🪩 Edinburgh Culture Minute: 15 - 21 May 2024

Welcome to the 45th edition of the Culture Minute, a weekly round-up of Edinburgh’s local creative news, events, jobs and opportunities. It exists thanks to the Minute’s wonderful paying subscribers. I’ve lowered the paywall this week to help spread the word about Summerhall.
📮 If I missed anything, please this form to get your creative things featured.

🆕  News & happenings this week

🎭 Tuesday’s announcement that Summerhall was for sale has shocked many people in the local arts scenes. A sales brochure touts the building’s redevelopment potential as a ‘boutique hotel’ or student flats, among other possible uses.
⮑ But many of Summerhall’s occupants want it to remain as an arts venue and are organising against owner Oesselmann Estate Limited’s sale plan. Here’s what’s happening and how you can get involved:

• Summerhall has more than 110 existing occupiers on short term licenses, bringing in around £1.1m between them per year.
• A working group of more than 100 people on Facebook are discussing: “mounting a community purchase of the Summerhall complex, and preventing it from becoming yet more student flats.”
• More than 6,000 people have signed the Change.org petition.
• Robert McDowell, the sole director of Summerhall Management Ltd, said the sale plan was ‘against my personal wishes.’ - All Edinburgh Theatre has more.
• The possibility of a community buyout is being discussed among local creatives, with an in-person meeting planned ‘within the week’ according to artist @nat.insky who started the Save Summerhall Instagram account. Nat said:

“It's really heartening for so many people to want a community owned and run Summerhall. We've got a lot of great expertise and enthusiasm in the WhatsApp for a community buyout and will be meeting in person soon.”

🗣️ Reactions from key voices:

• “Edinburgh stakes its civic identity on culture. Summerhall is a space of unparalleled importance for visual art, music, theatre, community engagement and arts-science collaboration in Scotland. It’s cultural vandalism if it’s sold for student or luxury accommodation, especially at this time of enormous precarity for arts based organisations and freelance arts workers.” - Singer Karine Polwart.
• “What a shame - cracking arts venue!” - Author Ian Rankin.
• “It would be a crime to lose such a unique creative space. I hope city and civic leaders are paying attention.” - Writer David Macpherson.
• “How is Edinburgh meant to remain a global culture destination if it can't keep its own year-round venues open? The loss of the Jazz Bar has already left a massive hole.” - Writer Becca Inglis.
• “So Summerhall in Edinburgh is for sale, might become offices or student flats. One of the biggest private arts centres in Europe. More than 500 rooms. When it opened I could hardly believe it. Like a Berlin space in the 80s where Bowie/Eno might have worked. It is ramshackle, the opposite of bourgeois cultural places. Wild, messy, Pussy Riot. No venue in my life has made me shape shift more. It gave Edinburgh edge, astringency. A city needs those things. Industrial, medical aesthetic. At its best, daring. We need daring.” - Film director Mark Cousins.
• “Please can we have nice things? Please can we keep the nice things we already have?” - Writer Lynsey May.
• “Can we not do a community interest buy out here? This is a historic building. For last 13 years it's been integral to Edinburgh & Scotland Artistic Youth & growth. Surely there is a will & influence if everyone chips in.” - Anita Govan, Lost in Leith co-founder.
• “Please someone cool buy it. It's been our home for 8 years and there's nowhere in Edinburgh like it. A place of music, art, theatre, friendship (and gin). Please don't let them turn it into flats!” - Casting Director Anna Dawson.
• Edinburgh MP Tommy Sheppard has today written to council leader Cammy Day “asking that the Council use its powers to create a Summerhall masterplan. Working with stakeholders, plans could protect Summerhall as a hub of the arts in Edinburgh through any sale of the site & for decades to come.” Here’s his letter:

📆 Meanwhile Summerhall staff have been keen to point out that they are still open and no events are cancelled. They said:

“Thank you for your tremendous support - from your petitions to messages to action groups - in light of the news yesterday, we truly appreciate it and are heartened to see such an outpouring of love for Summerhall. To restate - we’re still here and still going! Our year-round and Fringe programmes are all on-sale.

“The *best* way people can support Summerhall and the artists is to buy tickets to events, attend the exhibitions and to visit the pub. You can also support the independent charity Summerhall Arts, which was launched last year as a lifeboat for supporting opportunities and professional development of the artists based in Edinburgh and Scotland.
⮑ Here’s a taster of what’s planned in the coming months:

In other news:

🎪 The Grassmarket Centre building has been revealed as the location of this year’s Fringe Central.

🎭 The Traverse announced its programme for TravFest 2024.

🎭 What’s on Edinburgh’s stages this week?

