Festival City Podcast

Festival City returns for its first episode of 2018 as intrepid host Gareth K Vile catches up with a trifecta of interviews, headlined by the upcoming manipulate festival. His first guests are Artistic Director Simon Hart and Puppet Animation Scotland's Projects Manager, Melanie Purdie. The three discuss some of their festival highlights and get excited about the 'biggest concentration of experimental theatre outside of the Fringe'...

In this triple interview edition of the Festival City podcast Gareth is joined by Robbie Thompson, who talks about his work as part of Cryptic's Sonica festival, including a club night at Art School where he harnesses the power of the Tesla coil, the 19th century invention that first made electricity visible, to fuse sound and light...

Now onto its third edition, the Scottish Queer International Film Festival has found success fast, and managed to push a few buttons along the way. A great lineup of films catering to a broad spectrum of identities as well as a brilliant programme of lectures, workshops and parties propelled it to the number nine spot on The List's Hot 100 last year. The team behind the SQIFF have continued this trend with the 2017 festival, taking place now in Glasgow...

In the latest episode of Festival City, host Gareth K Vile is joined by the Birds of Paradise theatre company. Actors Robert Softley Gale (also writer), Garry Robson, Kinny Gardner and Amelia Cavallo (also musical director) discuss their new show, Blanche & Butch, a new production inspired by Noel Greig's 2006 play Heels on Wheelz, catching us up with three disabled drag queens ten years later...

In episode of eight of Festival City our host Gareth K Vile is joined by Dr Carnesky to talk reclaiming menstruation and cabaret in Dr Carnesky's Incredible Bleeding Woman. Norah Sadava and Amy Nostbakken, the writers and actors behind the play Mouthpiece, discuss having the 'aha' feminist moment and emotional audience reactions to their personal feminist piece...

In episode seven of Festival City, the writer-director of Morale is High (Since We Gave up Hope) Adrian Berry and host Gareth K Vile get in deep about David Bowie, fandom and obsession with music. Writer Jessica Barker-Wren and director Lucy Ray come in to discuss Cow and end up debating PJ Harvey's cultural importance and West Country accents...

Brace yourself: our theatre editor Gareth K Vile confesses he's actually enjoying himself at the Fringe. It might be down to his enthusiasm for Wild Bore, which he describes as the 'most important piece of work I'll see this year at the Fringe, or anywhere else for that matter'. Today's episode is a little inspired by that show, as he looks at different ways of making theatre, starting with traditional, script-based director and ensemble cast...

It's a special triple bill as we move into week two of the Fringe: and we are getting serious and excited about the plethora of performers banging on the door to get onto the podcast. Kicking off with a chat with a bin-man, host Gareth K Vile decides to share the reasons for his fear of baked beans with performer David William Bryan, whose show Trashed at Underbelly is a booze-fulled sucker punch of a play...

Beginning with a song about lice, Gareth K Vile offers a food and drink episode bereft of food and drink recommendations for the duration of your visit to Edinburgh. First up on the pod we talk to Daniella Isaacs of Hear Me Raw and discover why eating healthily isn't necessarily a good thing and how ghost writing a fitspiration book is a very bad idea. Composer and producer Matthew Whiteside is accosted to share his Fringe experiences so far and what he plans to see...

Episode three of Festival City stays in Glasgow (outrageous!), or at least meets a couple of artists who are either from or living on the West Coast. They are still, of course, at the Fringe during August.

First up, there is more Vile conversations with the National Theatre of Scotland: this time, Graham Eatough dives into the problems of making theatre as he reveals the process behind How to Act...