Edinburgh International Festival announces 2022 programme

Good news, everyone! There’ll be no need to schlep to Edinburgh Park this August, as the Edinburgh International Festival returns to its regular theatres and concert halls this summer, with 14 venues due to host 87 events and 160 performances of opera, theatre, dance and classical and contemporary music.

Fergus Linehan’s final year as Festival Director, before Nicola Benedetti takes the reins in 2023, looks like a strong one. Festivities kick off on 5 August at Murrayfield with MACRO, a free night of contemporary circus from Aussie troupe Gravity & Other Myths, plus a cross-cultural musical collaboration between Djuki Mala and five Celtic musicians, including the vocals of Kathleen MacInnes and Aidan O’Rourke on fiddle. More details on how to get your free tickets will be revealed on 27 June.

Arab Strap, Squarepusher and Kae Tempest at Leith Theatre

EIF will be back at Leith Theatre with a contemporary music programme featuring an eye-watering selection of boundary-pushing acts and artists from all over the globe. Among them are Scottish cult indie rock duo Arab Strap (19 Aug); visionary London jazz quartet Sons of Kemet (14 Aug); legendary Detroit techno DJ Jeff Mills (11 Aug); New York rapper Princess Nokia (17 Aug); Afro-French Cuban duo Ibeyi (18 Aug); and Romanian folk music supergroup Taraf de Caliu (10 Aug).

Elsewhere on Leith Theatre’s music bill, you’ll find London spoken word artist Kae Tempest (20 Aug), American indie songwriters Ezra Furman (23 Aug) and Lucy Dacus (25 Aug) and blistering electronic artist Squarepusher (13 Aug). Breaking away from Leith Theatre, jazz icon Herbie Hancock (7 Aug) needs a slightly bigger venue; he’s performing at the Playhouse.

Theatre: Alan Cumming, Liz Lochhead

EIF regular Alan Cumming will be back in the Scottish capital, this time taking on the role of Robert Burns in Burn (4-10 Aug, King's Theatre). We’re told to expect a dance-theatre show that challenges the shortbread tin image of our Bard and goes beyond his poetry to examine his complex inner and outer life. Steven Hogget provides the choreography while the brilliant Anna Meredith is on music duty.

Another theatre performance that catches our eye is You Know We Belong Together (24-27 Aug, The Lyceum). Anyone who grew up watching Australian soap Home and Away will recognise the reference: it’s a refrain from the show’s sentimental theme song, although Julia Hales didn’t feel she belonged among the sun-kissed teens of Summer Bay while growing up. Hales has watched every episode of the soap since it first aired in 1988, but she’s never seen a character who, like her, has Down’s Syndrome. Hales’s show, described as a ‘live documentary’, features her and six other cast members and lets her visualise her dream of appearing on the soap by blending a mix of monologues, sketches, video, dance and song.

A new version of poet and playwright Liz Lochhead’s retelling of Euripides’s ancient drama Medea (10-28 Aug, The Hub) was trailed by EIF back in 2019 but it will finally make its EIF debut this year. We’re told the production is rich in Scots-inflected language and Lochhead’s poetics. Michael Boyd direct the production while award-winning actor Adura Onashile plays the vengeful title character.

Immersive theatre and digitally-augmented ballet

If you want to break away from the traditional theatre auditorium, there’s an opportunity to journey into the various spaces of Leith Academy for the intriguing site-specific piece Muster Station: Leith (15-26 Aug, Leith Academy), from innovative Edinburgh theatre company Grid Iron. We’re told this promenade performance takes place after something unthinkable has occurred, thrusting people from their homes into uncomfortable proximity to others.

The great dancer and choreographer Akram Khan presents Jungle Book Reimagined (25-28 Aug, Festival Theatre), which reinvents the journey of Mowgli through the eyes of a climate refuge. There more art exploring the refuge experience in Refuge, a season of contemporary theatre, dance, visual art, film and conversation created in collaboration with the Scottish Refugee Council.

There’s the usual mix of world-class orchestras and classical musicians coming to Usher Hall and Queen's Hall. There’s a new production of Dvorak’s dark fairy tale opera Rusalka (6-9 Aug, Festival Theatre). Scottish Ballet reimagine Coppélia (14-16 Aug, Festival Theatre) for the digital age, blending real-time filming, projection and live performance. Composer Jon Hopkins teams up with leading neuroscientists to leads audiences through a unique environment of colour and light in Dreamachine (15 Aug-2 Oct, Collective). 

The above is just the tip of the iceberg of artists and shows coming to EIF this summer. For full programme details, head to eif.co.uk

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General booking for the 2022 Edinburgh International Festival opens Fri 8 Apr