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Scotsman
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Scotsman
Edinburgh International Book Festival ticket sales rise as director Jenny Niven speaks on event future
Sign up to our Arts and Culture newsletter, get the latest news and reviews from our specialist arts writers Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to The Scotsman, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... It has been a turbulent few years for the Edinburgh International Book Festival (EIBF), which has seen a move to a new location and the event lose its major commercial sponsor amid backlash from fossil fuel campaigners. However, the outlook for this year's event is positive, as the first events take place this weekend - with advance ticket sales up almost a fifth on last year. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Edinburgh International Book Festival director Jenny Niven outside its new home at Edinburgh Futures Institute | Aly Wright Director Jenny Niven said the festival had this year increased capacity in its main tent and bookshop and expanded the area dedicated to children's events. But she said she had no plans to return the festival to the scale it once was at its original Charlotte Square venue. Ticket sales at EIBF, which opens for the second year in its new home at the Edinburgh Futures Institute this weekend, are 18 per cent higher compared to the same time last year, driven by demand for its extended Front List series at the McEwan Hall. Ms Niven said the series, which includes events with Nicola Sturgeon, actor Brian Cox and author Maggie O'Farrell among its line-up, had proven popular with first-time book festival audiences, as it had a focus on Young Adult literature, including a sell-out event with R F Kuang, author of Yellowface. 'We are definitely seeing new audiences,' she said. 'I think our partnership with Underbelly in the McEwan Hall is really helping with that, as well as our expanded programme choices, which are appealing to a range of readers, including some food writers, who are proving very popular. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad 'We can tell that much at this point [that tickets are being sold to first-time visitors to the festival].' Outlander actor Sam Heughan's cocktail masterclass sold out within hours of going on sale. Other discussions, including one by former footballer Ally McCoist on his new autobiography, Dear Scotland: On the Road with the Tartan Army, have also been popular. Any major changes this year have been made following consultation with last year's visitors about the new space. However, Ms Niven is careful to balance the line-up to appeal to both old and new audiences. 'The programme is big enough that we're able to do both,' she said. 'We're very grateful to our extremely loyal book festival audience, some of whom have been coming for decades. They're vocal, they tell us what they think, which is great. Some of the feedback they gave us last year about the site has definitely been incorporated into this year.' Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Funding, however, remains a challenge. Ms Niven admitted the festival had not yet found a replacement for Baillie Gifford's 20-year sponsorship, which was believed to be worth around £35,000 a year. The festival was forced to end its partnership with the Edinburgh fund manager last year, warning it was no longer able to deliver a 'safe and successful' event amid 'threats of disruption'. Climate activist Greta Thunberg had cancelled an event a year earlier over the Edinburgh-based financial firm's fossil fuel investments. The Edinburgh International Festival (EIF), however, has retained a tie up with the company. Festival director Nicola Benedetti told The Scotsman last week the partnership was likely to continue for the foreseeable future, despite renewed calls from campaigners who hit out at the company's investments in defence firm Babcock International. Jenny Niven, director of the Edinburgh International Book Festival. | EIBF Ms Niven would not directly answer a question as to whether she had any regrets over the decision to end the partnership. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad 'We were in a very, very difficult position then,' she said. 'That's [considering the situation with hindsight] not in our gift. We worked with what we could at the time. 'Now, we're working with all sort of new sponsors and partners. We've got a couple of new sponsorships this year, which we're really proud of, and we've also got a new approach to forging these new partnerships and new relationships. We're looking at new partnerships all the time.' The new partners include law firm Digby Brown, as well as Amazon audiobooks site Audible - and, perhaps more unexpectedly, Pokemon, which, while not a financial replacement for Baillie Gifford, is a welcome addition to the line-up. The costumed character is due to appear in the revamped children's zone alongside other stars from children's books, including the Gruffalo and a 'real' unicorn. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Meanwhile, Audible's partnership, which has only recently been agreed, is working in supporting new writing at the festival. The bookshop, run with Waterstone's, is expecting a bumper year, with bookshop manager Caron MacPherson ordering in a total of 55,000 volumes in anticipation of sales which are far higher than last year's 30,000. While planning for the next festival begins as soon as each year's event closes its doors on the last audience members, organisers have to be prepared for last-minute changes. A gala on this year's opening day, where writers had been tasked with creating new work on the theme of repair, had been due to feature Juma Xipaia, who was due to travel from Brazil, while Colin Greenwood's slot has also been cancelled. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Both had unusual excuses - Radiohead bassist Mr Greenwood had been asked to tour with Nick Cave, while Ms Xipaia's partner, who works with indigenous groups in the Amazon, had been called away to a remote community, leaving her with no childcare. The Edinburgh International Book Festival is based at the Edinburgh Futures Institute for the second year. Robert MacFarlane has stepped in to replace Ms Xipaia, while historian and writer David Olusoga is now to appear in place of Mr Greenwood. However, Ms Niven admits there is little a festival can do if a long-planned author cancels. Front List authors are signed up to a contract, however, others are not.
