Edinburgh Culture Minute 🪩 6 - 12 November 2025
Radical Book Fair, new £50k Pianodrome campaign to revamp Bruntsfield church, community cinema spotlight, new Summerhall Arts residency + woodland dining at Jupiter Artland
Welcome to the 107th weekly Culture Minute: a round-up of Edinburgh’s local creative news, events, jobs and opportunities. Sorry it's quite a text-heavy edition this week. I'm still fiddling around with making embeds look good! We'll get there. If I’ve missed anything please get in touch. Thanks so much to everyone who contributes!
👀 The most-viewed links from last week’s Edinburgh Culture Minute:
- 🎅🏻 Red Hot Chilli Pipers (pipers) playing Ross Bandstand.
- 🍸 New newsletter dedicated to Edinburgh hospitality scene.
- 💰 21 Edinburgh creative projects share £1.3m from Creative Scotland.
🗞️ News:
🎨 Summerhall Arts has announced a new residency programme aimed at people living in Edinburgh. The In Vitro Residency will launch next year in partnership with the Hugo Burge Foundation. It includes a £1,200 stipend, 24-hour access to your own studio, the opportunity to exhibit and curatorial support, installation and technical assistance. - More details are here.
"This opportunity was created for visual artists who cannot step away from their life for weeks at a time for accommodated residencies. Instead, it will offer artists the time, space, and community of our regular residencies but with the freedom to come and go — to create in bursts, to stay connected to home, and to weave their practice alongside the rest of their lives, including work commitments." - Summerhall Arts and the Hugo Burge Foundation.
📚 Two annual book festivals have started this week:
- The Lighthouse Radical Book Fair is on every day and evening at the Assembly Roxy until and including Sunday. - The full programme is here, with events in-person and online.
- The Pentlands Book Festival is up and running at venues in Currie and Colinton, with author panels, workshops and children's' events until 3 December. - Find the programme here.
🎭 A new adaptation of Muriel Spark’s The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie featuring Gayle Rankin has been announced by the Lyceum Theatre. - Thom Dibdin, All Edinburgh Theatre.
🎹 The Pianodrome project has launched a campaign to raise £50,000 for its new Bruntsfield home at the St Oswald's Community Centre. The team of volunteers want to revamp the Victorian church by adding a piano cafe along with new heating and lighting so it can open full-time for the long-term. - Find out more here.
⮑ Meanwhile, you can have a look inside this weekend. The team sent the Minute this note: “Pianodrome Bruntsfield is open this Friday and Saturday from 10-5pm! All welcome to drop-in and play before and after scheduled events. Performances from Ailsa Aitkenhead , The Tenement Jazz Band, a Vinyl Listening Party and Motteh Parrot. Head to pianodrome.org/whats-on for more info and tickets.”
🍿 Regular readers of the Edinburgh Culture Minute will have noticed a revival in local film screenings outwith cinemas recently. The people behind Cinetopia and Leith Kino are in the spotlight in Kevin Fullerton's piece in The List titled: Community Cinema: How local heroes are reshaping film screening culture.
🍽️ Having already sold out one night, Jupiter Artland has added a second Wild Dining evening date. - Find out more about dining in the woods here and see a video preview here.
🖼️ Toby Paterson’s 'Encounters of Experience' at the Royal Scottish Academy is described as 'a must-see exhibition' by Omur Sahin Keyif in Art Mag.
👩💻 There are new creative co-working spaces available at the Edinburgh Futures Institute. They say: "If you are seeking an inspiring and collegiate place to work for your team, or as an individual or presence within EFI as a larger company, and would like to know more regarding the vision of EFI, the activity, and the desk lease costs and process, please send an email to; caroline.parkinson@ed.ac.uk.
🧸 The Edinburgh-based Scottish Book Trust charity has launched its Christmas appeal. Featuring Pooh and Piglet, the campaign asks for donations to make it possible to send new books to families accessing food banks in Edinburgh and across Scotland this winter. - Learn more about the appeal here.
