Edinburgh Festival 2019 tickets to go on public sale - where, when and who’s set to appear

Sir Ian McKellan will be among this year's special guests. Pic: supplied

The Edinburgh Festival 2019 programme has been announced and public booking opens on Saturday, April 6th, from 10am.

To book online, visit: http://www.eif.co.uk/

By phone: 0131 473 2000

In person: Hub Tickets, The Hub, Castlehill, Edinburgh

Edinburgh Festival 2019

Returning for its 73rd year from 2nd to 26th of August, the Edinburgh International Festival brings the best of theatre, music and dance from across the world to the capital.

The programme features 93 events, with 293 performances across 17 venues and 2,600 artists from 40 nations including Australia, Nigeria, Canada, Belgium, China, Mali, Holland, South Africa, New Zealand, France, Germany, India, Scotland and the rest of the UK.

Stephen Fry will be appearing in Mythos: A Trilogy - Gods. Heroes. Men. Pic: David Cooper

Special Guests

The Los Angeles Philharmonic, led by its conductor Gustavo Dudamel, will be opening the Festival with the Aberdeen Standard Investments Opening Event – a special free concert for 15,000 people at Tynecastle Park football stadium celebrating Hollywood’s greatest movie music.

Sir Ian McKellen will also be recalling seminal moments from his career and marking 50 years since his landmark performances at the 1969 International Festival.

Sir Ian will be returning to the Assembly Hall, the same venue he appeared at as Edward II in 1969, when the police were famously called to the home of the Kirk’s General Assembly amid protests over a then hugely controversial on-stage gay kiss.

Stephen Fry will also be appearing at this year’s festival. Fry, who shot to fame at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 1981 when he appeared alongside Emma Thompson and Hugh Laurie in Cambridge Footlights’ Perrier Award-winning revue, will be staging three separate shows adapted from his own book on Greek mythology - which will each be staged twice during the festival.

And Glaswegian actor James McArdle, who has been starring in Broadway in Angels in America and also appeared in the recent Mary Queen of Scots movie, will return to the EIF five years after starring in The James Plays to take on the lead role in Peter Gynt. Oscar-winning writer David Hare is behind a new adaptation of the classic Ibsen play Peer Gynt, which sees the 19th century Norwegian story relocated to 21st century Scotland.

There will also be musical performances from Jarvis Cocker, Anna Calvi, Kate Tempest, Neneh Cherry, Sharon Van Etten and Teenage Fanclub at Leith Theatre.

Here is a Youtube video link on the 2019 Edinburgh International Festival: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fp9UbrJeqwU

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