Scotsman
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Scotsman
Why Edinburgh International Book Festival can't ignore working-class and gender-critical voices
Sign up to our daily newsletter – Regular news stories and round-ups from around Scotland direct to your inbox Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to The Scotsman, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... Do you remember the good old days? Back when the Edinburgh International Book Festival was situated in Charlotte Square and felt like the beating heart of everything good happening in the city in August. In those days, it punched way above its weight, attracting some of the finest authors of our age and tackling every subject under the sun. Then it got lost. Literally, that meant a journey to Edinburgh College of Art, then onto its new home at Edinburgh Futures Institute. But it also lost its spine. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Last year that involved caving in to the new puritans who decided sponsorship money supplied by Baillie Gifford wasn't scented enough for their delicate nostrils. The cultural vandals identifying as Fossil Free Books demanded sponsors should divest any investments linked to oil and gas or Israel. Citing concerns about 'safety', the book festival organisers compliantly pulled the plug on a 20-year-relationship. READ MORE: Why Edinburgh has picked exactly the wrong moment to launch to bike hire scheme Writer and musician Darren McGarvey, pictured at the launch of the Make Health Equal campaign last year, claims he has been excluded from Edinburgh International Book Festival (Picture: David Parry Media Assignments) | PA Left out in cold So how did that work out for everyone? For the investment firm, it was business as usual but the move emptied the festival's coffers. Unsurprisingly no replacement corporate sponsors have been keen to face the constant trial by scolds so it has been left to generous, kind-hearted individuals to prop things up for the sake of the institution. You might have thought last year's embarrassment would have made the organisers think more carefully about the decisions they make but no. This year they're being pilloried over programming, with gender-critical feminists and Orwell prize-winning author Darren McGarvey claiming they've been deliberately excluded. The theme of this year's book festival is repair so both would have fitted perfectly into the programme. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad McGarvey lives here, is an acclaimed writer and has a new book out about the impact of sharing trauma. Any psychologist will tell you that is central to repairing damage done but there was no invitation for the author. As one of the few genuine working-class voices in the literary world, he is right to feel left out in the cold. 'Extremely divisive' As are the authors of The Women Who Wouldn't Wheesht, a gender-critical anthology that has been a Sunday Times bestseller on three occasions. Despite being called by one critic 'the most important political work to come out of Scotland this century', it proved too difficult territory for the book festival. 'At present, the tenor of the discussion in the media and online on this particular subject feels extremely divisive. We do not want to be in a position that we are creating events for spectacle or sport, or raising specific people's identity as a subject of debate,' said director Jenny Niven, in response to a question about why the book wasn't featured. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad What's happened here is all very sad. A once-great 'August in Edinburgh' institution has taken sides in the culture wars in a desperate bid to be seen as progressive by the sort of people who preach being kind while practising the opposite. The end result is an event that claims to be open, curious and inclusive but does so only on its terms. Working-class people shouldn't be too working class and gender critical feminists should, well, just wheest.
Scotsman
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Scotsman
Can the Edinburgh International Book Festival repair itself?
