As you make your way through this issue, you may think something odd is happening. Where have Glasgow and Edinburgh gone? Don’t worry, the big two haven’t disappeared off the face of our planet, we just decided to shake things up for this October issue and shine some light on those parts of Scotland that this magazine doesn’t always reach. To horrifically paraphrase those Proclaimers, there’s Aberdeen some more, Pitlochry some more, Giffnock some more, Mull . . . okay, you get the picture.
More specifically, we reflect on 25 years of Dundee Contemporary Arts (DCA to locals and, well, everyone else), venture deep into The Enchanted Forest of Faskally Wood, and look into the state of play in Scottish theatre outside of the central behemoths. Plus, we drop into Helensburgh for eating and drinking matters, head back to Dundee for another superbly untethered Drinking Games, check out some scenic Parkruns, go wandering in Shetland, and uncover a number of venues across the country that are true hidden gems.
Not everything in the mag is rooted in a geographical location, so elsewhere we speak to Alice Lowe about her latest time-bending movie, chat with Tom Robinson about the future of protest music, profile the modern movie icon that is Joaquin Phoenix (who shares cover billing with Lady Gaga for their Joker musical sequel), and hang out with the fab four of cumgirl8.
Reviews-wise, the narcissists of Industry are back, a new animated classic could be in the making with The Wild Robot, this year’s Scottish Portrait Awards showcase is unveiled, Jay Lafferty takes to the pole in Bahookie, Sex Pistols turn the clock back almost half a century, and a whole heap of US political podcasts enter our ears ahead of polling day in early November.
If you’re feeling marginally discombobulated, regular Glasgow/Edinburgh service will be resumed for November. But in the meantime, we hope you enjoy reading about the cultural delights happening in other parts of Scotland.
Brian Donaldson EDITOR
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Isabella Dalliston Writers
Aashna Sharma, Ailsa Sheldon, Alekia Gill, Brian Donaldson, Claire Sawers, Danny Munro, David Kirkwood, Donald Reid, Eddie Harrison, Emma Simmonds, Fiona Shepherd, Gareth K Vile, Greg Thomas, Isy Santini, James Mottram, Jay Richardson, Jay Thundercliffe, Jennifer McLaren, Jo Laidlaw, Katherine McLaughlin, Kevin Fullerton, Laurie Goodlad, Lucy Ribchester, Marcas Mac an Tuairneir, Megan Merino, Murray Robertson, Neil Cooper, Paul McLean, Rachel Ashenden, Rachel Morrell, Rob Adams, Vic Galloway
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Wmouthpiece
hen starting my radio career back in 1999, John Peel was still broadcasting to the nation every week. During initial years at BBC Radio 1, I’d often hand over to the big man himself. His voice would crackle through my headphones, asking who I was playing. ‘Spare Snare’, I might reply and he’d compliment the choice. Surreal doesn’t come close. I had listened to him through my teenage years and into my twenties, with my own fascination for a diverse range of music kickstarted by his extraordinary shows. He played all genres, without question or discrimination. Put simply, John Peel blew minds.
His sudden death 20 years ago this month was not only a ghastly shock, but left a gaping hole in the hearts of music fans worldwide. Peel was the ultimate counter-culture DJ: a champion of the underdog and an inspiration to countless. He was also a true contrarian whose presenting style eschewed any cliché or pomposity, and whose favourite band could only ever be . . . The Fall. He seemed to search out the odd, unconventional and unorthodox on purpose, and his like has never been seen since, despite the existence of stations such as 6Music, KEXP or Radio X.
To me, he was friendly, fun and extremely personable. And lest I forget, he always ribbed me for being Scottish! The first
In this series of articles, we turn the focus back on ourselves by asking folk at The List about cultural artefacts that touch their heart and soul. This time around, Alekia Gill tells us which things . . .
Made me cry: The sweetness of coming back to Olivia Dean’s ‘Carmen’ never fades away. The song is an ode to those who went before us, paving their own paths in new places. My heart is so full with gratitude for my own grandparents, so I always end up in tears when this comes on.
Made me angry: Scotland’s arts sector is full of experimentation, inclusivity and joy. Upon hearing that Creative Scotland was forced to cut funding to artists this year, I was appalled. The sad truth is that the arts seem to always be the first to go, but at the end of the day there is no life without art, and there is no art without artists.
Made me laugh: Last week I saw Kneecap, the partly fictional biopic about the provocative Irish rap trio. While the film itself was raucously funny, I also have to laugh at myself for not figuring out that the band members were playing themselves the whole time.
Made me think: Last weekend I went to London’s Dialled In, a vibrant celebration of South Asian DJs. After my third conversation with someone saying ‘this is amazing, why don’t we have more of this?’ I started thinking ‘yeah, why don’t we?’
Made me think twice: According to Spotify, I’ve been having a ‘recession pop brat summer Tuesday afternoon’. Despite having listened to Charli XCX’s Brat many times, I still have no idea what a ‘brat summer’ was supposed to be. And now that it’s over, it’s probably too late to figure it out.
Twenty years on from the untimely death of radio legend John Peel, Vic Galloway reflects on his own personal connection and what Peel might make of today’s music scene
time I met him, I wondered if he’d actually want to talk music. Surely not? But he was delighted to discuss Misty In Roots, Juana Molina, The Misunderstood and more. I remember meeting him once in Brighton during a BBC event, asking ‘how was your PJ Harvey concert last night, John?’ His astonishing reply was ‘wonderful. Like seeing Gene Vincent in 1958!’ Not many people could have said that, or indeed had those two experiences.
The internet has certainly blown apart the music industry and allowed fans to locate anything, anywhere, at any time. But to have a selector throw it all together into such a glorious melting pot via the national broadcaster seems almost quaint now. Would John Peel approve of streaming? No doubt. Although I’m sure he’d want artists to be properly compensated. Would he approve of current trends? Of course. He would be uncovering acts and entire genres none of us had yet heard. Although we do undeniably have access to everything now, echo chambers, personal silos and online cliques appear to have closed rather than opened minds. John Peel was a BROAD-caster not a NARROW-caster, and he was a true music fan. To me, that is his legacy.
n Vic Galloway is a broadcaster, musician, author and journalist, and presents a music show on BBC Radio Scotland every Monday and Wednesday.
PICTURE:
GARETH GOODLAD
playLIST
Soothe your senses to the sounds of our October issue. This month’s eclectic mix of artists include Huckleberry, Kate Bush, Hear’Say, Bob Dylan, Sister Sledge, Blur, Kate Young and cumgirl8
Scan and listen as you read:
head head2
MEGAN
When I was around 12, my best friend would invite me over for sleepovers and force me to watch horror films in her dark room until the wee small hours. I used to measure how much I hated each one by a) how many episodes of Friends it took to cleanse myself of the whole experience; and b) how many nights I would lose sleep from imagining that the demon antagonist was hiding under my bed. My appreciation for culture has since expanded (thankfully) but I’ve come to accept that I’m not the target audience for horror in its traditional sense. While the elusive thrill people cite from feeling afraid registers in my body as 100% fear, 0% thrill, I do get a lot out of the works of Ari Aster and Yorgos Lanthimos, and thoroughly enjoyed films such as Bodies Bodies Bodies (pictured) and I Saw The TV Glow, all of which are heavily influenced by classic horror but are infused by artistic intentions beyond making you simply soil your pants. Basically, if it comes in a coating of comedy, satire or psychological thriller, I’m all ears; bring me that horror fusion. If that makes me the pumpkin spice latte drinker of the horror world, then so be it.
from the archive
We look through The List’s 39-year back catalogue to see what was making headlines this month in decades gone by
Back in 1986, just a year after our publication was founded, Lenny Henry graced the late-October cover ahead of two Scottish dates on his UK tour. We spoke to the then 28-year-old comic about growing up in the public eye, both as a performer and as a person. Elsewhere in the issue we caught up with surrealist theatre company Théâtre de Complicité in Brussels before they brought their show More Bigger Snacks Now back to Scotland after it won the previous year’s Perrier Award, while Julie Covington prepared to play Lady Macbeth at Edinburgh’s Lyceum Theatre. n Head to archive.list.co.uk for our past issues.
In the contemporary horror scene, are good old-fashioned scares falling victim to more ‘elevated’ influences? Megan Merino and Kevin Fullerton wield their respective blades in a blood-spattered battle to answer the burning question: have scary movies gone soft?
KEVIN
In his non-fiction masterpiece Danse Macabre, Stephen King heaps pity on those who can’t enjoy the wilder excesses of horror. ‘They simply can’t lift the weight of fantasy,’ he claimed. ‘The muscles of imagination have grown too weak.’ He’s half-right: as Megan’s take on horror proves, for some, the terror of the undefinable energises imaginations a little too much. Its prioritisation of instinct over thought has led critics to coin the thuddingly snobbish phrase ‘elevated horror’, denoting a spooky thrill ride that foregrounds chin stroking over actual scares. Never underestimate a thinkpiece-peddler’s talent for missing the point entirely. Thankfully, this is a genre that remains impervious to critical gentrification; as Ti West, Fede Álvarez and Blumhouse have shown, Grand Guignol and gutwrenching chills can go hand-in-hand with thematic richness without having to pander to those who need an arthouse sheen in their ritual sacrifices. No matter how much critics attempt to drag its many-headed body into the light of respectability, the modern horror that’s captured the public imagination (Late Night With The Devil, Get Out, X, Knife + Heart) maintains an air of hammer-in-the-face subversion that can’t be tamed.
Let the festivities begin
If you’re looking for the perfect venue to celebrate your festive events, then put Johnnie Walker Princes Street at the top of your list. e xpL ore our festive packages
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The most difficult thing is just stopping the noise in your own head
Intense, committed, dedicated. Words which often crop up when directors and fellow actors describe Joaquin Phoenix. James Mottram observes him in Venice prior to the Joker sequel hitting cinemas and finds a man who might well be looking to change his ways
JOAQUIN
If ever there was a reluctant Hollywood star, it’s Joaquin Phoenix.
The actor, who has featured in everything from Gladiator to Walk The Line, has never been one for parading himself on red carpets or photocalls. You sense that he’d much rather be burying himself in prep for a character or spending time with actress partner Rooney Mara and their two children than waving inanely at photographers. But that’s just part of the mystery of this most mercurial of actors.
Now he’s back as Arthur Fleck for Todd Phillips’ Joker: Folie à Deux, the musical (yes, you read that right) sequel to Joker, the 2019 film that won Phoenix an Oscar and grossed over $1bn, becoming by far the biggest hit of his career. Just don’t expect him to know why. ‘I’m not sure why it resonates with people,’ he shrugged at a press conference during the Venice Film Festival. ‘I think different people are attracted to different elements of the film. That’s what I’m always surprised by when people talk about it.’
Perhaps what resonated was the chance to see Phoenix’s utterly unique take on the Joker (traditionally Batman’s villainous nemesis in the DC Comics universe) in a performance that brilliantly reinvented a character already so indelibly played on screen by the likes of Jack Nicholson, Jared Leto and Heath Ledger. A full-bodied transformation, Phoenix tapped into wannabe stand-up comic Fleck’s manic-depressive state; just the sight of him laughing uncontrollably sent shivers down the spine.
This time around, Fleck is incarcerated in Gotham’s Arkham Asylum, awaiting trial for the five murders (six, if you count his mother) he committed in the original movie. It’s in this gloomy pen that he meets Lee Quinzel (Lady Gaga), who fangirls over him. Soon, they’re singing oldtime standards such as ‘That’s Entertainment’, and causing mayhem. If Joker was a love letter to revolution and violence, the sequel is a tribute to love itself. Arthur’s ‘quest for love’, says Phoenix, and the ‘safety that I think he yearns for and has yearned for is a big propellent on this one’. The first sequel of Phoenix’s career, Joker: Folie à Deux isn’t the first romance, however. Past films such as Two Lovers (by his regular collaborator James Gray) show that when he takes on a love story, it feels real and rich; even if he’s falling for his computer’s operating system, as he did in Her. Intensity, however, remains his watchword. Just think of his naval veteran sucked into a Scientology-like cult in The Master, smashing up a toilet in his jail cell. It left no doubt that Phoenix is the modern-day equivalent to Rebel Without A Cause’s James Dean. Such a desire to perform has always been there, of course. Born in Puerto Rico to missionary parents, his family later settled in Florida where Phoenix and his four siblings were swiftly signed up to a talent agency. A child actor from the age of eight, he first appeared in the 1982 TV version of Seven Brides For Seven Brothers. By the end of that decade, while his brother River was becoming a star, Phoenix was quietly winning roles, including Ron Howard’s Parenthood. But it
wasn’t until 1995’s To Die For, starring opposite Nicole Kidman, that the true Phoenix rose.
Observing the now grey-haired 49-year-old, I was reminded of his most notorious Venice appearance, when he featured in I’m Still Here, Casey Affleck’s documentary that chronicled his infamous meltdown of 2008, as he quits acting to forge a career in hip hop. The film showed him ingesting cocaine, ordering sex workers over the internet and treating the iconic TV host David Letterman to a monosyllabic interview, as he slumped in his chair behind shades and bushy beard. People revelled in watching this celebrity implode: until it turned out Phoenix’s madness was all in the aid of an elaborate prank.
It was no surprise that Phoenix’s faked crumbling fooled us all, given what happened in the wake of Walk The Line. After playing the pillpopping Johnny Cash, he checked himself into rehab when his drinking got out of hand. ‘Alcohol was something I relied on too much,’ he said at the time. While many actors and artists have faced addiction issues, it was a worrying moment given his brother River died from a drug overdose outside LA’s Viper Room club in 1993.
I’m Still Here showed Phoenix’s twisted humour, enjoying what he called the ‘sense of discomfort’ that this far-reaching method performance went. Taking things to extremes? It’s always been that way with him. For Lynne Ramsay’s You Were Never Really Here, in which Phoenix played a traumatised military veteran who goes on the
hunt for a missing girl, he bulked up considerably. ‘He came eight weeks in advance . . . I’ve had actors come early to prep but never that early,’ remembers Scottish filmmaker Ramsay. ‘He came to New York, left his home and built up like that in about eight weeks.’
For Joker, he did the opposite, shedding 52lbs to lend would-be standup comic Arthur Fleck an almost cadaver-like look that he replicates in Joker: Folie à Deux. ‘This time it felt a bit more complicated,’ he told the assembled Venice press corps, ‘because there was so much dance rehearsal that we were doing, which I didn’t have last time. And it felt a bit more difficult: I’m now 49. I probably shouldn’t do this again! That’s probably it for me.’
While that might be the end to Phoenix’s weight yo-yoing for the sake of a character, he certainly hasn’t lost his appetite for risk. This last 18 months has seen Phoenix push himself to his limits. In the surrealist horror Beau Is Afraid, he was the timid mummy’s boy who goes through a nightmare journey back to the womb, so to speak. A dedication from his fellow cast member spoke volumes. ‘Sometimes you’re just really grateful when you can look into another actor’s eyes and see them looking back; and Joaquin looks back,’ co-star Patti LuPone told me last year.
Then there was his reunion with Gladiator director Ridley Scott for Napoleon, with Phoenix offering up a masterful turn as the insane French conqueror. Since then, he’s undergone another reunion, with
JOAQUIN
Above and below: Joaquin at the Venice Film Festival
Beau Is Afraid filmmaker Ari Aster for the forthcoming Eddington, in which he plays a smalltown sheriff in New Mexico during the pandemic. Given the extremities of Beau Is Afraid (not least that opening sequence where he’s hounded in his hellish neighbourhood), the mind boggles as to what he and Aster might come up with next.
Still, for Phoenix, when it doesn’t feel right, it doesn’t feel right. Just before Venice, he quit Todd Haynes’ new gay drama set in the 1930s just five days before production began. The explicit-sounding film was said to contain graphic sex scenes, which would’ve secured it a controversial NC17 rating in America. Phoenix refused to elaborate on why he quit (‘if I do, I’ll just be sharing my opinion from my perspective,’ he noted in Venice.
‘And the other creators aren’t here to say their piece and it just doesn’t feel like that would be right’).
While this might tarnish his PR image ever so slightly, it’s clear that Phoenix won’t enter into anything unless he’s 100% committed. Like anyone else, he’s beset by worries, but he uses them. ‘I think the most difficult thing is just stopping the noise in your own head and you just get so caught up in second-guessing yourself and doubts,’ he said in Venice. ‘And you have to have that anxiety and fear because it motivates you.’ There’s no one better at channeling those fears than Joaquin Phoenix.
Joker: Folie à Deux is in cinemas from Friday 4 October.
Phoenix rising (clockwise from top left): Walk The Line, Gladiator, Joker, Parenthood, You Were Never Really Here, Napoleon, Beau Is Afraid
SOUND &
I‘t doesn’t matter who you are, where you are, what nationality you are, what your beliefs are. There’s one thing that unites everybody and that’s music.’ Karen Falconer, creative director of Wavemakers Live, the company responsible for designing The Enchanted Forest, is explaining the idea behind this year’s theme which goes under the title of Symphony Of Nature.
Located in Faskally Wood near Pitlochry, The Enchanted Forest is an immersive light trail that has enraptured visitors for decades. This ‘symphony of nature’ will follow on thematically from 2023’s grand finale by incorporating the Celtic winter goddess Beira. ‘We wanted to bring back Beira to start this year’s show, so I came up with the idea that she’s going to create a symphony of nature around our journey in The Enchanted Forest.’ As guests follow the trail, they begin with a prelude and progress through the different sections of the symphony, encountering a chorus of frogs, a butterfly kaleidoscope, and glowing dew droplets among many other spectacles.
The most exciting thing for Falconer, though, is a brand new, neverbefore-seen installation called In Bloom, created by Tom and Sébastien Guillen. In Bloom is a plant-shaped sculpture with elements that emit musical notes when guests interact with them. ‘It’s designed as an intuitive playful piece which connects people whether they have musical knowledge or not,’ adds Falconer. ‘The idea is that we can all join in and create something beautiful together.’
