THE SKINNY
August 2026 Issue 247
June 2022
Graduate Showcase 2022
FREE
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Take the tram to the Summer Sessions at the Royal Highland Centre this August Closest Tram Stop: Ingliston Park & Ride
You must Tap Off to pay the cheapest adult single City Zone fare, otherwise an Airport Zone fare will be charged. Contactless terms and conditions apply.
S R U O H D N A S TEN THOU
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THE LISTIES: 110% READY
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BIRDS
Alex Hine s & Sarah Assembly Stafford George S q u a re: T 19:00, 5th - 30th Au he Box gust
FUCCBOIS
Bridie Connell Two e Square: Studio rg eo G y bl em ss A August 17:05, 5th - 31st
Bringing Australian Creativity to the World
A IC ER M A IN IT E K A M O T T O N HOW
Theatre Republic nts Locker Room Summerhall Former Ge st 21:20, 6th - 31st Augu
GLASS CHILD
The Farm Summerhall Old Lab 13:30, 6th - 16th Augu st
OUR PARTNERS
CONCERTS OF THE FUT
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The Sonic
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DADDY
Joel Bray Dance ain Hall Summerhall M t August 22:40, 6th - 31s
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THE SKINNY
The Skinny's songs we would name our Fringe show after Beyonce - Listen Johnny Cash - I've Been Flushed From the Bathroom of Your Heart Geese - 100 Horses Gelli Haha - Piss Artist Charli xcx - Girl, so confusing Mogwai - Party In the Dark LCD Soundsystem - Losing My Edge Errors - Sorry About the Mess Electric Light Orchestra - Evil Woman Britney Spears - Toxic Ariana Grande - yes, and? Patrick Cowley - Menergy Sky Ferreira - Everything is Embarrassing Sorry - Screaming In The Rain Talking Heads - Slippery People Martha Wainwright - BMFA Joy Division - She's Lost Control Ariana Grande - No Tears Left to Cry Listen to this playlist on Spotify — search for
'The Skinny Office Playlist' or scan the below code
Issue 247, August 2026 © Radge Media C.I.C. August 2026 - Chat
Get in touch: E: hello@theskinny.co.uk The Skinny is Scotland's largest independent entertainment & listings magazine, and offers a wide range of advertising packages and affordable ways to promote your business. Get in touch to find out more. E: sales@theskinny.co.uk All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in whole or in part without the explicit permission of the publisher. The views and opinions expressed within this publication do not necessarily represent the views or opinions of the printer or the publisher. Printed by DC Thomson & Co. Ltd, Dundee
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Championing creativity in Scotland Meet the team This month we asked: Which Fringe performer would you like to have a night out with and why? Senior Editorial
Rosamund West Editor-in-Chief "I have survived enough nights out with Fringe performers to know I don't want to do this."
Peter Simpson Deputy Editor, Food & Drink Editor "Any comic who wants a pint and can sneak me past the bar queues is a friend of mine. It's called 'elite solidarity', look it up."
Anahit Behrooz Events Editor, Books Editor "A sexy acrobat, because they are a sexy acrobat."
Tallah Brash Jamie Dunn Music Editor Film Editor, Online Journalist "I’d go for a pint with Andy Burnham "My partner Malcolm since he and one of those late-night hypnotists genuinely ends up in almost every show we go to." so we can Manchurian Candidate the shit out of him. Not for anything sinister, just to make him tax the rich and stuff."
Myrtle Boot Clubs Editor "If Amanda Knox and I don't end up outside Sneaky Pete's at 5am this Fringe then something has gone horribly wrong."
Eilidh Akilade Intersections Editor "I don't really care who, as long as the night out ends before the last train back to Glasgow. My skincare routine comes before the Fringe."
Rachel Ashenden Art Editor "No thanks, I have enough extroverted friends."
Phoebe Crawford Comedy Editor "I wouldn't mind splitting a lasagne with Roger Prick. Let's just say I trust he might have a thing or two to say about a thing or two."
Business
Production
Laurie Presswood General Manager "I spy on Ellie and Basil Brush from the bushes of George Sq Gardens. I trust this is self explanatory."
Dalila D'Amico Art Director, Production Manager "A Mime. Any mime. We've all seen Fringe performer after a few drinks, at least mimes have the decency of doing it silently."
Phoebe Willison Designer "The big massive cow (birds of a feather etc)."
Ellie Robertson Editorial Assistant "Basil Brush used to have an 'after dark' show at the Fringe. You know if a British TV puppet has adultsonly material, he must have some wild nights out."
Joanna Hare Business Development Executive "Gonna have to copy Myrtle on this one - Amanda Knox 100%, because we simply must celebrate chaotic women."
Ema Smekalová Media Sales Executive "I would like to share a late night glass of absinthe with Bernie Dieter but I'm scared/intimidated."
Emilie Roberts Media Sales Executive "My good friend Maggie Dickinson is putting on a show (Stanislavski Can't Save Me From the Apocalypse! Go see it!). I'd go on a night out with that cast, cause Maggie is cool, so I'm sure they are too."
Commissioning Editors
Sales
Sandy Park Commercial Director "Is Bob Mortimer at the Fringe this year? If so, him. Because who knows what sort of anecdotes you'd be able to tell after that. If Bob's not a valid answer, I'll go for a pint with James Acaster. No explanation required."
Mika Morava Theatre Editor "Anyone from the Circus Hub, so I can show them my cartwheel on the walk home for notes."
13
19 August 2026 edfilmfest.org
WITH THANKS TO OUR SUPPORTERS
THE SKINNY
Love Bites: What Remains of a Laugh Love Bites
This month’s columnist reflects on the laugh and loss of a loved one Words: Timothy Ngome
M
August 2026
y cousin Kenneth had a laugh that made you feel you had said something far more interesting than you actually had. This was his gift and, depending on the situation, his curse. Once, during a family gathering in which my aunt had served a stew of uncertain origin, Kenneth laughed at something I said about the meat and everyone assumed I had made a joke. I had not. I was genuinely asking. He was the kind of person you wanted in your corner, not because he was particularly useful in a crisis (as he was not) but because he made the crisis feel like material: something to be examined, turned over, laughed at from a safe distance. We were going to get old together and be terrible about it. We had an agreement. Karatina, June 2025 – a stray bullet. The phrase has a bureaucratic tidiness to it that I find genuinely offensive, as though death, when it cannot be attributed, simply gets filed under miscellaneous. I keep returning to the laugh. The way it had no agenda. The way it arrived ahead of the rest of him into every room, announcing: “Something good is about to happen, adjust yourselves accordingly.” Grief, I have discovered, is mostly just love with nowhere to go. You keep producing this love and there is no address for it anymore and so it sits in you, taking up room – and, occasionally, embarrassing you in public. Last month, at the local butchery, a man behind me laughed at something on his phone. It was not Kenneth’s laugh. It was not even close. But it began like his – that little intake of breath like a man about to dive into water, and by the time the butcher turned to ask what I wanted, my eyes had filled and my voice had gone somewhere. The butcher waited. The man behind me kept laughing. I stood there, a grown man crying at meat. Kenneth would have found this very funny. He would have laughed that laugh. I would have pretended it was only about the meat.
Crossword Solutions Across 1. PERFORMER 6. RAPT 8. BREACHES 9. GOBLIN 10. LYCEUM 11. ENTICING 12. TANDEM 15. YEARNING 16. ABDUCTED 19. DECOYS 21. FREE WILL 22. SPEECH 24. MIRROR 25. MUNCHIES 26. YEAH 27. HEAT WAVES Down 1. PARTY 2. REAR END 3. OGHAM 4. MYSTERY 5. RIGHT HAND 6. RUBICON 7. POIGNANCY 13. AUBERGINE 14. MATRIARCH 17. UNEARTH 18. DILEMMA 20. CHEKHOV 22. SINEW 23. CHESS
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THE SKINNY
Heads Up
It’s our August bumper special Heads Up – four pages (!!) – of festival, art, music and club recommendations across Edinburgh, Glasgow and Dundee. Compiled by Anahit Behrooz
Heads Up
Various venues, Edinburgh, 15-30 Aug Take a break from the chaos of the comedians and clowns and settle down with a good book (and a good author) at the Book Festival. Find events with Colson Whitehead, Elif Shafak, Douglas Stuart, Imani Thompson and – of course – the most exciting of them all: editor of The Skinny’s food magazine GNAW Peter Simpson in conversation with Times restaurant critic Chitra Ramaswamy, founder of Fare magazine Ben Mervis, and Vittles editor Rebecca May Johnson.
The Galloping Cure Festival Theatre, Edinburgh, 9-12 Aug, 7pm There’s something very chic about the world premiere of an opera, like being in 18th-century Vienna. Except this bold new work bursting onto the stage at Edinburgh International Festival is a distinctly modern take on the traditional genre, in which a town beset by chronic pain becomes an allegory for the crumbling structures of contemporary society.
FORIEGNER Summerhall, Edinburgh, 6-31 Aug (not 18, 25), 9pm FORIEGNER (typo intentional! It’s metacommentary!) brings together ideas of identity, belonging and immigration in a chaotic clown show that refuses to provide answers to any of these issues. Iranian asylum seeker and professional clown Sohrab Haghverdi isn’t interested in wading into the political debate: he needs his show to get him a visa.
Brit Barron: CHURCH
Image: courtesy of artist
Rebecca May Johnson
The Galloping Cure
Photo: Nadine Fraczkowski
Brit Barron
Marie Davidson for Big Hot Mess
Photo: Hiviz
Polka Dot Disco Club invites Sama’ Abdulhadi Sub Club, Glasgow, 21 Aug, 11pm Glasgow welcomes back Sama’ Abdulhadi, one of the most acclaimed dance music artists to have emerged from Palestine in recent years. This time she’s joining Polka Dot Disco Club, headlining their August edition with her high energy techno set blending Berlin-inspired beats with a Middle Eastern edge. Supporting on the night are Acido Cielo and Polka Dot founder Frankie Elyse.
Sama' Abdulhadi
The Pitt, Edinburgh, 22 Aug, 2pm What could be better than Hot Mess, Scotland’s seminal queer house and disco club night? Big Hot Mess, of course. DJ Simontron’s legendary party gets the full festival treatment, with an all-dayer at The Pitt featuring everything you love about Hot Mess but bigger and more: DJ sets from Simontron himself, Marie Davidson, Optimo (Espacio), Olof Dreijer and a live set from Accident Machine.
Ihsane Festival Theatre, Edinburgh, 18-20 Aug, 7:30pm
Photo: Alexander Appleby. Image courtesy Esther Castle and Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop
Dracula Lucy's Dream
Republic of Amnesia
Dracula: Lucy’s Dream
A South Asian Heritage Season Trio Esther Castle, Abundant Parts, 2026, Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop
Photo: Christophe Raynaud de Lage
Various venues, Edinburgh, 1430 Aug
Big Hot Mess: Marie Davidson, Olof Dreijer, Optimo, Accident Machine
Photo: Filip Van Roe
Photo: Kannan Arunasalam
Edinburgh Art Festival
Gilded Balloon Teviot, Edinburgh, 5-30 Aug (not 10, 17, 24), 12:40pm If there’s one thing megachurch pastors know how to do, it’s to hold a crowd’s attention. Which is why this solo comedy show by stand-up comedian and former megachurch pastor Brit Barron is set to be a transcendental experience. Staged like a church service, part stand-up and part live gospel, CHURCH is a devotion to unpacking faith, queerness and religious trauma.
Photo: Sami Lane
FOREIGNER
August 2026 — Chat
Photo: courtesy of Scottish Opera
Photo: Sophie Davidson
Edinburgh International Book Festival
Glasgow Film Theatre, Glasgow, 2-20 Aug — 10 —
Ihsane
Pleasance at EICC, Edinburgh, 6-30 Aug (not 12, 19, 26), 5:30pm
THE SKINNY
Photo: James Barlow
Sally Price: Twig Pools Summerhall, Edinburgh, until 13 Sep If you’ve caught a glimpse of the incredible rope sculptures at Kelburn Garden Party in the last couple of years and wished you could see more, perhaps in a less soggy setting, then you’re in luck. Edinburghbased artist Sally Price presents more site-specific rope installations that spill out over Summerhall’s Lab Gallery, exploring notions of weight, tension and catharsis, in her debut solo exhibition.
Huge Davies: Sleep Paralysis Princess
Sami Abu Wardeh Hates You
Sally Price, Twig Pools Photo: Dylan Woodley
Heads Up
Pleasance Courtyard, Edinburgh, 5-30 Aug (not 17), 10pm Irish-Palestinian comedian Sami Abu Wardeh returns to the Fringe after his acclaimed show Peace de Resistance last year, this time taking on the opposite topic: hate. Has the far right completely co-opted hating people? Is there a way to get it back? Can hate ever be a positive thing? With his trademark quickness and tongue-in-cheek clowning, Wardeh dissects the most misunderstood of emotions.
Monkey Barrel Comedy (Cabaret Voltaire), Edinburgh, 5-30 Aug (not 12, 19), 9:30pm He’s back, he’s grumpy, he’s wearing a keyboard. Edinburgh Comedy Award nominee Huge Davies returns with a new show about how very fucking tired he is. Having not slept in a decade, there seems no better time to make quick-witted jokes about it, some told in song, some told in his signature deadpan style.
Lawrence Abu Hamdan: Zifzafa
Photo: Dylan Woodley
Common Guild, Glasgow, 20 Aug-17 Oct Sound artist and ‘forensic listener’ Lawrence Abu Hamdan brings together a remarkable body of work, including a multichannel audiovisual installation, performance and video game, exploring the effects of noise pollution and green colonialism in the Israeli-occupied Syrian Golan Heights through a series of proposed wind turbines that will make the area sonically uninhabitable.
Sami Abu Wardeh Hates You
Huge Davies Image: courtesy of artist
Image: courtesy of Falastin Film Festival
Image: courtesy of M4 Festival AntsLive
Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Zifzafa: Livestream Audio Essay, 2025. Video game simulation still.
M4 FESTIVAL Falastin Film Festival
One More Show by Mai Saad & Ahmed Al Danaf
Photo: Charlotte Cullen
The Berkeley Suite, Glasgow, 14 Aug, 11pm
Tether 인연
Summerhall, Edinburgh, 6-31 Aug (not 11, 18, 25), 4:30pm
Image: courtesy of artist
Photo: Eoin Carey
Photo: Koltin Sullivan
KIN—TU04 ˚͇ :} Maveen ✫ NAMÄN ✫ DIJA ✫
Various venues, Edinburgh, 27-30 Aug Returning for its third edition, Falastin Film Festival – Scotland’s film festival dedicated to cinema from Palestine and Lebanon – is presented this year in association with the Edinburgh Art Festival. Included in the programme is an exhibition from the Palestinian Sound Archive, as well as films on storytelling, resistance and the colonial gaze, and an opening party DJ’ed by Mo’min Swaitat (Palestinian Sound Archive), Hajar Ibrahim (Shahrazadi duo) and Eclair Fifi.
UNDERGROUND MONK SHOW Sgàire Wood, at Jupiter Rising
UNDERGROUND MONK SHOW Maveen
Assembly George Square, Edinburgh, 5-30 Aug (not 17), 10:15pm
Jupiter Rising x EAF26 Tether
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Jupiter Artland, Edinburgh, 22 Aug, 5pm
August 2026 — Chat
SWG3, Glasgow, 29 Aug, 3pm Scottish rapper Bemz puts on the third edition of his music festival M4, dedicated to spotlighting the genres often overlooked in the Scottish music landscape, from hip-hop and afrobeat to soul and R‘n’B. As well as Bemz himself, artists appearing on the lineup include AntsLive, one of the UK’s most exciting rap talents, alongside ISO YSO, Salam Kitty and Joshua Dube.
August 2026
THE SKINNY
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THE SKINNY
Photo: Ralph Tonge
Nude Parade (WIP) Summerhall, Edinburgh, 19-24 Aug, 10:40pm The legendary duo behind Fringe hits Creepy Boys and SLUGS return with a new work in progress inspired by everyone’s favourite hospital-themed board game Operation, but think much, much queerer. Incorporating live-feed video, trash puppets and the slightly ominously promised ‘interactive surgery’, Nude Parade continues the pair’s fascination with bodies and identity.
Elsa McTaggart : Capturing The Light
France-Lise McGurn: The Charm Offensive
Elsa McTaggart: Capturing the Light Photo: Debbie Murray
Photo: Mat Simpson
Heads Up
DCA: Dundee Contemporary Arts, Dundee, 22 Aug-15 Nov The most significant exhibition by Scottish artist France-Lise McGurn thus far, The Charm Offensive marks a return to Dundee for the DJCAD-trained artist, bringing together paintings, objects and ephemera that spill out from their containers onto the gallery walls, exploring how the site of the exhibition space can work to recontextualise and subvert existing artworks.
theSpaceTriplex, Edinburgh, 7-28 Aug (not 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18, 21, 23, 25, 27), 11:40am Part of the Made in Scotland showcase, Elsa McTaggart’s Capturing the Light has Scottish credential upon Scottish credential: made by an entirely Isle of Lewis based team, it explores the story of Elsa’s great-grandfather, William McTaggart, one of Scotland’s most celebrated artists. Through storytelling and music, Elsa unpacks his legacy and its entanglement with Scottish rural traditions.
Made in Scotland Gigs
Dara Dubh for Made in Scotland Gigs
Image: courtesy of the artist, MASSIMODECARLO, London and The Modern Institute, Glasgow
Photo: Hugo Glendinning
Nude Parade
EXXY
France-Lise McGurn, No Mean City, 2026
EXXY Photo: Talie Eigeland
Sam Nicoresti: And For My Next Trick [WIP]
King’s Theatre, Glasgow, 23 Aug, 7:30pm Queer disabled performance artist Dan Daw returns to the Edinburgh International Festival following his acclaimed piece The Dan Daw Show last year. EXXY (Australian slang for ‘expensive’) asks how people might value themselves when society doesn’t, exploring the ambiguities and contradictions of existing as a marginalised person. August 2026 — Chat
Monkey Barrel Comedy Club, Edinburgh, 15-18 Aug, 12:45pm Following the tearaway success of her Fringe show Baby Doomer last year, Sam Nicoresti returns with a work-inprogress show that both builds on and sits in the shadow of her acclaim last year. What comes after the victory lap? She’s here to find out, one new joke at a time.
Sam Nicoresti
Photo: Ryan Eddleston
Photo: Matthew Barnes
Queen’s Park, Glasgow, 29 Aug
Aarian Mehrabani: How’s Your Head? Underbelly George Square, Edinburgh, 5-31 Aug (not 18), various times
Free Love
Free Love Leith FAB Cricket Club, Edinburgh, 26 Aug, 7pm
Photo: Andy Hollingworth Archive
Photo: Marilena Vlachopoulou
Big City 2026
Super Furry Animals appearing at Big City
Various venues, Edinburgh, 17 Aug It’s the yearly showcase of Scottish musical talent during the festivals, presented by Wide Days in collaboration with the Fringe. It’s the perfect chance to get a snapshot of the cutting edge of Scotland’s music scene, from post-punk to experimental jazz and trad. Taking place across Bannermans, La Belle Angele and Sneaky Pete’s, this year’s lineup includes Azamiah, Bikini Body, and Dara Dubh.
Aarian Mehrabani
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Jasmine Togo-Bristo
Jasmine Togo-Brisby: Liquid Land GoMA, Glasgow, until 6 Sep
THE SKINNY
Victoria Sykes Photo: Jason Sullivan
Photo: Paul Samuel White
Blackbox
Jada Evelyn Ramsey and Josiah Alpher in Blackbox
Jo Bannon: The Dirty Work
Underbelly Cowgate, Edinburgh, 5-30 Aug (not 17), 12:40pm In 1849, Henry ‘Box’ Brown – an enslaved man in Virginia – made his escape by posting himself to abolitionists in another state. His extraordinary bid for freedom takes the guise of a magic show in this innovative staging, in which illusion and history collide and resistance to oppression takes on a new dimension.
King Tut’s, Glasgow, 15 Aug, 7:30pm Sometimes you come across a band name that is so perfect, it almost doesn’t matter what their music sounds like. Good thing, though, that Oedipus & The Mama’s Boys deliver on that front too: the Edinburgh eight-piece band push the boundaries of genre, incorporating elements of post-punk, noise rock, grunge and new wave that translate into a euphorically intense live performance.
Photo: Beau Wolton
Heads Up
Oedipus & The Mama’s Boys Jo Bannon: The Dirty Work Tramway, Glasgow, 20-21 Aug, 8pm The tools of the magician’s trade – a fluffy bunny, a magic wand, a puff of smoke – take on new significance in this solo piece by disabled performance artist Jo Bannon, who uses the framework of a magic show to explore ideas of illusion, reality, and invisible labour and her lived experience of visual impairment.
Tomorrow’s Harvest
not for glory
Oedipus & The Mama's Boys
Photo: Piran Aston
Photo: Jorge Lizalde
Assembly @ Dance Base, Edinburgh, 11-23 (not 17) Reclaiming and subverting the traditions of Highland dance into something communal, radical and queer, Jack Anderson, Charlotte Mclean and Malin Lewis’ not for glory is a jubilant dissection of what it means to be rooted in creative tradition as a queer person, and how to refashion structures into something both familiar and new.
QMU, Glasgow, 28-29 Aug There’s a brand new festival in town in August, except the town is Glasgow which is a breath of fresh air. Tomorrow’s Harvest is a weekender from the team behind Edinburgh’s Cowgate Block Party: think the same focus on platforming emerging artists taking place in another of Scotland’s iconic music venues. Headlining are Working Men’s Club and Maruja, with sets by Puppy Teeth, Tina Sandwich and more.
Photo: Brian Hartley Wella in Circle of Fifths
August 2026 — Chat
Circle of Fifths
not for glory
Working Men's Club
Edinburgh International Film Festival
Photo: Trudy Stade
ZOO Southside, Edinburgh, 7-30 Aug (not 10, 17, 24), 6:25pm
Various venues, Edinburgh, 13-19 Aug
Photo: Christa Holka
Image: courtesy of EIFF
Photo: Joseph Abbey-Menseh
Evita TOO
ZOO Southside, Edinburgh, 24-30 Aug, 4:25pm Bringing together film, live music and real stories from Butetown, Wales’ oldest multicultural community, Circle of Fifths uses the immersive theatrical experience to celebrate life in the shadow of death, examining what bridges the gap between people in times of grief and loss.
Amanda Dwyer: Better Than Revenge
Ata Kak
Sh!t Theatre in Evita TOO
Ata Kak
I Want Your Sex
Stereo, Glasgow, 24 Aug, 7pm — 14 —
Amanda Dwyer
The Stand Comedy Club 2, Edinburgh, 6-30 Aug (not 17), 6pm
THE SKINNY
What's
On All details correct at the time of writing
Photo: Jean Yuzheng Zhang
Music In the spirit of the Fringe, we’re kicking this month’s column off in the capital on day dot at the Bruntsfield Pianodrome, where singer-songwriter Eve Simpson hosts an International Songwriters’ Round (7 Aug). On the 8th, Molly Sellors and Charlotte Devlin host the first of two 7am Oboe Raves at Santu Coffee’s Roastery Hall (the second is on 22 Aug), while Lost Map Records bring a run of Howlin’ Fringe shows to Leith FAB Cricket Club. While Pictish Trail (19 Aug) and Free Love (26 Aug) play later in the month, it’s the opening Suckle and Sulka show (co-hosted by Play Nice Presents) on the 12th that will pique the interest of comedy enthusiasts: FFO Frankie Monroe iykyk Made In Scotland returns with some forward-thinking music offerings. Seek out Fiona Soe Paing’s Sand, Silt, Flint (Greenside, George St, 7-22 Aug), Siobhan Wilson’s FLOWERCORE (Basement at The Gilded Saloon, 17-22 Aug) and Brian Molley’s Tùs/Origin (The Jazz Bar, 18-20 Aug), while the now annual Wide Days Made In Scotland Showcases return (17 Aug) to La Belle Angele, Bannermans and Sneaky Pete’s, featuring Azamiah, Bikini Body, Fright Years, Haiver, Dara Dubh and more. At the Edinburgh International Festival, catch Sean Shibe (The Queen’s Hall, 13 Aug), corto.alto (The Hub, 18 Aug), Scottish Ensemble & Brìghde Chaimbeul (The Queen’s Hall, 23 Aug) and RÓIS (The Hub, 28 Aug). Big Nights at La Belle is back too, with a glut of dates for your diary that include Mary Lattimore (7 Aug), Theon Cross (12 Aug), Pigs x7 (20 Aug), Horsegirl (23 Aug), Just Mustard (24 Aug), Antony Szmierek (26 Aug) and Getdown Services (30 & 31 Aug). Meanwhile, out at the Royal Highland Showgrounds, Summer Sessions return with Biffy Clyro (21 Aug), The Cure (23 Aug), Florence + the Machine (24 Aug), Lorde (25 Aug), Deftones (27 Aug) and The Prodigy (29 Aug). It’s not just in Edinburgh where you’ll find big festival energy this month. If you fancy a spot of coastal escapism, Pittenweem Arts Festival brings Kathryn Joseph and Dovetailed (6 Aug) and Free Love (7 Aug) to the East Neuk, while Fringe by the Sea bring Belle and Sebastian (6 Aug), Maribou State supported by Sarah/Shaun (8 Aug) and Drexler (9 Aug) to North Berwick, where you’ll also find sound installation work from Erland Cooper and daily immersive Plants Can Dance workshops from Brian d’Souza (until 9 Aug). At the top of the mainland, Lyth Arts Centre bring Alice Faye (7 Aug), Sacred Paws (8 Aug) and Rachel Sermanni (9 Aug) to Wick for their Summer Sessions. And in Stirling, Interesting Things returns to the Tolbooth with Lord of the Isles, Lullahush, Isa Gordon & Tony Morris, Taupe, R.AGGS, Simone Seales and more on the bill. Find out more about the festival on p94. In Glasgow, Love Punk Hate Racism celebrates the 50th anniversary of Rock Against Racism with Raj Against the Machine leading the charge at The Rum Shack (7 Aug). Towards the end of the month Mogwai’s Big City brings Spiritualized, Super Furry Animals, The Twilight Sad and more to Queen’s Park Recreation Ground (29 Aug), M4 Festival brings Bemz, Iso Yso and Salam Kitty to The Poetry Club (29 Aug), new kid on the block Tomorrow’s Harvest takes over the QMU (28 & 29 Aug) with Working Men’s Club, Maruja, San Jose, Sex Mask, Pleasure Trail and Tina Sandwich, while Forever Is a Long Time celebrates 15 years of Night School Records with Cucina Povera, Gichard, Lady Neptune, Free Love, Molly Nilsson, Susannah Stark and more set to play the Fairfield Social Club (29 & 30 Aug). For yet more escapism, Glasgow’s Lucia & The Best Boys take Picking Petals on the road for a stripped back tour with dates in Barra (6 Aug),
👀
Photo: Zak Watson
Photo: Ter Nam
— 17 —
Selkie
August 2026 — Events Guide
Antony Szmierek
Azamiah
THE SKINNY
August 2026 — Events Guide
Nani Porenta
Image: courtesy EIFF
Image: courtesy GFT I Saw The TV Glow
Snapshot
Image: courtesy GFT
Film The Fringe is a bit much, isn’t it? You know, all that chaos, the queuing, the audience interaction (sometimes you don’t want to be dragged up on stage to be part of a clown show about the miners’ strike, ya feel me?). For introverts, there’s always the relative calm of the Edinburgh International Film Festival (13-19 Aug) to look forward to. My usual top ten will appear online (read it over at theskinny.co.uk/film) but for now, here are a few EIFF titles and events I’ll be checking out. Definitely dive into The Sean Connery Prize for Feature Filmmaking Excellence competition. These films haven’t screened anywhere else in the world yet, and it’s always a thrill to be part of the first audience to see brand new work. Paul Wright’s Mission is proving to be the hottest ticket, but I also like the look of the formally daring horror Snapshot. Shot entirely in a 1:1 circle aspect ratio, the film presents as a found-footage film from the Victorian era that’s been shot on a pinhole-style camera; if the filmmakers pull that conceit off, it’ll be terrific. EIFF is also a chance to see some of the most exciting films from the festival circuit. Top of my list are devastating Berlinale hit Queen at Sea, starring Juliette Binoche and Tom Courtenay; Goodbye Cruel World, a melancholic coming-of-age gem from Cannes’ Critics’ Week section; The Peril at Pincer Point, a surreal comedy featuring pirates and a massive crab, which went down a storm at SXSW; and Molly Manners’ Extra Geography, another Berlinale fave that’s reportedly one of the most promising British debuts of the year. See EIFF’s website for screening info. Bruce Dern, one of the great icons of American cinema, is coming to EIFF: don’t miss his rare In Conversation talk (17 Aug). The brilliant, hardworking producer Christine Vachon is in town too; her industry talk is unmissable for anyone interested in independent cinema (14 Aug). And also on the 14th, Scotland’s biggest movie star, Ewan McGregor will be talking through his career. You can pair that with a screening of McGregor’s brand new movie, The End of Oak Street, from David Robert Mitchell, which, coincidentally, opens on general release the same day. Robert Mitchell is best known for It Follows (1 Sep), and that’s part of GFT’s Summer Screams, a season dedicated to hot and sweaty summertime horror movies. Also on the lineup are Jaws (until 6 Aug), Friday the 13th (10 Aug), I Know What You Did Last Summer (18 Aug) and Midsommar (25 Aug). Summer also means superhero movies, but forget Marvel and DC; GFT have much more idiosyncratic comic book movies in mind for Comics Come Alive. The lineup includes Joseph Losey’s Modesty Blaise (22 Aug), based on a 60s British comic, cult musical comedy Josie and the Pussycats (15 Aug) and Edgar Wright’s Scott Pilgrim vs the World (8 Aug) with a pre-recorded intro from Wright.
Photo: Nani Porenta
Image: courtesy EIFF Extra Geography
Moidart (7 Aug), Skye (11 Aug) and Aviemore (12 Aug), while at Eden Court in Inverness, Under Canvas runs throughout the month with Iona Zajac and NATI. (5 Aug), Niamh Corkey and Scott C. Park (20 Aug), Adam Ross and Rachel Sermanni (23 Aug) and Alice Faye and Birdvox (27 Aug). You’ll also find Scott C. Park in the Central Belt at The Hug & Pint (21 Aug) and Leith Depot (22 Aug), while Nani Porenta launches their latest EP Like Clockwork at Leith Depot on the 4th. Other shows worth seeking out in the capital include Day Sleeper (Sneaky Pete’s, 9 Aug), What a Beautiful Place to Fall Over (Leith Dockers Club, 14 Aug) Hens Bens and Amelia Snack (that’s comedian Amelia Bayler’s band btw) (Sneaky Pete’s, 15 Aug) and Sociograss (The Pitt, 21 Aug). In Glasgow, catch Isabella Strange at The Glad Cafe (8 Aug), join The Great Pleasure for their massive album launch alongside DOSS, Kai Reesu and An Dannsa Dub at GUU (22 Aug) and celebrate inWaves with Selkie at The Glad Cafe (25 Aug). Meanwhile, the King Tut’s Summer Nights series continues with Clay Rings (9 Aug), Puppy Teeth (23 Aug) and Roller Disco Death Party (28 Aug), The Hug & Pint’s endless summer series continues with Radhika (24 Aug) and Aldous (25 Aug), and Summer Nights at the Bandstand continues too, with John Grant singing the songs of Patsy Cline with Richard Hawley and his band (10 Aug) and Idlewild (13 Aug). You’ll also find tours passing through Glasgow from Haley Heynderickx (Mackintosh Queens Cross Church, 24 Aug), Ata Kak (Stereo, 24 Aug), Wednesday (SWG3, 24 Aug), Earl Sweatshirt + Mike (O2 Academy, 25 Aug) and Geese (Barrowlands, 25 & 26 Aug). [Tallah Brash]
I Know What You Did Last Summer
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August 2026
THE SKINNY
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THE SKINNY
Point Blank
The release of Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma, the third film from the talented Jane Schoenbrun, on 21 August is being celebrated in a big way at Filmhouse. The Edinburgh cinema has a preview on 9 August, and later in the month they’ll present a season of films, running from 21 August to 3 September, that are either inspirations for Camp Miasma (Sleepaway Camp, In the Mouth of Madness) or directly referenced within it (Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Sunset Boulevard). Throw away your watch this month at DCA, because they’re presenting Sculpting in Time (7-30 Aug), a retrospective dedicated to the mighty Andrei Tarkovsky; time seems to work differently in that moving-image poet’s meditative cinema, as you can discover with all seven of his features screening, from Ivan’s Childhood to The Sacrifice. Falastin Film Festival, the festival celebrating film, culture and art from Palestine, is back for its third edition, with screenings in Edinburgh from 27 to 30 August; highlights include Ahmad Ghossein’s heart-in-mouth thriller All This Victory and a launch party at Leith Cricket Club featuring tunes spun by Mo’min Swaitat, Hajar Ibrahim and Eclair Fifi. And finally, get yourself to Glasgow’s Grosvenor this month for a nifty little season of neo-noirs. The four-film lineup includes John Boorman’s Point Blank (6 Aug), Paul Schrader’s Cat People (13 Aug), Brian de Palma’s Body Double (20 Aug) and Jane Campion’s In the Cut (27 Aug) – bangers all! [Jamie Dunn]
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Institute, Toby Webster Ltd
Art Queer creative expression and community-driven stories abound in Edinburgh Art Festival (14-30 Aug). Furthering their renewed curatorial vision for three weekends’ worth of provocations and performance, EAF26 presents a series of drop-in exhibitions, parties, talks and workshops while amplifying a range of exhibitions at partner galleries.
EPiKA
August 2026 — Events Guide
Sub Club Roof Party
Photo: Bart Borek
Photo: Marcello Moohan
Clubs The return of the Edinburgh Fringe on Friday 7 August can only mean one thing: the clubs are open until 5am! Celebrations begin with EPiKA’s 5th birthday, as Colombian techno-mainstay Sara Delirio arrives for her UK debut at recently reopened The Liquid Room, Edinburgh (7 Aug). Scottish queer clubbing institution Hot Mess returns to Sneaky Pete’s, Edinburgh – expect disco, house and high-energy classics (7 Aug). Every clubber’s favourite livestreamers, Keep Hush, meets Edinburgh’s bassiest party, Headset, for a stacked takeover featuring JIALING, Smiff and Feena – venue TBA (7 Aug). For those taking refuge in Glasgow, we recommend heading to the Sub Club Roof Party in aid of The Niamh Jobson Research Fund – with a lineup of Jobson’s closest friends and collaborators, it’s set to be a celebration of the much-loved Glasgow DJ (8 Aug). On the same night Stereo and grind provisions join forces to bring LA-based DJ and producer Asphodèle to the Glasgow basement for hard drum, gqom and juke. Over at The Mash House in Edinburgh, Samedia Shebeen host their annual Fringe all-nighter for lovers of Afro house, Latin bass and sun-soaked sounds (8 Aug). One of Scotland’s finest junglists takes to La Cheetah Club on Friday 14 August, with Midnight Bass x Pray To Good hosting Mrs Magoo for high-energy, roots-heavy drum'n'bass. Lora Mipsum and ANNX come to neurons for a night of progressive house, hypnotic trance and immersive lighting at Sneaky Pete’s, Edinburgh (15 Aug). Seraphim Sound stage a live set special at The Old Hairdressers, Glasgow, with early evening performances from Xylitol and Konx-om-Pax (15 Aug). Postal are set to hold it down each Sunday of the Fringe at Sneaky Pete’s, Edinburgh – catch local heroes LWS, Lara Sinclair and ZO3 on Sunday 16 August, or get lively at their 160 BPM special on Sunday 23 August. Another unmissable Fringe afterparty lands on Monday 17 August as Ride n Bounce partner with party collective Volens Chorus for R'n'B, hip-hop and noughties nostalgia at Sneaky Pete’s. Over at George Square, Common Ground holds a day-to-night rave, celebrating UK sounds and local selectors (22 Aug). Capping off the month, DJ Paypal joins polyterror at Stereo, Glasgow, for footwork, juke and forward-thinking 160 BPM sounds (22 Aug). Timescape presents ‘Arcadian’ at a secret location in Glasgow on Saturday 29 August, for a hazy, immersive journey through minimal, deep house and electronica. Sound System Legacies and Edinburgh Dub Club host the biggest names in bass music at The Pitt Market, Edinburgh, with Kahn & Neek, SGT Pokes and Hometown Sound all in attendance (29 Aug). [Myrtle Boot]
THE SKINNY
Sgàire Wood, JUPITER RISING x EAF25, Jupiter Artland
Photo: MorganMcdowell
August 2026 — Events Guide
Catherine Opie, Chloe, 1993
Photo: Charlotte Cullen
Photo: James Barlow Sally Price, Twig Pools, 2026
Theatre Beginning at Summerhall’s Main Hall, we see triple Fringe First winners Xhloe and Natasha premiere Bigfoot Ripped My Dog In Half I Saw It. The beloved pair of best friends take a crack at the American South this time, promising clowning, choreography and a nine-foot puppet in a show about conspiracy and belief (6-30 Aug). Also in the Main Hall, Wonder Fools return with Tether, a collaboration with South Korea’s Theatre SAN. Developed over two years across residencies in both countries, the show spans three generations, weaving folk songs, love letters and war stories into a shared history between the two nations (6-31 Aug). Meanwhile, over in TechCube 0, Francesca Moody Productions and Global Creatures present Roleplay, Hannah Reilly’s darkly funny, surreal take on modern feminism, following a broke podcaster who reinvents herself as a ‘slutfluencer’ (6-31 Aug). Now in its 17th year, the Made in Scotland showcase continues to platform homegrown talent heading out into the world, and this year’s theatre strand is worth building a day around. Grid Iron’s Mayflies, adapted from Andrew O’Hagan’s novel, unfolds at the Rear Warehouse at Brown’s of Leith (7-30 Aug). Kangaroo Court and Serpentine Productions’ Shotgunned returns to the Fringe after a sold-out 2024 run and a Bright Spark Award for emerging Scottish talent, telling the non-linear story of a couple falling unexpectedly out of love (Assembly George Square Studios, 5-30 Aug). Over at the Traverse, Elaine C. Smith returns to the venue’s main stage for the first time in 26 years in Cathy, Eilidh Loan’s fierce, funny new play about a sharp-tongued widow confronting long-buried family truths as Christmas approaches (7-30 Aug).
Photo: © Catherine Opie. Courtesy the artist, Regen Projects, Los Angeles, Lehmann Maupin, New York, Hong Kong, London, and Seoul, and Thomas Dane Gallery
Image: courtesy of the artist. Del LaGrace Volcano, Sylvia at Greyfriars.