After last year's sponsorship furore nearly broke the Edinburgh International Book Festival, David Robinson looks ahead to see if new strands, new venues and appearances from internationally renowned writers can help it thrive Sign up to our Arts and Culture newsletter, get the latest news and reviews from our specialist arts writers Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to The Scotsman, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... 'In these censorious times, how best can we disagree without silencing?' That's the question the Edinburgh International Book Festival's programme asks in the notes for its first event this morning and I can't think of a better one. Edinburgh International Book Festival director Jenny Niven outside its new home at Edinburgh Futures Institute | Aly Wright It's a question that haunts all book festivals. They're fragile things, easily broken – as nearly happened last year with the senseless stushie set up by climate change activists over Baillie Gifford's sponsorship. So when the organisers of this year's festival, now left with hardly any corporate sponsorship, settled on the theme of 'Repair', you can't help thinking that they had their own festival in mind too – as well as everything else in the world in danger of falling apart. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Though some of us will always feel nostalgia for the marquees of Charlotte Square, the festival's new home at the Edinburgh Futures Institute more than meets its requirements. The McEwan Hall – venue for its biggest events – is just that bit nearer than Central Hall was to the festival's three-year interim home at the Edinburgh College of Art, so the Front List events there feel more integrated into the overall programme, which itself is more closely folded into the George Square/Bristo Square Fringe buzz. Edinburgh has a long-established reputation for attracting the world's best writers, and this year is no exception. Flick through the festival programme (for my money, the most clearly designed yet), and they're on almost every page: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, for example, talking about her first novel for a dozen years, Abdulrazak Gurnah on his first since winning the Nobel, last year's Booker winner Samantha Harvey, or Ian McEwan giving a preview of his new novel, out next month. Such is the embarras de richesses that tonight you can even find such supremely gifted novelists as Alan Hollinghurst and Tash Aw sharing the same stage. Booker-winning novelist Samantha Harvey | Contributed Yet there's far more to festival director Jenny Niven's programme than literary fiction. I've never yet been to one of the Table Talk events at Elliot's Studio but have heard good things about them. I also like one of her other innovations from last year, the 10am First Edition strand in the Spiegeltent discussing the day's news. This year though, the real game-changer is the Young Adult programme, now hugely beefed up and quite separate from the children's programme. This makes more sense if you accept the festival's definition of young adult as meaning anyone under 30 - and not, as I'd always thought, teenagers. The events in the YA programme - divided as they are into nine genres - are far more than the usual tokenism, with bestselling writers such as Asako Yukuzi and RF Kuang from Japan and the US respectively alongside our own Alice Osman. On Monday, for example, YA writers take over the Spiegeltent for most of the day, along with free quizzes, games and 'bookish (and platonic)' speed dating. Along with the lower prices for under-30s, the £5 tickets for those on benefits, it all amounts to the book festival's most determined attempt yet to grow a new audience. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Will it work? Certainly it's a break with previous years' programming, which tended to assume that the audience for adult fiction would automatically increase with age. That's certainly the way things used to happen, but does it still? Yet the last thing the book festival can do is to take its grey-haired audience for granted. Its rivals have never been better. At Traquair, for example, the15th Beyond Borders festival (23-4 August) more than matches it for politics (Sturgeon, Yousaf, McConnell, Corbyn), news makers in general (Médecins Sans Frontières boss Chris Lockyear for example) and journalists of the calibre of Jim Naughtie and Lyse Doucet. Tickets from Even closer to home and starting on Monday, the Royal Scots Club at 29-31 Abercrombie Place hosts an inaugural Festival of Writing Worth Reading (tickets are £12.50, from Cannily exploiting the fact that the EIBF's morning programme isn't as strong as it used to be, at 10.30 every day until August 23 (apart from the 17th), it features such writers as Liz Lochhead, James Robertson, Rosemary Goring and Bendor Grosvenor. All that and tea and coffee too – though as yet no mention of biscuits.