The design process involves a lot more than just coming up with a new theme, though, with Falconer and the rest of the Wavemakers team beginning work on the 2024 event last November. They considered
Community spirit and environmental awareness are both part of The Enchanted Forest ethos. As Isy Santini finds out, so is producing a jaw-dropping immersive light and music show
audience feedback, developed the theme and installations, sourced kit, and then worked with animators, composers and lighting designers to make everything a reality. ‘I absolutely love this process because I’m acutely aware as a parent that it’s my job to make this journey as engaging and immersive as possible. We’re living in a world where a lot of people don’t have that disposable income anymore, and for us it’s a privilege that people part with their hard-earned cash to come along to The Enchanted Forest; but it’s also a big responsibility.’
The responsibility extends further, too, as Wavemakers and The Enchanted Forest must be mindful of the community and its environment. The show is run by a charitable trust which directs all profits back into the local community to tackle issues such as child poverty and the cost-of-living crisis. ‘It’s a real feelgood event because you know that you’re actually helping the community.’ Falconer also has to ensure that the show is accessible to all without damaging the forest. ‘We’ve got to look at every single installation and think “okay, there are going to be kids, there are going to be buggies, there are going to be elderly people with walking sticks, there are going be people with mobility issues.”’ The team has to redo pathways, prepare for bad weather, and consider every eventuality without sacrificing the quality of their installations; and after all that, they must leave Faskally Wood exactly as they found it. ‘We’re very mindful that it’s part of nature, so there’s not one cable tie, not one bit of electrical tape left over. Every single person involved plays their part. It’s a huge collaboration.’
With many repeat visitors, one of the biggest challenges has been keeping the experience fresh and exciting from year to year. ‘My worst nightmare would be for somebody to say “oh, I saw that last year down
VISION
at the Botanics” because then that’s not me doing my job,’ Falconer admits with a laugh. ‘We do a lot of research and look at what people are installing in other shows. We’ve got guys that go out to trade shows and look at new technology, and we evolve the narrative every year. It’s all about looking at what others are doing and elevating that.’
Part of what makes The Enchanted Forest an enduringly unique experience is also the location itself. Falconer explains how the natural features of Faskally Wood provided part of the inspiration for this year’s theme. ‘One of the strongest sounds in nature is water, whether you’re at the seashore with the waves crashing in or you’ve got rain thrashing down through forest leaves, so I took my inspiration from Dunmore Loch, around which the forest sits.’ After guests complete the figure-of-eight circuit around the forest, they’ll witness the symphony’s grand finale of a dancing fountain. ‘It’s very much an attack on the senses; you’ve got the natural smells of the forest, you’ve got the sound, you’ve got the beauty of what you see, what you hear. It’s enhancing what’s already there.’
PAISLEY HALLOWEEN FESTIVAL: Spooking it up this October
The hugely popular Halloween event returns with a spectacular parade
If Halloween is the highlight of the autumn season (and it clearly is) then Paisley is the place to be this October. For the first time since 2019 the muchloved parade will return on Friday 25 and Saturday 26 October, and there’s so much to see and do that there’s bound to be something for the whole family to enjoy.
Celebrating its 10th anniversary, the return of this much-loved festival features a new funfair located outside the Lagoon Leisure Centre, stage and street performances by day, and a spectacular hour-long parade from 7pm each night, with 300 performers (including local community groups, PyroCeltica and Spark! LED Drummers) winding their way through Paisley town centre. Expect to see a ghostly pirate ship, glowing jellyfish, towering puppets, witches, zombies and more. While the event is still free to attend, for the first time guests will be able to purchase tickets for covered grandstand seats, offering fantastic views of the parade plus a limited edition tote bag with Halloween goodies and come-and-go access between 5.30-9pm.
Across the two-day festival, guests can enjoy activities from local businesses, and lighting displays on key buildings such as Paisley Abbey, the town hall and the Paisley Learning and Cultural Hub which will be transformed into what’s been tantalisingly described as ‘a mystery manga bat cave’. Also look out for installations across the town, such as a flaming gargoyle on Cotton Street, a ghost ship and giant witch in County Square, and a giant spider puppet, bubbling cauldron and wonder glass in East End Park.
Visitors from out of town can travel to Paisley Gilmour Street via rail, with regular trains from Glasgow Central, Ayrshire and Inverclyde. McGill’s Buses operate a number of services to the town centre. And car parking is available at the Piazza Shopping Centre, Paisley Centre (Horizon), Paisley Grammar School and West College Scotland.
Paisley Halloween Festival, Paisley Town Centre, Friday 25 & Saturday 26 October. For more details, visit www.paisley.is.
It was terrifying but so rewarding
DIn an uncertain arts environment, a venue such as DCA can sustain and root a whole city’s creative ecology. Jennifer McLaren speaks to some key players who have walked through its doors as Dundee’s multi-arts space celebrates 25 years of cultural endeavour
undee Contemporary Arts is celebrating 25 years as a cultural beacon at the heart of its city. Located on Perth Road, close to the centre of Dundee, it opened on March 19, 1999, with the aim of having local, national and international reach. It was also hoped the centre would anchor a flourishing cultural quarter with Dundee Rep located nearby on Tay Square, and Duncan Of Jordanstone College Of Art & Design further up the road.
The site was a derelict garage frequented by skateboarders that was reimagined by Edinburgh-based Richard Murphy Architects. There was also the task of bringing together pre-existing elements such as a cinema (then located at the city’s Central Library) and Dundee
Printmakers Workshop, merging them with new exhibitions and events spaces, a cafe/bar and offices. A quarter of a century on, DCA provides a varied programme of exhibitions, films and learning as well as a busy print studio for artists. It remains at the heart of Dundee’s cultural regeneration as the development of its waterfront continues, with V&A Dundee (opened in 2018) as its main attraction, and plans afoot for the Eden Project to develop a nearby former gasworks site.
As 25th anniversary celebrations got underway, it was announced the centre had been shortlisted in the 2024 Art Fund Museum Of The Year. The only Scottish institution to feature, the title was won in July by London’s Young V&A. ‘It was and will always be an incredible accolade for the organisation,’ says DCA director Beth Bate, who joined
in 2016. ‘It meant so much to the staff here, and it meant so much to our audiences and funders as well, to be recognised for the quality of the work and the impact of what we do.’
With Scotland’s arts funding in crisis, DCA (along with hundreds of organisations) awaits the outcome of its Creative Scotland Multi-Year Funding Programme application in October, which will detail funding provisions for 2025–2028. ‘Every organisation is going to be expected to cut their cloth accordingly,’ Bate explains. ‘We’re a very prudent organisation and we take our financial planning very seriously. Like everybody else in the same boat, we wait and see the outcome and we’ll be able to confirm our plans after that.’
She recalls that it was an exciting time to arrive in Dundee when joining DCA, as the anticipation of V&A Dundee was growing. Bate saw it as an opportunity to support and profile DCA’s four programme areas: exhibitions, cinema, print studio and learning. ‘One of the things that struck me when I moved to Dundee was how beloved DCA is to so many people in the city, but also from further afield, right the way across Scotland and further down south. And so the opportunity to take over and lead an organisation which people already have huge ownership and love for, is a massive privilege. Our job really is to make sure we continue to earn that trust.’
Bate reflects on a civic reception to celebrate DCA’s big birthday held at the City Chambers in March. ‘We heard from two younger people who had been involved with DCA and some of our learning and engagement programmes, our cinema projects and also the print studio,
since they were teens. They spoke so brilliantly and passionately about the impact DCA has had on their lives and their careers.’
Looking to the future, Bate says that their four key programme areas will always be central to what they do. ‘But we do have ambitions to extend into the lower two floors of DCA. We’ve long been talking about the benefits that a third cinema screen would bring to DCA and to our audiences, and the additional space that we would have for events, and for hires and exhibitions work.’
Steve Grimmond became DCA’s new chair of trustees in the summer. He has held chief and senior executive roles in some of the UK’s largest local authorities and led on the DCA development in the 1990s while working as policy planning manager at Dundee City Council. ‘It’s a great time to become chair of the board of DCA,’ he says. ‘It feels like the organisation is on a bit of a creative high in terms of the quality and breadth and reach of the work that it presents and engages with, but it’s also quite a precarious time in terms of the financial position for DCA.’
Grimmond is excited about the challenge ahead to ensure DCA can maintain the quality of what it produces in a way that’s sustainable for the organisation. In the mid 90s, he was tasked with pulling together an arts strategy for Dundee. The idea for DCA emerged from a common desire for economic and cultural regeneration.
Grimmond says the location for the £9m centre was chosen from around 40 potential sites across the city. Twenty-five years on, Richard Murphy Architects’ open plan, modern design still seems fresh. He recalls the hope that this new arts centre would become a beacon for
Dundee’s cultural quarter and ‘act as both a social space that could bring people together as well as being a space for arts and creativity. I’m a Dundonian, and it’s hard to think of it not being there now. It does feel like it became this focal point for the cultural life of the city and lifted ambition across the board.’
Clive Gillman, now director of creative industries at Creative Scotland, was DCA director from 2005 to 2015. He came to his role at a ‘tricky’ point, when initial funding for the centre was coming to an end and a case had to be made that DCA was cementing itself as a key part of the city’s cultural landscape. ‘It was in its early days and still working out its relationship with the city, which is always going to be an interesting challenge,’ Gillman explains. Soon after, Dundee was laying out plans to redevelop the city’s waterfront, proposing an offshoot of the V&A as its central attraction. ‘DCA allowed the city to see how it could conceive of something and then follow it through and deliver something brand new.’ He later sat on the architectural selection panel for V&A Dundee, which was won in 2010 by Japanese architect Kengo Kuma.
His memories of a decade as DCA director are many, but what left an impact were exhibitions by artists such as Thomas Hirschhorn, Heather Phillipson, Dash N’ Dem and DJCAD graduates such as Scott Myles, and Jane and Louise Wilson, as well as festival Kill Your Timid Notion. ‘There were so many exhibitions that were really powerful and we weren’t sure whether or not we would achieve what we wanted them to do. But you take the risk, put them on and then you see this stuff happening that is so rich.’
The hard work of staff, many of whom have been with the organisation for years, has also been key to DCA’s success. Exhibitions manager Adrian Murray has been there in various roles for almost 17 years. ‘I remember when the building first opened, I couldn’t believe that this was now on our doorstep.’ he says. His favourite moment was meeting his wife while setting up a Ruth Ewan exhibition. ‘We were paired together to fix and load a jukebox.’
Chief projectionist Ian Banks has been with DCA since day one. He recalls experimental music, sound, film and moving image festival Kill Your Timid Notion (2003–2010). ‘I prefer to be behind the scenes, hence my job, but the projection team were on stage with bands, lacing up and operating the projectors and part of the action. I was well out of my comfort zone: terrifying, but so rewarding!’
Sarah Derrick, head of learning has also been with the organisation for 25 years. ‘Working here is constantly stimulating, challenging and rewarding. DCA makes art and visual culture relevant and accessible. I hope that our government actually recognises the value of cultural organisations like DCA and secures their ongoing success for future children and their families.’
dca.org.uk
PLAYING AROUND
Despite constant funding battles and perceptions of being isolated from the country’s cultural heartbeat, theatrical creativity is thriving beyond Scotland’s central belt. Neil Cooper looks at some of the venues and companies creating exciting new work across the nation, discovering a keen spirit of collaboration and determination
When it was announced that Alan Cumming was to become the new artistic director of Pitlochry Festival Theatre, the wow factor of having such a high-profile figure take on such a job instantly raised the Perthshire theatre’s cachet, garnering international attention. Not that PFT is shy of having acclaim heaped on it for the annual summer rep seasons it has been entertaining locals and tourists with since being founded in a tent in 1951.
Aberfeldy-born Cumming’s appointment, however, has raised the bar considerably in terms of ambitions for what a rural theatre outside the central belt can potentially achieve. One of outgoing director Elizabeth Newman’s many achievements during her six-year tenure has been to forge links with theatres beyond its immediate locale. ‘The world has moved on pretty substantially since Pitlochry Festival Theatre first opened,’ says chief executive, Kris Bryce. ‘Can you imagine the difficulty of getting to Pitlochry back then, with no A9 road link? Yet they were drawing a huge number of people.’
Since then, the theatre has become increasingly expansive in reach. ‘The way in which we work as an industry, and as a sector, needs to move on,’ says Bryce. ‘And I think that’s where Elizabeth and I have enjoyed leaning into really challenging times and responding to what people need, what artists need, what audiences need, and moving the theatre onwards. What’s really special about a producing theatre is you gather artists together, and it’s fascinating what comes out of that.’
There’s plenty more going on outside the central belt, whether produced by long-standing institutions such as Perth Theatre, The Byre in St Andrews or a ferry ride away at Mull Theatre. Dundee Rep has worked with a permanent acting ensemble since 1998. A quarter of a century on, while the shape of the ensemble has
changed, it has also shown that opportunities remain for actors beyond it. While ensemble members regularly work elsewhere, one of the most striking success stories has been that of Ncuti Gatwa, the current Doctor Who. Gatwa spent a year at Dundee Rep as part of the theatre’s graduate actor scheme before taking on starring roles, first in Netflix drama Sex Education, then as the evergreen TV Timelord. He follows in the footsteps of David Tennant, who appeared at Dundee Rep and other Scottish theatres before being cast as the Doctor.
Beyond the reps, independent companies too are making their mark. In the Highlands, Dogstar Theatre has blazed a trail at local, national and international level since the company was set up by Hamish MacDonald in 1998. Since then, Dogstar has produced a stream of new works that have seen them collaborate with companies in Sweden and Denmark as well as Scotland. Matthew Zajac’s solo play, The Tailor Of Inverness, toured the world for more than a decade.
With Zajac leading the company since 2014, Dogstar has worked with writers such as George Gunn, most recently on The Fallen Angels Of The Moine (‘a Highland spaceport fantasy’) which toured to nine Highlands and Islands venues. Dogstar has also forged links with Eden Court Theatre in Inverness and Playwrights Studio Scotland for the recently initiated Spark Festival, which aimed to nurture local playwrights. ‘I thought we might get maybe 12 or 15 submissions,’ says Zajac, ‘but we got 29. I was surprised at how many people in the Highlands are trying to write plays, so I don’t want Spark to be a one-off festival. We’re going to try and make it biennial so we can help develop things.’
In the Scottish Borders, Firebrand Theatre Company is serving a similar function to Dogstar. Founded in 2010 by current creative producer Ellie Zeegan and actress Janet Coulson, with Richard Baron on board as the company’s director of productions, Firebrand
Beyond the central belt: Alan Cumming and Elizabeth Newman (and left from top), Pitlochry Festival Theatre, Mull Theatre, Dundee Rep
PICTURE: FREDERIC ARANDA
have produced a diet of new work and second productions of already established contemporary Scottish plays. ‘One of our mantras has been to create epic theatre in intimate spaces,’ says Baron of the company’s raison d’être. ‘A big thing with Firebrand has always been to try and create very high-quality work in the Borders and export it to the city, rather than it being the other way around.’
‘What attracted us originally to start Firebrand was that there wasn’t a professional theatre company in the Borders,’ adds Zeegan. ‘That enabled us to set our own agenda, but also to look at what was on our doorstep. For instance, Rona Munro, one of the most prolific playwrights in the country, lives in Selkirk. So when we were doing her play, The Last Witch, we were able to sit in her living room and talk about it.’
Tellingly, Firebrand has recently become an associate company of Pitlochry Festival Theatre, fostering an umbilical link between companies in different parts of the country. With Baron having directed work at Pitlochry many times, this was a natural fit, and Firebrand’s studio production of Nan Shepherd: Naked And Unashamed looks set to return following a sell-out run in Pitlochry.
‘People might say there’s not really anything happening in the Scottish Borders, when in fact there is,’ Baron points out. ‘You just have to look for it, you have to collaborate, you have to discover, you have to join together. The Borders is a labyrinth; but once you know it, if you need somebody highly skilled in something, you’re probably going to find them in the Borders.’
In different ways, Firebrand, Dogstar, Dundee Rep and Pitlochry Festival Theatre demonstrate the wealth of theatrical activity outside the central belt. Far from being isolated, they also show just how much will there is for theatre to thrive, despite ongoing funding crises and other setbacks. This is something Alan Cumming will already know from his own formative years on Scotland’s stages. But he has much to look forward to. As Kris Bryce says of Cumming’s appointment: ‘I think it’s going to be a brilliant moment for Scotland and for Scottish theatre.’
Full details of productions and events can be found at dundeerep.co.uk, pitlochryfestivaltheatre.com; dogstartheatre.co.uk; firebrandtheatre.co.uk; perththeatreandconcerthall.com; byretheatre.com; antobarandmulltheatre.co.uk
Clockwise from below: Firebrand’s production of Nan Shepherd: Naked And Unashamed, Ncuti Gatwa in And Then There Were None at Dundee Rep, Matthew Zajac in Dogstar’s The Tailor Of Inverness
PICTURE: FRASER BAND
THE HEBRIDEAN BAKER
With a just-completed US tour under his belt and his own BBC TV show in the pipeline, the profile of the Hebridean Baker (aka Coinneach MacLeod) is very much on the rise at home and abroad. Next up for the best-selling author and TikTok star is The Scottish Cookbook, his fourth collection of recipes and stories inspired by island life. As well as mixing food, folklore and travel in his books, MacLeod encourages fans to learn a bit of Gaelic; he’s also become something of an LGBT+ icon along the way. Look out for the hirsute Hebridean on his October/ November UK tour. (Paul McLean)
n Hebridean Baker: The Scottish Cookbook is published by Black & White on Thursday 10 October.
eat & drink
bread winners
Artisan Edinburgh breadmaker Company Bakery relocated to Musselburgh in 2023. Donald Reid pays a visit to their new on-site café and finds out how the big move panned out
There’s company as in business. Company Bakery started making sourdough loaves in 2017, wholesales sourdough bread and pastries to over 200 businesses across Scotland, delivers to subscriber households in Edinburgh and now showcases them in its new café. Yet, according to founding director Ben Reade, ‘this is just the start. We’re still just working it out.’ There’s company as in association. While Reade might be the most recognisable director (with cheffy TV appearances and the now-closed Edinburgh Food Studio having been one of the most interesting local restaurants of the 2010s), he seems entirely comfortable with a lower profile. He’s clear that business leadership is equally shared with co-directors Hollie Love Reid (founder of Love Crumbs and Nice Times Bakery), and Amy and Duncan Findlater (Smith & Gertrude). ‘We’re four partners, with four different visions, but what’s important is where we come together, which is essentially making the best bread and running the best business,’ he says.
