 6pm and running until Sunday, the Hidden Door festival transforms the industrial site of an old paper factory near the Gyle and brings it to life with five days of installations and performances from more than 100 artists. - Full details are here.
⮑ Festival Director Hazel Johnson shares an extensive preview of the Paper Factory festival site in this video.
⮑ Hidden Door is a volunteer-run charity, with all of its work funded through ticket sales, sponsorship and fundraising. Johnson wrote this message:
“The stark truth is that as a volunteer-run charity, we rely on ticket sales. The magic we create, the opportunities we provide for artists, and our ability to keep opening up new, surprising spaces for the arts across our city – all of it depends on you stepping through our 'hidden door'.
”Your ticket isn't just access to a great night out; it's an investment in Edinburgh's creative future, a vote of confidence in the artists who are shaping our cultural landscape, and a lifeline that allows us to continue our unique work. Without you, non-profit organisations like Hidden Door simply can’t exist.
”We’ve all seen much-loved venues and arts organisations forced to close, a worrying trend accelerated by ongoing economic uncertainties. The impact from these external factors on the arts sector is all too real, with arts venues and cultural events needing your support now more than ever.
”So I invite you to join us at The Paper Factory this week, from Wednesday to Sunday. Come and discover the energy, witness the innovation, and be part of a truly unique cultural moment. If you want Hidden Door to keep doing what we do, transforming forgotten spaces and championing incredible local talent, then please come down and support us. We’ve been doing this for over a decade, and with you on board, we’ll keep doing it.”
📚 Edinburgh Central Library is hosting a Children’s Art Club on Saturday from 10.30am until noon. It’s free and you can reserve a space here. - Thanks to Jen for sharing this.
📆 For more local creative events, check out Naomi Head’s Good Egg Project newsletter. This week: a deeper dive into the Hidden Door line-up, Queer Folks’ Tales at the Scottish Storytelling Centre + a rallying call for those looking to support independent local media.
🎭 What's on Edinburgh's stages this week?
With thanks to All Edinburgh Theatre’s Thom Dibdin for sharing this:
A minnow amidst the biggies, pick of the week goes to local writing outfit Citadel Arts Group, whose EH7, a collection of vignettes set in that postcode in Leith, is part of Leith Festival.
Citadel has given a voice to older writers since 1995, creating many authentic dramas in the intervening 30 years. EH7 at Craigentinny Community Centre on Sat and Mon is directed by Mark Kidd and stars local newcomer Magnus Byrne.
Those biggies? Well, for the last time of asking, it's the Can-Can do production of Moulin Rouge! The Musical at the Playhouse (ends Sat: tickets). Best availability is the evening, but there's not much choice.
How about Quadrophenia, A Mod Ballet at the Festival Theatre (ends Sat: tickets)? Innovative, dynamic and more relevant than when Townsend wrote the original, folk are invited to look back and "dress to impress" on Saturday evening.
Or The Mountaintop at the Lyceum (ends Sat 21: tickets), a vital, enthralling, beautifully performed examination of history and humanity, set in Martin Luther King's hotel then night before his assassination.
Leith Theatre, meanwhile, has Restless Natives: The Musical (ends Sat 21: tickets). The same team behind it as the cult movie give it lots of Big Country vibes and enough crowd-pleasing moments to suggest it has a future; but are two re-workings short of a great show.
And finally, the Traverse has a festival of seven youth performances from Wonder Fools' participatory project Positive Stories for Negative Times (Fri - Sun: tickets).
Æ's various listings pages, all linked here, have more details as well as shows dropping before next week's Culture Minute.
📌 Edinburgh Culture Minute Community Noticeboard
📌 “Community theatre group The Forth Act presents Shakespeare's 'Twelfth Night' in Saughton Park Gardens on 25th - 28th June 2025. Following our well received production of 'A Midsummer Night's Dream in 2023 we are returning with this comedy tale of concealed and mistaken identity, love quadrangles, and mischievous pranks. Tickets from £10-£15.00 are on sale now on Eventbrite.” - Thanks to Diane Waugh, Comms Team, The Forth Act, for sharing this.
📌 “SUNDAY: TFEH presents an international cavalcade of experimental musicians displaying a solidarity of silliness in the face of Daft Fascism and its lamentable attempts at humour: BROMP TREB / OLIVIA FUREY / EUAN CURRIE & OFF BRAND at Fruitmarket, 45 Market St., Edinburgh, EH1 1DF. Fruitmarket is fully accessible, with an elevator for those who require it.” - Thanks to Ali Robertson & Firas Khnaisser, organisers at TFEH. for sharing this.
📌 “Join us at Collective on Thursday 19 June (6:30–8:30pm) to celebrate the launch of our new exhibition, 'Fire on the Mountain, Light on the Hill' by Mercedes Azpilicueta, including a huge tapestry installation – and refreshments!” - Thanks to Collective Gallery for sharing this.
📌 “Join artist Heather Marshall for a free, practical workshop and discussion exploring the impact of rejection in the arts and how to transform it into something constructive. Taking place over three days - Thursday 12th June (Disabled and ND Artists), Friday 13th June (LGBTQIA+), and Saturday 14th June (Emerging Artists, All Ages), 1–3pm each day - the sessions will focus on rest, feedback, letting go of ideas, and developing new potential. Participants will collaboratively create a sculptural piece exploring shame for exhibition at Hidden Door 2025, and are encouraged to bring previously rejected project ideas to explore future development, funding, and mentorship opportunities.” - Thanks to Evie Rose Thornton, Artist Development Programme Coordinator, for sharing this.
📌 “Join us for a FREE session of Experimental Life Drawing exploring the intersection of dance and illustration, featuring a live movement artist as model. Saturday June 14 from 1:30-3pm at ESHC Basement, 34 Wright's Houses. Free, but please register.” - Thanks to Strongman Collective for sharing this.
📌 “Group art exhibition "Assembly", St Margarets House, 151 London Road (ScotArt), to showcase emerging artists, Fri 13 to Sun 15, 12 to 5 each day, open night Fri 6 to 8pm.” - Thanks to Evie Jamieson for sharing this.
📌 “Scott Lawrie Gallery welcomes controversial young Australian painter Benjamin Aitken to Edinburgh with his first ever UK solo show, called FILTH. Open now, there's a drinks event next Thursday 12 June from 5-7pm at the gallery (2 Chuckie Pend, lane behind Filmhouse). All welcome.” - Thanks to Scott Lawrie Gallery for sharing this.
📌 “'Alive & Kicking' in The Wee Red Bar, 7 - 10pm, Friday 13th June. Three bands: The C80s, The Standard Grades and Trash Tapes playing classic Indie, Post-Punk, New Wave, Pop and Alternative covers from the 70s, 80s, 90 & 00s. Might possibly include songs by Blondie, Pulp, Oasis, The Cure, Joy Division, The Undertones, Ocean Colour Scene, REM, Talking Heads, Elvis Costello & more...” - Thanks to Andy Glidden, The C80s, for sharing this.
📌 “Charlie McSween and Kevin Parker return to Piccalilli following their last sold out show. Folk music from the British Isles and beyond. Tickets are £15 and include and drink and nibbles. 24th June from 6:30 at Piccalilli, 1 Grange Loan. Email for tickets piccalilliedinburgh@gmail.com” - Thanks to Emma Urquhart - owner of Piccalilli, for sharing this.