🪩 Edinburgh Culture Minute: 12-18 March 2025
500+ Fringe acts revealed, music bosses accused of 'performative allyship', full Tradfest line-up + a new bookshop in town
Welcome to the 81st weekly edition of the Culture Minute: a round-up of Edinburgh’s local creative news, events, jobs and opportunities.
As always, if I’ve missed anything please get in touch.
Last thing: If you’re a festival organiser and want to team up to offer Edinburgh’s most culturally-engaged audience a special offer during this summer’s festivals, please get in touch asap! Let’s give the locals something special?
👀 The most-viewed links from the last Edinburgh Culture Minute:
- 🎭 Inside the new Fringe HQ.
- 👋 Give fesitvals the same status as Olympics, departing head urges.
- 🖼️ ‘A beautiful exploration of dreams’ – Zimbabwean artist Portia Zvavahera at Fruitmarket.
News:
🎭 The first batch of this year’s Edinburgh Festival Fringe shows have been announced, with more than 550 shows available to view and book from midday today. This year more Fringe artists than ever have chosen to make their show available early. - You can find them online here.
“The 2025 Edinburgh Fringe feels more real than ever and being able to browse the first batch of shows adds another level of excitement. It’s incredible to see the range and themes of work as well as the talent and creativity that artists are bringing to the festival this year.” - Shona McCarthy, Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society Chief Executive.
🎵 Scotland’s music industry leaders must make more effort with diverse, inclusive and transparent recruitment practices, according to writer, editor and music programmer Arusa Qureshi. Writing for the Equal Media and Culture Centre for Scotland, Qureshi says:
“Despite the many initiatives, groups and individuals working hard to make the industry a safer and more equitable space for women and gender minorities, the sad truth is that discriminatory practices and behaviours are still holding women back from progressing in music. To achieve genuine intersectional equality, the music industry has to commit to moving beyond performative allyship and instead, focus on working towards substantial structural change.” - Read more here.
⮑ Arusa is also the co-curator of the award-winning Amplifi series at The Queens Hall, which returns next week with live performances from Gaïa, Liz Pretty Sweet and Segun Aniyi. - Full details here.
🎮 Leaders shaping the future of the gaming industry will head to Edinburgh in September for the global DICE (Design, Innovate, Communicate, Entertain) conference. - More details via the Scottish Games Network.
🔊 The Days Festival lineup, curated by folks from EHFM, Sneaky Pete’s and others, sees some of Edinburgh's top DJs joining Ben UFO, Dusky, Elkka, O'Flynn, Pretty Girl, Soul Mass Transit System and more across four stages at The Pitt in May. - Full line up here.
🎻 The full programme for this year's Edinburgh Tradfest (2-12 May) was announced this week. Events include 11 days of traditional music, folk film screenings and storytelling, kicking off on Friday 2 May with ;Scotland's most sought after piper and composer’ Ross Ainslie performing with the Sanctuary Band at the Queen's Hall and special guest Terra Kin. - Thanks to the organisers for sharing this. Find out more here.
🖼️ September sees the 20th anniversary of the Edinburgh Art Fair. founder Andy McDougall has introduced visitors to hundreds of galleries and thousands of artists from all over the world. The fair has included original work by Picasso, Miro and Dali. - Andy took time out of planning this year’s events to chat with Susan Mansfield in The Scotsman.
🍿 This week’s Cinetopia list of film screenings around town includes: The ‘Independent Spirits’ whisky documentary series premiere at Leith Theatre, The Japan Foundation Touring Film Programme at the Cameo and the Catalan Film Festival.
🖼️ The Travelling Gallery is coming to Collective on Calton Hill on Friday between 10am and 5pm for the launch of artists Rachel McBrinn and Alison Scott’s new exhibition 'After Glass'. - More details.
🤟 The Lonely Planet LGBTQ+ Travel Guide gets its national launch at Lighthouse Books on Monday. - Find out about this and many more local events in this week’s Good Egg Project newsletter.
✍️ Jane Bradley has taken over the role of Arts Correspondent at The Scotsman and Scotland on Sunday, after Brian Ferguson stepped down after more than two decades in the role. Jane said: “Personally, I'm very happy to be dusting off my notebook and getting back into reporting after almost a year on the newsdesk. I've learned a lot in the senior management team, but once a hack, always a hack and I can't wait to get back out there. Please get in touch if you're in the arts world. I would love to meet for a coffee and find out about all the great - and not so great - things that are going on! My DMs are always open and I can also be contacted at jane.bradley@scotsman.com.”
