Are you ready to be entertained?

This August is Edinburgh’s biggest ever month of culture and entertainment with no fewer than FIVE festivals taking place in the city. With so much to see and do, it can be hard to know where to start so we’ve put together a crib sheet of the must-see shows and screenings

THE EDINBURGH INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL

07 – 29 AUGUST, eif.co.uk

SEE IT LIVE This year’s EIF has attracted some big names in contemporary music, undoubtedly eager to get back to what they do best. Topping our list of many must-sees is Blur and Gorillaz frontman Damon Albarn in a rare solo appearance at the purposebuilt outdoor venue in Edinburgh Park on 24 August. Tickets sold out pretty fast first time round so Albarn agreed to put on an early show, giving audiences a second chance to bag a ticket. Head online to see if you made it in time.

Other highlights include soulful singer Laura Mvula, jazz producer-drummer Moses Boyd, indie folk sister trio The Staves, Californian art-pop duo Tune-Yards, Malian singersongwriter Fatoumata Diawara and West Lothian indie heroes The Snuts, whose debut album became the first by a Scottish band to top the Official Album chart in 14 years.

There’s also a welcome return for Tony and Olivier-award winner Alan Cumming who presents an evening of story and song outdoors at the University of Edinburgh’s Old College Quad on 28 and 29 August.

TUNE IN ONLINE For the first time in its 74-year history, the EIF is offering 18 full-length performances available to watch for free online. Among them, Nicola Benedetti performs in Stravinsky’s The Soldier’s Tale (from 26 August); acclaimed Edinburgh pianist Malcolm Martineau celebrates the 250th anniversary of Sir Walter Scott’s birth (from 15 August); while writer and director Hannah Lavery leads an artistic response to the 2015 death in Scottish police custody of Sheku Bayoh in the National Theatre of Scotland’s Lament for Sheku Bayoh (from 25 August).

Finally, Dancing in the Streets (20 August) is the premiere of four specially commissioned dance works created for film by criticallyacclaimed choreographers Alice Ripoll from Rio de Janeiro, Omar Rajeh from Beirut, Gregory Maqoma from Soweto and Janice Parker from Edinburgh.

Tune Yards

EDINBURGH INTERNATIONAL FILM

FESTIVAL 18-25 AUGUST, edfilmfest.org.uk

SEE IT LIVE Also in its 74th year, the EIFF kicks off with the European Premiere of Pig, starring Nicolas Cage, on 18 August at Festival Theatre. The Oscar winner has already been praised for his performance in this unique tale of a loner truffle hunter who must return to his past in Portland in search of his beloved pig after she is kidnapped. At the closing end of the festival comes another big-hitter, the European Premiere of Billy Crystal’s comedy drama Here Today co-starring Tiffany Haddish.

But we’re most excited about the special preview screening of the eagerly-awaited film adaptation of hit musical Everybody’s Talking About Jamie. Taking place at the Festival Theatre on 20 August, the screening will be preceded by a celebratory outdoor event in St Andrew Square where ticketholders are asked to dress to impress with prizes for the best outfits, plus drag queen entertainment and cocktails.

The ever-popular outdoor cinema in St Andrews Square Gardens also returns from 19 – 25 August for Film Fest In The City with a free programme of cinematic favourites including Grease, The Goonies, Amélie and the original Star Wars trilogy among many others.

TUNE IN ONLINE The festival programme will also be available through its online platform Filmhouse at Home with titles available to watch alongside exclusive Q&As with directors, filmmakers and actors.

‘Pig’ starring Nicolas Cage Everybody’s Talking About Jamie

EDINBURGH ART FESTIVAL UNTIL 29

AUGUST, edinburghartfestival.com

SEE IT LIVE British artist Isaac Julien’s Lessons of the Hour is a major new ten-screen film installation offering a poetic meditation on the life and times of Frederick Douglass, the African American writer, abolitionist and a freed slave, who spent two years in Edinburgh in the 1840s. Made in partnership with the National Galleries of Scotland, Lessons of the Hour will be at Modern One until 10 October to coincide with Black History Month.

Another film project worth seeing is RESET by Turner-prize co-winning artist Alberta Whittle at Jupiter Artland. Filmed across Scotland, South Africa and Barbados, RESET responds to the immediate context of the Black Lives Matter movement, the global pandemic and the climate emergency. Also reflecting on the climate is Christine Borland: In Relation to Linum at Royal Botanic Gardens until 03 October.

TUNE IN ONLINE A programme of events and digital presentations opens with Isaac Julien in conversation with Celeste Marie Bernier (from 30 July), an interview recorded in Edinburgh’s Assembly Rooms where Julien’s subject Frederick Douglas himself spoke.

Christine Borland at Botanics

Lessons Of The Hour

RESET courtesy of Alberta Whittle Ian Rankin Oti Mabuse

EDINBURGH INTERNATIONAL BOOK

FESTIVAL 14-30 AUGUST, edbookfest.co.uk

SEE IT LIVE The literary fest has moved from its usual home in Charlotte Square Gardens to Edinburgh College of Art where there will be an outdoor festival village with a children’s play area and a big screen showing events from across the Baillie Gifford Children’s Programme, including a virtual interactive dance-along with Strictly superstar dancer Oti Mabuse.

