By Mynes A Pintanaweehauf, Our Edinburgh Arts Critic

There will be no separation-themed productions at the 2014 Edinburgh International Festival, its outgoing director announced yesterday. Speaking exclusively to BBC Scotlandshire, Sir Jonathan Mills provided an assurance that separatist playwrights would not be given a platform, with the EIF remaining a model of healthy unionist neutrality.

“Whilst I don’t mind artists discussing political issues, I far prefer it when they choose obscure and faintly pretentious ones, such as the plight of lesbian carpet fitters in Sloveniashire.

"The idea of stirring up some kind of debate in Scottish politics certainly doesn’t have any place at our festival”, began Sir Jonathan.

“The best examples of the creative arts are all about challenging change and how the status quo is always safer and nicer.

"We’ll be doing our best to remain as relevant as we ever have to the working people of Edinburgh by staging our usual mix of Chechen interpretations of James Joyce and silent retellings of Atlas Shrugged via interpretive dance.”

“Our festival will remain politically neutral. We refuse to give a platform to any separatists who seek to jeopardise the future of this wonderful festival. Do they not realise that nobody will want to perform in a piddly little festival of a tiny little country like Scotlandshire? If Scotlandshire separates from the UK the festival will be gone faster than the pandas!”

Sir Jonathan later went on to reveal more plans for the 2014 event.

“Of course, we’ll be having a big celebration of the Great War, when thousands of plucky Brits marched off together behind a sea of union flags. We also plan to stage as many shows as possible about Wills, Kate and the Royal Baby.  Basically, our programme will celebrate how great the British people are when they stick together.”

Edinburgh’s other festivals have also revealed their plans for 2014. Organisers of the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo announced plans to detonate a Trident missile on the Castle Esplanade, to demonstrate that it will only kill Islamic and Irish terrorists, whilst loyal Brits will be absolutely safe. In more sinister news, a treasonous press release from the Edinburgh International Book Festival revealed that separatist propaganda will be positively encouraged in 2014.

However, inside sources have suggested a different motivation for the EIF’s policy.

“I know that Sir Jonathan originally planned to commission a bunch of plays about how wee, poor and stupid Scotlandshire is”, explained Emma Gosling, a former booking agent for the EIF, “but we couldn’t actually find anyone willing to write one. Most of the people we approached didn’t respond, and the couple that did just sent an Instagram with a middle finger and an #iamnationalcollective hashtag.”

“The only submissions we ended up with were a three-hour rock opera by Jim Davidson and what appeared to be a script scrawled in crayon by what I can only presume is a four year old child named Blair MacDougall.”

Sir Jonathan would do well to commission the Royal Shakespeare Company to stage a new production of Alastair Captain Darling's blockbuster which we reviewed in March - Eckipus Wrecks : Labricide and Motherfucker

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