Edinburgh International Children's Festival director: 'We should never underestimate our audience'
After ten years running the Bangkok International Children’s Theatre Festival, Adjiima Na Patalung has taken over as director of the Edinburgh equivalent. She tells to Joyce McMillan what to expect at this year’s event
As ever, it begins with a brilliant free Saturday family day, at the National Museum of Scotland in Chambers Street. And after that, for a glorious nine days, the Edinburgh International Children’s Festival 2026 brings a riot of bright colour and powerful theatre to eight venues across the city, featuring six shows made here in Scotland, and nine visiting production from countries across Europe, ranging from England – home of theatre master Tim Crouch’s acclaimed show for 10-13 years olds, Toto Kerblammo!, playing at the The Studio – to Switzerland, Belgium, Italy, the Netherlands, Denmark and France.
This year’s Scottish-made shows include 2025 Fringe hit The Unlikely Friendship Of Feather Boy And Tentacle Girl – at Assembly Roxy throughout the Festival – along with Marc Brew’s Boys Don’t Dance, and a whole raft of other new work, including Island – a multi-sensory experience at the Fruitmarket Gallery for babies under one – as well as Cringe, Ross Mackay’s new play for older children about a difficult transition to secondary school, at the Scottish Storytelling Centre.
There’s also Andy Manley’s new Scottish-Danish co-production In Time, at the Traverse, a gorgeous parable about parenthood and the planet. And this year’s international visitors cover a similarly wide range, with BonteHond of the Netherlands offering their brilliantly colourful show for pre-school children, Wow!, at North Edinburgh Arts Centre, Bronks of Belgium combining with Compagnie Tea Tree in acrobatic show Antes De at the Lyceum Studio, and – among many others – inspired clown and aerial artist Carla Storti in Gretel, by Quattrox4 Company of Italy, a brilliantly visual and physical show about what happens when people lose their homes in a catastrophe, and have to rebuild from scratch.
“It’s been so exciting to become director of this festival at this stage in my life,” says new EICF director Adjiima Na Patalung, who arrived in Edinburgh in November after ten years founding and running the Bangkok International Children’s Theatre Festival back home in Thailand.
“I knew the previous director Noel Jordan very well, of course – he is part of a lovely, very supportive group of international colleagues; and so far this year, I’ve been delighted to ‘adopt’ the 2026 programme that he had almost completed, and to spend these months getting to know more about the Scottish children’s theatre scene, and how the festival fits in with the other year-round work of Imaginate, Scotland’s children’s theatre organisation.
“I’m really pleased, for example, that almost every one of the Scottish shows in this programme has been helped along the way by Imaginate’s creative development programme for artists based in Scotland. I also love really strong visual theatre, so I’m really looking forward to shows like Mirkids from Switzerland, at The Studio, where an audience aged about 5-10 lies on the floor under a kaleidoscope-like mirror while dancers create amazing sculpted shapes with different parts of their bodies; and the sheer colour and vibrancy of Wow! from the Netherlands.
“And for the future – well, this year we have an all-European programme; and although all the companies involved are great, one of my priorities would be to see whether there are good sustainable ways of getting more voices from the global south and the global majority into our festival.”
For now, though, Na Patalung is delighted to be working alongside Imaginate director Belinda McElhinney to deliver the 2026 festival, with its spectacular range of different types of work. “Back home in Thailand there’s still a tendency to see children’s theatre as something that’s always simple, colourful and upbeat, and of course it can be all those things. But I also think it can sometimes tackle serious subjects, and ask difficult questions, and I love that EICF has always done that. We should never underestimate our audience, just because they are children. I can’t wait to see how they respond to all the shows in our festival.”
The Edinburgh International Children’s Festival runs in venues across Edinburgh, 30 May - 7 June. For programme details see www.imaginate.org.uk/festival/whats-on
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