Then there’s the etymologoy of company. The word comes from the Latin prefix com (meaning with or together) and pane (bread). It’s gastronomy 101 that sharing bread is intertwined with good society, conviviality and being with others. In other words, the essence of Company is bread and people, and the café presents another opportunity to make the connection by bringing the public right into their sizeable production unit at Eskmills. This extensive, sometimes elegant, former Victorian rope and fishing net factory beside the River Esk has been revitalised with offices, 70 small businesses, a restaurant (Crolla’s Italian Kitchen) and function venue. Company’s discreetly located but bright canteen-style café showcases trays of elegant pastries and shelves of crusty loaves, with viewing windows down one wall offering glimpses of bakers rolling croissants by hand and placing pillows of naturally leavened dough into wicker proving baskets.
The expanded premises means more bread, more people, more scale: bigger thinking. For the directors, it also offers more opportunity to make an impact on the food system; for instance, they’re now even closer to their main source of flour, Mungoswell Farm near Drem in East Lothian. The bakery employs over 55 people, many of them learning and activating valued artisanal skills. Their ovens are of a scale that they had to be built in situ, which allowed a rethinking on energy use, and Reade declares the business to be well on its way along a decarbonised, net-zero path.
It’s all evidence that real bread is serious business these days; Company is in good, well, company. ‘The bread and baking scene in Edinburgh is off the charts,’ says Reade. ‘It’s so good. Think of the size and population of the city and the quality available. I’m really proud of that.’
Left to right, Ben Reade and fellow directors Duncan Findlater, Hollie Love Reid and Amy Findlater
tipLIST
Our tipLIST suggests the places worth knowing about in different themes, categories and locations. This issue we’re exploring walks with a food and drink destination that are all an easy day trip from Glasgow or Edinburgh
Walks with a food and drink destination
Quirky venues
EAST
WEST
EDINBURGH GLASGOW
AEBLE & THE FIFE COASTAL PATH
17 Rodger Street, Anstruther, aeble.co.uk
FINGAL
Alexandra Dock, fingal.co.uk
This pioneering craft cider shop now also operates as a bar, perfect for refreshment during a Fife coast meander. There’s a casual living-room feel, and expert guidance to find something you’ll love. Regular evening pop-ups include Baern and Hobz, bringing bar snacks, and a lot of fun, into the mix.
All aboard Fingal for dinner on a ship, without having to leave shore. This award-winning hotel is open to non-residents for cocktails, afternoon tea or dinner. It’s a gorgeous space for a celebration, with views of the islands in the Forth.
THE BRIDGE INN & THE UNION CANAL
THE BISTRO & THE AYRSHIRE COASTAL PATH
9 Sandgate, Ayr, thebistroayr.com
BATTLEFIELD REST
55 Battlefield Road, battlefieldrest.co.uk
For huge sea vistas, try the 100-mile Ayrshire Coastal Path. A rugged clifftop stretch from historic Dunure Castle to Ayr leads to The Bistro, a contemporary bar-diner showcasing local produce in impressively crafted Euro-Scots dishes.
THE BROCH CAFÉ & THE ROB ROY WAY
This restored tram shelter has a history going back to 1914. Since 1993, its petite confines have housed a quaint Italian with bistro-ish plates (smoked haddock crêpe, black pudding salad) alongside pizzas and pastas. Lunchtime offers particularly good value.
Leonora Mellish, Brand Manager for Reyka, shares her top tips for city-bound walks that end (as they should) at the pub
Sarah Berardi, Hendrick’s Gin Ambassador, shows us around three of her favourite quirky bars
THE BLACK FOX
17 Albert Place, Leith, Edinburgh, blackfoxleith.com
Iceland has a breathtaking coastline and so does Scotland. For an easy beachside walk, head towards Leith and walk along to Portobello, building in a pit-stop along the way at The Black Fox for a Bloody Mary with Reyka. This quirky pub is also a great place to grab a bite to eat if you need walk-boosting sustenance.
THE BLACKBIRD BAR & RESTAURANT
37–39 Leven Street, Edinburgh, theblackbirdedinburgh.co.uk
KIM’S MINI MEALS
27 Baird Road, Ratho, bridgeinn.com
5 Buccleuch Street, facebook.com/mrkimsfamily
It’s an eight-mile walk along the Union Canal from Edinburgh to Ratho, which is a brilliant way to work up an appetite for lunch at The Bridge Inn. The burgers, fish and chips, and homemade Belhaven Black steak pie are hearty favourites, and Sunday lunch is well worth the hike.
You’d think early last orders (8.30pm, no exceptions) and a firm policy on reservations and takeaway (neither allowed) would put folks off, but Kim’s is an enduring institution. Show up, queue up and eat up some of the best bibimbap in town.
PABLO EGGSGOBAO
Main Street, Strathyre, brochcafe.com
HANOI BIKE SHOP
8 Ruthven Lane, hanoibikeshop.co.uk
The 79-mile Rob Roy Way, honouring Scotland’s most famous outlaw, passes through Strathyre village. Walkers on the trail (and cyclists on NCR7) can recharge at the welcoming, outdoorsy Broch Café, with well-sourced breakfasts and light lunches, great cakes and a pétanque court.
Places hidden down lanes always excite. A garland of plants and Vietnamese flags herald your entrance into this canteen-style space of wooden benches and hanging bikes, with vibrant renderings of street foods and hearty dishes. Try the pho, and anything with the homemade tofu.
Do as the Icelanders do (they love being outdoors for good mental health and wellbeing). Hike up Arthur’s Seat, cross a couple of roads to The Meadows and finish off with a Reyka Espresso Martini at The Blackbird. They have one of the best beer gardens in Edinburgh if you want to continue the al fresco theme.
THE 78
THE CROWN HOTEL & THE RIVER TWEED 54 High Street, Peebles, facebook.com/ crownhotelpeebles
THE FRYING DUTCHMAN CAFÉ & THE GREAT TROSSACHS PATH
A stroll by the Tweed makes for an idyllic weekend outing. Afterwards, head to the bright conservatory at the back of The Crown Hotel for classic pub food done very well. Shepherd’s pie and veggie burger are excellent, while the Sunday roast is legendary.
Quirky name, quirky food, and the bao bun/ breakfast fusion you didn’t know you needed. Refined? Nope. Delicious? Oh yeah. Try the breakfast bao: crispy hash browns, square sausage, omelette and melted cheese with sriracha. Takeaway or delivery only.
THE LEDDIE & ABERLADY BAY
PARADISE PALMS
West Main Street, Aberlady, theleddie.com
41 Lothian Street, theparadisepalms.com
Bright and bold Paradise Palms is the antidote to a grey weather day. It’s a bar, a restaurant, a record shop and a venue, decked in neon lights and kitsch ephemera. Cocktails are a specialty, plus a menu of American-style veggie/vegan soul food.
Walking through Aberlady Nature Reserve to the high dunes and sandy beach is gorgeous in any season. Warm up at newly opened The Leddie (formerly Ducks Inn) with hearty chicken pie and its towering pastry crust, or a bowl of garlicky mussels. There’s also a great beer garden.
SINGAPORE COFFEE HOUSE
THE SHOREGATE & THE FIFE COASTAL PATH
67 High Street North, Crail, theshoregate.com
Choose from the cosy backroom bar or the smart sea-facing restaurant: either way you’re in for unstuffy fine dining with generous servings. Try cod with orzo and shellfish broth, or lamb rump with gnocchi. From here, follow the lengthy Fife Coastal Path to Kilminning Nature Reserve, looking out for dolphins. (Ailsa Sheldon)
5 Canonmills, singaporecoffeehouse.co.uk Singaporean food is a fusion of flavour and colour, condensed here into a cheery eight-seat restaurant. Roti canai is deliciously buttery and flaky, served with a rich curried sauce. A cup of kopi with condensed milk completes the authentic experience, powering you with sugar and caffeine for your day.
26 Candleriggs, nonnasaid.com
75–77 Main Street, Callander, thefryingdutchmancafe.co.uk
The 28-mile Great Trossachs Path runs from Callander to Loch Lomond. A jaunt on any section will help justify a top-notch traditional fish supper at The Frying Dutchman Café in Callander.
This place picks up on our ongoing love affair with all things Neapolitan, throws in some eyebrowraising toppings, and indulges an equally potent crush with old-school hip hop. Munch on fried carbonara bites or a lamb doner pizza, while Biggie blasts out of the speakers.
FYNE ALES FARM BREWERY & ARDKINGLAS ESTATE
After a long walk around Kelvingrove Park, The 78 on Kelvinhaugh Street is the place for a nice, warming Reyka Bloody Mary and a well-earned rest. The cosy Victorian bar is known for its fireplace, draught and cask beer and delicious drinks; there’s also a current pop-up from Mexican food truck, Antojitos.
Achadunan, Cairndow, fyneales.com
THE TIKI BAR & KITSCH INN
214 Bath Street, tikibarglasgow.com
Scotland’s woodlands loom large at Ardkinglas Estate on Loch Fyne. Here literally be giants, including the ‘mightiest conifer in Europe’. Refresh at nearby farm brewery Fyne Ales with some award-winning beers. Picnics welcome or bring a takeaway from Loch Fyne Oysters.
Quirky is kind of the point of tiki bars. Foosball, shuffleboard and popcorn machine downstairs, Thai eatery above and doing some fantastic work on sticky and aromatic curries. You can also order food amid the 50s Americana of the bar while supping on a Zombie from a Polynesian tankard.
SUGAR BOAT & THE JOHN MUIR WAY
THE WEE CURRY SHOP
7 Buccleuch Street, weecurryshop.co.uk
30 Colquhoun Square, Helensburgh, sugarboat.co.uk
Twenty-odd seats, an open kitchen and the steady stewardship of the Mother India group make for a delightfully quaint ‘front room’ experience where dishes are classically composed but light and modern.
This popular stretch of The John Muir Way runs from Loch Lomond, over the Highland boundary fault, to Helensburgh, home to stylish bistro Sugar Boat. It’s a welcoming spot with good wines and all-day menus. (Jay Thundercliffe)
Fyne Ales Farm Brewery
The Shoregate
The Black Fox
Jo Laidlaw looks beyond the cities to see what’s happening in the world of food and drink this month
October is traditionally time to celebrate the harvest and prepare the pantry for the winter ahead; perhaps that’s why there are so many brilliant food and drink festivals across the country to wrap your tastebuds around. There’s still time to get yourself up to the Ayrshire Real Ale Festival, with 140 cask ales and 20 ciders and perries, as well as wine, softs and snacks. Helpfully, it’s just a ten-minute stroll from the station, at Troon Concert Hall (Thursday 3–Saturday 5 October). Colonsay Food & Drink Festival has plenty to explore, including foraging walks, fermentation masterclasses and chocolate making with Charlotte Flower (Thursday 10–Tuesday 22 October). And if it’s time to find your new favourite dram, Dornoch Whisky Festival will take over the town with tastings and tours at the end of the month (Friday 25–Sunday 27 October).
If me saying ‘October’ means you saying ‘fest’, then get yourself to Paisley. Two Towns Down Brewing’s very own Oktoberfest includes bratwurst, drindls, pretzels and The Scottish Oompah Band: let the good steins roll (Saturday 5 October). Melrose Rugby Club Oktoberfest (Saturday 12 October) sounds slightly lower-key but it is held straight after the Kelso match, so what do we know? If you just want to stock up, Bowhouse in Fife’s exceptional monthly food and drink market returns, with the usual mix of interesting traders (Saturday 12 & Sunday 13 October). They’re also running a cider-making workshop: come with apples, go home with cider in what must be the world’s greatest swaperoonie (Saturday 5 October).
side dishes
good in the hood
We wander through a neighbourhood and tell you where to drop in for food, drink and groceries. This month, Jay Thundercliffe heads to the coast for a walk through Helensburgh
Helensburgh’s position on the widening Clyde has long given it a certain seaside charm, helped by a history of visiting Glaswegians who escaped their smoggy tenements with trips ‘doon the watter’. The town’s food and drink offerings have ramped up recently, enough in themselves to justify a wee daytrip.
Colonsay Food & Drink Festival
The classic seaside diet of fish’n’chips and ice-cream is, of course, available. Excellent examples are on the waterfront: home-made gelato from long-standing Dino’s, and traditional suppers from neighbouring sister chippy Gino Fish And Chips. Another Scots favourite, curry, can be enjoyed at Masala Twist, a branch of the Glasgow chain, or the eclectic Annaya’s Indian, a popular takeaway with adjoining restaurant. For all-day dining there is stylish Sugar Boat, named after the capsized ship in the river, with its pleasant square-side al fresco tables and well-sourced menu. Another contemporary café-bistro is Riverhill Courtyard, secreted up a little lane in a splendid B-listed former warehouse. Sister venues La Barca and Padrone Pizza both offer views across the water, serving enjoyable tapas and wood-fired pizza respectively, while arguably the best pizza is at longstanding Mira Mare, an old-school Italian trattoria and pizzeria.
Helensburgh also holds on to those time-honoured high street shops. Traditional butcher Callaghan Of Helensburgh do big, bold sausages and great pies, while Ellie’s Cellar is an enthusiastic, independent off-licence. Wine fans can also try Parisian-style bar La Jupe for a well-curated list of French-leaning varietals and expertly mixed cocktails. The Artist Patisserie sells beautiful cakey creations, and The Ginger Breadman is the local baker, with a popular café for breakfasts, lunches, cakes and bakes, plus a pop-up shop at their bakery unit.
INDIAN
SANJA BY SAGAR MASSEY
About half an hour’s drive north of Glasgow’s West End brings you to the foot of The Campsies and Strathblane (population 1811). There, Kirkhouse Inn plies a happy trade serving people from the village and neighbouring Milngavie, as well as providing a touch of comfort for those about to West Highland Way (we salute you).
As of May, it’s also been home to Sagar Massey, one of the final three on Masterchef: The Professionals a few years back: turn left at reception for the hotel’s bar and grill, or turn right for Sanja, Massey’s fine-dining experience. There are plenty of details to make things feel a bit special, with bucket armchairs at the tables and canapés as you sit down. Bread and whipped butter, spiked with foraged wild garlic and green chilli, follows soon after. Then, there are choices to be made, between a sixcourse tasting menu or à la carte for dinner, plush lunches and midweek ‘street food’ offerings: it’s clear that attention is sensibly divided between destination dining for big occasions and an accessible go-to for locals.
The kitchen scores highly across the board. A piercing crust of turmeric atop halibut adds smoky depth to the dish, a delicate funk lurks in the goat’s curd beneath trout ceviche, and the intriguingly titled chicken 65 uses rich, almost gamey thigh meat that’s carried by the zing of pickles. Best of all though is lamb done two ways, a dainty little rack beside a red wine-braised leg, shaped into a juicy disc and knocked from corner to corner of your palate by sweet aubergine and crème fraîche. However accessible Massey wants to be, dishes are commendably gutsy; there’s a breadth of skill on display here that cannily fuses styles and customer needs. (David Kirkwood)
n The Kirkhouse Inn, Glasgow Road, Strathblane, kirkhouseinn.com/ sanja-by-sagar; average price for two courses à la carte £42.
EUROPEAN THE KINNEUCHAR INN
Given the glittering accolades bestowed on The Kinneuchar Inn since James Ferguson and Alethea Palmer arrived here, you’d be forgiven for thinking it might be another blingy, fine-dining showboat with overly tweaked, microscopic portions. Mercifully, it’s none of the above. This picture-postcard 17th-century hostelry has inherent style (think earthy classic tones) and an easy-going vibe. There’s a light-filled main dining room and a cosy bar, where dogs are most welcome. Outside, dine in the pretty courtyard or relax in the meadow garden, perhaps with a half-dozen Cumbrae oysters and a glass of something tip-top from the thoughtfully curated wine list.
The key to Kinneuchar’s deserved success is two-fold: the kitchen’s impeccable handling of fantastic produce (much of it from neighbouring Balcaskie Estate and other local suppliers) and an ability to make diners feel like they’re guests-of-honour at the best dinner party. A fork-to-field philosophy is evident in each lovingly crafted dish. Scoop up a glistening, golden dollop of fava bean, chilli and mint dip with fluffy, freshly baked flatbread, or savour the sweet hit of roast beetroot salad, studded with walnuts and a snowfall of barrel-aged feta. Cypriot flavours sing in lamb and pork sheftalia, with crunchy red kalibos cabbage and cooling tzatziki nicely cutting through the meatiness. Confit duck leg yields to the touch, paired with crunchy French beans in a mustardy sauce. Desserts are no afterthought either: fig and Marsala ice-cream is subtle and sophisticated. No faff, no fuss; this place has heart and soul stamped right through it. (Paul McLean)
n 9–11 Main Street, Kilconquhar, kinneucharinn.com; average price for two courses £38.
Drinking Games
Still wanted by The Hague for crimes against hospitality journalism, Kevin Fullerton is back to howl another drinking game into the void and onto these pages. This month’s challenge . . . find the best bar in Dundee for a fictitious stranded explorer
25 August, the year of our Lord 2024: Forsooth, disaster! My vessel (a small inflatable device my chief mate calls a ‘lilo’) has moored in a city upon which a supposedly extinct volcano threatens to spurt its magmatic fluid momentarily. The locals (a friendly yet fearful breed) refer to their province as ‘Dundee’. I know not when I will escape this land where ‘law’ means ‘hill’ and men with the sonorous tenor of Brian Cox besiege my senses. Such is my wont, I will log the particulars of every public house I imbibe in until I procure safe passage.
