The List April 2025

Brooke Combe

Swan Lake Mujie Yan Simple Minds

JOHNNIE & THE CHOCOLATIER JUST GOT SWEETER

Experience our sweet and vibrant new Johnnie Walker Black Ruby with a welcome cocktail before pairing artisanal chocolate truffles with four exceptional whiskies.

April is here, but for those out there still throwing on the big coat (hiya), the thought of lounging around at a summer music festival might still be fanciful. It’s always good to get ahead of the game though, and this issue we’re looking at one-off gigs, long weekenders and album releases to look forward to as the ‘sun’ prepares to blast down upon us. And we even offer up some top tips and wise words on how to survive music-festival season.

The new and not-quite-so-new are brought together across our main feature with soul queen and voice of a generation Brooke Combe kicking proceedings off. We caught up with the Liverpool-based Dalkeither when she popped back north for some in-store appearances; her ambition and talent are in perfect alignment and this year should be a big one. At the other end of the experience scale is Jim Kerr, a true Scottish rock’n’pop icon of the 80s whose Simple Minds were either on classic soundtracks (most notably The Breakfast Club), in a stadium near you, or popping up on MTV. And somewhere in between, we chat to piper extraordinaire Ross Ainslie ahead of his Edinburgh Tradfest date, and explore the one-day delights of Glasgow’s Stag & Dagger. If you prefer music consumption to be a more intimate affair, we pick a mere seven album releases across the coming months to get excited about.

Music does infiltrate the mag more than usual this issue with Rebecca Vasmant filling out (or is it filling in?) our back-page Q&A while we round up podcasts which reflect obsessively on some, shall we say, vintage bands, and we welcome home Vic Galloway to our pages with his new column in which he chooses some hot gigs over the coming month. Obviously it had to be called Vic’s Picks. We also Zoom with Police legend Stewart Copeland as he samples the call of nature for his latest project. Plus, there are reviews of new albums/ EPs from Bon Iver, Self Esteem, Joe Lovano and Essence Martins, plus we pass verdict on the Bat Out Of Hell musical, Gracie Abrams at the Hydro, and a new John & Yoko documentary. Not quite done yet . . . we examine a new baroque festival, chat with rising DJ star Mha Iri, and reach the letter G in our alphabetical look at classic albums. Tune in. Play on. And a third thing . . .

Brian Donaldson EDITOR

Dalliston

Sheldon, Brian Donaldson, Carol Main, Claire Sawers, Craig McLean, Danny Munro, David Kirkwood , Donald Reid, Emma Simmonds, Eve Connor, Fiona Shepherd, Isy Santini, James Mottram, Jay Richardson, Jay Thundercliffe, Jo Laidlaw, Katherine McLaughlin, Kelly Apter, Kevin Fullerton, Lucy Ribchester, Marcas Mac an Tuairneir, Megan Merino, Murray Robertson, Neil Cooper, Rachael Revesz, Rachel Morrell, Rob Adams,

Galloway

MHA IRI KATHY SULLIVAN

front

Tmouthpiece

wo made men enter a bar (well, an upmarket restaurant) and, by golly, what a fine ultraviolent mess they get themselves into. You’ve seen this setup a thousand times before, but Barry Levinson’s The Alto Knights is intent on regurgitating such tried-andtested bada-bing slop in all its ‘this’ll seem better if you watch it drunk on Netflix’ glory. The USP is that Robert De Niro plays both leads, one a mob boss-turned-professional businessman, the other a Joe Pesci tribute act with an ‘I’m here to amuse you?’ flair for kicking civilians’ heads in at high velocity. No matter the character, De Niro’s face is swaddled in enough prosthetics to resemble a government ad warning against back-alley nose jobs (more an incised guy than a wise guy, eh? . . . I’ll get my Members Only jacket).

The Alto Knights has been in development hell since 1974, so it’s no surprise that the premise has been laundered into cliché via Goodfellas and its pale imitators. That it should be reclaimed from the bins round the back of the Warner Bros studio lot points to a risk-averse era in the film industry, one where blowing a capo’s head off in a whirlwind of gore has grown quaint, and the naturalistic mumble of De Niro has become as cosy to moviegoers as John Wayne’s racist stride through Monument Valley.

Thing is, Martin Scorsese already placed a full stop on the gangster movie with The Irishman. Much like the elegiac era of the western, this three-hour tome was an acknowledgement

This month, resident columnist and veteran bagman Kevin Fullerton is pondering Robert De Niro’s latest mafia-adjacent celluloid time-filler. But can it address those real gangsters crowding the world stage?

that its stars had grown too long in the tooth as Scorsese whipped out a Now! That’s What I Call Racketeering greatest hits compilation and called time on a style that had earned a victory lap. Then galumphs The Alto Knights with a Goodfellas-cribbed hyper-reality and a capitalist critique that seems as far removed from the modern day as Karl Marx was from the 1970s. Through its hoary lens (as in The Godfather, Goodfellas and The Sopranos), the protagonists act as a demonic reflection of the American empire, realising their talents for extortion and abuse are assets in a business world hiding exploitation behind a veneer of respectability.

We now live in a world run by Donald Trump and Elon Musk; the gangster film is irrelevant when capitalism openly feasts on the flesh of its adherents. The closest we’ve got to an equivalent modern comment is The Curse, Nathan Fielder and Benny Safdie’s offbeat dark comedy about a wealthy couple gentrifying a small, racially diverse town for their own gain. While they evict people from their homes, ignore poverty on their doorstep and fashion themselves into the perfect pair on reality television, a two-pronged strategy of algorithminduced cultural myopia and self-absorption allows them to maintain a delusion that they’re decent, upstanding citizens. These are the new capo dei capi that The Alto Knights can’t fathom, each one of us participating in an ideological project which, as the gulf between rich and poor widens, has grown unashamed of avarice.

April is upon us, so let’s consider some cultural A words starting with the TV four-part drama that is likely to scoop all the best-of-the-year prizes. Just when you thought it might be time to cancel that Netflix subscription, along came Adolescence, described variously as scary, important, heartbreaking and even potentially life-saving. Co-written by Jack Thorne and its star Stephen Graham, it proves that the latter is now assuredly the king of TV empathy/misery. Few

have broken their hearts over the work of Armando Iannucci (funny bones have been snapped though), but he has rightly been hailed in the BBC’s current Imagine season and is well worth a listen for his Radio 4 show Strong Message Here which lasers in on how politicians use language. Finally, everyone’s favourite deadpanner Richard Ayoade has directed and features in the decidedly trippy video for Kim Deal’s ‘Big Ben Beat’. Shame there wasn’t a month called Bambember for a triple points score.

PICTURE: REBECCA JONES

The Alto Knights The Irishman

PlayList

April is traditionally a music-heavy issue with festivals, concerts and album releases cranking up a gear as we head towards summer. Hear songs by featured artists including Gracie Abrams, Rebecca Vasmant, Self Esteem, Ross Ainslie, Simple Minds, Orbital and Brooke Combe

Scan and listen as you read:

from the archive

We look through The List’s back catalogue to see what was making headlines this month in decades gone by

In April 1986, issue 14 was hot off the press with Helena Bonham Carter on the cover for her leading role in James Ivory’s A Room With A View. Inside, we sat down with the acclaimed director to discuss his latest cinematic venture, diving into the creative process behind the film and its evocative exploration of Edwardian society. Elsewhere, we took a hard look at the future of the Dounreay nuclear power plant near Thurso, examining its critical role in Scotland’s energy landscape. And we also turned the spotlight on Big Audio Dynamite who were set to bring their electrifying sound to Edinburgh’s Queen’s Hall.

 Head to list.co.uk/archive for our past issues.

In this series of articles, we turn the focus back on ourselves by asking folk at The List about recent cultural artefacts that touch their heart and soul. This time around, Ailsa Sheldon tells us which things . . .

Made me cry: I went into Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy anticipating a good cry, and it delivered. As a widow, I think it dealt really well with grief, parenting after the loss of a partner, and moving on. It’s not highbrow, it’s not flawless, but I do love Bridget (just the way that she is).

Made me angry: I’ve been watching Apple Cider Vinegar on Netflix, based on the true story of Belle Gibson who lied about curing herself of cancer with her diet and built a fraudulent wellness empire. The manipulation of vulnerable ill people is enraging and a good reminder to be very wary about the veracity of health claims online.

Made me laugh: Big Boys on Channel 4, back for a final season. I watch this with my teenage sons and it has just the right combination of smut, heart and university nostalgia.

Made me think: I had tickets to see London saxophonist Nubya Garcia play at Òran Mór on her Odyssey tour but sadly had to miss the gig. I’m channeling the disappointment into a determination to see more live music this year; there’s really nothing like it.

Made me think twice: I picked up the 2024 Booker Prize-winning Orbital by Samantha Harvey expecting sci-fi, which isn’t really my genre (clearly I didn’t read the reviews). I’ve been utterly starstruck by this gorgeous, soulful meditation on our planet, and everyone who calls it home.

Book Launch

Claudia Esnouf went on a fearless, soul-searching odyssey to reclaim herself after the worst kind of heartbreak

For nearly a year, she ventured deep into the wilds of the Caucasus Mountains, trekked through the spiritual heart of Nepal , and navigated the chaos of India-all the while battling inner turmoil Along the way, she faced down a rampaging water buffalo, survived a freezing glacier crossing, and unknowingly camped in a minefield.

After returning to Europe, she embarked on the Camino Frances and, even after reaching Santiago de Compostela , refused to stop, walking the Camino Portugues as well-covering over 1 ,800 kilometers in eight months

Walk Like a Girl is a testament to the strength it takes to keep walking, even when you're not sure where the path leads

Walk Like A Girl will be available in UK bookstores from April 25th.

Dancing queen

Brooke Combe decided very early on that her youthful musical vision wouldn’t be shaped by middle-aged record executives. On the back of a strong debut album, the Liverpool-based Midlothian-born singer tells Megan Merino about a smalltown upbringing and realising a big dream. Let our Summer Music special commence . . .

One-of-a-kind vocalists don’t come around too often. The type of singer whose vocal identity is so distinct and powerful that their voice is an instrument and can be recognised after a single note. Brooke Combe possesses one such voice, her tone so rich and decadent it could have been pulled from a 1950s Motown record. But it is approximately 3519 miles from Detroit to the Midlothian town of Dalkeith where Combe was raised and discovered her love of soul music.

She later moved to Liverpool and, after a series of online cover videos came to people’s attention, Island Records signed her at the tender age of 20. After the 2023 release of critically acclaimed mixtape Black Is The New Gold (which led to a SAY Award nomination and many high-profile supporting slots, including with one of her biggest inspirations, Michael Kiwanuka), Combe parted ways with the major label and released her debut album this year with Modern Sky.

