Nicola Sturgeon is to make a return to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe months after leaving the Scottish Parliament.
She will be interviewed by broadcaster, podcast presenter and political commentator Iain Dale at the Edinburgh International Conference Centre.
The former First Minister will be appearing as part of a series of in-conversation events, which will also feature Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch, Green Party leader Zack Polanski, UK Health Secretary Wes Streeting, former SNP MP Joanna Cherry and Stephen Flynn, the SNP’s leader in Westminster.
Read more:
- Nicola Sturgeon to write 'chunky new chapter' to update memoir
- WATCH: Nicola Sturgeon makes final speech in Holyrood
- Nicola Sturgeon: 'Nonsense to suggest I obsessed over gender row'
- Nicola Sturgeon: 'Operation Branchform made me stronger'
- Nicola Sturgeon: 'I'm happier now than I've ever been'
Ms Sturgeon’s event - part of the Pleasance programme at the Fringe - will come 12 months after the sold-out launch of her memoir Frankly at the Edinburgh International Book Festival.
Ms Sturgeon recently revealed that she would be writing a new chapter for a paperback edition of the book, which is due to be published in August.
She has also spoken of her ambitions to become a fiction writer by writing a political thriller, in which she has suggested she will "take revenge" on her political enemies.
Ms Sturgeon has previously been interviewed by Mr Dale at the Fringe as part of his All Talk live events, which he has staged in Edinburgh in recent years.
Other guests due to appear this year include the comics Matt Forde, Rosie Holt and Susie McCabe, broadcaster Michael Crick, journalists Brian Taylor, Andrew Pierce and Sarah Vine, and polling guru Sir John Curtice.
Ms Sturgeon will open the season of events on Friday August 8, on the first weekend of this year’s Fringe.
Mr Dale said: “I could not be more delighted to be back at the Fringe, where I first appeared in 2019.
“This is without the strongest and most varied line-up of guests I have ever had.
“Informed and entertaining conversation about politics and much more is now a key part of the Fringe, and long may it remain so. I want the Edinburgh public to discover the people behind the politicians.
“We have an array of Scottish guests in the line-up including comedian Susie McCabe, a third appearance with Nicola Sturgeon and former MP Joanna Cherry talking about her explosive new memoir.
“In addition, Brian Taylor and Sir John Curtice will be rounding off the run in their now unmissable political panel with Michael Crick, which returns for a fourth year.”
Ms Sturgeon appeared in one of the biggest events in the Edinburgh International Book Festival line-up last August when she was interviewed by broadcaster Kirsty Wark about her memoir at the McEwan Hall.
She revealed plans to write a "chunky new chapter" of Frankly when she spoken at the Winter Words book festival at Pitlochry Festival Theatre last month.
Ms Sturgeon revealed it is planned to be launched in August, a year after the book's initial publication, but said she was “not entirely sure” what was going to be in the new chapter because she had not started writing it yet.
She said at the time: "But by the time the paperback comes out, I will have left parliament and there will have been an election in Scotland, so we will have a new government. I certainly hope it will be an SNP government, but we will have to wait and see.
“I have learned a lot about myself over the period since the book came out.
“Having maybe thought over the last couple of years that my time in politics was over and I was going to leave politics behind there is a political appetite there and a desire to make my voice heard on some of the issues we are grappling with as a society.
“It might be a political chapter that I write, but there will be a chunky new chapter in the paperback edition.”
Hundreds of new Fringe shows are expected to be announced over the next week.
The line-up already includes a site-specific stage adaptation of Andrew O'Hagan's novel Mayflies, a a "gig-theatre" show featuring new songs written by award-winning singer-songwriter KT Tunstall, and a musical improv comedy show which will unite Travis frontman Fran Healy with American TV star David Magidoff.
Share