The Road To Edinburgh Festival 2026: Friday 19 June
In which the Book Festival tackles the biggest issues of the day, Eric Rushton continues his rise to fame, and the Free Fringe blows out some birthday candles
And so, after a Scottish talent special last week, we return to the susurrating stream of news flowing from the leaky valves of the Edinburgh Festival. With the book festival and the folk & food festival setting out their stalls, only the film festival is left to wheel out its big guns, but there’s still plenty to chew on; the Free Fringe is celebrating a major milestone, accessibility is being pushed to the fore, and Just The Tonic is delivering the goods.
Edinburgh International Book Festival announces line-up…
… featuring more than 600 writers from 41 countries. This year’s edition will run from Saturday 15–Sunday 30 August with the theme ‘Changing Your Mind’. As the global landscape grows increasingly fractured, the festival aims to bring together professionals, experts and a diverse array of voices for an alternative to debate driven by reaction and polarisation.
Across the 16-day programme, major names contributing directly to the debate include Finnish prime minister Sanna Marin, former UK prime minister Gordon Brown, Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, technology writer Cory Doctorow, best-selling author Michael Pollan, award-winning poet Claudia Polla, and more.
The notion of trust, information and misinformation will be addressed by talks from notable figures such as The New Yorker’s Fergus McIntosh, The News Agents podcast co-host and political pundit Lewis Goodall, and the journalist Yi Ling Liu. Mining a similar vein will be discussions on AI and its regulation, which will include contributions from Steve Crossan, who is part of the original Deepmind team; Sarah Whynn-Williams, former director of public policy at Facebook; and Tim Wu, who invented the term ‘net neutrality’.
Read our full article on the programme.
Edinburgh Folk & Food Festival welcomes Sarah Rankin and Tomás Gormley to line-up…
… alongside a whole host of musical acts, supper clubs and family-friendly events. This celebration of food and music, which has become a mainstay of Edinburgh Festival season, will take place at George Square Gardens from Friday 24 July–Sunday 2 August, and includes 28 stalls of locally made food and drink, as well as performances from contemporary folk band Breabach; Mercury Prize nominated Seth Lakeman; rollicking trad act Will Richards & The Ceilidh Nomads; contemporary Americana trio Paper Sparrows; and Wave Of The Flood, Lindsay Strachan’s new act.
Apart from Rankin and Gormley, notable chefs attending the festival include Nick Holmes from Bramblewood Farm, Tom Greer from Baba, Alan Keery from Nadair, Jun Au from Pomelo and many more.
On curating the programme alongside Hadleigh Walker, Dani Rae said: ‘We’re thrilled to invite incredible musicians like Seth Lakeman, Breabach and An Dannsa Dub, to perform in the heart of Edinburgh alongside our showcase of the very best local food and drinks. We hope you can join us this summer, to folk and feast with our extraordinary line-up.’
Check the official Edinburgh Folk & Food Festival site for more info and tickets.
Edinburgh’s Free Fringe celebrates 30th anniversary…
… cementing its place as a bedrock of the city’s Festival season, and providing a huge number of acts with free spaces to perform their shows.
At its peak, the festival put on 10,200 performances of more than 600 shows during the 23 days of the Fringe. Although the number of shows programmed in the wake of covid has lessened, the festival still plans to programme about 6500 performances of at least 430 shows this year.
Organisers for the Free Fringe commented in a statement: ‘Ticket prices would have soared to unacceptable levels if there were no free-admission shows to give the public an alternative. So many performers, some now famous, couldn't have afforded to play the Fringe at all [without the Free Fringe].’
They continue: ‘We want to give performers the opportunity to perform without having to invest huge sums of money in venue rent and publicity. And we do that.’
TheSpaceUK unveils more than 400 shows for Edinburgh Fringe 2026…
… across six venues, with work from emerging writers and international companies from across the globe. TheSpaceUK’s programming has always favoured brand-new writing and experimentation, and this year looks to be no different. If you’re looking for shows that are unexpected and usually flying under the radar, this is the programme to look at.
Charles Pamment, artistic director of theSpaceUK, said: ‘In our 31st year of presenting work at the festival it is without doubt that our enthusiasm and passion to present the very best new writing platform hasn't wavered. Indeed it is with renewed energy that we present not only the largest platform at the 2026 festival but also the most diverse programme bursting with original writing from every genre and presented by rich tapestry of global production houses. We can't wait for you to enjoy and experience our 2026 programme. Welcome.’
Just The Tonic announces programme…
… featuring 215 shows across 19 performance spaces and six venues. Celebrating its 22nd year at the Festival, the Just The Tonic line-up features an impressive showing for Scottish comics, including industry darlings Craig Hill and Karen Dunbar, Connor Burns, and emerging talent such as Daniel Petrie and The Edinburgh Society Of Unapologetically Imperfect Mothers.
Comedy fans of a more nostalgic bent will no doubt flock to An Afternoon With The Cast Of Phoenix Nights which, while almost certainly not featuring a guest appearance from Peter Kay, promises a wander down memory lane from many of its stars.
Extant showcases accessibility at the Edinburgh Fringe….
… with performances from the UK’s leading professional performing arts company of blind and visually impaired artists. Extant itself has helped increase the proportion of visually impaired-accessible shows from less than 1% in 2024 to around 2% in 2025, projections suggest that 10–12% of the 2026 Fringe programme could now be accessible to visually impaired audiences.
Dr Maria Oshodi, the artistic director of Extant, said: ‘Extant has always been a force driving industry change towards higher standards and access for visually impaired people. We’re delighted to continue disrupting the status quo at Edinburgh Fringe in 2026, by increasing the number of accessible shows tenfold over the past two years, providing bespoke training and access options, and not least in platforming the very best of visually impaired talent at our showcase event.’
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Edinburgh International Film Festival 2026 to present world premiere of NFTS Sean Connery Talent Lab Short Films…
… championing emerging talent in Scottish filmmaking who’ve finished a collaborative filmmaking journey since 2025. The short films are Bubbles (writer/director: Jagoda Tlok); Shutterbug (writer/director: Fin Bain); My Little Blue Heart (writer/director: Iqbal Mohammed); PANG (writer/director: Lara Delmage); St Anthony (writer/director: Declan Dineen); Angel in the House (writer/director: Missy McNaught).
Chris Young, head of the Sean Connery Talent Lab, commented: ‘It’s incredibly exciting to see a second slate of films from the Sean Connery Talent Lab premiere once again at EIFF. The success of our debut films demonstrated not only the value of this programme but the strength and originality of emerging filmmaking talent in Scotland. These latest films continue that momentum, showcasing distinctive and ambitious storytelling.’
The news is a welcome amuse-bouche before EIFF drops its full programme next month.
Four stars or more
One-liner extraordinaire Eric Rushton is returning to the Fringe with Could Well Be In, described as an hour of comedy about ‘dating, depression and darts’. We were big fans of his hour last year, Innkeeper, awarding it four stars. ‘That there’s a buoyancy in the air throughout is testament to Rushton’s deft balance between serious storytelling and shrewd one-liners, combining seemingly disparate material to create a portrait of himself that’s deeply flawed while completely likeable,’ we wrote. ‘His sonorous flow of merciless self-deprecation remains an anchor that negotiates male mental health without descending into cliché, but the one-liners are the star here. Plenty of them will stick in the memory.’ Read the full review.
Catch Eric Rushton: Could Well Be In at Monkey Barrel from Wednesday 5–Sunday 30 August.
Main picture: Aly Wight.