🏆 The annual Creative Edinburgh Awards ceremony is on Friday 14 November from 6pm to 11.30pm at Central Hall in Tollcross. It's always a real highlight of the year. Find out about all the award finalists here. Tickets for the event are here.
🎭 What's on Edinburgh's stages this week?
Here's Tom Dibdin of All Edinburgh Theatre with the listings:
In what is surely the busiest week of theatre outside the Fringe for ages, Edinburgh's stages have everything from Dundee Rep's ★★★★☆ Reflective The Glass Menagerie (ends Sat: Tickets) at the Lyceum to a student Accidental Death of an Anarchist (ends Sat: Tickets) at the Bedlam.
Two top local tips, however. The youngsters of the Edinburgh Gang Show (★★★★☆ Joyous) are at the Festival Theatre (ends Sat: Tickets), in a show that consistently exceeds expectations. And Threepenny Theatricals take Christie's The Mirror Cracked to the Church Hill Theatre (ends Sat: Tickets).
Enda Walsh's latest, Arlington, a tale of paranoia and surveillance, is highly recommended at the Traverse (ends Sat: Tickets) and there are a few (free) tickets left for Page Against the Machine, Clare Duffy's new interactive comedy drama about AI, at the Scottish Poetry Library (Thurs/Fri: Tickets).
Tonight (Thursday) only, the Scottish Mental Health Arts Festival is at the Storytelling Centre with Mind of Man(Tickets).
On Saturday only, local grassroots company Erstwhile Media have A Trio of New Work at the Augustine United Church (Tickets and details); and Aberdeen's Compagnia Artistica Gaudeamus have Italian comedy Poor Piero (with English subtitles) at Assembly Roxy (Tickets).
Which leaves Portobello Town Hall as the only stop for Musical Theatre fans, where Stage Door are having bloodthirsty fun with Little Shop of Horrors (ends Sat: Tickets).
Full details on Æ's listings pages: all linked here.
🎟️ Big tickets this week:
🚴♂️ 'Sharing his journey back from the brink', five-time Olympic gold-winning cyclist Sir Bradley Wiggins is at St Cuthbert's Church from 7pm tonight (Thursday 6 November). - Tickets via Toppings here.
🎸 Formed by Sex Pistols manager Malcolm McLaren in 1980, Annabella's BOW WOW WOW play The Caves tonight. - Tickets are here.
🥁 Just announced: Nubiyan Twist are playing La Belle Angèle on 26 April. - Tickets are on Dice here.
⮑ If you've not heard them before, they're a London nine-piece collective with an 'electrifying blend of jazz, afrobeat, soul, hip-hop and dance music'. Have a listen.
🎤 As part of this year's Hogmanay First Footin' series, The Portobello Bookshop will host Muckle Be The Light, featuring Shirley Manson (singer of Garbage), Nicola Sturgeon (former First Minister), Norman Blake (singer of Teenage Fanclub) and award-winning poet Michael Pedersen. - It's on 1 January from 6pm and tickets are now available here.
- ⮑ Tickets for the Hogmanay Concert in the Gardens featuring Wet Leg and (future SAY Award winner) Hamish Hawk are still available here.
🎸 The Ultimate 70's Show is at the Assembly Rooms on Friday night. - Tickets are here. Then on Saturday night, ABBA Tribute 'Thank You For The Music' is at the Assembly Rooms. - Tickets here.
🩰 The 'Innovations Contemporary Dance Platform', 'showcasing new work from choreographers and dance artists working across Scotland and beyond', returns to The Studio at the Festival Theatre on Friday and Saturday. - More details here.
🎼 RSNO Season 25-26: Beethoven Seven is at the Usher Hall on Friday night. - Tickets are here.
🎸 Jethro Tull's Martin Barre and Friends (Alex Hart, Alan Thomson and Dan Crisp) bring an intimate evening of music and anecdotes to The Voodoo Rooms on Saturday. - Tickets are here.
🎤 Comedy heroes reunite for An Evening with the Fast Show at the Usher Hall on Saturday.