Authors bringing brand new releases to Edinburgh include Joan Bakewell who explores the implications of downsizing, Matt Haig with The Comfort Book and TV producer Jed Mercurio who has collaborated with actor Prasanna Puwanarajah to create Sleeper, the first in a hotly-anticipated new graphic novel series.

Home-grown talent comes from Ian Rankin who launches The Dark Remains, his completion of William McIlvanney’s final manuscript, Queen of Crime Val McDermid who launches 1979, the first book in a series and her first in almost two decades, Alexander McCall Smith with several books written during the pandemic, and Sara Sheridan who launches her novel, Fair Botanists set in Edinburgh’s Botanic Gardens.

TUNE IN ONLINE Online audiences can mingle before and during events in a live chatroom, and most events offer a Q&A session with the authors. There are also live book signings for authors who are joining digitally where audience members are able to chat face-to-face and get their book signed after the event.

International voices appearing live from their homes include Pulitzer prize-winning authors Viet Than Nguyen and Marilynne Robinson, novelists Torrey Peters, Jeff VanderMeer, and Alicia Garza, co-founder of the Black Lives Matter movement.

THE EDINBURGH FESTIVAL FRINGE

UNTIL 30 AUGUST, edfringe.com

SEE IT LIVE With so much on, it would be impossible to list all the Fringe highlights but here’s a few we’re excited about.

MUSIC Promising the ultimate 80 party, The Magnets – 80s Rewind is at Underbelly in George Square. The five-piece a capella and beatbox group has supported the likes of Tom Jones and even performed at Glastonbury so they’re a pretty big deal. Certainly not as big a deal as Chrissie Hynde though, the Pretenders singer will be performing four stripped-back shows at Queen’s Hall, featuring a selection of Bob Dylan covers. The Carole King and James Taylor Story is a nostalgic look at the careers of two legends on all month at theSpace @Symposium Hall, and Sunshine on Leith, the sell-out musical featuring the songs of the Proclaimers, returns with a run at MultiStory.

COMEDY Fringe standup stalwarts Craig Hill, Daniel Sloss, Jason Byrne and Mark Nelson all have headline shows at the Corn Exchange. Jo Caulfield is at The Stand for Four Nights Only. And if you’d like to get involved in the comedy yourself, Trevor Lock’s participatory show Community Circle is at Summerhall Secret Courtyard. CABARET The Lady Boys of Bangkok are back with their Flight of Fantasy tour at the Theatre Big Top in Fountainbridge. Making her headline Edinburgh Fringe debut, Alice Rabbit pulls together a line-up of Scottish local legends and Edinburgh icons of drag for a jam-packed hour at MultiStory. And at Assembly George Square Gardens, Best of Burlesque returns featuring striptease, cabaret and variety.

THEATRE Part of the Made in Scotland programme, Mamoru Iriguchi’s Sex Education Xplorers (S.E.X.), takes a time-travel ride through the evolution of sexes at Summerhall Secret Courtyard. At the Pleasance, there’s the powerful autobiographical play Patricia Gets Ready (for a date with the man that used to hit her).

Chrissie Hynde

Daniel Sloss Patricia Gets Ready

Harry Hill

Push, Popelei, courtesy of The Other Richard

TUNE IN ONLINE Never ones to do things by halves, the Fringe have several online streaming platforms. Available via Summerhall Online, Eva O’Connor is presenting Mustard - a darkly comic play about heartbreak, madness, and how condiments are the ultimate coping mechanism. PrimeCut returns with 2018’s My Left Nut - the true story of a Belfast boy growing up with no father to guide him through, and a giant ball. On FringePlayer, there’s Zip Zap Circus School Trust’s Moya, an acrobatic art film exploring themes of brotherhood, fraternity and race; a two-woman retelling of F Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby; and for family fun, there’s Wallace & Gromit: In Concert. We’ll also be tuning into Pleasance online for two fabulous femalefronted shows, GOBBY: a one-woman odyssey about what it really means to be loud and PUSH which tells the story of a woman staring down the barrel of motherhood. AND FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT… SHEDINBURGH FRINGE FESTIVAL

UNTIL 30 AUGUST, shedinburgh.com

Shedinburgh Fringe Festival is an online festival featuring the best of the Fringe stalwarts of theatre, music and comedy, all livestreamed from two sheds at the Traverse Theatre in Edinburgh and Soho Theatre in London. This year’s line-up includes returning Fringe legends Harry Hill and Mark Thomas, and Joe Thomas of Inbetweeners fame in his debut stand up show. Audience members also get to put their questions directly to creator The Guilty Feminist’s creator, Deborah Frances-White in a special episode of the podcast. And don’t miss Katy Arnstein’s sharp and provocative play Sexy Lamp, about sexism in the entertainment industry.

Tickets start at just £6 with a minimum of 25% going into the SHED LOAD OF FUTURE FUND to help support the next generation of artists get to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

Sexy Lamp

GOBBY