Stinking rubbish, cancelled trains and last-minute hope: Welcome to the Fringe.
Plus: Runners and riders in the race to host GB Energy
Bin and rail disputes likely to disrupt the Fringe
The Fringe officially gets underway on Friday amid the likelihood of strike action creating major disruption in the Capital.
This summer’s Festival season is expected to be one of the biggest ever with more than 50,000 performances in the official programme for the first time since 2019 -when the Fringe attracted more than three million people for the first time.
Waste crews are due to announce strike dates on Wednesday which union leaders have said will target the Festivals in Edinburgh. ScotRail trains are already operating on a significantly reduced timetable, especially at weekends, as drivers work to rule pending the results of ballots for strike action. They could be joined by tram drivers who are also being balloted for strike action from today.
The only hope of at last-minute deal is the possibility of the Scottish Government loosening its purse strings, amid mounting pressure on it to follow more generous deals being struck for public sector workers in England.
Summer of discontent: As well as the bin and transport strikes, the prospect of pay disputes is looming in schools, where non-teaching staff currently being balloted on strike action for September and tricky pay negotiations with teachers underway. That will inevitably be at the back of the Scottish Government’s mind when it makes a decision on the bin strike pay claim.
Will the Scottish Government budge? All eyes are on the Scottish Government, especially since Scotland’s local authorities appealed directly to them last week saying they cannot meet the bin collectors pay demands without more funding. The UK Government is expected to increase the pressure by agreeing to across-the-board public sector pay increase south of the border in the coming days. However, the Scottish Government arguably has less room for manouvre, particularly having struck inflation-busting deals last year with junior doctors (14.5% over two years) and police and prison officers (7%).
‘No sunshine’ bonus: The saving grace as things stand at the moment is the weather forecast which suggests rain for the first week of the Fringe. Anyone who attended the Fringe during the last bin strike two years ago will remember the smell that comes with piles of rubbish rotting on the city streets in blazing sunshine. The forecast of rain might be very welcome.
Other issues: Edinburgh International Festival chief executive Francesca Hegyi has chosen the eve of the Festivals to warn the funding model for the arts is “utterly broken”. Without change, future International Festival programmes will have to be scaled back, she told The Financial Times, following real-term cuts in arts funding from the Scottish Government and growing challenges securing corporate sponsorship.
Airbnb crunch: This will be the first August under the city’s Airbnb crackdown. Close attention will be paid to whether the new regulations have any impact on accommodation costs after a string of Fringe performers complained prices were becoming increasingly unaffordable.
Potter protests: There is always one play which attracts protests at the Fringe. It’s almost as if someone planned it... This year watch out for headlines about the play TERF which explores JK Rowling’s views on trans rights. The play by Hollywood writer Joshua Kaplan, whose credits include HBO’s Tokyo Vice, runs at the Assembly Ballroom from Thursday.
Don’t miss Thursday’s newsletter for the results of our in-depth investigation of the Festivals’ accommodation crisis.
YOUR EDINBURGH BRIEFING
JUST CHAMPION: Forget the Olympics, Scotland has secured global glory after winning the World Schools Debating Championship by defeating Bulgaria in the final in Belgrade. The team, featuring Miya Turner of Portobello High and Lena Zeilinska from Broxburn Academy, secured the title with a resounding 7-2 win in the final, proposing the motion: “This house regrets the glorification of champions.”
KIRK’S £1M SALE: The Church of Scotland is expected to collect around £1 million after putting the Moderator of the General Assembly’s official residence in Edinburgh up for sale. The Kirk bought the two-storey townhouse in Rothesay Terrace in the West End in 1998. It was last used by the previous moderator, the Rt Rev Sally Foster-Fulton, with the current incumbent, Rev Dr Shaw J Paterson, using a more modest Church of Scotland flat in the city. The Kirk is inviting offers over £890,000 for the property.
CITY FARM FIRE: A 14-year-old boy has been arrested and charged in connection with wilful fire-raising. Four fire appliances were called to a blaze in a stable at Gorgie City Farm. No one was injured in the incident, Police Scotland confirmed, and no staff or volunteers were on site at the time. Plans for the potential reopening the site to the public, after it closed 18 months ago following financial challenges, are due to be discussed at the city council in the coming weeks.
FILM STAR WEDDING: Little Women star Saoirse Ronan married long-term partner Jack Lowden at a private ceremony in Edinburgh just over a week ago, the Irish Independent reported. Lowden, who grew up in the Borders and stars in Apple TV’s Slow Horses, recently became a patron of the Edinburgh Filmhouse.