EAF26 launches at The Biscuit Factory, opening with a musical and movement performance by artists Magnus Westwell and Océane Robin before Mykki Blanco challenges the boundaries of hip-hop through rap and poetry. DJ sets from AMR and Sweet Philly continue the party late into the night. On Saturday 15 Aug, an artist talk in collaboration with the Edinburgh International Book Festival amplifies two exhibitions by queer photographers: Del LaGrace Volcano’s Love Bites Back at 92 Constitution Street and Catherine Opie’s To Be Seen at the Royal Scottish Academy. Volcano, who investigates the performance of gender and affirms queer lives through photography, displays a record of underground dyke communities from the 80s and 90s. Meanwhile, Opie, who considers which subjects are excluded from mainstream visual culture, showcases a spectrum of image, from her nursing self-portrait to documentation of the AB101 Veto Riot. At Custom Lane, EAF26 presents Carnal Desires, a solo exhibition of the late Japanese erotica artist Sadao Hasegawa. Through illustration, sketches and paintings from the late twentieth century, we gain insight into Hasegawa’s expansive vision for gay sexual expression, imbued with futurism and influenced by Buddhist philosophy and the Japanese erotic art of shunga. Key moments in the second week of the festival include Glasgow Leatherdykes: From History to Today – a chance to explore the subculture of leathercare and bootblacking – and the return of Jupiter Rising X EAF. Held at Jupiter Artland, Jupiter Rising promises a ‘wild night of experimental music, performance and queer artistic chaos’ – this time curated by Glasgow-based artist and performer Sgàire Wood. On 30 Aug, EAF26 closes with Listening Session: Palestinian Sound Archive. At the Palestine Museum, this collective session is an invitation to engage with Palestinian sonic culture as a living archive, from folk traditions to revolutionary songs, wedding music and spoken word. Beyond the EAF26 programme, socially-engaged artist Sally Price showcases Twig Pools at Summerhall’s Lab Gallery until 13 September. Inspired by the natural Scottish landscape, Price creates site-specific sculptural rope installations – this iteration spills from the built-in cabinets in the Lab Gallery. Finally, in Glasgow, a joint exhibition with artists Sam Ainsley and Alex Dempster explores their shared interests in natural phenomena and the earth’s structures and rhythms. Catch Sam Ainsley and Alex Dempster – What if it isn’t there… at Garnethill Gallery, but be quick – the exhibition closes on 8 August. [Rachel Ashenden]
Xhloe and Natasha
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THE SKINNY
CLASSIC FILM SCRIPTS RUN THROUGH AN ONLINE TRANSLATOR A DOZEN TIMES AND READ LIVE ON STAGE IN CHARACTER
21:00
5 - 30 AUG (NOT 17, 24)
18:25 06 - 30 AUG
ASSEMBLY ROOMS: DRAWING ROOM
August 2026
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THE SKINNY
Editors: Chris Powici and Allan Radcliffe Gaelic Editor: Anna C. Frater
“The annual finger on the pulse of the literary nation” —The Herald www.asls.org.uk
August 2026
Publishing the best new work from emerging and established writers in Scotland today
THE NEW ALBUM OUT FRIDAY 18 SEPTEMBER 2026 — 24 —
THE SKINNY
Photo: Christophe Raynaud de Lage Dracula: Lucy's Dream
Amanda Dwyer
August 2026 — Events Guide
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HANG TIME
Photo: Trudy Stade
Photo: Rebecca Need-Menear Jin Hao Li
Comedy Let’s begin with stand-up acts at this year’s Fringe. Iranian comedian Sepideh Kaav comes in hot with her show 1979: Persianality Disorder (Laughing Horse at Coco BoHo, 18-30 Aug, not 24, 5.15pm). An Immigrant’s Comedy Show (Hoots @ Nicolson Square, 7-30 Aug, 7.25pm) restores us with an hour of pro-immigration punchlines. Over at Pleasance Courtyard and Zachary Ruane debut’s with his solo show: it’s meta, self-referential, and wildly funny (7-30 Aug, not 25, 6.35pm). Sami Abu asks us whether hate can help us (Pleasance Courtyard, 7-30 Aug, 10pm). Rising star Li Jin Hao invites us to meet on the moon via fever dream (Pleasance Courtyard, 7-30 Aug, 10pm). Dee Allum poses whether football can be transgender among life’s other big questions (Pleasance Courtyard, 7-30 Aug, 4.10pm). Glasgow-circuit stars Ifrah Qureshi (The Stand 3 & 4, 7-30 Aug, not 17, 10.15pm), Amanda Dwyer (The Stand, 7-30 Aug, not 17, 6pm), and Kate Hammer (Monkey Barrel Comedy, 7-30 Aug, not 19, 5pm) all bring hilarious new shows. BBC New Comedy Award finalist Ayo Adenekan charms us with a fresh hour of material exploring love, loss and working through it (Monkey Barrel Comedy, 7-30 Aug, not 17, 1.30pm). On to alternative acts. Ratbags Theatre present How to Art, where two bananas awaken and are surprised to discover they are taped to a gallery wall (Underbelly, Cowgate, 8-30 Aug, not 17, 24, 9.40pm). Award winning comedian Conk conducts a live art experiment (Summerhall, 7-31 Aug, not 17, 24, 7.45pm). Stephen Catling is a breath of fresh air, swapping his previous slug mask for a clown fish (Hoots @ Potterrow, 7-31 Aug, 10.30pm). Widely loved Frankie Monroe brings not one but TWO shows. One’s a show for babies, naturally, and the other is an insane late night game show (Monkey Barrel 3, 24 Aug, 12pm, £11.50 and Monkey Barrel 4, 25-31 Aug, 1.30am). Fringe newbie Leo Hincks tackles a ‘career altering’ award loss by confronting the reality he thought he lived in (Gilded Balloon Teviot, 8-31 Aug, not 17, 3.50pm).
Photo: Daniel Adhami Crichlow Danté Charles
Photo: Kaugain Jang Tether
At Pleasance, Niall Moorjani revives Mohan: A Partition Story, first performed in 2022 to mark Partition’s 75th anniversary and drawn from their grandfather’s own experience, blending live music with dark, funny history (18-31 Aug). Plexus Polaire’s UK premiere of Dracula: Lucy’s Dream reimagines Stoker’s gothic tale through life-sized puppetry, told from the perspective of Dracula’s first victim, Lucy (Pleasance at the EICC, 6-29 Aug). And Kufiya Comedy, Aisha Josiah and Passion Pit Theatre present MAJENIN – A Palestinian Love Story at Pleasance Dome, promising a funny and piercing look into two ‘crazy people’ (majenin) in love (5-31 Aug). Underbelly’s programme features Farah Ashraf, Mimi Martin and NAZAR arts’ Pink Rabbit (Bristo Square, 5-30 Aug), and, staged in partnership with Medical Aid for Palestine, The Palestinian Circus: Step and a Half, which draws on the traditional dance Dabkeh to build a celebration of heritage and collective freedom (Underbelly’s Circus Hub, 8-29 Aug). Andy Jordan Productions and Hindsight Productions also bring Blackbox to Underbelly Cowgate (5-30 Aug). Elsewhere, Jack MacGregor’s Prophets makes its debut at Assembly Roxy (5-31 Aug) after winning the 2026 ART Award, a dark psychological thriller following Kerris, a researcher who arrives on a remote British Overseas Territory to find its 48 residents in the grip of a growing religious sect. And Paperfolk Theatre’s Our Seventh String plays theSpace @ Venue 45 (14-15 and 17-22 Aug). Not to mention the Edinburgh International Festival: at the Lyceum, Zora Howard makes her directorial debut with HANG TIME, in which three Black men caught in a liminal space share the loves and losses of their lives (20-23 Aug). Over at the newly reopened King’s Theatre, Internationaal Theater Amsterdam present the UK premiere of Angels in America, Ivo van Hove’s five-hour fusion of both parts of Kushner’s AIDS-era epic, staged on a minimal set to a David Bowie soundtrack (15-20 Aug). Also at the Lyceum, Golden Globe winner Wagner Moura makes his first theatrical collaboration with director Christiane Jatahy in A Trial – after An Enemy of the People, a modern-day courtroom continuation of Ibsen’s classic enlisting audience members in a live jury (7-10 Aug). And Opera Ventures Productions and Scottish Opera present the new opera The Galloping Cure at Festival Theatre, confronting the worldwide opioid crisis (9-12 Aug). [Mika Morava]
y
THE SKINNY
July 2026
Kate Hammer
Photo: Pankaj Mishra
Photo: Kat Gollock Hannah Lavery
Fatima Bhutto
Photo: Ormerod
Books Before the Fringe, before the International Festival, Edinburgh was the city of writers. Sir Walter Scott! Muriel Sparks! Robbie Burns, who did not live here but we claim him anyway! Ditch the theatre and comedy, then, and go back to the city’s roots and head to the Edinburgh International Book Festival from 15 to 30 August. Some events we are very excited about (in chronological order, you’re welcome): things kick off with the Opening Gala, featuring Y M AbdelMagied, Graeme Armstrong, Anne Enright, Gavin Francis, Naomi Ishiguro, and Jackie Kay (15 Aug, 7pm). Makar Peter Mackay brings together contemporary poets in Scotland working across a range of languages, featuring Helena Fornells Nadal, Harry Josephine Giles, Marjorie Lotfi, Robbie Macleòid, Q Mannivanan, and Alycia Pirmohamed (16 Aug, 6pm). Our very own Peter Simpson chairs a panel on food writing with Chitra Ramaswamy, Ben Mervis and Rebecca May Johnson (16 Aug). Dean Atta chats about his debut adult novel Big Man (18 Aug, 5pm), Graeme Armstrong chats about his new book Raveheart (19 Aug, 5.30pm), and Nikesh Shukla, Nish Kumar, Himesh Patel and Chimene Suleyman look back at The Good Immigrant ten years on (21 Aug, 5.15pm). GUBSMACKED returns to the festival with a lineup of boisterous poets, including Leyla Josephine, Sean Wai Keung and Iona Lee (25 Aug, 8.30pm), and Ali Smith’s Seasonal Quartet novel series is brought to life in a special collaboration with Netherlands’ New European Ensemble (28 Aug, 7pm). And that’s not the only book festival in town! Book Fringe also returns with an alternative programme of indie events, taking place across Lighthouse Bookshop, Argonaut Books and – for the first time this year – Greenhouse Books & Records in Bruntsfield, from 13 to 29 August. The programme includes a series of workshops at Argonaut Books, including one with Camilla Grudova on writing with the five senses (17 Aug, 7pm), and a bookbinding workshop (19 Aug, 7pm). Over in the Leith venue, Rebecca Tamas also chats about The Book of Mysteries: Wild Time and the Ritual Year (29 Aug, 7pm). There’s also book discussions over at Lighthouse: Edinburgh’s Jean Menzies discusses women and desire in the ancient world (18 Aug, 12pm), Sofie Hagen chats about bodies and joys (19 Aug, 12pm) and Fatima Bhutto talks about resilience and nonhuman connections (29 Aug, 12pm). And Greenhouse Books & Records hosts workshops and discussions, including a cassette and infold making session (27 Aug, 6pm) and a vinyl listening session at Bruntsfield’s Pianodrome (29 Aug, 3pm). Outside of Edinburgh there is the Govanhill Book Festival, part of the Govanhill International Festival and Carnival (7-8 Aug). There’s some excellent events on there, too: kicking things off is a conversation between Jeremy Corbyn and Josie Long (7 Aug, 7pm), Rahul Rao discusses his book The Psychic Lives of Statues (8 Aug, 12:30pm), and Hannah Lavery, Beth Frieden, Juana Adcock and Ruth Aylett discuss politics, poetry and language (8 Aug, 4pm). [Anahit Behrooz]
Photo: Daryll Buchanan
Photo: Zoë Birkbeck PhotographySami Abu Wardeh
Lukas Meintjes shocks with B48Y Crash Lands on Earth! where a gay nightclub witnesses a UFO crash landing (Assembly George Square, 7-30 August, not 12, 19, 25, 10.40pm). Award winner of too-many-to-list is Sophie Power with an insightful new show which is ‘half comedy, half unhinged therapy’ (Assembly George Square, 7-31 Aug, not 13, 20, 27, 8.20pm). Fringe fave Creepy Boys return with SLUGS, a show about nothing and everything (Summerhall, 7-17 Aug, 10.40pm). Equally unique and bizarre is Maya Ricote’s debut hour Ay Am! (Cellar at Pleasance Courtyard, 7-30 Aug, not 18, 25, 10.40pm). Annie Luján and Veronica Hortigüela are two medieval monks who fling open their monastery doors – huzzah! (Greenside @ George Street, 10-29 Aug, not 16, 23, 30, 7.35pm). Soho Theatre presents the widely anticipated Underground Monk Show (Assembly George Square, 7-30 Aug, not 17, 10.15pm, £17.50). Elf Lyons returns this year with a personal show, mixing the anecdotal with the abstract (Pleasance Courtyard, 7-31 Aug, not 17, 9.30pm). Coco the Time-Travelling Tart invites us to come and misbehave in a high-glam, action-packed hour (Underbelly George Square, 8-30 Aug, not 18, 25, 9.45pm). [Phoebe Crawford]
Graeme Armstrong
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THE SKINNY
2 - 4 SEPTEMBER
2026
HEADLINE ARTISTS
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TONY BONTANA BONTANA KADIATA TONY KADIATA SHOWCASE
ALEENA BASYL BEGHO FRED GATA FRIZZY P & MR COLE HUMMER LEMA JOEJAS KEMONO L RIOT KOZYELI LI$ON LIKKLE BVNTI LOLA! LUPO ZENAKU MANLIKEVISION MARZ FAY OMAR JATTA RAYCHI REALI-T REDKING SIMORA SONEDO STEG G & THE HOUSING SCHEME ORCHESTRA ZAMANI
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“A TOTALLY ABSORBING AND SCINTILLATING SHOW!” SLM, Stage Raw
America is NOT a racist country August 2026
written and performed by PAUL COATES directed by
GILDED BALLOON PATTER HOUSE
AUGUST 5th-30th AT 13:40 No performance August 10 t h , 17 t h , 24 t h — 27 —
THOMAS ZOESCHG
THE SKINNY
From dungeons to distilleries to delicious dinners, Resident Rewards – Forever Edinburgh’s programme of discounts and offers for Edinburgh locals – has something for everyone Words: Peter Simpson
T
here’s a reason that people love to visit Edinburgh. Actually, there’s loads of reasons – the history, the nature, the architecture, the hospitality, the beautiful views. For visitors, it’s great, but it is a little different when you have to combine all that fun stuff with your everyday life in the city. Fortunately, Forever Edinburgh’s Resident Rewards programme is here to help EH residents make the very most of the city they call home and explore everything it has to offer. Resident Rewards is now in its fifth year, and the clue’s in the name: these are exclusive deals and offers (rewards, if you will) for EH postcode residents. They’re a perk that allows you to become a tourist in your own town, offering you the chance to eat, play, relax and experience your city through new eyes. If you live in Edinburgh, you’re sorted – there’s no membership or sign-up required to access the deals. If you’re looking for something new and intriguing, try the series of Hands On deals. With its mix of outdoor green spaces and big city living, Edinburgh’s full of activities and things to do that encourage you to get moving and/or get your hands dirty – here’s a chance for EH residents to try some of the capital’s most exciting and engaging days out. The Johnnie Walker Experience on Princes Street presents a unique take on the whisky tour across its many floors, and EH residents get 20% off an immersive experience via Resident Rewards. Fancy something a bit more active? Head to Dalkeith and Go Ape, the outdoor adventure wonderland with rope climbing, zip lines and archery tag (it’s like a cross between Robin Hood and a game of dodgeball). There’s a 15% discount on offer as part of Resident Rewards. After all that, you’ll be feeling a bit peckish. The Epic Eats deals give you the chance to try some of the venues that have made Edinburgh such a foodie hotspot in recent years, even topping Good Food Guide’s list of Most Exciting Food Destinations last year. If you’re with a big group, the enormous New York-style pizzas at Civerinos are a great option – get 10% off all full-sized pizzas from Monday to Thursday (excluding August) when you sit in at their spots in Leith, Stockbridge, Portobello and the city centre, as well as the Lost Shore Surf Resort. Tamil Teru’s another great spot for a catch-up dinner; the South Indian and Sri Lankan restaurant on Rose Street is all about sharing and trying new things, and you’ll get a 20% discount on your food bill via Resident Rewards. And if you fancy a pub lunch, check out Mackays On The Mile or the Amber Rose on Rose Street for 20% and 10% off respectively. The Chill Out deals are opportunities to take it easy, and enjoy some of Edinburgh’s more relaxing and luxurious experiences. If you really want to relax into it, head to PURE Spa on Lothian Road for 20% off all of their core treatments, or up to Morningside and check out Sano Studio. They offer yoga, pilates and strength classes for both adults and young people, as well as massages and beauty treatments – you can get 50% off your first treatment or class via Resident Rewards. Or if your idea of a
Image: courtesy of Forever Edinburgh
August 2026
Advertising feature
Explore Your City
relaxing afternoon is a wander around a lovely whisky distillery, we have just the thing. The delightful Holyrood Distillery in the shadow of the Crags run exclusive free Resident Rewards tours every Sunday afternoon – get a guided tour around their space and find out all about their whisky-making process. Of course, one of the real joys of living in Edinburgh is its array of unexpected and one-of-a-kind places to go and things to do; it’s a city like no other, and the Curious Minds rewards let you make the very most of some of those one-offs. Edinburgh’s a city with an amazing history that occasionally veers into the macabre – find out more about it at the Edinburgh Dungeon, where you’ll get 30% off with your EH postcode. It’s also right by the water, so head to South Queensferry and hop on the Maid of the Forth. The sightseeing boat gives you the chance to cruise out to the Forth Bridges and the Queensferry Crossing, or take an extended jaunt to Inchcolm Island, and there’s 20% off both excursions via Resident Rewards. Or if you really want to go for it, take in the Edinburgh Nuclear Bunker Tour at Barnton Quarry. The Cold War-era bunker was at one time intended to house Scotland’s government in the event of a nuclear war; after a painstaking restoration by a team of dedicated volunteers, it now offers a truly unique trip into Edinburgh’s past. Get 25% off a guided tour with Resident Rewards. There are also Legend of the Month deals offering bumper discounts – 30% off the Highlands Tour at Lauriston Castle this August, while September brings free entry to Camera Obscura for kids when accompanied by an adult – and regular Resident Days offering free or deeply discounted experiences across the city. There’s so much to see and do in Edinburgh – let Resident Rewards encourage you to explore your city, and everything that makes it great.
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Grab your legendary offers at edinburgh.org/residentrewards
THE SKINNY
7 Meet the Team — 8 Editorial — 9 Love Bites — 10 Heads Up — 17 What’s On 33 Ask Anahit & Gut Feelings — 34 Crossword — 60 Poster by etchingroom1 90 Intersections — 97 Music — 103 Film & TV — 108 Food & Drink 109 Art — 110 Design — 111 Books — 113 Listing 70 The Skinny on… Xhloe & Natasha Features 38 Breaking the silence on money and the Edinburgh Fringe with Kie Carson, Tamsyn Kelly, Selina Mosinski, Ahir Shah and Jack Skipper.
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41 Dan Tiernan reflects on the relationship between magic and comedy as he brings Quartz and All to Edinburgh. 42 Lara Ricote on her return to the Fringe with INKLING. 45 Battle of the Celts or our favourite Scottish, Irish and Welsh acts to watch at this year’s Edinburgh Fringe. 48 We take a tour inside the revamped King’s Theatre as it prepares to reopen in time for Edinburgh International Festival.
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51 Scottish playwright Jack MacGregor on the psychology of belief in their cult thriller Prophets. 55 Brazilian writers Christiane Jatahy and Lucas Paraizo discuss their latest play A Trial: after an Enemy of the People. 56 Alaa Shehada of the Palestine Comedy Club talks to us about The Bridge and the Allenby Bridge, Palestine’s only land crossing.
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63 One of our EAF emergent writers explores Anne Hardy’s transformative exhibition at Talbot Rice. 64 Photographer Catherine Opie on capturing a hopeful portrait of humanity. 67 Esther Castle’s Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop installations prompts prompts consideration of the hidden politics of gardening.
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Image Credits: (Left to right, top to bottom) Tom Platinum Morley; Jack Hauxwell; Wesley Verhoeve; Trudy Stade; Anneleen Lindsay; Robin Mair; Caio Lírio; Kamerich & Budwilowitz; Courtesy of the artist; Angus Mill; © Catherine Opie. Courtesy the artist, Regen Projects, Los Angeles, Lehmann Maupin, New York, Hong Kong, London, and Seoul, and Thomas Dane Gallery; Courtesy the artist
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August 2026 — Contents
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58 Reclaiming censored art with exhibitions by queer photographer Del LaGrace Volcano and the late fetish artist Sadao Hasegawa.
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68 Irish artist Eva Rothschild discusses activating sculpture through play in her Fruitmarket show.
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70 As Scottish publishing powerhouse 404 Ink celebrate a decade of rule breaking by shutting up shop, we look back on their many achievements. 72 Poet Alycia Pirmohamed on belonging and rupture in her debut memoir Shorelines. 75 Amy Abdelnoor on her debut novel Ever Land, a haunting ghost story set in Palestine. 76 Louis Paxton introduces his debut feature The Incomer, opening EIFF this month.
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78 Daniel Goldhaber and Isa Mazzei explain how their film Faces of Death digs into our troubling relationship with screen violence. 82 Singer-songwriter, composer and artist Siobhan Wilson introduces immersive gig theatre work FLOWERCORE. 85 We catch up with Getdown Services’ Josh Law ahead of the release of second album Massive Champion.
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89 Where do clubs sit in the cultural life of the festival city? We ask the cast and crew of some of Edinburgh’s nightlife venues. 92 Beth Frieden discusses integrating Gaelic into poetry and life ahead of Govanhill Book Festival.
August 2026 — Contents
93 The team behind Piping Live! talk minimalism, guided improvisation, and Angine de Poitrine. 94 Celebrating musical discovery in Scotland’s smallest city as avantgarde all-dayer Interesting Things returns for a third year. On the website... 92
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Image Credits: (Left to right, top to bottom) Ruth Clark; Dalila D'Amico; Tim Phillips; Michelle Grant; The Incomer; Faces of Death; Ewan Grant Waterhouse; Sion Marshall-Waters; Vaso Michiladou; courtesy of author; Christophe Raynaud de Lage; Dalia Neis
Cover Artist
Neve Healy is an illustrator living and working in Edinburgh and Kent whose focus is on producing zines, book illustrations, posters and editorial images. She enjoys working in traditional media, drawing and printmaking before going to digital processes. Themes that run throughout her work include the female experience, folklore, place, memory and storytelling. IG: @nevee.doodles
neveedoodles.com — 30 —
The Besties are our Edinburgh Festivals awards, so news of those each Saturday of the festivals; there’s an Edinburgh Film Festival special of The Cineskinny podcast, and Bikini Body join the latest episode of the Music Now podcast; new writing from the Scottish pavilion at the Venice Biennale; oh, and lots of reviews from across the Fringe and beyond. Loads of ‘em.
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SCAN FOR MORE INFO. PRE-SALE, OPENS: 07/08/2026
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Berk’s Nest in association with Soho Theatre and Curtis Brown present
J From the multi-BAFTA winning creator of Channel 4 & Hulu’s
Photographer and writer Miriam Morris reflects on the work of Jasleen Kaur and how photography can preserve the insignificant for a time of significance
Big Boys
I
a decade retrospective of capitalising on my dead dad to varied levels of failure and success
Tickets
Directed by Gabriel Bisset-Smith
Jasleen Kaur's (Untitled), resin work (2) is on display at the National Galleries Scotland: Modern One
AUGUST 2026
27–29 EDINBURGH McEwan Hall SEPTEMBER 2026
J
30 GLASGOW Òran Mór
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August 2026 — Chat
went to Modern One to sit with the Surrealists, but with the happenstance that can occur with accessibility to free art, I met a new friend. Jasleen Kaur’s (Untitled), resin work (2), a large photograph encased in orange resin (a nod to Irn-Bru and poetically, of viewing the past with rose tinted glasses). Her family are gathered around a car, the artist directly staring at the camera whilst her family members are obscured by pieces of roti. When my brother died, my family and I instinctively began sharing photographs. Verifying the very trace of him. Just like Kaur’s, some captured the everyday – life around a car or on a sofa. Albums of normality, photography can preserve the insignificant for a time when it needs to be significant. When our family next gathered I likened it to the tea set that got rolled out at Christmas. A saucer was missing and although still functional, we would never have a full set around the table again. I went back to look at Kaur’s work for the second time. Side B. In the back seat, watching my dad’s arm resting on the rolled down window of our 90s Vauxhall, a comforting reassurance of knowing what song would follow on the cassette before it had even begun. On long journeys he would share ghost stories and I would imbibe them. Earlier this year, I took photographs of him in his little den at the top of the house, surrounded by everyday collectables accrued across the years. Screwdrivers and cans of WD40, always tinkering, always mending. Some things are always in repair, some things cannot be fixed. He can no longer recall the stories that to me have become invariable tales. Looking at (Untitled), resin work (2), I suddenly realised I can never go home again. The bricks are there but there is no chorus of shared laughter, the sing-song of the everyday has been silenced and I am not quite sure what we will do without the teapot.
THE SKINNY
Shot of the month Garbage @ Edinburgh Castle, 11 July by Marilena Vlachopoulou
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August 2026 — Chat
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Entertainer (9)
6. Gripped, spellbound (4)
2. Posterior (4, 3)
8. Violations (8)
3. Ancient Irish script (5)
9. Bin log (anag) - weird little guy (6)
4. Enigma (7)
10. Edinburgh theatre next to Usher Hall (6)
5. Henchman/sidekick (5, 4)
11. Alluring, tempting (8) 12
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12. Two person bicycle (6)
7. Emotional sharpness - any coping (anag) (9)
15. Pining (8)
13. Eggplant (9)
16. Kidnapped (by aliens) (8)
14. Girlboss? (9)
19. Distractions, fakes (6)
17. Bring to light (7)
21. The concept of autonomous decisionmaking (4, 4)
18. Pickle (7)
22. Talk (6)
20. Russian playwright and short story writer (7)
24. Looking glass (6)
22. Tendon - swine (anag) (5)
25. Special urge to snack
👀(8)
26. Famous Usher song (4) 26
Celebration, fete (5)
23. If you’re really good at this you’re a Grandmaster (5)
27. Periods of intense warmth, or the name of a Glass Animals song (4, 5)
Compiled by Ema Smekalová
Feedback? Email crossword@theskinny.co.uk Turn to page 7 for the solutions — 34 —
THE SKINNY
August 2026
— 35 —
THE SKINNY
Poster by etchingroom1 (p60-61) etchingroom1 is an artistic group founded in 2016 by two artists, Kristina Yarosh and Anna Khodkova, in Kyiv, Ukraine. The group’s practice is rooted in visual art and spans multiple media. The group’s work primarily includes works on paper, porcelain, mosaic, installations, and more. The artists often combine several media within one project to create a stronger and deeper visual expression. etchingroom1 has exhibited work internationally, most recently at Safety Instructions, Annenberg Center, Philadelphia, USA; Bus Stop, Dymchuk Gallery, Kyiv, Ukraine; It was crowded yesterday, ArtEast Gallery Berlin, Germany; and Starting point, Ukrainian Culture Centre, Paris, France. etchingroom1 is currently based in Berlin. etchingroom1.com The exhibition etchingroom1: Unexpected Trip is on display at Edinburgh Printmakers until 25 Oct — 37 —
August 2026 – Theme
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he many, many Edinburgh Festivals are upon us and we’re celebrating, as ever, with a massive edition offering you a flavour of some of the highlights from across the different programmes. We’ve got Comedy scrutinising masculinity, talking about money, and forcing the Celtic nations into battle. Theatre’s exploring the newly reopened King’s Theatre, examining cults and the returning Palestine Comedy Club. Books looks forward to the Book Festival and the Book Fringe, with Alycia Pirmohamed and Amy Abdelnoor alongside a salute to the wondrous 404 Ink as they shut up shop. Art’s highlights are brought to you by some of the emergent writers who’ve developed through our partnership with Edinburgh Art Festival. Film looks to the EIFF programme with some words with the director of the opening film, The Incomer, and personal reflections on highlights including Sexy Beast and Hamlet. Music celebrates some of the artists creating unique live performances in among the festival programmes, talking to Siobhan Wilson about flowers and Getdown Services via voicenote.
Edinburgh Festivals Special
THE SKINNY
Money, Money, Money We talk to Kie Carson, Tamsyn Kelly, Selina Mosinski, Ahir Shah and Jack Skipper about their journey to this year’s Fringe and the unspoken taboo beneath it all – money
M
oney may well be one of the last taboos. The reasons are tangled: as perhaps the most significant measure of success, it’s judged as bad taste or somehow indelicate to talk about. The silence means there’s plenty of space for shame to flourish, while the convention that it’s gauche or even vulgar to talk about money ultimately serves only the privileged few. The current code for money issues is ‘the cost of living crisis,’ a phrase which shares in the tendency to euphemise. Ahir Shah’s new show Golden, the follow-up to his huge hit Ends, tackles money as a central theme, exploring the effects of growing up under the shadow of debt. He argues we should reclaim vulgarity, saying, “I would love it if it were vulgar to
August 2026 – Feature
Photo: Rebecca Need-Menear
talk about money – I mean that in the strict sense of vulgar as the commonplace thing that everyone’s doing – the issue is actually that it’s not that: money is rarefied in the most horrid way and I think that we’d all be a lot emotionally and socially better off if we were talking about it.” Tamsyn Kelly’s new show Rat’s Ass, also foregrounds money and the compromises she’s had to make to stay afloat. She has a characteristically forthright take on the ideological function of that ‘rarified’ quality: “People with money are embarrassed because it’s embarrassing to have so much when other people don’t have enough, and their discomfort is why working-class people aren’t allowed to talk about money.” In the face of this unspoken prohibition, Kelly argues the burden falls largely on the working-class to do the thorny work of articulating financial realities, and she urges middle-class and upper-class comics to do more, as that “would help enable conversations or help enable work from working class comics... It’s kind of on them to make the conversation less taboo because we’re easily dismissed” (with the kneejerk calls to go and get a job and so on). She mentions last year’s Olga Koch Comes From Money as one notable attempt. In the show, Kelly grapples with her use of the OnlyFans platform as a means of supplementing her income from comedy, something she feels conflicted about: “'Empowering' was’ was the word that came up a lot in people’s responses,” she says, “but of course it’s not empowering – I’m being Tamsyn Kelly
— 38 —
Words: Emma Sullivan
“People with money are embarrassed because it’s embarrassing to have so much when other people don’t have enough, and their discomfort is why working-class people aren’t allowed to talk about money” Tamsyn Kelly valued for something that I believe to have little value over something that I put a lot of effort into.” By most measures her career is flourishing, and she’s one of the success stories of the workingclass showcase, Best in Class, but she’s still not making enough to make ends meet. Selina Mosinski, who’s at the Fringe with her debut, Puss in Boots – A Working Class Fairy Tale, echoes this sense of a mismatch between external measures of success and the reality of life without a safety net. As viral icon Charity Shop Sue, and with appearances in hit show Alma’s Not Normal, she describes people’s surprise when she tells them “I’ve only been earning full time creatively for the last three or four years; I don’t own a house, I haven’t got a car, I’ve not had kids.” But she’s clear that “finding a group of people that really get you and that can see your creativity is worth its weight in gold – it is worth more than money.” While she’s palpably excited about Edinburgh as the catalyst to push herself creatively and the chance to see new work, she’s troubled by the fact that she’s tacitly supporting an exclusionary project, because the Fringe is “inaccessible for certain demographics.” And homogenous audiences will affect her directly: “I know this audience is predominantly middle-class and a lot of my work caters more to either a queer audience or a working-class audience.” There’s also the inevitable, gnawing anxiety about the cost of it all, something Kie Carson, a
THE SKINNY
Photo: Tom Platinum Morley
Photo: The Other Richard
Edinburgh Festivals Special
Ahir Shah
mentioning it in my own bios and I don’t know why I’m doing it to be honest.” He dislikes the pressure to be “representative” and says, “I’m from a very humble background but I think working class is a blurred concept: what does it actually mean to be working class? Is it socioeconomics, is it your accent, is it your heritage?” Whatever the case, Skipper laughs, he’s “a thoroughbred.” Class also doesn’t figure in Shah’s experience of money troubles, and he suggests that “the immigrant community often sits slightly outside of the traditional class structures.” He wonders, too, if he may have arrived at a different place from the generalised anxiety about crassness in talking about money: “My grandparents wanted subsequent generations to do well. Now that I am doing well, I don’t feel any shame or reticence – that’s part of what their sacrifices were for – to deny my success is to deny those sacrifices.” Although he does feel some reticence – and describes dancing around the subject of income with comedian friend, Pierre Novellie, who grew up in South Africa, only able to spit it out once Novellie had identified their shared ‘colonial mindset’ of shame and silence, thus releasing the inhibition. Shah quotes Tom Wambsgans from Succession: “All my life I’ve been thinking a little bit about money” – a speech where the character’s honesty about his preoccupation with money is symbolic of real vulnerability. It helps us to see that the idea that you’re ‘tight’ or ‘grasping’ in thinking about money is arguably a pathology largely driven by class or ‘colonial’ mandates. — 39 —
Like Tamsyn Kelly, for whom “there is no bigger conversation,” Shah is passionate about “breaking the silence” about money. He’s resolved to fully use his platform and the paradoxical freedom of talking to a room full of strangers – a freedom which extends to the audience, whose habitual defences might be lowered. As Shah notes: “Whatever your colour or culture, whatever you sound like, wherever you live, this might be happening to a dozen families on your road and they might look different from you, they might sound different from you, they might be giving an outward show of things going well and you just don’t know if no one talks about it. Instead, everyone just feels imperially alone.” Hopefully he’s right, and stand-ups talking about money will allow us all to feel a little less alone.
Kie Carson: Silly & Surviving, The Three Sisters Wee Room, 6-30 Aug; 2 Boys 1 Bucket, The Raging Bull, 6-30 Aug; The Comedy Chaos Gameshow, West Nic Records, 6-30 Aug Tamsyn Kelly: Rat’s Ass, Monkey Barrel, 7-30 Aug Selina Mosinski: Puss in Boots – A Working Class Fairy Tale, Pleasance Dome, 7-30 Aug Jack Skipper: Skint, Pleasance Courtyard, 5-16 Aug Ahir Shah: Golden, Pleasance Courtyard, 6-30 Aug
August 2026 – Feature
new comedian testifies to. He says, “This year I’ve got £5000 worth of credit card debt: accommodation, Fringe registration fees, flyers, posters, props. That is a lot of up-front cost. And the shows I’m taking are on the Free Fringe. I’m flyering the shows myself. I designed the posters myself. My partner took my headshots using a mate’s green screen. I’ve paid for no PR. There is a constant pit in my stomach about money. I’m constantly working and I’m constantly skint.” That being said, Carson says, “my starving artist era is actually quite fun in comparison to my simply starving era.” He continues, “To be able to laugh about it with 20 people in a karaoke booth on Cowgate is a bit of privilege I can take back.” Jack Skipper, carpet fitter-turned-TikTok-star, is returning to Edinburgh with his Comedy Awardnominated debut show, Skint, and he’s pretty dispassionate about the Fringe experience: “I’m just keeping it as simple as I can,” he says, “this year I’ll double down and be more myself – I’m not going to tailor myself to any idea of an Edinburgh audience.” He reckons “ignorance is bliss” when it comes to industry machinations; determined not to pay any heed to the whispering about “who’s who.” Skipper sees authenticity as key to his work, and he is clearly perturbed by the distorting effects of fame and power. While class is a significant aspect of the experience of financial struggle for many, it doesn’t really resonate for him. “I’ve only been made aware of the whole class thing since doing comedy,” he says, “reviewers start calling you working-class and then you slowly adapt – I started
Selina Mosinksi
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BIFFY CLYRO BIFFY CLYRO NOTHING BUT THIEVES FRI 21 AUG NOTHING THIEVES SWIMBUT SCHOOL
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BUT THIEVES SAT 22 AUGNOTHING SWIM SCHOOL SAT 22 AUG HEATHER ON THE HILL HEATHER ON THE HILL
AND THE NATHAN EVANS AND SAT 22 AUG EVANS THE NATHAN SAINT PHNX BAND HEATHER ON THE HILL SAINT PHNX BAND CIAN DUCROT SKERRYVORE
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ALL DAY EVENT | DOORS OPEN 12PM | DOORS ALL DAY EVENT OPEN 12PM ROSE BETTS NATI
ACOUSTIC SESSIONS, WHISKY TASTINGS, |+ ALL DAY EVENT DOORS OPEN 12PM CHILDREN’S ACTIVITIES MORE ACOUSTIC SESSIONS, WHISKY TASTINGS, CHILDREN’S ACTIVITIES + MORE
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THE CURE THE CURE MOGWAI SLOWDIVE THE CURE SUN 23 AUG
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21 -- 29 - 29AUGUST AUGUST2026 2026 2121 29 AUGUST 2026 ROYAL HIGHLAND SHOWGROUNDS ROYAL HIGHLAND SHOWGROUNDS ROYAL HIGHLAND SHOWGROUNDS EDINBURGH EDINBURGH EDINBURGH
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THE SKINNY
Crystal Connections Acclaimed comedian Dan Tiernan reflects on the relationship between magic and comedy, and speaks lovingly about the influence of crystals on his new show, Quartz and All
Photo: Jack Hauxwell
Dan Tiernan
— 41 —
“Comedy, for me, is so magic. You see good stand-up comedy and you disappear through a portal for an hour, and you just feel joy and happiness” Dan Tiernan look outside of reality.” And what better place to see beyond reality than at the Fringe? There’s something in Quartz and All for everyone, and Tiernan makes that clear: “If you just allow yourself to believe there’s a tiny chance that [magic] is real, it does make life more livable. As well as the standard in my show, myself and the team who are producing and promoting me are working on making it a real magical experience, because that’s what it’s all about.” He continues that “comedy, for me, is so magic. You see good stand-up comedy and you disappear through a portal for an hour, and you just feel joy and happiness. I’m very proud of the fact that I get to be on the other end of that.” I think I speak for a lot of people when I say we’re glad Tiernan is on the other end of that as well. Dan Tiernan’s mini ‘Fringe Forecast’: Last night the moon was full, so I stood underneath it fully naked and asked it to predict what your Fringe holds. The conversation went as follows. Moon: August will be a great month for your reader. They have worked very hard in July and now the climb is behind them. This is a month of harvesting wisdom rather than chasing ambition. They should release any thing and any one that does not nourish them. It’s an important month for relationships. Expect old conversations to return wearing new faces, someone may reach out after silence and an apology will come albeit too late. Those who cling too tightly risk watching others drift away. Me: While I’ve got you could I be selfish and ask if you have any advice for me? Moon: I reckon you should put some clothes on. You’re in a public park for Christ’s sake. Dan Tiernan: Quartz and All, Monkey Barrel Comedy, 7-30 Aug (not 18), 10.25pm
August 2026 – Feature
and spiralling connections between life, magic and art. Though the story begins with a stolen phone and a crystal, in a bigger picture “it’s about what my faith and philosophy has been and how that’s changed, and just how tough the world can be really, which, I’m always aware, doesn’t sound very funny. I think my show descriptions never really do.” But there’s no doubt that this show is funny. There’s plenty of accolades to back it, having received nominations for Best Newcomer (Edinburgh Comedy Awards 2023), Best Comedy Show (Edinburgh Comedy Awards 2025) and Most Outstanding Show (Melbourne Comedy Awards 2026). But it’s the Fringe that holds a special place in Tiernan’s heart: “I love the Fringe so much. I love the excitement of it, I love the chaos of it and I love the idea of turning over a new hour that reflects where your life has been that year.” And Tiernan has certainly had a lot to reflect upon this year. The comic has, “from the top of [his] head,” endured personal battles ranging from dyspraxia to psychosis. Himself a gay man (“but not seeming like a gay man”) has seen him contend with the perplexities of masculinity in society, and through this he has “accidentally spread awareness” in his work. There’s an effortless candour to Tiernan, a candour which is conceived by living through hard stuff and remaining a decent – and very funny – person. Tiernan has noticed (or set) a trend in men opening up to the world of magic. He reflects that, since getting into crystals, “I’ve noticed how much heterosexual men open up, and how that feels new and different. Hopefully, we can show that crystals can be masculine as well.” Though the theme of magic may be a trend at this year’s Fringe, Tiernan thinks “the reason for that is quite bleak. It’s because we know so much about the real world, and how all of that points to the fact that the climate’s changing and the world is in real trouble, or that there’s genocides happening – specifically, the genocide in Palestine. I think people are deciding to
Edinburgh Festivals Special
T
he influence of magic on the comedy scene today is pretty hard to deny, and Dan Tiernan is the perfect example. We talk about his return to the Fringe, born out of a recent discovery of the benefits of crystals after having his phone stolen. “There was never a plan for me to buy a crystal. I didn’t believe in them. I was just trying to buy a wedding present in a panic. The woman behind the counter brought out this black, shiny, spiky, massive rock. I didn’t know crystals could look like that. She said, ‘This is a black tourmaline. It’s for grounding and protection,’ and I just instantly went, ‘That one’s for me, please.’” And so, Tiernan’s most personal show to date, Quartz and All, was born. He has a demeanour which is equal parts laid-back and deeply inquisitive. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Tiernan grew up wanting to be a magician – an art which he practised regularly. It seems magic has always been somewhere within his work, whether at the forefront or not. Tiernan agrees that “there’s something incredibly magical about comedy. I think comedy is more magic than magic itself, because with magic you know it’s an illusion.” There’s a layered profundity to Tiernan’s new show, which lies in its ability to observe the endless
Words: Phoebe Crawford and Dan Tiernan
THE SKINNY
Truth Bomb
August 2026 – Feature
I
t’s sad to admit, but Lara Ricote is no longer a hidden gem. Arguably her time as one of the great acts yet to break into the mainstream was incredibly short-lived, becoming the 2021 Funny Women Stage Award winner, then winning the Fringe Best Newcomer in 2022, with its follow-up earning rave reviews. Yet now, co-starring on Sam Campbell’s hit show Make That Movie and appearing across Mitchell and Webb Are Not Helping, it feels time to finally accept that Ricote is becoming a star. From those early days at the Fringe, to her third installment, Ricote has been a fresh new voice in the circuit, playing with themes, audiences and structures in a way that is truly accessible yet wonderfully mischievous. She tinkered with crowd dynamics in her last show, Little Tiny Wet Show, naming the audience, enveloping them into relationships and coaxing them to give as much as they take. Her debut GRL/LATNX/DEF toyed with the tropes of an ‘introductory’ debut and a ‘minority’ themed hour, slipping out of categorisation. She is an artist who has as much joy in the writing, as we have in the performance. It is wonderful to see. In her latest hour, INKLING, we see something new for Ricote – honesty. “Your first hour is a compilation of the bits you’ve acquired over your career, the second hour is establishing a theme, and then for the third I drew a blank,” Ricote reveals, with a coy smile. She talks about her attempts to force out new material – “I tried experimenting with silence for ages, thinking oh maybe I don’t say anything, but it was because I had nothing to say.” INKLING is set around truth. It is a show that Lara herself has billed as “as honest as I can be” and until she was able to make changes in her life that allowed this, there was no show. Without spoilers, Ricote admits that once those changes were made “the whole show flooded out of me, I
“I’m not interested in all the ways I have been, I want to see all the ways I can be” Lara Ricote woke up with a new hour.” For anyone who has seen Ricote perform, it will be no surprise to you that journalists repeat words like quirky, whimsical and excitable. The performer is a fizzing ball of energy, incorporating her giggly personality and vibrant, expressive body language to paint vivid pictures and create boundlessly endearing experiences. Yet the Ricote talking to me, while equally engaging and enthusiastic, is poised and articulate, deliberate with every response, introspective at every turn. She talks with candour about an array of
topics. Starting with her family of creatives, with an actress mother and photographer father, reminiscing: “He was a pointer, he was always pointing at something beautiful, almost forcibly openminded.” She reflects on her disabilities and how it affects her process: “With a loss of hearing, I’m constantly looking for the millions of details I’m missing, trying to soak in the world every other way I can.” From gender, media and consumerism, every topic touched on is done so with a restless mind, always staying open, questioning everything and offering multiple perspectives to every subject. In terms of her father, she expands that the downside of an open-minded creative, is that his questioning of everything led him to certain extremist beliefs – “if you shut out everyone who doesn’t think like you, your open-mindedness becomes in itself close-minded.” In regards to her disability she says, “I ask myself if I’m detail-oriented because of the disability or if my disability has just exposed my need for details. I debate all the time, what is a coping mechanism and what is my personality?” This ability to look at every facet of the world with curiosity and a willingness to explore, letting the forces of life educate, influence and reveal themselves encapsulates Ricote’s appeal. “Looking and knowing are different things,” she muses, touching on the teaching of Ram Das, the spiritual leader and psychologist. Talking sincerely about his teachings, turning to nature and the ‘now’ of the world. “We look at buildings and walls as these powerful figures in society, these strong unflinching monuments, and we base our existence on them, but nature doesn’t have bones or bricks, it’s constantly moving and evolving. We should be in motion.” She elaborates, before catching herself and chuckling “is this usable, or is this the rambles of a crazy lady?” INKLING is rooted in who Lara Ricote is now. The freedom to say what she thinks, about anything she is thinking about. The show isn’t about asking permission to express opinions, it’s about expressing them regardless. “The show is much more than the cumulating skills I acquired from eight years of stand-up – it’s also eight more years — 42 —
Words: Cameron Wright
Photo: Wesley Verhoeve
Edinburgh Festivals Special
We catch up with Lara Ricote as she returns with her third Fringe hour, INKLING
of being a person, learning myself and the world and finally accepting both.” There’s an instant and palpable catharsis when she says this, a true sense that she is where she wants to be. The light glows out of her as she repeats like a mantra that this new show is her at her fullest, her at her happiest, her at her best. “I always want to make a show I could not have made the year before. I’m not interested in all the ways I have been, I want to see all the ways I can be.” From nature to philosophy, authors like Sheila Heti to movies like Amélie, Ricote is interested in artists being uncompromising and true to themselves, yet throughout the conversation it is abundantly evident that her biggest priority is community. Be this through the relationships she builds with audiences, or the friends she schedules in for four-hour phone calls weekly, conversations, communication and togetherness are what make Ricote tick. Lara Ricote, INKLING, 5.40pm, Monkey Barrel, 5-30 Aug
THE SKINNY
August 2026
EXHIBITIONS PERFORMANCES WORKSHOPS ARTIST TALKS PARTIES + MORE
EXPLORE THE UK’S BIGGEST ANNUAL FESTIVAL OF VISUAL ART AT EDINBURGHARTFESTIVAL.COM
— 44 —
THE SKINNY
Battle of the Celts Our trusty team of Comedy writers have prepared the ultimate inhouse competition: a Battle of the Celts, where we present to you our favourite Scottish, Irish and Welsh acts to watch at this year’s Edinburgh Fringe
Words: Phoebe Crawford
Photo: Sonny Malhotra
Photo: Sam Frank Wood
Roger O’Sullivan
Paul Hilleard
W
e know choosing which acts to see at the Fringe can be overwhelming. There’s about a million things you already want to see and then you’re being bombarded with information, flyers and adverts. You feel scared, alone and helpless. Or, hey! Maybe I’m just speaking for myself! But fear not, because our trusty team of Comedy writers have got you covered, and we have fought to the death (metaphorically) to give you our favourite Scottish, Irish and Welsh ones-to-watch in this year’s programme. It’s been bloody, and at times, I thought we wouldn’t make it through. After much debate, however, we give you, Battle of the Celts *insert medieval-sounding theme music with a big gong finish*.
