Edinburgh International Festival 2025 programme launch
Scotsman Arts Specialist Jane Bradley chats with Festival Director Nicola Benedetti
Scotsman Arts Specialist Jane Bradley chats with Festival Director Nicola Benedetti
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00Hi, I'm Jane Bradley, Arts Correspondent at The Scotsman, and I am here today with Nicola Benedetti, Festival Director of the Edinburgh International Festival.
00:09Hi!
00:10Hi there, hi!
00:11Hi everyone!
00:12Thank you so much for taking the time today.
00:14You're so welcome.
00:15It's the launch of the International Festival programme today, so what can you tell us about what we're going to be seeing this year?
00:20So this year is a particularly exciting festival of a lot of unconventional performances.
00:26We have, of course, our theme, The Truth We Seek, which permeates all of our artistic decisions.
00:32But as we get closer to August, we'll also show up in ways that you can interact with your fellow art lovers and audience members.
00:42We're opening our festival, as always, with a bang, but with a lot of contrast.
00:47So in the Usher Hall, we have John Taffaner's The Veil of the Temple, which you heard me speak about.
00:53It's eight hours long, it'll be 250 singers, a real testament to the questioning of where truth lies.
01:02When you look at religions and perspectives from all over the world, there's actually a universal and underlying truth there, which is so much our world.
01:11It's our world that we need to inhabit and sort of elevate that thinking as much as possible.
01:17We, of course, have the premiere play by James Graham, Make It Happen, featuring Brian Cox as the Adam Smith character.
01:26And in the Lyceum opening, that will be Dan Dawes' debut with his show called The Dan Dawes Show,
01:34which is a very intimate and exposing journey through his stance and his life as a disabled dance artist.
01:46We have examples like occupying the Old College Quad.
01:52We've done a couple of performances there before in the past during the festival that was post lockdown.
02:02But returning to that space is a show called Dance People.
02:07And this will very much sort of blur the boundaries between what is the artistic process, what is audience and where does art and audience meet?
02:20So, yeah, we have so many, so many shows that are incredibly exciting.
02:25Really diverse programme. Yes.
02:27And going back to the first event you mentioned, the Usher Hall event,
02:31that is the first time that this has been performed in its eight hour entirety in Scotland, is it?
02:36I think you mentioned.
02:37It is. Yes. Yes. And the first time since its premiere 20 years ago, over 20 years ago.
02:41And is this the first time you've had such a long, physically long performance?
02:47It's a really, really interesting question as to whether there's ever been something quite so monumental in length.
02:54It will be something, I think, really quite poetic for people to engage in.
03:01There are eight cycles through the piece and opportunities for audiences to be able to leave and come back in and sort of take a breather.
03:09But I think it's a really important point around the patience and staying power that sort of counters and we battle with in a today world,
03:22of everything just happening so fast and everything being so accessible so fast.
03:26So, yeah, it'll be fascinating to see how the audience kind of settles into that space.
03:33We will be also reconfiguring the Usher Hall with beanbags again,
03:38which we've done for the last couple of years and has proven to be incredibly successful.
03:43The sort of unconventional part of this year's festival is also not,
03:47it's not just the choice of artistic presentations, but how we are presenting them.
03:53So that continues, obviously, in the Usher Hall.
03:55Yeah, absolutely. Very exciting.
03:57And I know you mentioned at the festival launch that obviously the Creative Scotland funding that has come through this year,
04:04how significant is that for the future of the festival and what impact has the uncertainty earlier in the year had on this year's programme?
04:12Well, we do have a more compact festival this year due to that uncertainty.
04:17So the impact can be seen immediately.
04:20But the settlement is we're incredibly grateful for it and it's been well received for us,
04:29but of course, across the whole cultural landscape in Scotland, it has given us a firm foundation upon which to build.
04:39We have big ambitions and we're going to have to continue with our extensive fundraising efforts
04:45to really achieve the height of what we have planned.
04:49Fantastic. Well, thank you very much. Exciting August.
04:51Thank you so much. Lovely to see you.