Welcome to your midweek edition of The Inquirer.
We’re getting into the Halloween spirit today with a story inspired by Edinburgh’s long history of ghost stories. You can read the results of Sarah McArthur’s catch-up with Natasha Kitty Kat, after your regular midweek news roundup and cultural highlights for the week ahead.
Thanks for all your positive responses to Nico Ulz’s report on the “Waverley scrum”(Can Edinburgh fix its chaotic train station entrance?) which has inspired the inner designer inside many of you.
“While I feel the ‘Waverley Scrum’ is a bit of an exaggeration, intended to grab our attention, I do get the point,” says subscriber Martin.
“I think the north ramp from Waverley Bridge could be fully pedestrianised and covered top to bottom with perhaps a pair of travelators where the road is. And a row of lifts alongside platform 19 up to Waverley Bridge.
“The roundabout and fence at the bottom of the south ramp could be removed and pedestrianised which totally opens up the area for pedestrian passengers, avoiding the ‘scrum’ at the bottom of the existing escalators. The south ramp could provide maintenance access as it does now.
“Wouldn’t it be great if we were all designers?”
Fellow subscriber Peter is inclined to agree: “Since the vast majority of the platforms in Waverley Station can be accessed from ground level more use should be made of the sloped access ramps to Waverley Bridge. The accesses at Waverley Steps and Market Street are very congested.
“And as you say, the situation at the top of Waverley steps is less than ideal, with both the pavement and the roadway extremely congested.”
More on that below, but first your regular midweek news roundup and your cultural highlights for the week ahead.
Your Edinburgh Briefing
TOP SPIRITS: Congratulations to Simon Hynd, the Edinburgh-born Napier University graduate who directed Ghosts: The possession of Button House. His latest film has hit the top of the UK box office charts after taking £2.4 million in ticket sales on its opening weekend.
KIDS IN PUBS? Children as young as 12 would be allowed into three Edinburgh pubs without an adult under plans being considered by the city’s licensing board. Signature Pubs Limited has asked for permission to allow younger children in to the bars - McClarens on the Corner in Morningside, Cold Town House in Grassmarket and The Fountain on Dundee Street - until 8pm to buy a meal, snack or soft drink. They say there is a demand for accessible, supervised space for young people, but some councillors on the licensing board have raised concerns and intend to make a site visit.
CHIPS WITH THAT? UK Chancellor John Healey announced an £18m investment in an Edinburgh University-led programme to design, develop and test semiconductor chips. Edinburgh will be the home of the UK Advanced Chip Design Academy, which aims to develop the UK’s ability to create the chips that underpin next-generation technologies, including AI.
POWER PLAY: Healey also confirmed plans to hand business rates and income tax revenue to regional authorities in England, creating longterm income streams which will enable them to invest in major infrastructure projects. The move - which the Chancellor said would ensure more money raised locally would be spent locally - feels like a gauntlet being thrown down ahead of Scotland’s local government reorganisation.
CYCLIST ATTACKER ESCAPES JAIL: A driver who left a cyclist with a fractured skull and bleed on the brain following a violent attack in the Cowgate has been given a two-year supervision order. Video footage of Joseph Hedley, 39, of Kirkcaldy, Fife, getting out of his car, knocking cyclist Iain Brown, 34, to the ground and leaving him there was widely shared on social media in September 2024. Hedley was sentenced at Edinburgh Sheriff Court after admitting assault endangering life.
STREET BAND ROBBED: The Oi Musica street band has had its van stolen along with lots of the musical equipment it needs for its gigs, community projects and festival appearances. The group are asking people to keep an eye out for the white transit van, registration BJ19 GVC, and equipment including samba drums, percussion instruments and silent disco kit being sold online. Anyone spotting anything which might be theirs is asked email programme@oimusica.co.uk or contact Police Scotland on 101 quoting crime report number CR/0484741/26. Please help this amazing community group if you can.
