Pitlochry Festival Theatre is a beacon of artistic brilliance, providing a rich tapestry of engaging events. From the enchanting musical 'The Sound of Music' to insightful conversations with artistic luminaries like Alan Cumming, this season promises an unforgettable experience for art enthusiasts. The theatre's dedication to fostering a vibrant cultural environment is evident in its diverse offerings, including contemporary literary discussions, innovative theatrical performances, and culinary explorations with renowned chefs. Join us as we delve into the highlights of these events, celebrating creativity and cultural exchange.

Pitlochry Festival Theatre: A Tapestry of Arts and Culture

On February 21-22, 2025, Pitlochry Festival Theatre will transform into a vibrant hub of cultural and literary exploration. From intimate conversations with acclaimed authors to culinary delights and theatrical performances, attendees will engage with thought-provoking works and innovative ideas. Artistry and creativity take center stage, promising a rich experience for every visitor. Join us as we delve into the minds of artistic visionaries and celebrate the diverse stories shaping contemporary culture.

Exploring the Cultural Tapestry at Pitlochry Festival Theatre

Pitlochry Festival Theatre is set to dazzle audiences with a vibrant array of performances throughout the summer of 2025. From heartfelt dramas like 'Water Colour' and 'Nan Shepherd: Naked And Unashamed', to the timeless classic 'The Great Gatsby', the theatre promises a rich tapestry of storytelling. Other exciting productions include the nostalgic 'Grease', the mystical tale of 'Nessie', and the fast-paced comedy 'The 39 Steps'. Whether you're a fan of musicals, thrillers, or historical narratives, there's something for everyone in this dynamic lineup.

A Summer of Theatrical Wonder at Pitlochry Festival Theatre

Pitlochry Festival Theatre invites you to an enthralling journey through tales of recovery, resilience, and romance in its 2025 season. With captivating plays like 'Water Colour' and riveting musicals like 'Sunshine On Leith', the theatre promises an engaging cultural experience. Whether you’re intrigued by the humorous escapades in 'The 39 Steps' or the haunting legends of 'Nessie', there's something for everyone. Dive into the vibrant world of performance where each story offers a unique look at the human experience, inviting audiences to laugh, reflect, and dream.

A Festival of Stories: Exploring Life, Love, and Legends at Pitlochry Festival Theatre

Step into a world of drama, romance, and intrigue with Pitlochry Festival Theatre's 2025 lineup. From soul-searching journeys like 'Water Colour' to the nostalgic tunes of 'Grease', the theatre offers a captivating array of performances that promise to entertain and inspire. With plays exploring themes of love, identity, and societal norms, this season's productions are set against the picturesque backdrop of Pitlochry, merging compelling narratives with exceptional talent.

Theatrical Wonders Unveiled: A Journey Through Pitlochry Festival Theatre's 2025 Lineup

Prepare to be thoroughly entertained as Pitlochry Festival Theatre presents a captivating lineup of plays and musicals in 2025. From comedic thrills and nostalgic journeys to heartfelt musicals and Scottish legends, this summer promises to be an unforgettable theatrical experience. With performances such as 'Nan Shepherd: Naked And Unashamed', 'Grease', 'This Is A Gift', 'The Great Gatsby', 'Nessie', 'The 39 Steps', 'Sunshine On Leith', and 'A Toast Fae The Lassies', there's a diverse array of stories and performances that will leave audiences inspired, amused, and thoroughly entertained.

A Summer of Theatrical Wonders at Pitlochry Festival Theatre

Pitlochry Festival Theatre is set to enchant audiences with a diverse line-up of performances in 2025. Featuring a mix of drama, comedy, and musical, the season promises to be a celebration of storytelling and creativity. From touching narratives like 'Water Colour' and 'Nan Shepherd: Naked and Unashamed' to the high-energy musical 'Grease', each event offers unique insights and experiences. Join us as we explore the highlights and artistic flair that Pitlochry Festival Theatre brings to the stage this season.