41 September, the year of our Lord 2024: Forsooth, I enter Grouchos as parched as the Devil’s nether flappings. Staff tell me this vibrant space was once a highly regarded record store but is now an intricate bar and venue replete with music memorabilia, tunes from yesteryear and a diverse cocktail menu. Home sits a thousand clicks in every direction. I miss my wife Millicent and our Great Dane, Deborah, who is also my wife. The Espresso Martini I order (wittily dubbed a Coffee & TV) acts as a brief respite from my travails.
89 October, the year of our Lord 2024: ‘Forsooth, Black Mamba!’ I scream, remembering my time fending off pythons in the Amazon (a warehouse I worked in for 12 days). My fears are allayed when I realise Black Mamba is a charming hybrid of gastropub and speakeasy with matching dynamic menu. Relaxed staff thaw the frost from my beard as I enjoy my beer, as cool to the touch as Deborah’s enticingly flapping ears.
111 December, the year of our Lord 2024: I have procured a pump for my lilomatic flotation device; escape from this blighted realm is in sight. My final port of call is The King Of Islington, an alcohol-festooned nook peopled by knowledgeable bartenders and a respectable guzzle gallery. Surveying my journal, I realise this strange land has an emerging bar scene with forceful personality and punctuation marks of flair. Sitting astride my lilomatic flotation device and grabbing my throbbing oar betwixt both hands, I almost regret leaving.
BAR FILES
Creative folks reveal their top watering hole DIRECTOR JULIE ELLEN
The temptation of a bar you can stroll to from your desk in 60 paces would be too much for many mere mortals, especially when the 30 stairs along the way all go down. So it’s all the better that The Byre bar opening hours are show specific: there when you want it, closed when I need to concentrate. Being run by our partners St Andrews Brewing Co means there’s a warm invitation to try from the range of their locally brewed ales, in addition to the usual theatre bar must-haves. The murmuration of a gathering crowd, eager with anticipation for the gig, the stand-up or the show they’re about to see, calls me to one of my favourite bars.
n Julie Ellen is director of The Byre Theatre, St Andrews; byretheatre.com
IT
WOULDN'T
BE CHRISTMAS WITHOUT WARNINKS
WARNINKS SNOWBALL
50ML WARNINKS
100ML LEMONADE AND ADD THE JUICE OF 1/4 LIME
ITALIAN SALUMI IN SCOTLAND: WHERE TRADITION MEETS SUSTAINABILITY
Italian cured meats are some of the most beloved elements of our sharing board, or tagliere in Italian, and they’re coming to Scotland.
The Italian Trade Agency in London is celebrating all things Italian cured meats in their promotion with ASSICA (Associazione Industriale delle Carni e dei Salumi) and IVSI (Istituto Valorizzazione Salumi Italiani), showcasing how this traditional, artisanal industry has made waves in the area of sustainability.
In Scotland they’ll be hosting a few events including a show cooking demonstration with Gary Maclean and Giovanna Eusebi at the City of Glasgow College for the future of Scottish hospitality. They’ll be taught all about PDO and PGI certifications, and how to use these cured meats in some traditional Italian dishes, and Scottish ones too (think Scottish scallops wrapped in Prosciutto San Daniele).
Learn more about Italian salumi, where tradition meets sustainability
LAURA THOMAS CO
Founded with a flagship lavender-scented candle to help aid sleep, Laura Thomas Co (which recently celebrated its ten-year anniversary) now boasts a full range of skin, hair and face products, all using chemical-free ingredients. Still based out of North Berwick, with a physical store located on the town’s High Street, the company is committed to keeping ingredient sourcing and manufacturing as local as possible. Packaging is all plastic-free and refillable while scents are derived directly from nature, with products stocked in boutique hotels across Britain, Iceland and Sweden, and available to purchase in-store or online. Join their Saturday newsletter community for updates on events and workshops. (Megan Merino) n 67 High Street, North Berwick; laura-thomas.com; instagram.com/laurathomasco
travel & shop
Shetland is no quiet backwater where pipes ring from empty moors. Instead, these islands possess a unique undercurrent of talent, music and arts.
Laurie Goodlad explores how its past has shaped one of the UK’s most exciting cultural scenes
Physically closer to the Arctic Circle than it is to London and with a culture rooted in Scandinavia, Shetland is an island archipelago that sits over the horizon from the UK. Out of sight and politically peripheral, its narrative is as complex as the northern landscapes they possess. Shetland is a land where Viking stories and tales of Norsemen echo loudly. The islands were eventually handed to Scotland as a wedding dowry by the Danish King Christian I in 1469, drawing a close to 600 years of Scandinavian rule. This period, marking Shetland apart from the rest of Scotland, is celebrated in the annual Up Helly Aa fire festival, held at the end of January each year. The festival, which involves a thousand ‘Viking-clad’ torchbearers, culminates in the burning of a replica Viking longship.
Spring arrives slowly, and with it the annual Folk Festival welcomes artists and visitors from all corners of the globe in a frenzy of traditional and of-the-moment folk music. Shetland has a strong musical tradition, with many popular tunes immortalised in folklore. The Trows, famous mythical creatures in Shetland folklore, particularly loved fiddle playing, and much of our traditional music is thought to have been learned from them.
Famous for its musical exports, among Shetland’s rollcall of acclaimed musicians are Amy Laurenson, a Glasgow-based pianist who explores the music of Shetland alongside Scottish, Irish and Scandinavian traditional music, and Aly Bain, a Shetland fiddler with a reputation for being one of Scotland’s best contemporary musicians. A former pupil of Dr Tom Anderson (also from Shetland), Bain was awarded an MBE for his musical accomplishments.
There are no tartan-clad shops in Shetland touting clan memorabilia, but the quiet clack of maakin wires (knitting needles) invites people in. As the islands sit on the cusp of a northern winter, Shetland Wool Week celebrates all things knitting and textiles. It attracts almost a thousand visitors each October on a pilgrimage-style adventure into the woolly world of Fair Isle knitwear, with its bold patterns and bright colours, cutting-edge design and the celebration of traditional skills, once threatened but that now thrive.
Shetlanders love a good spree (party), and for a place with only 23,000 people, the variety of world-renowned festivals and events is a testament to the pride and skill of these dedicated islanders who keep traditional arts and music alive.
shetland.org
wanderLIST: Shetland
my favourite holiday
Poet, author and seasoned prankster Hollie McNish recalls a childhood family holiday defined by a searing stunt
As a child, I would get very excited playing pranks, mainly on my dad because he got most annoyed. About once a year, my mum would take me to the joke shop and give me a fiver to buy whatever I fancied: fake mice, sweety bags that snapped your fingers, that sort of thing. I still vividly remember my dad storming out of the bathroom, his hands and face foaming black with the secret soap I’d switched for his while he’d been downstairs watching telly.
But my biggest success was while we were in Greece on holiday. We arrived at a very fancy hotel. My dad smoked, so as we sat in the hotel lobby I pulled a recent ‘fake cigarette plus burn mark’ purchase from my rucksack and covertly placed it on the arm of the posh sofa where my dad was sitting.
The receptionist came over to check us in and started properly screaming at my dad. I sat, unsure if the level of trouble I would be in was worth the watch. It was. My dad looked at the cigarette, didn’t touch it, and shouted back in defence. A heated argument ensued for a good couple of minutes until someone picked it up. I remember very little else about the holiday apart from this grand triumph.
Lobster And Other Things I’m Learning To Love is out now published by Fleet; Hollie McNish will perform a live reading, supported by Michael Pederson at Birnam Arts in Dunkeld on Tuesday 22 October.
on your doorstep
A 5k run on a Saturday morning is a staple for hundreds of thousands of Parkrunners around the world. Megan Merino recommends three particularly scenic courses across Scotland
AVIEMORE
Routed entirely on trail paths with stunning views of the Cairngorms and its rolling hills, this course in Aviemore delivers on both scenic vistas and remoteness. Head to Route 7 Café for coffee and a sweet treat afterwards.
MOUNT STUART
A short ferry ride from Wemyss Bay gets you onto the Isle Of Bute, home to the spectacular Mount Stuart estate. While the grand house is well worth a visit in and of itself, its very own Parkrun takes you on an adventure around the grounds which boast gorgeous botanical gardens overlooking the Firth Of Clyde.
SKINADIN
A new addition to Scotland’s roster, this marks Skye’s first Parkrun and takes place over a mixture of gravel paths and forest trail terrain. It’s an out-and-back route with slightly challenging elevation made up for by spectacular views.
n All Scottish Parkruns begin at 9.30am; visit parkrun. org.uk to find out more.
Mount Stuart
assorted treats
Rachel Ashenden cracks open the pandora’s box that is Deluxe Miscellanea, dubbed by its owners as a ‘sort-of art workshop’ steeped in history, ritual and the natural world
Adigital curiosity cabinet, Deluxe Miscellanea offers an enticing glimpse into the folkloric vision of artistic duo Emma Gibson and Harriet Horton. Based west of Inverness in the forest-dense Scottish Highlands, the business operates from a garage turned shared studio next door to a gothic ‘pavilion’ building, which they’ve painted bright orange as they prepare to open up a physical art shop. While the launch date has yet to be confirmed, Deluxe Miscellanea got its first taste of in-person retail earlier this year at Number 22 in Edinburgh.
Gibson and Horton make everything from scratch, applying their combined skillset which encompasses wood carving, pewter casting, glass work and even taxidermy. They strive to work with local suppliers, as well as recycled or found objects such as shells and driftwood. A bridge between high art and gifts, each strangely beautiful object has a myth or ritual behind it. One offering is a hand-carved bird talisman, which opens to reveal a secret compartment, containing a note instructing you to place a stone inside which then transforms into the bird’s heart. Also available is a pewter divination kit, harking back to a ritualistic pastime practiced by the Vikings and Celts centuries ago.
‘Our work bleeds into every aspect of life: every walk, every beach trip, every sofa chat,’ the pair state. This enchantment with the extraordinary has also taken the form of a self-published newspaper, with its first issue inviting readers to consider UFOs as modern folktales. Through its intriguing objects, Deluxe Miscellanea certainly has many stories to tell. And Emma Gibson and Harriet Horton are clearly dying to share them.
Inspired by the folklore and history of Orkney, this company is a small family business which uses local, hand-picked ingredients. Their signature gin, Aatta, comes in a stunning iridescent bottle, but if gin isn’t your thing they also celebrate Orkney’s heritage with their own take on the Nordic spirit aquavit. n orkneygincompany.com; instagram.com/ orkneygincompany
MADE IN THE GLEN
This sustainable gift brand was founded by three sisters (Julia, Christine and Liz) just five years ago. Browse original paintings capturing the natural beauty of Glen Urquhart, take a look at their collection of handmade and
Venturing beyond the central belt, Isy Santini recommends three family-owned brands dotted across Scotland
reclaimed homeware, or nab some vegan pampering products for yourself or your canine companions.
n Braefield Croft, Glen Urquhart; madeintheglen. co.uk; instagram.com/madeintheglen
THE BOOKHOUSE
Located in Broughty Ferry, this aims to be not just a bookstore but also a community hub for book lovers. A member of the family is always on hand to answer questions, but if you still can’t pick from their wide range of titles, they also offer a carefully curated subscription service.
n 41 Gray Street, Broughty Ferry, Dundee; thebookhousebroughtyferry.co.uk; instagram. com/bookhouse_broughtyferry
Royal Scottish National Orchestra Presents with thanks to esk �lm
SOUND FESTIVAL
Time for more ‘Adventures In New Music’ as Sound celebrates its 20th festival. Across venues such as Aberdeen Science Centre, The Blue Lamp, Cowdray Hall and The Anatomy Rooms, some proudly ‘niche’ music can be enjoyed by audiences in North East Scotland. Among the treats for 2024 are a family-friendly concert led by percussionist Joby Burgess (pictured), music and conversation with Evelyn Glennie who is accompanied by New London Chamber Ensemble, and renowned harp/electronica duo FitkinWall, while Composers Day is a workshop to help creatives of all ages and abilities to further their skills. (Brian Donaldson) n Various venues, Aberdeenshire, Saturday 19–Sunday 27 October.
going out
The media is still far too male, white, middle class-dominated “
They may have released just two albums but the Tom Robinson Band had a huge impact on Britain’s late-70s punk-powered music scene. As his band hits the road again, Neil Cooper talks to Robinson about writing songs which still resonate almost 50 years on and why the next wave of activism needs to be led by black artists
When the Tom Robinson Band stormed the barricades of the pop charts in 1978 with their hit single ‘2–4–6–8 Motorway’, British society seemed on the verge of breakdown. As TRB became figureheads of Rock Against Racism (the organisation founded after Eric Clapton’s bigoted outburst during a 1976 concert), rabble-rousing anthems such as ‘Up Against The Wall’ and ‘Glad To Be Gay’ captured the uneasy spirit of the age. ‘Power In The Darkness’, the title track of the band’s debut album, was a call to arms, punctuated by a monologue in the hysterical voice of a rabid right-winger that showed what punky youth were up against. Almost half a century on, and with the UK in a similar state of collapse, those songs might just have found their time again.
‘The two TRB albums came out of a time of uncertainty,’ says Robinson, who brings a new line-up to Scotland for three dates. ‘There was mass unemployment among the youth for the first time, and nobody really knew where the country was going. We didn’t know what was going to happen with the next election, or what was going to happen in America. We didn’t know Reaganomics was going to come in and had no clue what Thatcherism was going to mean. And there were all these far-right groups seemingly polling really high, and it seemed like something really ugly could come down the turnpike. It’s been hard to explain to people why the songs are so paranoid, but now we find ourselves in times of similar uncertainty, so I’ve revisited them.’
He formed TRB after his first band, Café Society, imploded around the time he saw the Sex Pistols. Gigging at grassroots level, TRB handed out newsletters that contained contacts for Gay Switchboard,
Spare Rib and Rock Against Racism, as well as details of who to contact if you were arrested. As with the songs, this was a form of community agit-prop. TRB fell apart around the time of the 1979 Tory landslide and Robinson spent the next ten years in therapy, decamping to Germany and scoring a 1984 solo hit with ‘War Baby’ before moving into broadcasting to become the familiar voice on BBC Radio 6 Music he is today.
In terms of today’s equivalents of TRB, Robinson cites Kae Tempest, Stormzy, Akala, Fontaines DC and Idles. ‘But 40 years later, this needs to be black-led,’ Robinson implores. ‘We don’t need well-meaning white liberals to be putting together something called Rock Against Racism. We need to be supporting the black artists that we have and who aren’t getting a fair crack of the whip in the media. I’d love to see veteran artists as well, like Roots Manuva who should be so much more famous than he is. The wonderful Dennis Bovell is still beavering away making great records, but they don’t get the same prominence. The media is still far too male, white, middle classdominated. But the beauty of the internet is that people can go straight to the source and find their own tribe musically.’
Robinson has put his money where his mouth is on this issue with his choice of the Tom Robinson Band’s opening act for this Britain-wide tour. ‘Rob Green is a young, black, gay songwriter, and he’s just the most charismatic, brilliant stage performer,’ Robinson says. ‘It’s good to be able to introduce the audience to something they haven’t heard of before and that they might like. Rob is going to be our secret weapon.’
Tom Robinson Band, The Tunnels, Aberdeen, Friday 4 October.
PICTURE: NIGEL PLANT
“ It
was
a
toxic era that disguised itself as being inclusive
Filmmaker and actor Alice Lowe’s second feature film Timestalker is an era-skipping fantasy romcom about a woman’s obsession with a toxic man who keeps popping up in her life as she is reincarnated over different periods in history. Lowe talks to Katherine McLaughlin about happy endings, the nasty noughties and getting deep inside the female mind
You play with many tropes from romcoms and historical fantasy in the film: the idea and conventions of what love is in those genres is generally rammed down people’s throats in such a boring manner. In Timestalker, the character of Agnes is in a prison of conditioning over the different eras of patriarchal values. Was that something you were actively thinking about while writing? I think a lot of women have this double bind when you’re writing a narrative. You want your female heroine to be empowered and happy and self-actualised by the end, but that isn’t always the reality of life as a woman. So, I wanted to do both. You show someone having their happy ending, but you can choose to watch it in two ways. You can watch it as all a bit of a fantasy, and she doesn’t get what she wants. Or you can watch it as an optimist and a dreamer. It’s all about challenging that narrative of romcoms. But also asking, what is a romcom? What’s a romantic narrative? And obviously there’s a history of what romance is and what romantic narratives are, which go back to the 18th century, which is also a period within the film. This woman is in love with a guy, but it becomes something more metaphysical by the end. And the point was to shake up that narrative and ask ‘what’s it all about?’ Can we not have narratives that are existential for women? It’s much more unusual. The film’s a bit of a metaphor for how I feel about filmmaking. It’s a romantic dream that you
chase, and it can damage you. made insane at it, apparently!
Is filmmaking your amour fou?
Yes, it is. This film has died a death so many times and been resurrected, so it’s quite fitting to the concept. You have to have this evangelical belief in a project to get it made and it is crazy sometimes. The more idiosyncratic it is, the more you have to be insane to kind of pursue it. When you’re genuinely trying to do something new as well and you’re really trying to shake up convention and take risks . . . I can’t not do that. I try to sell out but it doesn’t work. I try to do something more conventional and nobody wants it because I’m shit
Can you place yourself back in the mindset you had at the start of your career with those live Garth Marenghi shows at the Edinburgh Fringe, and the hopes and aspirations you had at that time?