📚 A new book shop has opened in Charlotte Square. Below Stairs Books is nestled in the 18th-century former servant’s quarters of the National Trust for Scotland’s Georgian House, selling second-hand books. - More details are here.
🎭 What's on Edinburgh's stages this week?
Here’s All Edinburgh Theatre’s Thom Dibdin:
There's plenty of outrageous extravaganza on stage, with local amateurs The Bohemians' production of Priscilla Queen of the Desert - the Musical top pick of the week.
The production at the Festival Theatre (ends Sat: tickets) emphasises the inclusiveness of this joyous tale of drag queens crossing Australia in a big pink bus. And just to make it even more inclusive, the Thursday night performance (tickets) is a sing-along event.
Often seen as a musical, student company Theatre Paradok are staging Frank Wedekind’s original play of Spring Awakening at the Bedlam (ends Sat: tickets). The directors promise "a production that draws out the anarchy and frustration that thrums in every line of the
script".
This week's lunchtime theatre offering at the Traverse is Kev Campbell was He (ends Sat: tickets), an engaging and gently political one-man show from Alexander Tait.
There is more personal and political stuff in Jonny & The Baptists' The Happiness Index, also at the Traverse (ends Thurs: tickets), about our desire, and the country’s struggle, to just be happy.
Very few preview seats remain for Wild Rose at the Lyceum (ends Sat 19 April: tickets). Best availability now is in the two week extension period, from March 8. More on Wild Rose next week, after Friday's press night.
On Friday, a handful of briefs are left for Liam Rees's The Land That Never Was at the Studio (tickets) and it is returns only for the revival of Chef at the Traverse (tickets). But if you fancy some Loud Poets, get you to the Scottish Storytelling Centre (tickets), for "Scotland’s premiere spoken word night".
More detail about all these on Æ's various listings pages, all linked here.
📌 Edinburgh Culture Minute Community Noticeboard:
⮑ Get in touch using this form.
📌 “Pentlands Open Studios (POSt) is looking for local professional artists and makers to join their new collective. The first open studios trail is to take place over the weekend of 30/31 August 2025 and the Open Call for applications to join goes live 15 March 2025 for four weeks. The catchment area is southwest Edinburgh in the villages of the upper valley of the Water of Leith: Colinton, Juniper Green, Currie and Balerno.” - Thanks to John Elliott, Founder, Pentlands Open Studios, for sharing this. They’re also on Instagram.
📌 “Shoreline of Infinity's Event Horizon: 'SF Caledonia Anthology One' Book Launch. A collection of science fiction stories, poetry and articles by Scottish writers. The launch (on Thursday 20 March) is hosted by Edinburgh Bookshop in Bruntsfield, and will feature readings from the authors.” - Thanks to Noel Chidwick, Founder, Editor-in-Chief Shoreline of Infinity /SF Caledonia, for sharing this.
📌 “Matthew Jukes 100 Best Australian Wines Festival 2025 is returning to Edinburgh on 15 March 2025. Join us at The Edinburgh Academy, 12-3pm or 4-7pm to taste over 50 of the highest-scoring wines from Matthew’s annual list of the best Australian wines. We have masterclasses too and fun food pairings with Mellis Cheese and O Chocolates!” - Thanks to Diana Thompson, Wine Events Scotland, for sharing this.
📌 “Join us in welcoming Natasha Brown to The Portobello Bookshop at 7pm on Thursday 13th March for the publication day launch of her eagerly-anticipated second novel, Universality, in conversation with Sasha de Buyl. The follow-up novel to bookseller-favourite Assembly is a compellingly nasty celebration of the spectacular force of language. Sign up to attend in person or tune into the livestream via theportobellobookshop.com/events.” - Thanks to The Portobello Bookshop team for sharing this.
📌 “The Postal Collage: Get matched with other artists, send each other monthly cuttings, create new mixed media and collage art work. A chance to shake up your practice with other artists deciding your materials. Potential of a 2025 group exhibition to showcase your work.” - Thanks to Miriam Morris, artist and curator, for sharing this. Deadline to sign up: 31 March.
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