Edinburgh Culture Minute 🪩 24 - 30 June 2026

'A disaster' - Graham Norton on Edinburgh losing a festival, EIF bans phones during shows, Filmhouse's first birthday + Hogmanay headliners & tickets update

👋 Hello loyal paying Edinburgh Minute subscribers. You are the reason this and the daily newsletter exist, so huge thanks for your support. It's a busy 134th weekly Culture Minute, including a summary of the city's creative industries news, events, jobs and opportunities. If I’ve missed anything please get in touch.

👀 The most-viewed links from last week’s Edinburgh Culture Minute:

📚 Edinburgh International Book Festival line up (tickets out tomorrow).
🌸 The next Botanics Lates event is on 14 August.
🎭 King's Theatre's special opening weekend public tours.
✍️ New Edinburgh Handwriting Pen Pal project.
📚 Caitlin Moran to discuss her new book at The Queen's Hall.

🗞️ News

🎭 There are 44 days until this year's Edinburgh festivals begin. If you are a festival organiser and you want to offer special things this wonderful, active, loyal and highly-engaged audience, NOW is the time to get in touch.

📺 After 50 years of events here in the capital, the Edinburgh TV Festival is relocating to Manchester next year. Organisers, The TV Foundation, cited 'accessibility and affordability', reports Lynette Horsburgh, BBC News. Tickets for the biggest screen industry gathering currently cost up to £1,249.

Explaining the move, Campbell Glennie, CEO of the TV Festival, said on LinkedIn: “Manchester presented a vision for the Festival that combined genuine creative ambition and future-facing energy with practical accessibility and affordability for delegates. This means we can radically reduce the costs associated with attending the Festival as well as the cost of passes."
- There has been a range of reactions in Edinburgh, summarised as 'meh' to 'this is worrying', as you'll see in the links below:
"TV festival is more an industry conference than a festival but it’s a great shame. Edinburgh and Scotland's nascent screen industry combined with the world's best festivals for finding new talent and content / networking in August was / is a unique and attractive combination." - SNP City Centre councillor Finlay McFarlane.
Edinburgh Council leader Jane Meagher said: "Of course, we're disappointed."
Screen Scotland director David Smith said: “Looking forward the resources that would have supported the TV Festival had it stayed in Edinburgh are now available to support other new things. That is the opportunity.” -
There's much more detail as to why the festival chose to leave Edinburgh in this report by Chris Newbould of Prolific North, including this quote from festival chair Fatima Salaria:

"This decision was not about turning away from Edinburgh or from Scotland. I want to be clear about that. Scotland’s creative community has helped shape the Festival. The work of Screen Scotland, and the strength of Scottish producers, creatives, indies, freelancers and talent, remain an important part of our future. But we also had to look honestly at what the Festival needs now. The industry has changed. The cost of taking part has changed."

"This is hilarious and magnificent Anglocentrism in Action. Edinburgh famously difficult to get to." - Bella Caledonia's Mike Small.
"Overall, it feels like a mistake. Cutting the links with the Edinburgh Fringe and festival is also a big risk. The TV festival has always benefitted from taking place alongside the comedy fringe. That is now lost." - Broadcast magazine boss Conor Dignam.
"We have lost the TV Festival. This needs to be a warning shot to the authorities that action needs to be taken - and quickly - before we lose more." - Jane Bradley, The Scotsman's Arts and culture correspondent.
"No matter which way you look at it, the optics of Edinburgh losing its long-running TV Festival are pretty grim. After years of warnings over the soaring costs of staying in the city in August, the event’s relocation to Greater Manchester is something of a wake-up call for the Scottish capital." - The Herald's Arts Correspondent Brian Ferguson.
This year's TV Festival is still going ahead in Edinburgh, though, between 25-28 August. The line-up includes broadcast journalists Cathy Newman (Sky News), Susanna Reid (Good Morning Britain) and Clive Myrie (BBC News). - Tickets and more details are here.

⮑ One last thing on this: broadcaster Graham Norton, a Fringe Ambassador, said earlier this year: "I think it would be madness for the TV Festival to move," in this Fringe video.

👀 If today's newsletter is too long for your inbox, read it online here.