I’d been offered a job teaching English in Japan for a year for what seemed like a massive salary, and I turned it down. My parents thought I was
insane because Richard Ayoade asked me to be in a play. It was like a sliding doors moment. It was only working with those guys that got me an agent and got me TV work. But then I think it’s taken a long time to give myself permission to have creative authority. Especially in that era, because that was the noughties and I think we are starting to realise how toxic it was. There’s a lot of that in the film as well; there was a revival of romanticism then, because of Pete Doherty and stuff like that. Men were creative in a poetic way, which meant they could do what the fuck they liked, and women could be groupies if they were lucky, but generally they would not be part of the creative process. They could hang around and look pretty. It was a toxic era that disguised itself as being somewhat inclusive. Of course, you had Nuts and Zoo and these really awful attitudes, which was the era when I came into comedy. It dented my confidence a lot.
In Timestalker, there are colourful 18th-century costumes and all those 1980s New Romantic nods. One of the music videos in the film seemed to have a real Kate Bush vibe to it?
Kate Bush is such an influence for me. One of the major influences on this film, in particular, is a lack of shame about femininity, that imagination and that softness: what’s wrong with that? We’re not used to seeing inside a woman’s head. Kate Bush is so intimate in what she sings; it ought to be embarrassing but it somehow isn’t because the beauty of it is so powerful you forget about the embarrassment.
Timestalker is in cinemas from Friday 11 October.
t s • a •str arts •
GAELIC CULTURE THE TRAVELLING FOLK MUSEUM
Author and storyteller Eileen Budd speaks vividly of the power of Gaelic and Traveller culture, where many stories from Scottish folklore have their origins. ‘As you go to places with Gaelic place names, there are folk stories behind them,’ she explains, ahead of embarking on an autumn tour of the country’s east coast to uncover the folklore of locations in Angus and Perthshire.
Born in Angus into a family ‘with strong oral storytelling tradition and belief in maintaining it’, Budd was raised in Perthshire. ‘I learned most of my stories at the feet of my granny and papa, and I was captivated by their telling of the tales. When I had my son six years ago, a fire began in my belly, and a realisation of how important it is to pass it on.’ Budd is now committed to going around Scotland with her Travelling Folk Museum, bringing ‘folk objects, original stories and ancient legends’ with her when she rolls into places such as Forfar Historical Society (3 October), Kirriemuir’s Balintore Castle (2 November) and Montrose Museum (9 November).
‘I’ve recently added Scottish herbs to the Travelling Folk Museum, for smelling and discussion,’ says Budd, while at the rural Glenesk Folk Museum in Angus (5, 13 October, 10 November), she’ll be focusing on waulking songs. At the Scottish Storytelling Centre in Edinburgh (23 October), she joins forces with experimental folk duo Burd Ellen for Òrain Mhòir, a multimedia performance which includes film, field recordings, song and electronic sound. (Marcas Mac an Tuairneir)
See instagram.com/eileenbudd for full tour dates.
Friday the 1st of November 7pm An withEvening Surgeons’ Hall with Hall
future sound
Our column celebrating new music to watch continues with Midlothian musician Kate Young as she embarks on a tour with her plant-inspired debut album. She talks to Fiona Shepherd about Tori Amos fangirling, creative connections and embracing synesthesia
Aged five, Kate Young spotted a piano in a junkshop and something clicked. Pester power kicked in and this exotic contraption was hers. Fast forward to her teenage years and the fiddle became her instrument of choice, fostered by initiatives such as the Edinburgh Youth Gaitherin programme of workshops.
‘But I also wanted to be Tori Amos on the piano,’ she says. ‘I had these two very different worlds going on for ages. I was absolutely obsessed with the songwriting world. It seemed this very magical, mysterious thing but also a solitary world, while the fiddle was a passport to fun and pals and going out, and it still is. I see taking my fiddle out to the pub as basically going clubbing.’
While studying traditional music at Newcastle University, she encountered US fiddler Laura Cortese singing and playing fiddle at the same time. ‘Tori Amos and fiddling came together in my brain,’ she says. ‘That blew my mind. But I still come back to the piano a lot. I see it as a visual mind map for harmonies.’ The Midlothian musician is all about creative connections and her next epiphany was discovering the ethno-music camps of Europe where musicians from around the world gather to teach their fellow attendees a tune in their tradition. ‘Automatically there’s a world music orchestra,’ she says. ‘There’s nothing like it. It’s this amazing network.’
Consequently, Young formed her own string quintet with musicians from France, Sweden, Austria and Slovenia who will accompany her as she tours her debut solo album. Umbelliferæ was inspired by the plant-lore of the British Isles and the historical medicinal properties of the flora on our doorstep. ‘I love all the plant names,’ says Young, who has studied herbalism. ‘You’ve got the Latin botanical names which are sometimes really mad and then you’ve got the folklore. One plant might have a completely different name depending on what region you find it in and then attached to it are different legends and stories. It’s about a type of intelligence that we don’t really use these days.’
This botanical suite started life as a pre-pandemic Celtic Connections commission, its composition blossoming for Young as she embraced what she now understands to be synesthesia. As she describes it, ‘you play a note on the piano and you see a colour. Most people agree that C is red but I’ve heard other people say it’s blue and I’m like “no, it’s not!”
After a couple of months I started having mad dreams and I remember asking “what comes next?” and my brain would give it to me as a visual landscape. In that moment I realised I just happen to be putting this idea out as music but it could be a dance movement, it could be a painting. Synesthesia is essentially a bridging from one sense to another. I feel it could be dormant in a lot of people but it depends how much attention you give it and how much you work with it.’
Kate Young plays The Tolbooth, Stirling, Tuesday 1 October; Umbelliferæ is out now on Meaw Records.
to Orkney and Shetland and Spot
Discovering the Northern Isles has never been easier with NorthLink Ferries.
The comfortable and reliable service offers sailings from Aberdeen to Lerwick, Shetland, with regular calls into Orkney’s capital of Kirkwall.
Alternatively travel to Orkney’s port of Stromness from Caithness. This 90 minute journey on MV Hamnavoe is the only sailing to Orkney which passes the iconic sea stack, the Old Man of Hoy.
Shetland
Orkney
Illustration by Morvern Graham
GOING
Mareel, Lerwick, Shetland
Glasgow and Edinburgh hog the headlines when it comes to the arts in Scotland, but there are cultural gems in every corner of the land. Lucy Ribchester leaves the central belt behind to bring you some of the most exciting arts venues worth checking out
Do arts venues come more spectacularly situated than Mareel? A slab of windows and slate grey walls built around the edges of Lerwick harbour, Mareel has the honour of being the UK’s most northerly music, cinema and creative arts venue. When stand-up comedian Ross Noble performed there, he told the audience he had watched seals frolicking from his dressing room.
An Lanntair, Stornoway, Lewis
An Lanntair translates from Gaelic as ‘The Lantern’, and this warm, welcoming, multi-purpose venue thoroughly lives up to its name, lighting up long northern nights with a vibrant programme of art, workshops, theatre and dance. It also plays host to the annual Faclan Hebridean Book Festival.
Birnam Arts, Dunkeld
Located in the heart of Perthshire, Birnam Arts is a community hub dating back over 100 years. In 1880, stationmaster John Kinnaird set up a facility for ‘education and entertainment’ which has transformed from a library to a World War II entertainment hall to its present incarnation, programming everything from pottery workshops to cutting-edge dance theatre.
The Barn, Banchory
The Barn has been welcoming artists, musicians and international performers to Aberdeenshire since the 1990s. It all started out when a derelict farm steading was transformed into a rehearsal studio for a local community play. These days The Barn places particular focus on work that has a connection to environmental issues and also nurtures visual artists at all stages of their careers.
CatStrand, Castle Douglas
The Glenkens Community Arts Trust has grown into a thriving network over the past 20 years. At its heart is CatStrand, a multi-purpose venue that programmes plays, gigs, book launches and fitness classes among other events. More recently, the Trust added The Smiddy to their portfolio, a former blacksmithing workshop that now operates as a community heritage hub.
An Tobar, Tobermory, Mull
An Tobar, based in a former Victorian school, plays host to around 50 performances, gigs, exhibitions and shows a year, including those by resident company, Mull Theatre. The gallery provides an exhibition space and has regular commissions engaging with the surrounding landscape.
Seall, Skye
Pronounced ‘shàal’, Seall means ‘to look’ or ‘to show’ in Gaelic and is one of the Hebrides’ leading performing arts charities. Seall has no formal venue, but brings productions to small halls, distilleries and large venues around the Skye, Raasay and Lochalsh areas, including Sabhal Mòr Ostaig, Skye’s National Centre For Gaelic Language And Culture.
Taigh Chearsabhagh, Lochmaddy, North Uist
Originally an 18th-century travellers inn, the Taigh Chearsabhagh museum and arts centre is one of the oldest buildings in North Uist’s Lochmaddy village, and spent over two centuries as a post office. The Comann Eachdraidh Uibhist a Tuath (North Uist Historical Society) is based here, maintaining over 1000 artefacts connected to the heritage of the island, curated into permanent and temporary displays.
Lyth Arts Centre, Caithness
The Lyth Arts Centre is Caithness’ cultural hub, celebrating creativity in all its forms, from live performance to art gardening. There are drama drop-in sessions for ages 9–17, and a young music-makers programme where local Highland musicians lead sessions to pass on their skills and wisdom.
Buckhaven Community Centre, Buckhaven
The most cherished arts centres aren’t always the shiniest or trendiest ones. This small gem of a theatre in Fife, with its accompanying rehearsal and meeting space, has been serving the local community ever since it started life as a Miners Welfare Institute in 1925. Here you’ll find pipe band practices, arts groups, pottery classes and the Buckhind Players.
Moray Art Centre, Findhorn
Findhorn and its surrounds have long held a reputation as a beacon for artists and alternative communities. The Moray Art Centre is set a few minutes’ walk from Findhorn’s famous dunes and beaches, close enough to greet the local bottlenose dolphin population. The centre hosts exhibitions all year round, featuring both solo artists and collectives, as well as workshops.
Eastgate Theatre, Peebles
This venue lies at the entrance to the town centre and is well served by local bus links. As well as being a place to take in art and performance, it’s also a destination for those looking to hone their own creativity; it runs classes targeted at all ages, featuring disciplines from acting to painting to seated dance for those with Parkinson’s.
Biggar Puppet Theatre, Biggar
Home of the iconic Purves Puppets, the Biggar Puppet Theatre is a custom-built, traditional velvet-curtained proscenium theatre, perfectly proportioned for the slightly smaller-than-life puppets that are Purves’ trademark. It’s an absolute must-visit for families, a magnificent introduction to theatre for children, and a unique piece of 20th-century theatrical heritage.
Eyemouth Hippodrome, Eyemouth
On the Berwickshire coast, a former 1830s granary was repurposed in 2013 to serve as a cultural space for locals and visitors. The name ‘Hippodrome’ was given here due to the building’s role as a fishing hub, after Great Yarmouth’s Hippodrome where the herring fleet once gathered. The programme balances art inspired by coastal living with experimental theatre and new writing, and has even featured pop-up restaurants.
MacArts, Galashiels
The picturesque town of Galashiels lays claim to literary heritage due to being across the River Tweed from Walter Scott’s Abbotsford House. In the town centre a former church is now the cultural heart of the community. MacArts has a varied programme, mainly comprising touring shows.
Highland Folk Museum, Newtonmore
The Highland Folk Museum is an open-air collection of over 35 historical buildings and 12,000 items relating to rural and domestic life in the Highlands And Islands. It covers two-and-a-half centuries of Highland living and is free to visit. Even if you can’t make it along in person, there’s a brilliant online tour that allows you to explore some of its sites.
PLACES
Clockwise from top left, this page: An Tobar, Taigh Chearsabhagh, Seall; opposite page: Mareel, An Lanntair, The Barn
Letham Nights, Letham
In a tiny Fife village, west of Cupar, Letham Nights harnesses together a team of volunteers, bar staff and promoters to bring world-class music to the local village hall. Their aim is to create a zero-carbon venue, and widen access to live music, including offering free entry for under 12s. Church, Dundee
As its name suggests, this Dundee-based venue has made its home in a former gothic Victorian Methodist church. It has been a music, comedy and club venue since 2012 and is particularly beloved for its commitment to being an LGBT+ friendly space. Regular Bingo Wigs evenings combine a winning combination of drag, bingo, games and prizes.
See much more of our delve into the nation’s hidden gems at list.co.uk/news
Clockwise from left: Biggar Puppet Theatre, Eastgate Theatre, Church
SICK GIRLS AND SILENT MEN: Focus On Film at the Scottish Mental Health Arts Festival
The packed programme celebrates the best new films exploring mental health in diverse and innovative ways.
Scottish talent and filmmakers from around the world (including Canada, Lithuania and Denmark) will take part in post-screening discussions providing unique insights into their films and the stories behind them.
Cinephiles won’t want to miss the festival’s International Film Awards ceremony (Thursday 17 October) when they’ll have the chance to hear from this year’s award-winning filmmakers, discover what’s coming up in the programme and mingle at a drinks reception.
Winning films include My Dad’s Tapes, screening on Friday 18 October, which picks up the award for best Personal Narrative. When filmmaker Kurtis Watson searches a trove of home videos for clues to the cause of his father’s sudden suicide, it leads him on a poignant and cathartic journey of familial healing.
Glasgow-based director Heather E Andrews’ This Werewolf Complex, screens as part of Scottish Stories on Friday 18 October. This extraordinary short explores auras (disturbances in the brain that can precede seizures) to dazzling effect, rightly taking home the festival’s Experimental Film award.
Other shorts programmes include Interventions (Saturday 19 October), an eclectic selection offering insights into the underground world of diffing, the self-improvement industry, and the psychiatric monastery where Vincent Van Gogh spent an eventful year.
Fans of Agnes Varda’s lyrical, collage-like approach will connect with The Taste Of Mango (Wednesday 16 October). Chloe Abrahams’ hypnotic love letter to her mother and grandmother tenderly untangles painful knots in her family’s unspoken past.
The Scottish Mental Health Arts Festival’s Focus On Film programme returns on Wednesday 16–Saturday 19 October at Glasgow’s CCA and Glasgow Film Theatre.
Unique immersive event Remember 2 Replenish (Thursday 17 October) delves into the lived experiences of Black women, offering a cinematic exploration of self-care and resilience, while Gitti Grüter’s highly personal doc Sick Girls engages the filmmaker with other women living with ADHD to reflect on their shared experiences (Saturday 19 October).
Closing the programme in style will be the Scottish premiere of Duncan Cowles’ debut feature doc, Silent Men (Saturday 19 October). Cowles embarks on a journey across the UK to ask men about their experiences of mental health in an effort understand his own struggles. This important exploration into a taboo topic is grounded in the filmmaker’s renowned deadpan style and artistic flair. The film will then tour to four Scottish venues, from Inverness to Dumfries.
Explore the full Focus on Film programme and book tickets at mhfestival.com/focus-on-film.
The Scottish Mental Health Arts Festival runs from Thursday 10–Sunday 27 October across Scotland, creatively exploring the theme of In/Visible.
GOING OUT CLOSER TO HOME
Fear not Edinburghers and Glaswegians, we haven’t totally abandoned you. Get yourselves out and about with this selection including a comedian who won a major prize recently, the remake of a horror staple, and a steamy play with tragedy afoot
ART
HOLLY DAVEY
To celebrate Fruitmarket’s 50th anniversary, Cardiffbased Davey embarked on a ‘controlled rummage’ in the archives to see what came tumbling out.
n Fruitmarket, Edinburgh, Saturday 19 October–Sunday 17 November.
TAPE LETTERS SCOTLAND
This social history project explores the practice of recording and sending messages on cassette tape, with particular emphasis on the Pakistanis who settled in Britain between 1960 and 1980.
n Tramway, Glasgow, Saturday 12 October–Friday 31 January.
COMEDY
AMY GLEDHILL
A pretty astonishing August for the Delightful Sausage member, having played Christan Bale in Stuart Laws’ ‘Nevah!’ project (best not ask) and then scooping the Edinburgh Comedy Award.
n Monkey Barrel, Edinburgh, Friday 4 October; The Stand, Glasgow, Sunday 6 October.
MAX FOSH
Comedian, presenter and, yep you guessed it, ‘internet sensation’ Fosh heads outdoors and into his first international tour with a stop-off in Glasgow. The show is called Loophole, of which you can make what you will.
n Pavilion Theatre, Glasgow, Thursday 10 October.
NEIL HAMBURGER
The creation of indie musician Gregg Turkington, this spirits-guzzling (and spilling) icon will test your moral compass by sending it swinging with his outrageous punchlines and vivid throat-clearing.
n Monkey Barrel, Edinburgh, Monday 14 October.
DANCE
LEGENDS OF THE DANCE FLOOR
Strictly legends including Brendan Cole and Pasha Kovalev bring their individual brilliance to bear in this group show which celebrates everything from rumba to tango and ballroom to Latin.
n Royal Concert Hall, Glasgow, Saturday 12 October.
FILM
SALEM’S LOT
Yet another of the untouchable horror canon is getting properly manhandled here with Stephen King’s classic tale, which was made into a brilliant mini-series in the late 1970s, resurrected here by Gary Dauberman. Tread very carefully, my friend.
n In cinemas from Friday 11 October.
IN RESTLESS DREAMS
For one night only (on the occasion of its subject’s 83rd birthday), this documentary about Paul Simon goes behind the scenes of his latest album, Seven Psalms.
n In cinemas on Sunday 13 October.
THE ROOM NEXT DOOR
A historic moment as Pedro Almodovar makes his first full-length English-language feature film. He’s in safe hands with this though given it stars Julianne Moore and Tilda Swinton.
n In cinemas from Friday 25 October.
