The Edinburgh Minute ⏰ Weekend edition 16 - 18 August 2024
Saoirse Ronan launches film festival, bus tracker update promise, King's Theatre refurb update, ECA grad show opens + Edinburgh Art Festival begins
🌤️ Good morning Edinburgh. Here’s Friday’s Edinburgh Minute, followed by the weekend guide for paid-subscribers.
🚏 Here’s a bold claim: Edinburgh’s bus trackers will display live bus info by next month. the promise was made by council officials at yesterday’s council transport meeting. Already more than three years behind schedule, the 330 newly-installed screens currently show timetabled arrivals rather than live updates. - Donald Turvill, Local Democracy Reporter, in The Edinburgh Reporter.
“This is an embarrassment. Why on earth did the council not ensure the system was working before they removed the old live bus tracker system?” - Councillor Chas Booth.
🚦 Councillors on the Transport & Environment committee also voted to keep a pedestrian area outside the St James Quarter car-free. - Spurtle.
🚨 Detectives are appealing for witnesses after a woman was robbed on Monday night on Leith Links. - Police Scotland.
🏗️ There are new photos from inside the refurbishment of the King's Theatre on the Capital Theatres website.
🍽️ The Boathouse on Portobello's promenade is set to open nearly two years after closing for renovation. - Kris Gourlay, Edinburgh Live.
💰 Sir Keir Starmer pulled the plug on an £800 million University of Edinburgh supercomputer because it made “little strategic sense” a UK government source has claimed. - Andrew Learmonth, The Herald.
🚈 ScotRail is warning customers of fewer train services this weekend due to ‘drivers continuing to make themselves unavailable for rest day working, as is their contractual right," according to ScotRail.
📌 Edinburgh Minute Community Noticeboard
📌 A reader rightly points out that I should link more often to the Free Fringe programme. It has nearly 7,500 performances of 370 shows across its venues. The programme is here.
📌 ‘The Edinburgh College of Art's 2024 Graduate Show is on beginning Saturday, 17 August. You're welcome to view the graduate's work across the schools of Art, Design and Architecture and Landscape Architecture. Info on times, booking, and location in the link.’ - Thanks to subscriber Brandon for sharing this.
📌 ‘The Story Sessions is an evening of storytelling hosted by Soapbox & Tribe Porty. An invitation to gather, to be inspired, to be heard, to tell, and to listen to real people sharing real stories.’ - Thanks to Ellie, Creative, Soapbox, for sharing this. It’s on Friday 30 August and free tickets are here.
📌 ‘Edinburgh Repair Cafe will be running a repair event on Sunday 18th, 11am-2pm at The Ripple. Bring your broken household items and our friendly volunteers will help you try and repair them. Contact us via this link to book a space.’ - Thanks to the folks at Repair Cafe Edinburgh for sharing this.
📌 ‘Join the Royal Scottish Academy for a conversation about contemporary painting. Rowan Paton, Toby Paterson RSA (Elect), Audrey Grant and Jack Dunnett, who are all exhibitors in the current exhibition Frontiers, will give short talks covering their practice, views and opinions on Scottish painting.’ - Thanks to the Royal Scottish Academy for getting in touch to share this.
🎭 Festival news & chat
🎬 Actor Saoirse Ronan headed down the Cameo red carpet last night to launch the reboot of the Edinburgh International Festival with the UK premiere of an adaptation of Orcadian writer Amy Liptrot’s acclaimed memoir The Outrun. - Brian Ferguson, The Scotsman.
🎤 Reginald D Hunter has broken his silence about an antisemitism row sparked by one of his Fringe shows this week, saying he ‘regrets’ the incident. But he’s not apologising. - More details in Chortle.
⮑ Police Scotland told the BBC that it was investigating the incident.
🎨 Kicking off today, this year’s Edinburgh Art Festival is described an 'exceptionally rich and varied' showcase of over 200 artists in The Week Recommends.
⮑ It’s the art festival’s 20th birthday, with 55 exhibitions and events across the city. Find them listed here.
⮑ Top of the bill on Saturday night is the Jupiter Rising night at Jupiter Artland. It’s an artist-driven music festival with the ‘infamous’ late night stage curated this year by the Femmergy collective. - There are still some tickets here.
💰 ‘Cheap vs Expensive: How to enjoy the Edinburgh Fringe on any budget’ - Jonny Walfisz, EuroNews.
🎤 ‘Why is the Edinburgh Fringe flooded with solo shows about awful experiences?’ - Fergus Morgan, The Stage.
🎭 My Festival: Camille O'Sullivan, The Scotsman.
🎤 All of The Skinny’s four- and five-star reviews are being collated here.
📆 Things to do this weekend:
🪩 To celebrate the festivals, you can get 20% off a subscription here.
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