This week we welcome Toronto writer and performer Lisa Randall, whose critically praised solo show Sister Sophia Kicks the Habit comes to Venue 13 this August. It's a dark and hilarious night of the soul about an aging nun in crisis with songs, comedy, dance and audience interaction. Lisa joins us for a chat and a live taste of the show.

Before we bring Lisa on, the two of us catch up on where things stand as Fringe prep ramps up: the mood coming out of Avignon, an update on Market 13 and the food trailer, and a heartfelt thank-you to everyone who donated as our crowdfunding campaign closes.

Lisa's show sits right in Venue 13's wheelhouse: it's the Edinburgh Fringe debut of The Universe Over 60, her Toronto company celebrating the stories of women over sixty. Sister Sophia is a nun in full habit, in the middle of a sleepless dark night of the soul after losing her best friend Sister Beatrice. Across 55 minutes she confronts g(G)od, questions a lifetime of devotion, and finds levity in some very big life questions. Lisa talks about the two aunts who inspired it (one of them cloistered), the show's mix of monologue, physical comedy and song, and her wish to welcome the believer, the atheist, the agnostic and the curious into the same room. She closes with a live performance — including Tom Lehrer's The Vatican Rag, which we can share thanks to his extraordinary decision to release his work into the public domain.

This week we kick off a new run of episodes where we hand the guest chair over to the artists coming to Venue 13 this August. First up is the brilliant Emma Smallman, founder of Drum n Bounce and the mind behind The Drum & Bass Aerobics Experience, which lands at Venue 13 for its first-ever Fringe run.

Emma paints the picture of what a 10:30am drum & bass aerobics class actually is — the "joy bubble," the collective experience, and why moving your body with a room full of strangers might be exactly the reset the Fringe marathon needs. No pressure to get the moves right; the only rule is that you move and have fun.

We trace the origin story back to a Friday night in 2012, a bit of drum & bass and some aerobics moves that turned into a Eureka moment, through the first classes in Birmingham and a breakthrough at Shambala, to nearly fourteen years of opening main stages from the Commonwealth Games to the Eurovision Fan Zone. Emma also talks about the wider mission underneath it all—her work as DJ Sister Smalls, her radio show, and her trauma-informed yoga in prisons, probation hostels and recovery settings—and how accessibility and wellbeing tie every one of those hats together. It fits neatly with what we're trying to build at Venue 13: a space that's about community and wellbeing, not just theatre.

This week the guest speakers are us!. We turn the microphone on ourselves to talk about our own Venue 13 show, AI Campfire: Return, coming to the 2026 Fringe. Be ready for a more casual, conversational episode, with the two of us sharing how the show came about, why we are bringing back the concept and what has changed for this new chapter.

We then dig into a major new piece of relevant research, “AI and the Festivals”, published by Festivals Edinburgh in May 2026. It gathers essays from some serious voices in the field, including Drew Hemment of The Alan Turing Institute, and to our genuine surprise Venue 13 and AI Campfire both appear in it. We break down the key points and reflect on what it means to be named in independent research of this level.

Finally we report back from Argentina, where we have just delivered the first of what we hope will be many ecoscenography seminars, an intensive postgraduate residency at the Arts Faculty at UNICEN in Tandil, with Ian teaching in English and Vanesa collaborating and translating. We talk about what the week involved and what this growing collaboration between York University in Canada, Venue 13 in Edinburgh and universities across Argentina and the wider Spanish-speaking world might become.

This week on Podcast 13 we welcome Philadelphia solo performer Chris Davis to Venue 13. Chris brings us the world premiere of The 40 Year Old Ballerino this August, his first new Fringe show in seven years, and his first return to Edinburgh since 2019.

Before we get to Chris, Ian and Vanesa run through what's worth catching in June across Scotland, with Eden Festival in Moffat, Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo at the Festival Theatre and The Karate Kid The Musical all on the diary. They also have a bit of fun in an agony aunt style segment about the five types of Fringe goer, with pros, cons and shameless recommendations for our 2026 programme.

Chris then joins us for a twenty minute conversation about ballet, heartbreak, John Cusack and what it means to come back to the Fringe after a long pause. He closes the episode with a ten minute live teaser from the show itself.

This week we are skipping the Climate Change Theatre Action reading and handing that slot over to Chris for an excerpt from The 40 Year Old Ballerino.

This is the big one. Episode 10 of Podcast 13, and Ian and Vanesa use the milestone to reveal the full 2026 Venue 13 programme: eleven shows across theatre, comedy, musical theatre, dance fitness, immersive digital performance, and workshops. Five world premieres. Ten of the eleven companies are making their Edinburgh Fringe debut. Seven productions from Canada, two from the USA and two from the UK.

The episode opens with a major piece of new research from Festivals Edinburgh: AI and the Festivals, a May 2026 collection of think pieces from University of Edinburgh academics and international voices including Brand USA's Chief AI Officer Janette Roush. The paper has direct relevance to Venue 13's closing show of 2026, A.I. Campfire [Return], which is built on the same Alan Turing Institute "Doing A.I. Differently" framework cited in the publication.

Ian and Vanesa then take listeners through every show on the programme, grouped by theme and creative connection: the reimagined classics, the politics of body and voice, solo acts of reinvention, comedy with an edge, absurdist Canadian theatre, and the closing immersive piece on Scottish folklore and ethical generative AI.

The programme is now live and tickets are available on www.venue13.com

Venue 13 is joining forces with Soft Serve Cartel and Renewable Energy Vendors to bring the Edinburgh Fringe's first carbon-conscious vegan food trailer to the festival this August 2026—and we are launching a crowdfunding campaign to make it happen!