Pitlochry Festival Theatre: A Season of Captivating Performances

It’s January 25, 1797, in the quiet graveyard of Dumfries, and Agnes Broun is remembering her recently departed son, Robert Burns. Her solemn visit is interrupted by an unexpected encounter with Jean Armour, Robert’s widow and mother to his nine children. The two women, bound by a shared history and unresolved tensions, clash as they come face-to-face.  

Unbeknownst to them, a mysterious figure watches from the shadows – Clarinda, Burns’ muse and soulmate, who has brought a dram to honour her beloved Rabbie. Each woman recalls the ploughman poet in her own distinct way, and through his songs they recount their stories. 

A Toast Fae The Lassies

Pitlochry Festival Theatre

Due to popular demand, this uplifting and moving musical with unforgettable songs by The Proclaimers returns to delight audiences.  Set against the vibrant backdrop of Edinburgh, this touching story follows the lives of two soldiers, Davy and Ally, returning home from Afghanistan. As they return to civilian life, they must navigate love, family, and the search for purpose. 

Sunshine On Leith 

This fast-paced, theatrical adaptation of Alfred Hitchcock’s classic film takes you into the world of espionage, intrigue, and slapstick comedy. The 39 Steps masterfully combines a gripping spy thriller with an uproarious comedy, creating an unforgettable experience. 

The story follows the dashing Richard Hannay, who finds himself unwittingly embroiled in a mysterious plot after a chance encounter with a beautiful spy. When she is suddenly murdered in his apartment, Hannay is framed and forced to go on the run. With the police hot on his trail and a dangerous spy organisation called ‘The 39 Steps’ on his heels, Hannay races across Britain to clear his name and save the country from a sinister conspiracy.

The 39 Steps

On the scenic banks of Loch Ness lies the town of Bruachness, a place steeped in mystery and folklore, where the local residents live in cautious awe of the legendary Loch Ness Monster, believed to bring misfortune to those who glimpse it. Tales abound of torn fishing nets, capsized boats, and a haunting fog that marks the Monster’s presence. But everything changes when an 11-year-old budding biologist named Mara encounters the Monster—who prefers to be called Nessa, thank you very much—and survives to tell the tale. 

Nessie

Set in the summer of 1922, this gripping story unfolds in the West Egg district of Long Island. Nick Carraway has moved from the Midwest and soon meets his neighbour the enigmatic Jay Gatsby, who throws lavish parties every night in his opulent mansion to entertain the rich and famous. A self-made millionaire with a mysterious past, Gatsby is desperate to reunite with his lost love, Daisy Buchanan. 

The Great Gatsby

If you could have one wish, what would it be? 

Zoe is about to head off to university, assuming she’s got the grades. Dad’s gilding business is struggling but they don’t talk about that. Summer is here and everything is about to change. Hopefully. 


This Is A Gift

Step into the electrifying world of 1950s Rydell High School and follow the whirlwind romance between new girl Sandy Dumbrowski and popular guy Danny Zuko, who find their summer love challenged by the pressures of teenage life. 

Join Sandy, Danny and the rest of Rydell High as they navigate the trials and tribulations of high school with their respective cliques—the sassy Pink Ladies and the greaser gang Burger Palace Boys—adding plenty of laughs, drama, and unforgettable musical moments along the way. With iconic songs like Summer Nights, Greased Lightnin’ and You’re the One that I Want, this high-energy show promises a nostalgic journey full of rock ‘n’ roll flair. 

Grease

Nan Shepherd: Naked and Unashamed returns following its huge success at Pitlochry Festival Theatre in 2024. Award-winning Firebrand’s richly entertaining, funny and moving play uncovers the extraordinary, unconventional woman behind the glamorous portrait on the Scottish five-pound note.   

Directed by Richard Baron, whose previous Pitlochry Festival Theatre productions include Chicago, The Last Witch and Heritage.   


Nan Shepherd: Naked And Unashamed 

Esme is at an all-time low, struggling with her studies and her art. She finds herself standing on the railing of one of the bridges that crosses the Clyde, which leads to a chance encounter with a boy who changes her life forever. A boy who she may never see again. Could Esme now finally find the road to recovery, healing, and self-acceptance?