IRELAND Along to our nominees hailing from Ireland now. Dane Buckley debuts with a daft and affectionate
WALES Turning to our Welsh nominees now and we begin with Paul Hilleard, an act whose hopeful attempts at mastering the art of life have led him to some hilarious (and sometimes woeful) experiences. Ahead of his upcoming tour, Morgan Rees covers everything from falling in love to integrating into a proud Gujarati family, detailing the often perilous journey of self-discovery, and the highs and lows we encounter along the way. THE WINNERS On to our WINNERS now. In the Scottish category, all-rounder Craig Manson gets our vote! This year, they drop their astounding new show Bunny! Part character-comedy, part performance art, part ‘what the fuck,’ this nail-biting hour sees main character Bunny dream of becoming theatre’s next big thing, and she also just so happens to be a serial killer. A show about how some people will do whatever it takes to get to the top. Over to our Irish selection and Fringe debutant and rising star Marty Gleeson takes the trophy. In an abstract show about – we think – the fallibility of mankind and the anxieties (and perks) of today’s world, Gleeson is a stand-out comic in a category completely of her own. Prepare to be thrust headfirst into a world unlike any other, and prepare to hear some thoughts about magpies. Last up, we announce Anna Thomas as the winner of our Welsh category. Another debutant, — 45 —
another surreal tale of becoming. This time, the comic grapples with life’s many questions: how to handle loss, how to recount tales of hibernation, and fundamentally, How to Juggle a Ferret. This is a heartwarmingly funny show about grief and what to do when life gives you lemons (or ferrets). --And that’s it – our ‘Battle of the Celts’. Obviously, we can’t decide an ultimate winner between Scotland, Ireland and Wales; I’d be far too scared to begin to have that debate. Nominees and winners alike, all of these acts are deserving of a place on your Fringe calendar.
→ Eva Peroni, Jungled, Nook at Gilded Balloon Teviot, 8-30 Aug (not 17), 4.40pm → Marc Jennings, If & When, Monkey Barrel 1 at Monkey Barrel Comedy, 7-30 Aug (not 17), 7.35pm → Marjolein Robertson, Clouds (WIP), Stand 1 at The Stand Comedy Club, 17-30 Aug, 2.35pm → Eleanor Morton, The Mermaid, CabVol 1 at Monkey Barrel Comedy, 7-30 Aug (not 10, 11, 17, 18, 24, 25), 1pm → Connor Burns, FLOW, Just The Atomic Room at Just The Tonic Nucleus, 6-30 Aug (not 18 or 22), 6pm → Dane Buckley, Darling, Bunker One at Pleasance Courtyard, 7-30 Aug (not 17), 6pm → Roger O’Sullivan, Divil May Cry, Monkey Barrel 2, 7-30 Aug (not 1), 5.45pm → Lorna Ní Shúilleabháin, Barefoot Before God, Nic 4 at Hoots @ Nicolson Square, 7-15 Aug, 4.35pm → Paul Hilleard, Grogg, The Studio at Monkey Barrel Comedy, 7-30 Aug, 10.40pm → Morgan Rees, What a Bummer, Monkey Barrel 2, 12-15 Aug, 12.05pm → Craig Manson, Bunny!, Anatomy Lecture Theatre at Summerhall, 7-31 Aug (not 17 or 24), 10.15pm → Marty Gleeson, Dog Ear, Bunker One at Pleasance Courtyard, 7-30 (not 17) → Anna Thomas, How to Juggle a Ferret, CabVol 2 at Monkey Barrel Comedy, 7-30 Aug (not 18), 2.55pm
August 2026 – Feature
SCOTLAND First up, we have our NOMINEES! Beginning with Scotland, we had votes for rising Glaswegian star Eva Peroni, whose show Jungled tells the inspiring tale of how she went to Costa Rica a naïve, heterosexual 17-year-old, and returned a “bald lesbian without shoes”. Pretty relatable stuff. Then we have fellow Glaswegian comic Marc Jennings. His new show, If & When, sees him do what he does best: offer sharp insight into life’s many trials and tribulations. Marjolein Robertson presents a new WIP entitled Clouds, which continues the comic’s pursuit to expertly blend stand-up and folklore, bridging the line between comedy and theatre. We continue with Eleanor Morton, a comedian who indulges us by detailing her wish to become a mermaid, ultimately taking the audience on a journey through beauty, nostalgia and, importantly, “justice for Nicola Roberts.” Then we have Connor Burns, who, amongst other achievements, has “packed Glasgow’s King’s Theatre five times!” He brings us a spitfire hour of quippy gags and jokes.
show dedicated to Irish mammies, Indian grannies and his archenemy: the parish priest. What more could you want? Combining wit and observation with a wry take on the question of identity, Roger O’Sullivan returns with an hour of anecdotal material stemming from a strict rural upbringing where ‘ambition is a mortal sin.’ Lorna Ní Shúilleabháin brings to the Fringe her show Barefoot Before God. After sold-out runs in Barcelona and Dublin, the comic explores sexuality and cultural identity through the lens of Catholic guilt – before shedding it entirely.
Edinburgh Festivals Special
Photo: Trudy Stade Marjolein Robertson
THE SKINNY
On Masculinity Edinburgh Festivals Special
Big characters Prince Wilfred, Paul Sykes and Shaun Guff on the highs and lows of performing at the Edinburgh Fringe, the journey it’s taken them to get there, and what it takes to be a man today Hi guys! Would you mind introducing yourselves? Let’s start with you, Prince Wilfred. “I’m a bit offended, as I’d like to think my reputation precedes me. My name is Prince Wilfred, I’m eight years old, and I will stop at nothing to become the king. Though I am the youngest of 13 brothers, I’m the only one who really has what it takes to wear the crown.” My apologies! Paul, let’s hear from you. “I’m Paul Sykes: boxer, weightlifter, wonderful citizen. I don’t do introductions and I don’t suffer fools – I do suffer from arthritis after I engaged in combat with a large bluefin tuna off the coast of Scarborough in 1998. That same year I had a tense clash with David Dickinson after he denied that it was me that came up with his catchphrase ‘cheap as chips’. Let’s just say I’ve always read the H in Bargain Hunt as a C since then.” Shaun, a little about yourself? “It’s simple really – I am a man. A man who has hit rock bottom so you don’t have to.” I’m sorry to hear that. Now, let’s talk about all things Fringe! Prince Wilfred, how would you define your show? “I’ll keep it simple and humble: my Fringe show is the greatest Fringe show that Edinburgh has ever and likely will ever see. It showcases my many skills – my perfect diction, my effortless sense of style, my incredible ability to sing and dance while simultaneously ruminating on dastardly deeds.”
Shaun, what about you? “Part memoir, part TED Talk and part fireworks. Enuff is Enuff with Shaun Guff is in no way a comedy. It’s a very serious seminar and I guarantee* that you will walk out a changed person from it (*no promises).”
Indeed! Moving on to a pretty trendy topic: masculinity. Wilfred, what does masculinity mean to you? “Masculinity is about dominating a space so much that no one can take their eyes off of you. Come to my show and you’ll see… all eyes on me. Because I am a real man.” All opinions are welcome here, I suppose. Paul, anything to add? “Buying a vegan sausage roll and only eating the pastry.” I’d never thought of it like that… Shaun? “I’m going to shock you here – masculinity means absolutely nothing to me. I am a man, yes. That’s obvious. But am I masculine? Also yes. But does masculinity define me? Now that’s a good question. No it doesn’t.” Insightful stuff guys. Would you say you face any barriers? Wilfred, what do you think? “There is a great stigma around short men… something people call Short Kings. This is doubly concerning because I am in line to become the king. However, I am only eight years old, and I can guarantee that when I’m king, I’ll be the tallest man the world has ever seen.” Paul, can you speak to this? “Men today know nothing about survival. They’re not brought up on it. I grew up eating survival for breakfast, every day, with a side of tenacity, grit, and Golden Nuggets cereal.” Inspired. And yourself, Shaun? “You really are poking the old hornets’ nest here, aren’t you! Listen, I’m not going to pretend that I’ve got it all figured out. Yes I am delivering a lifechanging seminar to tens of people all over the UK and one could argue that I should be stable. And to a large extent, I am, but to a much larger extent, I face challenges most days.”
what are you most looking forward to about this year’s Fringe? “Making loads of money which is very likely and will definitely happen.” And you, Paul? “I’ve heard very positive words spoken about the lasagne pie from Storries on Leith Walk.” Shaun, what are you most excited for? “I’m looking forward to a bit of a change of scene to be honest. I’m in the middle of costly divorce proceedings with my soon-to-be ex-wife, Helen, and there’s also misunderstanding around the delivery of a summons for a minor misdemeanor that I might have committed. Apparently I was trespassing, but I’m sure that’ll all blow over. I’m going to be in a container for a month! So good luck finding me there!” Lastly, name three things you’d take with you on a desert island. Wilfred? “A palace, a staff to take care of the palace, my mother (for feed and emotional labor).” Naturally. And you, Paul? “Resilience, determination and a DVD copy of Scooby Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed, just in case the locals haven’t seen it.” Last but not least, you, Shaun? “My wife. My kids. Cyanide.” Lil Wenker: BOYKING, Pleasance Courtyard, 7-30 Aug (not 17), 9.45pm Zoe Cousin: Paul Sykes Is Back on the Family Patch, Hoots @ Nicolson Square, 20-30 Aug, 7.45pm Shaun Guff: Enuff Is Enuff, Hoots @ Potterrow, 7-30 Aug, 6.20pm
Again, I’m sorry to hear of your struggles Shaun. Shall we change the subject? Let’s see... Wilfred,
Photo: Lewis Coleman
Photo: Hudson Hughes
Photo: Rob Trendy
August 2026 – Feature
And you Paul? “It’s like if I was on Piers Morgan’s Life Stories, except it’s on stage, 45 minutes long and ends in a musical number. Oh and Piers Morgan’s not in it.”
Words: Phoebe Crawford
Clementine Bogg-Hargroves as Shaun Guff
Lil Wenker as Prince Wilfred
Zoe Cousin as Paul Sykes
— 46 —
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Edinburgh Festivals Special
THE SKINNY
Return of the King’s Three and a half years ago, The King’s Theatre closed for the most significant works in its 119-year history. With its doors reopening this August, one writer takes us behind the scenes of its renovation
I
remember the first and only time I ever saw a show at the King’s Theatre. It was mid-February, and my insistence on dragging my visiting family through The Meadows was rewarded with horizontal rain and an icy breeze. Cutting through a dim and narrow lane, we came to a looming profile of red brick and venous drain pipes, introducing us to ‘The Grand Old Lady of Leven Street’ from perhaps her only unflattering angle. We hurried around the corner feeling wet and unglamorous, and made for the entrance with little thought for the edifice itself. But that quickly changed, as its carved teakwood doors swallowed us up, out of the drizzle and into a glow of white and gold. In the foyer, marble pillars grew from the floor, supporting an ornate ceiling plastered with gilded vines, flowers and musical instruments. The
auditorium was a sea of crimson, deep and vast, and as I nestled into my seat I found my attention everywhere but the stage. Box seats suspended high in the air resembled little theatres of their own, with velvet curtains suggesting performances might pop out of them at any moment. I peered up at John Byrne’s All the World’s a Stage, a mural commanding the central dome with such allure that for a moment I froze, basking in the wonder of feeling so small. Remembering that reverie, it feels bizarre to think how long would pass before I found myself in the King’s again. Or that, as I sat there, the biggest changes in its history were being planned – changes which would be revealed to me years later, in the pallid light of a construction site, just weeks before their long awaited unveiling to the public.
August 2026 – Feature
Photo: Anneleen Lindsay The Dome Conservators
— 48 —
Words: Sebastian Elder
‘My visit feels neither like that of a place defined by history, nor one offering a window into an otherworldly future. Instead, the King’s [bears] the badges of both preservation and progress’ When the show ended, we exited to a sky of cracked clouds pierced by rays of tangerine light. They illuminated Tollcross with charm, particularly to a foreign first-year student who had scarcely ventured beyond campus and Cowgate. I moved to Tollcross six months later, and it seemed that the King’s was the centrepiece of a small, yet vibrant orbit. It sits resolutely at the base of the steep, winding Leven Street, on which spacious pubs and little cafés mingle with the likes of Scotland’s oldest charity shop and first ever supermarket. For over 100 years, the King’s has attracted locals, tourists, big names and amateur actors alike, and with glee I pictured those faces after a performance, laughter on their lips as they spilled out of the doors and into the night. My new flat was two right turns and a five minute walk from the theatre. But soon after moving in, ‘The Grand Old Lady’ had been cut from the scene. Not silently, but beneath a clamour of tools and commotion, blurring her out of the foreground of local consciousness. For three years, I hoped to leave my flat and find the scaffolding gone, construction hoarding torn down, and an usher standing at the threshold ready to welcome me in. It never happened. But today, I find myself outside of the King’s greeted by someone unexpected. Neil McLeod, marketing and communications officer for Capital Theatres (the King’s parent organisation), greets me with an enthusiastic smile and shows me through a side door for a behind the scenes tour. It leads us down into the newly built
THE SKINNY
Photo: Anneleen Lindsay
Edinburgh Festivals Special
by a vicarious vertigo as McLeod points to the colossal figures painted inside the dome, explaining that not long before, Celie Byrne had been part of a team working on a 100-foot platform to restore her late father’s mural. As we walk up onto the stage, Robb tells me that the floor we stand on is also brand new, a flat surface having replaced the old raked one. “D’you know what that means we can have?” he asks. “Dancers!” exclaims McLeod. “Aye, dancers!” Robb replies. I scribble notes furiously, trying to keep up with the current of knowledge pouring out of him. But as we return to the basement, Robb laments: “I don’t feel I’ve shown you anything.” I can’t help but laugh, and try to explain that I’ve seen as much as I’m likely to wrap my head around. My visit feels neither like that of a place defined by history, nor one offering a window into an otherworldly future. Instead, the King’s has been adorned by time itself, bearing the badges of both preservation and progress. Perhaps the most enchanting example of this was discovered in late 2024, almost a year into the redevelopment: beneath the plasterwork crown at the centre of the proscenium arch, a message in a bottle had been hidden for 119 years. Dated October, 1906 – two months before the King’s first opened – the time capsule remembers the building’s original architects, plasterers and apprentices. It poses a reminder that just as land has memory, spaces can keep secrets – and just because the walls can’t talk, it doesn’t mean they’re not listening. Over the last century and more, the King’s has heard the cries of stars being born and the nervous backstage whispers of first-time performers. It’s — 49 —
listened to staff in the box office befriend colleagues in front of house, listening still as friendship blossomed into love. Walking back through Tollcross on an uncharacteristically sunny day, it occurs to me that despite my or anyone else’s excitement, there are sure to be some indifferent to the reopening. I can see how the building’s grandeur may reinforce the notion of theatre as an exclusive, inaccessible art form. And perhaps there’s still a truth there to be reckoned with. But reflecting on this space and the reimagining it’s been through, it seems that no programme or production will ever speak louder than its people. When the pandemic threatened to insurmountably inflate the cost of the redevelopment, it wasn’t saved by public investment and corporate sponsors alone. Take, for instance, the staff and performers who ran the Edinburgh Marathon to support the fundraising effort. Or the other individuals, community groups and local businesses who donated to the project from their own pockets. Known to many as ‘The People’s Theatre’, the building is proof that when a space is shaped by individuals, our imprints tell a story grander than the sum of their parts. So, when it opens its doors this August, have a look, ask around, and get creative about what you might find. The King’s Theatre reopens with Edinburgh International Festival Angels in America, 15-20 Aug, times vary EXXY, 23 Aug, 7.30pm Clown Show, 27-30 Aug, times vary
August 2026 – Feature
basement, and as people in high-viz jackets and hard hats stream past, I’m struck by the level of excitement and camaraderie in the air. McLeod introduces me to John Robb, Capital Theatre’s technical director and the client-side project lead for the King’s redevelopment. Robb frowns when he learns how little time we have, but moments later he’s consumed by a contagious zeal. First, I’m shown the new power supply room, and though clearly an instrumental feat, I can offer little appreciation beyond hopefully timed nods. But as we continue through the basement, I quickly realise how vital the last few years have been. We turn a corner and arrive at the new accessible changing room. Across from it, an elevator leading up to the stage door has been installed, enabling actors with access needs to perform in a capacity previously impossible. Indeed, Robb explains, the input of people with a range of disabilities was fundamental to the redevelopment plans, helping transform The King’s into one of the most accessible heritage buildings in the UK. The theatre now features accessible toilets on every floor, increased wheelchair-friendly seating, a publicly available Changing Places toilet, as well as new audience elevators and an audio captioning room. These additions are joined by a street-level café, heritage space, bar, gender neutral toilets and a Creative Engagement Studio built for community workshops, school activities and events year-round. We climb an old staircase bringing us up into the orchestra pit. Not far from where we stand, 1,600 wheelbarrows of rubble had been removed by hand, and admiring the auditorium from this submerged perspective, the magnitude of the project begins to feel overwhelming. I’m gripped
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THE SKINNY
Cults & Colonialism Scottish playwright Jack MacGregor speaks to us about the psychology of belief in their cult thriller Prophets, premiering at the Fringe this year
the 1970s – oil shocks, inflationary spirals, political corruption,” MacGregor explains. “People are seeking alternative models of belief to anchor their worldview. This is what cult offers – certainty.” Prophets has sharp political under- and overlays. The play is a two-hander set on the remote and rocky colonial outpost of Saint John gripped in the thrall of a charismatic and growing religious sect. The day of paradise is drawing closer and researcher Kerris (Rebecca Wilkie) is caught in an undercurrent of violent belief. MacGregor is picking up the mantle from authors such as Margaret Atwood who explore concepts of ‘freedom to’ and ‘freedom from’ – the philosophical divide between personal liberty and authoritarian control. The fundamental questions at the heart of Prophets consider who makes the decisions in our lives, and how much agency and autonomy we actually have. “I think the conflict of the play is an argument of free will versus prophecy,” MacGregor says. “The cult on the island proposes a radical form of predestination, whereby everything happens for a reason. Every action is the manifest will of God. Human beings have no free will and justify all action on the basis of divine plan.” Islands are natural closed rooms for thrillers. Photo: Robin Mair Photography
— 51 —
Jack MacGregor The playwright, who is from the north of Scotland, sees Prophets as a contribution to the micro-genre of Scottish island plays such as Further than the Furthest Thing by Zinnie Harris. The play, in some ways, is also an inversion of the classic folk horror story, The Wicker Man. “Instead of a religious police officer on a Scottish island investigating a pagan cult, an agnostic scientist from Scotland travels to an extremity of the British state and confronts a distortion of charismatic evangelical Christianity,” MacGregor explains. Saint John is a tiny, remote, fictional British Overseas Territory – but the setting is steeped in the real-world geopolitical context of the growing militarisation of the Indo-Pacific and the diplomatic dispute over the Chagos Islands. “I wanted to talk about the tension in the Pacific while also creating a spiritual drama that feels so human and character-driven,” MacGregor adds. The drama is directed by Fraser Scott and produced by Leah Byrne, whom they praise for their attunement to the tense humanity of the play. “Fraser understands that theatre is about show – do not tell. I love the way he can make a scene so active and full of choices,” MacGregor says. Meanwhile, set designer Emma Moran creates an intimate world of water, earth and rock in Assembly’s Roxyboxy. “Emma understands texture and tone, and how a play needs to lay out an invitation as soon as you walk in. I want audiences to feel the vibe shift as soon as they walk in.” Prophets surfaces lasting questions for audiences on faith and secularism, free will and predetermination, isolation and belonging, the search for certainty and community, and the mechanisms of power and control that underpin faith and empire. When it comes to something as esoteric and personal as a cult, MacGregor argues there are some things that cannot, or should not, be undeniably understood. “I think certainty can kill the art,” they say. “Imagine how boring things get if there is only one big question with one big answer.” They add that the drama already has a future life in a publishing deal with Bloomsbury. Copies of the book will be available from them at performances. Prophets, Roxyboxy at Assembly Roxy, 5-31 Aug, 5.45pm
August 2026 – Feature
Prophets
“People are seeking alternative models of belief to anchor their worldview. This is what cult offers – certainty”
Edinburgh Festivals Special
F
ringe artists this year are challenging us to believe in something; in some cases, to surrender ourselves. It is a sign of the times that cults are a theme at the Fringe. The grey clouds of political, economic and social volatility cloak the way we live and people are increasingly searching for certainty and somewhere or something higher to belong to. Dark comedies and absurdist satires hold festival programme space with dramatic thrillers – and Jack MacGregor’s Prophets is one of the genre that comes highly anticipated. MacGregor is making their mark in indelible ink on Scottish theatre and has form in bringing provocative narratives to the Fringe. They won a Scotsman Fringe First Award in 2023 for Everything Under the Sun, a drama interrogating imperialism, peacekeeping in war-torn Mali, and the conflicting values of institutions tasked with securing and holding that peace. Theatre is a place of living ideas. A place that mirrors our evolving world. MacGregor’s new writing in Prophets provokes us all to look at the reflection. At a time of acute political, economic and social turmoil, cults offer a strong sense of community, rules-based order and populist answers to complex problems. Past is prequel. “We live in a time of cults that mirror the conditions of
Words: Dionne Lackey
THE SKINNY
Start Spreading the News A
month before thousands of works of theatre, music and comedy descend on Edinburgh, some of the shows that were created in New York City recieve an outing in their hometown. EdFest, produced by Duces Wild, gives Fringe-bound performers the opportunity to run their pieces for a local audience before taking their shows on the road. In the lively, packed halls of Brooklyn Art Haus, I get a sneak peek of five shows visiting Edinburgh this August. Japanese Grandma Funeral Japanese Grandma Funeral is a solo clown show by Kento Morita. Armed with a melodica, a bum bag and numerous other props, Morita attempts to atone for missing his grandmother’s funeral due to COVID-19 travel restrictions. The audience is enlisted to help Morita honour and memorialise his grandmother with a variety of heartwarming and hilarious tasks (which will remain secret for dramatic effect). With 108 possibilities, the show is interactive, iterative, and bound to be different every single time. Morita is delightfully responsive to audience feedback, and the emotional payoff is deeply felt. Morita’s pick n mix comedy bits are laugh-out-loud funny, and it feels like a singular treat to help him memorialise his grandmother. Japanese Grandma Funeral is about doing your best when things are out of your control – and about letting that be enough. ZOO Playground, 7-30 Aug, 5.45pm, 1 hour Photo: Kelly Ngo
Ethan & Gigi Present: THE MOVEMENT
Ethan & Gigi Present: THE MOVEMENT It’s the last meeting before the revolution, and theatre is about to explode. In THE MOVEMENT, Ethan and Gigi assume the personas of two hapless wannabes as they prepare to change the world. As the saying goes, “We can’t have revolution without imagination – and SPECTACLE!” Ethan and Gigi may not make a difference, but they are sure to make you laugh as they give various aspects of American politics and culture the Hamilton treatment. THE MOVEMENT marries the revolutionary with the ridiculous, highlighting Ethan and Gigi’s off-beat chemistry and comedic chops. Big Belly @ Underbelly, Cowgate, 5-30 Aug, 11pm, 1 hour Notes from a Narcissistic Negro and other N-Words Elizabeth June’s solo show is a high-energy memoir about June’s experiences with childhood sexual assault, cancer, and life in general. Grief and hurt are woven into stories of her childhood, but the story does not lack love or levity. The piece is a practice in self-love and self-acceptance that pulls no punches. In particular, June’s work highlights the prevalence of sexual violence in religious spaces, expressing how the people who love us most can also inadvertently put us in harm’s way. This ‘one woman reflection’ is a heart-wrenching narrative told by someone who was born to perform.
Japanese Grandma Funeral
The Annexe @ Paradise in the Vault, 17-22 Aug, 4.45pm, 1 hour — 52 —
Words: Rho Chung
Channel This month, Wet Hands presents a 75-minute sonic meditation in a shipping container off of George Square. Using sound and light, the artists allow audiences to switch off from the chaos of the Fringe, settling into a deeply meditative and relaxing environment. The audience is invited to participate by contributing sounds, but it is equally encouraged to just sit back and relax. A bowl of water is the centerpiece of the space, and occasionally certain volumes and frequencies cause little droplets to leap off the surface as the water dances with sound. The effect, reflected on the ceiling, is mesmerising. In this space, it’s easy to be carried away from the go-go-go feeling of the Fringe. 75 minutes of meditation during the festival season feels luxurious, and audiences are encouraged to take in all sounds, both from inside and outside of the room. The meaning and feeling of the sounds change as they are layered on top of each other, going in and out of sync like ocean waves. The Cubicle @ Buccleuch Place, Assembly George Square, 5-30 Aug, times vary, 1 hour 15 minutes The Van Gogh Shogh Clown show meets paint and sip meets art auction meets karaoke bar in this side-splitting solo show by Donna Oblongata. The audience meets a harried Vincent van Gogh, who tries his best to be understood as an artist and person. A good deal of the show is pure audience interaction, in which Oblongata demonstrates how well she knows her character. Oblongata’s performance is infectiously high energy as she invites audience members onstage to paint, drink, and commiserate. The piece is in conversation with other van Goghthemed experiences, upping the ante not just in its immersion and interactivity, but also in its heartfelt care for this artist. Front Room @ Assembly Rooms, 6-30 Aug, 6.25pm, 1 hour Photo: Alley Scott
August 2026 – Feature
Photo: Noah Eberhart
Edinburgh Festivals Special
From interactive clowning to immersive soundscapes, our former Theatre editor gets a first glimpse of NYC shows heading to this year's Edinburgh Festival Fringe
Channel
THE SKINNY
Political Provocation Brazilian writers Christiane Jatahy and Lucas Paraizo tell The Skinny all about their latest play, A Trial, which presents a new point of friction for each audience, every night
T
accidents and surprises… lose control and find balance.” Creating a solid text and a tight structure is, along with Ibsen’s play, the base of the production. This, Paraizo observes, allows the same writing to resonate across changing audience and countries. But changing audiences and countries are not the only constant of the play: Paraizo notices that Jatahy herself “always has something to think about and improve”. For Jatahy, the meeting between a random jury and such deliberate writing produces something in her akin to floating, as she motions her hands in such a way during our conversation. There is an evident respect between the writers. Their portfolios span decades and connect intimately at points. The harmony is palpable, and Jatahy emphasises the dialogue between them as “more about listening [than speaking]”. If there is conflict, it is not to advocate for their respective ideas, but to advance their interest in a shared idea. Such respect between the writers translates into the play’s prioritisation of intimacy between unprepared audience members and actors. “We can write about big social political things,” Jatahy says, “but we never lose the human things, the families, the relationships – the most intimate relationships.” Paraizo echoes this, acknowledging that “the politics are a subtext, a very important
subtext, but the relationships are the first layer of the stories.” To access the political, one must penetrate that first layer, which is, he adds, “the human being; that is our start, our beginning, our materia prima.” Seeing as pollution and combustion – literal and political – surround the world’s core, A Trial seems to suggest that it is the unpredictability of human nature we must embrace to expand our ideas of what we are capable of. This play oes not appear on stage to provide any utopian answers. On the contrary, Paraizo figures that the idea of utopia inspires questions. As both Jatahy and Paraizo believe, utopia is unknowable, but it is, as Jatahy puts it, “the place that we can invent [and] imagine to stay together in.” Utopia moves through Jatahy’s work, and while it is something Paraizo is hestitant to admit knowing, he says the idea “makes [him] wake up every day and look for it: a goal, a sense of provocation – and maybe without the answer, we can make questions.” The political is subtextual, and the play is fully human. A Trial promises not only to be interactive, but provocative – and anyone in Edinburgh could be one of those provocateurs at The Lyceum this August. A Trial, Royal Lyceum Theatre, 7-10 Aug, 7.30pm (2pm on 8th) Photo: Caio Lírio
August 2026 – Feature
here is magic in the making of A Trial – after an Enemy of the People. Written by Christiane Jatahy, Lucas Paraizo and Golden Globe winner Wagner Moura, the play answers Henrik Ibsen’s seminal 1882 text An Enemy of the People and has toured the stages of Amsterdam and Avignon. It premieres in the UK at Edinburgh’s Royal Lyceum Theatre this August – a highly anticipated item in the Edinburgh International Festival programme. “Sometimes,” Paraizo says, “[this] magic happens when you understand somebody, when you understand the value that they want to transmit with the play, the friction we are trying to [make].” It is clear in speaking with them that Jatahy and Paraizo understand one another’s values and sensibilities, which creates a strong structural starting point for inviting the friction that shifts each individual performance. Each time, the theatre randomly selects a new jury from the audience to dictate the fate of the play’s protagonist, Thomas Stockmann (played by Moura), after he attempts to expose a water pollution scandal in his hometown. Without giving away any spoilers, the writers communicate their ebullience at the result of each evening’s production. To allow each performance to be its own kind, the play’s structure accommodates what Jatahy calls a “web of relationships” that occurs onstage and acts as a lifebuoy for actors: “They can grab [it[ and create a cricle that is strong to kep these emotions, this reality, this present moment...[products] not only in the mind of the actors, but [from] real connections that happen onstage,” she says. The play’s mise en scene is emotional, Paraizo says, allowing people’s “impressions, fights and discussions” to manifest in realtime. While the fear exists that participants might insert their values into the play, Jatahy is not particularly worried about this. Both writers are optimistic about releasing control; Jatahy says she relinquishes her title as artist to “discover the piece through the eyes of the people inside of the play and the text.” This abdication is central to her work, her research, and what both writers call the “language” she has crafted for 25 years. The play's structure allows her, Jatahy explains, to “provoke
Edinburgh Festivals Special
Words: Maria Farsoon
A Trial - after An Enemy of the People
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THE SKINNY
Bridging the Gap I
f you are Palestinian and living in the West Bank, there is only one way to leave your country by land. This is the Allenby Bridge – named, appropriately, after British imperial general Edmund Allenby who led widespread campaigns throughout the region in the early 20th-century – also known more familiarly as الجسر, or the bridge. It spans the border between Jordan on one side and Palestine on the other, crossing the Jordan River close to the city of أريحا, or Jericho. It is Palestine’s only land crossing, manned on one side by Jordanian authorities, and on the other by Israel’s security forces. Palestinians queue, often for hours or days, to move between the two. The Allenby Bridge is many things – a bureaucratic nightmare, a distillation of border violence, an encapsulation of the suffocation of the decades-long occupation. More recently, however, it is also the subject of Palestinian comedian Alaa Shehada’s latest show The Bridge, which explores the history of the crossing through his unique blend of storytelling, comedy and clowning. Shehada is no stranger to telling stories of the occupation through comedy: his previous show The Horse of Jenin showed at the Fringe last year to both hilarity and acclaim. With The Bridge, Shehada exposes the absurdity at the heart of the journey through an account of a journey he makes from Jenin to his aunt’s house in Amman. “It’s always been in my head, how rich this story is,” Shehada says. “It’s thousands of details, it’s suffering, it’s three checkpoints with three different mentalities and identities and behaviours.” Shehada drew from his own experience, having crossed the bridge “more than 100 times,” as well as testimonies from other Palestinians, whose different stories speak to both the multiplicity and collectivity of experience under the occupation. “I go to visit family in Jordan, or to take an aeroplane to Europe for my shows,” he explains. “But some people go to have operations in Jordan. Some people visit their families, or go to America, or go to Turkey. I talked to taxi drivers who receive all these people, who take these people from their house to the bridge.” There is a particular power, Shehada believes, in telling such fraught stories with laughter. Co-founder of the Palestine Comedy Club, a collective dedicated to nurturing and platforming stand-up comedy in Palestine and bringing it to the wider world, Shehada has long been dedicated to drawing out the warmth and humour that is inherent to Palestinian culture, and that is largely erased within traumatic media coverage. “It’s part of who we are,” Shehada stresses. “When I [was] home just two weeks ago, the amount of jokes that my aunts and my uncles and my mother tell, how much they make fun of each other, how much they make fun out of nothing…” He pauses. “It challenges the stereotypes about Palestine because
the image you have in your head is black and white. And comedy draws new colours for you.” The story of the Allenby Bridge, as with the story of The Horse of Jenin – a sculpture created from rubble left behind after the Second Intifada and destroyed by the IDF in October 2023 – is heavy with legacies of violence, but it is in the collective space of theatre and comedy that this weight can be, if not lightened, then carried in a different way. There is a politics of togetherness that comedy can extend, Shehada suggests, that speaks to the broader issues around his plays. “It brings us closer together as humans,” Shehada explains. “We feel the same thing when we laugh. If I meet you for the first time and we laugh, it is a totally different connection. We accept each other differently.” And while Fringe audiences are distinctly more reserved than Palestinian audiences (“back home, people’s reactions are way out there. They express, they laugh, they comment, they stop your show,” Shehada laughs. “They don’t fucking care.”) there is still a power in that moment of unified laughter and emotion that expands our ability to understand and empathise. For Shehada, part of this journey of crosscultural empathy is understanding the different dimensions of the occupation: both the violence that is experienced, and the hope that sits on the other side of it and pushes back. In the case of the Allenby Bridge, this hope is encapsulated in the idea of a Palestinian airport that would allow direct and independent travel outside of the country. “The idea of having an airport, it feels very
Words: Anahit Behrooz
“[Comedy] challenges the stereotypes about Palestine because the image you have in your head is black and white. And comedy draws new colours for you” Alaa Shehada dreamy,” Shehada explains. “How it will look, who will run it, who will the pilots be. The people commenting on the planes, pretending that they know everything about planes when they know nothing.” It is a vision that is – perhaps – far away, yet still achingly familiar. It is in this space that Shehada believes that hope thrives. “In every story of the hard reality in Palestine, there is hope to live and move on,” he says. “Wake up the next morning, go to school, get married, go to university. People fight hard after their dreams. Here, the hope is to kill this idea of suffering around the bridge.” The Bridge, Assembly Roxy, 6-16 Aug Photo: Kamerich & Budwilowitz
August 2026 – Feature
Edinburgh Festivals Special
Alaa Shehada of the Palestine Comedy Club brings The Bridge to the Edinburgh Fringe. He speaks to The Skinny about the Allenby Bridge, Palestine’s only land crossing, and the salience of humour under occupation
Alaa Shehada
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Suporting Scottish artists and companies in bringing work to the Edinburgh Fringe every year.