Stationed at the foot of the Royal Mile outside Venue 13 (Harry Younger Hall on Lochend Close), this trailblazing project will run for the full Fringe duration from August 7th to 29th. It stands as the Fringe’s first food trailer powered by a hybrid renewable setup: a combination of quiet, emission-free hydrogen fuel cells and solar panels, complete with electrical battery storage to support heavy-duty festival appliances.

In this episode, Ian, Vanesa, and special guest Nico Barcella (founder of Soft Serve Cartel and co-founder of Unity Doner) unpack why this pilot project matters now. While most festival sustainability conversations stop at the lighting rig, food and beverage operations remain incredibly carbon-intensive, historically relying on loud, polluting diesel generators. This trailer serves as an open-source blueprint to prove that vendor cooking can run entirely on clean power at scale.

• The Clean Power Equation: Vanesa discusses her background with Hydrogen Vehicle Systems Ltd (HVS) and how hydrogen perfectly pairs with solar to absorb peak energy loads, drastically reducing both air and noise pollution for the local Lochend Close community.
• Solar in the Arts: Ian shares his history designing solar projects in performance contexts, including a massive 2010 lighting installation at the Coachella Music Festival and bringing off-grid theater to Toronto with Vox Lumen.
• The Food Line-up: Nico talks about the community-driven ethos behind Soft Serve Cartel and his Unity Doner collaboration with Edinburgh's own Considerit. He previews what's cooking on the trailer—including spit-cooked vegan kebabs, oat-based soft serve, and an upcoming bubble tea partnership with Tempo Tea Bar.
• Climate Change Theatre Action: The team concludes the episode with a dramatic reading of Undertow, a brilliant short play about environmental empathy and finding the middle ground by Métis playwright Keith Barker.

Share: Pass the announcement along to your favorite foodies, festival-goers, or climate enthusiasts!

Donate: Support the live campaign directly on the Edinburgh Fringe’s crowdfunding platform to help cover council licensing and essential site infrastructure.

Sponsor: Brands and organizations looking to put their name on a historic sustainability milestone can get in to

In this episode, Ian and Vanesa return from the Prague Quadrennial Symposium, Performing Exhibitions, Curating Scenographies, held at ARCHA+ in Prague from April 13–15, 2026. Gathering more than seventy speakers from around the world in the lead-up to PQ's 60th-anniversary edition in 2027, the symposium explored the rich interconnections between contemporary scenographic practice, curating and exhibition-making.

Ian and Vanesa share their experience delivering a Flash Talk — The Venue as Scenographic Apparatus: Curating Infrastructure, Absence, and Performance — which drew on their work at Venue 13 to argue that venue-making is itself a scenographic practice shaped by the unseen. They reflect on Clémence Farrell's opening keynote, Immersion in the Exhibition Space, and the symposium's threads around immersive design, digital technologies and audience engagement.

Beyond the symposium, they talk about a rather eventful side of the trip: an unplanned stop at Motol University Hospital after Ian came down with a nasty ear infection — a moment that turned into a genuine shout-out to the Czech public health system.

The episode wraps with a round-up of theatre and performance happening in Edinburgh this April and May, and closes with a reading from the Climate Change Theatre Action anthology.

In this episode, Ian and Vanesa return from two international conferences held at opposite ends of the world, both exploring the rapidly evolving relationship between artificial intelligence and the arts.

They both reflect on Vanishing Acts: AI, Performative Knowledge and Sustainable Memory at the University of Malta, where conversations centred on performance and the preservation of cultural knowledge in an age of technological change.

They also share insights from the Creative AI Symposium hosted by the Creative AI Hub at Toronto Metropolitan University, where artists, technologists and researchers explored how AI is shaping creative practice across disciplines.

Together, they reflect on what it means for theatre, for artists preparing work for the Fringe and for the future of Venue 13 and Future 13. The episode also touches on developments from the XR sector and highlights what’s on in Edinburgh this April, before closing with a Climate Change Theatre Action reading.

After a winter break, Podcast 13 returns with renewed energy as Ian and Vanesa reconnect with listeners and look ahead to the next phase of work at Venue 13.

In this episode, they reflect on the early stirrings of the Edinburgh Fringe season as thousands of artists around the world begin preparing their productions. Ian and Vanesa discuss how Venue 13 is already shaping its 2026 programme and how upcoming podcast episodes will explore the process of bringing a Fringe season to life.

The conversation also turns toward sustainability and the future of arts organisations. They discuss renewable energy possibilities at the Fringe and reflect on the rise and collapse of artistic non-profits such as the Centre for Contemporary Arts Glasgow. With the launch of Future 13, they share their hopes for building a sustainable support structure for artists developing work for Edinburgh.

Finally, they take a look at what is happening across Edinburgh and Scotland this March, highlighting theatre performances and exhibitions you can still catch. The episode closes with a reading from the Climate Change Theatre Action anthology.

In this special end-of-year episode of Podcast 13, hosts Ian Garrett and Vanesa Kelly reflect on the revival of Venue 13 and the ideas shaping its future, using the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future as a guiding frame. The episode looks back on reopening an artist-led Fringe venue, explores standout projects from the season including Market 13 and AI Campfire, and considers what ethical, climate-focused practice looks like right now. Featuring a conversation with playwright and Climate Change Theatre Action founder Chantal Bilodeau, the episode also marks CCTA’s tenth anniversary and looks ahead to new models for climate storytelling, accessibility, and artist support through the launch of Future 13. A thoughtful and forward-looking close to the year.