🪩 Edinburgh Culture Minute: 26 June - 2 July 2024
Festival flypast fury, Fringe Central update, Jazz Bar reopens on Monday, Take One Action's free Summer Gathering + a new free monthly meet-up for people who make things
Welcome to the 50th edition of the Culture Minute, a weekly round-up of Edinburgh’s local creative news, events, jobs and opportunities.
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🆕 News & happenings this week
🏰 The Royal Air Force and the Tattoo are facing calls to curb or drop their festival flypasts due to concerns about their ‘environmental damage and emotional harm,’ reports Brian Ferguson in today’s Scotsman. Councillors on the local authority culture committee voted to express their ‘regret’ and want a crackdown on the ‘intrusive’ flypasts. But Tattoo Chief Executive Jason Barrett insists he has no plans to stop the military aircraft showcase, saying: ‘We remain vigilant in our planning and execution of all elements of our event.’
🏆 The List magazine is counting down the day to the festivals. This week, Kevin Fullerton checks out the Edinburgh Deaf Festival programme and discovers a new Fringe-centric podcast.
🎭 The Fringe Society’s new permanent, year-round, home at South Bridge Resource Centre on Infirmary Street is adopting the Fringe Central name. The building will continue to host Canongate Youth centre, along with Totally Sound and Reel Youth Media. The Fringe said it aims to collaborate with them on ‘activities and projects that allow their young people to be part of the renovation process’. - The Fringe published this update this morning:
“It felt appropriate to name the new home Fringe Central as it reflects our ambitions to provide year- round, the services we offer in August- a meeting point for artists, media and participants, local and visiting. This ties in with the open-access nature of this building – a place for those involved with the festival to use throughout the year. We are restoring this wonderful heritage building in the heart of Edinburgh’s Old Town, and the heart of the Fringe, returning it to full use for the next 99 years.”
📲 The newly updated Edinburgh Festival Fringe app has gone live, including a new offline mode, meaning you can access your saved tickets even when phone signal is bad. - The various links to download it on to any device are here.
📚 Edinburgh Women's Fiction Festival has announced the first round of authors and chairs participating in its 27 and 28 September events. The festival also has a new website. Tickets will go on sale on 27 July.
🎷 The Jazz Bar will reopen on July 1 and its reopening week events have been announced.
💃 Leith Cricket Club will host All Hands on 26 July, with Other Other Music and Supper Club joining forces. Playing live Both Hands, El Ghoul, Faith Elliot and Thundermoon. - Tickets are here.
🎸 The Scottish premiere of Pete Townshend’s Quadrophenia, a Mod Ballet, has been announced by the Festival Theatre.
🏆 Congrats to the Fruitmarket Bookshop’s Allison Everett on winning the Cultural Enterprises Seeds For Change Prize for their makers mentorship programme. - You can read more about what the judges had to say about Future Makers here.
🎭 What’s on Edinburgh’s stages this week?
Here’s Thom Dibdin of All Edinburgh Theatre:
It's a nicely balanced week of theatre this week, with couple of juicy local shows from the Young Team, last chance for a tip-top favourite and a pair touring belters.
The local Young Team deserve top mention this week. Out at the Cre8 Theatre (that's at Edinburgh College, EH15 2PQ) Happy Sad productions have Twisted: The untold story of a Royal Vizier (ends Sat: tickets), which does for Aladdin what Wicked did for the Wizard of Oz, apparently.
Back in town at the Augustine United Church on George IV Bridge, Not so Nice! productions have He’s Not Gay, He’s Just My Brother! (Fri/Sat: tickets), a new comedy for Pride month by Ryan Lithgow.
Anyone who hasn't yet seen Sally Reid give her CATS award-winning performance of Shirley Valentine (ends Sat: tickets) should get along to the Lyceum pronto! She is very good indeed.
There have been many, many accolades for The Life of Pi, in all its forms. It's at the Festival Theatre (ends Sat: tickets), so now's the chance to see if the theatrical version of this deeply philosophical novel lives up to the hype.
A familiar show returns to the Playhouse this week, with Grease (ends Sat: tickets). Edinburgh-born actors Kieran Lynch and Rebecca Stenhouse who were Peter Pan and Tink in last year's panto, star as Doody and Rizzo.
There is a big treat at the Festival Theatre in the form of musical theatre royalty Lea Salonga, who has her Stage, Screen & Everything in Between (Sun: tickets). There are a few seats left in the gods.
And finally, dancer Rob Heaslip has Man and Board, a duet for, well, a man and a board, at Assembly Roxy (Thurs/Fri: tickets).
Early July is a theatre desert, so it's EdFringe listings of all the Edinburgh-made shows for the next few weeks. But if you want more detail of this week's shows, it's all on Æ's Preview and Listings.
📌 Culture Minute news from the Community Noticeboard
⮑ Share yours using this form.
📌 “Last chance to get your tickets for Take One Action's free Summer Gathering this Sunday, featuring our relaunch plans, delicious Syrian food, Imagining a Better Future and Action! Film Clubs workshops, a chance to screenprint your old T-shirts and totes, games for social change, a film sale, tombola with exciting prizes and a film quiz. We'll see you there!” - Thanks to Rachel, director of Take One Action, for sharing this.
📌 “Join us on Tues 2 July from 7.30-9pm at Embassy Gallery, EH1, for LISTENING PARTY, a free monthly meetup for people who make things. The month we'll delve into ‘getting projects off the ground’ - getting ideas out of our heads and into reality. We'll look into core beliefs which limit our ability to get started, and will spend time planning and chatting together, so we all leave knowing what needs to happen next! IG: @listeningpartyclub.” - Thanks to Rachel Stanley, Host, Listening Party, for sharing this.
📌 Published and award-winning writers including Lyndsey Croal, Lynsey May, Charlie Roy and Ricky Ballboy are on the line-up of a new Prose Slam event hosted by Anita Govan where the audience can vote with their money to pay the writers directly. - 21 July, Lost in Leith.
📌 “Dovecot's exhibition 'Chris Ofili: The Caged Bird's Song' opens on the 28th June. For the first time, audiences in Scotland will have the opportunity to see Dovecot's major tapestry with Turner Prize-winning artist, Chris Ofili, up-close. The Caged Bird’s Song tapestry will form the centrepiece of a new exhibition exploring the story and work behind the commission in the context of the studio where the tapestry was created.” - Thanks to the Dovecot Studios team for sharing this.
📌 “ECVS has a couple of amateur films in production that need actors/props/locations/extras/crew - mebbies you?” - Edinburgh Cine & Video Society:
🤝 Networking, jobs and funding opportunities
⮑ If you got a job thanks to these listings, please let me know! I love hearing what’s useful to you. Here are this week’s new creative opportunities, followed by the ‘still open’ list:
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