August 2026
Explore this year’s programme, with 18 productions across theatre, music, and dance. Find out more: www.madeinscotlandshowcase.com
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Reclaiming Queer Art Rare solo exhibitions dedicated to the queer photographer Del LaGrace Volcano and the late fetish artist Sadao Hasegawa challenge the cultural devaluation of LGBTQ+ erotic art
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n 1964, the Jacobellis v. Ohio Supreme Court Case gave rise to the most infamous attempt to define pornography; when pushed, Associate Justice Potter Stewart claimed: “I know it when I see it.” The case reversed Ohio State’s decision to ban a public showing of Louis Malle’s The Lovers – a French film about a woman who, dissatisfied with her marriage, pursues a sexually liberating affair – on the grounds of obscenity. As Stewart’s murky definition implies, the distinction between art and pornography relies more on subjective intuition – which is shaped by societal bias – than on a robust critical framework. Queer artists, whose practices – in art and life – offend and disrupt heteronormative, traditionalist values, are particularly vulnerable to accusations of obscenity. From Robert Mapplethorpe’s raw documentation of S&M to David Wojnarowicz’s filmic meditation on the AIDS crisis, conservative groups and politicians have notoriously approached explicit queer art as a wedge issue, seizing the opportunity to stoke a culture war. In Scotland, we recently saw just how volatile subjective judgements around obscenity
Words: Rachel Ashenden
can become in the takedown of Leonie Rae Gasson’s REIN in 2024. The moving-image installation, which sought to explore ‘dyke sexuality’ through sex acts, was censored before it was even made. A whirlwind of political outcry followed The Scottish Sun’s report on the public funding of ‘STATE-FUNDED PORN’; consequently, Creative Scotland withdrew the funding, arguing that they did not realise that the project involved real sex. While the censorship of Gasson’s REIN is a recent high-profile case in Scotland, this year’s Edinburgh Art Festival foregrounds the experiences of international queer artists whose work has been vulnerable to obscuration in the 20th century, placing contemporary debates around obscenity in a longer historical continuum. In Leith, two rare exhibitions – one by the American artist and activist Del LaGrace Volcano and another by the late Japanese fetish artist Sadao Hasegawa – are brought into dialogue through their celebrations of underground queer culture. “The Edinburgh Art Festival this year is very sexy,” says curator Eleanor Taylor with a coy smile, adding that it’s not unusual for her to be Image: courtesy of the artist
August 2026 – Feature
Edinburgh Festivals Special
THE SKINNY
Del LaGrace Volcano, Chilling at Greyfriars with Sylvia, Edinburgh, 1989
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discussing chains, whips and dicks with colleagues by 10am on a Monday. The upcoming EAF programme is the fourth under the directorship of Kim McAleese, in which the Festival has shifted from a commissioning focus on public sculpture to three weekends of performance and provocations. Taylor confirms that the programming team gravitate towards artists who don’t fit neatly into an art historical narrative: “We’re expanding what the festival considers contemporary art.” This commitment is pertinent given the politically divisive debates over the boundaries between art and pornography, through which censorship has restricted queer artists’ expression, condemning it as too explicit for public exhibition. Exhibiting artist Del LaGrace Volcano has experienced their fair share of censorship. Raised in what they describe as a “working, working-class family” in California, Volcano moved to London in the early 1980s, where they were active in the local BDSM community and captured the dyke cruising scene in monochrome. In 1991, they produced their debut monograph, Love Bites, an unapologetically sex positive documentation of lesbian subcultures in all their intricacies, “[f]rom clubbing to marching, harness to tutu, ruff sex to romance,” as the back cover declares. Upon publication, Love Bites was seized by US customs, and in the UK, LGBTQ+ bookshops refused to stock it; West & Wilde Bookshop in Edinburgh was the only exception. “There was nothing I considered pornographic,” Volcano says, with exasperation in their voice, over Zoom from their studio in Sweden. “There was nothing you could prove was violating the Obscene Publications Act.” It’s clear that the artist still bears the weight of the obscenity accusations three decades later. Paralleling the furore surrounding REIN, it was the tabloids that pornified Volcano’s intimate portraits of queer connection and exploration, appropriating the language typically associated with Page 3 imagery in a bid to sensationalise them. At EAF26, Volcano pushes against censorship attempts with Love Bites Back at 92 Constitution Street. In preparation, the artist has been working through their self-made Queer Archive of Resistance, selecting dyke photography taken from 1982 to 1995 for display. In retracing their movements through London’s dyke scene, the artist has been considering their “right to exhibit [the images] of intimate moments” more than three decades later. Where there is doubt, Volcano has sought “renewed consent”.
THE SKINNY
Image: courtesy of Gallery Naruyama Sadao Hasegawa, Dawn, 1980
Japanese customs regulations governing obscene material, with guidance from Gallery Naruyama, which cares for and preserves the artist’s estate. Discussing the thematic contradictions in the selected works, Edmondson suggests that obscenity is an unstable category. For example, some representations of homosexual penetration could not be guaranteed safe passage back to Japan, yet depictions of penetrative bestiality – including works from the 1982 series From the Story of the Princess and the Eight Dogs – were considered permissible. Hasegawa’s marginal position within Japanese art institutions provides integral historical context for these ongoing tensions. Despite his prolific career in gay press, he came up against the hetero-conservatism of mainstream museums. Two years before his untimely death by suicide in 1997, he wrote to Durk Dehner, co-founder of the Tom of Finland Foundation, reflecting on his pursuit of “spiritual, profound beauty and eros” while expressing frustration at the reluctance of museums to exhibit and collect gay art. This marginalisation was felt deeply in his personal life, — 59 —
Edinburgh Art Festival 2026, 14-30 Aug Del LaGrace Volcano: Love Bites Back, 92 Constitution Street, 14-30 Aug Sadao Hasegawa: Carnal Desires, Custom Lane, 14-30 Aug edinburghartfestival.com
August 2026 – Feature
Movingly, through creating this exhibition, Volcano has reconnected with an ex – Scottish lover, Sylvia. In Love Bites Back, Sylvia stares longingly at Volcano; cosies up to her leather-clad grandparents on the couch; and, in bondage gear, balances on a tombstone in Greyfriars Kirkyard. With care and consent, the couple’s relationship and escapades in Edinburgh are presented in all their multitudes, captured with the intention of eliciting aesthetic and emotional contemplation. Subjective, state-enforced judgements around obscenity shaped the curation of Sadao Hasegawa: Carnal Desires. Presented at Custom Lane, the exhibition explores the self-taught artist’s sprawling universe of gay male desire through a selection of illustrations, sketches and paintings produced throughout the 1970s, 80s and early 90s. Although Hasegawa was prolific in the international gay magazine industry during his lifetime, exhibitions of his work outside of Japan remain rare. Bringing Hasegawa’s work to Edinburgh required curator Edmondson to navigate UK and
too, as a man closeted to his family; his sexuality and his artistic practice only became known to them in death. Had Hasegawa not left a note instructing his estate be entrusted to Gallery Naruyama, his family considered throwing away his work out of fear of the shame it would bring upon them. Through Carnal Desires, EAF strengthens the public and international visibility of a body of work that has been vulnerable to erasure and institutional neglect. In platforming Volcano and Hasegawa, EAF challenges the cultural devaluation of LGBTQ+ art with erotic themes, in turn promoting tolerance towards non-normative sexualities. Curated with a sex positive mindset, the programme offers a space to encounter the aesthetic merits of the artists’ diverse practices, from Volcano’s liberating lens to Hasegawa’s futuristic reinterpretations of shunga. And if the tabloids are eager to condemn the works as too explicit for public exhibition, we must challenge the impulse to restrict queer artists’ freedom of expression.
Edinburgh Festivals Special
‘Queer artists, whose practices, in art and life, offend and disrupt heteronormative, traditionalist values, are particularly vulnerable to accusations of obscenity’
April 2026 – Feature
Art
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Art
etchingroom1, Cruise ship
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April 2026 – Feature
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Sensations of Power EAF26 Emerging Writer Eve Whittle follows her intuition at Talbot Rice Gallery, where British artist Anne Hardy has transformed the Georgian Gallery through sculpture As the room continues to shift around me, lights flickering and sound folding into itself, Hardy’s conceptual terrain feels clearer. In her exhibition pamphlet she speaks about ‘the evolving infiltration of artificial intelligence into our daily lives, and the future of our biological selves that have evolved over millennia to give us complex, embedded, intuitive knowledge and instincts.’ This tension, between ancient embodied intelligence and accelerating technological systems, becomes the exhibition’s deeper engine. Rather than depicting AI or futurity, the installation performs a kind of temporal grafting: past, present, and speculative future pressed into the same atmospheric field. These collisions don’t simply expand the work’s material vocabulary, they propose a future archaeology in which incompatible contexts exist together, refusing to resolve into a single narrative of what comes next. I am pulled towards the sculptural beings. They kneel, lean, and hover. It feels as if you have caught them mid-gesture, as if they have been interrupted by my arrival. Their postures are ambiguous: ritual, exhaustion or emergence? They are not human or stable, but they feel grounded. There is a sense of being watched, but not judged. The beings feel attentive, as if they are listening to the room, to the visitors, to the institution itself. Their materials carry traces of labour, ritual, environmental remnants, and technological signals. They feel like future artefacts, objects that know something about what comes next.
‘Hardy suggests that knowledge might be something we sense before we understand’
Photo: Angus Mill
Anne Hardy: Feelings, Talbot Rice Gallery, Edinburgh, until 27 Sep Edinburgh Art Festival, 14-30 Aug Anne Hardy, Being (Interloper), 2022-24. Exhibition view, Anne Hardy: Feelings, Talbot Rice Gallery, the University of Edinburgh
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trg.ed.ac.uk
August 2026 – Feature
One figure, The Interloper, acts as a fulcrum; the other beings seem to orbit it, drawn to its gravitational field. I glance at the visitor book on my way out: ‘I loved it! And I was scared of The Interloper’ – Nia, six years old. In this moment, the installation becomes a proposition about power; who holds it, who resists it, and who rewrites it. A question about knowledge, power, and the future. Children often sense atmospheres before adults name them. Hardy’s work seems to trust that. Moving through the space, I notice how the building itself responds to Hardy’s work. The sound travels differently across its surfaces. The flickering light reveals architectural details normally overlooked; the beings cast shadows that feel older than they are. The installation performs the building, activating it, unsettling it, turning the gallery into something porous. Talbot Rice becomes a membrane rather than a container; Talbot Rice becomes a site of negotiation between past and future, clarity and intuition, academic authority and embodied knowledge. What hangs most is the sense that the exhibition is not asking to be understood, but absorbed. It offers sensations rather than statements, atmospheres rather than arguments. It invites a mode of attention that is slower, quieter, more attuned to the body’s intelligence. In a moment where it seems institutions are preoccupied with legibility, Hardy proposes opacity as a form of knowledge – not obscurity, but depth. As I leave, my feet feel different. The building exhales. The atmosphere settles, but not completely. Something lingers, a residue of sensation, a feeling that the institution has been subtly rewritten. Feelings does not simply occupy the Talbot Rice Gallery. It infiltrates and unsettles it. It invites a new mode of knowing – one rooted in intuition, material intelligence, and embodied futures. And I find myself thinking: Everything you need to know is in the space. Everything you need to know is in you.
Edinburgh Festivals Special
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start with my feet. Before the work comes into focus, and before the exhibition’s logic reveals itself, the room meets me at a corporeal level. The gallery feels grounded, as if it has been asked to hold more than the literal works themselves. Anne Hardy’s Feelings at the Talbot Rice Gallery is a show that starts in the body, in the soles, in the breath. Before I fully enter the space, before I understand anything, I feel it. And maybe that is the point. Only after sensation does the exhibition’s structure begin to emerge. Three sculptural beings occupy the Georgian Gallery, each assembled from cast metals, worn fabrics, ceramic fragments, and studio remnants. A flickering light system responds to distant weather data, pulling external conditions into the gallery. A sonic field, part environmental and part technological, threads throughout the space, shaping how the room is navigated. These elements, these constellations of materials and signals, guide the visitor through Hardy’s world of embodied futures. Hardy’s practice is rooted in intuition, embodied knowledge, and listening to materials. Here, intuition becomes a methodology rather than a mood. The show proposes a mode of knowledge that precedes language, unsettling the gallery’s usual demand for clarity. In the context of the University of Edinburgh’s gallery space, a place built on the belief that knowledge can be acquired, articulated, and assessed, Feelings feels quietly radical. Hardy suggests that knowledge might be something we sense before we understand.
Words: Eve Whittle
THE SKINNY
The Right to be Seen
August 2026 – Feature
Words: Anna Olivia Riley
T
he American photographer Catherine Opie and I speak over a call while she sits in her Los Angeles studio. She is kind and generous; she says nothing is off limits. To Be Seen, her first solo show in Scotland, will be her fifth and final exhibition of the last two years. Touring from the National Portrait Gallery, To Be Seen includes nearly 80 portraits by Opie alongside 13 paintings by a range of artists from the National Galleries of Scotland’s collection. Her portraits are displayed across seven rooms, showing various images, ranging from her family and queer community to Barack Obama’s presidential inauguration and high school footballers. Opie approaches every museum site intentionally: “I plan every exhibition very carefully; the architecture and the installation has to work with the meaning of the show. Nothing is ever random in my exhibitions.” From her fine-art portraits of queer subcultures in Los Angeles, to her never-ending American landscapes, Opie has taken some of the most striking and important photographs of the last 35 years. For Opie, this exhibition’s installation is in conversation with a broad history of portraiture. While the 13 selected works from Scotland’s national collection use paint to map culture and time, Opie uses the camera to create a detailed map of skin. Museums and their collections are in a very interesting and fraught place today; they are the meeting place between a public and their history. With the surge in right-wing politics across the globe, the museum must decide whose history gets told and how. For Opie, art and activism are intertwined. She asks, “How can we imbue this moment with actual criticality, where we can invite people to look at history in a different way?” There is power in portraits; a directness and stillness in the subject’s gaze that reaches all the way into us. To Be Seen is a personal show “that is still about the political as well, because that’s never separated far from me”. By staging images of her community, family and herself alongside the collection’s historical paintings, Opie shows us what we have in common and asks us, how are we the same? In Self-Portrait Nursing (2004), Opie poses breastfeeding her son, with the word 'pervert' scarred and scribed on her chest. Picasso’s Mère et enfant [Mother and Child] (1902) will sit nearby, a painting from a century prior; a mother’s back, her head tilted as she holds her baby in her arms. Opie’s portrait of Divinity Fudge (1997), in her leopard print two-piece, converses with the elaborate gown of Benedetto Gennari’s portrait of Elizabeth Murray, Duchess of Lauderdale (1679). This is what we do as humans; we have signifiers that represent our culture,
Photo: © Catherine Opie. Courtesy the artist, Regen Projects, Los Angeles, Lehmann Maupin, New York, Hong Kong, London, and Seoul, and Thomas Dane Gallery
Edinburgh Festivals Special
Photographer Catherine Opie speaks to EAF26 Emerging Writer Anna Olivia Riley about capturing a hopeful portrait of humanity
Catherine Opie, Flipper, Tanya, Chloe & Harriet, San Francisco, 1995
history and identity. For us dykes, Opie’s work shows us people that look like us; it represents our past and our potential futures. For those who have national and Scottish pride, a 15th-century portrait of Scottish tartan sinks into the body in the same way. This shared humanity is what Opie wants us to see. Stereotypes are mean and the world is often cruel, but Opie’s lens is a kind one. In documenting ‘the skin’ of her family and friends across their lifetimes, she generously maps the future and shows us what is possible. She invites us to have hope! When I look at Flipper, Tanya, Chloe & Harriet (1995), I see my friends in each figure. To Be Seen is about “trying to get to a greater place of humanity.” Opie looks at elaborate 15thcentury clothing and asks: “why can’t that be queering as well?” This exhibition shows us a common language that belongs to us all. Opie says: “all of this is a larger ecosystem of all of us.” This is why, when you come to this exhibition, you may well see yourself. You might also see people whom you dislike or people you love. All these — 64 —
"Nothing is ever random in my exhibitions" Catherine Opie people are given the same attention because every single person has the right to be seen. Opie’s empathetic gaze reaches through her portraits and all the way into us. In meeting every single person and past with such kindness, she extends her empathy from yesterday into tomorrow and offers us a possible vision of our world; a kinder future. Catherine Opie: To Be Seen, Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh, 8 Aug-1 Nov Edinburgh Art Festival, 14-30 Aug nationalgalleries.org
THE SKINNY
Get to the Root Esther Castle’s installation at Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop prompts us to consider the hidden politics of gardening, observes EAF26 Emerging Writer Khadea Santi
Words: Khadea Santi
Edinburgh Festivals Special
Photo: Alexander Appleby. Image courtesy of the artist
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Esther Castle, Abundant Parts, 2026, Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop
Effervescent! with artist Katucha Bento presents a participatory performance that is grounded in an embodied anti-racist practice, inviting us to think beyond human hierarchy and think with plants. Meanwhile, it feels more important than ever to think globally about the effects of biodiversity loss. Castle’s work opens up similar dialogues and from afar, within its own metaphors. In Castle’s studio, I’m reminded of how sharp and sensitive artists can be in their observations of the world around them; what they take in and fictionalise through materials, through metaphor, making us see again. Castle and I talk about the weeds growing along a nearby path, and that we all in a sense act like gardeners when we go about our life pruning and presenting a manicured self to the world, while being unruly is a marginal position. Pristine gardens are ways to signal to people we are upholding the ideal. But what if that idea of control is just an illusion? From my experience of living in a body that is disabled compared to what is expected of it, I am not disillusioned. It’s the red, raw, soreness of trying to keep up that falls to the side and you have to find new ways of understanding yourself in relation to the world. Society serves the privileged few, while everyone else has to contort themselves to fit in. But what about those of us with disabilities, shaped differently, unable to conform if we tried? With an unruly body it feels like you’re looking onto society, not from within society – out of place – weedy. Abundant Parts recognises that feeling intimately, — 67 —
‘Castle’s otherworldly garden weeds offer ways to reframe and slowly unravel fixed social constructions’ magnifying it and displaying. We must recognise the ableist systems that control and dominate our bodies; Castle’s other-worldly garden weeds offer ways to reframe and slowly unravel fixed social constructions, giving us space to imagine otherwise. We are, each of us, prone to illness and harm, yet we all too often ignore these things and the people experiencing them. This work points to that softness, that vulnerability, to difficult emotions, and how we can reframe weeds as beautiful, playful, unexpected and welcomed flora.
Esther Castle: Abundant Parts, Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop, until 27 Sep Edinburgh Art Festival 2026, 14–30 Aug edinburghartfestival.com
August 2026 – Feature
meet Esther Castle in her studio at Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop, a short distance from her new window installation at Hawthornvale Space. The Edinburgh-based artist often draws from her childhood experiences of illness, and explores what it means to occupy a disabled body. Her installation Abundant Parts is a glass house of sorts, displaying a ceramic tiled figure pulling a weed from within, taking a closer look at the roots. Castle uses the garden as a metaphor for the connection between the non-normative body and weeds: “A weed is only a weed because it’s in a place it’s not supposed to be. There’s nothing weedy about weed. They’re very, like, as we were talking about, very strong forces.” Inside her studio, by contrast, the walls are covered in charcoal sketches, tacit acknowledgements of the strangeness of interacting with cultivated environments designed for able-bodied people in a non-normative body. They remind me of comic strips. When I mention this, Castle lights up and says that the white space that separates images in a comic strip is called the gutter. “Maybe these figures kind of fell into the gutter and they’re coming back out... they’re not supposed to be there,” but grow anyway, like weeds in manicured gardens and concrete pavement cracks – abundant, defiant. Visible at street level, blending ceramics, painting and sculpture, Castle’s Abundant Parts installation catches the eyes of passerbys. A reclining figure made out of red glazed tiles stands out against the matte green, all encased behind glass. There’s an initial unease when you first look at the figure, how it feels contained and uncomfortable in the space, and then I see a momentary reflection of myself in the glass. Aluminium cast weeds flit around it, playfully conveying resistance and persistence, muscly and in abundance. The central figure pulls at a giant weed, seemingly plucked from within, having a closer look. Surprised shock at the roots – the roots that are alive. The work reminds me of the teachings of historian and activist Barbara Ransby, who proclaimed that to get radical means “to get to the root.” How we tend a garden is more political than we think. Mainstream British gardening coincided with the height of 19th-century imperialism, as the expanding empire scoured the world for exotic species of plants. The idea of gardens shaped by control and dominance is linked to that colonial past. Roots can help us get to a place where we can address the past. On display during the Edinburgh Art Festival, Abundant Parts chimes with the Festival’s ongoing curatorial exploration of interspecies connection. During the 2024 iteration, Más Arte Más Accion: Around a Tree offered a space to gather and explore human–plant interconnections and biodiversity loss. In the 2026 EAF edition,
THE SKINNY
Climbing the Walls
August 2026 – Feature
Words: Mayson Taylor
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stand before a giant pyramid of irregular cubes, coated in resin and washed in spray paint. Their chalky texture and rough graffiti blend classroom with underpass. Bound by gallery etiquette, I keep a respectful distance, tilting my head left to right, willing profound thoughts to arrive about the meaning of this artwork. Eva Rothschild, creator of Amphi (2019) and a London-based Irish sculptor, sweeps past me and perches on a cube. Elected to the Royal Academy in 2014, she represented Ireland in the Venice Biennale in 2019 and has spent thirty years pushing the limits of Minimalism. She pats the edge of a block nearby, and we talk about her current exhibition at the Fruitmarket in Edinburgh: The Void Presses the Wall. Sitting on the structure, it opens up; the white gallery recedes. I’m chatting with Rothschild like we just met at a playground; her sculpture becomes a portal to my childhood. I resist the urge to climb higher. Rothschild explains: “If you sit on one, you start to think, ‘oh, this isn’t what I thought it was,’ … which I think is the way you want to come to art: a kind of searching way.” Untitled Stools are dotted throughout the exhibition, tucked into its corners. I ask the curators whether they are “part of the work.” Nobody gives a straight answer. It feels like exactly the point. Searching turns out to be more method than mood for Rothschild. She does not fix meaning; she creates “an expanded view of materials and the possibilities of making.” It’s an idea rooted, partially, in her education. Reflecting on childhood art classes at an all-girls school in Ireland, she describes how a lack of hands-on material engagement created a “real kind of imbalance”. She sensed an unspoken rule about “who would take up space, who would commandeer the workshop, who would feel they could engage.” This realisation crystallised into a part of her practice and speaks to a wider question: who feels entitled to make, touch and interpret art, and whose relationship to materials has historically been encouraged? As an antidote, The Void Presses the Wall invites: “ultimate engagement.” She presents an environment made of art where people come and go, move, use their bodies, negotiate space and explore what they can do. This invitation is most evident one floor below us in the Warehouse, where Rothschild’s new film SAFE plays. It follows a group of boys navigating another pyramid-like structure, this one yellow and transparent. They hang, sit, dance, crouch and call to one another, working out what their bodies can do. The sculpture becomes a social space shaped through movement and encounter. The work echoes her 2012 Whitechapel Children’s Commission, titled Boys and Sculpture, in which Rothschild gave free rein to another group of younger boys to interact with, and ultimately dismantle, a room full of her sculptures. Rather than reading destruction as ending, she sees reuse. “The boys in that video
Image: courtesy the artist, Modern Art and The Modern Institute, Toby Webster Ltd., Glasgow. Photo: Ruth Clark
Edinburgh Festivals Special
At Fruitmarket, EAF Emerging Writer Mayson Taylor speaks with Irish artist Eva Rothschild about activating sculpture through play
Eva Rothschild, Safe, 2026; Soft Play, 2026
‘Stepping into Rothschild’s abstraction offers materials to think with and sculptures that shift depending on how, and whether, you engage with them’ were really transforming those artworks,” she says. Her choice of subject was a deliberate response to the gendered attitude that boys lack restraint, which spells trouble for galleries. Whereas girls are perceived as pliant people pleasers. Like Rothschild, I attended an all-girls school. I wonder if gender segregated education shaped my capacity for physical engagement. There’s a question Rothschild’s work leads me to: what transformations become possible when we fully occupy a space with our bodies? Like the boys, Rothschild reuses her own sculptures; they transform to enter new spaces. Pointing nearby in the upstairs gallery at Sphinx (Night), she says, “I wanted it in this show, but I didn’t want it to be light green, so I repainted it.” Downstairs, a huge stack of mattresses in handdyed fabric balances on a boulder. The Grit is built from cloth pulled from her studio, “bits and pieces” of other things, repurposed. Rothschild lets materials accumulate histories, sculptures becoming living archives of decisions, possibilities and learning from engagement. We laugh over her slippery meaning-making when I mention Madonna from her website. It’s — 68 —
baby pink, I thought the Like a Virgin pop star; she meant Virgin Mary. Though neither of us is wrong, the gap between associations surfaces as a reminder of how thin the threads of meaning are. Through shared engagement, we stumble onto something unintended. The Void Presses the Wall asks participants to move within uncertainty, leaving behind what they think they know and entering a space built for searching. These sculptures resist fixity, remaining open to reinterpretation, reuse and collective experience. Stepping into Rothschild’s abstraction offers materials to think with and sculptures that shift depending on how, and whether, you engage with them. That’s the thing about a void: it’s both empty and full of possibility. And the thing about walls, perhaps, is that they’re meant to be climbed. Eva Rothschild: The Void Presses The Wall, Fruitmarket, Edinburgh, until 11 Oct Edinburgh Art Festival, 14–30 Aug fruitmarket.co.uk
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Edinburgh Festivals Special
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Loud and Proud After a decade of publishing, the duo behind one of Scotland’s most seminal indie presses look back at an impressive career and legacy Words: Alistair Braidwood — 70 —
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Photo: Anneleen Lindsay
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“We wanted to publish fast and really capture the zeitgeist” Laura Jones-Rivera The next few years would see a balance between further Inklings and longer books, both fiction and non-fiction, working with writers as diverse as Andrés N. Ordorica, Carrie Marshall, Xuanlin Tham, Genevieve Jagger, Arun Sood, and even Victor and Barry themselves – Alan Cumming and Forbes Masson. Over the years 404 Ink have won a number of awards (including a Lifetime Achievement Award from The Skinny), and in 2022 they were named as the Saltire Society’s Publisher of the Year. It was a full circle moment, something which caused them to pause and consider what was to come next. “I think that almost gave us an existential crisis,” Jones-Rivera explains. “Do we keep going or are we done?” And now they are done, but in typical 404 Ink fashion they leave with a bang rather than a whimper, and on their own terms – something few publishers manage. Their final publication is, appropriately, their own Inkling Publisher Not Found: A Decade of Disruption, 404 Ink 20162026. Even beyond the writers they published and the books on our shelves, they leave behing a significant legacy. The Inklings series will continue, taken on by Saraband Books, which JonesRivera is delighted about. “They have been very gracious in working with us over the last year. And a lot of the Inklings are gonna have a US release for the first time.” And then there is the 404 Ink Bursary, which was founded to provide financial support and advice to other small, independent publishing presses, and which they describe as “one final hurrah.” It’s difficult to think of another Scottish publisher who have left their mark in such a substantial and significant manner. However, we shouldn’t overly mourn their passing but be thankful that they existed at all. Heather McDaid and Laura Jones-Rivera had a dream, fulfilled that dream, and then some. They stuck to their guiding principles and refused to compromise. Publishing today is as precarious as it was ten years ago, arguably more so, but thanks to them we have a better understanding of the process, and the right and righteous way to do it. That’s a legacy worth leaving. Heather McDaid and Laura Jones-Rivera: Publisher Not Found, Edinburgh International Book Festival, 23 Aug, 6.30pm 404 Ink: Ten Years of Publishing Loudly, Edinburgh International Book Festival, 23 Aug, 9pm
August 2026 – Feature
almost like proof of concept,” she says. “We wanted to start a publisher. We thought it could be done differently. I genuinely feel we did that with Nasty Women.” From such an auspicious opener, the challenge was what would be next. They turned to writer Chris McQueer, whose short story collection Hings was another success, confirming their theories about the benefits of a digital presence. Jones-Rivera explains: “Chris already had an audience reading his short stories that he put online, he had a following. And a lot of them bought the book and said: ‘this is the first time I’ve read a book since school,’ so it really resonated with an audience that is hard to come by.” There had been word of mouth successes before, but with Hings, that word seemed to spread faster and wider than would have previously been possible. By the end of 2017, 404 Ink had six publications to their name, including their first two books, three editions of the magazine, and The Last Days of James Scythe by Lilly Banning – a collaboration with rock band Creeper. Collaboration would prove to be key to their ethos. Even in those early years the industry couldn’t fail to take notice and the duo won the Saltire Society’s Emerging Publisher Award. In 2018 they added six more titles to their catalogue, including three by Helen McClory (whom they considered their perfect writer), and two co-publications with BHP Comics (We Shall Fight Until We Win) and London publisher Knights Of for the long-form poem For Every One by Jason Reynolds. 2019 was another notable year which would see them expand and diversify. There was the publication of their first novel, Elle Nash’s Animals Eat Each Other, the first of a number of Queer Words anthologies, We Were Always Here, Nadine Aisha Jassat’s beautiful and personal poetry collection Let Me Tell You, and two thoughtprovoking non-fiction books by Euan Lownie (Never, Ever Take Anybody’s Advice on Anything) and Jemma Neville (Constitution Street). Yet with the coming of COVID in 2020, as with so many businesses, the challenges faced were overwhelming. 404 Ink’s response to the crisis, and numerous other challenges, was to launch the Inklings series in 2021, the first being Love That Journey for Me: The Queer Revolution of Schitt’s Creek. Jones-Rivera explains the thinking behind the endeavour: “I like to think of them as 404 Ink 2.0. We described them as big ideas in pocket-sized books – 100 pages of just one author and a deep dive into a non-fiction subject area. We’ve covered so many subjects across pop culture and social justice, all kinds of topics. We wanted to publish fast and really capture the zeitgeist.” The series would do just that, quickly becoming essential reading, helping to reflect, and respond to, a changing Scotland and beyond, and once again introducing new writers and ideas to readers.
Edinburgh Festivals Special
I
t wasn’t quite the best of times or the worst of times, but Scottish publishing was a turbulent place in the mid-2010s. Independent Cargo Publishing had been acquired by Freight Books in 2015, who would in turn enter liquidation in 2017 (just two years after being named Publisher of the Year by the Saltire Society). However, Saraband had just published Graeme Macrae Burnet’s His Bloody Project which would go on to be shortlisted for the 2016 Man Booker Prize, and Scottish crime fiction was increasingly popular alongside the success of the Bloody Scotland festival which launched in 2012. It was against this backdrop that former publishing students Laura Jones-Rivera and Heather McDaid came together to launch 404 Ink in 2016. While working at the Saltire Society, they had conversations about how they would do things differently. McDaid recalls: “We always joke that instead of working, we were talking about what we would do if we set up our own publisher. We realised we had a synergy and that our skillset was complementary.” Now as 404 Ink shuts its doors, marking a decade to the exact day, McDaid and Jones Rivera reflect on those ten years together, the books published, and just how much has changed during that time. As Jones-Rivera admits, they started out with a self-proclaimed “chip on their shoulder” and a promise to publish loudly. Having worked in a variety of roles in the industry, the duo were determined to take on board what had worked for others, and – more importantly – what hadn’t. Their first publication was the 404 Ink literary magazine, subtitled ‘#1 Error’. It set out their ethos from the start: publishing new and emerging writers alongside a few established names, brought together in a handsome publication. It was clear these were publishers with a strong sense of style as well as substance. They also believed that social media could be a great tool for publishing. “We grew up with the explosion of the internet and social media becoming a crucial thing for a lot of businesses,” Jones-Rivera explains. “We felt a lot of Scottish publishers weren’t using it to its full advantage.” 404 Ink magazine may have been the introduction to this new voice in publishing, but it was their first book, 2017’s Nasty Women, which would really make people sit up and take notice. Commissioned in the wake of Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential election win, the idea was to publish an essay collection of women writing about their experiences of being a woman in the 21st century. The result was a groundbreaking book which won acclaim far and wide. There were mentions in publications such as Huffington Post and Elle, and it was championed by the likes of Margaret Atwood, who would name 404 Ink as two of the ‘women shaping our future’ in The Sunday Times. McDaid still feels the importance of the book. “I look back on Nasty Women as being
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Edinburgh Festivals Special
Between Land and Sea
Ahead of the release of her memoir and her appearance at Edinburgh International Book Festival, we speak to Edinburgh-based author Alycia Pirmohamed on how fragmentation can capture what narrative cannot
A
lycia Pirmohamed’s memoir Shorelines begins cleaved in half. Across two columns, the prologue follows the Canadian poet in two different bodies of water: the Indian Ocean on the coast of Tanzania, from where her parents emigrated before she was born, and a lake she cannot quite remember in rural Alberta. From the very start, Pirmohamed eschews any pretence towards cohesion, certainty, or linearity; Shorelines is defined by its fragmentation – narratively, geographically, and formally. It is, she explains, how she understands herself, and is the only way she could imagine setting herself out in language. Now based in Edinburgh, Pirmohamed intended to write Shorelines as a traditional memoir, recounting her experience of migration and memory in chronological order and tracing a childhood living as the only Muslim family in rural Alberta and her subsequent movements to Oregon, Scotland and beyond. Yet halfway through writing, Pirmohamed came to realise that it was the very rigidity of narrative – particularly narratives of identity, belonging and nature – that she wanted to break. “The way I’ve been perceived as a nature writer or a queer writer or a Muslim writer, and questioned about how those things can coexist… How can you write a linear narrative about something that people project as not coherent?” Pirmohamed explains. “The fragment gives you room to coalesce it. It’s so freeing to allow the structure to do that rather than the linguistic articulation – to cue the reader that this is something that feels shaky.” Shorelines is distinctly a prose work written by a poet; a text fascinated by the malleability of time and language, and the concrete possibilities
of the page. Split into three parts, it follows an imagined movement from land to shoreline to water, mimicking the increasing fluidity of these states through Pirmohamed’s own sense of belonging and unbelonging in the world, the gaps in her personal and familial memory, and the parts of herself she does not want to share. “As I was writing, I realised I actually didn’t want to tell everything,” she explains. “The process of withholding was really important, and when I start to want to withhold deliberately, I end up moving towards space and fragment. It is a way of articulating silence, or articulating something really difficult or troubling.” And so Shorelines unravels in fragments: some, particularly in the land section, told through more traditional narrative essays; others, particularly as the book moves towards water, told through questions and answers, audio transcriptions or stanza-like vignettes. If certain bodies and identities are always held prisoner to states of alienation, Pirmohamed wanted to interrogate how writing might articulate the erasures that result from this. In one section, her questioning of belonging in a world now marked by the genocide in Palestine features entire paragraphs stricken through, censored in the way that Pirmohamed has experienced her own anxieties as a Muslim woman being repressed. “The essay about the genocide, a lot of it was written in early 2024. There was so much that I was feeling and wanting to say, but it felt like every time I tried, it was being erased or pulled back,” she explains. “The strike through was so fascinating to write because, knowing the aesthetic quality that would be placed on that text, it changed
Photo: Tim Phillips
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Words: Anahit Behrooz
“I’ve been questioning my own sense of why I want to know the story, and why I want to write it down” Alycia Pirmohamed what comes out. Playing with these typographical features [and] structure... it opens up a valve.” For Pirmohamed, these kinds of experiments and disruptions allow for the crafting of a new literary archive that mirrors the new personal archive created through writing by marginalised people: after all, what is memoir writing, if not an archiving of the self. There is a politics, she explains, to the act of archiving that has preoccupied her for a long time, and that she wanted to trouble through her work. “Archives can be so violent, the way that they’re given to us in such institutionally adjacent ways: museums full of stolen material, or even libraries and universities,” she explains. “We think of archives as ways of preserving material, but actually they are there for consumption, they preserve dominant narratives. As writers, we are contributing to the archive. We’re deciding what to keep, what’s not important, what’s going to be in the margins. I’ve been questioning my own sense of why I want to know the story, and why I want to write it down.” Shorelines is an archive of Pirmohamed’s own imperfect memories; it is also an archive of memories that extend beyond herself. Woven into her personal record are her family’s intergenerational stories, their imagined relationship to places they once belonged, and broader histories of displacement and preservation. Ultimately, Shorelines reminds us that these acts of imagination are no less real than what we remember, and no less entangled in the weave of our collective lives. “That sort of imagining can be really important when our memories are so fallible and the history itself is so multiple,” Pirmohamed says. “I really love the idea that the figurative can be a way of preserving – a way of retrieving or self-understanding. That feels really important to me.” Shorelines is out with Canongate on 13 Aug Alycia Pirmohamed & Ece Temelkuran: Hope when Home is Lost, Edinburgh International Book Festival, 27 Aug, 5:30pm
THE SKINNY
FRINGE
CLUBBING DJS & DANCING 7 NIGHTS A WEEK at edinburgh’s HOTTEST new venue ELEMENTS: MAGIC FOLDED NOTIONS FANGS GILDED BALLOON LATE’N’LOUD KONVERSION HEADSET’S GAY GARAGE heartburn wednesdays MICROSTERIA X THE MIRROR DANCE LA BEAT SOUL CLUB MIRRORSTERIA makossa like this EPIKA SOFT people’s disco club peoples . leisure . club / LOTHIAN STEEET / walk-ins welcome
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THE SKINNY
SAND “GRACEFUL, SYMBOLIC AND DEEPLY MOVING” THEATRE AND TONIC
THE STAGE'S BEST THEATRE SHOWS EDINBURGH FRINGE 2026
SUMMERHALL, MAIN HALL 6-17 AUGUST (NOT 12), 1.30PM
THE BATTLE OF
August 2026
FROGS AND MICE
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THE SKINNY
Hauntings Ahead of her appearance at this year’s Book Fringe, we speak with Amy Abdelnoor on her debut novel Ever Land, a haunting ghost story set in Palestine
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Amy Abdelnoor the importance of spirituality for herself and the novel, as well as the imperative of Safa being a not-girl, a spirit. “I’m not religious,” Abdelnoor tells me, “but I don’t believe that we die. I believe our energy, our souls, linger. I’m me because of where I was born, but is there a me that would exist if I had been born somewhere else?” With this, Abdelnoor invites readers to question what really separates the displaced from the occupiers, or indeed from those entirely untouched by geopolitical conflict. At the same time, the notion of a lingering presence is uniquely emblematic of the Palestinian people. “I think Palestinian identity is defined by the past, and that’s a tragedy,” says Abdelnoor. “The tethering of [the displaced] to Palestine exists through the insistence on the necessity of the past, because that is the legitimacy for their right of return. The term PTSD cannot be applied to Palestinian trauma because there is no post, there is no point at which it’s ended and there can be healing. You can never move on, the occupation and the grief are continual. I think that whole idea is encapsulated in the concept of a spirit-soul.” Over our Zoom call, Abdelnoor shares another story with me: “One of the first women I met in Lebanon was born in a refugee camp. During the Israeli invasion, she was fleeing with her family in the car, and the Israelis shot and killed her parents in front of her. Her story really resonated with me; this idea of a whole family being wiped out, leaving her as a vulnerable child. When I went to live in Ramallah, my friend asked me to go and find her village. When I found it, the cactus plants were still growing there —the sabar plants which have become synonymous with Palestinian identity and patience. I remember standing there and thinking, ‘The land is speaking. You can erase the houses, you can kill the people, you can raze everything to the ground, but the land speaks.’” Ever Land is out now with Hutchinson Heinemann Amy Abdelnoor appears at Book Fringe, Lighthouse Book-
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‘Y
ou know, there are two sides of every story.’ This was the reply Amy Abdelnoor received from one of her friends when, decades ago, the now-author wrote home about her experience volunteering at a refugee camp in the West Bank. The email stuck with her. What she witnessed then – open drains running through the streets, the smell of burning rubbish, the senseless violence at the checkpoints – was far beyond the comfort of moral relativism. ‘If I could bring you here for a week, or a day, or even an hour, then you would understand,’ Abdelnoor wrote back. That impulse lies at the heart of Ever Land. “This is what I wanted to do,” Abdelnoor says of her debut novel. “I wanted to bring somebody who hadn’t been to Palestine, somebody who might never go to Palestine, to Palestine and show them what it meant.” Finding the right vehicle for that came naturally to Abdelnoor, an avid reader since childhood. “Basically the nearest thing to having your own experience is to read immersively,” she tells me. “The power of literature to create empathy is enormous. It’s also about the humanisation
“I wanted to bring somebody who hadn’t been to Palestine, somebody who might never go to Palestine, to Palestine and show them what it meant”
Edinburgh Festivals Special
Photo: Michelle Grant
of the facts. If you read 15,000 Palestinians killed, 750,000 Palestinians made refugees, and 530 villages razed to the ground, these are just numbers; they’re sterile. To try and understand what 15,000 dead means is really difficult, but if you humanise the people and show what it means to have lost somebody, and to say what a refugee is, then it’s different.” So while she could have written a memoir or a work of non-fiction full of facts and figures, Abdelnoor decided instead to write a story, the story of two young women separated by decades of displacement and occupation, and by the privileges – or lack thereof – afforded to them by their heritage and religion. Dinah, a Londonraised Jewish teenager, is trying to find her place in her new community in Israel, while Safa, a perpetually 14-year-old Palestinian girl, watches her settle in, unable to move on after being killed on that same land decades earlier. The characters also arrived on the page in different ways. “Dinah evolved through a process of discovering what made her vulnerable, and how she was affected by what she was experiencing,” Abdelnoor explains. “Safa came out fully formed. [She] embodies everything I absorbed about Palestine. She is the pain, the yearning, the loss, the beauty and the poignancy of everything Palestine could have. She embodies what I experienced living with Palestinian families, and then going and living under occupation in the Second Intifada at the age of 21 or 22. I could feel her yearning and her pain, and I could feel her.” Although Abdelnoor admits concern about misconceptions that might arise from describing Ever Land as a ghost story, she also remarks on
Words: Venezia Paloma
THE SKINNY
Following a celebrated world premiere at Sundance, Louis Paxton’s debut feature, The Incomer, will open Edinburgh International Film Festival. Paxton discusses the trials of getting the film off the ground and the joy he had in making it
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ilmmaking siblings are ten a penny in Hollywood. These brothers and sisters tend to work together (think the Coens, the Wachowskis, the Safdies) but there are plenty examples, too, of filmmaking kin choosing to plough their own furrow (Martin and John Michael McDonagh, Tony and Ridley Scott, Garry and Penny Marshall). Edinburgh siblings Louis and Ruth Paxton belong to the latter camp. Both have been hugely exciting voices on Scotland’s short film scene over the last decade, and despite being related, they’ve distinctly different sensibilities. Ruth’s work is dark, surreal, feral, while Louis’ is comedic, colourful, compassionate. Ruth beat her brother in the feature debut race, releasing the disquieting coming-of-age horror A Banquet in 2022. Four years later, Louis matches her with his gently absurdist comedy The Incomer, which had its world premiere at Sundance back in January and will open Edinburgh International Film Festival this month. “We were total VHS kids, me and my sister,” Paxton tells me over Zoom a few weeks before the EIFF screening. A trio of Tim Burton flicks (Batman Returns, Edward Scissorhands and Beetlejuice) were among their favourites, which perhaps explains how Paxton’s sister was guided down the gothic horror route, and he opted for whimsical comedy; if they ever direct together, expect something positively Burtonesque. “We used to rent them from a place called Fast Forward in
Marchmont,” Paxton continues. “By the time they closed, they told us we had the highest number of video rentals of anyone else in Edinburgh, which we’re still really proud of.” Paxton’s other formative film education came from trying, with his pals, to emulate the death-defying antics of the boys from Jackass. “The first stuff we made was from borrowing cameras off skaters that were mates of ours and filming stunts,” he recalls of his homages to Johnny Knoxville et al. “We had our own version called Cunts Doing Stunts, which we thought was hilarious. Nothing we did was ever quite as dangerous as the stuff they were doing in Jackass or Dirty Sanchez, who were big at the time, but it was a great way to learn how to edit and how to pull a film together.”