Dancing At The Edge Of The World maintains her nostalgic soul and killer pop hooks but is more refined. Songs are crafted to perfection, punctuated with tasteful disco strings, hammering piano and lavish vocal stacks. There’s still a rawness, perhaps because the whole record was recorded live to tape. ‘We had three takes per song and that was it,’ recalls Combe. ‘I had absolutely no doubt in my mind that the band would nail their parts. But I was like “what about me though? Can I do this?” It showed me a more serious side of things; we did have to just focus and get our heads in the game.’

Now aged 25, Combe’s point of view in her songwriting and storytelling has noticeably matured. ‘I think the mixtape was very much made by little naive Brooke. I wrote a lot of those songs when I was 16 and going through things I thought were adult experiences. Now my feelings have gone a lot deeper.’

Following an opening ‘Prelude’, the album’s first track ‘This Town’ playfully dissects her experience of growing up in a Scottish town of 14,000 people. ‘Being from a small town, if you do something good you get ripped. You do something bad you get ripped. It’s so easy to be anxious about how people are reacting or thinking about you. I just think I dinnae gie a fuck. I really do not care.’

Standout tracks such as ‘The Last Time’ and ‘Pieces’ concern themselves with love and heartbreak, and while she has been quoted as saying that this isn’t a ‘break-up’ album per se, those tracks were written about the disintegration of her father’s last marriage. ‘Maybe I should clarify that it’s not my break-up album,’ she giggles. ‘I was like a fly-on-the-wall in someone else’s relationship.’ Dancing At The Edge Of The World’s 11 songs were mostly co-written by Combe and her long-term guitarist (and partner) Danny Murphy. ‘This album is our album,’ she insists. ‘I know it’s my name, but it’s the first album he’s fully had this much sway on as well.’

While the majority of it was written from inside her dad’s house, Combe also wrote a handful of songs in LA where she worked with producers and songwriters Jamie Hartman (Lewis Capaldi, Rag‘N’Bone Man), Michael ‘Mikey Shoes’ Shuman (bassist in Queens Of The Stone Age) and Paul Butler (The Bees). That visit birthed songs such as ‘L.M.T.F.A’, ‘Guilt’ and ‘Lanewood Pines’, the latter being the name of an apartment complex Combe and Murphy were staying in. ‘We wrote that within 20 minutes before going to meet Paul. Danny had the chords straight away; I got a tiny keyboard up on my phone and heard that little riff in my head. Then the full melody and the words were just coming out. It was mad.’

This Stateside trip plus a more local visit to Brighton to write with Iain Archer (Snow Patrol, Jake Bugg) proved productive and fruitful, but that wasn’t always Combe’s experience of songwriting speed dating. ‘Because I went with Danny this time, it did put a whole new spin on it for me. When I was with Island Records, I went down to London for songwriting sessions and I hated it. I was on my own as a 20, 21-year-old female in a room with these middle-aged men trying to write about my heartbreak. I learned then that major labels want to shape you. Unless you’ve got a massive following, they’ll take that opportunity to say “this is our puppet”. That’s when I knew it wouldn’t work for me . . . could you imagine me on stage in a leotard or something? It’s just no’ who I am.’

That wardrobe choice would certainly feel out of place here, backstage at Assai Records in Glasgow, where she’s about to perform an acoustic set to an intimate crowd of fans in celebration of her album launch. This show marks the halfway point of an in-store tour, something Combe has been looking forward to after several months off with a vocal nodule diagnosis. ‘I had my throat looked at and it makes sense now why I’ve been struggling for so long. But this in-store tour has been good to get back into using the muscles. I’ve been off dairy, chocolate, spicy food, acidic food, and doing hour-long warm-ups every day. This warm-up guy is probably going to be on my fucking Spotify Wrapped.’

That strict vocal routine is doing its job with Combe’s short set executed flawlessly; the room simply belongs to her while she recounts introductory stories behind each track. ‘I don’t usually really talk about what my songs are about,’ she tells me afterwards, ‘but going into this year, I was just like “you know what? I’ve created this amazing album that I’m proud of.”’ But what does Combe’s dad think about her sharing his break-up story on stage? ‘I didn’t tell him or ask him permission as such, I actually just waited for him to hear it to see if he would put two and two together. He was more happy about it than annoyed. Now that enough time has passed since these situations happened, I think I’ve come to terms with it. I’ve understood that it’s my story as well. I’ve lived through it also and I’m allowed to talk about how it’s made me feel. It’s given me a platform to figure out how I might tell these stories on the big tour as well.’

She’s referring to a wider UK headline run taking place throughout April and culminating in Glasgow at the iconic Barrowland Ballroom, a stage that holds particular weight for Combe. ‘I made a venues bucket list about a year ago and Barrowlands was on there. I’m buzzing! I’m not even really nervous, I just want to have fun. It doesn’t need to be pressure; it just needs to be everyone that I love and everyone who loves the tunes being in one room together and letting go of everything for a while.’

Brooke Combe plays Barrowlands, Glasgow, Saturday 19 April; Dancing At The Edge Of The World is out now on Modern Sky.

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WITH SPECIAL GUEST SINGER RIANNE DOWNEY

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Pipedreams

IGen Z appear to be lapping up traditional music in big numbers. One beneficiary of this cultural shift is cittern, whistle and pipe player Ross Ainslie. He tells Danny Munro about a recently departed legend who opened his eyes to the possibilities of fusion

t feels as though traditional music is having a moment right now in Scotland, and Edinburgh Tradfest is set to capitalise on this positive feeling with a jam-packed ten-day programme in May. Entrusted with opening proceedings is Ross Ainslie who, at six solo-albums deep with countless nods in coveted award categories, is one of Scotland’s most sought-after pipers. Propping up Ainslie are his friends and long-term collaborators The Sanctuary Band, much to the piper’s delight. ‘The good thing about The Sanctuary Band is we don’t really do many gigs,’ Ainslie explains, ‘so when we get the opportunity, it’s always a special thing.’

Ainslie’s opening night performance comes amid what feels like a real purple patch for music of traditional origins in Scotland, with VisitScotland data revealing in March 2024 that more than a third of Scots are currently listening to trad music more often than they used to. A key element of this resurgence appears to be its popularity among the nation’s youth, with trips to hoolies and ceilidhs feeling increasingly commonplace among Gen Z in Scotland.

‘When I was younger, me and my pal were probably the only people that were into trad music at that point,’ Ainslie recalls before adding with a smile, ‘not so much now. There are so many more young people playing trad music today.’ Attempting to explain this uptick in younger listeners, Ainslie praises Scotland’s festivals. ‘I think along with Celtic Connections, Edinburgh Tradfest gives trad and Celtic music a kind of credibility, when sometimes it can be seen as an uncool thing.’

Joining Ainslie at his Queen’s Hall Tradfest show is special guest Terra Kin, a young Glaswegian artist whose assorted sound has led them everywhere from performances with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra to a collaboration with ubiquitous electronic producer Fred Again. Quick to praise the bold nature of younger performers like Terra Kin, Ainslie notes: ‘I think once you find your path, you generally don’t really veer off it that much. But with young people, they’ll always take it somewhere else because of what they’re into at that point. Scotland’s always been good at fusion and never been scared of it.’

Reflecting on what the Queen’s Hall crowd can expect, ‘fusion’ crops up once again when Ainslie reveals that he and The Sanctuary Band plan on paying a musical tribute to Zakir Hussain, the iconic Bombay-born tabla player who passed away last December. ‘He was a bit of a hero of mine,’ says Ainslie of Hussain, with whom he collaborated in the early 2010s. ‘He had a band with John McLaughlin called Shakti. It was the first kind of Indian, jazz thing in the 70s. It’s really amazing stuff.’

When asked to guide the uninitiated toward Tradfest, the piper is keen to encourage potential spectators to put their faith in the festival’s curators. ‘I think if you’re not a fan of folk music, then this is an easy way in. You’ve got one programme to look through, just take a punt on anything and I’m sure you’ll be satisfied. The people booking them know what they’re doing.’

Ross Ainslie and The Sanctuary Band play Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh, Friday 2 May.

TIME

TJim Kerr looks back with fondness on the 1980s whirlwind when Simple Minds became stadium-rock behemoths of global proportions. He tells Fiona Shepherd that his evergreen band might finally be slowing it all down

he last time Simple Minds played an outdoor show in their native Glasgow, stadium concerts were an exotic proposition rather than a regular mortgage-busting ripoff. Two legendary gigs at Ibrox Stadium in 1986 captured the band at the height of their pomp around the release of their Once Upon A Time album. Frontman Jim Kerr remembers it well. ‘It encapsulated so much,’ he says. ‘It was post-Live Aid, post-“Don’t You (Forget About Me)”. It almost seemed like every teenager in Scotland was there. It felt like a moment.’

He’s not wrong. These were formative gig experiences for the first generation of Minds fans, celebrating the global success of the Toryglen toerags. A mere 39 years later, this most beloved of Glasgow groups go alfresco again, this time at Bellahouston Park as part of the Summer Sessions series. On this occasion, they will be playing for multiple generations of gig-goers but with a nostalgic glance back to Ibrox as they revisit that ‘86 album in its entirety for the first time. ‘We thought why not do it in Glasgow and make it a premiere? Or it could be the only time we ever play it, who knows?’ teases Kerr. ‘You can see we’re starting to think of that gig separate from the rest of the tour.’

Beefy renditions of some of their biggest hits, including ‘Alive And Kicking’, ‘Sanctify Yourself’ and ‘All The Things She Said’ await, recalling a time when they were tag-teaming with U2 at the top of the charts. Those who haven’t kept up with Simple Minds in the intervening years might be surprised by their ongoing verve. Kerr is still partial to the occasional stage lunge and guitarist Charlie Burchill scrapes skies with his stellar solos. Both are

spurred on by a punchy band line-up including drummer Cherisse Osei and co-vocalist Sarah Brown, both stars in their own right.

‘The challenge for Simple Minds now is different,’ says Kerr. ‘Back then, we had to go on and prove ourselves: this is who we are. I’m no longer that person but you are still connected to your young self. You couldn’t be the person you are without that young person. So now we have to go on and say “this is what we’ve done with our lives” and when that’s at stake you don’t want to give less than 100%.’