The Herald Scotland
29-07-2025
- Entertainment
- The Herald Scotland
Val McDermid hits out on Baillie Gifford 'virtue signalling'
Speaking ahead of the return of the Edinburgh International Book Festival, which parted company with Baillie Gifford after a 20-year partnership in the wake of protests from climate activists, McDermid said the company had been 'unfairly pilloried.' Read more: The Fife-born writer warned of the risk of festivals and the arts having to be over-reliant on public funding and the support of private philanthropists in future. McDermid was speaking two years after climate activist Greta Thunberg pulled the plug on a sold-out appearance at the Edinburgh book festival in the wake of reports of Baillie Gifford's links to the fossil fuels industry, saying she did not want to be associated with 'greenwashing.' Crime writer Val McDermid has spoken out over criticisms of Baillie Gifford's sponsorship of festivals. (Image: The University of Edinburgh) At the time, Baillie Gifford insisted it was not a 'significant fuel investor.' It claimed only two per cent of its clients' money was invested in companies with links to the fossil fuels industry, compared to five per cent it said was invested in companies developing 'clean energy solutions.' The Edinburgh International Book Festival is now staged at the Edinburgh Futures Institute. However, the campaign group Fossil Free Books stepped up action against book festivals backed by Baillie Gifford in the spring of last year. Hundreds of writers backed an open letter warning the festivals to expect escalation, including the expansion of boycotts, increased author withdrawal of labour, and increased disruption.' Organisers of Edinburgh's event announced the end of its Baillie Gifford partnership two weeks later, blaming the 'withdrawal of several authors and threats of disruption.' Organisers of the annual book festivals in Wigtown and the Borders also announced the end of their involvement with Baillie Gifford. The Edinburgh book festival, which is by far Scotland's oldest and biggest celebration of literature, which has seen its government funding more than doubled in the space of 12 months, to a record £820,000. A further £160,000 increase planned for the next financial year is expected to see the festival's government funding rise by more than £1.5m by 2027-2028 compared to the last three years of Baillie Gifford's involvement with the event, which it supported through its schools and children's programme. The government has agreed to provide £300,000 in funding for the next three years to plug the gap created by the loss of Baillie Gifford's support. McDermid is one of 641 writers due to appear across almost 700 events in the forthcoming two-week programme of events, which will run from August 9-24. She told The Herald: 'Last year was difficult for this book festival. This year hasn't been easy, but I think we can all see a light at the end of the tunnel now. 'The festival has come back with a really strong programme, with a lot of interesting themes and writers. I think people will really show up. 'It's been a tough experience for the festival to pull it back from losing its principal funder. 'I know how hard the festival director Jenny Niven has worked with her team to recover the financial position, but it's still been difficult. 'There's no question that the festival has got less to play with than it had before.' McDermid was among a group of leading Scottish authors who backed an open letter which described the targeting of book festivals as 'deeply retrograde' and 'ill thought-out' over their sponsors. Others included Alexander McCall Smith, Andrew O'Hagan, Chris Brookmyre, Denise Mina, Doug Johnston, David Greig and Liz Lochhead. Many of the writers who backed the Fossil Free Books campaign have accepted invitations to appear at this year's Edinburgh book festival, including Ali Smith, Hannah Lavery, Jess Brough, Raymond Antrobus, Chitra Ramaswamy, Andrés N Ordorica, Harry Josephine Giles and Katie Goh. McDermid, who is due to make four appearances at the festival this August, said: 'The Edinburgh book festival was pushed into a corner last year by a group of people who, I think in many cases, saw it as an opportunity to put their name in public lights. 'The level of hypocrisy among some of the people involved was quite staggering. 'A lot of people just jumped on a bandwagon without thinking about it. 'There was a lot of virtue signalling, rather than sincerely held opinions from people who had actually researched the topic and knew what they were talking about. 'No-one is saying that Baillie Gifford is white than white. But there is no such thing as a clean sponsor. 'If you dig deep, everybody who sponsors an arts event has got something in the cupboard that you would be uncomfortable with.' 'What do you do? Are we not going to have book festivals anymore? Are we not going to have the arts unless they are sponsored by rich individuals. How clean are they?' McDermid suggested there was a risk of a return to the Renaissance era, 14th to the 17th century, when 'rich patrons' were relied on to fund the arts. She added: 'The arts shouldn't be dictated to by one individual or even one political party. 'I don't think the arts should be entirely funded by state funding. That would be wholly dangerous and potentially pernicious. 'There needs to be a mix of funding sources, including ticket sales, individual philanthropists and corporate sponsors too. 'We have to be careful where we take money from, but I think Baillie Gifford was unfairly pilloried in the circumstances.' A separate campaign group, Art Workers For Palestine Scotland, has targeted a number of other arts organisations backed by Baillie Gifford in recent months, including the [[Edinburgh]] International Festival and Fringe Society, over the company's links with defence firm Babcock International. [[The Herald]] told last year how Baillie Gifford had more than £60 million worth of shares in the owner of Rosyth Dockyard in Fife, which has previously worked with state-owned Israeli arms manufacturers.