Salem's Lot (and bottom from left), Holly Davey, Neil Hamburger, Amy Gledhill
Afro Celt Sound System (and bottom from left), Scottish International Storytelling Festival, A Streetcar Named Desire, Blood Brothers
If you fancy getting out and about this month, there’s plenty culture to sample such as an Irish comic’s latest blockbuster set, a South African dance supremo, and the next instalment of a Scottish play cycle
MORE GOING OUT CLOSER TO HOME
KIDS THE BADDIES
Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler’s tale of a witch, a troll and a very old ghost makes its way onto the stage featuring songs by Joe Stilgoe.
n Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh, Friday 4–Sunday 20 October.
MUSIC
RICK ASTLEY
Never (as in ‘never gonna give you up’ we guess) is the name of this night and a recent autobiography which tracks his story from being part of the Stock, Aitken & Waterman hit machine to finally performing at Glastonbury.
n Pavilion Theatre, Glasgow, Tuesday 15 October.
SCOTTISH OPERA
As part of the Lammermuir Festival, beloved operatic comedy Albert Herring is about finding your own path in life despite many misadventures along the way.
n Theatre Royal, Glasgow, Friday 18–Tuesday 22 October.
AFRO CELT SOUND SYSTEM
On the back of their new album, Ova, the Afro Celts celebrate almost 30 years of visionary work while simultaneously honouring the memory of the band’s founder Simon Emmerson who sadly passed away in 2023.
n Summerhall, Edinburgh, Monday 21 October.
SIMONE SEALES
As part of the Scottish Mental Health Arts Festival, Broken Silences has this innovative musician exploring a collective healing experience for anyone who has felt invisible.
n CCA, Glasgow, Friday 25 October.
TALKS & EVENTS
SCOTTISH INTERNATIONAL STORYTELLING FESTIVAL
Another strong programme for this 35th anniversary festival with the theme announced as Bridges Between. As ever, there is a feast of storytelling, workshops and events to mark the occasion.
n Various venues, nationwide, Friday 18–Thursday 31 October.
THEATRE A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE
Tennessee Williams’ steamy drama featuring Blanche Dubois, Stanley Kowalski and ‘Stellaaaaa!’ comes to the capital after a successful run last year in Pitlochry and will keep everyone on the edge of their nerves.
n Lyceum Centre, Edinburgh, Thursday 24 October–Saturday 9 November.
A PLAY, A PIE AND A PINT
Lost Girls/At Bus Stops is both a queer romance and a love letter to the Edinburgh Fringe with bubbling potential seemingly around every corner.
Willy Russell’s musical about fraternal twins separated at birth shows no sign of drying up in the public’s affections and this latest run keeps the juggernaut fully on course.
n King’s Theatre, Glasgow, Tuesday 15–Saturday 19 October.
THURSDAY OCTOBER 31ST
film of the month
Influenced by animated classics like Wall-E and The Iron Giant, DreamWorks latest release, The Wild Robot, combines top-shelf visuals and a plea for harmony while exploring the pros and cons of AI. Emma Simmonds rates it a touching treat for the entire family
I‘do not have the programming to be a mother,’ admits washed-up mechanoid ROZZUM 7134, who comes to be known as Roz. Voiced by the great Lupita Nyong’o, this robot might not seem an obviously relatable protagonist but, let’s be honest, many of us have been there. Produced by DreamWorks Animation, The Wild Robot brings to screen the trials and tribulations of parenting in a sweet, visually spectacular and whole familypleasing way.
Bagging itself a premiere at the prestigious Toronto International Film Festival, this upmarket, lushly rendered animated adventure is based on the book series by American writer-illustrator Peter Brown, with the screen adaptation the brainchild of Chris Sanders. Sanders is a key figure in the animation field, having worked on Disney’s Beauty And The Beast, Aladdin, The Lion King and Mulan, before co-creating Lilo & Stitch (voicing Stitch himself), with his more recent efforts including co-directing and writing How To Train Your Dragon and The Croods
As the film opens on a future Earth, it finds state-of-the-art Universal Dynamics helper robot Roz stranded on an uninhabited island in the aftermath of a shipwreck. Viewed with fear and suspicion by the cornucopia of creatures that reside there, this manically task-fixated, turbo-efficient machine is bamboozled by her redundancy in a wild environment and sets about learning the animals’ languages and schooling herself in conflict resolution in a desperate bid to be of some use.
Following an unfortunate accident involving a goose nest, Roz takes possession of an egg and the gosling that emerges from it, later dubbed Brightbill (voiced by Kit Connor). They’re joined by a loner fox, Fink (Pedro Pascal), whose own troubled upbringing compels him to be part of this funny family, and who advises Roz on raising Brightbill. Roz learns that Brightbill needs to learn to ‘eat, swim and fly by fall’ and dutifully sets about completing those tasks, although, as ever with parenting, things don’t always go to plan.
Additional support comes from Pinktail (Catherine O’Hara), an opossum drowning in her own maternal responsibilities, and Longneck (Bill Nighy), a sage and sympathetic elder goose, who takes Brightbill almost literally under his wing when he is mercilessly mocked by the younger geese for not fitting in. Mark Hamill, Matt Berry and Ving Rhames feature as a bear, beaver and falcon respectively.
Beloved films like Wall-E and The Iron Giant are clear influences, alongside the work of Studio Ghibli’s Hayao Miyazaki. If it’s not quite up there with those, the world of The Wild Robot has been rendered in rich, eye-catching detail, while it caters to the differing wants of a family crowd nicely; there’s enough consideration for cuteness to satisfy younger family members and enough finesse and stimulating subtext to sate accompanying adults. The plot rattles along enjoyably, with the freneticism of the opening moments (as Roz adjusts to the bewildering, people-free environment)
and the jeopardy-heavy denouement particularly well-judged. Flanked by a stirring score from Kris Bowers, for the most part The Wild Robot is undeniably touching, with Roz’s journey of emotional growth and enlightenment beautifully and humorously relayed by Nyong’o who brings notable nuance to her voice work.
That said, it’s not all deftly done, with the script containing a few excessively sentimental moments, during which its messaging feels hammered home. These mainly spring from the mouth of Nighy’s slightly tiresomely avuncular Longneck (‘Sometimes hearts have their own conversations,’ being one particular clanger).
At its core, The Wild Robot is a passionate plea for peaceful co-existence, as creatures of all stripes learn to live together. It skilfully explores the tension between nature and tech, balancing a portrayal of how the latter can be exploited for alarming ends with its potential as a force for good. Dastardly corporation Universal Dynamics ruthlessly pursue Roz’s invaluable data, gleaned during her experiences on the island, with Stephanie Hsu voicing an evil robot, Vontra, who comes to retrieve it. However, the film strikes a more hopeful note by exploring AI’s capacity for creating solutions and its potential for human-like feelings, as the wild robot becomes attached to its charge, overrides its pesky programming, and learns to love.
The Wild Robot is in cinemas from Friday 18 October.
KIDS TREASURE ISLAND
(Directed by Jordan Blackwood) lllll
An endearing reimagining of a classic, Scottish Theatre Producers’ take on Treasure Island celebrates the art of storytelling and explores the nature of courage. In this reverent but truncated version, the book becomes a story within a story, as anxious young Robbie Stevenson escapes into its pages, keen to blot out the memory of a humiliating school singing recital. Identifying with frightened Jim Hawkins, the cabin boy caught between the lawless lure of pirating and the sometimes inflexible rules of conventional morality, Robbie makes a leap of empathy with Hawkins’ death-defying exploits, appreciating that the bravest aren’t always the most fearless.
By emphasising Robbie’s investment in Jim, Ross MacKay’s script highlights the heroic self-agency of the boys in confronting their anxieties. As both Jim and Robbie, Anthony O’Neil is believably troubled and defensive, belatedly finding himself when backed into a corner (his bedroom transforms into the Admiral Benbow Inn, the Hispaniola and Treasure Island itself, its flexible, IKEA-like arrangement facilitating sails, palm trees and the like). As Long John Silver, meanwhile, Simon Donaldson capably captures the villain’s seductive charm for a gauche adolescent, even as he ultimately descends into bloodsoaked infamy. Megan McGuire and Stephanie MacGaraidh share equal billing with them, playing multiple roles.
Incorporating shadow puppetry and several thigh-slapping sea shanties, Jordan Blackwood’s steady direction sagely allows Robert Louis Stevenson’s page-turner to mostly speak for itself, though the correspondence with Robbie in the present day is smooth and the piece pulls off its tacit aim of making the story sing to a modern young audience. Ben Gunn’s cheese obsession inspires a song that doesn’t quite spark as a comic interlude. Yet it’s a rare misstep for a lively and compelling production that dispenses with eye patches and peg legs but is surefootedly swashbuckling all the same. (Jay Richardson) n Touring across Scotland until Saturday 19 October; reviewed at Eastwood Park Theatre, Giffnock.
MUSIC SEX PISTOLS lllll
Nearly 50 years have passed since the Sex Pistols’ abrasive introduction, and the message from a veteran Glasgow crowd on a trip down memory lane was clear: punk’s not dead, it’s just had a makeover. Following a public spat with former frontman John Lydon, his former colleagues Paul Cook, Steve Jones and Glen Matlock turned to Frank Carter (of The Rattlesnakes fame) to lead the line on their 2024 dates.
Carter, who was born five years after the tragic passing of Sid Vicious, cut a vibrant, spritely figure on stage alongside this trio of punk icons, and has clearly put effort into his impressive take on Lydon’s distinct voice, leaving him hoarse as he attempted to banter with the Academy crowd between each hit. Who will be on the receiving end of the invoice he sends for the trousers he ripped during one of his many ventures into the crowd is unclear. But his presence allowed the band to stand back and focus on the music, which sounded solid all night.
Carter’s showmanship did occasionally feel tired: standing in the stalls and organising a ‘circle pit’ during ‘Satellite’, for example, felt like a rather forced attempt at generating atmosphere and is arguably not, as he declared, ‘exactly what the Sex Pistols is all about’. However, in spite of the rather steep £60 ticket price, this new-look line-up breathed fresh life into a well-documented catalogue and left a crowd of punk revisionists feeling satisfied on a dark and dismal autumnal evening. (Danny Munro)
n Reviewed at O2 Academy Glasgow.
PICTURE:
All life is here in this year’s Scottish Portrait Awards, first launched by the Scottish Arts Trust in 2017. Thirty fine-art works and 50 photography pieces are divided across two rooms, every face in the show telling a story, whether looking directly out from the frame or else turned away, a reluctant subject.
The familiarity of public figures in some images is an obvious appeal. Studies of Michael Rosen in Daniel Fooks’ painting and novelist James Kelman in Chris Close’s photograph are both broodingly chiselled and well-deserved winners in their respective categories. More playful is Mark Mulholland’s ‘The Strange Case Of Billy’s Banjo’, a painting of the late John Byrne in his studio, while Matt Brown’s photo of Young Fathers shows a band who understand fully the value of image.
Beyond the famous faces, more intriguing everyday narratives come through many of the works on show. There is the monumental torpor of Frederik du Plessis’ ‘Anhedonia’, the eyes-closed avoidance of ‘That
art of the month
From unknown to instantly recognisable, the faces captured in this year's Scottish Portrait Awards form a beguiling tapestry of society, says Neil Cooper
Time’ by David Herd, and the well-practiced calm of Graeme Wilcox’s award-winning ‘D In Stripes’. Margaret Ferguson’s ‘Release’ is a moving photographic study of her dying father. The outdoor swimmer in repose in Jennifer Charlton’s ‘A Hidden Community’ looks curious, Lucy Gordon looks bird-like in her self-portrait ‘The Perch’, and a windswept serenity pervades the woman at one with nature in David Gillanders’ ‘Hebridean Breeze’.
This year’s awards look to the future as the Scotland Now! Phone Portrait Awards are being introduced. The initiative features more than 50 shortlisted artists working in this quickfire form and shown digitally, as befits their source. While each work is disparate in approach and concerns, the entire exhibition makes up a collective portrait of a society asked to pause a moment. Together, they comprise a rich tapestry of a world at large.
Scottish Portrait Awards 2024, Duff House, Banff, Friday 4 October–Friday 31 January; reviewed at Scottish Arts Club, Edinburgh.
Clockwise from right: portraits by Graeme Wilcox, Daniel Fooks, Chris Close, Andrea Thomson and Jennifer Charlton
FILM DAHOMEY
(Directed by Mati Diop) lllll
The Golden Bear winner at this year’s Berlin International Film Festival, Dahomey sees actress-turned-director Mati Diop follow up her acclaimed debut Atlantics with a riveting, idiosyncratic documentary that passionately addresses the repatriation of plundered artefacts. Taking place in 2021, the film is set between Paris and the modern-day Republic Of Benin (formerly the Kingdom Of Dahomey) and focuses on the return of 26 African treasures, stolen by French troops during the region’s colonial period. It combines a discreet, fly-on-the-wall style, which quietly observes the careful process of tagging, removing, boxing and unboxing these priceless objects, alongside some more audacious, artful and interrogatory elements.
Item number 26, a statue of King Ghézo, plays a significant part in the film. Given powerful voice by the Haitian writer Makenzy Orcel, Ghézo describes outrage at his ordeal (the indignity, disorientation and dehumanisation) which corresponds more widely to the horrors of slavery (‘my head is still assailed by the rattle of chains,’ he cries at one point). Alongside striking images of billowing flags and contrasting cultures, Diop includes a thought-provoking discussion by students from the University Of Abomey-Calavi that takes in a wide spectrum of opinion on what the return of these objects means politically, culturally and emotionally. Dahomey gives us a window into some fascinating history, fleshing out the traditions of the land depicted so vividly in recent US feature The Woman King which was set just before the period in question. It also asks broader questions about cultural theft and appropriation: the British Museum’s continued possession of Greece’s Elgin Marbles is, of course, a debate that still rages. Clocking in at just 67 minutes, this is accessible, stimulating filmmaking, demonstrating an appetite for justice and a keen artistic eye. (Emma Simmonds) n In cinemas from Friday 25 October.
comed y democ• y •
COMEDY JAY LAFFERTY Bahookie lllll
Ageing isn’t easy, but it can be fun, and Jay Lafferty is out to prove it. After a second run at the Fringe this year with her 2023 hit Bahookie, BBC Breaking The News regular Lafferty is touring the show across the UK, delivering a fresh perspective on what it’s like to grow older, particularly when living under the spotlight.
The Gourock-born comedian takes her time getting to know the audience before diving into this performance, making the act feel less like a show and more of a conversation. At 100 minutes, Bahookie might be a tad stretched out, with the crowd-work bits dragging on longer than they should, but Lafferty manages to pull you back in every time with sharp insights. Early on, she makes a poignant observation: the thing about getting older is that joy doesn’t come as easy. You have to do things to better yourself, such as getting a life coach, buying diaries and running marathons. Joy becomes something of a Herculean effort, but in her view it’s worth it.
This sets the tone for her next hour, as Lafferty reflects on how people speak to you changes after a certain age, particularly for women who haven’t quite followed the rules. Never cynical, she brushes off the hurt that may come from these experiences and instead frames the pressures of ageing as opportunities to try outrageous new activities. Bahookie’s highlight, then, is the story of Lafferty joining a pole-dancing class. Peppered with live voice messages from her pole instructor, she has the whole audience in splits while symbolising her broader message: shedding inhibitions, embracing movement and finding joy, no matter how ridiculous it might seem. (Aashna Sharma)
n Gaiety Theatre, Ayr, Friday 11 October; Macrobert Arts Centre, Stirling, Thursday 17 October; reviewed at Eastwood Park Theatre, Giffnock.
THEATRE
LOVE THE SINNER
(Directed by Matthew Lenton) lllll
How hard is it for individuals to acknowledge their sins and learn to love the sinner? Writer and performer Imogen Stirling’s show, developed with director Matthew Lenton’s Vanishing Point from a spoken-word poem cycle, isn’t afraid to get into the painful weeds of guilt and self-recrimination. A touring co-production with Beacon Arts Centre and Shetland Arts, this verbally dynamic, sharply scripted, 70-minute production sees Stirling take to the mic (accompanied by Sarah Carton’s music, performed and sung by electronic artist Sonia Killmann).
Spitting out a rebarbative diatribe lacerating the foibles of modern existence, Stirling depicts the seven deadly sins as people, starting with Sloth, and connects them to easily recognisable behaviour: characters endlessly re-watching Friends, seeking validation on social media, existing under the chemical cosh of alcohol and drugs, suffering from casual relationships and steeped in remorse. Killmann’s dreamy playing and collaboration assists Stirling’s strident vocals, finding nuance in material that bites, but tends towards the negative; there’s a regrettable Russell Brand name-check, one of a few references which don’t quite land.
It’s something of an achievement that, after an evocation of Wrath focused on bitter self-deception, Stirling is able to bring her polemic to a positive conclusion. That tricky switch from despondency to epiphany feels unexpected, and Love The Sinner could show more working to justify an upbeat, rallying-cry conclusion. How to find beauty in transgression is the question, and Love The Sinner’s admirable energy and laser focus offer a stimulating answer to an eternal conundrum. (Eddie Harrison)
n Dundee Rep, Wednesday 9 October; reviewed at Paisley Arts Centre.
FILM THE APPRENTICE
(Directed by Ali Abbasi) lllll
Exquisitely timed to hit cinemas a few weeks before the US election, The Apprentice is a lively if limited biopic of the Republican presidential candidate from Iranian-Danish director Ali Abbasi (Border, Holy Spider). Scripted by Gabriel Sherman, you could call this ‘Donald Trump: The Early Years’ if you like, as it rewinds to the 1970s and 80s, showing how the future White House occupant went from nothing to one of New York’s most powerful real-estate moguls.
Playing Trump is Sebastian Stan, the Marvel man who is enjoying a spectacular time with this and A Different Man, also out this month. As good as he is, however, he’s somewhat trumped (no pun intended) by Jeremy Strong with the Succession star playing Trump’s long-time lawyer Roy Cohn, who mentors his apprentice (the title also smartly nodding to the business-oriented reality TV show that Trump fronted for 14 seasons). Feeling like Paul Thomas Anderson’s Boogie Nights (minus the porn), Abbasi’s movie comes with lashings of style and an era-appropriate soundtrack which, as enjoyable as it is, does rather make it feel very superficial. The Apprentice is effectively a character study that sets out to show how Trump became a ruthless player, as he literally changes New York’s skyline with gargantuan buildings like Trump Tower.