With that in mind, Kerr and Burchill have recently signed off on Simple Minds’ latest five-year plan of action with more releases and tours. Kerr reckons it will be the group’s last such plan. ‘I think after we see this through, we maybe do things ad hoc. I wouldn’t want anyone to feel sorry for us but it’s a very selfish existence compared to everybody else around you, and we need to spend some time with family and friends while we’re hopefully in good health. We have no intentions to stop but maybe it’s time to not go out with such intensity.’

These days, Kerr spends most of the year in Taormina, Sicily, where he owns a luxe hillside hotel but, come June, he will be hunkered down in his Glasgow home. ‘I love the summer in Glasgow regardless of the weather. I love getting into the hills around Callander and Perthshire. I actually go there to escape the hot weather of southern Europe. Sleeping in my own bed is always a good one. Hope I’ve not left any milk in the fridge . . . ’

TRAVELLERS

Simple Minds play Bellahouston Park, Glasgow, Friday 27 June.

TRAVELLERS

S‘tag & Dagger started out very much as a new music festival, and it’s stayed that way,’ says Craig Gornall, booker at Scottish gig promoter PCL Presents.

‘It’s great to see artists on their way up, blowing Glasgow audiences away. What’s so exciting is that any of them could be tomorrow’s big stars. Ed Sheeran and Lizzo played Stag & Dagger before they were major international stars. Over the years, we’ve had Django Django, Frightened Rabbit, Toro Y Moi, The Twilight Sad, Mac DeMarco, Hamish Hawk, and Glasvegas. It’s been really exciting checking out new artists and pulling together this year’s line-up of ones to watch.’

In what Gornall calls the ‘top tier’ of artists for a one-dayer in May are jangly Brummie rock’n’roll four-piece The Clause; 19-year-old Liverpudlian Re6ce (aka DIY pop artist Reece Downes); Boston indie-rock trio Vundabar; Bristol punks Grandmas House (nothing to do with Simon Amstell’s BBC sitcom of the same name, in case you were wondering, and also no relation to experimental pop duo Let’s Eat Grandma); and London’s queer-pop rudeboy Babymorocco (he was born in Casablanca) is a late addition to the bill.

‘Historically, Stag & Dagger has always tended to feature guitar-based bands, but we’ve branched out a bit over the years,’ notes Gornall. ‘We had artists like Alice Glass from Crystal Castles in 2023. We don’t just do indie guitars. Lots of people are already queuing up when the doors open at 1pm

Cutting crew

(and

Some Glasgow venues may not be available this year, but that won’t stop Stag & Dagger from providing a platform for future stars. Claire Sawers speaks to booker Craig Gornall about the joys and ethos of this one-day extravaganza

and stay until the finish so we like to give them a few surprises over the day.’

This year, audiences can expect the country/Americana project Grayling, fronted by singer/guitarist Emma Murdoch; queer female shoegaze duo Saint Sappho who are newly signed to Optimo Music Rocks; Chroma, a Welsh alt-rock band who opened for Foo Fighters in Manchester last year; and Kai Bosch, a singer songwriter from Cornwall with a penchant for heart-on-sleeve storytelling. ‘It’s always important for us to book a mix of local Scottish acts alongside international and UK names.’

Stag & Dagger has put on Edinburgh and London editions of the festival in the past, but this year will be a one-off in Glasgow, with performances across various city-centre venues. ‘We’ve used the ABC and Broadcast in the past but obviously we can’t this year [the ABC was demolished last October and Broadcast is currently closed after flood damage]. We’re using The Garage, Nice N Sleazy, Renfield Centre, Berkeley Suite and Assai Records,’ says Gornall. ‘Venues generally end up rammed and it’s even better when the sun comes out; it’s a brilliant atmosphere. We’ll wrap everything up just after 10pm which means people coming from outside Glasgow can leave in time to get the train home. It’s deliberately planned for the bank holiday weekend so those who want to keep the party going can carry on in Sleazy’s until late.’

Stag & Dagger, various venues, Glasgow, Saturday 3 May.

Vundabar

clockwise from left), Re6ce, Grandmas House, The Clause

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+ MANY MORE TO BE

The dos and don’ts of music festivals

FAs a steely-eyed veteran of Connects, TRNSMTs and T In The Parks aplenty, Kevin Fullerton shares his top tips to help you have a rare old time this summer

estivals are often marketed as no-holds barred blowouts of controlled anarchy where the booze flows freely and the chances of being within drinkthrowing distance of your favourite singer increases exponentially. Shrug the world from your shoulders, bellow a medley of your favourite tunes into a stranger’s ear, and to hell with what the world thinks of your selfie stick, your vuvuzela and your ten-foot-high neon flag that reads ‘who’s gunna carry the boats?’

Yet the average music three-dayer is a contested space, drawing in thousands of visitors, each of whom have competing expectations of what a ‘fun time’ means. Within this cesspool of civilisation, there are topless lads chugging pints, bikini-loving girls sunning themselves, quiet goths skulking in the shade, tired parents relieved to escape their kids for a day, and (every now and again) music fans waiting to hear their favourite bands. Across decades, I’ve experienced both electrifying and misery-inducing outdoor ultra-sensory binges, so here’s some advice from someone who’s weathered the frontlines of festival-going and lived to tell the tale.

One of the biggest pitfalls at any all-day event is what researchers have called the ‘merry to munted spectrum’, which has tried and failed to calculate the correct number of alcoholic beverages to consume before security are forced to escort you from the premises. A case in point is my long-term friend Stevie. Having spent more than £700 on travel, accommodation and tickets to see The Who perform

open season

Will you take on board our Kevin’s sage advice? Try it out at any one of these corking summer festivals

KNOCKENGORROCH

Galloway, Thursday 22–Sunday 25 May, knockengorroch.org.uk

HIDDEN DOOR

The Paper Factory, Edinburgh, Wednesday 11–Sunday 15 June, hiddendoorarts.org

at Hyde Park, he drank too much early doors and fell asleep beneath a tree before Roger Daltrey even appeared onstage. When later asked if he enjoyed himself, he philosophically replied ‘maybe. I wasn’t there at the time.’ Anyway, the price of two pints of lager at a music festival could get you on the housing ladder, so grab some water in between booze to both keep you on your feet and save some cash.

Alongside the pub bores who spend their day queuing for drinks, there are the phone-scrollers who wait hours for the main act and, despite being offered a carnival’s worth of activities, hang aimlessly about, a pursuit which is free at your local park. Even the most mainstream festivals are awash with interesting bands. Don’t be shy about unshackling yourself from your pals to explore a few small stages.

Then there are those who cling to the notion that festivals are not communal love-ins but opportunities for territorial expansionism which allow their cohort to bully people from their hardearned viewing spot (I blame Thatcher, but let’s not get into that here). Families are the worst for this behaviour. For example, while once patiently waiting for the headliner, a spawn of mum, dad and two teenage sons materialised around me. Slowly but firmly the mother began to nudge her elbows into my ribs. I stood firm. As the band began, she held her phone in front of my face to record them then said to her son, motioning to me, ‘just push him out of the way.’ Her son politely told his mum to stop embarrassing herself. Remember, your family may be the glint in your eye but they’re mere specks of dust to everyone else.

You may have spotted a dominant theme here among this ever-mounting cascade of gripes, grievances, and calls for an overthrow of the neo-liberal identity: if you want to really enjoy your next festival, be kind to your neighbour and don’t be afraid to try something new. As a man once screamed at me after unwittingly dislocating my shoulder in a mosh pit: ‘we’re all here to have a good time, mate. Enjoy yourself.’

KELBURN GARDEN PARTY

Kelburn Castle, Largs, Thursday 3–Monday 7 July, kelburngardenparty.com

TRNSMT

Glasgow Green, Friday 11–Sunday 13 July, trnsmtfest.com

HEBCELT FESTIVAL

Lews Castle, Stornoway, Wednesday 16–Saturday 19 July, hebceltfest.com

BELLADRUM TARTAN HEART FESTIVAL

Belladrum Estate, Thursday 31 July–Saturday 2 August, tartanheartfestival.com

FRINGE BY THE SEA

North Berwick, Friday 1–Sunday 10 August, fringebythesea.com

Knockengorroch

PICTURE: TOBY JEFFRIES

PICTURE: PAUL CAMPBELL

PICTURE:

record collector

Below are seven top albums to get your ears around this summer

JENNY HVAL

Iris Silver Mist may well be the only album of this year (or perhaps any year in history) named after a fragrance from French perfume house Serge Lutens. Apparently it smells more like steel than silver. All will be abundantly clearer (perhaps), once we actually hear the thing.

 4AD, Monday 5 May.

BILLY NOMATES

Not sure whether the PJ Harvey comparisons held Billy back or powered her on, but Metalhorse has Nomates firmly in the saddle once again after the acclaimed Cacti from 2023. A set of new blues, folk and piano-driven arrangements are almost upon us.

 Invada Records, Friday 16 May.

TUNE-YARDS

Merrill Garbus and Nate Brenner celebrate 16 years out in the musical wild together by delivering their sixth album, Better Dreaming. If you liked their infectious single ‘Limelight’ (featuring some vocal talents of the pair’s threeyear-old), you’ll go a bundle on the latest collection from this California duo.

 4AD, Friday 16 May.

LANA DEL REY

The queen of southern gothic is back with The Right Person Will Stay. Originally down as being titled Lasso, we suspect it wasn’t meant as a hattip to her favourite fictional US soccer boss, but more likely a sonic missive that will either be country-ish or defiantly not.

 Interscope, Wednesday 21 May.

RIVAL CONSOLES

Landscape From Memory is the ninth album from the producer known to his pals and accountant as Ryan Lee West. Promising to step out of his comfort zone, this one has been dubbed as a ‘travelogue of creativity on the move’.

 Erased Tapes, Friday 4 July.

BARRY CAN’T SWIM

The Edinburgh-born Mercury-nominated electro-artist had a high placing on our Hot 100 last year, and who knows where he’ll end up this time around on the back of a highly anticipated album, Loner, featuring the excellent single, ‘The Person You’d Like To Be’. Some Scottish gigs would be nice.

 Ninja Tune, Friday 11 July.

NOVA TWINS

These alt-rock trailblazers thunder back into our lugs with Parasites & Butterflies. Recorded in Vermont with Rich Costey who has worked his producing magic for the likes of Foo Fighters and Sam Fender, it aims to get across both the chaos and beauty of this world.

