Edinburgh

Echoes of Tom Brown’s School Days: Rabbits, by Hugo Rifkind, reviewed

6 July 2024 9:00 am

When 16-year-old Tommo moves to an elite, brutish boarding school, he longs to fit in and even manages to join the inner circle. But can he ever really become ‘one of them’?

The pleasure of reliving foreign travel through food

22 June 2024 9:00 am

Russian hand pies, Polish chlodnik, Turkish fruit compote and a Latvian trifle are among the many dishes recreated in Edinburgh by the globetrotting Caroline Eden

Dazzling – if you ignore the music: Beyoncé, at Murrayfield Stadium, reviewed

27 May 2023 9:00 am

Scheduling open-air concerts in mid-May in northern Europe is a triumph of hope over experience. I last spent time with…

The death of the Edinburgh Fringe

14 August 2021 9:00 am

Lloyd Evans finds the newly returned Edinburgh Fringe quieter, more low-key — and all the better for it

Why are so many operas by women adaptations of films by men?

31 August 2019 9:00 am

Opera’s line of corpses — bloodied, battered, dumped in a bag — is a long one. Now it can add…

‘Paean’ (1973) by Bridget Riley

Where are the art fans in Edinburgh? Getting their eyes frazzled by Bridget Riley

17 August 2019 9:00 am

The old observatory on Edinburgh’s Calton Hill may be the most favourably positioned art venue in the world. Recently resurrected…

A mesmerising retrospective: Victoria Crowe at City Art Centre, Edinburgh, reviewed

25 May 2019 9:00 am

This mesmerising retrospective takes up three floors of the City Art Centre, moving in distinct stages from the reedy flanks…

Face value: ‘An Old Woman Reading’, 1655, by Rembrandt, on show in Rembrandt: Britain’s Discovery of the Master at the National Galleries of Scotland

Three of the best faces, and six of the best hands, ever painted: the pick of the Edinburgh Art Festival

18 August 2018 9:00 am

The Rembrandt show at the National Galleries of Scotland (until 14 October) has a problem. A mighty haul of Rembrandt…

Landscape (North Friesland), 1920

Nolde was giddily optimistic about the Nazis – they rewarded him by confiscating his works

28 July 2018 9:00 am

The complexities of Schleswig-Holstein run deep. Here’s Emil Nolde, an artist born south of the German-Danish border and steeped in…

Prue Leith: Everyone’s waiting for me to make another Bake Off gaffe

16 December 2017 9:00 am

Edinburgh is a peach of a city, is it not? Last week, I walked up to the castle on a…

Notebook

7 October 2017 9:00 am

To Skibo Castle for a four-day wedding, a dream of super-luxury and great good fun. I was struck by how…

London calling

12 August 2017 9:00 am

What is the Edinburgh Fringe? It’s a sabbatical, a pit stop, a pause-and-check-the-map opportunity for actors who don’t quite know…

Andrew Shore, Alex Otterburn, Allison Cook and Susan Bullock (left to right) in Edinburgh Festival’s Greek

Classy and classic

12 August 2017 9:00 am

The Edinburgh International Festival began with a double helping of incest. Curiously, Greek — Mark-Anthony Turnage’s East End retelling of…

Miranda Richardson in Robert Wilson’s 1996 production of Orlando for the EIF

Show up and show off

29 July 2017 9:00 am

The Edinburgh Festival was founded as a response to war. The inaugural event, held in 1947, was the brainchild of…

Ruth Davidson's diary: Why I hid behind a pillar on election day

14 May 2016 9:00 am

On Thursday morning I’m woken by day three of a tension headache firing tentacles up the back of my neck…

From Jekyll back to Hyde: the changing face of Begbie

23 April 2016 9:00 am

Irvine Welsh’s 1993 debut novel Train-spotting flicked a hearty V-sign in the face of alarm-clock Britain. ‘Ah choose no tae…

‘Silent Treatment’ by Andrew Cranston

Part bijou Kiefer, part woozy Vuillard: the paintings of Andrew Cranston

20 February 2016 9:00 am

The ten vignettes that punctuate the white walls of the Ingleby Gallery invite us to step into the many-chambered mind…

Palpable painting: ‘Scandia’, 1971, Bernat Klein

Sensory overload: Paul Neagu, Anthony Caro and Bernat Klein reviewed

5 September 2015 9:00 am

‘The eye is fatigued, perverted, shallow, its culture is degenerate, degraded and obsolete.’ Welcome to the Palpable Art Manifesto of…

Where comics find their Edinburgh comfort food

5 September 2015 9:00 am

Mum’s, or to use its full title, Mum’s Great Comfort Food, is a restaurant in Edinburgh designed to soothe itinerant…

Bob Monkhouse, John Lennon and prostitution: Lloyd Evans’s Edinburgh Fringe picks

22 August 2015 9:00 am

In the clammy shadows of Cowgate I was leafleted by a chubby beauty wearing all-leather fetish gear. ‘Hi! Want to…

Should we fear a Mugabe-style land grab in rural Scotland?

23 May 2015 9:00 am

Are estate owners to be nationalised?

James Runcie’s diary: A Willie’s shock at the SNP

9 May 2015 9:00 am

I am writing a play about Dr Johnson and his Dictionary. It will be performed in Scotland later this year.…

Taxi ride to the dark side: a thrilling blast of full-strength Irvine Welsh

11 April 2015 9:00 am

Irvine Welsh, I think it’s safe to say, is not a writer who’s mellowing with age. His latest book sees…

Rhubarb has the loveliest, craziest dining room I have ever seen

23 August 2014 9:00 am

The Edinburgh Fringe Festival: the city is full of glassy-eyed narcissists eating haggis pizza off flyers that say Michael Gove:…

I salute the wisdom of young Scots on independence (they’re voting No, by the way)

7 June 2014 9:00 am

It’s a constant theme of this column that today’s young need to stop whingeing about their prospects and get on…