Edinburgh poetry festival to go ahead in four new venues after eleventh-hour relocation from Summerhall

Hannah Lavery and Bee Asha are among the acts lined up to appear at the annual Edinburgh poetry festival Push The Boat Out. Picture Neil Hanna | Neil Hanna

Edinburgh's annual celebration of poetry and the spoken word has been salvaged at the eleventh hour after organisers were forced to find alternatives to replace troubled "arts village" Summerhall as the home for the event.

Four venues - Pleasance, Dance Base, Scottish Storytelling Centre and Dovecot Studios - have stepped in to host the Push The Boat Out festival after frantic efforts to keep its programme intact over the last two weeks.

Len Pennie is due to appear at the Push The Boat Out festival in Edinburgh.

More than 130 artists, writers and performers - including Alexander McCall Smith, Len Pennie, Iona Fyfe, Kathleen Jamie, Hannah Lavery and Michael Pedersen - had been booked to appear across three days of events.

However the festival was forced to pull the plug on its planned launch at Summerhall the day before it was due to be held after they were told that HMRC had begun "winding up" proceedings against the venue's management.

The Scottish Storytelling Centre will be hosting events for Edinburgh’s Push The Boat Out festival in November. Picture: Roberto Ricciuti

Summerhall has had its bank account frozen, has been forced to cancel a number of events and still has to pay artists and performers who appeared at this year's Fringe as a result of the legal action.

Push The Boat Out, which had lined up its biggest programme yet for this year's edition, said the move had an "immediate impact" on its ability to sell tickets for the three-day programme at Summerhall.

Edinburgh arts centre Summerhall, which was put up for sale in May, has played host to the Push The Boat Out festival since 2021. Picture: Mihaela Bodlovic

Developed during the pandemic shutdown of live events, Push The Boat Out has been staged at Summerhall since it was launched in October 2021.

It was forced to put all plans for the event on hold while it explored alternative options for the staging of Push The Boat Out and admitted it was "deeply concerned" about the potential impact on the festival.

Michael Pedersen is the current Edinburgh Makar.

However Push The Boat Out has now announced that its full programme will be able to go ahead on its planned dates from 22-24 November.

Highlights include a series of events from the perspective of performers exploring the legacy of Edinburgh's colonial history, a celebration of the late "dub poet" Benjamin Zephaniah, and events examining the links between poetry and theatre-making, writing novels and songwriting.

The most recent Scots Makar, Kathleen Jamie, will be discussing her new collection, which has been written in the Scots language, the previous and new Edinburgh Makars, Hannah Lavery and Michael Pedersen, Len Pennie and Lorde Fuhl will discuss how social media has impacted their careers, and Alexander McCall Smith will recall the two poetry collections he has published since the pandemic.

Live music and poetry will be brought together in a number of events featuring performers including Scots singer Iona Fyfe, folk duo Fionnbarr Byrne and Emma Capponi, fiddler Laura Wilkie, Gaelic poet and singer Marcas Mac an Tuairneir, harpist Gillian Dawson and spoken word performer Iona Lee.

Other guests at the festival will include Heather Rose, Leyla Josephine, Sasha Dugdale, Raymond Antrobus, Niall Campbell and Genevieve Carter.

Festival director Emma Collins said: "We're looking at poetry through a range of thematic lenses which try to address some of the big challenges facing us today - the environment, inequality and conflict.

"We also continue to try to diversify poetry - through cross art form pollination, the voices we platform, and who feels welcome as artists and audiences."