 Marshall Records, Friday 29 August.

out “

If I overthink it, I’ll freak

Even non-ballet aficionados know Swan Lake, with many people’s gateway into this world coming via Matthew Bourne’s groundbreaking version. As that production celebrates its 30th anniversary tour, Kelly Apter meets two Edinburgh Dance Academy graduates and lifelong pals who are enjoying a magical new adventure

The dance world may not be overflowing with household names, but one man who has earned his place in that small but select category is Matthew Bourne. He’s spent the past 38 years enticing newcomers to the genre via reimagined versions of Cinderella, Nutcracker, Sleeping Beauty and more. Ask someone to name a Bourne production, however, and chances are the first words that come to their lips will be Swan Lake. His iconic adaptation, with its all-male corps de ballet dressed in feathery trousers and with slicked-back hair, put a whole new set of bums on seats. Having toured the world, picked up Olivier and Tony awards, and appeared at the end of Oscar-nominated film Billy Elliot, the show is currently celebrating its 30th anniversary with another UK tour. In short, it’s not hyperbole to say that Bourne’s Swan Lake is one of the most famous dance shows in the world today.

Stepping into this beloved production, known for both its wit and ‘not a dry eye in the house’ climax, is a challenge and opportunity for any performer. Bourne’s New Adventures company recruits trained dancers first and foremost, but each of them is also required to act, even if words never leave their mouth. A part in Swan Lake comes with expectations, both from audience members and the other dancers around you.

So, imagine it not only being one of your first jobs since graduating, but also you’re taking on a lead role. If the pressure is getting to Leonardo McCorkindale and Carla Contini, they’re doing a good job of hiding it. When we meet backstage at Liverpool’s Empire Theatre, they’re both still

glowing from a matinee performance that received a full-house standing ovation. Both at the tender age of 21, it’s fair to say McCorkindale and Contini’s careers have gotten off to a flying start. It’s also continued a parallel line which saw the Edinburgh-born friends meet at Edinburgh Dance Academy as children, train together at Tring Park performing arts school, then jump straight from graduation to New Adventures’ production of Romeo And Juliet in 2023.

‘I remember having a list of auditions, always looking to find out what’s going on and being really eager to get my foot in the door of the dance world,’ recalls McCorkindale. ‘And me from back then wouldn’t believe that just two years later I’d be doing what I am now.’ Having sufficiently impressed Bourne with his company debut (a small part in Romeo And Juliet), he found himself cast as the Prince in Swan Lake. This multi-layered character, who journeys from royal boredom through suicidal angst to passionate first love, would test the mettle of the most experienced dancer.

‘In Romeo And Juliet I danced the role of Balthasar, which has a little solo, so that was a big step,’ says McCorkindale. ‘But then coming into Swan Lake has been a massive step, just huge. I’m grateful to Matthew for believing I could do it, even though I’m very young. His confidence in me has made me confident in myself.’

Dancers regularly switch roles during a tour, with McCorkindale alternating between playing the Prince and one of the corps de ballet swans, while Contini has the equally demanding job of switching between the fiery

Italian Princess (who dances on tables, living life to the full) and the ice-cold Queen (who can’t even bear to cuddle her son). She too is effusive about the opportunity Bourne has given her. ‘If I overthink it, I’ll probably freak out,’ laughs Contini. ‘Matthew has worked with so many incredible dancers over the years and I feel very lucky that he’s seen an element in us and thought “well that’s interesting, I can work with that.” There are a lot of people in the dance industry who would love to be here, so to have been entrusted to do a principal role is a great feeling. There’s definitely a bit of pressure, but it’s good pressure.’

Thirty years after Bourne first ruffled more than a few feathers by replacing the show’s female corps de ballet with male dancers, Swan Lake continues to touch hearts and minds. Tchaikovsky’s original 19th-century score does much of the emotional heavy lifting, but those playing Bourne’s sharply defined characters also have their work cut out. The Prince, in particular, has to evoke audience empathy as we watch his mother spurn him, see him escape the constraints of palace life, fall into drunken despair, become euphoric in the grip of fledgling love, be cruelly tricked by a stranger, and then meet a tragic end.

How has McCorkindale managed not only to master the extensive movement, but also embody this complex character in one of his first ever roles? ‘The Prince is so well choreographed. This show has been going for years, so they’ve had a long time to refine it. And I feel like the movement does take you on an emotional journey by itself. Muscle memory is a big thing for me, so as soon as I’d got the movement down, I didn’t have to think about the dancing anymore. Once the music comes on that just happens naturally, so I can really think about every little gesture I’m making and how it’s bringing the audience into the story.’

Meanwhile Contini, who may be restaurant royalty (her parents own the famous Contini restaurant in Edinburgh) but has no lived experience to draw on for either of her roles, also has to dig deep. ‘The Queen is so far from who I am personally. I’m not a mother and I’m not royalty, so it required a lot of research, like watching The Crown and speaking to other dancers who have played the role. This show has been going for 30 years, so there’s a whole line of principals that came before us. But it’s also about remembering you can have a fresh take on it.’

On the days when McCorkindale plays the Prince and Contini the Queen, they are, of course, portraying mother and son. Which, when you’re the same age and have been friends since you were 12, must feel a little odd. ‘We’ve known each other for a very long time, so to play mother and son was a bit bizarre at first,’ says Contini. ‘But I think it helps that there’s a personal connection. We’re very close, and if you’re comfortable with each other, then you’re more willing to take things a bit further and support each other.’

For McCorkindale, those moments playing the Prince and the Queen bring home just how much they’ve achieved. ‘It’s really nice for us to dance together and once you’re in the story and the costumes are on, it’s obviously still me and Carla, but you can detach from that and really play the story. Having gone through school together, being on stage in such an incredible, iconic production and playing two leading roles was definitely a “pinch me” moment. It’s like wow, we’ve done this together from the ground up. We’ve made it.’

Swan Lake, Festival Theatre, Edinburgh, Tuesday 8–Saturday 12 April; Theatre Royal, Glasgow, Monday 2–Saturday 7 June.

Carla Contini, far left, as Butterfly in the 2024 production

eat & drink

SPRIGG

Sprigg’s mission in 2018 was to change the way Glaswegians ate on the hop (back then, not very well generally). Owner Tom McDermott opened his first health-conscious, eco-minded spot on Ingram Street, and punters soon got a taste for the customisable bowls of fresh, unprocessed goodness, plucked from a kaleidoscope of proteins, salads, veggies and dressings. Earlier this year a third outlet popped up on Waterloo Street, a sign of sprouting demand. They have an eye on the planet as well as our health and will ensure returned containers are recycled properly. Or bring your own receptacle for added eco-friendliness.

(Jay Thundercliffe)

n 241 Ingram Street, 264 Sauchiehall Street & 31 Waterloo Street, Glasgow, sprigg.co.uk

What goes a round . . .

Pubs and bars can struggle with authenticity and identity in the face of fashion, gentrification, notions of community and changing drinking culture. But David Kirkwood senses a pull towards some timeless virtues in a number of new Glasgow openings and wonders if we’re witnessing a traditional-pub revival

What is the difference between a bar and a pub? The atmosphere? Table service? A kitchen? Bars can be more consciously on-trend, driven by decor, concept or product, while a good pub feels both above and beyond such concerns. After all, if you’re never in fashion then you can never fall out of fashion.

Sometimes these spheres seem particularly aligned, and that’s very much the case in Glasgow at the moment where several openings are punting their old-fashioned pubby ways. Two brand-new spots in particular, take the ‘great British pub’ as a starting point.

The Noble recently arrived in the centre of the financial district, aiming to combine the ‘warmth of a traditional pub with the refinement of a wine bar.’ The Clarence in Hyndland, latterly doing boutique seafood as Shucks, has seen its owners deciding it might fare better as a classic pub while still offering sole on-the-bone and a fancy chicken kyiv.

Is this gastropub 2.0? That term implied seasonality and a market menu, an elevated approach to food in a pub context. While none of this is news to any foodie, it’s interesting to consider if the notion of relaxed dining would land

the same if the term was ‘gastro bar’, which sounds strangely experimental and cold. ‘People just want to be comfortable,’ suggests Courtney Flynn, head of sales, PR & comms for The Superlative Restaurant Group that owns The Noble, where the hotdogs are made of venison and the Guinness is frontand-centre.

The influence of London’s much-lauded The Devonshire is evident and that’s no bad thing. ‘We went to lots of venues in cities in England and realised the centre of Glasgow was missing that sort of elevated pub, one where you feel you can just drop in, no booking, and check it out.’ The Noble calls itself a ‘public house’, which seems like another canny piece of phrasing evoking both ‘pub’ and something a little bit more.

Less performance, less booking, more relaxing. It’s a shift from the last few years where there’s been an obsession with requiring a reservation, and where city centres have struggled to draw punters. Yet, as Flynn observes, many businesses in the financial district have now gone back to core office working Tuesday through Thursday, so the demand has presented itself.

‘The people that live or work nearby are everything,’ says Lynsey Cameron, manager of The Gate, a spot near the Barras that’s one

side dishes

April heralds plenty of action on the food and drink festival front along with wafts of Mediterranean fare. Donald Reid noses out what’s up and coming

Spring chicken alert on Glasgow’s Southside with Birds, a new fried chicken menu from burger outfit El Perro Negro to be found at Phillies Shawlands. Also hatched out is Teglia on Cathcart Road in Govanhill, from the guys behind Baked and Rafa’s Diner, serving pizza al taglio (that’s ‘by the slice’, as the Romans like to serve it).

No shortage of new Italian flavours in Edinburgh either, as Gio’s opens in Slateford, where large street-side windows might allow a glimpse of chef Gio Pia making the pasta that has picked up national awards. Up the road in Bruntsfield, Toscano brings big Italian sandwiches to the table, while Sora Diana has opened on Causewayside in Newington. Sister restaurant to Sora Lella at Tollcross, the new venue offers a bigger space and a broader but still all-vegan Italian menu.

There’s more plant-based inspiration at the annual Scottish Vegan Festival at Edinburgh’s Assembly Rooms on 6 April. Other events this month include the food-and-drink-focused Springfest at Loch Lomond Shores on 5 & 6 April and Paisley’s Food & Drink Festival over the weekend of 25 & 26 April with its array of top street food, local traders, live music and food workshops. The Biscuit Factory Beverage Festival in Edinburgh on 18 & 19 April focuses on small breweries, boutique spirits and fine wines, while beverages of a different hue are on show at Glasgow Coffee Festival at The Briggait on 26 & 27 April.

of the city’s finest cocktail and whisky bars. Yet it calls itself ‘a modern Scottish pub.’ Traders come in from the Barras market at the weekend, while a proximity to gig venues maintains a flow of occasional customers. ‘A five-star pub experience’ is what Cameron calls it. ‘You can get a great cocktail or a great pint or all sorts of whisky, and if you want to sit at the bar and have some chat that’s also cool. People like being in a pub because it feels as though it belongs to someone.’