🇦🇺 Stand-up superstar Jim Jefferies brings his world tour 'Son of a Carpenter' to the Edinburgh Playhouse on Saturday night. - Tickets are here.
🎟️ This week at The Queen’s Hall: Thursday: SCO 25/26: 'visionary US maverick composer' Steve Reich. Friday: Bernard Butler, Norman Blake and James Grant, Saturday: Ardal O'Hanlon - Not Himself, Sunday: Stewart Copeland - Have I Said Too Much + Monday: Professor Alice Roberts – Domination – The Fall and Rise of an Empire.
⮑ Ahead of that Stewart Copeland gig, tribute act The Polis have a gig at La Belle Angele from 2pm on Sunday.
🎤 Kae Tempest plays the Corn Exchange on Wednesday 12 November. - Tickets are here.
📌 Edinburgh Culture Minute Community Noticeboard
📌 “Thursday 6 Nov – The French Film Festival UK opens at Edinburgh’s Cameo Cinema with Sylvain Chomet’s animated portrait of Marcel Pagnol, A Magnificent Life. Back on Friday for François Ozon’s The Stranger - an adaptation of Albert Camus’s classic exploring Algerian identity.” - Thanks to the festival for sharing this.
📌 “Friday 7 November. Oor Vyce is thrilled to be hosting ‘The Oor Vyce Gaitherin 2025’, this year with the theme of ‘Scots for Aabody: Connectin Communities Thrae Language’. This event brings Scotland’s Scots-speaking community together for a powerful day of discussion, performance, and collaboration.” - Thanks to the organisers for sharing this.
📌 “The new Edinburgh-made podcast 'Have You Frozen Your Eggs Yet?' has launched. It's about being a woman, the annoying questions we are asked and surviving ALL the expectations that are placed on us. Hosts Kelly and Louise offer a refreshingly honest and straight forward take on women's everyday lives.” - Thanks to host and producer Kelly Crichton for sharing this.
📌 “Monday 10 November: 'If a landscape "speaks", can we hear it?' Aonghus Mackechnie takes us on a tour of Scotland through the ages. At the Augustine United Church, 41 George IV Bridge. Joint lecture by the Architectural Heritage Society of Scotland and Scotland's Garden and Landscape History.” - Thanks to the AHSS Forth & Borders Group for sharing this.
📌 “Scott Lawrie Gallery is showing new work by Cook Island’s contemporary artist Sefton Rani. It’s a powerful show where colonialism meets culture. Until 15 November.” - Thanks to the gallery for sharing this.
📌 “Meet the Artists Andrew Radford and Susie Redman at Upright Gallery this Saturday between 2-4pm. They will discuss their show Above Ground which continues until 14 Nov.
No need to book, just turn up.” - Thanks to Ian Farmer for sharing this.
📌 “Friday 14 – Saturday 22 November. Scottish Opera's production of Puccini's masterpiece, La bohème, comes to Festival Theatre Edinburgh. A first-rate cast brings this tragic, yet life-affirming story to life. Hye-Youn Lee plays Mimì, and she is joined by Mario Chang, Roland Wood and Rhian Lois.” - Thanks to Scottish Opera for sharing this.
📌 Sunday at Fruitmarket: “TFEH presents a triple bill of experimental music & weird science by experimental musicians & weird scientists with ALEATORY MUSIC SYSTEMS , ALISON BEATTIE & VOLE INVASION at Fruitmarket, Edinburgh, EH1 1DF on Sunday 9th November 2025. You can get tickets now!” - Thanks to Ali Robertson, organiser at Tfeh, for sharing this.
📌 “A new contemporary art gallery, SANKI, has opened in Edinburgh dedicated to recent Scottish graduates and local emerging artists. Their first exhibition 'Environmental Rendering' runs until the 16th of November focussed on the drastic societal and environmental change we are experiencing.” - Thanks to Rosie Hodgson Smith, Director and Curator of SANKI, for sharing this. - The gallery is on Inverleith Row. Find out more about it here.