SOCIAL HUB: Edinburgh-born entrepreneur Charlie MaGregor’s The Social Hub has lodged plans for a £200m development on the former Fountain Brewery site in Fountainbridge. A 580-bed facility combining student, hotel and extended-stay accommodation is at the centre of his plans for the site which has been vacant for around 20 years. The scheme would form part of a wider regeneration of the area which is expected to include affordable housing and a new canal-side public square.
CRIMINAL PICTURED: The criminal suspected of ordering the killing of Bradley Welsh, the former boxer who appeared in the T2 Trainspotting film, has been pictured publicly for the first time. The Sun quotes a police source saying George ‘Dode’ Baigrie, from Dalkeith, who is serving a 15-year sentence for a machete attack in a Tesco car park, will be furious that his face will become so widely recognised.
Your Pick of the (Cultural) Pops
Greetings, Pop Pickers!
With the clocks dragged backwards, the nights drawing in with frankly offensive speed, and this particular chart-decider frantically packing their bags for a well-earned week of holiday sunshine, it is time to cast our eyes over another mammoth week of Edinburgh culture, writes Will Quinn.
If you thought last week was a bloodbath for chart placement, the incoming turn of the month has proven even more ruthless. The sheer volume of world-class live entertainment rolling into the capital this week is staggering, forcing a significant reshuffle at the top of the pile. So, before I dash to the airport and leave you in the capable hands of the city’s box offices, let’s count them down! Yes, indeed!
Honourable Mentions: A Last Look at Opie & A Pair of Classical Holdovers
Bubbling just under the Top 5 this week, we have a vital returning favourite and a pair of classical gems clinging firmly to their honourable status from last week. Over at the Scottish National Gallery, it is your last chance to catch Catherine Opie: To Be Seen before it closes on Sunday. We featured this touring triumph from London’s National Portrait Gallery earlier in the run, but if you haven’t yet seen Opie’s 90s queer portraiture hung right beside the likes of Picasso’s 1902 Mother and Child, get there this weekend so you can look super cultured in your next dinner party conversation.
Meanwhile, our classical holdovers from last week’s chart are finally upon us. At The Queen’s Hall, the Scottish Chamber Orchestra serves up Barber’s Adagio & Violin Concerto (tonight and tomorrow) with virtuoso Clara-Jumi Kang, while The Piccadilly Sinfonietta brings Vivaldi’s Four Seasons by Candlelight to the famously atmospheric vaults of St Giles’ Cathedral (Saturday). Don’t miss ‘em!
Staying at Number 5 (Joint) are... Paul Foot: The Future (Monkey Barrel Comedy, tonight) & Fin Taylor: The Pre-emptive Comeback Special (The Queen’s Hall, Saturday)
Refusing to budge from the fifth spot are two very different comedic forces. Pioneering surrealist Paul Foot brings his acclaimed, surprisingly vulnerable show The Future to the Barrel, mourning the days when humanity dreamed of solar-powered bidets. Meanwhile, over at The Queen’s Hall, Fin Taylor brings his razor-sharp, unapologetically provocative rage from the internet to the big stage for Halloween. The perfect double-header for those who like their comedy either weaponised with awkwardness or sociopolitically blistering.
New in at Number 4 is... Ania Magliano: Peach Fuzz (Monkey Barrel Comedy, November 1st)
Sweeping into fourth place is one of the sharpest, most tightly written Gen-Z comics on the circuit, fresh from fronting SNL UK. Magliano unpicks modern anxieties, identity, and relationships with supreme, effortless confidence. As The QR observed when awarding her 2024 Fringe run 4.5 stars, while other young acts lean heavily on “angst-ridden rants,” Magliano provides a “refreshing and hilarious departure from the norm” that routinely catches the room “slightly off guard.” Think of this as the absolute perfect Sunday night remedy before the working week begins anew.