No more reconditioned scaffolding and raw minimalism. Even Drygate’s taproom, one of the best examples of that industrial beerhall aesthetic, recently added a pool table and a dartboard. Pubs feel less fussy and, as Cameron points out, are typically less expensive. In Southside, think of the immense popularity with the young crowd of unequivocally old-style boozers like The Rose Reilly, The Allison Arms and The Laurieston. What makes a great pub is a sort of alchemy. Watching these places rediscover and reclaim the traits is fascinating. What’s more, you can sit at the bar to watch it unfold, and you won’t even need a booking.

Gio’s

The Noble (top row) and The Gate (bottom row and above middle)

TipList

Our TipLists suggest the places worth knowing about in different themes, categories and locations. Fish and seafood can be found on the menus of many restaurants, both in the fine dining and more casual sectors, but here we explore the places with lots of choice and a primary focus on seafood

SEAFOOD

Quirky venues

Glasgow Edinburgh

EDINBURGH GLASGOW

CRABSHAKK

FIN & GRAPE

The Balvenie Brand Ambassador Sean Fennelly shares his favourite bars near the water

THE FINNIESTON

1125 Argyle Street, Glasgow, thefinniestonbar.com

Appropriately enough given its proximity to the water, The Finnieston’s speciality is seafood. To pair with fresh-that-day oysters, grilled and dressed lobster, or baked whole coley, you’ll find an excellent, inventive cocktail offering. Nowhere else in the city does both dinner and drinks so well.

THE ORMELIE TAVERN

FINGAL

1125 Argyle Street & 18 Vinicombe Street, crabshakk.co.uk

Alexandra Dock, fingal.co.uk

Crabshakk are masters at a casual-yet-expert take on Scottish seafood. The tiny original Finnieston venue recently had a refurb, bringing the kitchen upstairs. The more recent Botanics site, palatial by comparison, now does the more extensive menu.

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.

GAMBA

19 Colinton Road, finandgrape.com

BATTLEFIELD REST

55 Battlefield Road, battlefieldrest.co.uk

A neighbourhood restaurant with a classy wine bar vibe, their compact main menu offers carefully crafted fish dishes to share, along with exceptional wines. The wine bar menu tilts to Mediterranean ‘tinned fish’ choices along with nibbles and sides.

FISHERS

44 Joppa Road, Edinburgh, ormelietavern.co.uk

The perfect rest stop at the end of a brisk wander down Portobello Promenade. The Ormelie is a charmingly untouched 19th-century hole-in-the-wall, its façade adorned with a vintage wrought-iron clock gifted by McEwan’s Brewery.

225a West George Street, gamba.co.uk

KIM’S MINI MEALS

5 Buccleuch Street, facebook.com/mrkimsfamily

Chef-owner Derek Marshall has kept Gamba at the top tier of Glasgow’s seafood scene for over 25 years. With a clever sub-aquatic vibe and great service, it delivers inventive dishes using local and regional catches.

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.

KELP

114 Cowcaddens Road, kelp-restaurant.com

PABLO EGGSGOBAO

62 Inverleith Row, eggsgobao.com

There is a bright breeziness to Kelp and its casual small plates. Sustainable seafood-focused dishes deliver inventive combos: think trout with treacle, whisky and sea buckthorn, or Shetland coley with morcilla ragù, quince and smoked almond.

THE OLD FISH BAR

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.

74 Coustonholm Road, Shawlands, instagram.com/the_old_fish_bar

PARADISE PALMS

41 Lothian Street, theparadisepalms.com

This charming neighbourhood restaurant in a former chippy has a menu that changes concept every six or seven weeks but is always underpinned by the owners’ Sicilian inspirations. Expect big flavour combinations, cute presentation and great chat.

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.

TWO FAT LADIES AT THE BUTTERY 652–654 Argyle Street, twofatladiesrestaurant.com/buttery

SINGAPORE COFFEE HOUSE

The Buttery oozes old-world charm and a seafoodforward menu of heavy hitters. ‘Pork and prawns’ teams a massive fat wedge of pig that tickles with five spice, alongside a plump grilled crustacean. (David Kirkwood, Jay Thundercliffe)

Also try . . . dining, as well as drinking, at The Finnieston (see above right).

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.

1 Shore, fishersrestaurants.co.uk

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.

HANOI BIKE SHOP

8 Ruthven Lane, hanoibikeshop.co.uk

At the base of an old Leith watchtower, Fishers balances special occasion surroundings with laidback service and precision cooking. Whether it’s a whole lemon sole or just mussels and fries at the bar, this is a restaurant for all seasons. There’s a sister venue up town, too.

THE FISHMARKET

TEUCHTERS LANDING

1a Dock Place, Edinburgh, teuchtersbar.co.uk

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.

23a Pier Place, thefishmarketnewhaven.com

NONNA SAID . . .

26 Candleriggs, nonnasaid.com

Overlooking Newhaven harbour and with Welch Fishmongers next door, this white-and-emeraldtiled diner captures a fresh-from-the-sea essence like nowhere else. Stop in for chowder or grilled langoustines, or join the locals picking up fish and chips to eat outside as the sun sets over the Forth.

THE SHIP ON THE SHORE

In the former waiting room of the Leithto-Aberdeen steam ferry, Teuchters Landing might be one of Scotland’s best-stocked and most eccentric whisky bars. Ask for a throw of their ‘Hoop Of Destiny’, a ring-toss game where drams from any of the 100 bottles on their backbar are yours for a bargain price, should your aim be true.

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.

24–26 Shore, theshipontheshore.co.uk

THE TIKI BAR & KITSCH INN

214 Bath Street, tikibarglasgow.com

The cobbled quay, salty tavern vibe, sea charts on the walls, chalkboard specials and groaning platters: this place does quintessential old-school seafood dining formidably well, its wide-ranging menu offering dressed crab, hand-dived scallops or seafood paella for two.

WHITE HORSE OYSTER & SEAFOOD BAR

266 Canongate, whitehorseoysterbar.co.uk

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.

THE WEE CURRY SHOP

7 Buccleuch Street, weecurryshop.co.uk

A compelling option in the city centre that works for drinks and fresh oysters, a combo meal of small plates or refined treats. The decor is simple and sleek; dishes are similar, with buttermilk cod, hake ceviche or crab scotch egg. (Donald Reid)

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.

Also try . . . newly opened Barry Fish (see review, page 32).

IN PARTNERSHIP WITH

Fin & Grape Gamba

Teuchters Landing

Guiding light

Next month, the team behind these pages launch Eat & Drink 365 Edinburgh, a shiny new print guide to the restaurants, cafés and bars of the capital. Donald Reid gives us a sneak peek at what to expect

Back in what are fondly called the good old days, our knowledge of the eating-out scene wasn’t mediated by Facebook, Instagram, online booking and Tripadvisor. There were the restaurants you knew about because you’d eaten there before or walked past them, and for the rest you got hold of The List’s annual Eating & Drinking Guide. From 1994 through 26 editions, up to the point where covid destructively crashed the party, we tried to cover the developing food and drink scene in Edinburgh and Glasgow with fair-minded, first-hand reviews, thoroughly checked information, and hitlists of top picks and recommendations in different categories.

Some of that history seems quaint now. Peeking into the archive, it wasn’t until the 11th edition (2004) that we included restaurant websites for the first time. Press releases arrived by fax, which I’d pick up from my pigeonhole. It’s not like that now. Not in the office, nor in the restaurant world. But for all that the past is a strange country, it remains a valid question to ask: how do those who eat out obtain their information, from whom, and by what medium?

The digital revolution has provided so many routes for so much information. It’s free, but at what price? We know it can be overwhelming. Noisy. Distracting. Unreliable. I’m fairly convinced that the mass of user-generated restaurant reviews contribute little to the sum of helpful knowledge. So we’re following our parent magazine in returning as a print publication. Next month we’re launching Eat & Drink 365 Edinburgh, to be followed by a

Glasgow guide in the autumn. It won’t be the same as the old Eating & Drinking Guide: it’s more compact and focuses principally on TipLists (examples of which you can see on the page opposite), providing recommendations and suggestions for restaurants, cafés, bars and food options across the city, across different categories and hospitality themes.

We like to think Eat & Drink 365 can be the knowledgeable pal in town who knows the scene pretty well. We’re aiming to keep it objective, insightful, independent, up-to-date and, above all, useful and practical. We’ll try to provide answers to the eating-out questions we’re always being asked (#1: where’s somewhere good to grab a bite near the Queen’s Hall?).

The TipLists will be in print, but also online, because that can be helpful too. And the number? We thought that if we could assemble 365 individual tips, we’d do justice to the wealth of good eating and drinking there is in each city, allowing us to cover not just the centre but diverse neighbourhoods too, the well-known and the hidden, the best and the best of the rest. Places not just for high days and holidays but every day. After all, the choices are out there, so long as you know where to look.

Eat & Drink 365 Edinburgh is supported by William Grant & Sons and will be available from Thursday 15 May as a free pick-up from all the places you normally find The List magazine; Eat & Drink 365 Glasgow is published in October.

SEAFOOD

BARRY FISH

Known for his sell-out pop-ups and events, Barry Bryson has embarked on his first solo restaurant with Barry Fish, carving out a space that was half of Mimi’s Bakehouse (still next door, just smaller) at Leith’s Shore. He has created an intimate, relaxed room, in deep greens and cream, with wire fish sculptures by Sheila Jardine.

A ‘low tide’ menu is served until 3pm with big plates of kedgeree and crab focaccia. Early evening diners move to ‘big snacks’, ideal with a glass of wine. Those snacks become starters when the dinner menu kicks in from 6pm. The menu is unapologetically fish-forward and full of personal touches: cocktails are named after Bryson (a slick samphire martini) and husband/business partner Robin. Everything is made in-house where possible, including the oyster vermouth and samphire bitters in said martini.

Plump Loch Fyne oysters arrive au natural, or with spiced pineapple salsa, both excellent. Sea bream ceviche with orange and fennel is fresh and zesty, and the sea trout pastrami is outstanding: marinated with treacle and coriander seeds, served with dried grapes, baby capers and aioli. Agnolotti pasta parcels of lobster and salmon have a smooth bisque-like brown butter sauce with the pleasing zip of fennel and capers. A beautifully seared fillet of hake is served with a classic creamy soubise sauce, mussels and sauteed greens. Even the endive side salad is knockout.

