Theatre style hall and concert venue in church.

Jonathan, winner of the Buxton Fringe Solo Instrumentalist Award 2024, is back with a new show at St Columba's by the Castle with its superb acoustics. The Programme this year includes preludes by Bach and Gerschwin, a gorgeous study by Sor and Turlough O' Carolan’s Italian-influenced Irish music. Vincent Lindsey Clark’s rousing Pulsar ends this thrilling programme. ‘Absolutely recommended’ (Herald). ‘…exquisite, intricate music’ (ThreeWeeks).

Classical Guitar – Jonathan Prag

Brave. Braveheart. Brigadoon. Cinema has f*cked with Scotland. Scotland's a go-to for myth, legend, horror and weird sh*t from 1934's The Secrets of the Loch onwards, and The Wicker Man has a lot to answer for, including a terrible follow-up. Our history has been distorted and infantilised. Mark Furse, who spent three years researching his book Scottish Films, takes you on an odyssey to reclaim the clichés and reimagine our nation beyond ridiculous stereotyping and reduction of our country to a generic land of remote weirdness.

ScotlandsFest: Scotland on Screen – History, Myth and Weird Sh*t

Scots played a major role in the anti-fascist struggle in Spain from 1936-39. Our Fathers Fought Franco, follows four members of the International Brigades, all communists, who risked their lives fighting for democracy far from home. Communism is no longer the force it was when our fathers fought Franco. Anarchism and socialism likewise lack the footing they then had. Now that fascism is on the rise again, what lessons can be learned from the political commitment of those Scots who were in the vanguard of anti-fascism in the 1930s.

ScotlandsFest: Our Fathers Fought Franco 

Is Irvine Welsh’s Trainspotting a fair, honest portrait of the time and place, serious literature, or scurrilous punk, junk, transgressional entertainment that got lucky?  Did the stage play and then the film normalise and glorify heroin? The answers are YES and NO. Tim Bell lived in Leith in the thick of the 1980s heroin scene. It collided with the new, dreaded HIV/AIDS. Bell’s authoritative analysis of the Trainspotting Phenomenon brings out key local and universal insights, adding depth and colour to the 1990s shooting star, still relevant today.

ScotlandsFest: Choose Life, Choose Leith – Trainspotting on Location

Another day, another crisis. Our message is: do not despair. There are realistic, left alternatives to being stuck in a political ‘doom loop’. In 1975 The Red Paper on Scotland was a seminal publication; helping create, not just catch, the mood of the day. Fifty years later a new group of writers have come together to write about what we can learn from the past and how we can shape the future. Pauline Bryan, Denise Christie, Coll McCail and James Mitchell invite you to join a discussion on Keeping Left.


ScotlandsFest: Keep Left – Red Paper on Scotland 2025 

Over centuries Scotland's writers and storytellers have sparked a light rather than be overwhelmed by the darkness. Using his unique blend of storyteller, writer and performance poet, Donald Smith digs into Edinburgh's creative riches to share sources of resilience and solidarity in the face of cruelty and indifference. Give yourself up to an hour of spoken word magic in the Fringe maelstrom. 

ScotlandsFest: Whose Literature is it Anyway?

From selkies to sprites, Scottish folklore inspires fiction. Author Janis Mackay delves into this mythical landscape, inviting you to fall in love with the legends of Scotland's northern shoreline in her debut adult novel, On A Northern Shore. Author of award-winning children's books, including The Selkie Girl, The Accidental Time Traveller, and Wild Song, Janis will share her writing journey and the inspiration she draws from Caithness, myth and love.


ScotlandsFest: Ghosts of the North – A Gothic Love Story

What do a country’s buildings say about a nation? Dour, exuberant, unruly, impenetrable, you decide. Eclectic, subversive telling of Scotland’s story through its architecture. Hear about the house with a flat-pack sideboard 5000 years before IKEA's. Or the building designed to be ‘tarnished’ when brand-new. These stories about buildings in Scotland are personal, practical, political and philosophical. They're critical, occasionally humorous, sometimes sad and often surprising. Showing the big and small pictures of what it means to live in the biggest small country in the world.

ScotlandsFest: An Architectural Omnishambles or a Mad God’s Dream? Making Sense of Scotland’s Architecture

It’s time to hear the truth. Kate Phillips, author of Bought and Sold: Scotland, Jamaica and Slavery, presents the evidence. Scottish banks and insurance companies, slave ships on the Clyde, the many Scots trading from Liverpool, all those who funded the propaganda and prejudice, the pro-slavery organisations and British parliamentary support in favour of slavery. The violent, white, Scottish vigilante groups such as the Trelawney Colonial Union in Jamaica, who fought to the utmost of their ability to keep the inhumane system.



ScotlandsFest: The Scots Fought Slavery, Didn’t They? CANCELLED

Archie Macpherson has been writing and broadcasting on the beautiful game for 60 years. From triumphalism to downright despondency, he has seen and felt it all. From the 16mm film pictures of the 60s to the ever-advancing digital age and a financial landscape disfiguring that environment he became accustomed to, Scottish football faces unprecedented challenges. Has our appreciation of the game been cheapened by increased access via technology? How do we forge a path ahead for Scottish football. The familiar raconteur bares all.

ScotlandsFest: A Scottish Football Odyssey

Best-selling author Clifford Thurlow relives the passion of his new novel We Shall Pass – love, loss and sacrifice among the volunteers who crossed the seas to fight fascism with the International Brigade in the Spanish Civil War. Thurlow’s grandfather manned the barricades when Mosley’s Blackshirts stormed East London’s Cable Street in 1936. His grandfather’s gift of Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia led him to explore the battle sites in Spain where the British Battalion gave their blood defending freedom and to write what Peter York has described as ‘something very powerful'.