TREE HOMES: Well done to all at city-based Cullen Property. The home letting company decided a couple of years ago to plant a tree every time they let a property, to help create a rewilded forest in the north of Scotland at Dundreggan. They’ve just topped 1000 trees - a significant contribution to the work of Trees for Life.
EXIT STAGE: Leading Scottish playwright David Greig is to step down as artistic director of the Royal Lyceum Theatre at the end of the current season. He has occupied the role for the past eight years but told The Scotsman he felt “jaded and grumpy” after a tenure which has covered funding crises and – not least – the stress of navigating through the Covid-19 pandemic and lockdown. He intends to return to writing full-time, including for the Lyceum.
TV PRESENTER JAILED: TV and radio presenter Hayley Matthews has been sentenced to 27 months in prison after admitting embezzling £120,000 from her mother who had dementia. Edinburgh Sheriff Court heard the former STV presenter, who lives in the city’s Restalrig area, had been in a position of trust when she took the money after being given power of attorney over her mother’s financial affairs.
BACK(ING) TO THE FUTURE: A biomedical start-up working to develop new medicines for people living with Parkinson’s have been awarded £4.7 million by Back to the Future actor Michael J Fox’s charitable foundation. Edinburgh-based Lario Therapeutics will use the funding to investigate selective calcium channel inhibition as a novel approach for treatment of the disease, which the actor was diagnosed with in 1991, at the age of 29.
PRISON DEATH CLAIM: The family of a man who died after being restrained by prison officers is suing the Scottish prison and prosecution services and Government ministers over his death. Allan Marshall was 30 when he died from a heart attack at HMP Edinburgh in 2015 after a lengthy struggle with up to 17 prison officers, just a few days before he was due to be released. The officers involved were given immunity from prosecution at a fatal accident inquiry into his death, but the family are now using human rights laws to raise a civil court claim in one of the first moves of its kind in Scotland.
FILM FESTIVAL: The first woman director of a film festival is to be honoured by Bafta Scotland for her outstanding contribution to the industry across her 60-year career. Lynda Myles, the producer of hit films including The Commitments and Defence of the Realm, was appointed director of the Edinburgh International Film Festival (EIFF) in 1973. During her eight-year tenure, she is credited with transforming the festival, including championing the work of then often overlooked auteurs like Alfred Hitchcock and Sam Fuller, and providing a global platform for many female film-makers.
OLYMPIC SPIRIT: St James Quarter – Scotland’s official Team GB fanzone - is hosting a Festival of Sport to celebrate the 2024 Olympics. From screenings to interactive fitness and competitive classes, and inspired by the Paris Games, St James Quarter will invite guests to ‘get active’ from now until 11 August, with a whole host of sporting festivities and special guests.
EUROS HURT: Scotland footballer Ryan Porteous has described the fall-out from his sending off against Germany at Euro 2024 as “the hardest thing I’ve had to go through in my career”. The 25-year-old former Hibs star, from Dalkeith, was given a straight red card for a reckless tackle in the match which saw Scotland thrashed 5-1. “I have a lot of good people around me and they looked after me well. I feel like I am in a much better place now, but it was really tough,” he told Sky Sports.
SEAWATER POLLUTION: The Scottish Environmental Protection Agency (Sepa) issued a warning on Saturday against swimming or paddling at Yellowcraigs and Broadsands beaches in East Lothian. The cause of the pollution is being investigated.
Porty pollution ‘not sewage’: Sepa says dog or gull poo were the likely cause of a bacteria surge which led to a short paddling and swimming ban at Portobello earlier this month, rather than sewage. Tests carried out by Surfers Against Sewage have recently found signs of likely sewage contamination at the beach, after taking samples at the point where the Figgate Burn - which is used for unmonitored sewage dumping from the city’s network - runs into the sea.
ARMY HQ HOMES: Work is set to start on refurbishing 78 ex-military homes on the site of the former Army HQ in Scotland at Craigiehall on the north-west outskirts of the Capital. The wider site is the subject of ongoing interest from housebuilders but further development is restricted by greenbelt policies.
THE BUSINESS
How will we fare in the bid to win GB Energy?
Edinburgh – along with Glasgow and Aberdeen – is on UK Energy Secretary Ed Milliband’s shortlisted homes for the headquarters of the new, publicly owned GB Energy company.
Aberdeen – home for decades of the oil and gas industry and now seeking to reposition itself as a major renewables centre – is most pundits’ favourite to win the three-way race. However, Edinburgh can present a very strong case. The new company will not supply power to a single home, and instead will invest £8.3 billion of public money over the course of the parliament.
GB Energy’s role? The main role of the new company is to “facilitate, encourage and participate in the production, distribution, storage and supply of clean energy” and it will do this through investment, and by leveraging significantly more private sector investment, in green energy infrastructure.