Decades in events and temporary kitchens have clearly given Bryson plenty of time to consider what makes a restaurant work. He’s nailed it. It’s easygoing and comfortable, the staff are excellent, and they don’t flip tables in the evening so you can settle in. Each dish is balanced and delicious, fresh and fun. Even the tunes are spot on. Welcome to Leith, Barry Fish. (Ailsa Sheldon) n 62 Shore, Edinburgh, barryfish.co.uk; average price for two courses £35.

BISTRO THE CLARENCE

From the folks behind Michelin star-holder Cail Bruich and the excellent Brett comes The Clarence (replacing their Shucks oyster spot in Hyndland). It’s billed as dining room and pub, the pub bit being the open ground-floor bar area complete with stools and banquettes. The dining area, smart and dark-toned, is raised up on a mezzanine. For a tenement, it all makes for a lofty, airy feel, with booths and nooks offering privacy.

There’s a nostalgic bent to the menu of old-school classics such as prawn cocktail, kyivs and suet puds, along with grilled steaks and chops with sauce options. From the bar snacks menu, spicy tuna tartare is stupendous, with captivating layers of flavour and texture: small soft tuna chunks, crisp potato, with little pops of herring caviar lingering long. It’s too good, seriously dulling the subsequent coronation chicken croquettes.

Sole grenobloise shows off some solid fish cookery, served with tiny shrimp, lemon and capers in a rich brown-butter sauce. Lovely, refined and really well executed (missing the croutons, though). The cute little suet pudding is meaty with beef cheek and short rib, notched up a level with deep bone-marrow gravy. The requisite sides include velvety potato purée, served in a little iron pan, and moreish peas with bacon and onions. But there’s a lack of something just green and simple; on an unashamedly rich menu, a wee breather would be nice.

The rum baba involves an element of high-wire DIY, with a healthy shot of spirit served on the side for pouring over the little glazed sponge. Not enough rum and it could be a dull, dry affair (more Chantilly cream would help here); too much rum and it’s overpowering. Perhaps this element would be best left to the chefs: they’ve got the skills, after all. (Jay Thundercliffe)

n 168 Hyndland Road, Glasgow, theclarenceglasgow.co.uk; average price for two courses £40.

Ask EADith

Got a food dilemma? Need a killer rec to seal the deal? Or just want the inside track on Glasgow and Edinburgh’s eating and drinking scene? Then why not ask EADith, our Eat & Drink team’s helpful agony aunt. This month, she enters the lost land of the business lunch

Dear EADith

I was chatting to my boss on Teams the other day and I was a bit disconcerted by a weird suggestion that we go for what they called a ‘business lunch’. Face to face. In person. I don’t know where to start with such levels of intrusion. Please help.

MealPrepWFH

Dear MealPrepWFH

Indulge me in a history lesson. Back in the mists of time (aka pre-2008), a ‘business lunch’ was a common bonding activity between teams and clients. It consisted of ‘eating food in public’ often with a ‘glass of wine’ in a pleasant environment called a ‘restaurant’ and usually supported by a ‘lunchtime deal’. Sadly, it’s fallen out of favour in recent years (with a devastating impact on many city-centre restaurants), which is a pity. You’ll prise working from home out of my cold, dead hands, but maybe not everything about the office was bad.

Moving on. I’ve the perfect spot: Under The Table, a cracking basement bistro in Edinburgh’s New Town (named for the fancy sister restaurant upstairs where you talk to strangers at a communal table. I know!). The pedigree is superb; the lunch deal brings all of the bang for less of the bucks. Expect a compact three options for starter, main and pudding, all generous and plated prettily, for a mere £20 for two courses, or £24 for three.

The menu changes frequently, but there’s usually something along the lines of a risotto (kale, barley and pickled beetroot when we visited) and maybe a flat-iron steak or chicken thighs with tarragon. In other words, approachable bistro food. Slightly off the tourist track, lunchtime sees a steady stream of business lunchers and rat-race escapees. Being the New Town, you can expect the odd pair of red cords and wealthy retirees splitting a bottle of champers for the hell of it. On that, there are good choices by the glass, with some stunners by the bottle if the boss is paying/not really expecting much from you in the afternoon. Yes, that used to happen too. You kids really did miss out. (As told to Jo Laidlaw)

 3A1 Dundas Street, Edinburgh, underthetable.uk; two-course prix-fixe lunch £20.

BAR FILES

Creative folks reveal their top watering hole AUTHOR KIRSTY LOGAN

I’m thinking of Chinaski’s in Glasgow. Specifically on Monday nights, 5–7pm. Specifically in autumn and winter when it’s already dark at that time. Specifically after I’ve spent the day writing at the Mitchell Library, forgetting the real world exists and living only in the imaginary world of my novel-in-progress. I’ll order a cold glass of gavi and the whipped feta with pomegranate. I’ll spread out in a corner booth and daydream. Eveningdream. For me, these evenings at Chinaski’s are part of the trance-like, half-conscious writing mood. I’ve finished work for the day, but I’m not ready to go home yet and become a real person: to navigate trains, to do my toddler’s dinner-bath-bed routine, to sort laundry. I want to exist in a haze, let myself blur. Wine, cheese, candlelight, low lyric-less music. And I stretch out the dream just a little longer.

 Kirsty Logan appears with Sean Hewitt at Paisley Town Hall, Sunday 27 April, as part of Paisley Book Festival.

travel & shop

MAGAZINE APPRECIATION SOCIETY

Founded by Nicholas Chester-Adams, Magazine Appreciation Society is a tribute to the enduring magic of print. Formerly known as Print Culture, the shop celebrates independent publishing in all its forms, offering a curated selection of indie magazines, zines, photo books and film photography supplies. Beyond just selling print, it fosters a community where creativity, craft and storytelling come together. Whether it’s through magazine launches, workshops or meet-ups, the society provides a space for magazine lovers, photographers and creatives to connect and celebrate the tactile joy of print media in a digital world. (Megan Merino) n 23 Parnie Street, Glasgow, printculture.co.uk; instagram.com/ printculturestore

After a 2019 stint living in the city that never sleeps, Edinburgh writer Rachael Revesz returned to New York’s West Village for a screenwriting course last autumn. Here she gives us a walking tour of her daily route home from class

New York is a city of walkers and is best seen around nine o’clock at night. My tour starts at the very southern edge of Manhattan at Battery Park, overlooking the water, and heads two miles north to the West Village. This is the same quiet walk I took three times a week last year after my screenwriting class.

At the bottom of Broadway, the main artery through NYC, you will see the famous Charging Bull statue, representing the bullish optimism of Wall Street. Its golden bollocks have been rubbed as vigorously for luck as Greyfriars Bobby’s nose. With nobody looking, you can take your turn.

A few blocks north, turn left down Rector Street, and you may be surprised to see the grave of Alexander Hamilton, a founding father-turned-musical celebrity. Thousands of people hurry past him every day on their way to Whole Foods. Within a couple of minutes zigzagging north-west, you’ll pass near to the 9/11 Memorial Pools. They close at 8pm, but the area is peaceful and provides a moment for reflection.

Overlooking the pools is the 1776ft tall Freedom Tower: Anna Wintour’s office. Pray to Vogue. Now head up Church Street. Around 9.20pm there is less traffic and you notice the architecture, whether it’s St Peter’s Catholic Church from 1840, or the art deco Western Union Building on West Broadway, one block over. Soon enough, you reach Tribeca Park. This corner feels like a little haven amid the expensive lofts, art galleries and SoulCycle gyms. You can take a quick detour now if you fancy seeing the Ghostbusters HQ without the crowds, or stop in at the grand foyer of the Roxy Hotel for a drink and perhaps catch a spot of live music. If you’re feeling hungry, Petrarca, an Italian restaurant opposite the Roxy, makes the best lasagne I’ve ever tasted. You’re more than halfway home. Head over the monster that is Canal Street and sneak across Soho for some late-night window shopping. You’ll see people pushing mountains of cans and bottles for the deposit return scheme and you will also be mesmerised by beautiful dresses costing $3000. Finally, you reach the West Village. NYU student dorms are aplenty, as are bagel shops where people queue around the block. If you’re lucky, you could see a cultural giant such as Fran Lebowitz or Delia Ephron. Or you could collapse in a small apartment that’s not had a deep clean since 1980 and vaguely reminds you of Carrie Bradshaw’s early days. New York can feel like a fantasy from which you don’t want to wake up. But set your alarm and drink your coffee in Washington Square Park instead.

visitnewyork.com

WanderList: Manhattan

Friday 25 and Saturday 26 April

Abbey Close AND Bridge Street, Paisley

Over 50 delicious street food traders and licensed bars Live music / Free family fun on Saturday

paisleyfoodanddrink

www.paisley.is

my favourite holiday

Folk musician Rhona Macfarlane explains why a farcical trip to Mull with a childhood friend tops any international travelling experience

I’ve had amazing trips: gondola rides in Venice, climbing the Great Wall, sipping wine in France. But the one that stands out is a trip with my childhood friend to the Isle Of Mull last summer. A holiday in Scotland? With unpredictable weather? Really? Yes! Or maybe I just have a terrible memory of past trips . . .

With just a car and a pack of chocolate brioche buns, we set off at 6am to catch the ferry from Oban (note to future travellers: book the ferry in advance). We sat on deck, soaking in the rare Scottish sun, chatting about life while I devoured a bacon roll. We felt like voyagers taking to the sea as excitement filled the air.

In Tobermory, we embraced our inner old ladies, browsing independent shops for soaps and candles, followed by a stop at Glengorm Coffee Shop where we indulged in a sweet treat before taking a windswept walk to the nearby standing stones. Time slowed and a deep sense of stillness settled in.

No Scottish holiday is complete without a dip in the sea. In pursuit of this, we drove down winding, single-track roads where, at one point, I completely forgot how to reverse. A row of buses watched as I zigzagged backward towards a passing place, while sweat dripped down my friend’s forehead in sheer embarrassment. Somehow, we finally arrived at Calgary Bay, where we struggled into wetsuits in the car: no Baywatch moments here, folks! My friend, wearing my dad’s oversized wetsuit, inflated like a balloon as icy water rushed in. We howled with laughter before adjusting to the cold, floating in the sunset by a near-empty beach.

So, with all of this chaos, why is it still my favourite holiday? It’s these moments of silliness that make a trip special and full of great stories. It wasn’t about grand adventures but about the quiet moments: singing in the car, chatting with a B&B host over a fry-up, taking a boat to Iona. It was about connection, stillness and stepping away from the rush of life. That’s the definition of a good holiday to me.

