Despite relentless internet discourse on the necessity of sex scenes, kink is making a comeback in film – and I love to see it. As a queer creative, it excites me that filmmakers are taking risks with increased representations of ‘taboo’ sexuality.

A poetic Response to Angela Flournoy and Claudia Rankine’s event at the Edinburgh International Book Festival 2026, written and read by Hannah Lavery.

For years, I have wanted to write an essay on how the closing credit cards that come up at the end of biopics always make me cry. You know the ones. “Turing’s work inspired generations of research” from The Imitation Game. “That same year, John and June were married and settled into the lake house” from Walk the Line…

Heungbu tending to an injured swallow. The youngest pig building his house out of bricks. Fairytales teach children culture and values in ways few other things can. Hard work bears fruit. Bravery brings reward. Kindness begets beauty.

Arcana is a poetic, music-led hero's quest by the French Cameroonian musician, performer, director and educator, Fay Guiffo. I see the theatre piece on the day it opens at the Assembly Roxy on Roxburgh Place. Outside, rainclouds ride low over the converted church. Inside, it’s dim. A few faint lights pick out a slim, still figure, who seems pressed down by the height of vaulted ceilings.

To start, there is print material. Four options, laid out on a small table, for Border Bodies, presented by T.F. Cia de Dança, as part of the São Paulo Showcase. Take only two, I decide – nice print but they will be at the bottom of my bag, soon, and it is good to not be wasteful. Take only what we need, and can. In my hand, I hold them close and they slip slip spin slip upon each other. New.

I cannot pinpoint when I started oscillating between anger and despair. Another racist attack in Scotland, another empty statement. Another precarious creative opportunity, another exhausting conversation with an institution. A cycle of feeling unsafe or unheard. As far-right violence became more normalised and the arts remained indifferent, I felt fewer pulses of hope. In the month preceding the Edinburgh Fringe, I flatlined into rage.

A poetic Response to The Masquerade by Jj Fadaka, written by Titilayo Farukuoye.

Takashi Miike's Visitor Q depicts the maximum level of breakdown in a family. This (very) dark comedy opens on a home video sex scene between father and daughter in a seedy motel, progressing through scenes of profound dysfunction as a mysterious visitor (Kazushi Watanabe) comes to stay with the family.

I have always been interested in memory. In my writing practice, I cannot divest memory from culture and inheritance. Obvious personal entry points are the iconography of La Virgen de Guadalupe whose portrait hangs in the house of all my elder family members, or the distinct food culture of my maternal northern México…

From starting The Database in 2018 to preserving its legacy today, Fringe of Colour founder and director Jess Brough looks back to where it all began and celebrates another beautiful summer with Artists of Colour at the Edinburgh festivals.

In this Response to Shaparak Khorsandi’s Edinburgh Fringe show Scatterbrain, Shivam Chowdhary describes the joy of watching a performer revel in their ADHD mind, and the ache that comes with finding oneself on the outside of a diagnosis.

Haneul Lee responds to Falling: A Disabled Love Story by Aaron Pang, exploring the mainstream media’s obsession with disabled bodies and why disabled people get to be seen as “cute” but rarely “sexy.”

Elete N-F responds to How I Learned to Swim by Somebody Jones, embracing the darkness of water and its properties of healing and communality.

Memuna Konteh responds to Fringe comedy split-bill Ayo Adenekan and Alvin Bang: Abandon God, putting expectations aside to enjoy stand-up that adapts to important societal moments.

Rho Chung interviews theatremakers Diana Feng from Don’t Call Me China Doll and Sierra Sevilla from For the Love of Spam about their Edinburgh Fringe shows, unpacking racial stereotypes, tropes, and the histories that have maintained them.

In this Response to Sleeper by Korean dance group Jajack Movement, Alycia Pirmohamed interrogates the architectures of the dancers bodies amidst the climate crisis, and of her own body in an Edinburgh studio.

Anthony V. Capildeo responds to Precious Cargo, a story about the children affected by Operation Babylift during the Vietnam war, by Australian writer-performer Barton Williams (Huynh van Cuong) and Hebridean composer Andy Yearley (Nguyen Tang).

In this Response to Rat Tails (WIP) by Jeremy McClain, Eilidh Akilade details the journey of art criticism, from the inception of an idea in June, to the witnessing of an Edinburgh Fringe show, before the long bus ride home in August.

Katie Goh responds to A History of Fortune Cookies by Sean Wai Keung, looking back on previous iterations of the performer’s work and of her own writing to find value in repetition.