The Rival Contenders: Aberdeen, the oil and gas capital of Europe, has been earliest out of the blocks, and has campaigned most aggressively. The Press & Journal even depicted the Labour Party leadership as “Traitors” as in the BBC hit TV show over their hard-line policy on continued oil and gas production. The city has strong energy expertise and credentials, but on the debit side the new company’s major role is around investment – and Aberdeen runs well behind Edinburgh on that score. How difficult might it be to recruit the skilled financiers needed? However, it is understood that Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar is keen on the city’s bid for political reasons – Aberdeen has not been a happy hunting ground for Labour.
Glasgow is also on the list of potential homes. It is home to Scottish Power, and a number of other energy companies, and there are some significant renewables project within its environs. The city also has greater financial and investment expertise than exists in Aberdeen, although not in the same depth as in the Capital. Labour enjoyed a big renaissance during the UK election and will be keen to repeat the feat in the Holyrood elections in 2026 – but will a move to Glasgow invoke cries of “foul, central belt bias” from the rest of Scotland?
The case for Edinburgh: The Capital is one of Europe’s major financial centres – indeed is one of the world’s top 20 – and would certainly offer the new company the deepest talent pool from which to draw the financial and investment expertise required. It’s renowned financial sector is also the most likely to have the contacts and experience required to encourage private sector investment to follow GB Energy’s lead.
Data will undoubtedly underpin much of the decision-making, and again in this field Edinburgh enjoys a world-leading reputation. And the newly established Forth Green Freeport will become a major hub for renewables infrastructure production. However, rivals will point to the Capital’s lack of energy expertise, compared to Aberdeen in particular.
Edinburgh Chamber of Commerce Chief Executive Liz McAreavey has led the charge for the Capital to date, but expect the city council and the wider business community to get on board in the coming days.
BANK INTEREST: All eyes on the Bank of England on Thursday as it considers whether it is now time to cut interest rates. Economists are split on whether a reduction will come this week, or whether we will need to wait a little longer. The UK’s base rate has been held at 5.25 per cent since August last year, but with inflation hitting the Bank’s two per cent target level for the past two months, hopes have been raised that rates can start to be reduced, easing the pressure on borrowers. A cut would be the first since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic in March 2020.
TIGER ROARS: Popular Edinburgh stationery and gift shop Paper Tiger has opened its fourth store in the Capital. The new store in Raeburn Place adds to stores in Stafford Street at the West End, Lothian Road, and Morningside Road.
BOOTS ON THE STREET: The fully refurbished Boots store on Princes Street has opened for business. The refit features and extensive beauty hall with new beauty brands and counters, and a new healthcare space on the first floor designed to offer more healthcare services including a range of vaccinations and health checks via the dispensary and two new private consultation rooms.
THAT’S ENTERTAINMENT
You are of course spoiled for choice with the Fringe and International Festival getting underway on Friday, with some previews starting earlier in the week. Here, though, are a few select highlights that you might otherwise have missed.
DANCE, DANCE, DANCE: That great treasure Dance Base has one of the most exciting programmes at the Festivals, featuring 274 performances of 29 shows from 33 companies. Catch daring and innovative performers from Australia, Taiwan, South Korea, Hong Kong, Denmark, Germany and, of course, Scotland, at the home of dance in the Grassmarket, staged in a unique partnership with Assembly Festival.
AMERICAN SONGBOOK: Hear the incredible Barbara Jones and Ailsa Aitkenhead perform songs by some of the the great American songwriters including Gershwin, Cole Porter, Kurt Weill, Jerome Kern and Steven Sondheim. An American Songbook is at Marchmont St Giles Parish Church, on Saturday, at 2.30-3.30pm. Entry is free with donations appreciated.
EVERYBODY’S TALKING ABOUT: You’ll need to be quick to grab tickets for Everybody’s Talking About Jamie at Broughton High School from 3-10 August with most shows fast selling out. The exceptional Forth Children’s Theatre production stars Scotland’s youngest drag queen Cherry West (Sam Carlin).
QUICK BITES
BEST OF LOCAL: Bruntsfield restaurant “Fin & Grape” has won a prestigious accolade. The eatery, which specialises in seafood, has been named as the best local restaurant in Scotland in The Good Food Guide.
OPENING SOON: An Indian and Arabic restaurant – Makani – is to open at 88 Haymarket Terrace, which was previously occupied by the popular Hau Han Chinese eatery.
SAD CLOSURE: Cafe Roda in Gilmerton Community Centre is to close permanently on 23 August. The owners made the announcement “with regret and great sadness” on social media.