The Herald Scotland
26-07-2025
- Entertainment
- The Herald Scotland
Here's my top 10 Edinburgh Festival picks not to be missed
BOOK EVENT Hanif Kureishi: Shattered but Unbroken Edinburgh International Book Festival, Venue T, Edinburgh Futures Institute, August 15, 3.15pm Author Hanif Kureish (Image: Getty Images) Some years ago (maybe around the time Gordon Brown was Prime Minister) I interviewed Hanif Kureishi at his home. He was a splendid, feisty, bullish interviewee, calling out my questions and taking the hump at times. In 2022 he suffered a fall that left him paralysed. He's now a tetraplegic. If anything, he might have become a better, braver writer as a result. Hosted by journalist Chitra Ramaswamy, this Book Festival event sees him appear remotely, but, such is the force of his personality even now, that shouldn't make any difference. CLASSICAL Best of Monteverdi Choir Edinburgh International Festival, Usher Hall, August 4 I do like a choir. And in this year's compact (or should that be financially constrained?) Edinburgh International Festival this is the performance I'm drawn to. Led by conductor Jonathan Sells, it should be a showcase for the choir and the English Baroque Soloists. The programme takes in Purcell and Bach (both JS and Johann Christoph) and culminates with a performance of Handel's Dixit Dominus. ART Andy Goldsworthy: Fifty Years Royal Scottish Academy, July 28-November 2 Stretched Canvas on Field, with mineral block removed, after a few days of sheep eating it, 1997 (Image: Andy Goldsworthy) Sometimes you can have enough of flyers and street jugglers and dingy comedy venues, right? That's the time to take in an exhibition. And this August you are spoiled for choice in Edinburgh. Resistance, curated by filmmaker Steve McQueen, continues at Modern Two for anyone seeking inspiration to be an activist. Dovecot Studios is home to an exhibition dedicated to the textile design of IKEA and the Scottish Gallery has a celebration of the artist Victoria Crowe on her 80th birthday. All well worth your time. And then there is Andy Goldsworthy taking over the Royal Academy. This exhibition includes more than 200 works by Scottish-based environmental artist, including an expansive new installation built in situ. Remarkable work from a remarkable man. TALK Tim Pope Fringe by the Sea, The Dome, North Berwick, August 2, 2.45pm It's tempting to forego [[Edinburgh]] all together this August and just decamp to North Berwick for the duration. Because this year's Fringe by the Sea programme contains everyone from Chris Hoy, Eddi Reader, Judy Murray and Jim Moir (aka Vic Reeves) to Hamish Hawk, the Bluebells and Dave from Blur. There's even an indie disco overseen by Scotland's pre-eminent musical Stuarts, Murdoch and Braithwaite. But can I single out this appearance by director Tim Pope? His work with The Cure, Siouxsie Sioux, Talk Talk, Soft Cell, Strawberry Switchblade and even Wham! (he directed the video for Young Guns Go For It) made him one of the key visual artists of the 1980s. In this special event he's in conversation with Vic Galloway. FILM Grow Edinburgh International Film Festival, August 16-19, Cameo, Filmhouse, Vue, various times Grow with Nick Frost (Image: unknown) I suppose we should be grateful that we still have an [[Edinburgh]] International Film Festival at all after the collapse of CMI in 2022, but even before that it seemed to be struggling to match the buzz and the engagement found at the other end of the M8 at the annual Glasgow Film Festival. This is the second year of the revivied Film Festival under director Paul Ridd and it comes trailing some criticism that it's not Scottish enough. (Critic and journalist Siobhan Synnot has claimed that 90 per cent of the