🎬 The programme for this year's Edinburgh International Film Festival (13 - 19 August) is due to be launched on 1 July. I'll include that in next week's edition. - See what's already been announced here.

📚 Tickets for this year's Edinburgh International Book Festival go on sale tomorrow (Thursday 25 June) at 10am on this link.

Full details have been released about the BBC's festivals coverage, which will be broadcast from the book festival's Spiegeltent from 17 to 21 August. - More details here.

"We’re thrilled that the BBC have chosen to make our site their Festival broadcast hub for 2026, sharing the unique atmosphere of the world's greatest festival city with listeners around the world. We look forward to welcoming BBC audiences to our fabulous site at the Book Festival, in the heart of the Festival city - a place where audiences of all ages come together to explore new ideas, share their views, and revel in the magic of storytelling." - Jenny Niven Director of the Edinburgh International Book Festival.

🎆 Underworld have been announced as this year's Hogmanay headliners. Tickets go on general sale at 10am on Friday. You can get pre-sale access from 10am tomorrow if you sign up here before midnight tonight (Wednesday).

📵 Phones will be banned at some festival shows this summer. In an announcement this week, the Edinburgh International Festival said: "We're acting on what audiences and artists have told us: phones are disruptive. In 2025, phones interrupted every single concert in our Queen’s Hall chamber series, to the frustration of everyone in the room."

"When the lights go down and the performance starts, we would like phones to disappear from our hands, minds and ears. Views on this have been widely and boldly expressed in recent months and we are acting in communion with our beloved audiences and extraordinary artists." - EIF director Nicola Benedetti.

🎞️ 'We've Got A Cinema And We're Not Afraid To Use It' is the name of the Filmhouse programme this month, as it celebrates its first full year since reopening, with a programme including members' picks via a poll. - Find all the Filmhouse birthday party plans here.

🎟️ Big tickets this week

🎵 All aboard Summerhall on Saturday evening as The Loveboat Big Band cruise in to town, promising ' classiest musical cocktail of shipboard-style swing, show-tunes and hand-picked pop gems'. The bill includes The Loveboat Big Band, the 100-strong Soundhouse Choir, DJ Dolphin Boy, The Bevvy Sisters and more. - Full details and tickets here.

🎼 Edinburgh's Phoenix Choir have their biggest ever show at the Usher Hall on Saturday. - There are a few tickets left here.

🎥 Two-time Academy Award winning cinematographer Roger Deakins will be at the Assembly Rooms on Tuesday discussing his work on The Shawshank Redemption, Skyfall, Fargo, Blade Runner 2049, The Big Lebowski, Prisoners, 1917, and No Country for Old Men. - Tickets are here.

🩰 'Toe-to-toe boxers, a moving maze and comedy flamenco: Edinburgh festival 2026’s hottest dance and circus' - Lyndsey Winship, The Guardian.

🎤 One of the festival's freshest comedy shows, Punchline On Leith, has its first line-up announcement of the year: Nish Kumar is returning. The event, which raises money for the Citadel charity's work with young people and families in Leith, has shows at 3pm and 7pm on 12 August. - Tickets are here and sold out last year.

📲 Prank caller Tiny Tim (from YouTube) is going to be at Portobello Town Hall on Thursday. - Tickets here.

🎶 Discover 'the perfect introduction to opera' at Portobello Town Hall on Saturday night. Scottish Opera presents a double-bill of specially created 30-minute performances. - Tickets here.

🎤 Best-known for his sketches mocking British daytime TV presenting styles, Dave Durkan has announced a week of shows at The Gilded Saloon during the Fringe. - Tickets here.

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 Edinburgh-based comedian Connor Burns has once again sold out his Fringe run, this time at Just The Tonic Nucleus. However, tickets have just been added for a third show at the Playhouse on 22 August. - Tickets are here and expected to also sell out.

Frank Skinner has announced the revolving line-up for his Fringe show at George Square titled 'Crowd Work', including Sara Pascoe and Mark Watson. - Details and tickets here.

🎵 Folksinger and songmaker Kirsty Law invites you to an alternative look at Scotland’s storytelling past at Pianodrome in Bruntsfield on Saturday evening. Covering female and queer narratives, movement of peoples and sharing of cultures across centuries of folk tradition, all hidden in song. - Tickets here.