“As a debut filmmaker, the biggest challenge is getting people to trust you’re not going to completely fuck it up” Louis Paxton
August 2026 – Feature
Edinburgh Festivals Special
Isle of Fight
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Words: Jamie Dunn
Paxton’s journey from juvenile skits to debut feature is a winding one, taking him via Edinburgh’s Telford College, the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland in Glasgow and the National Film and Television School in London. He graduated from the latter in 2013, but it took a while until he found a foothold in the industry. “I spent a lot of time just working part-time jobs, struggling to make ends meet in London,” he says. It was around this time he started writing early drafts of what would become The Incomer. The initial development funding was from Film London, but when Paxton moved back to Edinburgh, he turned to Screen Scotland. “I think I’ve been through three or four administrations of Screen Scotland over the past 12 years with this one film. At points they supported it, and others they didn’t. When they said at one point they were not going to fund this any longer, that was a real blow. It felt like, ‘All right, you have to move on to something else now.’ But I kept coming back to it. I just really loved the idea.” The turning point was Neville Is Dead, a short he made for a lark with actor Gavin O’Rourke, who also appeared in Paxton’s NFTS graduate film, Coriomania. “We just decided to make something for ourselves,” he recalls. “We weren’t like, ‘This has to take us to the next stage in our career or win a Scottish BAFTA’ or anything. It was just, ‘Let’s just make something that we really enjoy.’” The film is a pleasing mix of the sweet and the macabre. It concerns a young boy who discovers one day that his imaginary friend, Neville (played by O’Rourke), seems impervious to harm. The boy goes on to test that theory in numerous ways (by drowning him, setting fire to him, poisoning him with drain cleaner, etc), much to Neville’s chagrin. Neville Is Dead isn’t related to The Incomer in any way; nevertheless, it acted as a kind of proof of concept. “It was really absurd and fun, but had a lot of heart to it,” Paxton says of that short. “As a debut filmmaker, the biggest challenge is getting people to trust that you’re not going to completely fuck it up. And that’s really tough, but it’s a lot easier if you have those references.” Another thing that happened was Paxton started landing TV directing gigs, including on the longrunning crime drama Shetland. “That was quite a departure, making a Scandinoir for BBC One, but while it doesn’t seem in any way close to The Incomer, I think it showed the funders I could handle a budget of a certain size, and big crews, and just, you know, shoot out in the wild on cliffs and make it work.” It was O’Rourke who stoked The Incomer’s initial embers. “We were in a pub chatting, and Grant was like, ‘What about doing something with
THE SKINNY
Edinburgh Festivals Special
accommodation, we couldn’t make it happen financially.” Production shifted instead to the very north of the mainland in Caithness, which was similarly barren and windswept. The location was perfect, apart from the fact locals kept confusing them for another production. “Christopher Nolan was shooting The Odyssey down in the Moray Firth, so we had a lot of people coming up and being really excited and saying, ‘Is Matt Damon here?’ And we were like, ‘No, but we’ve got Domhnall.’ They were less impressed with us, but it was pretty cool to be shooting in the Highlands at the same time as Christopher Nolan.” Those Matt Damon fans should have been more excited: Gleeson is excellent in The Incomer, playing the dorky straight man to Rankin and O’Rourke’s untamed goofballs. His commitment to the bit brings many of The Incomer’s best laughs. And while he’s perhaps not quite at Damon’s level of fame, it is useful to have an actor who’s known to fans of the Harry Potter and Star Wars franchises in your cast. “I’ve seen films come and go that don’t necessarily have recognisable names in them,” says Paxton. “You can occasionally break through, but it just gives you a much better chance, especially as a comedy.” The filmmaker does seem a bit sheepish, though, that he has an Irishman as the lead in his very Scottish film. So much so, that he follows up by email to explain his casting. “Domhnall is obviously not Scottish,” he writes, “but I was still really pleased to have four of the six leads be Scottish actors.” As well as the brilliant Rankin and O’Rourke, there’s Michelle Gomez and Emun — 77 —
Elliott as Daniel’s less ethical colleagues, and John Hannah as a sinister finman trying to convince Isla to join him in the drink. His email continues to explain that it’s not easy to cast our homegrown stars. “So many of the established Scottish actors who can help sell a film are just constantly busy… Anyway, thankfully Domhnall did a great accent, so that helped!” Gleeson also starred in Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s brutal, snow-bound western The Revenant, which must have been good training for the wind-blasted cliffs of Caithness, or so you’d think. But Paxton’s description of the shoot sounds more like a holiday than production hell. “It was incredible being out there in all these amazing locations,” he says. “We were having barbecues and fishing, and we’d go swimming at the weekends. I think partly because we were in the middle of nowhere, we really bonded as a group.” Paxton appears to have been as focused on everyone having a good time as he was on them making a good movie. “I just think that, you know, making a film like this, which is so sincere and so heartfelt in so many ways, it would be such a shame if people were having a shit time on set. It would feel like it undermined it all. So luckily we had a lovely time.” The resulting film is so silly and warm and pleasingly oddball that I’m sure those who watch it on opening night of EIFF will have a similar experience. The Incomer opens EIFF on 13 Aug, with additional screenings on 14&15 Aug, and is released across the UK 4 Sep by Universal
August 2026 – Feature
two characters who were in arrested development?’” From that premise, Paxton spun a story of two adult siblings, Isla (Gayle Rankin) and Sandy (O’Rourke), who’ve been living by themselves since childhood on an abandoned Scottish island, sustaining themselves on sea birds they catch in a net. By day, they train in the art of killing incomers, and by night, Isla recites her self-made folk tales, which are visualised in the film using beautiful black and white animations, to her credulous brother. Their isolation is interrupted, however, when Daniel, a nerdy council worker from the mainland (Domhnall Gleeson), arrives on shore to serve their eviction papers. While Isla and Sandy aren’t based on Paxton and his sister, their combustible dynamic shares parallels. “They’re childlike, so when I was writing those characters I was thinking about Ruth and me as children, and how we could just go from zero to 100 so quick; we knew how to push each other’s buttons. So I think that those moments where they’re arguing and then they start fighting out of nowhere, that’s a bit of me and Ruth.” Other sources of inspiration include Paxton’s interest in maritime history (“all my tattoos are nautical, basically”), Scottish folklore and his love of Orkney. “My grandad was from St Margaret’s Hope, so we grew up going up to Orkney every summer. It’s such an evocative, romantic, very mystical place, you know?” Orkney was originally where Paxton hoped to film. “I scouted every location there, and we found everything we needed. I was really excited about it. But then with flights and ferries and
THE SKINNY
Content Warning
August 2026 – Feature
Edinburgh Festivals Special
The 1978 gorefest Faces of Death has been retooled, but this is no lazy IP-mining remake. Filmmakers Daniel Goldhaber and Isa Mazzei explain how their film is digging into our troubling relationship with screen violence
Words: Josh Slater-Williams
B
arely a year passes without some beloved, or at least notorious, horror-movie series getting a new lease of life with a remake or legacy-sequel treatment. So, it’s not entirely surprising that a major Hollywood production company (Legendary, in this case) saw untapped potential in reviving the infamous Faces of Death brand of exploitation mockumentaries, kickstarted by director John Alan Schwartz in 1978. That original film took the form of a collection of gruesome demises from various sources, a large number of which were staged and faked for the film, though some was archival footage of real deaths and their aftermath. Just don’t view the 2026 version of Faces of Death – now a narrative feature with actual characters and recognisable faces (Euphoria’s Barbie Ferreira, Stranger Things’ Dacre Montgomery, general pop culture’s Charli xcx) – as a remake, per se. “If you wanna see a remake of Faces of Death, go watch a dashcam compilation on YouTube,” director and co-writer Daniel Goldhaber tells me. “That’s the thesis of the film in some sense. “I consider it an essay film,” he continues, “a movie that’s about where Faces of Death exists today. From a genre perspective, the film that I think exists closest to this movie is Peter Bogdanovich’s Targets.” That low-budget 1968 feature, Bogdanovich’s first, combined footage from the creaky Boris Karloff horror film The Terror with new footage of Karloff playing a fictionalised version of himself, and a parallel plot involving a serial killer. “[That film] remixes another [pre-existing] movie into a film about mass violence in media in America, in an attempt to get to a deeper truth about our relationship with violent images,” says Goldhaber. In the new Faces of Death, a sadistic killer (Montgomery) murders victims in homemade recreations of the original’s most iconic scenes, uploading footage to a TikTok-like platform with the 1978 film’s narration, where it might slip through without trouble as a memetic remixing of special-effects wizardry. A young content moderator (Ferreira), haunted by her own viral-video tragedy, suspects the clips may be all too real. Faces of Death is directed by Goldhaber (How to Blow Up a Pipeline) and co-written with Isa Mazzei, his close collaborator on the 2018 tech horror Cam, in which an online sex worker has her identity stolen by a digital doppelgänger. Both movies are credited as ‘A film by’ the two of them. “It’s engaging and grappling with some of the same core tenets of the original, but in a very
Faces of Death
different way,” Mazzei says of their new film. “I think it would actually be disingenuous to refer to it as an adaptation, remake or sequel. You can do it; a lot of people do! I feel weird saying that it is because I feel like that promise is something that we don’t actually deliver on. When we first pitched this back in 2019, we were very interested in delving into how violent imagery has evolved since the original [film], now that we have this digital plethora of violence in front of us every day.” “One of the things we thought was interesting,” adds Goldhaber, “was the idea that the same impulse that is leading platforms like Meta, TikTok and Google to sell ad space on real-life snuff films is similar to the incentive that’s leading a [production] company like Legendary to wanna jack in to the algorithm and try to extract additional value from a property like Faces of Death. We thought, well, if we can make a movie that’s at least honest about that kind of incentive and impulse to go and do something like this, we can hold a mirror up to the reality of the fact that death has become big business for major media companies.” Various external factors have led to Faces of Death, which was shot in 2023, coming out a few years later than originally intended. Among other things, it makes the tininess of Charli xcx’s supporting role a little funnier. “If we’d come out earlier, we’d have been her first movie,” Mazzei notes. But it’s dated in other ways too, with no mention of the recent plague of generative-AI videos informing the screenplay. In some ways, though, the film was almost destined to feel like a time capsule of online life, basically immediately. “We’re big believers in movies that can confront the moment that we live in, in a universal — 78 —
“We were interested in delving into how violent imagery has evolved since the original” Isa Mazzei capacity,” Goldhaber says. “But the moment that we live in culturally is changing incredibly rapidly. And I think it’s really interesting that a movie set in 2024 is, in some ways, such a period piece in 2026.” Part of why Goldhaber and Mazzei’s film works so well is that the zeitgeist-focused commentary is always intertwined with the twopronged character study at the centre, rather than dominating it. This extends to which clips serial killer Arthur chooses to homage. “With his motivations for why he’s recreating these videos,” Mazzei says, “he would choose the ones that are most iconic, most beloved, most remembered, most horrifying. [In fact], we actually had walkouts during one of our test screenings and it was during the monkey scene. The [footage of the] original monkey scene, not our remake of the monkey scene!” Faces of Death has its UK premiere at Edinburgh International Film Festival on 18 Aug as part of its Midnight Madness strand and is released later in the year by Signature Entertainment
THE SKINNY
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CHEER ON THE FIRST WOMEN’S OLYMPIC CURLING TEAM FROM THE PHILIPPINES!!!
by Jack Anderson and Charlotte Mclean in collaboration with Malin Lewis
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THE SKINNY
The Film’s the Thing
More Hockney than Cockney
Kenneth Branagh will be celebrated in a big way at this year’s EIFF, and rightly so! He helped resurrect Shakespeare on screen
EIFF’s 25th anniversary screening of Sexy Beast will remind us of its place near the very top of the British gangster film canon
Words: Carmen Paddock
Words: Jamie Dunn Image: courtesy Film4 and Fox Searchlight Pictures Sexy Beast
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Hamlet, Filmhouse, 16 Aug
Sexy Beast, Cameo, 17 Aug
rom the vantage point of 2026, Sexy Beast is a classic, but at the time of its release, in 2001, it could hardly have been met with more trepidation. The late 90s was the zenith of lad culture in the UK, and the only thing that that demographic loved more than big boobs, fast cars and football was tales of gangsters. Sexy Beast arrived in the wake of a tsunami of British crime flicks; some were soulful (Face, The Limey) but most were scraping the bottom of the Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. Ray Winstone had turned up as a hard man in many of these hackneyed flicks, and here he was playing another gangster, albeit one with a lobster-red tan wearing canary-yellow Speedos. In addition, the script was from Louis Mellis and David Scinto, whose compelling but nasty Gangster No 1 had been released the year prior, and the film’s greenhorn director, Jonathan Glazer, had only made rock promos and adverts. People were braced for another style-over-substance gangster flick for the Loaded crowd, but what we got was the best British crime film since Mona Lisa. Glazer’s clean aesthetic is the first breath of fresh air, more David Hockney than cockney. Sexy Beast eventually shifts to gloomy London, but for most of its runtime we’re around the sun-baked, tanning-oil-scented Costa del Sol pad of Gal Dove (Winstone), a retired footsoldier who’s soaking up the good life. Mellis and Scinto’s script is similarly inventive. If you thought Don Corleone’s “I’m going to make him an offer he can’t refuse” was persuasive, you hadn’t heard psychotic man-child Don Logan (Ben Kingsley)’s more straightforward “Fat cunt! Yes, Yes, Yes!” The dialogue’s acidic poetry generates more violence than any shotgun blast or flick knife. It’s staccato, brutal, beautiful, like a Harold Pinter play with Tourette’s. Kingsley, meanwhile, created an all-time great villain, a little weirdo who can only interact with other humans through menace. The final kicker is the casual magic realism that Glazer confidently threads throughout, giving us glimpses of Gal’s inner demon (a huge, scary rabbit) and letting internal monologues and spoken dialogue merge dreamily. It’s not too avant-garde to scare off the Guy Ritchie bros, but it confirmed that Sexy Beast belongs alongside Nic Roeg and Donald Cammell’s Performance, the other great British masterwork of gangster surrealism, rather than on the gangsterland VHS heap.
In Conversation: Kenneth Branagh, EIFF @ Tollcross Central Hall Auditorium, 16 Aug — 81 —
August 2026 – Feature
K
enneth Branagh’s Shakespeare adaptations were key to driving the 1990s Shakespearean cinematic revival. Without 1989’s Henry V, announcing the Northern Irish actor as a major acting and directing talent on the global stage, it’s hard to imagine his joyous Much Ado About Nothing from 1993 finding the same audience, or the Bard having the same marketable position above the marquee that resulted in other 90s classics like Richard Loncraine’s Richard III starring Ian McKellen, Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes, and even Gil Junger’s 10 Things I Hate About You. In August, Branagh will receive the inaugural EIFF Outstanding Contribution to Cinema Award, and alongside an appearance in conversation, the Festival will screen his epic Hamlet, which is 30 years old this year. Hamlet is perhaps the most Branagh of his Shakespeare endeavours, for better and worse. The cast combines acclaimed thespians (Derek Jacobi, Richard Briers, Timothy Spall, Simon Russell Beale) with Hollywood glamour (Julie Christie, Kate Winslet, Robin Williams, Billy Crystal), all captured on gorgeous 70mm. Clocking in at just over four hours (thankfully, EIFF will be presenting it with an interval), nothing is cut from the ‘complete’ text. Indeed, Branagh added even more, seeking out multiple versions of the play to incorporate lines from the Second Quarto and other texts printed earlier than the First Folio. This is Hamlet supercharged: to its fans, a vital, prestigious account; to its detractors, a bloated, staid vanity project. The ambition, however, is undeniable. If Branagh flies too close to the sun, combining the cinematic realism of his earlier efforts with an attempt to capture the entirety of Shakespeare’s longest and most famous play – which the playwright is unlikely to have intended to be performed in one go – he has failed grandly and nobly. His devotion to the text not only comes through in his excellently judged performance but in a rich understanding of the political machinations driving every character unrelentingly to their doom. The chance to see this at Filmhouse with an audience may prove a highlight of this year’s EIFF.
Edinburgh Festivals Special
Image: courtesy Columbia Pictures Hamlet
THE SKINNY
Shapes In Nature Photo: Edge Photography
Edinburgh Festivals Special
Ahead of bringing her immersive gig theatre FLOWERCORE to this year’s Fringe, we catch up with singer-songwriter, composer and artist Siobhan Wilson
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August 2026 – Feature
“Wildflowers have such beautiful shapes, and when you look at the shapes in nature, they’re really inspiring for melodic shapes” Siobhan Wilson “I hope I’ve given the flowers a little bit of a voice,” she concludes, “but for me, I feel more grateful to the flowers because they gave me so much more than I ever gave them, you know? They provided a mirror to me, not just a window, to have a kind of artist reflection.” And despite moving back to the city last year, she tells us, “I’m still writing flower songs – it’s a lifelong thing for me, I’m totally obsessed.” FLOWERCORE by Siobhan Wilson, Basement at The Gilded Saloon, Edinburgh, 17-22 Aug, 3pm siobhanwilson.com Photo: Ewan Grant Waterhouse
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here’s a scene in Alice In Wonderland where Alice starts daydreaming of a world where ‘All the flowers / Would have very extra-special powers / They would sit and talk to me for hours / When I’m lonely in a world of my own’, or so the song goes. Talking to musician, composer and artist Siobhan Wilson about FLOWERCORE, her forthcoming immersive piece of intimate gig theatre appearing at this year’s Fringe as part of Made In Scotland Showcase, it’s hard not to draw comparisons to the solitary yet curious Alice. Wilson’s Alice In Wonderland moment came during lockdown, those aforementioned lyrics close to a blow-by-blow account of her experiences as she found herself inspired by the majesty of the Scottish wildflowers surrounding her lockdown home in Coldstream. “I moved to the countryside to live in a little flat more or less in the middle of nowhere, very removed from friends and family, or the music scene, for a long time. I built a music studio in my little flat and I also got a dog,” Wilson explains over a Zoom call from Blackpool in the middle of a July heatwave. “Whenever I wasn’t working, I would go outside with the dog. I kept a flower diary every day as a way to process all of those feelings that everyone was going through during lockdown. But also, I was confronted with a lot of isolation from rural living and essentially kind of poverty, I guess, for a few years
of not having any money – I lost all my work. So the wildflowers provided this kind of stability and consistency for me in something that I could document, but also process my feelings through.” As you can imagine, it wasn’t long before Wilson turned these wildflower sketches into a series of records – FLOWERCORE volumes one through three – soundtracking each of the unique flowers she spent so much time with during an extended period of solitude. “Wildflowers have such beautiful shapes, and when you look at the shapes in nature, they’re really inspiring for melodic shapes,” she tells us. “Kind of like the Art Nouveau painters, when they were inspired by flowers to create geometric, flowing lines, the elegance and the shapes within the flowers can translate onto a score and onto a musical page.” You can hear these shapes in the cascading Snowdrop’s Tune, the round staccato of Clovers White, in the whimsy wiggle of Daffodils and the dreamlike rising and falling harp lines of Heather. This process of creating music from shapes and drawings is reminiscent of how composer Anna Meredith works, I mention. “I think [my music] is a little bit more whimsical, spending time with the flowers and then trying to really belong to their world,” Wilson says, laughing, “I know that sounds pretentious, but I sat in silence for weeks at a time without speaking to anyone, which sounds really unhealthy (I had the dog, so I wasn’t completely alone), just soaking in their environments. They’re so small, so there’s a lot of comfort in sort of surrounding myself with all these tiny little friends.” This month, “I’m trying to bring people into a little corner of the Scottish countryside in the city centre,” Wilson says of her immersive live show that’s sure to offer a similar level of comfort, respite and escapism for those who attend during the middle of one of the world’s biggest and busiest arts festivals. To make it fully immersive, FLOWERCORE will include visual projections, with Wilson narrating sections of her flower diary, interspersed by live flower songs. “We’re stepping through my flower diary,” she says. For her six-day run at The Gilded Saloon, Wilson will play a mix of cello and guitar, singing gorgeously rich layered harmonies with Niamh Corkey for the first half of the run, and Charm of Finches for the second. So you see, Siobhan Wilson is indeed our very own Alice, except with a dog instead of a cat, and an immense talent for music – naturally, of course! The more we talk about her project, and flowers in general, the more she forgets about the extreme heatwave she’s dealing with and the more animated she becomes. Towards the end of our chat we’re talking about biosonification and the superior intelligence of slime mold. “There’s so much that we don’t know about plants,” Wilson excitedly says, sat upright like a flower stretching for the sun.
Words: Tallah Brash
HHHH
‘Sandra Oh shines’’ Sunday Times
In cinemas from 22 September Find your venue ntlive.com A production from
The Misanthrope (2026) Photography (Sandra Oh) by by Leeor Wild/Trunk Archive Design by National Theatre Graphic Design Studio
by Martin Crimp after Molière
VARIOUS DATES
BONGO’S BINGO
TUESDAY 25 AUGUST WEDNESDAY 26 AUGUST
VARIOUS DATES
KINGFISHR
VARIOUS DATES
OCT(ON COMPANY TIME)
BELFAST BRUNCH CO
THURSDAY 27 AUGUST
FEAST TO FLING
AT THE EDINBURGH FRINGE FESTIVAL
SATURDAY 1 AUGUST
PROGRESS WRESTLING
50TH ANNIVERSARY SHOW
ELVIS FRONTED NIRVANA
ELVANA
MONDAY 9 NOVEMBER
SATURDAY 17 OCTOBER
FRIDAY 13 NOVEMBER
SATURDAY 24 OCTOBER
SATURDAY 21 NOVEMBER
DEATH CAB FOR CUTIE
WEDNESDAY 28 OCTOBER
FRIDAY 27 NOVEMBER
THURSDAY 1 OCTOBER
SERENADES AND BODY ROLLS
SOUNDS OF THE 90S WITH VERNON KAY
ARMAND VAN HELDEN
CELEBRATING 30 YEARS SINCE KNEBWORTH, LOCH LOMOND & MAINE ROAD
SATURDAY 7 NOVEMBER
THE UNDERTONES
FRIDAY 16 OCTOBER
SATURDAY 15 AUGUST
DEFINITELY OASIS: 96 REVISITED
SATURDAY 3 OCTOBER
SKERRYVORE
SUNDAY 8 NOVEMBER
THE ODYSSEY TOUR
SATURDAY 15 AUGUST
FRIDAY 6 NOVEMBER
AGNIESZKA CHYLINSKA
TUESDAY 13 OCTOBER
FRIDAY 4 SEPTEMBER
AN EVENING WITH CHICANE ICW:THE INSANITY SHOW
FRIDAY 2 OCTOBER
SATURDAY 5 SEPTEMBER SUNDAY 6 SEPTEMBER
ROAD TO NASHVILLE SUNDAY 20 SEPTEMBER
DON BROCO
THE MARY WALLOPERS HEAVEN 17
THE REYTONS
THE BIG SWALLY JAY PARK FT. LNGSHOT
A NIGHT AT THE DARTS SKYE NEWMAN PICTURE THIS THE SNUTS
BBC RADIO 2 DANCE
EDINBURGHCORNEXCHANGE.CO.UK
Sunday 9 August
Friday 4 September
Sunday 23 August
KLOFAMA
Erika Jayne
The Living Tombstone Tuesday 25 August
Earl Sweatshirt & MIKE Home on the Range
Thursday 27 August
Bailey Zimmermann Different Night Same Rodeo
Friday 28 August
Nightvision x Disfunction present Natte Visstick Thursday 3 September
Holy Holy The Final Tour
PRTY X HSSH Present HRDR
Saturday 5 September
The Bomb Squad Pod Live!
Tuesday 25 August
Saturday 5 September
Monday 14 September
Tuesday 15 September
Tuesday 22 September
Sun 27-Mon 28 September
Earl Sweatshirt & MIKE
The Bomb Squad Pod Live!
Friday 11 September
All The Feelings Tour with METRIC, BROKEN SOCIAL SCENE AND STARS
Baby Keem
The Beast UK
Monday 14 September
Baby Keem The Ca�ino Tour
Tuesday 15 September
The Beast UK
Jamie Webster
Megan Moroney
THE SKINNY
Target Practice During a very busy summer, we catch up with Getdown Services’ Josh Law ahead of releasing their second album, Massive Champion
grapples with “losing your rag with inanimate objects”, this happy/sad interplay is perhaps best exemplified on Cha Cha Slide, Stop Living and No One Likes Me, the latter of which Law describes as “this weird dark part of my head”, which checks out when you consider its opening line: ‘Squeezing a hamster, until its eyes pop out.’ Delivered over chugging synths, the vegetarian for most of his childhood, Law says it’s about “being a kid and just going, ‘I just want to kill it,’ but you don’t really, it’s like that thing where you just want to throw your phone off a bridge.” Meanwhile on Stop Living, ‘Still on the payroll, looking for a way to stop living’ dreamily floats over sun-drenched funk- and disco-inflected rhythms. “A lot of what made me miserable in my life was my work circumstances,” Law says. “I’m sort of living a dream job, like, genuinely, we are, and that’s made me loads happier, but it hasn’t made it all go away... It turns out this stuff runs deeper than just your circumstances.” Penultimate track Lentils is the eczema banger we (me, certainly) all need. “If I start thinking about things I was frustrated or insecure about as a kid, the eczema was a big one – getting called ‘zombie’ at school... You feel like a freak.” Law continues: “The feelings of being insecure as a child, you carry those same feelings through to being an adult. Cha Cha Slide is more like when those feelings get the better of you and you’re crippled by self-consciousness, self-doubt and
Edinburgh Festivals Special
“I
“The feelings of being insecure as a child, you carry those same feelings through to being an adult” Josh Law, Getdown Services confusion, and Lentils is more about when you’re sort of puffing your chest up and going, ‘Yeah, I am a freak, but I’d still fucking beat you in a race.’” This deeply personal, silly, relatable, confronting yet confident new record lands during the middle of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, where the duo play two shows that are sure to be joyfully cathartic. “I’ve been to stand-up once or twice in my life,” Law says. “A couple of people have said it over the years, ‘you should go to the Fringe’ – I don’t think we really work as a comedy act.” Why not go see for yourself. Massive Champion is released on 14 Aug via Breakfast Records Getdown Services play La Belle Angele, Edinburgh, 30 & 31 Aug; SWG3, Glasgow, 26 Nov getdownservices.bandcamp.com Photo: Sion Marshall-Waters
August 2026 – Feature
would have made Justin Bieber play a song that was, like, actually well known.” We hear from Getdown Services’ Josh Law via voicenote a couple of days after the FIFA World Cup final. The Minehead-raised duo made their feelings about that halftime show pretty clear on Instagram, so we ask, what would they have done differently? “Unless it was Chris Martin and Ronaldo fighting to the death, there’s nothing that would have been interesting enough to justify putting a half-hour break in the middle of the game.” We’re obviously not here to talk about football, but hearing Law go off on one about a halftime show Wayne Rooney described as “crap” raises our dopamine levels in the same way Getdown Services’ music and live shows do. A project started in lockdown to offer Law and Ben Sadler a means of distraction, Law says it’s “business as usual” for the lifelong friends whose rise in popularity continues to rocket. But it’s not all been sunshine and roses. Ahead of their appearance on Later… with Jools Holland they took to Instagram: ‘This could be the moment that waves of online abuse begin for us… It’s already started trickling in slowly. Our song The Radiator and our success in general really gets on some people’s nerves.’ “There’s this imposter syndrome that comes in massively and the only way we’ve worked around that is to just sort of shut it all out and don’t look at it – a bit like the sun,” Law says. But he does admit “the abuse has gotten worse. We really struggled with it at first in a way that surprised us… Neither of us really care or lose any sleep about people not liking what we do, but it’s hard when you’re faced with people being unkind.” Reckoning with a past version of himself, Law says: “It’s reminded me of the way that I’ve maybe been a bit like that in the past. Not necessarily abusing people online but just sort of going around being a negative person, putting out judgemental, jealous, bitter vibes into the world.” He continues: “Luckily, I put that in the music more now than I used to. Before, I’d just sort of mindlessly chuck it into the universe, but when you see other people doing that stuff, you go, ‘I don’t want to be like that.’” In a bid to “clean up their act”, on their latest album, Massive Champion, they’ve opted not to “be so targeted”. “When you start having a go at James Bay or fucking, you know, Jamie Oliver or whatever, it’s one thing if no one’s paying attention, but if people are paying attention, you’re just sort of putting a target on people you don’t know regardless of whether they deserve it – you don’t want to just attack for the sake of attacking.” Holding up a magnifying glass to their childhood, themes of death, intrusive thoughts and insecurities simmer beneath the surface of Massive Champion’s often upbeat, hopeful sounding music. While The Radiator’s electro swagger
Words: Tallah Brash
— 85 —
THE SKINNY
Edinburgh Festivals Special
Having Fun Ahead of releasing their debut album and playing Edinburgh Psych Fest, we catch up with Adult DVD’s Harry Hanson to discuss their incendiary live shows and not overthinking it
“A
t Tenement Trail in Glasgow [2025], there were these three geezers in the front. We were on at midday and this lot are passing water around and moving quite a lot... and sweating quite profusely. I was speaking to them after and they were like: ‘yeah, we were so excited to see you that we took our disco biscuits a bit early’ and I was like, ‘wait, we were the first band on.’ He says ‘yeah, we fucked it. I don’t know what we’re going to do now.’ All right, well, thanks.” Vocalist Harry Hanson relates this typical anecdote which demonstrates the legendary, high energy nature of the Adult DVD live show, even a full year before the arrival of their debut album. It’s been a long time in the making, but the band haven’t been idling since they started noodling about with synths back in the pandemic lockdown. Endless touring has honed their chops onstage, but they’ve also learned how to sharpen their character studies without sacrificing shout-a-long choruses. The Leeds-based band will release their self-titled debut on 25 September, exploding with blaring synths and pummelling drums, absurdist vignettes and a society gone to the dogs. But in spite of everything, the key takeaway is having fun. Small victories in the face of all the bullshit. “I was just kind of an angry teenager, I guess,” Hanson admits. “And then you grow out of that and realise, ‘Oh, you can actually have fun with
music.’ It was a tempo thing; I started listening to loads of dance music and wanted to delve into not just playing guitar. I’m still not very savvy with synths, so it wasn’t so much about the technical aspect, more just like, the feeling that you can get from it.” And once the chaotic canvas is prepared, Hanson and Greg Lonsdale (synths) provide lyrics to bring the messy universe of Adult DVD to life. “None of the songs are about us or, like, me as a person,” Hanson says. “They’re all just made up stories. I’ve got notes in my phone with everything that I hear that I think is interesting. Normally stuff that my dad says, actually, I’ll just write it down. It’s like we’ve created a world within the first record, but it’s all quite different and they’re all like individual stories. “I think I was just writing sad tunes about, I don’t know, heartbreak and whatever I was feeling as a little angry teenager. And then just thought, you know, we can just have fun with this. And also, it means that you’ll never run out of ideas, so you can always keep writing songs. I don’t have to go through anything traumatic to write the next record, you know?” Ahead of a headline tour for the album in October, the band are playing at Edinburgh Psych Fest in September. Are Adult DVD psychedelic? Harry tries to draw a parallel between the
Words: Lewis Wade
“I was kind of an angry teenager [...] you grow out of that and realise, ‘Oh, you can actually have fun with music’” Harry Hanson, Adult DVD
August 2026 – Feature
Photo: Devon Chambers
repetitive, krautrock elements of their music and the dancier acts that the festival now routinely books, but it’s all in vain; “Sorry that’s a bullshit answer. It’s a great fest, really varied...” he trails off in thought. Maybe the closest we can muster is the primal freedom of the Adult DVD live experience? “I mean, I still can’t dance, man. It’s fucking embarrassing. Sometimes when we’re playing onstage, I’ll catch myself, like, moving around. I’m like ‘what are you doing?’ Whereas Greg, you know, he’s at the side of me and he’s like a cheerleader, man. He’s great. So I kind of leave it to him.” Dodgy moves aside, Adult DVD are a seriously good time, but is there a serious side behind the shenanigans? “I’d be happy to be [known as] a fun band, as long as I’m happy doing it, really. Musically it’s fun, but also not happy all the time. Especially on the new record, there’s some darker elements for sure. It’s a mix of tunes and a bit of a mix of genres.” Born-again incels, reflecting on your own funeral, and a breakdown in Lidl are all par for the course across the self-titled debut, but the serious themes can be easy to miss amongst the acid house excursions and memorable one-liners like ‘Went to New York / But they didn’t have a Greggs’ and ‘Actually, fuck sourdough bread!’ Come for the pulsating beats and shit dancing, and maybe you’ll discover something about the decaying state of the world. Either way, you’re in for a top time with Adult DVD.
Adult DVD is released on 25 Sep via Fat Possum; Adult DVD play Edinburgh Psych Fest, Edinburgh, 6 Sep; King Tut’s, Glasgow, 23 Oct adultdvd.band — 86 —
: COWGATE underbellyedinburgh.co.uk 0131 510 0395
1016mm
COWGATE BRISTO SQUARE underbellyedinburgh.co.uk 0131 510 0395
6.55pm
05 - 30 AUG
THE SKINNY
Curated Environments I
about recognising regulars before they’ve reached the bar. Students who become familiar faces over four years. Staff who genuinely enjoy working together. “The beauty of Sneaks,” she tells me, “is that it’s our home as well as our workplace.” Community is one of those words nightlife throws around a lot. Listening to Sgouros, it feels less like branding and more like architecture. Rooms don’t become welcoming by accident. I squeeze in a quick chat with freelance sound and lighting technicians Sweet Philly and Millie MacKenzie. MacKenzie reckons it starts somewhere in between: on the bus into town, mentally preparing for the room before she’s even behind the lighting desk. Philly laughs, “I have two answers. Neither is really about lighting.” The first begins when the shutters lift at Sneaky’s: “That’s when the bar’s open. Things are moving. You don’t really have a club until then.” The second starts much earlier. “The club’s the destination, but it isn’t the start of the journey. It starts when you leave the house, meet your pals [and] when your energy changes from, ‘I’m not going out,’ to, ‘I’m going out.’ Even if you’ve already done three pubs, the energy’s already building towards the room. When everyone comes together there, that’s when it’s released.” That’s the moment the non-verbal conversation starts with the DJ; each responding to each other in real time. It’s somewhere around this point I realise nobody is answering the same question. Koren thinks in weeks. Sgouros thinks in rooms. Sweet Philly and MacKenzie think in energy. The club doesn’t create that energy. It gathers and holds it. Once the doors open, neither Sweet Philly nor MacKenzie really talks about operating — 89 —
lights. They talk about listening. About reacting. About having a conversation with the DJ. “The lighting meets the music in the middle,” Sweet Philly explains. It’s a strange way of describing the job until you realise that’s exactly what everyone I’ve spoken to has been describing. Nobody is working in isolation. The promoter responds to the city. The venue responds to the promoter. Lighting responds to music. Staff respond to the crowd. The crowd responds to itself. By the time the DJ presses play, the room is already in conversation. Maybe that’s what makes August feel so different. The theatre doesn’t empty before the club begins. The city simply changes rooms. Performers become punters. Hospitality workers finish one shift and start another. A conversation started over post-show drinks continues on a dancefloor off the public plaza. The same energy moves through the city, gathering people as it goes. Perhaps that’s why nobody could agree when a club night begins. I think it’s because they weren’t describing a moment. They were describing how a room, a party, a community comes into being. Which leaves one last question: during August, why are some of our most collaborative performances still treated as what happens afterward?
August 2026 – Feature
n August, Edinburgh’s pavements are heaving, parks turn into beer gardens and the city morphs into one of the world’s largest festival grounds without ever really building one. Our bars become somewhere to wait before a spectacle and half of the festival happens on the walk between venues anyway. By midnight, the city feels less like a collection of postcodes, becoming one enormous building with different rooms pulling you between them. Every performance comes with a programme, a critic and a language for describing how it was made. Lighting, sound, stage management, costume and direction are all understood as part of the artwork itself. Nobody leaves a play believing the actor built the set alone. Club nights are collaborative too, but we tend to describe them differently: the DJ gets named, while everything else is absorbed into the atmosphere. Venues like Sneaky Pete’s and People’s Leisure Club seamlessly shuffle between Fringe and late-night club programming. Yet, somewhere between the theatre and dancefloor, our language changes. One arrives with reviews, awards and attention. And another is described as somewhere to lose yourself after. So, what counts as culture during August? I asked four of the institutional backbones of Edinburgh’s club circuit the same question: when does a club night really begin? For Finn Koren, PR and Venues Manager across Gilded Saloon, People’s Leisure Club and Gilded Balloon, that’s not a metaphor. “It starts on Monday,” he says. Programming meetings, ticket sales, flyering, reassuring nervous promoters and sending a team of PR staff back out into the city – not simply to advertise a night, but to start gathering one. His description of PR feels less like marketing and more like artful matchmaking. The perfect candidate, according to Koren, “is a sponge for the atmosphere.” Not someone to sell a room, but someone who understands it well enough to find the people who belong there. Eight minutes away, down the iconic Cowgate, Monica Sgouros, Venue Manager at Sneaky Pete’s, gives me a completely different answer: “It starts when the gig finishes.” As folk shift through the bottleneck of the venue, the room is reshaped by the whole team. The stage disappears, the DJ booth rolls into place and with it, the focus shifts from a single performer to the dancefloor itself. Cables are gathered, bar restocked, lights reset. Within an hour, the venue has transformed from a gig space into a club. Can the bar change the atmosphere of a club night? “One hundred per cent,” Sgouros says. She’s not talking about the drinks. She’s talking
Words: Shannon Maitland Illustration: Vaso Michailidou
Edinburgh Festivals Special
If clubs are vital to Edinburgh’s culture, then why do they feel overlooked during the Fringe? One writer considers where clubs sit in our cultural landscape, in discussion with the cast and crew of the city’s nightlife venues
THE SKINNY
Limerence and Its Opposites
August 2026 – Feature
Intersections
Playwright Michael Reid unpacks how limerence manifests itself within queer experiences – stolen glances, imagined moments, and all
I
learned desire first through the lens of detection. At the all-boys school I attended in Glasgow from three to 18, I was the only pupil I remember being out as gay within those 15 years. Although statistically, I can’t have been alone. Coming of age in an environment like that teaches you a type of second-sight. You study glances, silences, or when a furtive ‘joke’ about intimacy with a classmate suggests the lady doth protest too much. You need to ascertain who might hurt you, and who you can trust as well as who might like you, but be hiding it in plain sight. When I discovered the city’s goth and alternative scene as a teenager, it opened a door. Here was a world where the codes were different: boys applied eyeliner and nail polish on the steps of the GoMA, we took to the hazy dancefloors of the Cathouse, and drank White Lightning from the bottle as we overlooked the city from the Necropolis. Friendships with other boys could shade into something else, then inch back again. Sexuality was signalled, then retracted or denied. People wanted to try things without anyone knowing they had tried them. Mixed messages were a native language.