Water Colour

What is the Geographer Royal and what does she do? Jo Sharp reveals all and takes us on a worldwide tour of her adventures.
Only the sixth person to hold the title of Geographer Royal for Scotland, Jo Sharp has led a distinguished career as a geographer and professor authoring and editing over 120 works

Jo Sharp

Gareth Cole runs Café Canna – one of the UK’s most remote restaurants, sitting on the bay of the beautiful Isle of Canna, an island in the Hebrides that is only two miles across and home to just 18 residents. Despite this, it’s one of Condé Nast Traveller’s top beach shack restaurants and one of the Herald’s best places to eat al fresco.

By necessity, and also out of love, Cole and his team make the most of local ingredients from the island and its shores. The café is justly famous for its seafood, landed from the sparkling Hebridean waters. Foraged seaweed is also a mainstay of the menu. Meat comes from the fields next door, vegetables from the garden plot, fruit from the orchard, fresh bread is baked daily and beer brewed on the premises. The range of starters, main courses, puddings, accompaniments and baking is rich and varied, from dulse seaweed croquettes, crab bisque, Full crust Canna beef, Skye Black ale and Blue Murder Pie to Wild gorse crème brûlée, Nettle and spinach spanakopita and Singapore chilli Canna crab.

Gareth Cole

Award-winning writer, broadcaster and food anthropologist, Ghillie Başan ventures out from her existence as a ‘hospitable hermit’ to delight us with tales of her life in the Cairngorms creating nature, well-being, and food experiences that money cannot buy.

This unique soul opens her doors to invite people to sample food and whisky pairings in her remote, wild environment. She has written over 50 books on different culinary cultures and has many BBC and international radio credits as a presenter and contributor. She runs Spirit & Spice, Cookery Workshops and Culinary Experiences, hosting groups from all over the world to pair wild food, local ingredients and spices with whisky. Because of her knowledge of food and flavour, she has been dubbed ‘the original spice girl’; she has won the Highlands and Islands Innovation in Tourism Award, and she is one of Scotland’s Food Tourism Ambassadors. Food and Drink Scotland describes her as ‘an unsung hero of the culinary world in Scotland and beyond.’

Ghillie Başan

One of crime fiction’s most formidable voices, Val McDermid, has been crafting masterful thrillers for over 30 years, selling over 19 million copies worldwide. Her unflinching examination of human nature and evil has earned her numerous awards, including the CWA Diamond Dagger for Lifetime Achievement and The Theakston Old Peculier Outstanding Contribution Award. Her novels have been translated into more than 40 languages and adapted for television, most recently Karen Pirie.

Val McDermid

His debut novel, Shuggie Bain, won the 2020 Booker Prize and was a finalist for the National Book Award. It was named both the British Book of the Year and Debut of the Year at the 2021 British Book Awards, as well as being a finalist for over 20 other literary awards.

Douglas Stuart

Also known as ‘The Highland Hutter’, join Peter MacQueen as he enlightens us on all things hutting. From foraging, fire making and solar panels, to building a cabin, slowing down and enjoying the little things in life.

Born and raised in Oban, Peter MacQueen has always had a passion for living off-grid, resulting in presenting his BBC Alba TV show, Garradh Phadruig, from his own hut on the beautiful Argyllshire coast

Peter MacQueen

Renowned for his iconic Kilted Yoga sessions in the Scottish wilderness and tailoring yoga practices for real people. With personal triumphs over injury, back problems, and mobility constraints, he leverages his expertise in anatomy and sports therapy to create transformative class experiences.

Finlay passionately bridges the gap connecting individuals to this ancient practice and reaching those who may never have considered yoga for themselves.

Finlay Wilson

‘I am not gone. Mum is not gone. We are here. We are hidden.’

Join us for a gentle morning 5K run and reading with Chris Carse Wilson, author of Fray, a debut novel set in the Scottish Highlands about a father trying to rescue his lost wife and a dark, looming voice who threatens to destroy everything…

Chris is a lifelong runner who uses exercise and nature to manage his mental health. A passionate advocate for mental health awareness, Chris was diagnosed as autistic at the age of 40. He lives outside Dundee, where he was part of the team that created V&A Dundee, Scotland’s design museum.

