I’m thrilled to be part of the 2023 Hidden Door. Hidden Door is a volunteer-run charity that opens up forgotten urban spaces for the public to explore and discover incredible music, art, theatre, film, dance, spoken word and more. Their festivals reveal hidden parts of Edinburgh and showcase new and emerging artists, musicians, theatre and film makers.
Hidden Door will be back from 31 May – 4 June 2023, transforming the former Scottish Widows office complex on Dalkeith Road for a five-day spectacular event more immersive and atmospheric than any Hidden Door so far. (Which is saying something – I remember the excitement of first being inside Leith Theatre!)
This year’s event is themed around Environments, and the whole programme is looking very exciting indeed. I’m creating a set tailored for Hidden Door, which will include poems about LGBTQ+ life as experienced by this middle aged queer cis woman, about Edinburgh as an environment in its own right, about environmental issues through the prism of the minutae of everyday life and the other creatures that live alongside us. I’ll also be performing new work about office life, informed by my recent switch from office-bound employment to becoming a freelance writer.
Jay Whittaker, Edinburgh-based poet 