‘It is more than a crush. It is desire sustained by uncertainty: the halfsentence you replay, or the text you do not receive but cannot stop answering in your head’
I know now that there is a word for what grew within me in that loamy soil. Limerence: the term psychologist Dorothy Tennov coined in 1979 for involuntary, obsessive romantic longing – the state in which another person’s smallest gesture becomes evidence, and your mood hangs on your interpretation of it. It is more than a crush. It is desire sustained by uncertainty: the half-sentence you replay, or the text you do not receive but cannot stop answering in your head. Without access to open, healthy possibilities for expressing and receiving love, my wiring as a young gay person forged a predisposition to interpretation, secrecy and longing. Nights of my adolescence were spent pining over boys who had, in truth, promised me nothing. I was writing my own scripts for these young men: taking a glance, a joke, a drunken exchange, and arranging it all into someone I fantasised could give me the affection I needed. Limerence has had a cultural moment recently: TikTok explainers, a Lucy Dacus song and books such as Dr Tom Bellamy’s Smitten have pulled the word into circulation. The reason it has stuck is simpler. It describes the way another person can become, with almost no input from them at all, the centre of your inner life. Nobody, as far as I can tell, has measured whether queer people experience limerence more often than anyone else, and I would not claim to know that we do. But I wonder whether a queer youth makes us unusually practised in it. We learn to read ambiguous signals for safety. It seems likely, then, that we are at greater risk of finding a form of desire that feeds on ambiguity. I have never experienced the closet, at least not in its full architecture, but I wonder what conditions for limerence that must create for fellow queer people. To be alone with a longing that cannot be admitted; to desire someone without being able to test the reality of those feelings, confess them, or even name them; to build an inner life around glances, proximity, accidents, excuses. Feelings become intensified by secrecy while fantasy is strengthened because reality is forbidden. In my twenties, a man I knew, a little older and publicly — 90 —
Words: Michael Reid Illustration: Martin Subbington
attached to heterosexuality, developed feelings for me that became romantic and sexual beyond the level that I reciprocated them. With that, I experienced limerence from the other side. I did not want to hurt his feelings. Perhaps I lacked the confidence to fully reject him. But the coded life he lived kept him circling me. To understand his feelings through the framing of limerence, or its frequent bedfellow co-dependency, would suggest he was not in love with me at all, but with the version of himself that might exist if he could be with me. I recognised the move because I had made it myself: turning a person into a doorway to a life I felt was outside my grasp. I could not speak plainly about our dynamic to anyone, because to describe it risked outing him. So his closet became mine to keep. The secrecy I thought I had escaped returned in my twenties, retrofitted; this time, I was not hiding what I wanted, but what someone wanted of me. My play Safety grew out of these vagaries. It is the story of a gay psychotherapist whose trained gift for reading subtext and the subconscious curdles into something with the power to harm instead of help. Ambiguity has been a historical condition of queerness, and longing behaves differently depending on where it finds us. The closeted teenager longs for what cannot be spoken or tested. The not-yet-out person may fasten too much hope to those who will keep their secret. And the adult who is otherwise out and proud can still be conscripted into someone else’s unspoken wanting. Trapping ourselves in the what-if and the if-only can make us accept so much less than we all deserve. What we all deserve is, simply, to love and be loved wholly and completely – which is indeed the opposite of limerence. Safety, Underbelly Daisy, Bristo Square, 5-30 Aug, 11.45am
THE MEADOWS underbellyedinburgh.co.uk 0131 510 0395
4.10pm
08 - 29 AUG
THE SKINNY
Mother Tongue Books
We chat with Beth Frieden, a Glasgow-based poet and New Scottish Writers Award winner for Gaelic Poetry in 2021, about her debut pamphlet, Acair san Talamh, ahead of her appearance at Govanhill Book Festival You write poetry in both Gaelic and English. How does this bilingual creative process work for you? I do. I usually try to write in Gaelic, unless a poem needs a particular turn of phrase in English, because it’s better to write Gaelic poems in Gaelic. Then if I get stuck, maybe I will translate it into English. I will often work back and forth between both languages, because for me the translation provides a new lens to see the poem with. Your debut pamphlet is entitled Acair san Talamh, ‘anchor in the land’. How do you manage to sail, and stay rooted, between your native United States and Scotland, where you have been based? Ah, if only I could sail between them! I like the anchor metaphor for a big tree, personally, because I have a longstanding romance with tall ships, which of course are made out of trees. But I’ve been very privileged to get to go back to New Hampshire at least every other year for a while, and to bring my daughters so that they get to know it as well (not all immigrants get to do this!). I want
Words: Petra Johana Poncarová
them to see healthy forests and be familiar with them, with life amongst the trees. I think that helps. In other ways, I am very happy to not be living in the US right now and not have to be an adult and a parent there! Apart from being a poet, you are also an actor. Are these two spheres connected? Acting is my team sport, and poetry is my solo sport. The thing I like about acting is the working together to tell the story, and I’m not a solo performance artist. When I want to make something by myself, I usually make a poem. I definitely bring some performance skills to poetry reading, or at least I am comfortable using my voice onstage, but I actually feel like poetry is closer to the textile crafts that I do for a hobby, in some ways, than it is to the process of acting. Has Glasgow and the local Gaelic culture been an influence on your work? Glasgow, and the other places I have lived in Scotland, have absolutely had an influence on my
writing. Glasgow is the biggest city I’ve ever lived in, and I really enjoy getting to write city poems as well as country poems. I’ve lived in four places in Scotland – Edinburgh, Skye, Oban, and Glasgow – and in all four places I’ve found Gaelic friends. But when I lived in Oban, I didn’t write any poetry all year, actually. It was my probation year teaching, and I didn’t have any space in my head. I’m definitely not as involved in the Glasgow poetry scene as I could be, but I have lots of poetry friends here, and some writing affinity groups.
Image: courtesy of author
You are part of the initiative Gàidhlig A-staigh, in which families seek to bring their children up in Gaelic and make it the main language of daily life. What are the challenges of doing that in Glasgow? My partner and I are lucky because we both speak Gaelic, so we have an easier situation than a lot of other Gaelic-speaking parents; we just don’t speak English at home, to each other, or to the kids. For us, the challenge is mainly finding other kids who are willing to speak Gaelic to their peers. Most parents are struggling to get their children to speak Gaelic back to them because the other parent speaks only English. Gàidhlig A-Staigh is an attempt to create situations where native Gaelic-speaking children can meet each other and play in Gaelic, while Gaelic-speaking parents model this for their kids.
August 2026 – Feature
If you were to name one work of Gaelic literature that you find exciting and would like to see more widely appreciated, what would it be? I was really excited about Robbie MacLeòid’s new pamphlet that I got to edit, Am Measg Luaithrean, Beò (Stewed Rhubarb, 2025). I thought it was playing with form and content, it was political, it was everything I want in a pamphlet. I hope all the Gaelic poetry fans will buy it. Your pamphlet, from which you’ll be reading at the festival, came out three years ago. Do you have a current writing project? And will it feature some tall ships and trees? I have been writing! The pamphlet came out a few months after my younger daughter was born, so I have also been busy parenting a small child, which isn’t conducive to deep writing time, but I’ve been working on a lot of translation as a part of the Edwin Morgan Translation Exchange, and I’ve had some exciting talks with a publisher about a potential next project. And I do have two poems I haven’t published yet with tall ships in them, and several more featuring some trees.
Acair san Talamh is out now with Stewed Rhubarb Press. Beth Frieden
— 92 —
Beth Frieden is at Govanhill Book Festival, Glasgow, 8 Aug, 4pm
THE SKINNY
Drone Logic Piping Live! returns for its 23rd year, this time with an expanded experimental programme – we catch up with the team behind the festival to talk minimalism, guided improvisation, and Angine de Poitrine
Words: Laurie Presswood
Music
Photo: Christophe Raynaud de Lage
P
The In C Pipers
metrics for success have emerged. Programme Director John Mulhearn explains: “One method by which we tend to do that within the traditional repertoire is in the very nuanced expression of timing, the very subtle rubato that you apply in places, the very gentle push and pull of phrasing in order to create balance and tension and release. That stuff doesn’t apply to these rhythmic frameworks for the most part.” Mulhearn has described the bagpipes as “a sort of proto-minimalist instrument” because of their use of drone, and at home and abroad a generation of pipers are currently exploring this to great success. Star of Scottish experimentalism Brìghde Chaimbeul has spoken about writing as a meditative process by which she tries to get right into the middle of a sound – you can see how her practice has been shaped by an instrument which literally has to be tuned to itself. As Mulhearn also points out, the bagpipe uses a tuning system that sits outside of the modern western musical tradition. Instead, they have a sound that is more ancient – and which far pre-dates the minimalist movement of the 1960s. “You think about AI and AI-generated music, and how much it’s going to still lean into reinforcing tuning systems that are very much part of the Western tradition... and you can take Angine de Poitrine from Quebec, who are using these microtonal systems for their pieces as a way around the fear of machines taking over.” These instruments — 93 —
“The essence of our festival is to try and give people that breadth of the bagpipe as a living, breathing, moving instrument” Helen Urquhart, The National Piping Centre might then offer a glimmer of interest against the looming background of aesthetic hegemony. “Machines are not going to replicate that. They’re not going to replicate this.” Piping Live! runs in Glasgow, 9-14 Aug Ceol Nua, Nice N Sleazy, 10 Aug In C // 20 Pipers, Barrowland Ballroom, 11 Aug; 8 Pipers for Philip Glass, The National Piping Centre, 12 Aug; Continuum for Bagpipes, Kelvingrove Art Gallery, 13 Aug pipinglive.co.uk
August 2026 – Feature
iping Live! has been around for 23 years now, designed to coincide with the World Pipe Band Championships and bring the sounds of pipes from all over the world to the heart of Glasgow. The festival, in contrast to the tightly proscribed sound of the Championships taking place on Glasgow Green, serves to platform all aspects of the instrument (this year’s features everything from a make-your-own-chanter workshop to an album launch/underground electronic night at the GSA). “A lot of the people that are coming for Piping Live! in general have – not a fixed idea – but a real understanding of what bagpipes look like in terms of the traditional structure and the traditional idioms that they play in,” says Head of Events Helen Urquhart. “What we want is somebody to come for the whole day end to end. They’ll hear some solo pipes and a trad group and a pipe band from a school, and then they come to [an avantgarde performance]... The essence of our festival is to try and give people that breadth of the bagpipe as a living, breathing, moving instrument.” The experimental aspect has historically found a home in the festival’s dedicated Ceol Nua night – a gig in the basement of Nice 'N' Sleazy, dedicated to avant-garde and electronic music. This year, thanks to additional funding, the programme is expanding to four nights including ambitious performances of pieces by giants of the minimalist movement Terry Riley and Philip Glass, as well as a premiere of a new piece by Erwan Keravec in Kelvingrove Art Gallery. The performance of Riley’s In C takes place at the Barrowlands – 20 Breton pipers in a circle on the dancefloor, in the dark but for their illuminated platforms. The audience can stand, sit, lie anywhere, listen however they like. The piece is considered one of the foundational pieces of minimalism; its sheet music consists of 53 short sequences of notes which float, together but unconnected, across one sheet of paper. Performers play the patterns in sequence, at a pace of their choosing and with as many repeats as they like. But this is guided improvisation: the performance directions place limitations on the individual player such as to stay within two or three patterns of each other, or to come together in unison at least twice throughout the rendition. The most important instruction is for players to pay attention to each other (in Riley’s words, “this means occasionally to drop out and listen”). This minimalistic style poses a unique challenge for pipers – with only a nine-note range and a fixed dynamic output, the bagpipe has limited tools at its disposal for expression. Its players have worked within the constraints of the instrument and over time different, bespoke,
THE SKINNY
Spirit of Discovery As Stirling’s avant-garde all-dayer Interesting Things returns for its third year, we find out how Scotland’s smallest city has become an unlikely home for musical discovery
Music
W
hen you think back to summer festivals gone by, what are some of your favourite memories? Sure, the headliners might have been a draw, but what about those special moments when you take a chance on an unknown outlier only to discover something truly inspiring? Often, your most treasured experience comes from that spirit of uncertainty. It’s precisely that spirit of discovery that sits at the heart of Stirling’s adventurous Interesting Things festival, returning this month. Now in its third year, Cultural Programmer David Weaver came to his role at the Tolbooth, the festival’s home venue, with a plan already taking shape. “You want to reflect the community and be supportive of what’s happening here, but I was also really aware that there was a thread of experimental music in Stirling historically.” No stranger to diversity, Weaver was part of the founding team behind core. festival, a celebration of metal and hardcore hosted in some of Glasgow’s most unlikely venues. But, as he admits, it’s not always about the big city spaces. “I’m from north of Inverness. I didn’t have anything to look forward to. I want people in Stirling and the Forth Valley to not have to go to Glasgow and Edinburgh.” And why would we when
there are countless innovative spaces to explore right on our doorstep? Weaver still remembers attending Blue Weekend in Stirling as a student and finding himself beneath an underpass watching an artist speaking over a recording of a concrete block tumbling inside a washing machine. “I didn’t necessarily enjoy it,” he laughs, “but I was inspired by it.” If there’s a theme around this year’s Interesting Things programming, it could be disruption, stemming from Weaver seeing headliner Lullahush at last year’s Other Voices festival in Dingle, Ireland. “He did this incredible set with a full live band and amazing visuals in an aquarium, taking traditional sounds and sampling them. He annoys old trad folk musicians!” That eagerness to recast well-worn techniques is an ethos that fellow festival performer and intersectional cellist Simone Seales brings into their work. Their debut solo record Dearest, part classical composition, part spoken word and part improvisation, evokes the performer’s first queer relationship. But bringing this project to stage required a leap of faith, as they explain. “In a recording studio, you can loop things and overdub, and it doesn’t take as much time. The challenge for me is letting myself take time and trusting that Photo: Dalia Neis
August 2026 – Feature
Words: Cheri Amour
“The best gift anyone can give you is their attention” Susannah Stark the audience is curious enough to hear what happens next.” Curiosity over comprehension is a central tenet for another of the acts booked at this year’s Interesting Things festival. Scottish Alternative Music Award-nominated Susannah Stark & Band will bring her record Minor Gestures to life, a body of songs that daringly reconnects with her Gaelic heritage. “It’s rewarding to be able to express yourself in another language,” she reasons. “I hear from audiences who enjoy that element even if they didn’t understand, and then people who do have a totally different experience!” And for Weaver, those memorable connections are precisely what the Stirling-based all-dayer taps into. “[We’re] building an audience that might know a few acts, but also trust what’s going on and are willing to see and find something new and exciting.” Weaver has seen that openness transform artists as well as audiences. He remembers speaking to Scottish songwriter Kathryn Joseph after The Netherlands’ Roadburn Festival, where she admitted she’d considered giving up music before playing. The freedom of performing in an environment without stylistic restrictions, he says, left her inspired. It’s a philosophy that resonates with Seales, who sees their performance as a collective moment rather than an individual output. “Being on stage is a place where I can invite people into my world.” That world might involve a level of improvisation more commonly seen in free-form jazz spaces, with Seales encouraging audiences to share an “emotion” for them to riff on in real-time. Testing the concept while opening for the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, they recall: “My friend who was hosting had, for some reason, said that I speak Welsh. I was learning! Someone shouted the Welsh word for milk,” they laugh. “I’m lactose intolerant, so I said, ‘This is how milk makes me feel,’ and started playing.” Stark is equally thankful for this level of audience engagement when it comes to her musical expression. “The best gift anyone can give you is their attention.” In an era where mainstream music festivals often boast the same names across the summer circuit, Interesting Things offers something fresh alongside the familiar, an off-kilter approach that Scotland’s smallest city has long since championed. “There’s definitely a weird dark heartbeat in Stirling,” Weaver says. “It’s just letting that flourish.” Interesting Things takes place at Tolbooth, Stirling, 15 Aug
Susannah Stark
— 94 —
stirlingevents.org
THE SKINNY
Letters Home We speak to Ghanaian-Danish writer Lucia Odoom about her novella Cosmos, and how the contemporary epistolary form can allow for an interrogation of belonging and intimacy
“F
Lucia Odoom compelling counterfactual text: one in which a Black migrant, in spite of the sundry indignities of itinerant life and invisible labour, in spite of the injustice of being subject to the ‘parallel societies’ reproduced at the level of the state, can still pursue his dream lover and dream in (relative) peace. It is a love story with real staying power. Cosmos is out with Daunt Books now
August 2026 – Feature
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“A lot of Black writers have been expected to undertake an ethical quest [in their work]”
Books
– which permits the state to surveil, sell off and demolish public housing in areas where the majority of residents are of a ‘non-Western’ background. In 2020, the Council of Europe’s Committee on Torture found Ellebæk, an immigration detention centre just north of Copenhagen, to be among the continent’s most inhumane. And according to several policy experts featured in a 2025 BBC report, a hostile environment is actively being created nationwide in which legal requirements for asylum seekers keep changing and Danish citizens with a migrant background are marginalised. “A lot of Black writers have been expected to undertake an ethical quest [in their work],” Odoom says, reflecting on the sociopolitical context in which Cosmos is situated; however, she wanted to ensure her work did not yield to the totalising moral framework of external expectations. Yet this is not to say political currents do not flow through the novella: Odoom was simply committed to finding different – and, perhaps, less doctrinal – ways of channeling her commentary. “That’s why I put a basketball court at the centre of [the story],” she explains, referring to one of the primary backdrops of Cosmos and Elizabeth’s budding romance. Its inclusion is an allusion to Love and Basketball, the 2000 cult classic and Odoom’s all-time favourite rom-com; it is also an effective site for the politically-shaped asymmetries of status, access and autonomy between Cosmos and Elizabeth to surface. As the novella progresses, the world around Cosmos becomes one of many parts and an increasing number of paths. “Something draws Elizabeth to Cosmos’s world and the other way around,” Odoom says. When viewed through the lens of this dialectic, Cosmos becomes a highly
Photo: Carolina Ahrenkiel
alling in love is the biggest escapist trick,” declares Lucia Odoom over our video call. And in Cosmos, her debut work of fiction, the Danish-Ghanaian journalist and author deftly incorporates some of this escapist energy into a thoughtful epistolary novella that transports its reader between the streets of Denmark’s capital and the fisheries of Ghana’s coast. These agile pivots in setting are braced by a love story charting a few short months from the height of summer. Through the eyes of its titular protagonist – a young Ghanaian migrant on a worker’s permit attempting to forge his own path in Copenhagen – Cosmos compels its reader to consider what it really means to belong. As for the novella’s form: Cosmos’ epistles are, in fact, WhatsApp messages addressed to his family back home in the Ghanaian town of Woe, who he is supporting financially. Odoom lends Cosmos a way with words that invites and a way with images that intrigues. The piquancy of his reflections only intensifies once he embarks upon a relationship with his love interest, Elizabeth. It is she – a winsome, socially-minded photographer of Tanzanian heritage – who gives Copenhagen new dimensions and shepherds Cosmos in from the city’s margins. And it is in her company that Cosmos feels ‘the wonderful sensation of actually being in the place [he had] always dreamed of being.’ Cosmos pulses with both desire and denial: our protagonist is not ready to tell Elizabeth about his harrowing passage to Europe, nor is he prepared to disclose certain things about himself. At times, Cosmos pulls away from Elizabeth almost entirely, an instinct with which Odoom sympathises. “I’m a very escapist person and I’m very bad at solving my problems!” she laughs. “I usually solve my problems by just going someplace else, you know?” Odoom, a lifelong Copenhagener, did write Cosmos close to home though: specifically among the stacks in the Royal Danish Library, a landmark of the city centre. “I was just captivated by the everyday scenes of people having a break from life, figuring out life, or hacking life,” Odoom says. Having previously frequented the library whilst on maternity leave, she knew she could expect a degree of calm within its walls. “But chaos is also there, which actually made it a very nice environment for me to write, because I don’t want to write in a monastery.” Notably, Cosmos opens with a decidedly non-monastic tableau set at the Royal Danish Library: as he and his friends – fellow migrant workers, Odofu, Femi and Kofi – recharge their electronics and regale each other with silly TikToks, Cosmos ruminates on the impulse to ‘seek refuge in other people’s heavens.’ Yet what does this heaven mean? Over the past decade, Denmark has developed one of the most restrictive and punitive immigration systems in Europe. In 2018, its centre-left government passed legislation – widely known as the ‘ghetto law’
Words: Tara Okeke
Lucia Odoom
THE SKINNY
Album of the Month
Released 14 Aug by Breakfast Records rrrrr Listen to: The Radiator, Stop Living
I
Album of the Month Getdown Services — Massive Champion against battery farming near their hometown: ‘Now I’m in the battery farm with all the chickens / We’re all fucking sick of it / Bob Dylan went electric / He went fucking shit.’ The band’s ability to incorporate an array of usually opposing genres is impressive throughout. From the opening banjos of Poor Bannister – an observational tale of a rather interesting bus journey – to the rock‘n’roll guitars of Probiotic and the summer pop synths of Check the Definition, the duo’s endearing personalities bind everything together, allowing this mish-mash to work. However, the album also delivers more poignant moments of storytelling. A Crazy Story’s endearing spoken-word phone conversation is a mid-point comfort blanket on British day-to-day life. Cha Cha Slide veers into introspection of childhood anxieties (rather than any silliness its title may allude to) while Stop Living contrasts Chic-like guitars with morbid lyrics on workingclass life: ‘Chewed up, spat out / Get on the path for big clout / No doubt that dark cloud’s gonna make me look a fat clown’. Massive Champion proves that Getdown Services are no joke. This triumphant, nostalgic ode to their childhood declares them as one of the country’s most exciting new bands. [Jamie Wilde]
Find reviews for the below albums online at theskinny.co.uk/music
Charli xcx Music, Fashion, Film Out now via Atlantic Records
Citizen Halcyon Blues Out 7 Aug via Run For Cover
Lawrence English The Rest Is My Ghost Out 7 Aug via Room40 — 97 —
Phoebe Bridgers Lost Weekend Out 14 Aug via Dead Oceans
Interpol This Mirror Weighs a Ton Out 28 Aug via Partisan Records
August 2026 — Review
n times where things can easily feel pretty gloomy, Getdown Services are a potent musical antidote. The Minehead-raised duo (Josh Law and Ben Sadler) started their project during lockdown with the humble aim of trying to make each other laugh. Their 2023 debut album Crisps delivered a scurry of breakneck tracks, inspired by their similarly chaotic live shows, spreading quickly via word-of-mouth. They’ve been prolific since, sharing two further EPs and collections of B-sides, as well as travelling the globe on their first headline tours. Now, they’re putting smiles on more faces than they could have imagined, but their latest collection of songs isn’t all gags and punchlines. Massive Champion is Getdown Services’ second full-length album. It sees the pair dig deep into their own complexities, while also retaining the chaotic edge they’re renowned for. Its star track, The Radiator, epitomises this part of their irrepressible nature; its nonsense lyrics on gas leaks and boiled egg air fresheners are undeniably addictive when paired with their crescendoing dance beats – their Later… with Jools Holland rendition paints this picture vividly. Lentils follows in hedonistic fashion with lyrics on clean living, while The Definitive Map offers an angular rant
Albums
THE SKINNY
Open Mike Eagle & Kenny Segal DOOMED! Backwoodz Studioz, 14 Aug
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August 2026 – Review
Listen to: Unfinished Concrete Initials, She Swear I’m Colorblind, It Happens In Every Universe (interlude)
Julia Holter Materia Domino, 21 Aug
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Listen to: Fantasy, Materia 2, My Lost One
DOOMED! is Open Mike Eagle’s cross-universal sulk session about a breakup, gorgeously scored by the transformative Kenny Segal. Both artists have flirted with the idea of a joint project for a few years, and it's definitely worth the wait. The entire album flows through different snapshots of failed relationships, and the dread-filled moments where they fall apart. Unfinished Concrete Initials brings a standout melodic performance from Mike, with a strong contender for instrumental of the year from Kenny. Not to mention Hemlock Ernst’s mesmerising visceral performance which steals the show. It Happens In Every Universe (interlude) also shows the counter perspective of breakup stories, and gives a heart-wrenching sample to make you feel the pain underneath the brutal words. Closer Watching a Movie Called Freedom By Myself punctuates the barren interdimensional storytelling masterclass, ‘Aint no post-credits scene / We can all just leave’ – a great way to address something that no longer needs addressing. In case you couldn’t tell, Mike and Kenny have found a pocket that keeps you coming back – this is easily up there with one of the best hip-hop releases of the year. Wow. [Nicolas Coz]
We tend to treat album tracks as finished products. Julia Holter argues otherwise. Returning to Materia, the centrepiece of her 2024 record Something in the Room She Moves, Holter treats this hushed ballad the way a folk singer might approach a song passed down through generations, or a jazz musician a standard; not to preserve it, but to continue tending to it. Holter reworks Materia into two new versions: Materia 2 is a hallucinatory duet with experimental vocalist Jessika Kenney, built from voices and Devra Hoff’s fretless bass, whilst Materia 3 arrives like a hidden track on a CD, surfacing after almost a minute of silence at the tail-end of My Twin. Holter’s voice sounds strangely aged here. Not like that of an old person, but distant, like how starlight travels years to reach us. Five more tracks, conceived alongside Materia, round out a set of seven, but they’re not offcuts. Fantasy and My Lost One rank among the most fully-realised songs Holter has ever written, but there are no final versions here, only a question she keeps answering differently: why settle for one take, when a song can hold several at once? [Patrick Gamble]
Overmono Pure Devotion XL Recordings, 7 Aug
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Listen to: Lockup, Knight In Shining Prada, After the Rain
L’Rain fata morgana Mexican Summer, 14 Aug
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Listen to: july 5th, elmyra, birthday
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Welsh brothers Ed and Tom Russell, better known as Overmono, are becoming the most exciting force in UK dance. Known for their sped up vocals and music-bending sounds that mix electronica with garage and R’n’B, for their second album Pure Devotion the brothers use analogue technologies to give a warmer, more intimate sound. While they could easily make an album of four-to-thefloor bangers, Pure Devotion is deeper, offering songs for reflection, whether the calm before the storm or the soul-searching afterwards. Starting with a bang, Lockup opens the record with its driving earworm sampling Birmingham punk band Fast Relief’s What a Waste, at times sounding like an updated version of Mr Oizo’s 90s monster Flat Beat. There are other big bangers – Ballad featuring Rock Floyd and Kindora, the latter who also features on Even Angels Ghost. But it’s not just pushing BPMs. Knight In Shining Prada, featuring John Joseph Holt’s spoken word poem, is the heart of the album. A tribute to Holt’s brother Thomas who died by suicide, it moves from intensity to the abandon of the Acid House 303. For the sun lounger, the car, the house or the club, Pure Devotion is the soundtrack to your summer. [Rick Fulton] The world that L’Rain has sculpted across her near decade of work is a sunken one, an esoteric, dreamy take on what pop can be. Things are much the same on her latest, fata morgana once again pushing an intensity of feeling through songs that seem to be sunk in gelatinous quicksand, a swirly miasma of elements churning about each other. Into this usual setup is a new lushness, like sunbleached memories of Minnie Ripperton and Leon Ware, all languorous cymbal rolls and soaks of reverb. It breathes a deeper sense of scale and vibrance to her already broad sonic palette. While this new sense of colour has stripped some of the dissonance of previous records away, the unpredictability so essential to L’Rain’s style is still here in full force. Songs seem to head towards obvious conclusions then spin away, dissipate or, in the case of july 5th, seem to get run over by a whole other song. It’s a testament to the craft involved that it never feels forced or like the song’s desperately trying to hold attention, but rather natural, simply an artist trusting their instincts to make some of the best music of their career. [Joe Creely]
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Listen to: Only Girl, Nosedive, Something Else to Give
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Listen to: The Rose Dialogues, Part I & II, Canto Solo, Songs of the Smile’s Fig: III. Follies
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Listen to: Patchwork, Kick Stones (The Boys), You Could Have Died There On the Dancefloor
maya ongaku Nothing Space Music Guruguru Brain, 7 Aug
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Listen to: Vanishing Waves, Thinkingscape, Hisoku Blue
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Japanese band maya ongaku’s second album Nothing Space Music unfolds as a quietly textural journey, balancing stillness with subtle movement to create an atmosphere that feels intimate. Opening track Vanishing Waves sets the tone immediately. Metallic and silvery synths interweave with acoustic guitar and gentle piano while understated vocals sit in unison. The song is reminiscent of 70s Japanese rock bands like Happy End, with a touch of psychedelia in the spacious arrangement. Thinkingscape breaks the haziness with a foreboding string opening, but the tension rapidly resolves into something more circular and grounded than the previous tracks. It’s the most structurally distinct track on the album, anchoring the dreaminess and soothing soundscape seen elsewhere. Gentle percussion and breathy winds combine into a texture that is almost creamy in Hisoku Blue. The track rewards attentive listening, with a more dynamic arc that adds depth to the tranquil flow of the record. Much of the album settles into a narrow emotional and sonic register, which is floaty, softly textured and quietly hopeful, and after a few tracks, the effect threatens to tip from immersive to monotonous. It’s a cohesive record, but one that requires space and finds beauty in patience. [Rhea Hagiwara]
August 2026 – Review
Sarah Davachi The Will of Tongues Late Music, 28 Aug
There’s something cumulative about Sarah Davachi’s The Will of Tongues. An expression of all previous work in more complex process, it’s a sonorous exploration of unison and harmony. Adding to her already gorgeous catalogue of drone-adjacent minimalism, it expands in infinite directions, with assertive and confident movement. There’s solo pipe organ works; a series of textural interludes for woodwind, brass and strings; three choral works and longer pieces featuring strings, organ and loops. An entrancing study of her ‘unison canon’, it grows across tone, textures, notes, voice and time that is more evidenced here than in previous work, mostly by the depth and detail of the album’s construction. Through the opening organs, the vocal works and the interludes, we’re moving away from, towards or through harmony, unison and dissonance, a storying lift from silence into simple, decisive evocations of tune and texture. Expanded journeys of multifaceted unisons, like repeated gestures, movements conversations. This is one iteration of many, all instruments appearing, disappearing, momentarily. It’s gorgeous to think it is still happening somewhere right now. A tuning to desire, an ever developing work manifest, hopefully, in physical space, where we come to unison again. [Tommy Pearson]
Westside Cowboy It Goes On Island Records, 21 Aug
Westside Cowboy are a Manchester band who seem to be in conversation with an imagined American alternative rock where everything happened at once. On their new record, it’s always near sunset, and a yawning summer lasts forever. Taut yet fuzzy guitars dominate the record, splintered by the addition of chiming yet rhythmic synths that sometimes veer into a thrilling frenzy. They perform the same movement throughout – songs grow instrument by instrument, before the melody lifts everything into a swarm of warm feelings that fly before abruptly crashing. It’s like Camper Van Beethoven’s Take the Skinheads Bowling blown open, expanded into a whole album. With the exception of Pin Up Boys, the effect is irresistible. Every time it’s about to get tired, the sheer joy of the whole endeavour carries it forward. Paper Chains has moments of drear, but is made to soar by its grinning coming-of-age movie instrumentals. When this happens in Worried Age, the band simply vocalise ecstatically together for the last 20 seconds, before a stronger version of the riff cuts them, and the song, off. The album ends as laconically as their sub four-minute songs: ‘That’s all’, sighs singer Reuben Haycocks. [Alexander Ralston]
Albums
Man/Woman/Chainsaw Cannonball Fiction Records, 7 Aug
Opening Man/Woman/Chainsaw’s debut LP is Only Girl, a sweet, dancey arrangement of violin, guitar and drums, a sonic combination that’s become a staple of British alt-rock bands over the last decade. London indie rockers cannot get enough of string instruments, and Man/Woman/ Chainsaw are no exception. Sonically, one-off alt-country track Goddamn, Lizard Man! doesn’t make much sense, chucked between two ballads. Yet contextually it’s an important dis on the men who slither around the music industry preying on young femme artists. From there, the six-piece transition with ease in the middle of their record from keyboarddriven ballad Lighter, on which they sing, ‘Oh baby you make my whole life light up / I barely recognise / The time that you give to me is my favourite treat’ to dance-punk synth banger Nosedive. Using the metaphor of a bird to describe the blindly destructive tendency of relationships, Emmie-Mae Avery sings: ‘Bird hit the glass / I can’t see in front of me / Let me go on, let me go / Hit a nosedive, cannonball’. Cannonball at its core is a darling collection of love songs, some danceable while others are perfect to sit and have a sulk to. [Billie Estrine]
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Music Now Celestial bodies and nocturnal animals star across this month’s music – along with a flock of singles and EPs, we recommend records from Alex Amor, Hanna Tuulikki & Tommy Perman, The Great Pleasure and a live album from our old friend Jacob Alon
August 2026 – Review
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Photo: Henry Croston
ained out, but somehow roasting hot at the same time? Sounds like a Scottish summer. In the torrent of July tunes we missed out on some excellent singles by Dovetailed (Kethers Street), Theo Bleak (We Will Not Be Lovers), Rain Corner (Like That), Arab Strap (Glamour Magick), Gallus (Sick Bastards), Hound (Can’t Sue Yourself), Walt Disco (Lies), corto.alto (IJUSTDONTKNOW), Teenage Fanclub (Day In the Sun), Peter Cat (Innocent Driver), Goodnight Louisa (Leith Forever), and redolent (ok wow). CUZINO remixed Pleasure Trail's Alone at Night. Both Hands remixed Pictish Trail’s Hold It, Fergus McCreadie dropped his album The Shieling and ButhoTheWarrior released the funky two-track EP Moody Dub, just at the very end of July. One of the most striking albums emerging this August is Echo in the Dark (KIN-TU, 28 Aug), the collaboration between British-Finnish artist Hanna Tuulikki and Edinburgh-born experimental musician Tommy Perman. Tuulikki’s projects often involve sampling and mimicking birdsong, incorporating ambient sounds from Glasgow’s green spaces and the flight paths of migratory birds, beatmaking brilliant harmonies while exploring our relationship with the natural world. Echo in the Sky is just as green, if a little more nocturnal, with each of its eight tracks built from a different species of British bat. The origin of this project was in Tuulikki’s 2022 rave of the same name, which first saw the artist using a technology called heterodyne bat detectors to translate the (usually) imperceptible language of echolocation into audible sound. Perman and Tuulikki’s record flits between flavours of dance music. Falling Free, based on the noises of the Nathusius’ Pipistrelle, uses its clangs and chimes to create an industrial texture, while In the Air, which samples the Serotine Bat, is a more avant-synth track, through which Tuulikki’s whispering vocals disperse. The artists incorporate buzzes, clicks and cries into an irresistible electronic symphony, pushing echolocation beyond its use as a navigational tool for our flying friends and into a new role, steering bodies across the dancefloor. If the end of the month is too long a wait to take flight, a week before sees the release of Alex Amor’s Heavenly Bodies (VERO Music, 21 Aug), a collection of indie-pop ballads that’ll make for a cosmic listening experience. After penning the sugary but bittersweet confessions of 2023’s Super Sonic EP, the Scottish singer-songwriter returned to Glasgow to find inspiration away from the madness of the London music scene. The sliding guitar of opener As Above, So Below lifts us up into the introspective themes of the record, Meet on
the Moon is a farewell letter to a late lover, and Inside is an exploration of grief and the struggles of family addiction. Astrology, alchemy and other forms of mysticism shape the identity of this debut album, and Amor’s highly personal songwriting makes for a revelatory introduction to this artist. The Great Pleasure is Dead, Long Live the Great Pleasure (12 Aug) is a debut we’ve been anticipating since Marc Molloy and Gillian Christie, aka The Great Pleasure, were selling out shows at Òran Mór and Stereo last year. This jetsetting duo have charted their album with stories and influences from their travels as a genre-bending blueprint. Scratchy, bluesy ballads like Swamp Hanna Tuulikki and Tommy Perman Folk, and cinematic indie-rock hits like S.A.A.A.D Forever, make for a multifaceted record, almost as varied as the lineup for their one-day launch festival on 22 August – Kai Reesu, DOSS, and a new project from Tom McGuire are expected to appear at GUU. Fife singer-songwriter Jacob Alon has had resounding success since we spoke to them ahead of their 2025 album. In Limerence received nominations for last year’s SAY Award and Mercury Prize, and now the songbook of folk ballads can be enjoyed through new ears in Live From the Roundhouse (Island Records, 14 Aug). This live recording of Alon’s performance at the eponymous London venue shows the impact of their artistry, as delicate compositions of falsetto vocals and a fingerpicking acoustic playstyle manage to hold such weight over a crowd of rapt listeners. All of In Limerence is on display, as well as a must-listen cover of Nirvana’s All Apologies. Speaking of Alon, Nani Porenta, a frequent member of their live band, releases EP Like Clockwork on 5 August. Recorded with Frightened Rabbit’s Andy Monaghan, Like Clockwork builds with orchestral strings and electric guitar, but drops into sudden silence, or circles back to earlier tracks, speaking to the record’s themes of interiority and reflection. Other EPs this month include Everything Is Content, Baby! (7 Aug), a summery, roots rock release by Edinburgh artist Oystercatcher, and Dundee indie rockers The Mirror Trap are back for the first time in a decade with EP All That Remains Is a Ghost (14 Aug). We’re also expecting the inWaves EP from Selkie (28 Aug), alongside smaller bites to tide you through the weekends. Other People’s Leisure and Indoor Foxes both drop singles on 7 August, Kohla releases Fantasy (13 Aug), Ferguson HiFi gives us Get Over It (14 Aug), and expect singles from Ardentjohn and Dara Dubh on the 28th.
Alex Amor
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Photo: Laurence Winram
Local Music
Words: Ellie Robertson
Scan the QR code to follow and like our Music Now: New Scottish Music playlist on Spotify, updated on Fridays
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August 2026
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All seven Tarkovsky feature films on the big screen this September
For tickets and information visit glasgowfilm.org
August 2026
Glasgow Film Theatre (GFT) is registered in Scotland No. SC097369 with its registered office at 12 Rose Street, Glasgow G3 6RB. GFT is a company limited by guarantee and is registered as a charity (No. SC005932) with the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator.