New in at Number 3 is... Matthew Bourne’s The Car Man (Festival Theatre, November 3rd – 7th)
Taking the bronze medal this week is a massive marquee event from Sir Matthew Bourne’s company, New Adventures. Bourne does not do straightforward ballet, so expect a radically reinvented classic. Bizet’s 19th-century Spanish opera Carmen is aggressively transposed into a greasy, claustrophobic 1950s Midwest diner and garage. High art meets high octane in a dance thriller fuelled by heat, desire, murder, and presumably a lot of engine oil. For those who prefer their classical scores served with sweat and leather rather than traditional tutus, this is unmissable.
Booking Link: Book via Capital Theatres
New in at Number 2 is... Operation Mincemeat: A New Musical (King’s Theatre, November 2nd – 7th)
Rocketing straight into the silver spot is a show that pulls off the seemingly impossible. It’s the outrageously fast-paced, Olivier Award-winning West End mega-hit finally hitting the road for its first UK tour. Retelling the true, utterly ridiculous story of the British WWII intelligence operation that successfully deceived Hitler, it blends high-camp fringe energy (singing Nazis, stolen corpses, rapid-fire physical comedy) with genuine emotional heft. Because honestly, nothing says “feel-good November night out” quite like weaponising a cadaver to save the free world. Operation Mincemeat might not have an Edinburgh Fringe origin story - but its creators SpitLip certainly do, so when you take a seat in the stalls this November, you’ll be supporting the next best thing to a home team!
Moving up to Number 1 is... Man to Man (Traverse Theatre, until November 7th).
Climbing up from last week’s silver spot to claim the coveted number one crown is a genuine theatrical event. Nearly four decades after originating this role on the Traverse stage in 1987, Tilda Swinton returns to Cambridge Street in Manfred Karge’s solo play as Ella Gericke, a working-class woman surviving the Weimar Republic, Third Reich, and East Germany in the clothes of her dead husband. Reviewing its Royal Court run for The QR, Sandra MacDonald praised Swinton’s magnetic performance, noting: “There is an inner stillness to her, and yet she commands the stage... what a chilling reminder of how history repeats itself.” This is your only chance to catch it before the production ships off to Berlin and New York. Missing this to stay home and watch television would frankly be a cultural faux pas of the highest order.
And that’s your Top 5!
Whether you are hunting down returns for Tilda Swinton, marvelling at Matthew Bourne’s greasy Americana, or letting Fin Taylor blister the paint off the ceiling of The Queen’s Hall, you are entirely spoiled for choice.
I shall leave you to it as I disappear toward the departures lounge.
Until next week: Stay bright!
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‘What would it sound like if these walls could talk?’
The lifetime of fascination behind an Edinburgh musician’s Halloween album
by Sarah McArthur
Main feature copy goes hereEdinburgh has its fair share of spooky history - home to infamous serial killers Burke and Hare, two-faced villain Deacon Brodie and the lesser known Covenantors Prison or South Bridge Vaults. So rich is Edinburgh’s dark and spooky past that local DJ, producer and electronic musician Natasha Kitty Kat has created an album dedicated to it. Stonetape Confessions will be released under Natasha’s second music moniker, Auld Reekie Nocturne, this Halloween.
A childhood immersed in Edinburgh’s dark history
“I was at Mary King’s Close, on a tour, and I remember thinking, what would it sound like if these walls could talk?” says Natasha about her inspiration for the album in 2024- but her interest in the spookier side of life began far earlier.
Growing up in Blackhall, Natasha’s parents were frequently offered free tickets to Edinburgh tourist attractions, thanks to her mother’s bed and breakfast business. Naturally, that included all the tours about ghosts, witches, hidden vaults and buried closes. “That started this lifelong fascination with all things macabre and especially in Edinburgh because I’m from here, and it’s right on my doorstep.”
Natasha particularly remembers a tour of the Covenantors Prison, in the back of Greyfriars Kirkyard, as a teenager. The closed off area of the kirkard was used as an open-air prison for over a thousand covenantor prisoners in 1679- and includes a mausoleum believed to be haunted by the Mackenzie Poltergeist. During a tour by City of the Dead, who Natasha interviewed years later as part of her album project, Natasha remembers one of the tour group suddenly “snapping,” attacking the tour guide, then calming down and losing all memory of where he was or what had just happened.