Chris Carse Wilson

Kirsty Wark has built up a reputation as one of the UK’s most formidable and versatile television journalists. She is best known as an anchor on the BBC’s flagship News and Current Affairs show Newsnight.

Born in Dumfries and now based in Glasgow, Kirsty’s broadcasting career began in 1976 when she joined the BBC as a graduate researcher. She produced a range of radio programmes in Scotland before spending time in London as a producer on Radio Four’s The World at One and PM. In 1983 she moved to television to produce Reporting Scotland and was the first woman to edit the programme.

Kirsty Wark

Arun Sood joins us to discuss his debut novel, New Skin for the Old Ceremony: A Kirtan which won the 2024 Kavya Prize. Published by award-winning publisher 404 Ink, it is a postcolonial road novel touching on youth, memory, music and the ghosts of friendship, illustrating how colonial legacies can pervade personal histories. The form of the novel alludes to the Kirtan, a Hindu genre of storytelling focusing on music, shared narration, and spiritual ideas, but here structured in relation to the music of Leonard Cohen.

Arun Sood is a Scottish-Indian writer, musician, academic, and artist working across multiple forms.  He was born in Aberdeen to a West-Highland Mother and a Punjabi father, and has since lived in Glasgow, Amsterdam, DC, and now South Devon.  His books include the 2024 Kavya Prize-winning New Skin For The Old Ceremony: A Kirtan  (a road novel exploring notions of home, heritage, and belonging among the South Asian diaspora in Scotland) and Searching Erskine (a non-fiction artbook exploring the uninhabited island of Vallay North Uist) released with an accompanying ambient spoken word album that featured as Guardian Folk Album of the Month in 2023.  He is also the author of the academic book Robert Burns and the United States of America: Poetry, Print, and Memory, c. 1786-1886  and has published widely on Scottish and American literatures, postcolonialism, and cultural memory studies.

Arun Sood

Best known as the co-founder of the Scottish Labour Party, Don Roberto (RB Cunninghame Graham, 1852-1936), led an extraordinary life.

In his first biography, Don Roberto, James Jauncey explores the life of his great-great-uncle, the prolific writer, visionary, horseman, adventurer, and humanitarian.

James Jauncey

Sarah Rankin is a former MasterChef finalist and food writer who has just produced her first cookbook. Kith celebrates Scottish flavours, seasonality, local producers and the joy of cooking for those you love.

A native Highlander, Sarah is the host at the Golden Spurtle World Porridge Championships, held every October in the village of Carrbridge in the Cairngorms National Park, which attracts competitors from across the globe doing incredible things with our national grain.

Sarah Rankin

Poet and playwright Liz Lochhead’s 50-year career began with her poetry collection Memo for Spring, and includes her time as Scotland’s first female Makar and her latest collection, A Handsel. Her original plays and adaptations dramatically reflect the shifting times like Mary Queen of Scots Got her Head Chopped Off, Good Things, Perfect Days, Educating Agnes and critically acclaimed Euripides’s Medea.

Joining her on stage is her old friend, Andrew O’Hagan. From the Booker-shortlisted Our Fathers to a novel on lifelong friendship, Mayflies, and his latest novel, Caledonian Road, nominated for the Orwell Prize, a Saltire Award, and the Blackwell’s Book of the Year 2024.

Liz Lochhead

With 2025 marking the 75th Anniversary of author George Orwell’s death, this is a timely ‘script in hand’ reading of a moving and highly-entertaining new play by writer and director Richard Baron, whose previous Pitlochry productions include Nan Shepherd: Naked and Unashamed and Chicago. On Christmas Eve 1947, recently widowed George Orwell leaves his remote Hebridean writer’s retreat and is admitted to a hospital near Glasgow with advanced tuberculosis. But despite his rapidly failing health and fear of assassination, he has a vitally important work to finish: perhaps the most significant novel of the twentieth century, Nineteen Eighty-Four.

The Race to 1984

Informal seating will enable you to meet with other members, and receive a welcome from Alan Cumming ahead of our Winter Words Festival kicking off.