Admittedly, it’s hard to argue we learn a great deal about this Machiavellian figure that we don’t already know, although the controversial scene where he’s allegedly abusive to wife Ivana (Borat star Maria Bakalova) led the Trump camp to stringently deny all when the film premiered. The Apprentice predictably excels through Strong’s showing as Cohn, a gay man in the midst of the AIDS crisis. From a cocksure player to an embittered shadow of his former self, it’s a brilliant, awards-worthy performance that outshines the film as a whole. (James Mottram)
n Released on Friday 18 October.
OTHER THINGS WORTH GOING OUT FOR
Get yourself away from the central belt and out into various parts of Scotland where the cultural landscape is just as rich and varied. Among the upcoming highlights are stand-up from a very resilient Glasgow comic and a feast of documentary films
AYR
BAROQUE INSPIRATIONS
Maxim Emelyanychev and Scottish Chamber Orchestra team up for a night of baroque delights featuring works by Poulenc, Stravinsky, Vivaldi and Rameau, as part of Ayr’s Concert Series.
n Ayr Town Hall, Wednesday 9 October.
CUMBERNAULD
THE EVENTS
In association with Wonder Fools, this new staging of David Greig’s play features a priest who survives a mass shooting and is left with an endless list of existential questions
n Cumbernauld Theatre, until Saturday 5 October.
DUNDEE
PAUL RILEY
In The Little Boy That Santa Claus Forgot, the guy from Still Game (Winston, pretty much unrecognisable), recalls various incidents in his life including partying with Motörhead and being held at gunpoint by the police (not the band).
n Gardyne Theatre, Saturday 5 October.
GLENROTHES
HUEY MORGAN
The Fun Lovin’ Criminal, 6Music disc-spinner and ex-Never Mind The Buzzcocks regular delivers some music and conversation reflecting on a vibrant career which included a globetrotting hit, ‘Scooby Snacks’.
n Rothes Halls, Thursday 10 October.
INVERNESS
BECKY SIKASA
On the back of being nominated for the SAY Award, this soul and indie-influenced singer-songwriter (she cites everyone from Lauryn Hill to Bon Iver as important touchstones) hits the road.
n Tooth & Claw, Friday 11 October.
KIRKCALDY
BAGA CHIPZ
Dive into the Material Girl: Much Betta! tour with a night full of glitz, glamour and gigantic fun as Fife welcomes one of the contestants from the first series of RuPaul's Drag Race UK
n Adam Smith Theatre, Thursday 3 October.
PERTH
SUSIE MCCABE
A pretty remarkable year for the Glasgow comic with memories of the good (winning the Billy Connolly Spirit Of Glasgow Award) clashing against the not-so good (a health scare just before the Fringe).
n Perth Theatre, Thursday 10 October.
STIRLING
CENTRAL SCOTLAND DOCUMENTARY FESTIVAL
Meet The Buchanans is the opening night film here with the programme bolstered by works such as Mark Cousins’ A Sudden Glimpse To Deeper Things
n Macrobert Arts Centre, Thursday 31 October–Monday 4 November.
THORNHILL
CHIARA CAMONI
This Italian artist’s solo exhibition certainly has an intriguing title: murmur, buzz, hiss and rub. It brings together around 30 works made from clay, spoils and plant matter which were gathered in local villages.
n Cample Line, Saturday 5 October–Sunday 15 December.
Meet The Buchanans, part of Central Scotland Documentary Festival (and bottom from left), Susie McCabe, Chiara Camoni, The Events
ADRIANNE LENKER
A small Copenhagen audience are gathered and hushed as a future superstar in a cowboy hat strums, plucks and croons four songs for the Brodie Sessions platform. Adrianne Lenker joins the likes of Arooj Aftab, Nilüfer Yanya, Tindersticks and Efterklang in submitting themselves to the Brodie aesthetic in which their short musical interludes are intimately filmed on analogue cameras in order to capture ‘the energy between artist, audience and architecture’. (Brian Donaldson)
n See all performances at brodiesessions.com; Adrianne Lenker’s Bright Future is out now on 4AD.
staying in
WAR CORRESPONDENCE
Two documentaries look back at the atrocities on the Israel/ Gaza border last October and make for uncomfortable if important viewing. But Isy Santini wonders if a little more balance could be applied to the viewing schedules
As we approach the one-year anniversary of the October 7th attacks, in which Hamas gunmen broke through the Gaza border and killed hundreds of people, two documentary films take a look back at this terrible event that sparked the current Israel-Hamas war and subsequent genocide in Gaza. One Day In October focuses on the surviving residents of Kibbutz Be’eri, which was targeted by Hamas. Through CCTV, recorded calls, and Hamas livestream footage, the documentary takes viewers hour-by-hour through the attack.
It briefly discusses Be’eri’s history as a commune established in 1946 with the aim of widening Israel’s borders. Mainly, though, it highlights the socialist principles of Be’eri as well as its strong sense of community, making it all the more horrific when residents recount being forced to hide in unlockable bomb shelters for hours as gunmen killed their neighbours. Though the film is too small in scope for viewers to learn anything concrete about October 7th, it does convey the terror experienced by the people of Be’eri, many of whom lost loved ones, took bullet wounds and nearly suffocated from smoke inhalation as their homes were set alight.
Conversely, Surviving October 7th: We Will Dance Again opts to look at the Nova music festival. It takes the time to establish what the trance music scene meant to fans and to establish their relationships and who they are. This documentary offers a wider understanding of the scale of these attacks because the festival-goers scattered after the missiles began: some stayed on the grounds, while others fled to Be’eri, to roadside bomb shelters, or to the nearby military base, none of which proved to be safe. Equally, individual stories still stick out: a young man’s first experience on MDMA becomes a nightmare; a father and his disabled daughter are murdered just hours after dancing together as the sun rose; and a young couple are separated, perhaps forever. Those murdered on October 7th deserve to be remembered, and the trauma of the survivors should be respected, but it’s hard not to wonder why there aren’t similar documentaries lined up about Palestinian suffering. The Palestinian people have been murdered en-masse over the course of decades, this current genocide being an escalation of what was already happening. Those that survived have been displaced over and over again. If we are interested in the human cost of this war, then where are their stories?
n One Day In October airs on Channel 4, Wednesday 9 October; Surviving October 7th: We Will Dance Again is available now on BBC iPlayer.
a smubl • a lbums •
LISTEN BACK
We’ve tuned our lugs to the letter B in our long and winding alphabet of album recommendations
Ignore the whingers: guitar music isn’t dead and you don’t have to look far to find the good stuff. Case in point: Alvvays’ third album Blue Rev (2022) which resuscitates a sparkling jangly fuzz pop that had lain heaving since the 1990s. Molly Rankin’s vocals, both detached and effortlessly powerful, wrap around propulsive arrangements and scuzzy distortion (the handiwork of guitarist Alec O’Hanley) to form a pop missile that’s wholly immediate without losing its intricacy. It’s as sonically energising as a Smiths A-side and lyrically knotty on a par with The War On Drugs at their peak.
Teeming with ghostly synths seemingly beamed from another planet, Marianne Faithfull’s Broken English (1979) revels in pitting cold 1980s production against the formerly pitch-perfect singer’s cracked and rasping drawl; a decade of cigarettes, personal turmoil and heroin addiction had added creaks and crags to her every intonation. When she asks ‘what are you fighting for?’ during the title track, it sounds like a plea from a wounded veteran. History has cemented her place as one of rock’n’roll’s great survivors, but it was Broken English that confirmed Faithfull’s status as a consummate, forward-thinking artist. (Kevin Fullerton)
n Other B listens: Bandwagonesque by Teenage Fanclub (1991), Blind Faith by Blind Faith (1969), Bury Me At Makeout Creek by Mitski (2014).
tv times
In this column we ask a telly person to share their viewing habits and favourite small-screen memories. This month, we hear from presenter Banjo Beale about Slow Horses, Schitt’s Creek and a pair of islands
What is your first memory of watching TV?
The Sooty Show was my favourite as a kid. I watched it on repeat for as long as I can remember.
You’re a prime-time chat-show host: what’s your ideal line-up of guests?
I love icons such as Meryl Streep and Judi Dench, and fabulous but real characters like Olivia Colman and Adele.
Which sitcom have you laughed at the most?
I adore Two Doors Down. I think it should be the citizenship test for people to move to Scotland. It’s so funny, and although set on the other side of the world to where I grew up, it reminds me of my family.
When was the last time you felt scared while watching TV?
I devour true-crime podcasts. In fact, I fall asleep to them. So when it comes to scary TV, I think Love Island might be the most terrifying of them all.
What’s the best TV theme tune ever?
It’s hard to go past Gilligan’s Island. I loved humming the theme tune as a kid, watching reruns.
Which programme that’s no longer on screen would you love to see return?
I love Schitt’s Creek. It’s such a funny show, with the most absurd characters. I often go back to watch it again and again.
What was the last show you binge-watched?
Slow Horses. I was a couple of years late to the party and boy was I happy to be able to watch so many episodes back-to-back. It’s so brilliant and the acting is superb. Same for Only Murders In The Building. I finally get the hype.
Who is your all-time favourite fictional TV character?
I love Alf Stewart from Home And Away; it’s like looking into my future. I’ll be hanging at the diner all day, doing my bit for the community and calling all the young kids ‘flaming galahs’.
Designing The Hebrides, presented by Banjo Beale, is on BBC Scotland every Monday and BBC Two every Tuesday, with episodes available on BBC iPlayer.
GAMES DIABLO IV: VESSEL OF HATRED
This has been a busy first year for Diablo IV. After a rocky start (a tradition that notoriously befell its predecessor), its reputation has improved significantly thanks to radical changes to core gameplay elements and significant revisions to the endgame. Its implementation of time-limited seasons is a big improvement on Diablo III’s ‘start again’ incentive, with much more complex systems and storylines.
And now, just like those forerunners did, Diablo IV will broaden its scope with the introduction of an expansion pack. Set in a new jungle environment called Nahantu, Vessel Of Hatred continues the campaign story while adding features (some new and some returning) from previous games.
Mercenaries are back, with four NPCs bringing individual skills to the party; runewords will also return, enabling players to customise their avatar with skills that would normally be exclusive to other classes. A brand-new class joins the roster (a versatile, nature-infused warrior called the Spiritborn) while the Dark Citadel is a multi-part dungeon for teams of two to four players to conquer on a weekly basis. With the base game currently settled, these new features should help mix things up nicely. (Murray Robertson) n Released on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One and Xbox X/S, Tuesday 8 October.
Restoring art is our purpose on this planet “
Greg Thomas hooks up with cumgirl8, a New York foursome who are building a vital world of creativity, activism and sleazy beats. And then there’s all the robot stuff . . .
Cumgirl8 is a ‘sex-positive alien amoeba entity’. Put another way, it’s four femme types from New York writing jerky post-punk about urinary tract infections, female orgasms, smashing the patriarchy and robots. Ahead of an international tour, their debut LP, The 8th Cumming, drops from the skies in October. When I caught up with Veronika Vilim (guitar), Chase Lombardo (drums), Lida Fox (bass), and Avishag Rodrigues (guitar), they had just released ‘Ahhhh!hhhh! (I Don’t Wanna Go)’, a second single from the new album. A cyborgy disco number with a video featuring the band in regency frocks interviewed by the AI hologram of Susan Sontag (you get the idea), its repeated refrain of ‘you’re inviting me and I already know I don’t wanna go’, could be about getting older, a relationship, the state of western culture. So, which one is it?
‘A little bit of all of those,’ says Fox. ‘But especially being disenchanted with going out in NYC or doing anything outside of the realm of my bed. It can be hard to feel excited when you’ve been around for 8000 years, but we still yearn to stay in touch with people in a human way outside of the phone.’ The way online interaction warps and moulds human behaviour is a big theme for the band. ‘The other day an old friend told me she feels the way people behave now seems like a performed recreation of something they saw from the past rather than an experience of the present moment’.
The 8th Cumming suggests all the classics of the post-punk genre (think The Slits or Le Tigre), with a veneer of louche, sleazy club beats. But when we talk influences, the band brings in everything from industrial noise (the various side projects of Throbbing Gristle) to digital-hardcore/rap mash-up artist LustSickPuppy. Their touchstones also extend beyond music, to the pioneering 1990s cyber-feminist art collective VNS Matrix and to critical theorist Donna Haraway, whose 1985 essay ‘Cyborg Manifesto’ muses on the liberatory potential of breaking down boundaries between human and machine.
There’s a kind of world-building going on here, where music takes its place alongside fashion, film and photography as the expression of this rich creative and cultural backdrop. Indeed, the band’s appearance seems as creatively significant as their sound, involving a lot of neon Lycra, straps, buckles and skin. ‘Cumgirl8 is our universe’, says Vilim. ‘We were sent to Earth to spread love and confidence through craft in every sense of the word. So that means in music, fashion, film and more. Restoring art is our purpose on this planet.’
Activism is a guiding force, too. The band have given out abortion pills at shows, and they pulled out of all official involvement at this year’s SXSW in protest at the event’s ‘super-sponsorship’ from the US military, which continues to support genocide in Gaza. Instead, a series of unaffiliated concerts were planned in and around the festival’s base in Austin, Texas, while the group worked with the Austin For Palestine Coalition to press for divestment. ‘It actually worked’, says Lombardo. ‘SXSW dropped their military sponsors. To see what happens when we organise was so fucking motivating.’
‘Indirectly,’ Lombardo goes on, ‘just how we present ourselves is an act of protest. People are very uncomfortable with what women and trans people do with their bodies. On Instagram, people get very angry and think we’re “cheap” or “gimmicks” or worse. Which is great. We’re holding up a mirror to people and forcing a reaction. It’s doing something.’
The 8th Cumming is released by 4AD on Friday 4 October.
Book by THOMAS MEEHAN & BOB MARTIN
Music by MATTHEW SKLAR
Lyrics by CHAD BEGUELIN
It may not be overflowing with empathy or subtlety, but Brian Donaldson reckons that Industry flourishes thanks to a strong cast, undiluted energy and caustic charm
tv of the month
I‘lost a client’. That’s a phrase which crops up from time to time on Industry, but as yet it has never quite had the gravitas as it does in the third season’s opening episode. This hyperactive and uberproblematic drama revolves around the appalling people who work for a London-based investment bank called Pierpoint. Given that this show was created by two people from deep within that world (Mickey Down and Konrad Kay), you can only assume that they were truly burned by the experience; why else would they not conjure up a single likeable individual? Well, okay, perhaps Rob Spearing (Harry Lawtey) was designed to be our way in, a lad from the wrong side of the tracks who just wants to make a bit of money and gain some self-respect.
Yet, initially, Industry’s focus led us to believe that Harper Stern (Myha’la) would shape our point-of-view; this US graduate ran rapidly up the ladder, somehow earning the trust of a notorious hedge-fund entrepreneur who had made piles of loot out of covid. When that relationship crashed spectacularly, it was a mere matter of time before Harper would be let go, occurring at season two’s grand finale via the man who was her de facto mentor, Eric Tao (played with jittery fervour by Ken Leung).
As we meet Harper again, she’s reduced to taking messages and parking cars for bosses. But ever so slowly, she is trying to wheedle her way back in with financial bigwigs such as Petra Koenig, played by Sarah Goldberg (Rachel from Barry) who is joined in the Industry debutant ranks by Kit Harington. As Jon Snow he may have known nothing, but as privileged posh lad Henry Muck (this is a show that loves heaping possible meaning onto its surnames), a vague knowledge of economic theory has thrust him into the limelight as CEO of an ethical business and straight into Pierpoint’s crosshairs as they try to detoxify their own public image.
And what of Yasmin (Marisa Abela), who we last saw being metaphorically and pretty much actually dumped by her awful father who changed the locks and froze her account? As the opening episode opens to the sound of Simple Minds’ ‘New Gold Dream’, she seems to be awash in a fresh nightmare, once again trapped by daddy, this time on a yacht named after her while he continues his lustful ways with any female who wanders in front of him.
We get it. Industry is jam-packed with rogues, rascals and reprobates. But by its third season, Down and Kay’s creation has enough fleshed-out characters and intriguing inter-relationships (we haven’t even mentioned Kenny, Rishi or Nicole) which can somehow cut through the emptiness of these people’s souls. If for even a second, you’d consider trading your own life for the methods which result in these characters’ bank balances flourishing, it might say more about you than it does about them.
Industry starts on BBC Two on Tuesday 1 October, with all episodes available on BBC iPlayer.
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ALBUMS TORD GUSTAVSEN TRIO Seeing (ECM Records) lllll
Having introduced elements including saxophone and voice into his music over recent years, Norwegian pianist Tord Gustavsen celebrates his tenth release for ECM with an emphatic, if typically concise, endorsement of the piano, bass and drums format. Gustavsen has never been one to overplay, preferring to distil his ideas into spare phrases that often draw deeply from church music, and any trio of his is never going to fly like, say, McCoy Tyner’s. There is, however, a lot of music in Seeing’s ten pieces. All of them stay close to the song form, whether that be in a Bach chorale, a Lutheran hymn that somehow manages to convey both the atmosphere inside a 16th-century church and a jazz concert, or in Gustavsen’s own ‘Extended Circle’ with its gradual progression into a quietly uplifting melody that might have Tom Jobim as its inspiration.
Joined by long-time colleague, the brilliantly understated drummer Jarle Vespestad and the wonderfully woody tone of bassist Steinar Raknes, Gustavsen allows drums and bowed bass to usher in the opening ‘Jesus Gjor Meg Stille’. A simple initial melody broadens out into somewhere between a Middle Eastern meditation and a Scottish folk song with Gustavsen improvising expressively. The mood overall is devotional as the leader incorporates ‘Nearer, My God, To Thee’ as well as developing a soundcheck jam, ‘Seattle Song’, over Raknes’ reaching, octave-spanning double-bass phrase into a finale that has the crucial ingredient of calling the listener back. (Rob Adams)
n Released on Friday 4 October.