✍️ Writers looking to spread their wings should check out the next Chicken Coop Writing Group event on Tuesday 30 June at Lost in Leith. - It's hosted by Naomi Head, whose latest Good Egg Project newsletter has the city's open mic events and much more.

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

Here's Thom Dibdin of All Edinburgh Theatre:

It's a bit of a hodgepodge of a week this, although there is some highly recommended stuff on offer, including pop-up Opera, pop-up Burns a couple of EdFringe previews some Karate chops and a whole lot of illusion...

Top tip is the wonderful The Burns Project, dropping into the Empire Room of the Lyceum (ends Sun 5 July: tickets). Get in there quick - it is an intimate, small audience production, set around a table of illusions, with James Clements as Burns and Ray Aggs providing the music and vocals.

Action hero lovers should get along chop, chop to the Festival theatre for The Karate Kid the Musical (ends Sat: tickets). Great acting, design and choreography says our Hugh, but he does wonder why it bothers to be a musical: ★★★☆☆ Nostalgic.

Expect a whole load of wonderment at the Playhouse this week, as Derren Brown returns (again) to prove - through his mind control and psychological illusion - that we are Only Human. (Ends Sat: tickets).

Then we get a mini Edinburgh tour. Northern Assignment is staging Lucy Prebble's The Effect (about a couple who meet while taking part in a medical trial into mind-influencing drugs) at the Wee Red Bar (Thurs), Assembly Roxy (Fri) and the Voodoo Rooms (Mon 29). Tickets for all perfs here.

Scottish Opera is also touring its pop-up of 30 minute bite-size operas A Little Bit of Rigoletto and The Elixir of Love. Friday's Royal Scots Club show is sold out, but there's still space at Portobello Town Hall (Sat: tickets).

The early crop of EdFringe previews didn't use the clash diary. Both are on Sunday. Niall Moorjani's "★★★☆☆ Compassionate" Kanpur: 1857 is at the Scottish Storytelling Centre (tickets) and Edinburgh Rep's Jane Austen's Love & Freindship [Sic] is at Augustine United Church (tickets).

Luna Mageia has Solstice in Bloom at Summerhall (Fri/Sat: tickets). Nine storytellers explore the light and shade of a year on a vulnerable, thought-provoking and uplifting journey of new beginnings.

And finally, those wags from Heads on Crooked are "staging" Till Schindler's unstageable piece of absurdist theatre Crawl at the Bruntsfield Pianodrome early next week (Mon/Tue: tickets). Erm - electrifying?

For further details on these and other early openers next week, Æ's listings pages are all linked here.

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🏰 Catalan Human Towers Return to Edinburgh
Sat 27 June - 'Experience Catalan human towers in Edinburgh with the local group and Castellers de Sarrià, group from Barcelona. A unique display of teamwork, trust and tradition, with castells and live Catalan music in a vibrant cultural exchange open to all ages.'
4pm to 6.30pm | The Mound · New Town | FREE - More details here, shared by Colla Castellera d'Edinburgh.

📸 CARBON CHEMICAL CURSE: Reclaiming the Photographic Commons
Mon 20 July - 'This July at Fruitmarket, Edinburgh, Hannah and Edd from the Sustainable Darkroom will be joined by two local artists, Scott Hunter and Jess Holdengarde, to discuss their own diverse approaches to photography in an era of ecological crisis.'
7pm to 10pm | Fruitmarket · Old Town | FREE - More details here, shared by Sustainable Darkroom.

🎭 Modern Love
Thur 23 July - 'Join Atelier 32 at Scottish Storytelling Centre on Thursday 23rd July 2026 with their new production of 'Modern Love', which explores how we treat one another when the word 'love' is involved!'
7pm to 8pm | Scottish Storytelling Centre · Old Town | £12, £10 concession - More details here, shared by Atelier 32.

🎶 Series of animated access guides now available for the Edinburgh International Festival - 'Guided by our Access Panel and created with neurodivergent animators and voice talent, our new animated series makes our accessibility offerings clearer and more digestible, whether you're an Edinburgh resident regular or first-time attendee!' - More details here, shared by Edinburgh International Festival.

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