Rhona Macfarlane plays Voodoo Rooms, Edinburgh, Sunday 6 April, with support from Hector Shaw; her debut album As The Chaos Unfolds is out now.

on your doorstep

As the capital’s annual celebration of STEM descends on the city, Murray Robertson picks three Edinburgh Science Festival events worth venturing out of town for

WONDERS OF SPACE FAMILY FESTIVAL

The beautiful, serene surroundings of Archerfield Walled Garden serve as the backdrop to this exploration of our wondrous solar system. Visitors can enjoy fun activities while learning more about our neighbouring moons, planets and stars. A special Solar Walk to the nearby village of Dirleton can be enjoyed on your own or with a tour guide.

n Archerfield Walled Garden, Dirleton, Friday 11 April.

SUSTAINABLE SKIES

Just outside North Berwick, the National Museum Of Flight is home to one of Europe’s most impressive collections of aircraft. This guided tour will teach you about the principles of sustainable flight, test your knowledge in a special quiz, and challenge your skills as you attempt to survive a plane crash in the jungle.

n National Museum Of Flight, East Fortune, Monday 14–Friday 18 April.

BEACH EXPLORERS

Join a team of geologists on the beaches of Joppa, Whitesands, Seafield and Wardie Bay for this special expedition to study pebbles, shells and other finds beneath your feet. The experts will identify the origins of your discoveries and explain how they relate to Scotland’s fascinating geology.

n Various venues, Tuesday 15–Friday 18 April.

Full programme details at edinburghscience.co.uk

Solar Walk

PINS AND NEEDLES

Leith sewing studio and boutique Paradigm Shift is committed to circularity and sustainability. Megan Merino speaks to its founder about the venture’s origins and aspirations

Tucked off a side street by the Shore in Leith, Paradigm Shift

Open Studio is a sewing enthusiast’s dream. The social enterprise and communal creative space was established in June last year with the aim of taking a new approach to retail. Customers can book into sewing workshops, rent space to sew their own garments, mend an existing one or simply browse the store for one-of-a-kind designs (most of which are made by hand from deadstock fabrics).

‘My designs are made-to-order and made-to-measure to try and cut down on waste and also to give people stuff that actually fits properly,’ says Blair, the shop’s founder. Knitwear pieces by local maker Maisie Delaney are also on display. ‘She does a lot of hand-knitted stuff and also spins her own yarn.’

The initial idea for Paradigm Shift was born out of a need for space. ‘Sewing is a passion of mine but I always felt unable to do it in my bedroom, so I thought that something like an open studio, where people

could come and use the equipment, would help other people find their own creativity and get into the passion of sewing,’ says Blair. Customers can use sewing machines (domestic or industrial), knitting machines, an overlocker and large cutting tables to work on their projects. For a more guided experience, she offers mending workshops and sewing classes for absolute beginners.

‘Our mending workshops last about two-and-a-half hours and people will often bring two or three pieces with them. The first hour is an introduction with me where I’ll give advice on what to do, and then the rest of the time can just be their studio time, or I run group courses that are super hands-on.’

9 Tolbooth Wynd, Edinburgh, paradigmshift-openstudio.square.site; instagram.com/paradigmshiftopenstudio; the next group mending workshop is on Thursday 10 April.

shop talk

CIRCUS VINTAGE & CURIOS

Victorian bassinets, gothic lamps and antique Afghan rugs await inside Circus Vintage & Curios, a little two-room antique shop packed with conversation pieces from around the world. You can get an old typewriter for your desk, or perhaps some bronze scales. It’s only open on Saturdays though, so plan your visit carefully. n 52 Dean Street, Edinburgh, circusofcurios.com; instagram.com/circusofcurios

BASUS

Located in Glasgow’s Southside, Basus sources affordable wooden furniture that can fit easily into any home. Their pieces borrow from mid-century modern and Scandinavian styles with sleek but

On a mission to find some special homeware items, Isy Santini recommends three unique retailers guaranteed to spruce up your space

simple designs. If you’re looking for modern furniture but want something more unique and higher quality than Ikea, Basus is the place to go. n 162 Fenwick Road, Glasgow, basus-home.co.uk; instagram.com/basus.home

THE MEADOWS POTTERY

Behind their colourful yellow shopfront, The Meadows Pottery has a fantastic array of stoneware and porcelain, handmade and fired by owners Paul and Junko. Whether it’s kitchenware you’re after, decorative pots or a nice vase, this shop has you covered. They also offer custom glazing for biscuit-fired items. n 11a Summerhall Place, Edinburgh, themeadowspottery.com

Circus Vintage & Curios

Sounds Good

April

3rd SCO 24/25: Mozart and Strauss

4th Fastlove - The Tribute to George Michael

5th John Shuttleworth - Raise The Oof

May

1st SCO 24/25: Mozart Sinfonia Concertante

6th Foster & Allen - 50 Years of Hits

8th Black Country, New Road

9th Imelda May

10th Seonaid Aitken Ensemble featuring Harben Kay

11th Dunedin Consort: Matthew Passion

2nd Edinburgh Tradfest 2025: Ross Ainslie & the Sanctuary Band

3rd Clearwater Creedence Revival

5th Foivos Delivorias Trio

8th China Crisis

9th Hanley and the Baird, Sing In The City Aw Blacks

17th Francis Rossi

13th Scottish Ensemble: Thuit an Oidhche Oirnn

14th Mary Coughlan

20th Session A9

22nd David Cross

24th Matt Carmichael ‘Dancing With Embers’ album launch

18th Mugenkyo Taiko Drummers: In Time

19th Levison Wood: Walking the World - A Life of Exploration and Adventure

20th The Music of Hans Zimmer & others

27th Elkie Brooks - Farewell Tour

28-29th Morgan Jay - The Goofy Guy Tour

30th A Night for MAP

25th Swing That Music with Down for the Count All-Stars

26th Penelope Trappes + SHHE

30th Toots and the Maytals feat Leba Hibbert

31st Malin Lewis Presents: Frigg, Marvara, Me Lost Me

thequeenshall net 0131 668 2019

WHERE TO HIGHBALL WITH WWOVEN

GLASGOW

N

GLASGOW EDINBURGH

THE GATE 251 Gallowgate UNO MAS 4 Picardy Place

DADDY MARMALADES 25 Parnie St THE VOODOO ROOMS 19a W. Register St

THE ABSENT EAR

Brunswick St THE WILDCAT 11-13 Tarvit St

KELVINGROVE CAFE 1161 Argyle St

THE MOTHER SUPERIOUR 96-98 Leith Walk

NAUTICUS 42 Duke St

EXPERIENCE WWOVEN HIGHBALL

When whisky is in Highball mode, it’s whisky as it should be. Simple in form yet supremely delicious, highballs open up new flavours, spark conversations and make whisky a little more approachable at the same time.

To many, a Highball is just a simple spirit and mixer, like Scotch & Soda. But when prepared correctly, it’s the very drink that took whisky culture around the world. It’s safe to say it evolved along the way too.

We’re proudly showcasing the best bars in the UK where you can discover the people, drinks and experiences that are writing a new chapter in UK whisky culture. It still blows our minds that, even in 2025, UK whisky culture is defined more by what you shouldn’t do with your drink than by what you can. Let’s change that.

Scan here to discover recipes, videos, events and more or visit WOVENWHISKY.COM

N

EDINBURGH N

MOULIN ROUGE! THE MUSICAL

If at any point during Moulin Rouge! The Musical the cast starts singing a song you don’t like, fear not: a new one will arrive on average 20 seconds later. A staggering 70 hit tunes have been squeezed into this multi award-winning show, which finds you listening to Lady Gaga and Madonna one minute, Talking Heads and David Bowie the next. As jukebox musicals go it’s a cut above, with sassy choreography, stylish staging and the kind of energy befitting a show that started life as a Baz Luhrmann film. Opening its first world tour in Edinburgh, this risqué tale of Parisian cabaret is a crowd-pleasing extravaganza.

(Kelly Apter)

n Edinburgh Playhouse, Tuesday 22 April–Saturday 14 June.

going out

Euro vision

As a new festival promoting the joys of baroque music debuts in Edinburgh, Carol Main talks to up-and-coming harpsichordist Mujie Yan about the specific challenges presented by her instrument of choice

Just when you think Edinburgh’s festival calendar can’t possibly get any fuller, up bursts a new shoot finding a crack between the crazy paving of the capital’s cultural diary. Over six performance dates in almost as many weeks, the Institut français d’Écosse stages its inaugural Baroque Music Festival during April and May.

Featuring some of Edinburgh and Glasgow’s outstanding local talent as well as visiting international artists, it’s a curated sampler of Europe’s glorious baroque past, with keyboard music for organ, fortepiano and harpsichord, as well as voice, guitar and even a bit of courtly dancing as seen in the times of France’s Louis XIV.

Alongside well-known names such as Maxim Emelyanychev and John Kitchen, the festival is a platform for up-and-coming artists such as Mujie Yan, a young Chinese pianist and harpsichordist who bases her life between Budapest and Glasgow. A student at the Royal Conservatoire Of Scotland, Yan was recommended to the festival organisers by her teacher Jan Waterfield, who performs in the opening event as part of an ensemble. Her pupil, however, has a recital all to herself: Mujie Yan Plays Handel And Rameau

‘It’s repertoire that I’ve always been interested in and wanted to present,’ notes Yan. ‘It’s important to show the variety and different range of the harpsichord, so there’s music from the 1600s to the 20th century, starting with the German baroque composer Johann Jakob Froberger.’ The festival appearance marks Yan’s debut full-length recital on harpsichord. ‘I’ve done some playing in one-offs, but this is the first time I’ve collaborated with people in putting on a recital. The harpsichord has stopped being a supplementary thing to the piano for me.’

For highly talented performers with versatility, it’s not easy to avoid being labelled and, for Yan, there is also a personal challenge in being both a harpsichordist and a pianist at the same time. ‘If I’m honest, it’s a difficult instrument to get into at first. But I find a lot of solace in harpsichord playing and there are many organisations in Scotland bringing early music to the stage, which is great. There is also a lot of freedom and personality that you can put into it as a performer. It’s so much more distinctive than a piano.’

While Czech composer Bohuslav Martinů isn’t baroque, his central European influence is particularly relevant to Yan. ‘My family is originally from China but my aunt was living and working in Hungary. I then went to the American International School in Budapest, but with no intention to study music.’ The rest is not yet history while Yan figures out what happens next, and how to establish her musical identity and brand. Performing in this new festival is a pivotal moment in her budding career and, importantly for her, an opportunity to connect harpsichord music with an audience.

Mujie Yan Plays Handel And Rameau, St Cecilia’s Hall, Edinburgh, Thursday 24 April.