people selecting films for the festival live outside Scotland). Despite all that, there is much to see here. As well as a retrospective of Budd Boetticher westerns, there will be in-person conversations with directors Andrea Arnold (Red Road, Fish Tank) and Nia DaCosta (Candyman, The Marvels and the upcoming 28 Years later sequel The Bone Temple), producer Jeremy Thomas, as well as premieres from directors including Paul Andrew Williams, Andrew Kotting, Helen Walsh and the Dardenne brothers. I'm intrigued to see Grow, the new film from Scottish director John McPhail (Anna and the Apocalypse), with a cast of familiar British comedy faces (including Jane Horrocks and Nick Frost) and a plot description that combines the phrases 'Scottish fantasy' and 'pumpkin-growing contest'. FILM Bulk Edinburgh International Film Festival, Cameo, August 14, 11.55pm And sticking with the film festival ... 'This is a midnight film through and through. Car chases, gun fights, sci-fi and romance,' director Ben Wheatley has said of his new film Bulk which is having its world premiere at this year's EIFF, part of the festival's Midnight Madness strand. Sounds fun. Wheatley's last outing was Generation Z, the Channel 4 TV horror series (the one with Anita Dobson and Sue Johnston as OAP zombies). Before that he gave us The Meg 2. But I'm hoping Bulk - which stars Sam Riley and Noah Taylor - might be fit to stand alongside his best films, Kill List and A Field in England, both of which belied small budgets to offer up potent, unheimlich horror thrillers. Here's hoping this is another one. If midnight is too late for you, there are screenings of the film on Friday, August 15 at the National Galleries and Vue, and there will be a special In Conversation event with Wheatley himself on August 15 at 1.30pm at the Tolcross Central Hall Auditorium. DANCE Journey of Flight: Kathryn Gordon DB3 @Dance Base, August 12-17, 2.30pm Intrigued by the sound of this dance performance based on the migration patterns of birds and the idea of place. Accompanied by live music from Jenny Sturgeon, Shetland-based dance artist and choreographer Kathryn Gordon's show combines bespoke visuals and avian-inspired movement and should offer a calm retreat from the hurlyburly of the Grassmarket. 'We've really explored what home is to us and that feeling of nostalgia and leaving and coming back,' Gordon says of the piece. It also involves paper planes. And who doesn't love paper planes? POETRY At What Point with Caitlin O'Ryan Spiegeltent, Edinburgh International Book Festival, August 19, 6pm Actor Caitlin O'Ryan was a regular in the TV series Outlander, but it's her spoken-word poetry that has really got her noticed. Last year her performance of her poem At What Point went viral and it wasn't hard to see why: an impassioned cri de coeur about violence against women, gender inequality and the challenges of female experience, it had echoes of Self Esteem's breakthrough hit I Do This All the Time. But, if anything, O'Ryan's words hit even harder. In this book festival event she talks to Holly McNish. COMEDY Zainab Johnson: Toxically Optimistic Pleasance Courtyard (Above), July 30-August 24 There is quite a lot of work-in-progress shows coming to Edinburgh this summer, Aisling Bea, the wonderful Ania Magliano, Laura Smyth and Larry Dean among them. Nothing wrong with that but usually Edinburgh is what you're progressing towards. Case in point. Zainab Johnson may have her own hit stand-up show on Amazon Prime (Hijabs Off), but here she is making her debut at the Fringe. Johnson's new show talks gun ownership (yes, she is American), relationships and, as the title suggests, optimism as a toxic trait. To purchase tickets for the Fringe, please click here
