Coffee-Table Notes

Edinburgh International Festival has a long history of championing the work of persecuted and oppressed nations. Major theatre, music and dance from the former Eastern bloc, the African diaspora and the First Nations of Australia and Canada rarely seen beyond their own borders have all been given a platform in Edinburgh for all the world to see.    A sense of international inclusion has always transcended those borders for EIF, ever since the first festival in 1947 was conceived to heal the wounds of war. While this is still the case, it is telling that the focus of EIF’s 2026 programme is on America. In honour of the 250 th anniversary of American independence, what is left of the home of the brave and land of the free is represented throughout a programme even more tellingly named All Rise. This is named after the opening concert by jazz musician and composer Wynton Marsalis, who will perform it with the New York based Lincoln Center Orchestra, led by Marsalis since 1991....

This coming Sunday, April 23 rd , marks the six month anniversary of the closure of Inverleith House,which for the previous thirty years has been one of the world's leading contemporary art galleries. This unique, light-filled venue, housed within the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, captured imaginations right up to its thirtieth anniversary exhibition, the tellingly named I Still Believe in Miracles... Only after news of the closure leaked out did RBGE attempt to explain the decision by way of a written statement. While no proposed alternative use for Inverleith House was forthcoming, RBGE declared that they needed to focus on RBGE's core botanical function. In an interview with the Herald, RBGE's Regius Keeper Simon Milne stated that Inverleith House was unable to 'wash it's face' financially. For a publicly accountable custodian of a major public institution to use the language of a market trader in this way was telling. Arts funding body Creative Scot...

On Tuesday I attended a meeting of City of Edinburgh's Culture and Sport Committee. I was there in my capacity as a member of CEC's Music is Audible working group, set-up a year ago following a tsunami of dissent concerning the capital's attitude towards live music during a meeting of the city's musical community at the Usher Hall under the banner Live Music Matters. One of the main issues raised at LMM was that of noise complaints. CEC's current legislation dictates that live amplified music must remain inaudible beyond the four walls of where it is being performed. Many argue that this favours a complainant. While outside of John Cage any notion of music being inaudible is an absurdity, such legislation isn't made any more credible by CEC officers not being trained to measure sound in any meaningful scientific way. This has made for some full, frank and very necessary exchanges between music professionals and CEC officers. The culmination of this proc...

The decision by City of Edinburgh Council to give Watford based pub chain JD Wetherspoon planning permission to convert the historic music venue and former cinema most recently known as The Picture House into a 'superpub' on Lothian Road is a huge blow to Edinburgh's live music scene. Based on CEC officers recommendations, this decision marked the end of a saga which has left a much needed mid-scale music venue boarded up sionce December 2013 after JD Wetherspoon bought it from HMV. The decision was passed by CEC's Planning Committee's Development Management Sub Committee by six votes to four, with Councillor Eric Milligan, who is also head of the Licensing Board, abstaining. Four members of the fifteen-strong committee were absent. Given the significance of the issue, which prompted almost 13,500 people to sign a petition organised by the Save The Picture House campaign, this result was disappointing to many. The impact of the Picture House's closure in...

When Creative Scotland announced their regular funding decisions towards the end of last year, it showed just how much Scotland’s arts funding quango hasn’t changed since the appointment of a new set of administrators following the departure of its previous incumbents at the end of 2012. While the decisions highlighted justified winners, including the likes of Vanishing Point and Grid Iron theatre companies, as well as contemporary music producers Arika, 28 organisations who received funding in 2014-15 were declined regular funding for 2015-18. Those who missed out included Scottish Youth Theatre and Untitled Productions, whose show Paul Bright’s Confessions of A Justified Sinner has been lauded at home and abroad. Untitled have announced that the company is being left dormant for the foreseeable future, while Scottish Youth Theatre is to receive funding directly from the Scottish Government for the next three years, in the run-up to Scotland’s Year of Young People ...