This Member only event gives you exclusive access to our incoming Artistic Director, and celebrates the difference that your support makes to our charity.

Breakfast with Alan Cumming

The multi-award-winning literary legend discusses his gripping new state-of-the-nation book Caledonian Road and his previous novels including The Guardian, Sunday Times and Financial Times Book of the Year Mayflies.

Born in Glasgow, Andrew O’Hagan has been nominated for the Booker Prize three times, was voted one of Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists in 2003, and won the E. M. Forster Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He is Editor-at-Large of the London Review of Books and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. His latest novel, Caledonian Road was nominated for the Orwell Prize, a Saltire Award, and the Blackwell’s Book of the Year 2024.

Andrew O’Hagan

Edinburgh’s new Poet Laureate in conversation with Alan Cumming with a world-exclusive reading from his new novel, Muckle Flugga.

Michael Pedersen is a prize-winning Scottish poet and author, the Writer in Residence at The University of Edinburgh and the Edinburgh Makar (Poet Laureate).

His prose debut, Boy Friends, was published by Faber & Faber in 2022 to rave reviews and was a Sunday Times Critics Choice. He’s published three acclaimed collections of poetry, his most recent, The Cat Prince, won Best Poetry 2023 at the Books Are My Bag Readers Awards. Pedersen has been shortlisted for the Forward Prizes Poetry and the Saltire Scottish National Book Awards and has won a Robert Louis Stevenson Fellowship. His work has attracted praise from the likes of: Stephen Fry, Kae Tempest, Irvine Welsh, Shirley Manson, Nicola Sturgeon, Jackie Kay, Alan Cumming and many more.


Michael Pedersen

Following the recent sold-out success of its play about the ‘Scottish Virginia Woolf’ Nan Shepherd, award-winning Firebrand Theatre Company’s engaging and inventive new one-woman show is performed in the round by Ellie Zeegen and directed by Richard Baron.

Employing a host of historical characters from Jane Austen to Shakespeare’s sister, the play showcases why the real Virginia Woolf’s brilliant, funny and richly entertaining essay about freedom and identity, written almost a hundred years ago, has become one of the most powerful and significant feminist manifestos of this time, and any time.

A Room of One’s Own

Carina Contini has a passion for fresh, artisan ingredients and authentic Italian cooking. She is a mainstay of the Scottish hospitality industry running three restaurants in Edinburgh while also acting as food ambassador, food broadcaster and cookbook writer.

Join Carina as she talks about ‘Love happy food’, her life, cooking and career highlights whilst enjoying two dishes from her cookbook, The Contini Cookbook.

Carina Contini

They will be joined by Edwin Morgan Prize-winning author Titilayo Farukuoye and chaired by Polari Prize-listed author Heather Parry, both contributors to 404 Ink’s new Queer Words Anthology Fierce Salvage and 404 ‘inkling’ authors, to discuss the contemporary book world, from both the writer and publisher perspectives.

Heather McDaid is the co-founder and co-publisher of 404 Ink, the reigning Scottish Small Press of the Year at the British Book Awards, and Public Relations Manager at the Estate of Sir Terry Pratchett, managing campaigns across Discworld, and running their fan hub Good Omens HQ. Prior roles have included working with Publishing Scotland, Paisley Book Festival, and many more across the industry.

Fierce Salvage: Contemporary Scottish Publishing

Ask Pitlochry Festival Theatre’s new Artistic Director about his new artistic direction.

Q&A with Alan Cumming

It follows the story of a young novice nun Maria, whose free spirit has trouble fitting in with the regulations of the convent. She leaves to be a governess to seven motherless children, while contemplating whether to commit to life as a nun. Maria transforms the von Trapp family home from a place of strict rules to one filled with joy, laughter, and music. In the process, she falls in love with the children, capturing their hearts and finding herself drawn to their widower father, Captain von Trapp.

Pitlochry Festival Theatre

Aug 29 - Sep 24, 2025

A Toast Fae The Lassies

Jul 25 - Sep 27, 2025

Sunshine On Leith

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