Here’s Thom Dibdin of All Edinburgh Theatre:

It's back to business this week after last week's lull, with the return of a hit to the Lyceum, Leitheatre up at the Church Hill, Jack Docherty at the Traverse and some ghostly goings on at the Banshee Labyrinth.

The big returnee is a leaner and fitter Macbeth (an undoing) to the Lyceum (Tue 14 - Sat 25: tickets), complete with four nominations from the New York critics' Drama Desk Awards.

Local amateurs Leitheatre have Dennis Potter's Blue Remembered Hills up at the Church Hill (Wed - Sat: tickets) and at the Studio theatre the PASS dance students have Cross Currents (Thur/Fri: tickets).

Goths and dance fans alike are in for a treat at the Festival theatre where Matthew Bourne and his New Adventures have his ballet adaptation of Edward Scissorhands (Tue - Sat: tickets).

At the Traverse, Jack Docherty has his David Bowie and Me: Parallel Lives in Trav 1 (Thur - Sat: tickets), while the last of the Tandem Writers' showcases is in Trav 2 on Saturday with Ivor (tickets). Worth checking at the Banshee Labyrinth on Friday, Joseph Helsing and Matt Walker have the first in a series of new horror musicals with Ghost Story (tickets).

As for the Playhouse, its a one-offs week with The Psychology Of Serial Killers (Wed: tickets), Romesh Ranganathan (Thur/Fri: tickets), Strictly Come Dancing: The Professionals (Sat: tickets) and Seven Drunken Nights - The Story of the Dubliners (Sun: tickets).

Opening on Tuesday 21, before next week's Culture Minute, The Music Man from Southern Light is at the Festival (tickets), The Fastest Clock in the Universe from ETG is at Assembly Roxy (tickets) and the Dead Girls Rising tour opens at the Traverse (tickets).

Æ's full listings and preview here: Listings & preview: Mon 13 – Sun 19 May 2024.

📌  Culture Minute news from the Community Noticeboard

  ⮑  Share yours using this form.

📌 “THEGETDOWN Leith Arches busiest DJ led event, celebrates it's first Birthday on Friday 7th June by offering £5 tickets to local businesses, just message them directly on their socials for more information. Expect Disco, House, Soul, Funk & more with 9 DJ's across the Aches & Cafe. All 4 previous events have sold out and they expect the same again.” - Luvin'Leith Events tickets.

📌 “Take One Action Film Festival is relaunching this summer and you're invited to a Summer Gathering at the Biscuit Factory in Leith to find out more! We'll also be having a vegan lunch, DVD jumble sale, tombola with exciting prizes, games for social change, and an Imagining a Better Future workshop, finishing up with a film quiz, board games, drinks and music. Join us on 30 June from 1-6pm, first 50 people to sign up get a limited edition A3 eco-friendly risoprint event poster!” - More details here via Take One Action.

📌 “Cinetopia's next Doc Club screening is the Edinburgh premiere of Mark Cousins' The March On Rome, at Cameo Cinema, 26th May at 4pm - followed by a Q&A with Mark in person. Through little-seen archival material and his characteristically cinematic analysis, Mark Cousins narrates the ascent of fascism in Italy and its fall-out across 1930s Europe. In The March on Rome, which is simultaneously an essay film and a historical document, Cousins contextualises history through the here and now, holding a mirror up to a political landscape marked by a creeping far right and manipulated media.” - You can get your tickets here.

📌 “The Edinburgh Pitch is Scotland's only pitching forum, welcoming non-fiction storytellers from all over the world to raise finances for urgent, visionary projects. The Observer Pass allows all-day access to the public pitch on Tuesday 28 May. An opportunity to discover bold, thought-provoking documentaries in the making and connect with industry leaders from MUBI, Netflix, Doc Society, Sundance Festival and many more!” - More details here from Scottish Documentary Institute.

📌 “The Chicken Coop Writing Group returns to Lost in Leith Bar & Fermentaria on Tuesday, May 28 from 6-8 pm. Join our curious, passionate creative community for some writing time with prompts designed to help you get words on paper provided by host Naomi Head. Tickets are pay-what-you-can with a minimum suggested donation of £3.” - More details here from Naomi Head, host of The Chicken Coop Writing Group.

📌 “Leitheatre's production of Dennis Potter's 'Blue Remembered Hills' is on at the Church Hill Theatre, Morningside Road from Wednesday 15th to Friday 17th May at 19:30, Saturday 18th May at 14:30. All tickets for the first night, Wednesday 15th are £8, thereafter £8 for ages 26 and under, £12 for over 60s and £15 full price. Tickets available from Leitheatre's website or on the door on performance days.” - Thanks to Marion Donohoe, Secretary, Leitheatre, for sharing.

🤝  Networking, jobs and funding opportunities

Here are the new opportunities (including a huge festival job), followed by the ‘still open’ list: