Summer’s here! We’re running an exciting programme of fun activities and creative events for local children, young people, and their families throughout July and August. Come and join the fun!
Highlights include:
Film Festival Workshop with Folk Film Gathering (Ages 8+): Learn about film festival programming on Thursday 11 July, 5:30pm-7pm at West Pilton Neighbourhood Centre.
NEA x Edinburgh Science Mini Summer Festival (All ages): Enjoy fun science activities on Tuesday 18 July, 11am-3pm at West Pilton Neighbourhood Centre.
The Show for Young Men (Ages 8+): A special preview performance on Wednesday 31 July, 11am at PASS Theatre, Edinburgh College Granton Campus.
Fringe at… North Edinburgh Arts! (All ages): Family-friendly performances and workshops on Saturday 10 August, 10:30am-12:30pm at West Pilton Neighbourhood Centre.
Travelling Gallery – Where We Stand (All ages): An exhibition on community ownership on Thursday 15 August, 10am-4pm at West Pilton Neighbourhood Centre.
Play Rangers (Ages 5+): Creative outdoor play every Friday afternoon in local parks.
Family Badminton (Ages 7+): Weekly sessions on Mondays, 4:30pm-7:30pm at West Pilton Neighbourhood Centre.
Cycling Group (Ages 8+): Family-friendly cycling every Wednesday, 10am-11:30am, meeting at 67 Pennywell Road.
Join us for a summer full of creativity, outdoor fun, and community spirit!
Over the summer holidays, as the Palace of Holyroodhouse opens for seven days a week, visitors can discover over 900 years of Scottish royal history. Families can join tours of the Physic Garden for the first time, get their hands on history, and try out arts and crafts activities inspired by Georgian fashion.
Physic Garden Family Tours
Friday, 19 July and Friday, 2 August, 10:00, 11:00 and 12:00.
For the first time, families will be able to join free short tours of the beautiful Physic Garden at the height of summer. On these guided, drop-in tours, which are open to visitors to the Palace and the wider public, families can discover more about the history of the Garden and listen to stories of its past plants and the people who used it.
The Physic Garden, just outside the gates of the Palace, was opened in 2020 to recreate the earliest known gardens on the site and can be freely enjoyed year-round by the people of Edinburgh. Founded in the grounds of the Palace in 1670, the original garden provided pharmacists with vital, fresh ingredients and allowed students to learn the medicinal properties of plants. It was the first of its kind in Scotland and was the forerunner of the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh.
Magical Menagerie Activity Day
Saturday, 27 July, 10:00–15:00.
In July a special activity day will offer the chance for visitors to learn about the history of the Palace Gardens, where 500 years ago a medieval menagerie was home to a range of animals including lions, tigers and bears.
Children can craft paper masks of their favourite animal to wear as they explore the Palace and Gardens, keeping an eye out to spot the animals around the Palace on ceilings and walls, or in tapestries and portraits.
As well as exotic animals, the Gardens were home to a tennis court and used for bowls, hawking, archery, and other outdoor games. On the activity day, families can try some historic games in the garden as well as following the unicorn activity trail to spot all the places where Scotland’s national animal decorates the walls and artworks around the Palace and Gardens.
Weekly Family Activities
Hands on History, every Monday (Monday, 8 July – Monday, 26 August) and Midweek Makes, every Wednesday (Wednesday, 10 July – Wednesday, 28 August). Both 11:00–15:00.
Families visiting the Palace can take part in special activities every week. Every Monday, in Hands on History sessions, children will be able to get up close to a mix of historical and replica items including gauntlets, ink wells and quills and more. Children can learn about the many objects in the Royal Collection and discover the intriguing items that would have been used in the Palace hundreds of years ago.
Every Wednesday, visitors can join arts and crafts activities in the family room. In Midweek Makes, children can decorate their own crown while learning about the history of different crowns in the Royal Collection, including who wears them and what they are used for.
Recycled Fashion: Family Workshop
Saturday, 10 August, 13:30–15:00.
Families can also visit The King’s Gallery at the Palace of Holyroodhouse to see Style & Society: Dressing the Georgians. The exhibition explores life in Georgian Britain through the fashions of the day. Items on display include rare surviving items of clothing such as a court dress and items of Queen Charlotte’s impressive jewellery collection. In the exhibition, families can use the family gallery trail and explorer bags to discover what life was like in Georgian times.
In the Recycled Fashion workshop, families will join a short, guided tour of the exhibition led by a member of the Learning team. They can discover how the practice of reusing and recycling fabric in the Georgian period was commonplace even among the royal family. Taking inspiration from the examples of Georgian clothing on display, they will then create a cloak using recycled materials.
As part of the organisation’s charitable aim to ensure that as many people as possible can access and enjoy the Palaces and the Royal Collection, Royal Collection Trust has launched a scheme of £1 tickets, available to those receiving Universal Credit and other named benefits.
The £1 ticket offer is available for up to six people per household when visiting The King’s Gallery in 2024, making this an affordable way for families to visit the Gallery during the summer holidays.
We’re excited to share further details of plans for our community picnic event this Saturday.
We’re looking forward to learning about nature and conservation with the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), providing some fun activities for kids, offering a chance to refresh your wardrobe at the clothes swap, and hearing your views about the park and how we can make improvements.
All activities are free of charge, so just bring your family, friends, food and something to sit on.
Oh, and let’s not forget to keep hoping for a wee bit of sunshine!
This Carers Week (10th – 14th June) local charity LifeCare Edinburgh is highlighting the support offered to unpaid carers every week of the year
Are you an unpaid carer? Do you support another adult – friend or relative – due to their age, illness or disability? Then this could be for you!
LifeCare Edinburgh understands how important it is for unpaid carers to get a well-deserved break. The charity offers a range of respite services such as their registered day clubs, outreach care, help at home and meals on wheels services. The charity also offers a fantastic range of free drop-in activities designed for unpaid carers to relax, do something for them and meet others in a similar position.
Join LifeCare to try a new activity or get back to something you love. All unpaid carer activity sessions take place in the LifeCare Hub on Cheyne Street and run through the week at different days and times.
Why not pop along to Zumba on a Monday 6pm, Watercolours on a Tuesday at 11am, Painting and Sculpture for Beginners on a Thursday at 11am or Yoga on Sunday at 5pm? Everyone that joins a class receives a voucher for a free tea or coffee in the charity’s community café CafeLife based within the hub.
Thanks to these activities, carers report feeling supported, connected, valued, refreshed and overall they feel better equipped to continue in their caring role. One carer recently told us “I feel like myself again”
All activities are drop-in, no need to book, and are completely free thanks to funding from The Short Break Fund and LNER Community Fund. You’re welcome to bring along the person you care for.
HRH Prince Edward, the Duke of Edinburgh, witnesses first-hand how Dance Base helps dance flourish and changes lives
HRH Prince Edward, Duke of Edinburgh, paid a visit to Dance Base, Scotland’s National Centre for Dance, on Saturday. The Edinburgh-based charity has a mission to encourage and support the potential for dance in everyone.
Jim Hollington, Dance Base CEO, said: “We were delighted to welcome His Royal Highness to Dance Base.
“In 2001 his brother, His Majesty King Charles, officially opened our brand-new centre on Edinburgh’s Grassmarket. We were delighted to show HRH some of what we have achieved over nearly a quarter of a century, helping dance to flourish and change lives.”
During his visit, the Duke of Edinburgh received a tour of the purpose-built building, a centre for creating, nurturing, and celebrating dance in the heart of Edinburgh.
Completed in 2001, the building hosts four unique studios, over 60 classes a week, broad reaching support for dance artists, performances, international exchanges, community projects and more – all delivered by a knowledgeable and passionate team. HRH visited children taking part in an Aerial Skills class, hosted by All or Nothing, and dancers in a West African dance class.
Duke of Edinburgh also enjoyed a series of curated performances featuring dancers aged from their teens to their eighties, offering a snippet of the important work the organisation has been doing across their public, professional and Health & Wellbeing programmes. These included:
Dance for Parkinson’s film – When We Dance
When We Dance is a collaboration between Dance Base’s Dance for Parkinson’s and filmmaker Lucas Chih-Peng Kao. The collaboration comprises of people living with Parkinson’s, their families, friends, carers, our volunteers, and a team of professional artists. Running since 2013, Dance for Parkinson’s is a core part of Dance Base’s Health and Wellbeing work and established a strong president of supporting people living with neurological conditions through dance. Dance Base has supported satellite groups to be established all over Scotland and continues to support the network.
24 Carat Gold – Freak Out
24 Carat Gold is a company offering opportunities to underrepresented elderly dancers with current members ranging in age from their 60s to 90s. They will perform Freak Out, choreographed by Alan Grieg.
Lothian Youth Dance Company – Kids Today
Lothian Youth Dance Company are Dance Base’s in-house dance company for young dancers aged 14 to 21 years old. Inviting new members each year, LYDC provides opportunity for young people to find their creative voice through dance. They will perform a piece titled Kids Today, choreographed by Dance Base’s Artistic Director Tony Mills.
Jo Richards – Barbieland
Jo Richards has been a professional dancer and dance teacher for over 23 years. She teaches Commercial Improvers, Commercial Jazz Beginners and Street Dance classes at Dance Base and represented the organisation at the 2010 Commonwealth Games Ceremony in India. She will perform her piece Barbieland alongside students from her dance classes.
The Dance Base team was proud to showcase their achievements and broad reach which includes:
50,000+ attendances at public classes
10,000 attendances at our August festival performances
50+ artist residencies where dance artists based in Scotland come to create new work
330+ live performances in August and throughout the year
60+ weekly classes in 12+ dance styles
They also talked about the upcoming events at the organisation, including Skills ‘N’ Billz, a Breakin’ battle on Sunday 26 May featuring Breakers from across the UK and beyond, invited for the daylong battle; Dance with Pride event to celebrate Edinburgh Pride and this term’s specialist workshops in Reggaeton, Ballroom and Contemporary techniques.
On 6 June, Dance Base announces the 25+ shows from Scotland and all over the world which will be presented this August as part of Dance Base 2024 Festival in association with Assembly Festival.
The third North Edinburgh Community Festival will take place on Saturday 1th May 2024 in West Pilton Park. The park sits in the heart of North Edinburgh and draws its audience from Pilton, Muirhouse, Granton, Drylaw, Davidson Mains, Silverknowes and Wardie.
The event which has grown year on year is a fun, free to attend, family day out for new and existing residents to enjoy – promoting opportunities, creativity, enhancing community cohesion, reducing social isolation and celebrating the diversity of the area.
The Festival is going from strength to strength with over 100 local groups, organisations and charities taking part and providing workshops, information and activities – from glitter tattoos to video games, from dodgeball and football to obstacle courses and interactive theatre.
In the open area at the far end of the park we will have the Army, Marines and the Airforce in attendance showing as well as the Scottish Fire Services.
This year and moving forward, one of the key aims of the festival will be to work with young people in North Edinburgh and encouraging young people to take the reigns for future events and festivals.
One of the ways to engage with the young people is through music and over 600 young people from across North Edinburgh have taken part in the Tinderbox Garage Band Challenge, creating their own new music for the event. The winners will perform their original tracks on the main stage at the festival.
The music for the festival has been curated by local organisations Tinderbox Collective and Granton Youth’s Mixtape Music Club.
There will be more than 30 acts playing over the afternoon including over 160 performers, almost all of them from the local neighbourhood. On the outdoor stage, highlights include the incredible Fischy Music, Ama-zing Harmonies Choir, Heritage Of India Through Dance and Edinburgh Ukrainian choir.
On the indoor stage we have an exciting lineup of youth bands who are part of ‘North By North West’ a collaboration project between 5 youth music organisations across North Edinburgh the aim is to get the very best emerging talent out onto the Edinburgh music scene.
From the slick electronic pop of Muirhouse local (and BBC Introducing alumni) Laurent, Granton rapper Leon Highway, or the pop-rock stylings of Drenched in Dreams – we’ve got something to suit all tastes. Look out for amazing youth artists A420, Kieran Crosbie, Mezari, and Trisha Muco finishing out the festival in collaboration with players from Tinderbox Orchestra.
Head into the Sports Hall of West Pilton Neighbourhood Centre to find Tinderbox Games Showcase, an exhibition of playable games made by young game designers of all ages from North Edinburgh.
These will be featured alongside an exciting new escape room made in collaboration with young people from Granton Youth, which draws inspiration from trips to the Granton Hub archives and the area’s rich history, as well as a selection of games made by previous winners of the East Lothian Game Jam.
You’ll discover a mix of digital, physical and table-top games made by the next up-and-coming generation of game designers and creators from the neighbourhood.
Look out for Granton Youth’s stall advertising its youth work provision, which includes work with local schools, detached youth work, counselling for parents and young people, open access youth clubs, family support, and Mixtape – our music club.
This year we are extremely excited to have so many of the Edinburgh Festivals joining us on the day.
Edinburgh Fringe Festival Society will have street performers on the day and will be handing out free tickets to shows at this years Fringe Festival under their new Fringe Days Out Scheme which offers free Fringe vouchers and Lothian bus tickets to people who wouldn’t normally get to experience the Fringe.
The Edinburgh Science Festival are back with bigger and better street performance style science shows as well as their cargo tricycle for their science demonstrations.
And there will be storytelling activities for families from the Edinburgh International Book Festival Citizen Adults Writing Group plus loads of free books for children.
North Edinburgh Arts have a host of activities planned across their two large marquees this year. There will be drop-in arts activities for children and families, carpet bowls, and information on their newly refurbished and extended building opening later this year.
There will be family-friendly performances by commissioned artists, selected by local children from Forthview Primary School and Pilton Youth, as part of the Creative Encounters project, delivered in partnership with Imaginate, the Childrens Festival and North Edinburgh Arts.
And there will be storytelling activities for families from the Edinburgh International Book Festival Citizen Adults Writing Group plus loads of free books for children.
Of course, there cant be a festival without a parade and this year North Edinburgh Childcare have stepped up and organised the parade which will leave from their premises at 1130am and make its way along Ferry Road Drive around West Pilton Park and entering the park for the official start of the festival at 12noon.
The theme is Superheroes and any families looking to join in are most welcome. Pulse of Place will lead the parade and if you are around North Edinburgh on Saturday 11th May, you’ll most certainly hear the parade before you see it!
Other activities on the day include:
Important information from around 80 third sector organisations
Badge making with Pilton Community Health Project
National Galleries of Scotland’s Art in the Open electric cargo-bike for a sustainable art making workshop
Storytelling with Muirhouse and Granton Libraries
Human tower building with Colla Castellera d’Edinburgh
Horses from Edinburgh Equilearn
Each year the festival provides free food – the amazing RRT (Rapid Relief Team) hand out a few thousand burgers and will return again this year.
There will also be free food from Bangla Kitchen and Multi-Cultural Family Base.
This year we have yet again a larger food presence with some new vendors but as always there is cap on the cost of food at £5.
Lyndon Cane from RRT says “RRT is pleased to support North Edinburgh again by providing the signature burger meal at the North Edinburgh Community Festival.
“Care and Compassion is at the heart of what we do, and this event is important for us to attend so we can widen our support to communities during times of need.”
North Edinburgh Community Festival really does have the community at its very heart and we can’t wait to see everyone on the day.
On Sunday 5th May from 12 – 4pm at Granton harbour, the Royal Forth Yacht Club is hosting Discover Sailing: when yacht clubs such as the Royal Forth Yacht Club open up their clubhouse and harbour to the wider public for an experience of sailing.
RFYC members lend their boats, sailing expertise and time, and local organisations take a table to share their causes with the wider community too.
They are planning the usual variety of boats for people to try, organising the BBQ and hospitality.
They are grateful that the Community Action Team of the local Scottish Fire and Rescue Service will be joining them this year, alongside their usual friends such as St Andrews First Aid, MCSUK, BDMLR, and Scottish Coastal Clean Up.
If you have any questions at all about Discover Sailing, please contact:
One of the UK’s leading theatre companies for learning disabled actors, Lung Ha celebrates four decades of brilliant theatre-making
Lung Ha is an Edinburgh-based theatre company for actors and theatre makers with a learning disability and autism which produces award-winning productions and works with a year-round, 25-strong Ensemble to develop their practice and remove barriers to participation into the arts.
April marks the start of 12 months of the Company’s 40th anniversary celebrations which will see it take part in or present a remounting of the Company’s 2021 hit An Unexpected Hiccup at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, the world’s biggest stage.
Originally created and performed under strict COVID procedures during the global pandemic, the show is a tale of comic misunderstandings, sinister goings on and dangerous eccentricities.
This will also be the inaugural production of the Lung Ha Touring Company which will provide further opportunities for performers to create and tour new and existing work, with bespoke and specialist actor training.
An Unexpected Hiccup is a co-production with Plutôt La Vie featuring five Lung Ha actors, written by Michael Duke after a devising process with the Company. It will be presented between 2 and 10 August at Zoo Southside.
The Company is also commissioning initial research to develop an Access and Creative Principles Toolkit which will support the launch of Lung Ha Touring Company. The research aims to cover three main areas:
To understand the access support structures required for learning-disabled actors in a professional company.
To apply fair and equitable pay remuneration frameworks for ourselves and other theatre companies working with actors and artists in receipt of varied and complex benefit arrangements.
To create a practical toolkit for working with learning-disabled actors which has a wider culture sector benefit and application.
The first publication of findings is expected in spring 2025. The project is funded by RS Macdonald Charitable Trust.
Lung Ha Theatre Company has been invited as a guest contributor at the Europe In Action Conference, a partnership between Inclusion Europe and Enable in May 2024 in Glasgow during Learning Disability Awareness Week, hosted by Enable who are also marking an anniversary year (70th).
The Company will be hosting the closing session of the conference with the theme of deinstitutionalisation, including a presentation about the Company’s work and a focus on the award-winning production Castle Lennox from 2023.
Also in May, Lung Ha Theatre Company will host the World Premiere of its short film, Love Like Salt, at Traverse Theatre – a loose adaptation of Shakespeare’s King Lear, featuring the Lung Ha Ensemble and co-created by Maria Oller, Susan Worsfold and Stuart Platt. The evening will also feature a short snippet from an anniversary documentary about the Company made and edited by a Lung Ha actor, Emma McCaffrey.
Throughout the year Lung Ha will be spotlighting our Ensemble actors using commissionedportraits from photographer and long-time collaborator Peter Dibden. The photoshoot was a glamourous “Met gala meets night at the theatre” extravaganza.
The actors were given the opportunity to curate their own costumes and threw themselves into model poses and characterful performances which are beautifully captured in this series and in our commemorative 40th anniversary Ensemble group photograph.
Short history of Lung Ha
Lung Ha Theatre Company began its life as Lung Ha’s Theatre Company in October 1984. A sixty strong team of performers, with a learning disability, under the direction of Richard Vallis and Peter Clerke created and performed their own version of the fabled Monkey stories (for a time the Company was called Lung Ha’s Monkey Theatre).
The production was hugely successful and a new company and vitally important new theatrical voice launched onto the Scottish stage, now a vital part of it.
Since then, the Company has worked with over three hundred performers with a learning disability creating over forty original productions. The Company and has also worked with some of the leading artists and creative organisations across the country and toured internationally to England, France, Ireland, Poland, Sweden and Finland.
Some of the Company’s achievements include the Critics’ Awards for Theatre in Scotland (CATS) for Best Ensemble in Huxley’s Lab in 2009 (co-recipient with Grid Iron Theatre Company) and for Castle Lennox, a 2023 co-production with The Royal Lyceum Theatre Edinburgh.
Now the company offers a range of creative opportunities for learning disabled actors. Our Pathway for Progression features six strands of work where actors can access training and performing opportunities in an inclusive and welcoming environment and on an established platform.
These are The Lung Ha Ensemble, Lung Ha Touring Company, Lung Ha Across Scotland (an online nationwide actor training workshop series), Creative Development (one to one skills development, mentoring and critical response), Sharing our Expertise (via our Access and Creative Principles Toolkit, and workshop leader training), and Supporting External Opportunities (where the Lung Ha team prepares and supports people with their creative ambitions outwith Lung Ha).
Artistic Director Maria Oller and Executive Director Ruth McEwan said: “Entering our 40th year, we are so proud of our achievements and what has come before now.
“We have shared incredible moments with everyone we work with and our audiences far and wide.
“From here, we are passionate about continuing to create fabulous theatrical experiences and breaking down barriers in our sector and beyond. Our actors are the inspiration and the beating heart of Lung Ha Theatre Company.”
Lung Ha actor Fern Brodie said: “I see Lung Ha and the other actors as my other family.
“I feel safe and happy when I spend time with them.”
Lung Ha actor Gavin Yule said: “Lung Ha is a place where I can perform and practise acting skills and develop new ones.
“It’s also where I can make friends and have a social outlet. It also allows me to experience professional theatre and perform incredible pieces of work.”
Theatre critic Neil Cooper said: “Its first show, Lung Ha’s Monkey, gave the company both its name and an identity that seemed to suggest that monkeying around on stage was a good thing.
“In the forty years since, that sense of liberation through play has remained at the company’s core throughout work by a stream of writers and directors who followed in Vallis and Clerke’s footsteps.
“With current Lung Ha Artistic Director Maria Oller at the helm for the last fifteen years, the company’s radical philosophy has put it at the centre, not just of community-based arts initiatives, but of Scotland’s entire theatre ecology.
Watching the company grow into itself over these years has been a joy. Long may Lung Ha continue to thrive.”
80 stalls from local organisations, charities and groups hosting interactive activities such as glitter tattoos, hair braiding, craft workshops, facepainting, games, help, advice, storytime.
Edinburgh festivals – Edinburgh Science festival with their cargo tricycles and science demonstrations.
Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society – street performers.
Edinburgh Book Festival – free books and talks.
Colla Castellera – building human towers.
Edinburgh Equi Centre returns with their horses.
Obstacle course from North Edinburgh Childcare, and activities from Royal Air Force, Army and Scottish Fire Services.
Art and craft workshops with North Edinburgh Arts, National Galleries of Scotland, video games and scavenger hunt with Tinderbox Collective.
We have Granton Giants Dodgeball, Super strikers and Blast Boxing.
And things to buy include, tie dye clothing, pocket money toys, wax melts, cupcakes, dog accessories etc.
As for food we have RRT handing out free burgers again but we also have cupcakes and cookies, Indian food, hotdogs plus several other stalls to purchase food from.
We have 2 Music Stages this year – the park stage filled with community music and performances and the North by North West stage inside the WPNC for up and coming young musicians.
The parade will kick start the festival, starting at North Edinburgh Childcare and heading along Ferry Road Drive, round the park and into the park. Everyone welcome to join in the parade – theme is Superheroes!
There is so much going on at the festival, with something for everyone. I hope that you will all come along and enjoy the day.
The festival is free to attend. Many of the activities/food/items will be free but there will also be some that require payment.
Please feel free to share this and spread the word.
Film Festival Workshop with Folk Film Gathering (Ages 8+): Learn about film festival programming on Thursday 11 July, 5:30pm-7pm at West Pilton Neighbourhood Centre.