PODCASTS
FAMOUSLY . . . WINONA (BBC Sounds) lllll
Winona Ryder’s career may have been revived and even restored by her role as Joyce Byers in Stranger Things. But for a generation of new fans who weren’t born when she first made a splash in Mermaids, Heathers and the original Beetlejuice, Ryder remains a figurehead of outsider teen cool as much as she is the embodiment of Will’s mum. This largely seems to be the thesis put forward by Famously . . . Winona, a new six-part podcast on BBC Sounds, with a starry-eyed script somewhat blankly recited by fellow child star Maisie Williams.
She only really comes to life during the moments when she identifies with the pressures from studios and the terrible tabloid treatment which dogged Ryder, particularly through her early career when the Minnesotaborn teenager was swiftly elevated to Gen-X icon and primo press fodder thanks to her relationship with Johnny Depp.
The Famously . . . strand trades in gushy celebrity analysis, and the talking heads in this edition are largely drawn from the media, with some fan interaction and mere soundbites from Heathers director Michael Lehmann. Ryder’s quotes are voiced by an actress while snippets from an archive interview with Terry Wogan give the impression that the show’s insights are wholly cobbled together.
Predictable themes emerge, circling repeatedly around Ryder’s ineffable cool, her shunning of fame and a precocious talent. The narrative is driven by embellishment and speculation, much like any cheaply-made celebrity bio show without access to the artist or those closest to them. Attempts to drum up the drama of her first meeting with Depp sound like innocent sensationalism but at least Ryder’s subsequent mental-health struggles are viewed through a kinder lens, now that duty of care is better understood if not always implemented. (Fiona Shepherd) n All episodes available now.
PODCASTS OF THE MONTH
Red or blue, elephant or donkey, Republican or Democrat. Those are the stark choices facing Americans as November’s presidential face-off between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris fast approaches. Claire Sawers separates the wheat from the chaff of US election podcasts so you don’t have to
Whether your politics align with ‘childless cat lady’ Taylor Swift and her pro-Kamala Harris stance, Elon Musk’s megaMAGA-endorsing position (making him that campaign’s second most influential player after Trump himself) or the Chappell Roan option to be utterly disenchanted with both parties, it’s a tense time in world politics. As the countdown to polling day looms in America, commentators all over the podsphere are speculating hard on how the votes will fall come November. From irate amateurs cracking open beers and spewing forth bilious rants, to thoughtful stats analysts breaking down key demographics and geographics, we’ve listened to plenty of pundits (sometimes at 1.5x speed) to find informed, interesting perspectives for your US election updates.
Pod Save America (lllll) describes itself as ‘a no-bullshit conversation about politics, for people who aren’t ready to give up or go insane’. It’s hosted by a revolving cast of four industry-savvy former Obama staffers, who just happen to all be privileged white men: Jon Lovett (he wrote speeches and jokes for Obama), Dan Pfeiffer (former White House communications director), Tommy Vietor (Obama’s former special assistant) and Jon Favreau (Obama’s director of speechwriting and definitely not the actor from Swingers and Friends). Their podcast goes out three times a week, dissecting the latest gaffes, ads, strategies and reactions. Recommended if you like people who don’t mince their words about Trump and occasionally swear incredulously about him.
The excellent political reporter Astead W Herndon hosts The Run Up (lllll), The New York Times’ podcast which skilfully digs into ‘the messy parts’ of the election race. When Trump recently flip-
flopped on women’s reproductive rights and abortion, for example, Herndon interviewed frustrated conservative Christian evangelists calling for more consistency from Trump and feeling let down by his departure from traditional GOP values. Herndon also hung out with undecided, potentially very influential swing voters during the HarrisTrump live debate to see how they responded to the candidates as they unpacked their policies or, in some cases, left them disappointingly still in the suitcase.
The Rational Republican (lllll) aims to deliver a non-partisan perspective, ‘promoting individual liberty and conservative principles while rejecting hatred and divisiveness’. Based in Oregon, with the strapline ‘State Over Party’, it examines local issues affecting those in the Pacific Northwest but also broadens its scope for chats on, for example, Israel and Palestine, with guests including PalestinianScottish-American, Alex McHaddad, former treasurer of the Oregon Republican Party. Giving insights into the needs and wants of Republicans, it’s a whole lot more nuanced than This Past Weekend With Theo Von (lllll), where Trump guested on episode #526, entering the manosphere to talk guns, UFC wrestling and his brother’s alcohol addiction in a cynical, chatty attempt to sway the Bro Vote.
Elsewhere, Ben Burgis, a writer for Jacobin, hosts Give Them An Argument (lllll), ‘dedicated to building a smarter, funnier and more strategic left’, with past guests including Glenn Greenwald and Slavoj Žižek. Or you can lend your ears to The Libertarian Republican (lllll), from an outlier who believes Kamala Harris is ‘a meat puppet for the military industrial complex’ and Big Pharma.
All podcasts available via the usual platforms; the US election happens on Tuesday 5 November. Then the ‘fun’ truly begins.
GAMES THE CASTING OF FRANK STONE (Supermassive Games) lllll
In 2015, developer Supermassive Games made their name with Until Dawn, an interactive horror about a murderer stalking a group of teenagers in a chilly mountain retreat (a remake is out this month). Since then, they’ve largely nailed this sub-genre with The Quarry, multiple titles in their ongoing Dark Pictures Anthology, and now The Casting Of Frank Stone. Uniquely, this new story is set in the same universe as another game entirely, Behaviour Interactive’s hugely popular multiplayer survival horror Dead By Daylight
Set across multiple timelines, most of the action takes place in 1980 and centres on a group of young filmmakers ill-advisedly determined to make a horror movie set in an abandoned steel mill. Their shenanigans inevitably awaken the spirit of a vengeful monster called Frank Stone. However, with a huge swathe of the game dedicated to scene setting, it’s not until very late on that things really kick off. That wouldn’t be a problem if the characters were worth spending time with but, compared to Supermassive’s previous efforts, this is an anaemic gang. And with the timeline constantly shifting, it’s difficult to care about any of them.
Still, it’s a typically atmospheric game, with expressive animation, detailed (if restrictive) environments and foreboding chiaroscuro lighting. Fans of Dead By Daylight will feel at home with certain story beats and its use of skill checks to make progress, and it briefly nods to Alan Wake with its camera combat mechanic. While it’s an entertaining few hours, it does feel as if Supermassive have hemmed themselves in with another studio’s story, when they’re much better branching off on their own.
(Murray Robertson)
n Out now on PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S.
ALBUMS CONSCIOUS PILOT Wipe Clean (DevilDuck Records) lllll
Glasgow’s innate swagger is not always reflected in the music produced across the city. Twenty years on from first impact, Franz Ferdinand can still get away with a comeback single called ‘Audacious’ but Conscious Pilot might just be poised to grab their mantle with a second EP bursting with character and characters. This ballsy quintet (comprising ex-members of Cheap Teeth, Catholic Action and Big Girl’s Blouse) produce strutting form and have been happy to lay the groundwork over the past year with a chunky pop at ‘Modern Religion’ and the expat lament of ‘Benidorm’.
Their latest six-track EP has been produced by newish band recruit Chris McCrory, a musician with considerable skills who captures the gonzo momentum of opening track ‘God’s Hot Car’. In this Fall-like cautionary tale, frontman Joe Laycock rides the lop-sided rhythm to imagine the group as ‘just a couple little dogs in god’s hot car’. The punky flourishes continue with the Hives-like heatseeking momentum of ‘Filth Night’, while the Evel Knievel bone crunch of ‘Roman Architecture’ revs up to a taut clip before pulling up and digging in. ‘Me & Marcel’ is demonstrative and brawny with a blistering riffing climax: its ‘conquistador’ hookline seems destined to raise some basement venue rafters.
‘Snake In My Boots’ is a brooding baritone croon, equal parts swagger and whimsy with an unexpected Scotsoul coda of cooing backing vocals and plangent fuzz guitar, while the David Hockney-referencing ‘Paint It Slowly’ ends on an uplifting, anthemic indie pop note. (Fiona Shepherd) n Released on Friday 18 October.
BOOKS
DAN HANCOX
Multitudes: How Crowds Made The Modern World (Verso Books) lllll
In the aftermath of riots and amid a constant wave of political rallies, questions naturally arise about the nature of crowds. What does it mean to be part of one? And what makes or breaks a peaceful protest? Though at times its pace feels like a whistle-stop tour, Multitudes is certainly a perfect name for an incredibly wide-ranging look into the reasons people come together and the way society responds.
Journalist Dan Hancox provides a detailed understanding into how crowds have been characterised, beginning with the proto-fascist writings of Gustave Le Bon. The narrative dances back and forth throughout history, consistently drawn back to Le Bon’s analysis and how his narrow-minded ideas formed many misguided attempts at control. We are given connections between the Nuremberg rallies and the US Capitol attack, shown how freethinkers at Notting Hill Carnival can be faced with biased policing, and presented with both the devotion of fans at a football match alongside the contempt for them which led to tragedy.
Although Hancox makes some big arguments along the way, his claims are backed by evidence and an impressive knowledge of historical outcomes. Beautifully describing the collective joy of shared experience, he suggests the perceived ‘mob mentality’ of a group may be less of an innate response and more of a reaction. Framing crowds as gatherings of individuals, he warns of the danger of basing the actions of one on all, instead calling for the support of citizens in creating an environment guided by collective wisdom. Comprehensive and timely, Multitudes leaves us with a feeling that the crowd should be celebrated as a place in which common experiences act as a guide for a happier future for all of us to enjoy; ideally with the carefree fervour of a euphoric 90s rave. (Rachel Morrell) n Published on Tuesday 22 October.
TV WHERE’S WANDA? (Apple TV+) lllll
Sundersheim is a safe, sleepy German town where everyone vaguely knows each another and nothing too out of the ordinary ever goes on. But during an annual folkloric celebration of the town’s monstrous mascot to whom a young virgin is sacrificed, 17-year-old Wanda Klatt goes missing. After an initial narrated opening from Wanda herself, she skips ahead to a few months into her disappearance where we find her family in deep distress, working with the police to investigate their beloved daughter’s disappearance.
As the days pass and no evidence is found, the family’s denial that Wanda is gone turns into mania as they decide to take matters into their own hands. The plot is wittily stitched together with slick editing and dynamic storytelling, leaving its audience with fun breadcrumbs to follow while performances from the main cast always successfully balance comedic slapstick with earnest drama. This is particularly true of Wanda’s parents, played by Heike Makatsch and Axel Stein.
Apple TV+’s first German-language series combines the eerie parts of classic television mystery dramas with the light-hearted entertainment of a teen comedy: think Pretty Little Liars meets Search Party with the visual saturation of Sex Education. There’s a clear intention to universalise (read Americanise) the world which the Klatts inhabit, particularly in how the town’s high school is portrayed. However, clear nods to German culture and the introduction of queer storylines give a fresh twist to an otherwise derivative tale. (Megan Merino) n Starts on Wednesday 2 October.
OTHER THINGS WORTH STAYING IN FOR
A packed month of things to do indoors or consume on your travels include a moving posthumous collection, the wild travails of a fictional playwright, and the latest sensational documentary series about animals in peril
ALBUMS
SOPHIE
A sad moment as the posthumous final album from Scottish producer and pop pioneer Sophie, following her untimely death in 2021, is now out, featuring collaborations with Kim Petras, BC Kingdom and Bibi Bourelly.
n Transgressive Records, out now.
KEVIN P GILDAY & THE GLASGOW CROSS
How I Won The Culture War is the latest collaboration between poet and performer Gilday and multi-instrumentalist Ralph Hector, as the duo give us ten tracks about personal strife and global anxieties.
n Iffy Folk Records, Friday 11 October.
LAURA MARLING
A sort-of sequel to Song For Our Daughter in 2020, Patterns In Repeat reflects the singer-songwriter’s experience of being a new mother and living life as part of a now broader family unit.
n Chrysalis/Partisan Records, Friday 25 October.
BOOKS
RICHARD AYOADE
The man who some will always remember as Moss from The IT Crowd is forging a very different career these days, and here comes an offbeat novel about a (fictional) 20th-century playwright. n Faber, Thursday 3 October.
GAMES
TEST DRIVE UNLIMITED SOLAR CROWN
Number 21 in the Test Drive series, this racing video affair features a recreation of Hong Kong Island, with 340 miles of drivable roads; it reputedly has Grand Theft Auto VI firmly in its sights.
n Nacon, out now.
PODCASTS
SLOW BURN
This addictive long-form non-fiction documentary series turns its attention to Fox News and how it lurched from being a bumbling channel into a hugely influential right-wing behemoth.
n Slate, new episodes available every Wednesday.
TV CHIMP CRAZY
From the people who brought you Tiger King, a documentary series which outdoes even that show for jaw-dropping drama. Meet Tonia Haddix whose love for a chimpanzee brings her into conflict with the authorities and animal rights groups.
n Sky Documentaries, out now.
STEVENS & MCCARTHY
More outrageous skits and sketches from Gayle Telfer Stevens and Louise McCarthy with a fourepisode series which features spoofs, characters and musical comedy.
n BBC One Scotland, Monday 7 October.
BEFORE
This supernatural thriller starring Billy Crystal and Judith Light promises a ‘shocking finale’ but you’ll have to wait til 20 December for that. Crystal plays a child psychiatrist and recent widower whose new patient has a weird connection to him.
n Apple+, Monday 25 October.
Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown (and bottom from left), Sophie, Before, Stevens & McCarthy
THE Q& A WITH KYM MARSH
Bursting onto our screens and into our ears as a member of Hear’Say (winners of early 2000s TV talent quest, Popstars), Kym Marsh has gone on to carve out a successful career as an actor (Coronation Street, Waterloo Road) and TV host (Morning Live). Currently touring as Cruella De Vil in 101 Dalmatians, she tackles our Q&A in which she talks big cats, Biscoff and bringing herself back from the dead to torment Nigel Lythgoe
Who would you like to see playing you in the movie about your life? My daughter Emilie and hopefully the casting people would agree. After all, who looks like me more than her?
What’s the punchline to your favourite joke? ‘You’re in luck! I’ve got some cream for that.’
If you were to return in a future life as an animal, what would it be? I should probably say a Dalmatian, but it would more likely be one of the big cats, like a lioness.
If you were playing in an escape room, name two other people you’d recruit to help you get out? Carol Vorderman and my daughter Emilie.
When was the last time you were mistaken for someone else and what were the circumstances? I don’t get mistaken for other people, but I do get called Michelle, my character name from Coronation Street
What’s the best cover version ever? ‘Handbags And Gladrags’ by Stereophonics.
Whose speaking voice soothes your ears? Morgan Freeman.
If you were to start a tribute act to a band or singer, who would it be in tribute to and what would it be called? The Carpenters. The Decorators (ha ha!).
Tell us something you wish you had discovered sooner in life? Biscoff.
When did you last cry? Sunday morning, remembering my dad.
Describe your perfect Saturday evening? Candles, good company, nice food, bottle of wine and a movie.
If you were a ghost, who would you haunt? Nigel Lythgoe. He called me fat when I was on Popstars.
If you could relive any day of your life, which one would it be? All of my kids’ births.
What’s your earliest recollection of winning something? The Ken Dodd Trophy when I was ten years old for singing ‘The Greatest Love Of All’ by Whitney.
Did you have a nickname at school that you were okay with? And can you tell us a nickname you hated? Marshy. Everyone calls me this, even now. Marshmallow was one that I hated.
When were you most recently astonished by something? Nothing surprises me these days, so I can’t really say.
What tune do you find it impossible not to get up and dance to, whether in public or private? That would have to be ‘You To Me Are Everything’ by The Real Thing.
As an adult, what has a child said to you that made a powerful impact? My kids telling me they loved me for the first time.
Which famous person would be your ideal holiday companion? Ricky Gervais.
Tell us one thing about yourself that would surprise people? I’m scared of the dark and have to sleep with a light on, while my boyfriend sleeps next to me wearing his 101 Dalmatians sleeping mask.
What’s the most hi-tech item in your home? I don’t really have any hi-tech items; my smart television is probably the closest I can get.
What’s a skill you’d love to learn but never got round to? Playing the piano.
By decree of your local council, you’ve been ordered to destroy one room in your house and all of its contents. Which room do you choose? My daughter Polly’s room because it’s a pigsty anyway.
If you were selected as the next 007, where would you pick as your first luxury destination for espionage? South of France.
Kym Marsh stars in 101 Dalmatians, His Majesty’s Theatre, Aberdeen, Tuesday 29 October–Saturday 2 November; Waterloo Road is on BBC One, Tuesdays, and BBC iPlayer.
hot shots
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Despite the name, the Edinburgh Spanish Film Festival (Wednesday 2–Saturday 26 October) stretches to locations beyond your nation’s capital with Stirling, Inverness, Tranent and Glasgow getting in on the act. Among the movies set to entrance audiences are Championext, Soy Rebelde (pictured), Under Therapy, The Quiet Maid and Chinas, A Second Generation Story
A whole host of radical emancipation, resistance, survival and collective action is celebrated at Dundee’s Cooper Gallery for The Ignorant Art School’s latest ‘sit-in’ (Friday 18 October–Saturday 1 February). Among those being hailed here are Georgina Starr (pictured in performance at the Royal Academy in 2008), Judy Chicago, Ajamu X and Derek Jarman.
Do we need an Australian version of The Office? Heck yeah, especially with it starring Felicity Ward as Hannah Howard, regional manager at packaging company Flinley Craddick, who goes out of her way to annoy/rile/embarrass everyone in her orbit. Prime Video launch this one on Friday 18 October making it the 13th iteration of the Gervais/Merchant cringe-masterpiece.