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THE SKINNY
Film of the Month
Film of the Month — Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma Director: Jane Schoenbrun Starring: Hannah Einbinder, Gillian Anderson, Jack Haven, Sarah Sherman, Amanda Fix, Arthur Conti, Eva Victor, Zach Cherry
Released 21 August by MUBI Certificate 15 theskinny.co.uk/film
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however, wants to take Kris out of her own head and reminds her that, at its core, a slasher is ‘flesh and fluids.’ Schoenbrun doubles down on themes they explored in I Saw the TV Glow: how pop culture shapes our identities, and how nostalgia is an elusive feeling that can never be replicated. ‘If it gets too real, you can always turn it off,’ reads the tagline for Camp Miasma’s movie-within-the-movie home video release, but the profound effect that the franchise has had on Kris’s sense of self can never be switched off. Schoenbrun’s latest work is even more ambitious, stacking ideas about horror as a vehicle for getting in touch with your own body and sexual pleasure without ever getting lost in itself. The film doesn’t shy away from overt metaphor: with a name derived from the French term for orgasm, the movie’s killer, Little Death (Jack Haven), is bullied for his transness and wears a TV-like metal vent on his head. When the film is at its most satirical, Schoenbrun flips the genre’s most misogynistic tropes into euphoric gender expression. Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma also reflects Schoenbrun coming into their own as a filmmaker, and reckoning with their anxieties about working in an industry that attempts to stifle their singular voice. Kris interacts with her squash-playing agent (Sarah Sherman) and studio executives who see her as a means to make the franchise ‘woke.’ It’s a little inside baseball, but Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma is never short of entertaining pleasures on all fronts. In one moment, Kris is tearfully opening up about her stunted sexuality, and the next, blood spurts like a geyser from a severed head. It’s a tricky tonal tightrope, and few directors could navigate it as well as Schoenbrun. [Iana Murray]
August 2026 — Review
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n her essay Her Body, Himself, academic Carol Clover famously wrote about how gender is central to the slasher film. She theorised that the final girl – the term she coined for a horror film’s last survivor – is ‘a physical female and a characterological androgyne: like her name, not masculine but either/or, both, ambiguous.’ Clover’s fingerprints are everywhere in Jane Schoenbrun’s Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma, a bold send-up of classic slashers that turns the genre into a heady playground for a gender and sexual awakening. It takes a stab at today’s franchise-obsessed remake culture, too. We follow Kris (a delightful Hannah Einbinder), a 29-year-old filmmaker who’s tasked with resurrecting the ‘zombie IP’ of Camp Miasma, a slasher franchise that was a cult classic in the 80s and has had diminishing returns across its numerous sequels. Despite their misogynistic and transphobic tropes, these films have long been a source of fascination for Kris. Schoenbrun’s film opens with a montage that adds a rich texture to its world, detailing the franchise’s history through newspaper clippings, VHS tapes, a tie-in board game, and blogs about a doomed Quibi spin-off. That lived-in texture extends to the lush production design, which dips into fantasy, with matte-painted backgrounds and vibrant lighting that gleefully eschews reality. Kris drives into the wintry wilderness to meet Billy Presley (Gillian Anderson), the Norma Desmond-esque recluse who starred in the original Camp Miasma flick before hiding away at the same campsite where the first movie was shot. Hoping to recruit Billy for the reboot, Kris’s passion explodes when she pitches the project, effusively explaining how her work explores the intersection of queerness and depictions of monstrosity. Billy,
THE SKINNY
Bitter Christmas Director: Pedro Almodóvar
Starring: Leonardo Sbaraglia, Bárbara Lennie, Aitana SánchezGijón, Victoria Luengo, Patrick Criado, Milena Smit
Film
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Pedro Almodóvar’s latest film is about a veteran filmmaker who has been coasting for some time on past glories. Is this an act of self-reflection from the great Spanish director? As we watch Bitter Christmas, we may be bewildered by how flimsy and arbitrary it feels. Almodóvar appears to be going through the motions, but he’s playing a cannier game here. The story of migraine-afflicted Elsa (Bárbara Lennie), a one-time cult filmmaker working on a comeback screenplay, feels shapeless and lacking dramatic heat, but she is merely the protagonist in a story that Raúl (Leonardo Sbaraglia) is writing. Raúl is an obvious Almodóvar surrogate – as much as Antonio Banderas was in 2019’s Pain & Glory – and the
Bitter Christmas
I Want Your Sex
July 2026 – Review
Director: Gregg Araki
Starring: Olivia Wilde, Cooper Hoffman, Mason Gooding, Chase Sui Wonders, Daveed Diggs, Charli xcx
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Is it subversive to make a film about workplace sexual harassment that masquerades as a sexual coming of age and ends happily? Probably, and it’s one way Gregg Araki perpetuates his brand of queer enfant terrible. His films have tackled difficult topics like the AIDS crisis, child sex abuse and murder, all while simultaneously crafting a map of desire for queer people. And yet, in I Want Your Sex, which has all the hallmark mischief and Looney Tunes asides of Araki’s usual sensibility, it falls flat. Elliot (Hoffman) is the nice guy-coded sex-starved assistant to dominating artist Erika (Wilde). Her work is all about sex, power and control, which she delivers monologues about in the manner of a TED talk. Their sexuationship is described
director doesn’t let himself off the hook. When his assistant (a fantastic Aitana Sánchez-Gijón) reacts furiously at him using her real-life tragedy for his script, she eviscerates his weak storytelling, bringing up many of the criticisms we may be ready to direct at Bitter Christmas. Is one great scene enough to elevate a whole picture? In this case, yes. It’s a sly and self-aware way to reframe what we’ve seen through a revelatory new lens, and even if you don’t fully buy what Almodóvar is selling, the film offers ample aesthetic pleasures. His direction is as elegant as ever, and the way the characters’ vivid costumes pop against the black sands of Lanzarote make me gasp. Almodóvar’s still got it. He’s not just coasting along on past glories; not yet, anyway. [Philip Concannon]
Colony Director: Yeon Sang-ho
Starring: Gianna Jun, Koo Kyohwan, Go Soo, Shin Hyun-been
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Released 28 Aug by Curzon; certificate cert 15
Die Hard and Dawn of the Dead – Zack Snyder’s remake rather than Romero’s OG, sadly – spring to mind as a Seoul shopping tower becomes the theatre of a bioterror attack in Train to Busan director Yeon Sang-ho’s relentless zombie film, Colony. Biology professor Kwon Se-jong (Gianna Jun) is attending a biotech conference, unaware that disgruntled biotech employee Seo Young-chul (Koo Kyo-hwan) is about to inject his ex-boss with a mutated slime mould that turns people into feral undead – but not just any. Like ant colonies, Seo’s infected can exchange information to adjust and evolve, making them some of the smartest zombies to have ever graced the big screen. Seo insists he’s the only one who can stop the outbreak, but Professor Kwon rallies
I Want Your Sex
Colony
in flashback by Elliot to cops in an interrogation room (we find out why at the crux of the film) followed by a BDSM montage that is at least original. But their relationship never deepens, and their chemistry feels more like colleagues than two taboo lovers. Araki excels when he allows real humour to punctuate the zaniness – threesomes on screen have rarely been as awkward and hilarious as the one between Erika, Apple (Chase Sui Wonders), and Elliot, with the latter Zillennials turning up wasted due to their stage fright. But elsewhere, the sex has a mechanical, music video sheen, and is a topic of obsession everyone is talking about seemingly more than they’re having or even enjoying it. Maybe, then, this is an Araki film for the online generation. [Katie Driscoll]
Released 28 Aug by Black Bear; certificate 15
Sunny Dancer Director: George Jaques
Starring: Bella Ramsey, Daniel Quinn-Toye, Ruby Stokes, Earl Cave, Jasmine Elcock, Conrad Khan, Jessica Gunning, James Norton, Neil Patrick Harris
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Cross The Fault in Our Stars with Meatballs and you’re close to the flavour of Sunny Dancer, George Jaques’ likeable but predictable summer camp movie. Bella Ramsey is the spiky Ivy, a 17-year-old cancer victim who’s been in remission for ten months and is sick of everyone’s pity since her illness. Her parents are worried she’s become a tad antisocial as a result, so they ship her off to a cheery summer camp for other teens who’ve lost huge chunks of their adolescence while fighting cancer. She’s resistant at first, but softens when she discovers the camp is populated exclusively by utterly lovely kids who all look like they’ve stepped off a Gap ad. Ivy is
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survivors to play the bioterrorist at his own game. Colony also acts as a not-so-subtle allegory for unregulated technology: the undead operate using swarm intelligence, a theory of complex behaviours occurring among decentralised animal organisms that has been applied to train AIs. Seo’s supposedly perfect communication model fears chaos and conflict, which is why the human’s friction and unique flaws may inadvertently become their biggest assets. Colony may be light on character study, but its rejection of AI’s inevitability offers food for thought without compromising on brutal flesh-tearing. A lot has changed in the ten years since Busan, but Yeon’s latest offering proves that zombie flicks, too, can adapt to stay relevant. Whether this one will be remembered in a decade, that’s another story. [Stefania Sarrubba] Released 28 Aug by StudioCanal; certificate 15
Sunny Dancer
quickly adopted by the camp’s cool gang. They smoke weed, have boozy slumber parties and happily weaponise their illness if it’ll get them free fun fair tickets. Sunny Dancer’s chief asset is its young cast, who convince as snarky, horny teens thanks to their feral energy and naturalistic banter. Ruby Stokes is particularly droll as Ivy’s boy-obsessed roommate Ella, who’s trying to seduce the camp’s hunky outdoor activities instructor. Less assured is the film around them. While Jaques avoids some cancer film clichés (there’s not a single scene in a hospital), he lays on others pretty thick. One kid’s death is foreshadowed with all the subtlety of a bloody hanky in a historical drama. A bizarre final act fake-out, possibly inspired by Fight Club, is also a massive misstep in this otherwise perfectly pleasant YA lark. [Jamie Dunn] Released 14 Aug by True Brit Entertainment; certificate 15
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CEOL NUA // PIPING LIVE!
FAMILY EDITION
IN C // 20 PIPERS COMPOSED: TERRY RILEY // ARTISTIC DIRECTOR: ERWAN KERAVEC
BARROWLAND BALLROOM - DOORS 7PM, MUSIC 8PM
TUESDAY 11TH AUGUST
thejazzbar
3 WEEKENDS IN AUGUST
TENEMENT JAZZ BAND Interactive Live Jazz for Kids
August 2026
Kids
A proper jazz gig… just earlier in the day. Dance, clap and discover the thrill of a real concert with Scottish Jazz Award-winning musicians.
as part of the wider Piping Live! festival in glasgow
14-16 | 21-23 | 28-30 AUG
PIPINGLIVE.CO.UK
FROM 11AM
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THE SKINNY
Scotland on Screen: Paul Wright Film fans have been waiting a long time for the new Paul Wright movie. The Scottish director has once again paired with George MacKay for Mission, a beguiling study of urban alienation that continues Wright’s interest in diving into disturbed psyches
Mission has its world premiere at EIFF on 15 Aug (additional screenings on 16, 17 and 18 Aug) Filmography: Mission (2026), Arcadia (2017), For Those in Peril (2013), Until the River Runs Red (2010) and Believe (2009)
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Mission
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MacKay. He plays Dylan, a lonely young man who’s become numb to the world. One day, he walks out of his dead-end job as a hotel waiter and gives himself a week to push himself mentally and physically to start experiencing life. His missions include finally asking out the girl he fancies, hedonistic nights of clubbing and troubling experimentation with sex, drugs and violence. As Wright hints at above, Mission is even more fragmented and hallucinatory than his previous work. His sound and images plunge us headfirst into Dylan’s unstable psyche. “The fragmented nature [of the film] means there’s a lot of different textures and Paul Wright types of visuals coming out.” As well as scenes set around Glasgow following Dylan as he attempts to start living, Wright incorporates other media – archive film, news footage and grainy VHS home movies featuring two children who we come to realise are Dylan and his sister, Claire (played as an adult by Rosy McEwen). “The idea is that all those images are in [Dylan]’s bloodstream, whether it’s memory or daydream. Sound is obviously a huge part of that as well, the sound playing with the image. But the aim is that you’re transported into the main character almost.” This type of subjective filmmaking only tends to work when you have a great actor as your focus. For Those in Peril was MacKay’s breakout role as an adult, and in the intervening decade, with films like Rose of Nevada, 1917 and Femme on his CV, he’s proved himself one of our most versatile and daring young actors. He clearly chimes well with Wright’s more freewheeling way of working. “All actors are different, but certainly for me, it’s not about doing the same take ten times. It’s about saying, OK, we’ve got that shot, is there something else we could be getting here by tweaking something slightly or changing it quite radically even? In this respect, George and I work really well together. He enjoys being able to roam for a 30minute take and seeing where it goes.” Where Mission goes is to some intense places. Wright asks a lot of MacKay: he bathes naked in a freezing river; cakes himself in mud; at one point he has to pull off being dressed like Gene Simmons. It’s a remarkable performance. “George is an amazing actor,” says Wright, “and once that connection is made with the character, he’s fully committed. We had to hold him back a few times, if anything, because he’s absolutely fearless.” Doesn’t that take a toll on your lead actor? “The amazing thing with George is that once the cut happens, he’s very much back to his normal self,” says Wright. “So it’s interesting: making the film was actually an enjoyable experience, even though a lot of the material is quite heavy and dark.”
August 2026 – Review
uch like skinning a moggy, there is no one way to make a movie. Paul Wright is testament to that. He’s only made a handful of fiction films since graduating from NFTS in 2007. Two shorts, Believe (2009) and Until the River Runs Red (2010), and his knockout debut feature, For Those in Peril (2013), a haunting drama about a young fisherman (George MacKay) racked by guilt after surviving a tragedy at sea. Across this slim body of work, Wright has developed a singular style that’s all his own. Narrative is less of a concern than his films’ ecstatic, mosaiclike visuals, which take the form of a swirl of impressionistic images, symbols and emotions using various visual formats. “I think I always felt drawn to work that was maybe a bit more left of field,” Wright says as an understatement. This impulse to do things differently, however, is partly why fans have had a long 13-year wait for Wright’s new narrative feature, Mission, which has its world premiere at Edinburgh International Film Festival. “Making films in general is tricky,” he admits, “and making films that aren’t immediately commercially obvious is doubly difficult.” He kept busy between projects lecturing in filmmaking at the University of West Scotland. “The teaching’s great,” he says. “You’re always learning from the students, so it keeps your finger on the pulse.” And in 2017, he made the striking foundfootage documentary Arcadia. It was a commission from Hopscotch Films and the BFI to make a film from the latter’s rural archive. Despite being a for-hire gig, Wright’s remixing work was deeply evocative and highly personal. The experience also helped immensely on the new film Mission. “Obviously, Mission does have narrative,” says Wright, “but [Arcadia] taught me to be braver with stripping some of that back and really leaning into the sensory powers of film: the image, sound, music, and how they can all play together.” The starting point for Mission was a disquieting feeling the filmmaker couldn’t shake. “I imagine a lot of people have experienced this, but it was a sort of low-level anxiety,” Wright recalls. “A feeling that maybe you don’t completely connect with a lot of the things in the world around you, a feeling that maybe there’s a way to feel more intensely. So the film began by tapping into that feeling, rather than it being, you know, a conventional story with a lot of cause and effect and plot.” Like For Those in Peril, it’s an existential study of a mind in crisis, and once again Wright is working with the talented George
Film
Words: Jamie Dunn
THE SKINNY
BAR DANI, MASALA WHEELS, THE KEELSON Food
Take your pick from Iberian treats in Finnieston, excellent South Indian food from a trailer in Gorgie, and some extremely good chicken in Leith
Bar Dani, 1126 Argyle St, Glasgow, G3 8TD Tue 5pm-1am, Wed-Sat 12pm1am, Sun 12-8pm Masala Wheels, 76B Gorgie Rd, Edinburgh, EH11 2NB Thu-Tue 4-11pm The Keelson, 58 Shore, Edinburgh, EH6 6RA Mon-Thu 2pm-12am, Fri-Sat 12pm-1am, Sun 12pm-12am
A
t this time of year, with so much to do and the usual amount of time in which to do it, it’s important to approach things with intent. Know what you’re trying to do, folks! Bar Dani, the new Finnieston spot from the team at the Kelvingrove Cafe, meets that challenge head-on. It’s a lovely space that balances its super-modern brushed concrete bar with some delightful tiles and enormous windows. Behind that bar, it’s a Basqueinspired array of nibbles and drinks ideal for a quick Iberian pitstop – the Dani Burger (£9) comes as a pair of high-powered and supremely flavourful sliders, loaded with mustard and at least two kinds of cheese, with an impressive amount of char. The Smoked White Beans (£7.50) are simple but extremely effective: a white bean puree topped with crispy roasted chickpeas, charred greens and beans, and topped with thick shards of Basque cheese. It’s fantastic, it’s flavourful, it takes ingredients that you probably have in the cupboard and combines them much more effectively than you would back
Words: Peter Simpson
at home. Great dishes, lovely staff, and a cracking drinks list with some Spanish hits (offer us a Vermouth on the rocks for a fiver and we’ll take it ten times out of ten), Bar Dani have successfully replicated the freewheeling vibe of the very best pintxo and tapas bars. Which is to say, we went in, had two drinks and a few nibbles, and were out the door in 50 minutes. Great success. Some places try to lure you with a really specific vibe and feel, and some just catch your nose on the wind. Masala Wheels is one of a new wave of excellent South Indian venues in the west of Edinburgh, but the Gorgie Road food truck has had a rough few months. Their original van burned down in February in a suspected arson attack, so it’s great to see them back up and running. Confronting that kind of hardship and coming out the other side is genuinely heartwarming; big round of applause from us, and given the steady stream of visitors, we’re not the only ones who are glad to see them back. A second big round of applause goes to our Masala Dosa
August 2026 – Review
Photo: Nathan Hinze The Keelson
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(£5.99), with its supremely crispy edges and perfect golden brown hue. It’s stuffed with nicely spiced potatoes and paired with a tremendous pair of chutneys so you can dip and chomp to your heart’s content. As dosas go, this isn’t the largest (there’s only so much space to spread the batter when you’re working in a trailer) but it is impressively substantial – a filling, handmade and delicious meal for under £6 is not to be sniffed at. A big thumbs up from us. For some venues, it’s all about one dish, one thing that brings the crowds in and keeps the chefs busy. For The Keelson, the new venue in the Nauticus/ Dogstar stable, that dish is rotisserie chicken. Yes, the space is very nice, full of wood and nautical nods and clever coat hooks that fold into the booths so you don’t catch your leg on them as you pass. Yes, there is an enormous porthole window from the main bar to the raised dining area that will draw your eye and perfectly frame the old man in the bar with his pint of Tennent's, and yes, the smoked haddock fritters (£8) are a bit like the fishy cousins of the zeppole up the road at Tipo and should not be missed. But this place is all about the chicken, and it’s absolutely brilliant. For starters, this thing could take Big Bird in a fight. A half-chicken is £25 but there’s so much of it that it will genuinely feed two people without anyone needing to be all polite and British about it. It’s super-simple with plenty of salt, pepper and fat, but it’s another example of skill and knowledge in the kitchen coming home to roost. The result is an incredibly juicy and flavourful lunchtime treat; throw in some new potatoes and shake them around in the buttery juices, get a salad as a nod to health, and you’re looking at one of the very best Sunday lunches in town. As any seasoned Fringe-goer will tell you, the best acts are the ones who commit wholeheartedly to the bit, and see their plans through with gusto and skill – whether it’s pintxos, poultry or pan-fresh dosa, these three have that attitude in spades.
THE SKINNY
Ayesha Jones & Aqsa Arif @ Street Level Photoworks In two contrasting exhibitions at Glasgow’s Street Level Photoworks, photographer Ayesha Jones documents overlooked experiences of female health while artist Aqsa Arif reclaims the Pompeii Lakshmi
Art
Ayesha Jones, The Backbone, 2025
with rods. She takes ‘Pompeii Lakshmi’ as her reference, an ivory statuette found in the ruins of Pompeii. It is thought to represent either the Goddess Lakshmi of fertility, beauty and wealth in Hindu, Buddhist and Jain religious mythologies; Yakshmi, a female nature spirit; or a syncretic Venus-Lakshmi figure that reflects the ancient exchange between Greco-Roman and South Asian cultures. That cultural exchange belies the modern myth upon which pillars of power are built: a belief that purity, whether cultural or national, of gender or of body, exists in the first place. Playing the role of Lakshmi/
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Yakshmi/Venus-Lakshmi, Arif places herself on the disorienting outskirts of that ethnocentric myth, where personal questions of identity and belonging reign. She finds company there with Jones. Bodies, it turns out, are as malleable as minds, and the aesthetic contrasts between these two artists bleed into a shared preoccupation with identity as something unfixed, uncontainable and anti-institutional. Ayesha Jones: The Backbone and Aqsa Arif: Beneath the Ivory is Molten Brown, Streetlevel Photoworks, Glasgow, until 30 Aug streetlevelphotoworks.org
August 2026 – Review
‘Where Jones is ostensibly concerned with the intimacies of corporeal life – bones, flesh, scars, needles, medicine – Arif works from the realm of the conceptual, letting history and mythology take precedence over immediate corporeality’
Aqsa Arif: Beneath the Ivory is Molten Brown, installation view, 2026
Image: courtesy of the artist
their bedroom walls. Photos captured mid-bikini wax or while shaving in the shower reminisce on coming of age and coming to know your body, though their intimacy refuses adolescent embarrassment. They are pinned alongside portraits of Jones with her face scrunched against the needle-prick of an injection or through the face hole of a treatment table while getting physio on her back. My gaze feels invasive over some of these, like the airport security I read about on the fourth wall who asked to see the scar of ‘Patient 04’, who always beeps now. The cause of the beeps – the spinal rods, pedicle screws, plates and hooks used in scoliosis surgery – get their own portraits. Blown up against white backgrounds and hung atop Jones’ x-rays, they epitomise the disembodying experience of a surgery far more invasive than a gaze. Their blunt representation, much like the minimalism of Jones’ back portraits, work to emphasise the depersonalisation of women’s healthcare still influenced by myths of wandering wombs and ovarian hysteria. It is that engagement with mythology as an existentially definitive force that bridges the gap between Jones’ and Arif’s otherwise disparate exhibitions. Both artists are searching for autonomy, of body and mind, beyond the stories others want to tell about them – ‘the pillars of power above my crouched back,’ as reads the text on one of Arif’s tapestries. In Beneath the Ivory is Molten Brown, Arif re-asserts her identity as continually ‘cracked, coalesced,’ held together like a spine straightened
Image: courtesy of the artist
I
see Ayesha Jones’ exhibition first, through Street Level Photoworks’ windows on King Street, and so that’s where I begin. I say hi to the receptionist and hesitate in front of a honey velvet curtain that hangs against black walls and haunting whispers of Aqsa Arif’s exhibition, but pivot left instead, stepping down into the window light. Later, I think how fitting it was to start at The Backbone before seeing Beneath the Ivory is Molten Brown: to begin with the tangible body before facing the intangible thing within it, like dropping an anchor to root around in the disorientating dark for something like identity. Aesthetically, Jones’ and Arif’s exhibitions contrast more than they cohere. Their opposing lights compound the contrast between Jones’ pared-back documentary photography and Arif’s maximalist tapestries and collage film. Where Jones is ostensibly concerned with the intimacies of corporeal life – bones, flesh, scars, needles, medicine – Arif works from the realm of the conceptual, letting history and mythology take precedence over immediate corporeality. Both exhibitions are, however, guided by autobiography: Jones’ experience living with idiopathic scoliosis and Arif’s dual ScottishPakistani heritage. Jones was diagnosed with severe scoliosis as a child and underwent spinal surgery in her 20s. On the first wall of The Backbone, she hangs a series of digital photo prints, taken at the time to document her medical journey, in the scrapbook way favoured by teenagers decorating
Words: Evie Glen
THE SKINNY
All You Need Laura Thomson from creative agency Need shares why redefining success has led to becoming Scotland’s Design Agency of the Year
graduate, she prepared herself to work up the ranks, charming the business ladies with her wicked sense of humour. One day Audrey, a regular who Thomson had built rapport with, came in, needing quick help finding a flexible outfit for a meeting she had in London the next day, flitting between her fashion and banking clients. At the till, curious as to where this glamorous lifestyle came from, Thomson discovered she ran her own copywriting agency.
“We don’t measure success in the scale of the business. We measure success by how good our lives are” Laura Thomson Coincidentally, Thomson explains that “at the time I was doing loads of creative writing, just for myself, not for anyone,” so she confessed to Audrey, “‘I’d love to be a writer’… and she was like, ‘Here’s my business card, get in touch.’ “I didn’t because I was like, ‘Well, who the fuck am I to do that?’ And then she kept coming back in, and she was like, ‘You haven’t been in touch. You have to get in touch.’ And then my mum Photo: Charlotte Kinsella
August 2026 – Review
Design
S
chool drop off is over – Laura Thomson and her husband, Ed Watt, walk six minutes down the road to their studio in rural Stirlingshire. For three of their five working days, agency hours bend around the school run, prioritising blended family life over the rat race. They work from the quiet loft of a former architects’ office in sleepy Balfron, covered in climbing ivy and with skylights overlooking the Campsies. But on “a Thursday and a Friday, it’s balls to the wall,” laughs Thomson. This approach is paying off – Need has grown into one of Scotland’s most respected design practices, having just won Scotland’s Design Agency of the Year. “I feel a little bit embarrassed about it,” she caveats, “it’s just in Scotland.” This humility belies an international body of work, that judges unanimously agreed ‘they want to see more of.’ Clients typically come from the cultural sector, including a plethora of architects, reflecting the couple’s personal interests. “Good people doing good things,” she summarises. Working with clients who share their values is high on the priority list, having turned down lucrative work from global megabrands in the past. “As soon as you start that stuff, there’s no going back again,” Thomson explains. That confidence to choose projects, however, comes with experience. Early in her career, she took every job she could get. “If you’re from a working-class family... you have to say yes.” After graduating with a BA in Sculpture from Gray’s, she moved to Glasgow and took a retail job at Hobbs. Accepting her fate as an art school
Laura Thomson and Ed Watt of Need
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Words: Phoebe Willison
and dad were like, ‘this is a huge opportunity... get in touch!’” Audrey offered her a job. “I worked five days at Hobbs, then two days there freelancing. It was absolutely nuts. She gave me a job as a junior, and then three months after that, she was like, ‘I’m taking Junior off your title.’ “I was like, yes! I was managing the L’Oreal account, I was 23, and I was like, ‘Oh my god, this is so glamorous, this is amazing.’” On the day she was promoted, Thomson realised she couldn’t shake a feeling of nausea. A visit to the doctor revealed she was two months pregnant with her daughter, Violet. Audrey gave her five months off and a job on her return. “She was fantastic, like really, really good.” Although Thomson now has the luxury of choosing who she works with, her advice to those just starting out remains: “Someone’s always watching.” The same pragmatism underpins Need’s design ethos of necessary design. “Quite often, a client will come to us and say I need a website. And we’ll look at their stuff and we’ll say, actually, you just need a rebrand, maybe a reskin. Or maybe you do need a website, but it doesn’t have to be as big. “It’s not always cutting things down. Sometimes a client will come and be like, ‘I just need a logo,’” she counters, explaining that “we don’t do logos… the price that we would give you for designing a logo wouldn’t be worth designing a logo because you need all the other parts. You have to do the thinking. “It’s just, really, exactly what the client needs.” Once the work is done, Thomson and Watt keep the doors open, forming long relationships with clients, checking in and offering advice as the brand develops in the hands of its new custodians. “We never just disappear... you can just come back to us and say, ‘Is this on brand?’” With a roster of happy clients, beautiful work, and a growing team, a couple of years ago Thomson and Watt discussed what the future might look like with architects Paper Igloo, clients who have become good friends of the couple. “You guys could totally grow,” Need suggested to them, but their response was firm. “We don’t want to grow.” Paper Igloo explained. “That’s not success to us. Success to us is having enough money that we can do what we want – we have our beautiful house, and we work in our house, and we can pick and choose our projects.” “I was like, ‘Oh shit…’” Thomson mutters. This conversation shifted the studio’s priorities, prompting the move from Glasgow and leaving their studio next to the Barras for life in Balfron. “We don’t measure success in the scale of the business [anymore]. We measure success by how good our lives are, and right now they’re... the best they’ve been.” needthinking.com
THE SKINNY
Books
Life of M
Shorelines
The Sleep Thief
Bury Your Dead
By Rachel Cusk
By Alycia Pirmohamed
By Ibtisam Azem
By Ana Paula Maia
Rachel Cusk’s Life of M begins by dividing the world in two. The collective ‘we’ inhabits a life of seasons, dogs, hospitals and marriage; M, an actress friend of Cusk’s initial narrator, passes through luxury hotels, film sets, yachts and exclusive spas. The distinction proves less important than it first appears. What passes between these apparently incompatible realities is a single habit of attention, forever testing the distance between lived experience and the versions of it that survive. The novel proceeds by analogy. A screenplay, a photograph, an abstract painting, a museum, an olive grove, a psychic’s impossible perspective, even cinema itself, each returns to the same question: what becomes of reality once it has been catalysed by representation? Cusk’s answer is unsettling and original. Representation is always a falsification of reality, yet Life of M repeatedly entertains the possibility that our relation to reality has never taken any form that is not already once removed. The novel refuses either consolation or despair, gradually revealing performance to be as inescapable within domestic life as within celebrity. This gives Life of M its extraordinary gravity. Celebrity and domesticity cease to function as opposing worlds and instead become different conditions under which reality is perceived. If Cusk’s Outline trilogy dismantled the authority of selfnarration, Life of M subjects our perception of reality to the same exquisite scepticism. [Rhys Morgan]
Alycia Pirmohamed’s Shorelines could be defined as memoir, and yet resists many harmful and colonial expectations of memoir that require the exploitation of families and traumas for content. From Pirmohamed’s withholding of details blooms a greater form of memoir – one that follows sensory experience, that is rooted more in greenness, in scents of pine, in the generosity of fog. The non-specificity of the narrative allows for universal connections to her experiences, but we also are afforded the privilege of witnessing recollections of Pirmohamed’s migratory life and ancestry: from her parents’ Indian ancestry and childhoods in Tanzania, to her childhood in Alberta and adult years in Oregon and Scotland. We join Pirmohamed on hikes through various landscapes, building a network of nature and memory that follows her from land to sea. Through that structure of the shoreline, we meet Pirmohamed in liminal spaces so fertile with hybridity and multiplicity. The wonder of Shorelines is in Pirmohamed’s candid voice; she worries about her writing and desires a completeness of identity: ‘I wanted the summit to provide the clarity I always longed for.’ And yet through the journeys of memory, as borders and timelines disintegrate, Pirmohamed finds only fragments, learning to be comfortable with the trickster mirage that is the process of belonging and becoming: ‘I think it’s possible I’m always in a liquid state of matter, never quite arriving…’ [Laura Baliman]
With a translation from the Arabic by Iraqi poet and novelist Sinan Antoon, The Sleep Thief is the debut novel by Palestinian writer Ibtisam Azem, who was longlisted for the International Booker Prize in 2025 for The Book of Disappearance. The titular ‘Sleep Thief’ is Gharib Haifawi, a young man under interrogation. The name is bestowed by his captor as he manages to steal only snatches of sleep before the process resumes. What follows is a dream-like, often nightmarish, but surprisingly sensual account of Gharib’s life, his words collected and inferred by a nameless narrator. Eyes, which some refer to as the windows to the soul, are central to this story. Under interrogation Gharib’s eyes are badly swollen from constant crying and lack of sleep. They are later described in happier times as ‘honey-coloured, neither big nor small.’ Gharib admits to a profound fear of going blind, and he judges the worth of others by looking deeply into their own eyes. They are an indicator as to how alive an individual is, or how dead. The Sleep Thief is full of both. This is an insightful portrait of a young man, with everything that implies, and by viewing his formative experiences of love, lust, drunkenness, and death, set against a backdrop of conflict and violence, the effects are profound, powerfully empathetic, and incredibly moving from first page to last. [Alistair Braidwood]
Ana Paula Maia’s Bury Your Dead is a taut, brutal continuation of the world she built in Of Cattle and Men, once again following Edgar Wilson, now working as a roadkill collector. Circling the dangerous roads around a vast limestone quarry, Edgar moves through a landscape where human and animal death are omnipresent and where Maia’s signature grotesque and frank prose breaks both down into their constituent parts. Edgar’s grim rounds, punctuated by endless cups of thermos coffee, bring him into contact with the wrong kind of bodies: abandoned human corpses. The novel examines how our separation of people from animals is supposed to ensure human dignity but often does quite the opposite, especially when crumbling infrastructure and rural poverty erode the bonds within and between communities. Edgar, alongside an excommunicated priest whose presence adds a ritualistic melancholy to their morbid routine, finds himself in possession of bodies in search of graves in an echo of William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying. Maia’s concise and vivid rendering of the essential yet invisible labour that exists at society’s margins is a compelling read for fans of Cormac McCarthy’s scorched fatalism. But in circling the same roads, the same bodies, the same grim revelations, the narrative can feel repetitive and we remain largely on the surface of the characters’ minds. This restraint suits Maia’s style but may leave readers desiring a deeper psychological excavation. [Natalie Wall]
Faber, 27 Aug
Canongate, 13 Aug
And Other Stories, 25 Aug
Charco Press, 11 Aug
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August 2026 – Review
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THE SKINNY
★★★★★
August 2026
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THE SKINNY
Listings Looking for something to do? Well you’re in the right place! Find listings below for the month ahead across Music, Clubs, Theatre, Comedy and Art in Glasgow, Edinburgh and Dundee. To find out how to submit listings, head to theskinny.co.uk/listings
Glasgow Music Mon 3 Aug SOLYA
KING TUT'S
Indie pop from Texas.
Tue 4 Aug EVERETTE
KING TUT'S
Country from the US.
VELVET (KYLE LYNCH) THE HUG AND PINT
Indie from Glasgow.
WOLVES IN THE THRONE ROOM (SPECTRAL WOUND) ST LUKE'S
Black metal from the US. MESS (BLEAKS)
NICE 'N' SLEAZY
Punk from Mexico.
MEATBODIES (MEDIA PUZZLE + DRAGGED UP) THE GLAD CAFE
Psych rock from the US.
Wed 5 Aug
GLORIOUS FAILURE (MELONGRAB + FOREVER AUTUMN) THE HUG AND PINT
Pop punk from Scotland. NICE 'N' SLEAZY
EDM and hyperpop from Glasgow.
KANKAWA NAGARRA (DARREN HANLSON)
ORAN MOR
Post-hardcore.
VAL MAVIS (LOCKERROOM + THE FLOORDWELLERS + THE OVERALLS) KING TUT'S
Post-punk from Glasgow. ARSE (GROW UP! + SHEILA IN THE POUNDSHOP) THE HUG AND PINT
Punk from Sydney.
SINGER SONGWRITER SESSIONS (JAMES LIANDU, GRADY KINNELL, JACK GIVEN, RHUARI CAMPBELL, STEFF CORR) NICE 'N' SLEAZY
Singer-songwriters from Glasgow.
GUERRILLA LISTENING PARTY: HAN SHOT FIRST, OBSESSIVE X, THE TRANQUILS, TTLS, VAESEN STEREO
Alt rock.
MAIREARAD GREEN THE GLAD CAFE
Trad from Scotland.
Sat 8 Aug
STATIC SKY (CALIGO + NOVA SCOTIA + STRIDE) KING TUT'S
Indie from Ayr.
Blues from Australia.
GLOOM COOKIE (DELIRIUM + CAT ARMOUR)
Thu 6 Aug
Pop punk from Glasgow.
THE GLAD CAFE
MYSTERY JETS THE GARAGE
Indie rock from the UK.
DUGOUT (BODYHEAT + FILMSTAR + HIGH CALIBRE) KING TUT'S
Indie from Scotland. BOGLE (PEAK + PAPARAZZI)
THE HUG AND PINT
Indie pop from Scotland. BORDERLINE SWG3
Pop from New Zealand. TRAVERSX
NICE 'N' SLEAZY
Pop and R'n'B from Australia.
Fri 7 Aug
PARK DRIVE (HEADWIRED) THE GARAGE
Brit pop from the UK.
THE HUG AND PINT
OCH VEY (AMULET)
THE OLD HAIRDRESSER'S
Folk from Edinburgh.
KILLER SMILE (ORNUM + MRDB) NICE 'N' SLEAZY
Alt rock from Glasgow.
HOUSE ARREST + SAN JOSE (LIMERENCE) NICE 'N' SLEAZY
Alt from Glasgow.
THE COURETTES STEREO
Garage rock from Brazil and Denmark.
Sun 9 Aug
CLAY RINGS (MANKOVER + MIDNIGHT PAINTERS + OFF-PEAK LEISURE)
THE GAMBLERS CORNER X CRUSADERS
ZU
Hyperpop from Glasgow.
Tue 18 Aug
THE GLAD CAFE
BARROWLANDS
Metal from Rome.
NICE 'N' SLEAZY
PRIMUS
KING TUT'S
NIGHTTIME
ERIKA JAYNE
Psych folk from the US.
Rock from California.
Pop from the US.
Sat 15 Aug
THE HUG AND PINT
Indie pop from Scotland. O2 ACADEMY
CULANN (COLLATERAL DAMAGE + WRETCH) THE HUG AND PINT
Rock from Ayrshire.
Mon 10 Aug SLAUGHTER TO PREVAIL SWG3
Deathcore.
CEOL NUA
NICE 'N' SLEAZY
OEDIPUS & THE MAMA'S BOYS (BOXING CLUB + THE SECOND WORLD WAR + THE TUESDAY CLUB) KING TUT'S
Post-punk from Edinburgh. CATS PROTECTION CHARITY GIG: HOW TO SWIM + THE TV CASUALTIES + EVIL DEEDS
Bagpipes from Scotland.
THE HUG AND PINT
Tue 11 Aug
SERAPHIM SOUND: XYLITOL + KONX-OMPAX + ÉON + XTAL LOGIK
HEATHEN APOSTLES THE HUG AND PINT
Americana from the US. JAMES JOHNSTON
THE OLD HAIRDRESSER'S
Country from Australia.
FRUIT PUNCH: A KENNY MGEE & A.K.A PRINCE SHOW
SWG3
GOODBYE VIKING NICE 'N' SLEAZY
Synth-punk from Seattle.
ANDREA VON KAMPEN
Folk from the US.
SUMMERBLINK THE GLAD CAFE
Hyper pop.
Wed 19 Aug DUNCECAP (BLEEDERS)
THE HUG AND PINT
Indie from Glasgow.
THE ORDER OF THE FLY NICE 'N' SLEAZY
Eclectic lineup.
Hardcore.
STEREO
Experimental rap from Scotland.
Horror punk from California. DJ SPANISH FLY STEREO
Rap from Tennessee. NATURAL INFORMATION SOCIETY THE GLAD CAFE
Jazz from Chicago.
Thu 20 Aug
MY RUSHMORE (BANDIT COUNTRY + SPORTS DAY)
THE RULERS OF THE ROOT (SURFACE CAT)
HUMAN RENEGADE (MET AFTER DARK + ESCAPE GOATS + MY BEAUTIFUL MISTAKE)
Alt rock from the UK.
Emo from Glasgow.
Blues rock from Glasgow.
Sun 16 Aug
Wed 12 Aug THE HUG AND PINT
Thu 13 Aug
THE GLAD CAFE
NIAMH MORRIS
LUCID - VXYX (SAMMY ABERDEIN)
Folk from Glasgow.
Producer.
THE GARAGE
KING TUT'S
FLAME (NO BAD NEWS IN HEAVEN + ASCHARI + ALAS DE LIONA)
SOPHIE ALI (MARIGOLD + THE WILLOWS)
Indie from Edinburgh.
Pop from Chicago.
KING TUT'S
THE HUG AND PINT
DADS BEST FRIEND (HIGH VOLTAGE)
COSEY MUELLER
Indie rock from Glasgow.
PAPANGU
THE GLAD CAFE
Classical from Glasgow.
NICE 'N' SLEAZY
Metal from Birmingham.
MOTHER TONGUES
KING TUT'S
Indie.
THE HUG AND PINT
Garage rock from Glasgow. JUNO!
Hip-hop.
Mon 17 Aug
ALLSORTS (LUPERCALIA + DISCOLA)
10 YEARS OF SHREDD
STEREO
Country from the US.
THE RUM SHACK
Rock from Glasgow. STONE LEEK
Classical.
NICE 'N' SLEAZY
Skate punk from Japan. SCOTT C. PARK
THE POPGUNS
THE GLAD CAFE
THE HUG AND PINT
Indie pop from the UK.
LINT BIN (CARNALITY + 8 DAYS + THINNERS)
Alt rock from Glasgow.
MATT PROXY AND PHRESHBOYSWAG
THE GARAGE
Fri 21 Aug KING TUT'S
Metal from Brazil.
Indie pop from Scotland.
RANDY HOUSER
Experimental from Japan and the UK.
AN TRINH
DEAD MOB + TORMENT (WOODHALL, SCREWDRIVER LOBOTOMY)
THE GLAD CAFE
THE HUG AND PINT
Emo grunge from Glasgow.
Electronica from Berlin.
Fri 14 Aug
ANY JOY?
NICE 'N' SLEAZY
THE HUG AND PINT
NICE 'N' SLEAZY
KING TUT'S
MARCELINE
THE OLD HAIRDRESSER'S
ISABELLA STRANGE (DUNCECAP + RADIO BANTER) THE GLAD CAFE
NICE 'N' SLEAZY
AARON LEE TASJAN
Folk rock from the Isle of Lewis.
SWG3
Indie rock from the US.
Sat 22 Aug
PLAYLUNCH
Rap from the US.
Funk from Melbourne.
SWG3
Rock from Scotland.
Electro folk.
SELKIE
STEREO
VANDERLYE
KING TUT'S
THE GLAD CAFE
IN VERTIGO (TOO RED + PINK CLOUD SESSION)
Wed 26 Aug
Sat 29 Aug
THE HUG AND PINT
KING TUT'S
THE GARAGE
GEORGE JR & THE 9/11S (FIENDZ YT + HEEDZ + THE REVERSE COWGIRLS)
GEESE
Alt rock from Scotland.
THE OLD HAIRDRESSER'S
Cowpunk from San Francisco.
Sun 23 Aug
LONELY DAZE (KB & THE RASKALS + PUPPY TEETH + DYTONA GREYE) KING TUT'S
Alt rock from Glasgow. THE LIVING TOMBSTONE O2 ACADEMY
VIOLET GROHL
Rock from LA. BARROWLANDS
Rock from the US.
HARRY MILES WATSON (SPIN CYCLE + NON ZERO) THE HUG AND PINT
Post-punk from Edinburgh. REGAN BOWERING (NILOOFAR ASGHARY + CONAL BLAKE)
THE GLAD CAFE
Indie rock from Glasgow. CURRENT JOYS
Indie rock from Nevada. THE WATERBOYS THE GARAGE
Rock from Scotland.
