Category Archives: Edinburgh festival

Protests held on stage at Edinburgh festival over Scottish arts funding cuts

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Anger grows over proposed cuts of up to £10m for Creative Scotland affecting freelance artists and performers

Actors and directors have protested on stage during the Edinburgh festival after anger about proposed cuts to Scottish arts funding escalated into open revolt.

Protest messages were read out after performances, including at the Traverse, Lyceum, George Square, Summerhall and Church Hill theatres, to loud applause from audiences, as thousands of artists and performers signed an open letter calling for the cuts to be reversed.

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Jess Phillips calls X a ‘place of misery’ as she vows to scale back use

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Labour minister says she removed social media platform’s app from her mobile phone when Elon Musk took over

A government minister said she has scaled back her use of social media platform X, arguing it had become “a bit despotic” and was “a place of misery now”.

Jess Phillips, the minister for safeguarding and violence against women and girls, said although she had previously been “massively addicted to Twitter”, referencing the former name of X, she had removed the app from her phone after Elon Musk took over the company in October 2022.

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Prunella Scales returns to role of Queen Victoria for Edinburgh fringe show

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The Fawlty Towers actor has often played the monarch in the past and has now recorded audio for a new production at the festival

At the age of 91, Prunella Scales has reprised one of her favourite roles. The actor, who was diagnosed with vascular dementia 10 years ago, has recorded the part of Queen Victoria for a production at the Edinburgh fringe this summer.

She played the character more than 400 times in An Evening With Queen Victoria, a play written for her by Katrina Hendrey in 1979. She returned to the show on and off in performances around the world until 2007 and brought it to an end only because she was finding it hard to remember the lines.

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How impressionists keep audiences laughing in an age of social media celebrities

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Younger audiences may not recognise people comedians are impersonating but some performers say there’s still plenty to work with

“If I see somebody become famous, and they’ve got tremendously predominant mannerisms and they speak a certain way which is unusual, I go for it right away,” the veteran impressionist Mike Yarwood once said of the public figures he mimicked.

But in the decades since Yarwood drew up to 18 million viewers to his BBC shows – with his impressions of the likes of Harold Wilson and the football manager Brian Clough – the cultural touchstones that once defined celebrity have exponentially shifted. With traditional TV viewership continuing to decline among younger generations, impressionists are faced with a new challenge – today’s digital natives may not readily recognise the people they are impersonating.

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Graham Linehan show staged outside Scottish parliament after second venue cancels

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Makeshift outdoor show held after two venues cancel booking of comedian known for his gender-critical beliefs

A comedy event featuring Father Ted creator Graham Linehan was staged in the open air outside the Scottish parliament on Thursday evening, after a second Edinburgh venue refused to stage it.

The organisers, Comedy Unleashed, booked the plaza outside Holyrood’s main entrance, and erected a small makeshift stage for an audience of roughly 120 people, after failing to find another indoor venue.

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Georgie Grier plays to sell-out Edinburgh crowd 24 hours after tearful tweet

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Actor and writer posted yesterday after performing her show Sunsets to one audience member

An actor who went viral online after she posted a tearful tweet about performing her one-woman show to an audience of one at the Edinburgh festival fringe has played to a sell out crowd only 24 hours later.

The actor and writer Georgie Grier received messages of support from comedians including Jason Manford and Dara Ó Briain when she posted on Twitter on Thursday afternoon: “There was one person in my audience today when I performed my one-woman play, ‘Sunsets’ at #edfringe. It’s fine, isn’t it? It’s fine …?”

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Edinburgh book festival hoping Greta Thunberg will bring back audiences

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Fallout from Covid crisis has left event struggling financially after last year’s ‘traumatic’ fall in sales

The Edinburgh International book festival hopes a swathe of Booker prize winners, political leaders and a guest appearance by Greta Thunberg will help restore its finances after a “traumatic” fall in sales last year.

The world’s largest book festival celebrates its 40th anniversary in August with events featuring Katrín Jakobsdóttir, the Icelandic prime minister, the former Booker winners Ben Okri and Anne Enright, and the International Booker winners Georgi Gospodinov and David Diop.

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Edinburgh University tries to defuse row after trans rights protests over film

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Executives holds talks with both sides after screening of gender critical documentary was cancelled

Edinburgh University hopes to defuse a crisis involving gender critical and pro-trans academics after clashes over the screening of the film Adult Human Female.

University executives are holding talks with both sides after pro-trans activists prevented the gender critical documentary from being screened on campus for the second time late last month, by blockading a theatre where it was due to be shown.

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Edinburgh notebook: ‘Rik Mayall was like Bad Santa to us’

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Stand-up comic Red Richardson on his pedigree comedy childhood

Driving Rik Mayall around would be entertaining work for anyone, but for the young Red Richardson, the job he had in his 20s was the continuation of a childhood bond.

Mayall, who died suddenly in 2014 at the age of 56, was a near neighbour in South Devon, but he was also Richardson’s father’s close friend.

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Equity union launches working practices charter for comedians

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Measures aim to ensure safety, pay transparency and anti-harassment and discrimination policies

The performing arts and entertainment trade union Equity has launched a comedian’s charter in an effort to ensure good working practices and the safety of performers.

