Schoolchildren from Forthview Primary celebrated the launch of this year’s Festival programme by recreating the cover of the Festival programme and launching their own paper boats in the pond outside The Scottish Parliament.
The programme for the 2025 event goes live on Tuesday 25 March. The festival takes place from 24 May to 1 June 2025 and the shows on offer include circus, dance, puppetry and theatre for young people.
The festival aims to ensure that more children in Scotland can experience work that is deeply engaging, innovative and inspiring, regardless of their circumstances, access needs or location and this year’s highlights include:
• Intimate sensory works for babies that will delight young audiences with their beautiful design and gentle interactions. These includes Great Big Tiny World an immersive show filled with sounds and scents taking place in a space filled up with hundreds of plants, or Beneath the Snow which creates a world of white tissue paper from which emerge beautifulcreatures.
• Shows for both children and adults, with family pleasers such asGrown Ups and Double You featuring adults behaving badlywith hilarious consequence, while The Show for Young Mendepicts a funny and moving performance about friendship between a man and a boy.
• A regional focus on Flanders, with four stunning productions representing the vibrant and dynamic children’s theatre scenefrom this region.
• Two new Expo-funded commissions by Scottish companies, Tongue Twister and The Unlikely Friendship of Feather Boy and Tentacle Girl, which will be touring Scotland in the lead-up to the Festival. Both focus on celebrating diversecultures and accepting difference.
Festival Director Noel Jordan said: “I’m very excited to be launching the 35th edition of the Edinburgh International Children’s Festival. 35 years have seen generations of children attend the Festival, with many now returning as parents to share cherishable and transformative experiences with their own children.
“This year’s programme features 13 productions from 7 countries, including two exciting Scottish commissions from both new and established artists. Woven through many of the performances is the simple joy of play – from children playing with gravity and rules making to adults’ hidden play and madcap exploration of what it means to be a grown up.
“Play is the cornerstone of childhood and this programme lets us freely imagine worlds and people beyond the immediacy of our own lives whilst connecting us with others.”
Culture Secretary Angus Robertson said: “Every child deserves the chance to experience the magic of live performance and I’m grateful to everyone who has made the Edinburgh International Children’s Festival such a success over the past three decades.
“To have brought smiles to thousands of young people’s faces over 35 years is a truly heartwarming legacy and this year’s programme promises to be no less enthralling. I’m particularly delighted to see it includes two Expo-funded commissions with a focus on celebrating cultural diversity.
“The Scottish Government’s Expo fund is designed to help showcase Scottish artists and our festivals to the world, and I’m very proud to continue that support with £110,000 for this year’s Edinburgh International Children’s Festival.”
Full Listing – Edinburgh International Children’s Festival 2025
Great Big Tiny World (0-12 mths) – England
An immersive experience for babies, in a beautiful world filled with sounds, scents, music, shadows and over 300 plants.
Tiébélé (Nursery-P2) (18mths – 6 yrs) – Belgium/Burkina Faso
A gorgeous show about women in Burkina Faso and the marks they leave on their homes -combining earth and song, organic matter and poetry and the melodic sound of their voices.
Beneath the Snow (6 mths-6 yrs) – France
An immersive experience in a world of white tissue paper from which emerge beautiful creatures, with two performers playing with the wonder of metamorphosis.
Game within a Game (3-7 yrs) – Germany
A touching world of play with three dancers humorously going from one game to the next, exploring different rules, spaces and choices, and learning to get on and co-operate.
When the World Turns (PMLD) – England / Australia
An immersive, sensory performance featuring surround-sound, singing, scents, water and over 300 plants expertly crafted for and with disabled children with complex needs.
Shades of Shadows (4-10 yrs) – Germany/France
A humorous show of shadow and light with two pupeteers creating an unruly world where objects and their shadows come to life in a magical interplay of movement and illusion.
Not Falling (4-10 yrs) – Belgium
An energetic performance with three dancers trying to escape gravity, in a fascinating interaction with film projections of children leaping and floating through the air.
Grown Ups (4-12 yrs) – Belgium
A hilarious and absurd tragi-comedy about what happens to grown-ups when children are not looking, featuring ladders, hammers, sparks and side-splitting performances.
Tongue Twister (6-12 yrs) – Scotland
A humorous and colourful show featuring one man’s attempts to say tongue twisters in as many different languages as possible while trying to change into multiple dazzling costumes.
Double You (6-13 yrs) – Belgium
Combining circus with acro-dance, parkour and Chinese pole, this exciting show pokes fun at our FOMO, with the audience seating on both sides of a stage separated by a fabric wall.
The Show for Young Men (8-14 yrs) – Scotland
A funny and moving dance performance about friendship between a man and a boy, using playground games, risk-taking and mischief.
The Pale Baron (8-14 yrs) – Belgium
A musical tale about the friendship between two musicians during a regime that hunts down anyone that is deemed superfluous or different.
The Unlikely Friendship of Feather Boy and Tentacle Girl(9-14 yrs) – Scotland
A visually stunning aerial show about two outsiders – a girl who wants to be a monster and a boy who wants to fly – celebrating difference and the joy of friendship.
and Madison (9) and back row Junior (10) and James (9).
and Madison (9) and back row Junior (10) and James (9).
Founding Editor of The Edinburgh Reporter.
Edinburgh-born multimedia journalist and iPhoneographer.