SEAN CHOON & THE PRAWN MONSOON (AARON MIRALLES + WE FUNKY FEW + ALT MILK) KING TUT'S
Experimental from Scotland.
Experimental from London.
THE DARLING BUDS (THE RED EYES)
SWG3
Indie from Wales.
THE OLD HAIRDRESSER'S
AFI
Rock from the US.
Thu 27 Aug
AMY AYTCHI (PARALLEL SENSES)
ESTHER'S WIFE (NEW YEAR'S PRAYER + GARLAND + JAZ RILEY)
Indie from Scotland.
Folk rock from Glasgow.
THE GLAD CAFE
O2 ACADEMY
Electro rock from LA.
THE HUG AND PINT
JUST ANOTHER MIGRANT VOL.1: DARIUSZ SICARIO + PAPRIKA LEE + JASICAESAR + SKYMAN + GUAPO
THE HUG AND PINT
KING TUT'S
DYLAN EARL
BAILEY ZIMMERMAN
Country rock.
Country from the US.
Mon 24 Aug
THE HUG AND PINT
THE BLUE KANUES (CHARLIE BUTLER + CRAGGYLAND)
PAULIE BOY BLUES
Country rock from the UK.
Blues from Maryland.
SWG3
STEREO
OCHRE (SAME DEEP WATER + GLASS DIET)
AULD SPELLS (BIG LANES + SMOKES)
Post hardcore from Glasgow.
Dream pop.
THE GLAD CAFE
RADHIKA (FLOWER MARKET) THE HUG AND PINT
Dream pop from Glasgow.
TVOD
THE OLD HAIRDRESSER'S
Rap lineup.
Sun 30 Aug
Rock from Brooklyn.
THE OLD HAIRDRESSER'S
NICE 'N' SLEAZY
REWIRED CULTURE
A PLACE TO BURY STRANGERS
Hip-hop and rap.
Noise rock from the US.
NICE 'N' SLEAZY
THE GLAD CAFE
CC GRAY
Rap from Ghana.
Fri 28 Aug
Singer-songwriter from Glasgow.
Tue 25 Aug
THE GARAGE
Wed 9 Sep
RUM DOXY (SHERBERT KITTY + SPIT BACK) THE OLD HAIRDRESSER'S
Electronica from Glasgow. WEDNESDAY SWG3
Alt rock from the US. ATA KAK STEREO
WAY DYNAMIC (SNOWY)
MAYONNAISE
Indie from the Philippines.
CLARION
ROLLER DISCO DEATH PARTY (BAD GRAVY + IWANTTOBEONTV + SZLISZKA)
Indie rock.
Electronica from Glasgow.
MONO
Folk pop from Melbourne. KING TUT'S
KING TUT'S
EARL SWEATSHIRT & MIKE
PLAYLUNCH
ANNE GAIR (DARIA KULESH) THE GLAD CAFE
Singer-songwriters from Scotland.
O2 ACADEMY
Funk rock from Melbourne.
Edinburgh Music
GEESE
ROOM 2
CHOKING SUSAN
Rap from the US. BARROWLANDS
Rock from the US.
ALDOUS (NORTH ORBITAL) THE HUG AND PINT
Psych from Edinburgh.
— 113 —
JANE REMOVER
EYES OF HOME (LANDSLIDE + CHERRY RED + KATANES)
THE HUG AND PINT
TEEN MORTGAGE
Punk rock from DC.
SKAG + CHALAMETS (HICKS) NICE 'N' SLEAZY
Punk from Glasgow.
Mon 3 Aug BANNERMANS
Punk from Detroit.
WOLVES IN THE THRONE ROOM LA BELLE ANGELE
Black metal from the US.
August 2026 —Listings
A SWAGFEST JOINT
HELLISH WEATHER (GEOGRAPHY OF THE MOON + QUITTER)
THE SKINNY
Cabaret Voltaire TUESDAYS
MIDNIGHT BASS, 23:00
Big basslines and small prices form the ethos behind this weekly Tuesday night, with drum’n’bass, jungle, bassline, grime and garage aplenty. FRIDAYS
FLY CLUB, 23:00
Edinburgh and Glasgow-straddling night, with a powerhouse of local residents joined by a selection of guest talent. SATURDAYS
PLEASURE, 23:00
Regular Saturday night at Cab Vol, with residents and occasional special guests.
Sneaky Pete’s MONDAYS
RIDE N BOUNCE, 23:00
R‘n’B, pop, rap and hip-hop bangers every Monday.
TUESDAYS
RARE, 23:00
House, UKG and occasional techno from special guest DJs and rising locals. FRIDAYS (FIRST OF THE MONTH)
HOT MESS, 23:00
A night for queer people and their friends. SATURDAYS (LAST OF THE MONTH)
SOUL JAM, 23:00
Monthly no-holdsbarred, down-anddirty disco. SUNDAYS
POSTAL, 23:00
Bass, breaks, grime and more from a selection of Cowgate all stars.
The Liquid Room SATURDAYS (FIRST OF THE MONTH) REWIND, 22:30
Monthly party night celebrating the best in soul, disco, rock and pop with music from the 70s, 80s, 90s and current bangers.
Sat 15 Aug
ELLIS·D
Regular Edinburgh club nights
SNEAKY PETE'S
Queer rock.
Subway Cowgate MONDAYS
TRACKS, 21:00
Blow the cobwebs off the week with a weekly Monday night party with some of Scotland’s biggest and best drag queens. TUESDAYS
TAMAGOTCHI, 22:00
Throwback Tuesdays with non-stop 80s, 90s, 00s tunes. WEDNESDAYS TWISTA, 22:00
Banger after banger all night long. THURSDAYS
FLIRTY, 22:00
Pop, cheese and chart. FRIDAYS
FIT FRIDAYS, 22:00
Chart-topping tunes perfect for an irresistible sing and dance-along.
SUNDAYS
SUNDAY SERVICE, 22:00
Atone for the week before and the week ahead with non-stop dancing.
The Mash House MONDAYS
MASH MONDAYS, 23:00
Edinburgh’s new Monday night.
SATURDAYS (FIRST OF THE MONTH) SAMEDIA SHEBEEN, 23:00
Joyous global club sounds: think Afrobeat, Latin and Arabic dancehall on repeat. SATURDAYS (LAST OF THE MONTH) PULSE, 23:00
The best techno DJs sit alongside The Mash House resident Darrell Pulse.
SATURDAYS
SLICE SATURDAY, 22:00
The drinks are easy and the pop is heavy.
Sat 22 Aug
ALL THE WRONG PEOPLE (BASSICA + AMBER REDPATH) SNEAKY PETE'S
Alt rock.
THE MAGIC NUMBERS LA BELLE ANGELE
The Rum Shack
SATURDAYS (LAST OF EVERY OTHER MONTH) VOCAL OR VERSION, 21:00
Vintage Jamaican music on original vinyl by resident DJs and guests.
Sub Club
FRIDAYS (SECOND OF THE MONTH) RETURN TO MONO
SLAM’s monthly Subbie residency sees them joined by some of the biggest names in international techno.
SUBCULTURE, 23:00
Long-running house night with residents Harri & Domenic, oft’ joined by a carousel of super fresh guests.
Alt rock from England.
Sun 23 Aug HORSEGIRL
LA BELLE ANGELE
SNEAKY PETE'S
Punk from Texas.
THE QUEEN'S HALL
BANNERMANS
WITCH
LA BELLE ANGELE
Zamrock from Zambia.
Wed 5 Aug SPUNK
BANNERMANS
Rock.
August 2026 —Listings
DAYSLEEPER
MILLIONS OF DEAD COPS (UNDER THE INFLUENCE)
WAVES OF DREAD (ICERINK + MARY FIELD) SNEAKY PETE'S
Rock.
Thu 6 Aug
CHAMPION TREES (KASPAR HAUSER + GORDON MCGRUER QUARTET) SNEAKY PETE'S
Punk.
Fri 7 Aug
PUTAN CLUB (START MAKING SENSE) BANNERMANS
Pop from Edinburgh.
LADYSMITH BLACK MAMBAZO
Folk and roots from South Africa. TOM MCGUIRE AND THE BRASSHOLES LA BELLE ANGELE
Ska from Fife.
Mon 10 Aug
BURNSIDE BURNERS BLUES BAND BANNERMANS
Blues.
House and garage.
Rock from England.
Wed 12 Aug
DEAD MOB (VICTIMS OF LIFE) BANNERMANS
Hardcore from the UK.
Shoegaze from Ireland.
Tue 25 Aug
GOLOMB (SCARRED LIP) SNEAKY PETE'S
Hip-hop.
THE SOUND OF SCOTLAND: THE BEST OF SCOTTISH FOLK MUSIC WITH SHOOGLENIFTY, FARA AND HERON VALLEY THE QUEEN'S HALL
EDINBURGH CORN EXCHANGE
Indie folk from Ireland. THIS IS THE KIT
LA BELLE ANGELE
Alt folk from Winchester.
Wed 26 Aug
Folk from London.
Sat 8 Aug
RUARI GLEN QUARTET (PERLA BROOKE QUARTET)
LINDISFARNE
THE QUEEN'S HALL
SNEAKY PETE'S
Rock.
Sun 9 Aug SYTERIA
BANNERMANS
Punk from Yorkshire.
CALLUM FORD (POCKET MONICA + SAFFRON STRINGS) SNEAKY PETE'S
Folk.
Britpop.
Sat 8 Aug
SUB CLUB
Techno and electro.
OPTIMO (ESPACIO)
Acid and post-punk.
Techno and electro.
FLY PRESENTS CHRIS STUSSY SCOTLAND
Pop from the UK.
House and tech house.
EDINBURGH CORN EXCHANGE
NICE 'N' SLEAZY
KINGFISHR
POLKA DOT DISCO CLUB INVITES SAMA' ABDULHADI CO-ACCUSED: L.F.T. + ÁNGEL NEGRÍN
FLEETWOOD MAC'S 'RUMOURS' WITH THE TRANSATLANTIC ENSEMBLE THE QUEEN'S HALL
Fri 21 Aug
Tech house.
FLY SUMMERTIME AFTERPARTY THE ART SCHOOL
THE BERKELEY SUITE
DOMINO DANCING NICE 'N' SLEAZY
Synth pop.
I'M PROBABLY PERFECT X STEREO PRESENTS: DEBASEMENT STEREO
SHED
Electro.
House.
Sat 22 Aug
FREE LOVE
GRIND PROVISIONS X STEREO: ASPHODÈLE
THROUGH THE ROOF: SCOTT STEER
Indie folk from Ireland.
ANGELS OF GLASGOW
Techno.
Rock from Halifax.
DNB OPEN DECKS NICE 'N' SLEAZY
Jungle.
EYES OF HOME
WOMBATS AFTERPARTY
Indie rock from Edinburgh.
Britpop.
NICE 'N' SLEAZY
KICKIN VALENTINA
WITHERED HAND
BANNERMANS
Indie rock from Edinburgh.
THE VAUNTS
LA BELLE ANGELE
Wed 19 Aug
SINCE 2000 (SCORCHED LUNGS)
Rock from the US.
THE RUM SHACK
House and disco.
LA BELLE ANGELE
PICTISH TRAIL
Sun 30 Aug
Thu 20 Aug
QUEER THEORY
KENNY THOMAS
Soul from the UK.
LEITH CRICKET CLUB
Techno and bass.
Post-punk.
SNEAKY PETE'S
Rock.
THE BERKELEY SUITE
SNEAKY PETE'S
MIDNIGHT BASS X PRAY TO GOOD PRESENT MRS MAGOO LA CHEETAH CLUB
SEX MASK
Drum 'n' bass.
SNEAKY PETE'S
DARK PROTOCOL
Pop from Australia.
GETDOWN SERVICES LA BELLE ANGELE
NICE 'N' SLEAZY
Industrial techno.
GETDOWN SERVICES
QUEER BLACK ARTS FESTIVAL AFTERPARTY WITH JULIANA HUXTABLE
Stoner rock from the UK.
Pop rock from the UK.
Techno.
Fri 21 Aug
Dundee Music
LA BELLE ANGELE
ONLY THE RIGHTEOUS (AIR DRAWN DAGGER + THE BREATHING METHOD) BANNERMANS
Metalcore from Manchester. PROJECT SMOK
Pop rock from the UK.
Mon 31 Aug LA BELLE ANGELE
Sat 15 Aug
SHOOT YOUR SHOT THE BERKELEY SUITE
Disco.
THROUGH THE ROOF: BOSS PRIESTER
Wed 5 Aug DEAF DEVILS
BEAT GENERATOR LIVE!
Death punk.
STEREO
LA CHEETAH CLUB
House and minimal.
— 114 —
AGORA
SNEAKY PETE'S
Hyperpop.
Techno.
Fri 7 Aug
Fri 21 Aug
PARADISE PALMS
PARADISE PALMS
FOLDED NOTIONS: GENEVA + ZANELATO + HAND-MADE
LA BEAT SOUL CLUB
House.
SNEAKY PETE'S
CAKIEBISCUITS
LARA SINCLAIR
Hip-hop.
Dub and garage.
PEOPLE'S LEISURE CLUB
Disco and funk.
PEOPLE'S LEISURE CLUB
DISCOTIA
HEADSET [KEEP HUSH LIVE]
Disco.
Techno.
THE MASH HOUSE
THE MASH HOUSE
DV60 + FRIENDS [5AM SPECIAL]
EVOL: FRINGE PARTY
Hard dance.
Indie.
BALKANARAMA: FRINGE SPECIAL
Sat 8 Aug
Balkan.
LA BELLE ANGELE
RAVELSTON
LA BELLE ANGELE
PARADISE PALMS
Sat 22 Aug
POPULAR MUSIC
PARADISE PALMS
Indie.
House and balearic. SNEAKY PETE'S
ZOE FROM FINANCE
Acid and breakbeat.
Techno.
SAMEDIA: FRINGE ALL-NIGHTER
Pop.
ATHENS OF THE NORTH
Techno.
Wed 12 Aug
Disco.
NICE 'N' SLEAZY
POLYTERROR X STEREO: DJ PAYPAL STEREO
Footwork and experimental.
Tue 25 Aug
SWAGFEST X B16: AFTERS EXHIBITION + DAZEGXD THE BERKELEY SUITE
Fri 28 Aug THE RUM SHACK
House and electro.
SNEAKY PETE'S
MIDNIGHT BASS
INKOHERENT
Bass.
Techno.
Thu 13 Aug
THE MASH HOUSE
SNEAKY PETE'S
MORRISON STREET SNEAKY PETE'S
House.
THE MASH HOUSE
PIEUTE AFTER PARTY
Skate jam afterparty.
DILF EDINBURGH FESTIVAL PARTY
Fri 14 Aug
LA BELLE ANGELE
PARADISE PALMS
Sun 23 Aug
HAND-MADE
Disco and house.
MIRRORSTERIA (TMD & MICROSTERIA)
PEOPLE'S LEISURE CLUB
Acid and electronica.
Queer club.
FREE TIME: PHOTEK SNEAKY PETE'S
Drum 'n' bass.
THE CURE AFTERPARTY
POSH END PRESENTS SUNIL SHARPE
MANTLE: DANZA NUOVA
Techno.
Bass.
Wed 26 Aug
LA BELLE ANGELE
SNEAKY PETE'S
LA CHEETAH CLUB
SNEAKY PETE'S
LA BELLE ANGELE
Rock.
MIDNIGHT BASS
JOSHWA
BIG GAY AFTERPARTY
Tech house.
Queer club.
Bass.
Sat 15 Aug
Thu 27 Aug
SWG3
Sat 29 Aug
HAPTIC
ADERAYO X STEREO PRESNTS EVISSIMAX
WE COME TO DANCE PARADISE PALMS
SNEAKY PETE'S
Baile funk and bass.
NEURONS: LORA MIPSUM, ANNX
Fri 28 Aug
CARTE BLANCHE: SUNDAY SERVICE
House.
PARDISE PALMS
Tech house.
Techno.
Edinburgh Clubs
LA BELLE ANGELE
UKG.
STEREO
Disco.
Sun 30 Aug
SNEAKY PETE'S
JACUZZI GENERAL
INKOHERENT
House.
THE ART SCHOOL
Sat 1 Aug TONI MCVEY
PARADISE PALMS
Funk and soul.
OFF CAMPUS CLUB LA BELLE ANGELE
Pop.
DECADE DOES DIVORCED DAD ROCK
FRINGE CLOSING PARTY - EPIKA SOFT (EPIKA'S 5TH BIRTHDAY)
Dad rock and emo.
House and electro.
THE MASH HOUSE
Sun 16 Aug
PEOPLE'S LEISURE CLUB
HEYDAY: MASHA MAR & PROSUMER
FREE TIME: GEORGE FITZGERALD
SNEAKY PETE'S
House.
THE MASH HOUSE
SNEAKY PETE'S
Wed 19 Aug MIDNIGHT BASS
Bass.
Neo-trad from Scotland.
Thu 20 Aug
SNEAKY PETE'S
SNEAKY PETE'S
THE LIQUID ROOM
Neo and alt burlesque.
LA BELLE ANGELE
Fri 14 Aug
SNEAKY PETE'S
Thu 6 Aug
LA BELLE ANGELE
D/RANGED
Pop from the UK.
KIN—TU04 :} MAVEEN + NAMÄN + LUCKYBABE + LEAHGTE
Bass.
THE PITT
Tue 18 Aug
House.
SNEAKY PETE'S
HEL CABARET PRESENTS FANDOM MENACE
SWIFTOGEDEN
Eclectic lineup.
FLY - DEAN TURNLEY
MIDNIGHT BASS
Dance.
FANTASTIC MAN PRESENTS SARAHTONIN
Sat 29 Aug
SATURDAY NIGHT COMEDY, 19:00
Dark wave.
SUB CLUB
THE QUEEN'S HALL
SATURDAYS
THE MASH HOUSE
Thu 13 Aug
SNEAKY PETE'S
The perfect way to end the working week, with four superb stand-up comedians.
DOMINION
FLEETWOOD MAC'S 'RUMOURS' WITH THE TRANSATLANTIC ENSEMBLE
MADE IN SCOTLAND
FRIDAY NIGHT COMEDY, 19:00
BIG HOT MESS: MARIE DAVIDSON, OLOF DREIJER, OPTIMO, ACCIDENT MACHINE
LA CHEETAH CLUB
Mon 17 Aug
Jazz from the UK.
Fri 14 Aug
NICE 'N' SLEAZY
Techno.
Hip-hop and jungle.
PIGS PIGS PIGS PIGS PIGS PIGS PIGS
Punk from Australia.
INDIE SLEAZY
NICE 'N' SLEAZY
Roots from Newcastle.
THEON CROSS
BANNERMANS
House and disco.
AWRB
SNEAKY PETE'S
Producer from Glasgow.
CONVICT CLASS (RISE UP)
Tech house.
SWG3
Fri 28 Aug
SNEAKY PETE'S
Thu 13 Aug
SWG3
Thu 20 Aug
Wed 12 Aug
SUCKLE (SULKA)
LA BELLE ANGELE
FLY PRESENTS CHRIS STUSSY SCOTLAND
IMPORT SUMMER BASH
Pop from the UK.
Indie punk from Edinburgh.
LA BELLE ANGELE
Techno.
Techno and hyperpop.
SNEAKY PETE'S
LEITH CRICKET CLUB
OSCAR JONES
THE BERKELEY SUITE
STEREO
Sat 15 Aug
ABOLISH GOLF
Classical from the US.
MISSING PERSONS CLUB
Wed 5 Aug
Tue 11 Aug
Folk from China.
LA BELLE ANGELE
Tech house.
THE BERKELEY SUITE
PAULIE BOY BLUES
FRIDAYS
An evening of awardwinning comedy, with four superb stand-up comedians that will keep you laughing until Monday.
WATERSHED 002 (EUROKELS + MMS + SHELLE.Y + HOLLYAMOROUS + JUSTYYNA)
FLEETWOOD MAC'S 'RUMOURS' WITH THE TRANSATLANTIC ENSEMBLE
Indie rock.
MARY LATTIMORE
SUB CLUB
NICE 'N' SLEAZY
Indie from the Isle of Eigg.
THE QUEEN'S HALL
FLY SUMMERTIME AFTERPARTY
THE BUFF CLUB
KINGFISHR
Synth pop.
The big weekend show with four comedians.
The Glee Club
Fri 7 Aug
RED LIGHT DISCO
Folk from Scotland.
THE QUEEN'S HALL
THE SATURDAY SHOW, 20:30
Cloud rap.
LA BELLE ANGELE
AIROSPACE
SATURDAYS
NICE 'N' SLEAZY
JUST MUSTARD
SNEAKY PETE'S
Trad from Scotland.
The big weekend show with four comedians.
DRAINNIGHT
Mon 24 Aug
Thu 27 Aug
LA BELLE ANGELE
THE FRIDAY SHOW, 20:30
Legendary new material night with up to eight acts.
NICE 'N' SLEAZY
RUMAC
FRIDAYS
RED RAW, 20:30
Sun 9 Aug
THE LADY PRINCE CONSORT
SNEAKY PETE'S
TUESDAYS
House.
THE SILVER BARS
Rock.
Host Billy Kirkwood & guests act entirely on your suggestions.
Kuduro, Afrobeat.
Noise rock from Dundee.
LA BELLE ANGELE
MONDAY NIGHT IMPROV, 20:30
Synth pop from Edinburgh.
Indie rock.
PALE WAVES
Thu 6 Aug
FIRST MONDAY OF THE MONTH
LEITH CRICKET CLUB
KULLNES
Tue 11 Aug
Glasgow Clubs
STEREO
MARY SPENDER SNEAKY PETE'S
The Stand Glasgow
LA CHEETAH CLUB
Rock from Chicago.
HORSEBATH
Tue 4 Aug
Rock from Ireland.
SIDECHAIN VOL. 4: DRUMA + TWO BROTHERS + MORRISON + JOS. HEAT
Blues.
SATURDAYS
Regular Glasgow comedy nights
BEAT GENERATOR LIVE!
SNEAKY PETE'S
Regular Glasgow club nights
ROBERT ARKINS
House.
ALIEN DISKO
Cross-genre.
BIG GAY AFTERPARTY LA BELLE ANGELE
Queer club.
THE SKINNY
Sat 29 Aug
four women exchange gossip and intimacies.
PARADISE PALMS
Glasgow Art
CARMEN BAÍA
Baile funk.
Dundee Clubs Sat 15 Aug
MOTUS MIDSUMMER PARTY WITH LOWRIS CANVAS
Deep house.
Glasgow Comedy The Glee Club ROHAN JOSHI: GETTING THERE SUN 30 AUG
Join Rohan Joshi as he embraces the joys of middle-age and explores his transformation into the pinnacle of human evolution: the Indian uncle.
The Old Hairdresser's HAROLD NIGHT TUE 11 AUG
Two Glasgow Improv Theatre house teams performing The Harold. Feat. Saved By The Beep and With Bits! HAMISH NIGHT TUE 11 AUG
Two Glasgow Improv Theatre house teams performing The Harold. Featuring tubducky and Smoking Cat! PRETTY THISTLE & FRIENDS FRINGE SPECIAL TUE 18 AUG
Some of the best improvisers at the Fringe are in Glasgow for some mashup fun.
THE PUNDITS: IMPROV COMMENTARY TUE 25 AUG
Improv comedy with live play-by-play commentary.
Glasgow Theatre The King's Theatre MAMMA MIA!
THU 13 AUG-SAT 29 AUG
Beloved jukebox musical telling the tale of paternal intrigue through the music of ABBA.
Theatre Royal
THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS
MON 24 AUG-SAT 29 AUG
Tramway
ALTHEA YOUNG: THE DREAMING TUE 4 AUG
Caught between landscapes of fantasy and nightmare, this powerful performance questions what drives us to create life. JO BANNON: THE DIRTY WORK
THU 20 AUG-FRI 21 AUG
Using the traditional tricks of a magic show to explore the invisible labour of navigating the world in a disabled body.
Dundee Theatre Dundee Rep
TONY ROPER'S THE STEAMIE
THU 27 AUG-SAT 12 SEP
Inside a 1950s Glasgow washhouse on Hogmanay,
BREAKOUTS
FRI 26 JUN-SUN 30 AUG
Artpistol's annual look at the top talent to graduate from the Scottish Art Schools.
Common Guild LAWRENCE ABU HAMDAN: ZIFZAFA
THU 20 AUG-SAT 17 OCT
Presented in association with Edinburgh Art Festival, this audiovisual installation demonstrates the effects of noise pollution and green colonialism activities in the Israeli occupied Syrian Golan Heights.
Compass Gallery
THE SUMMER SHOW 2026
TUE 7 JUL-SAT 29 AUG
Mixed exhibition of paintings, drawings, prints, sculpture and ceramics showcasing work by the gallery's artists.
Glasgow School of Art
AFTERLIVES: THE WEAVER, A SCORE, AN ARCHIPELAGO FRI 10 JUL-SAT 8 AUG
A group exhibition exploring Southeast Asian legacies of the Commonwealth through moving image and installation. COMMONWEALTH GAMES MEDALS AT THE GLASGOW SCHOOL OF ART
FRI 10 JUL-SAT 8 AUG
An immersive exhibition following the journey behind the making of the 2014 and 2026 Glasgow Commonwealth medals. SAM AINSLEY + ALEX DEMPSTER: WHAT IF IT ISN’T THERE… SAT 4 JUL-SAT 8 AUG
Joint exhibition by two artists with decades-long involvement at GSA, exploring a shared interest in the earth’s structures and rhythms.
Glasgow Women's Library
WE MAKE MUSEUMS: SUSTAINING AND CHANGING WORLDS FRI 5 JUN-SAT 26 SEP
AQSA ARIF: BENEATH THE IVORY IS MOLTEN BROWN FRI 5 JUN-SUN 30 AUG
Moving image and textile photo prints crafting a narrative of the Lakshmi/ Yakshi/Nymph, oscillating between South Asian ancestral memory and western assimilation. AYESHA JONES: THE BACKBONE
FRI 5 JUN-SUN 30 AUG
Photograph drawing on the artist's experience with scoliosis to examine narratives around female health.
The Hunterian
NAEEM MOHAIEMEN: THROUGH A MIRROR, DARKLY FRI 5 JUN-SUN 11 OCT
Film work pinpointing the turbulent moments of transition and rebellion in the 1970s, through the the legacy of students killed during Vietnam War protests.
The Modern Institute CATHY WILKES
FRI 5 JUN-WED 19 AUG
New sculptures and exhibitions drawing on the artist's experience growing up in a working class area of East Belfast. VICTORIA MORTON: HITTING THE LIFE FRI 5 JUN-SAT 5 SEP
Work spanning the artist's interest in pushing the bounds of both painting and music.
DAVID WOJNAROWICZ: SOME DAY THIS WILL ALL BE CRUMBLING RUINS FRI 5 JUN-FRI 28 AUG
First show in Scotland dedicated solely to seminal queer New York artist.
Tramway
RAE-YEN SONG
WED 15 OCT-MON 24 AUG
Glasgow artist transforms Tramway’s vast gallery space into a sub-aquatic world, which serves simultaneously as a spectacle, a memorial and a refuge. JERICHO MARS: MY HEART IS DRENCHED IN BLOOD! MY HEART IS DRENCHED IN BLOOD! FRI 5 JUN-SUN 9 AUG
Objects and words removed from their context consider the construction of image, language and meaning.
Showcasing three new commissions by Sohaila Baluch, Ruth Ewan, and Alixandra Prybyla highlghting their creative approaches to activism, feminist protest and antiracism.
Edinburgh Art
GoMA
A new body of work charting notions of landscape, memory, and the ways in which we map and shape our relationship with the land.
JASMINE TOGOBRISBY: LIQUID LAND FRI 5 JUN-SUN 6 SEP
Spanning sculpture, photography, installation, and video, this exhibition looks at colonial legacies of kidnap and exploitation within Pacific Islander communties.
iota
ROSANN CHERUBINI + HAZEL GUY + GILL MCBRIER: SPINNING YARNS
SAT 15 AUG-SUN 23 AUG
Through ceramics, mixed media and landscapes, the show presents new work by three artists whose collective works span the notion of narrative.
&Gallery
ANDREW MACKENZIE: GROUND LINES SAT 1 AUG-SAT 29 AUG
Blackie House Garagespace OFF THE CHARTS
THU 13 AUG-SUN 30 AUG
Four emerging artists respond to a selection of maps, globes and books held in the Blackie House Library and Museum.
SANDRA GEORGE: START FROM THE LEVEL
SAT 27 JUN-SUN 27 SEP
Themes of community and activism are explored in this archival exhibition from seminal Craigmillar photographer. RACHEL MCBRINN + JONATHAN WEBB: STUDY FOR NORTH BRIDGE
SAT 18 JUL-SUN 13 SEP
Moving image piece responding to the evolving architecture of the city.
Collective Gallery
KATIE PATERSON: AFTERLIFE
FRI 19 JUN-SUN 6 SEP
200 amulets inspired by cultures around the world consider ideas of protection, ecological fragility and care.
RICHARD MAGUIRE: THERE IS NO BEGINNING, AS THERE IS NO END FRI 19 JUN-SUN 6 SEP
The first edition of Time + Space, Collective's new early-career artist programme, this exhibition explores British and South Asian histories and representations of race and sexuality.
Craigmillar Now
LEE MCCORMACK: A MAGIC LANTERN
THU 6 AUG-THU 20 AUG
Powerful photos by Niddrie photographer and former community worker capturing domestic and social scenes in the late 20th century.
Custom Lane
TRANS MASC STUDIES: HISTORY IS A HOME
Drag. Drama. Daredevils. #MixItUp Book tickets on edfringe.com or the EdFringe app
FRI 14 AUG-SUN 30 AUG
Comprising a reading room and research space in which visitors can explore queer history through a collection of ephemera and publications. SADAO HASEGAWA: CARNAL DESIRES
FRI 14 AUG-SUN 30 AUG
A rare exhibition of work by one of post-war Japan’s most influential gay fetish artists.
Dovecot Studios
COSTUME COUTURE: SIXTY YEARS OF COSPROP
SAT 18 JUL-SAT 16 JAN
Six decades of awardwinning film and television costume studio Cosprop is celebrated through iconic pieces. DAZZLE CONTEMPORARY JEWELLERY
FRI 7 AUG-SUN 30 AUG
One of the UK's leading contemporary jewellery exhibitions returns to Edinburgh for its 44th year.
EAF @ 92
DEL LAGRACE VOLCANO: LOVE BITES BACK FRI 14 AUG-SUN 30 AUG
Amassing photographs from the 1980s and 1990s, this exhibition highlights a pivotal moment in dyke photography and queer self-representation.
Fringe Friends get 2for1 tickets to participating shows and more! Visit edfringe.com/friends for more information or scan here:
City Art Centre JEAN F. WATSON: AN ARTISTIC LEGACY
SAT 16 MAY-SUN 4 OCT
Works acquired through the Jean F. Watson Bequest Fund, including pieces by Arthur Melville, Joan Eardley and Eduardo Paolozzi.
— 115 —
August 2026 —Listings
One of horror's most iconic villains gets the stage treatment for the first time.
Artpistol
Street Level Photoworks
BOOK FESTIVAL
25 september - 4 october 2026
25 september - 4 october 2026
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25 september - 4 october 2026
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Scan here for our full programme
Charity No. SC
Charity No. SCO37984
Charity No. SCO37984
THE SKINNY
Edinburgh Futures Institute
WHERE WE ARE
FRI 14 AUG-SUN 30 AUG
Showcasing work by local participants in Edinburgh International Book Festival's Communities Programme, with illustrations from Edinburgh College of Art students.
Edinburgh Printmakers
JAMIE FITZPATRICK: MEMORIALS TO SAUSAGE POLITICS
SAT 18 JUL-SUN 25 OCT
Sourced from elements of statues and monuments found in Edinburgh, this exhibition explores sculpture as a tool of civic statecraft. ETCHINGROOM1: UNEXPECTED TRIP
SAT 18 JUL-SUN 25 OCT
New works by Ukrainian printmaking duo exploring stories of our shared daily lives.
Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop FAIR PLAY
FRI 14 AUG-SUN 30 AUG
A collaborative exhibition by local children and the wider community in which an evolving fairground of sculptures explore ideas of play and imagination. ESTHER CASTLE: ABUNDANT PARTS
FRI 3 JUL-SUN 27 SEP
An otherworldly garden drawing symbolic connections between the non-normative body and weeds.
Fruitmarket
EVA ROTHSCHILD: THE VOID PRESSES THE WALL FRI 10 JUL-SUN 11 OCT
Sculptures born out of the urban landscape examine sculpture's capacity to create bodily encounters in space.
Ingleby Gallery SONGS OF INNOCENCE & EXPERIENCE PART II
SAT 20 JUN-SAT 5 SEP
Celebrating the centenary of Caribbean artist Frank Walter.
InSpace
National Portrait Gallery
WENDY MCMURDO: THE DIGITAL MIRROR
SAT 30 MAY-SUN 25 OCT
Reflections on childhood, the digital world and imagination by pioneering photographer.
Palestine Museum
METAL MEMORIES: SOUNDS OF THE PALESTINIAN STREETS FRI 14 AUG-SUN 30 AUG
Presented by Mo’min Swaitat of Majazz Project and Palestinian Sound Archive, this series of field recordings examines traditions of Palestinian celebration.
RSA: Royal Scottish Academy
JOYCE W. CAIRNS: A PERSONAL ODYSSEY SAT 1 AUG-WED 2 SEP
A retrospective of paintings and other work by the first woman to be elected President of the RSA. CATHERINE OPIE: TO BE SEEN SAT 8 AUG-SUN 1 NOV
Photographic works by major American artist exploring themes of queerness, subversion and community.
Stills
JILLIAN EDELSTEIN: AMONG PEOPLE
FRI 31 JUL-SAT 24 OCT
SGÀIRE WOOD: IN PRIDE, IN PIETY, IN VIGILANCE
FRI 14 AUG-SUN 18 OCT
Blending heraldic and pop culture iconography, this exhibition by the Irish performance artist examines traditions of heritage and violence.
National Gallery of Modern Art
GWEN JOHN: STRANGE BEAUTIES SAT 1 AUG-MON 4 JAN
The first major retrospective of seminal 20th-century Welsh artist.
DCA: Dundee Contemporary Arts FRANCE-LISE MCGURN
SAT 22 AUG-SUN 15 NOV
Gestural and fluid works exploring facets of human experience including connection, separation, pleasure and loss.
V&A Dundee
CATWALK: THE ART OF THE FASHION SHOW FRI 3 APR-SUN 17 JAN
Charting the evolution of catwalk art and culture, from 19th-century salons to contemporary immersive runways. DESIGN AND DISABILITY
FRI 5 JUN-THU 31 DEC
Showcasing the radical contributions of Disabled, Deaf, and neurodivergent people to contemporary design and culture.
Studies in Photography marks ten years of publishing,researching, championing, and celebrating photography, with an exhibition exploring photographic heritage and contemporary practice. JENNIFER BINNIE: SPIRITS OF THE FOREST
Large-scale paintings of human and nonhuman creatures explore our entanglement with nature.
August 2026 —Listings
A new sculpture by Turner-prize winning artist, in which a luminous giant figures lies and breathes gently in Jupiter Artland's orchard space.
Dundee Art
SAT 1 AUG-SAT 29 AUG
SAT 25 JUL-SUN 13 SEP
SAT 11 OCT-TUE 1 SEP
Intricate, provocative ceramic compositions exploring the entanglements between environment, place, and human experience.
CADENCE: SHOWCASING TEN YEARS OF STUDIES IN PHOTOGRAPHY
A multisensory installation exploring the intersection between human language and artificial intelligence. TAI SHANI: THE SPELL OR THE DREAM
THU 30 JUL-SAT 29 AUG
Studies in Photography
Summerhall
Jupiter Artland
STEPHEN BIRD: LOOPING STATES OF MIND: CIRCULAR THOUGHTS
The first major survey exhibition of internationally renowned photographer who has spent the past forty years documenting people, communities and defining moments of contemporary history.
MORPHOLOGICAL MURMURATIONS
WED 26 AUG-SUN 30 AUG
The Scottish Gallery
SALLY PRICE: TWIG POOLS
SAT 25 JUL-SUN 13 SEP
Site-specific sculptural rope works that explore notions of tension, catharsis, weight, repetition and flow. RYO YAMADA
SAT 25 JUL-SUN 13 SEP
Site-specific installation calling attention to rising sea levels by imagining Summerhall in millenias' time.
RUDY KANHYE: BLACK CORAL SAT 25 JUL-SUN 13 SEP
Interdisciplinary pieces interrogating the diasporic gaze and binaries of colonial discourse.
Talbot Rice Gallery ANNE HARDY
SAT 27 JUN-SUN 27 SEP
An examination of the technology of exhibition making, transforming the gallery into an immersive space.
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THE SKINNY
The Skinny On... Xhloe and Natasha The Skinny On...
From mochi defrosted in their shirts to The Lego Movie Soundtrack, Fringe icons Xhloe and Natasha tell us some of their favourite things in this month’s Q&A
What’s your favourite place to visit? These days, our beds! But a more interesting answer is probably batting cages in Seoul, Korea. We are both bad at baseball and our forearms hurt for days. 10/10 would return. Favourite food? Daifuku mochi aka, or red bean mochi cakes, they feel like what we imagine biting a person would feel like (not in a weird way!) We buy them frozen from the corner store and put them in our shirts to defrost while we work on writing so it’s like a reward for later. Favourite colour? Pink because no one can make us feel like liking pink is negative because of its association with
femininity. Also because of Pink the singer, we think she is cool and she did a good job hosting the Tony Awards this year. Love pink. Who was your hero growing up? Rihanna in the Shut Up and Drive music video. Natasha used to wake up and watch it every morning while she ate her breakfast. Whose work inspires you now? Jordan Peele! Cole Escola! Mother nature! All of our hardworking, talented friends! All of our untalented, lazy friends! Fringe artists who produce themselves! Ashnikko! The artist Glen Baxter! The warriors of Pinterest!
Photo: Morgan MacDowell
What three people would you invite to your dinner party and what are you cooking? Jack Black, Jeff Probst, and Sean Evans from Hot Ones. Not cooking, ordering Mexican food for delivery and asking them to kiss each other.
July 2026 – Feature
What’s your all time favourite album? Xhloe says: The Lego Movie Soundtrack. Natasha says: The Moulin Rouge Soundtrack. The movie one of course. What’s the worst film you’ve ever seen? Killer Mermaid, highly recommend. Or Shark Night. It’s the perfect awful shark movie. We gave it the nickname ‘Shark Legs’ but we can’t remember why. If you watch it let us know if you figure it out. What book would you take to a desert island? Desert Island Survival: The Ultimate Guide by Ron White and also Modelland by Tyra Banks. Who’s the worst? You! Ugh! — 118 —
When did you last cry? Yesterday. Not as we write this, but yesterday as you read this. Probably. We both have a lot of water placements in our astrological charts if you’re into that kind of thing. If you’re not into that kind of thing, maybe try having some whimsy. What are you most scared of? Gang violence, sharks, quicksand, failure, the G train not running, accidentally throwing up on stage, people seeing the real us, strange men on Instagram being creepy, scorpions, scorpios, accidentally joining a cult, hearing a mouse in our apartments, earthquakes, etc. When did you last vomit? Luckily not on stage. Natasha says: March. Food poisoning. Xhloe says: June. Got too nervous. Tell us a secret? We have a secret physical code of squeezes and signals we use on stage to communicate without breaking character. Please don’t tell anyone! Which celebrity could you take in a fight? We think we could both take on Emily Blunt if fighting individually. We could have different tactics but we could both probably take her down. She’s like 5‘7”. We googled it. Which is 170 cm. We also googled that. If we’re allowed to fight together then literally anyone. We’re scrappy as hell, please hire us to beat up celebrities, we think we could maybe make better money doing that than as artists. If you could be reincarnated as an animal, which animal would it be? Probably a couple of rats. Some people say ‘they have that dog in them.’ We like to say we both have rats living in us. It would make sense! How do you fuel yourself for a Fringe run? Chicken shawarma with extra hot sauce! Diet Coke! A 500 pill bottle of extra strength good old American ibuprofen! Positive affirmations! Delusion! What is the weirdest thing you’ve seen during the Fringe? On stage: we once saw a group of high schoolers list things for an hour! Off stage: one time a drunk man confused Xhloe’s hostel bed for his! Get out of my bed! Xhloe and Natasha: Bigfoot Ripped My Dog In Half I Saw It, Main Hall, Summerhall, 6-30 Aug, 9.10pm