Developed by the union’s comedians’ network, the measures included in the charter “will ensure pay transparency, a safe working environment, late-night safety, and anti-harassment and discrimination policies”, according to Equity.

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Post-Brexit visa rules a ‘disaster’ for arts, says Edinburgh festival director

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Fergus Linehan calls for visa-free travel for British artists to solve logistical problems of touring

The outgoing director of the Edinburgh festival has called for the UK’s visa and exports rules to be greatly simplified to allow musicians and artists to travel overseas far more smoothly.

Fergus Linehan, who directs his last international festival next month, said the UK’s post-Brexit visa rules had been a “disaster” for the arts and for artists by stifling collaboration and making it harder for British artists to tour abroad.

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Thomas Quasthoff: ‘From birth, my mum felt guilty. I had to show her I made the best of my life’

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Born disabled due to the effects of Thalidomide, the exuberant star rose to classical music’s pinnacle – then quit at the peak of his powers. Now he’s back – singing jazz

Thomas Quasthoff has been retired from classical music for nearly a decade now. The German bass-baritone was in his early 50s when he made the shock announcement – an age when singers of his type are still in their prime. His elder brother Michael had been diagnosed with lung cancer in 2010, and that diagnosis and his brother’s subsequent death had left Quasthoff temporarily physically incapable of singing.


“Three days after being told that my brother would not live longer than nine months I lost my voice,” he recalls. “Doctors looked at my throat and said: ‘Everything is fine.’ But my heart was broken, and if the heart is broken ...” he pauses. “The voice is the mirror of the soul.”


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Edinburgh Fringe returns with mix of in-person and online shows

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Festival is part of world’s largest annual arts season which has been forced to curtail events due to Covid

The Edinburgh festival Fringe returns this weekend with a hybrid programme of nearly 800 in-person and online shows after its cancellation last year because of the coronavirus pandemic.

The Fringe makes up part of the world’s largest annual arts season, alongside the Edinburgh international festival and the book and film festivals, which open later this month, and all have been forced to significantly curtail this August’s events for the second year running. One of the most famous, the military tattoo staged at Edinburgh castle, has again been cancelled.

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Edinburgh festival fringe threatened by Covid rules, says organiser

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CEO calls on Scottish ministers to replace 2-metre rule with 1 metre to secure future of world’s largest arts festival

The survival of the Edinburgh festival fringe is at stake unless social distancing rules for venues are relaxed within a fortnight, its organiser has said.

Shona McCarthy, the chief executive of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society, called on ministers to replace the 2-metre rule with the 1-metre distance used in hospitality in order to help secure the future of the world’s largest arts festival.

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‘It’s a ghost town’: tourism crisis hits British cities from Edinburgh to Bath

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The effects of coronavirus on both international and domestic visitor numbers have left former hotspots fearing for the future

On a typical July day, restaurateur Paul Wedgwood would see hundreds of people with wheelie suitcases – airline tags still attached – walking past the window of his restaurant on Edinburgh’s Royal Mile. This Thursday, he has seen just two. “We would normally look outside and you wouldn’t be able to see any tarmac – now it’s bare,” he said. “It’s just a ghost town.”

Like other British cities which usually attract high numbers of international tourists throughout the summer, Edinburgh is quiet, and businesses are suffering. August’s festival had already been cancelled when news came last week that December’s Hogmanay party will not go ahead as usual.

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Hogmanay fury as Edinburgh residents told to apply for access to own homes

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Local people must ask Underbelly if they want more than six passes to their houses

Edinburgh residents have vented their anger at having to apply to a private company for access to their own homes during this year’s Hogmanay celebrations amid growing concern that the council’s hunger to attract tourism is reducing the Scottish capital to a “theme park”.

People living in some parts of the city centre will also face potential restrictions on the number of guests they can invite if they wish to have parties of their own on New Year’s Eve, when the entertainment giant Underbelly will be running an event expected to attract more than 70,000 people.

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For one night only: how Edinburgh’s standups spend their day off

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For performers, the fringe is a delirium-inducing month of nonstop work. They get just one day off throughout August – so they have to use it wisely…

I love my show and when you have a day off, the next day is a bit lacklustre. But I do need it because I am a queen and I deserve a rest. I’m of the “living your best life” mantra and I don’t just talk it, I walk it. I’ll have a long spa day – massage, mani, pedi, eyebrows – go for the sexiest dinner in this nice hotel on the bridge with all my girls, then get cocktails. I’m single, but I’m like Lady Gaga – she doesn’t sleep with guys when she’s writing her album because men steal her creative energy. But on my day off, I’m allowed.

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Edinburgh festival performers refuse sterling payments due to Brexit

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Artists ask to be paid in euros and dollars as pound continues to fall amid no-deal risk

Increasing numbers of artists are asking to be paid in dollars and euros instead of sterling because of Brexit uncertainty, the director of the Edinburgh international festival has said.

The three-week arts festival opened on Friday and includes 293 performances by 2,600 artists from 40 countries. Speaking during its opening weekend, Fergus Linehan, who has been its director since 2015, said many performers had refused to be paid in sterling.

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