ScotlandsFest: Defending Freedom – The Spanish Civil War CANCELLED

Hugh McMillan returns with the only Scottish History that counts. John Knox falls in love with Mary Queen of Scots, England loses the World Cup, Jacques Brel joins the Corries and so many other should-have-beens! In Whit If, a performance based on his Scots poetry book, McMillan shines a humorous and exacting light on the largely ignored stories of Scottish history then gets bored and invents better endings for it all. Laughs and poetry sighs guaranteed.


ScotlandsFest: Scottish History Reimagined

Screaming train rides, red-hot buses, Tartan Army, boxing ring, Botox, love. Nothing is off-limits as one woman criss-crosses borders with a showcase of the poems from her brand-new collection, Love Goes North. In this love letter to Scotland, and to herself, Julie McNeill explores the sheer joy of taking the long way, stopping at each and every watering hole and graveyard to piece together her past along the way. Tears, humour and the whole ugly miracle of human experience squeezed into a lively hour of poetic mastery.

ScotlandsFest: Poets Don't Drive!

We have our own problems, why should Scotland care about Irish unity? With a former Unionist advocating for a United Ireland, anything is possible. Join Ben Collins, a Belfast writer with a Unionist background, as he delves into the potential benefits of unity. This engaging discussion will address key questions about the future of Ireland, examining political, social and economic implications. Whether you’re supportive of unity or simply curious, this event promises valuable insights into a topic that affects us all!

ScotlandsFest: One Island, One Future – Towards a United Ireland

Were Scottish witches handmaidens of the devil or was the imagined demonic presence merely the fevered obsession of the Kirk? Fed by stories of female sexual excess, did Kirk ministers see what was there or what they wanted to be there? Were wanton women running amok or was the Scottish Kirk running scared? Come and explore the reality behind the rhetoric. 


ScotlandsFest: Wanton Women Running Amok

Do you know your unicorns from your Union of the Crowns? Or your William Wallace from your James Watt? Even if you don’t, join Barbara Henderson, author of newly published To War with Wallace, for a fun and interactive family event suitable for family teams of up to five, which will also feature readings from Barbara’s historical novels for children. Which clan will take away the prize? Is that the sound of a gauntlet landing on the ground?

ScotlandsFest: Family Quiz – Scotland's Story

Scotland's other national tongue has been misunderstood and (officially) mistreated for centuries. Though weakened by long neglect, Scots stubbornly endures as a rich part of Scotland's everyday speech and culture. Now belatedly on the verge of official recognition, can Scots be rehabilitated as a "proper" minority language like Gaelic? Dr Clive Young, author of Unlocking Scots: The Secret Life of the Scots Language, believes so and leads you on a quest to unveil the hidden history, surprising linguistic verve and feasible future of the language they just couldn't silence.

ScotlandsFest: Reviving Scots – The Language They Couldn't Silence

Let battle commence! Raise the standard as this brand-new story marches into the world. To War with Wallace features a familiar hero, seen from a brand-new perspective: an English boy caught up in the Scottish resistance of 1297. From Chester to the Highlands and eventually the Battle of Stirling Bridge, enter the world of medieval Scotland with author and drama teacher Barbara Henderson and her trademark mix of drama, games, history and adventure.

ScotlandsFest: To War With Wallace – Family Book Event

Join Scottish supermodel Eunice Olumide MBE as she discusses what you wear says about you – the dos and don'ts, sustainability, greenwashing, brands gone rogue and backstage realities of fashion. Discover how fashion has changed people's lives throughout the ages and how it can be used as an agent to subvert the norm. 'She proves that you can engage and develop various elements of her career and protect the rights of others… one of the most famous activists in the modelling world' (Vogue).

ScotlandsFest: Why Do You Wear What You Wear?

Trends. You've heard of them, probably bought into some and certainly scoffed at several. But, there's a dirty little secret this stylist wants to share: Scotland is the home of trendsetting around the globe. From 'gallus' and 'peely-wally', to 'tartan-punk' and Ralph Lauren's 'preppy chic', whoever you are, however you dress, you will always have a piece of Scotland with you – even if it's only in the lining of your wellies! Lynne Coleman cuts through the couture clutter to reveal Scotland's biggest style secrets.



ScotlandsFest: The Devil Wears Tartan

Can fans fix football? Yes, they can! You too can be part of a community enterprise with your local FC at its heart. From the terraces to the boardroom, Paul Goodwin, co-founder of the Scottish Football Supporters' Association talks the good, the bad and the ugly of fan-ownership, from the success of the Foundation of Hearts to the trials of Partick Thistle's ownership journey and beyond. Together, we can forge a new, sustainable future for Scottish football.

ScotlandsFest: Who Owns Scottish Football?

Join poet Alan Riach, Professor of Scottish Literature at Glasgow University, in conversation with two of Scotland's finest contemporary artists, Alexander Moffat, RSA, and Ruth Nicol, RSW, as they discuss their latest exhibition, Landmarks: Border Voices, and address the urgent priority of the arts in a world so given to self-destruction. Value resides in the less familiar, the challenging and joyful. Politicians can't help much. Only in the arts, in poetry, paintings, music, can you find something to rely on, and say, 'Yes! That's what it's really like!'

ScotlandsFest: Why the Arts Matter

For decades the artist Ken Currie has produced some of the most ominous images in the contemporary canon. His vision scopes the apocalyptic nature of our unstable world and the dire prospect of personal mortality. His renowned painting Three Oncologists remains a motif seared into the consciousness of the Scottish nation. An illustrated conversation with the art historian Tom Normand, will explore the dark themes of his vision and his motivations in producing an art of such uncompromising despair.

St Columba's by the Castle Scottish Episcopal Church

About this venue

Spaces at this venue

Contact details