Alex Salmond reveals why he has ditched Edinburgh Fringe show

In April the former First Minister said he planned to bring his Alex Salmond Unleashed show back to Edinburgh after making his debut last year.

Mr Salmond’s show was unveiled at last year’s fringe amid a blaze of publicity. The performance took the form of a chat show and the guests included the then Brexit Secretary David Davis, the comedian John Bishop and the independence supporting actress Elaine C. Smith.

The show hit the headlines when Mr Salmond was accused of making a sexist joke. The First Minister said: “I promised you today we’d either have Theresa May, or Nicola Sturgeon, or Ruth Davidson, or Melania Trump, but I couldn’t make any of these wonderful women come.”

Former First Minister Alex Salmond will not be returning to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe this year. Picture: PA Wire

There was then a drum roll and Mr Salmond quipped: “To the show”.

Since then Mr Salmond has been widely criticised for broadcasting The Alex Salmond Show, on RT, the Kremlin backed television station formerly known as Russia Today.

In April, Mr Salmond said: “I can confirm that we are planning to bring a new show to the Fringe in August.”

Yesterday he explained his absence from the world’s largest arts festival saying: “Since we only completed the tour of last year’s Show at the end of this April, we weren’t able to prepare the new production in time for this year’s Fringe. However, we fully intend to be back in Edinburgh next year with a very different style of production. The Unleashed tour finally ran to 30 shows from Gala to Inverness, played to over 10,000 in audiences and raised £36,000 for charities and good causes in Scotland and internationally. This success was greatly helped by the four stars awarded by The Scotsman reviewer Kate Copstick.”