“So this is another tie-in with the album because it’s music, history and a bit of the paranormal as well because I’m fascinated with those different angles.” she says. The album is named after Stonetape theory, which posits that traumatic events can be recorded by the surrounding buildings or landscapes, and subsequently replayed as paranormal events.
From disco DJ to dark electronic composer
Having been led into the dark tourism world by her mum’s tourism business, Natasha was introduced to music by her dad, a vinyl collector and DJ in his free time. She began DJing herself at 21, and producing music at 25. Under the name Natasha Kitty Katt (why the name? I just love cats” she says) she performs sets across all genres from disco, to dark electronic via jazz and rock. She also produces electronic music and founded her own record label, Shadowrunner Recordings in 2024.
Her second Auld Reekie Nocturne moniker is about exploring the dark electronic side of her music tastes, and her fascination with Edinburgh’s grizzly history. “I’m trying to bring Edinburgh and Scottish history to the forefront because there’s a lot of people in Edinburgh who don’t know we’re sitting on this melting pot of history,” she says.
This new project has already attracted praise from BBC Radio Scotland’s Vic Galloway, who said: “It’s great to have another quality female DJ and producer in Scotland, making something really unique and idiosyncratic. I think Natasha Kitty Katt’s ‘Auld Reekie Nocturne’ project is most definitely that! With streamlined technoid beats, hefty bass, shimmering 80’s synths, and just a touch of Goth, the tracks bounce along but also have a real air of menace about them. The stories which have inspired these tracks are macabre and this music sets the tone in a modern club setting perfectly. As someone who lived in Leith, Edinburgh for decades myself, I’m looking forward to blasting the album on vinyl.”
The album features eight tracks, each about a different story in Edinburgh and the Lothians’ dark history. Natasha has also filmed two music videos of the stories which most caught her attention during her research.
The first is the Edinburgh Maiden- a guillotine used in Edinburgh hundreds of years before the French revolution. The “flat-packable” mechanical beheading machine was toured around Edinburgh for executions between 1546 and 1710 to execute over 150 people- including the man believed to have introduced it to Scotland. “It really fascinated me because it’s been here all this time and I didn’t know about it,” she says. The Maiden is on display in the National Museum of Scotland.
The second video is filmed around East Lothian, focussing on the North Berwick witch trials. Between 1590 and 1592, more than 70 people were tried for witchcraft- many were tortured and executed. The campaign was led by King James VI, who believed that witches were behind storms which plagued his sea crossings to and from Denmark, and plots to kill him.
“The more you dive into it the more you actually realise what these women, and a small portion of men as well, actually had to endure, it’s horrendous… this is dark stuff. I don’t feel nostalgia, I don’t want to be there- if someone offered me a time machine I’m not going in it- but I’m fascinated by it.” she explains.
Tied to a home with a struggling alternative music scene:
Natasha chooses to live in Edinburgh because of her strong connection to it- despite the fact that the alternative music scene in particular is struggling. “It’s a shame because there’s so many talented and great acts round here… I wish they’d put more funding into music and the local music scene.”
Natasha used to work at grassroots rock venue Legends which recently closed down to be replaced by a Western-style bar, and also mentions the loss of alternative music venues Studio 24 and Mini Mission (later Rockin Horse and Espionage). She says that Banshee Labrynth is holding the scene together but there needs to be more space for alternative music in the city.
What next?
Natasha will be DJing in Brooklyn on the night of Halloween- when the album will be launched. However, she has some live performances of the new album in the pipeline- some gigs in the New Year which she can’t say too much about yet, and also an exciting project with the International Ghost Society to host an immersive performance with separate rooms each playing a different track and putting on a different experience for attendees.
Natasha would also like to do more under the Auld Reekie Nocturne moniker, and explore the dark history of other places. “I love the name so I’m gonna let it grow further,” she says- a permanent nod to this artist’s undeniable connection to Edinburgh’s unpolished, grimy history.