I would have said yes

comed ydemoc• y •

Stuart Laws is no ordinary stand-up comic. We might even go as far as dubbing him something of a renaissance chap. Not only does he do his own ‘regular’ shows, he’s directed sets by the likes of James Acaster, Harriet Kemsley and Ivo Graham, made a documentary about Edinburgh Fringe debutantes, runs independent production company Turtle Canyon Comedy, wears a blue gilet on stage, and puts on affairs such as the Comedians Beer Mat Flipping Championship. And none of this even touches his Michael Caine stuff: a short clip of Laws playing the aged actor failing badly to deliver the line ‘never’ (‘nevaaaaah!!!') from Batman Begins led to a full hour at last year’s Edinburgh Fringe which also featured Nish Kumar as a frustrated Christopher Nolan, Amy Gledhill as a furious Christian Bale, and Chris Cantrill who came on to change a lightbulb. Not knowing quite where to begin, Brian Donaldson kicks off their Zoom chat by noticing an interesting hat in the background

What’s with the interesting hat in the background? I’m in my Turtle Canyon office now, and that’s a prop on top of a wig prop which is on an I, Robot bust. Remember when DVDs used to be so prestigious that they would release limited edition versions? That is not a movie which deserves that level of prestige.

You’ve been described as an ‘absurdist lunatic of a comedian’. Do you recognise that in yourself? This was before I had started talking about myself on stage properly and ‘absurdist lunatic’ was absolutely what I was going for. I’ve criticised that impulse in comedy to reveal really personal stuff before you’re ready to do that. Sometimes it hits so perfectly but sometimes it just makes a person rake up this trauma, and every time they’re doing the show without having processed it properly. Anyway, I now do shows about personal stuff.

In 2013, if someone had asked you to be part of a documentary about Edinburgh Fringe debutantes, do you think you would have said yes? I would have said yes because I’m an idiot. I feel so lucky that my early stand-up is not documented online in any way. There’s nothing in it that I’d be cancelled for, but there would be clips that the meaner comics (and I count myself as one occasionally) share to be like ‘have you seen what this person did ten years ago!?’

I need to bring up the gilet. Do you wear it for style or comfort? Or is it an identity thing? I did my debut in 2013 in t-shirt and jeans. In 2014, a producer came along but I’d broken my wrist so I had a plaster cast on. Afterwards he was very nice about the show and said that ‘having your arm in a cast made us as an audience think that this guy is not your normal jeans and t-shirt comedian.’ I had a routine about wearing the hunting gilet and the idea of wearing one struck me suddenly. I went to an outdoor store and saw one that was for ages eight to ten and it somehow fitted me. I then opened for James Acaster on his tour and at the end of it he bought me the gilet which I still wear now.

ten

because I’m an idiot

Have you ever had any feedback from Michael Caine about ‘never’? I occasionally quote-tweet him if he’s posted one of his wilder takes on things with a link to it. The original video is innocent enough and he’d probably have a sense of humour about that, but the live show goes more into his politics in a way that perhaps he would be like ‘these fuckers are taking the piss out of me.’

Did someone suggest that you do this for an hour? Or did you just think: can I do this for an hour? I did a fake post on Twitter about ‘Stuart Laws as Michael Caine saying never at the London Palladium’ which led to lots of people saying they didn’t realise this was an actual thing. I had enough people replying to it that I got excited. I kicked that can down the road but then David Bleese at Monkey Barrel asked if I had any ideas for one of these loose slots they keep open. I just threw it at him and he called my bluff. I was so lucky that Nish Kumar and Amy Gledhill were up for it straight away. This might be a thing I do once or twice a year.

Can you look at a beer mat now and not want to flip it? My dad taught me it in working men’s clubs and pubs when I was younger, and it just became a fixation that has stuck with me. I’m getting ridiculously good line-ups because it has a low-pressure, late-night darts vibe and people are up for it. I’ve had Rosie Jones, Ed Gamble, Phil Wang and Jordan Gray all do it. One day I will break the world record. It currently stands at 74 individual beer mats flipped in a minute. I can get to the mid-60s comfortably but need a very, very long table to get to 75.

Stuart Laws Has To Be Joking?, Blackfriars Basement, Glasgow, Tuesday 15 April; Monkey Barrel, Edinburgh, Saturday 19 April; see much, much more of this Q&A at list.co.uk

GAELIC CULTURE

SORLEY MACLEAN

Respected academic Professor Hugh Cheape is set to team up with Capital Gaelic’s Ann Paterson for a special event at National Library Of Scotland, focused on poet-historian Sorley MacLean. Discussion and readings aim to ‘look beyond MacLean’s poetry to his sources of inspiration in landscape and community, and to his inheritance of the traditions of the Hebrides.’

For Paterson, this is the latest event in a year-long calendar bringing together people from across Edinburgh’s Gaelic community, and involving a network of partners who believe Gaelic is for everyone, including NLS, Edinburgh University and Ionad Gàidhlig Dhùn Èideann. ‘By getting key organisations in Edinburgh to work together,’ says Paterson, ‘we can identify opportunities, share knowledge and expertise, and shape a vision for the future.’

Paterson’s favourite of MacLean’s poems, ‘Ban-Ghàidheal’ (Highland Woman), has a pertinent message for today’s readers. ‘Strong women fight a daily struggle against poverty, often losing the battle and having no choice but to leave their homeland.’ For Paterson, the poem is personal, evoking ‘memories of my grandmother in Lewis by the peat fire, recounting the hardships of her life and those before her. It’s so important that the next generation of Gaelic speakers is taught our history, the relevance of our culture, and our song.’

The forthcoming event will also cast a spotlight on MacLean’s relationship with the capital, with items from the poet’s archive on display until September as part of the library’s permanent Treasures exhibition.

(Marcas Mac an Tuairneir)

 Sorley MacLean: The Poet As Historian, National Library Of Scotland, Edinburgh, Thursday 24 April.

FILM

THE MOST PRECIOUS OF CARGOES

Filmmaker Michel Hazanavicius is not just the director behind Oscar-winning silent comedy The Artist: he’s an artist himself. Drawing since the age of ten, it was this talent that led him to his new movie The Most Precious Of Cargoes, an animated Holocaust drama based on the novella by Jean-Claude Grumberg. ‘Drawings do not lie,’ he says. ‘There’s nothing out of frame. They are just here to evocate and to suggest what happened.’

Narrated by the distinguished late actor Jean-Louis Trintignant, this animated film tells of a Polish woodcutter (voiced in French by Grégory Gadeois) and his wife (Dominique Blanc) who adopt a child, thrown by its father from the window of a train bound for the infamous Auschwitz concentration camp. The couple once had a child themselves, and when the woodcutter’s spouse rescues the baby, wrapped in a Jewish prayer shawl, she begins to treat it as her own.

‘The scope of this story goes from the very, very worst a human being can do to the very, very best,’ says Hazanavicius. ‘In my opinion, the woodcutter couple really saved the honour of humanity. They were not supposed to be involved but they involved themselves. They took risks and they saved people.’

In the director’s eyes, the only way to tell a story dealing with such horrors was via animation, a medium he was new to. Created by 3.0 Studio, the minimalist hand-drawn characters feel a world away from Hollywood ’toons, but entirely apt for a story as sombre as this one. ‘Animation is to movies what fairytale is to literature in a way, so it was very coherent for me to make an animation movie,’ says Hazanavicius. ‘The goals are the same: create and tell a story; create emotion with images and sound.’ (James Mottram)  In cinemas from Friday 4 April.

THEATRE

THROUGH THE SHORTBREAD TIN

Poet Martin O’Connor is undertaking a lyrical expedition. In collaboration with director Lu Kemp and National Theatre Of Scotland, this alternative bard will journey through the threads of history that connect him to poets of the past in Through The Shortbread Tin. After years retracing the steps of 18th-century poet James Macpherson, O’Connor has created a unique show which disrupts the twee imagery of Highland history by examining Macpherson’s seminal Fragments Of Ancient Poetry collection with a critical eye.

‘The myths I explore in the piece are both literal mythologies that inspired James and the mythologies he created: the myth of himself and the authenticity, or otherwise, of his work,’ says O’Connor. While Macpherson’s collection of Gaelic oral poetry has undoubtedly shaped Scotland’s romantic image (think sporrans, stags, misty Munros and, of course, shortbread), its authentic narration by the third-century bard Ossian has been called into question. Do the poems give us a glimpse into Celtic lore? Or is Macpherson the con man who shaped a culture?

Despite potentially flawed origins, O’Connor is still eager to call attention to the idealistic effects of Macpherson’s poems on modern society. ‘The myths serve as the things we tell ourselves, what we make in our own image, and what kind of Scotland that we want to see.’ Performed in Scots with three Gaelic choral singers accompanying him, this exploration of the ancient and contemporary notions of Scottish identity looks set to be a revealing and memorable piece of theatre.

(Rachel Morrell)

 Tron Theatre, Glasgow, Friday 4 & Saturday 5 April; Scottish Storytelling Centre, Edinburgh, Tuesday 8 & Wednesday 9 April.

eht a tre • the a ert •

festi v •la itsef v al•

She was the first American woman to both undertake a spacewalk and dive in a submersible to the deepest point of the ocean. As Lucy Ribchester discovers, legendary astronaut

Kathy Sullivan is preparing to inspire the next generation of scientists and engineers at Edinburgh Science Festival

Her life has been packed with more adventure than most of us could ever imagine, but there is a very special reason why Dr Kathy Sullivan is particularly excited about coming to Scotland. ‘What I had always wanted to do from a very young age,’ Sullivan says over Zoom, ‘was to have the kind of adventurous and inquisitive life that I saw Jacques Cousteau and the early astronauts having on television and in magazines.’

This wasn’t the norm for a nine or ten-year-old girl growing up in late 1950s America, but as Sullivan says, ‘my parents didn’t give a fig what the common dream was for little boys or girls. If we were interested in something, they would help us pursue that interest.’ Where it led Sullivan was a degree in foreign languages. However, her university required her to take some science classes in her first year. And that’s where Scotland came in.

The marine biology course she ended up on (‘quite against my will’) had as one of its core texts an account of the 1926 expedition of the Royal Research Ship Discovery to the Antarctic. ‘That lit up

my world,’ says Sullivan. ‘That was exactly the kind of thing I was looking for.’ The Cousteau adventures she had dreamed of suddenly seemed within reach. Twelve weeks into her degree, she switched majors to oceanography and never looked back. The Discovery ship is now berthed in Dundee and, as part of Sullivan’s trip to Edinburgh Science Festival, she has been invited to dine onboard, bringing her full circle to where it all started.

But before that she will be regaling audiences and inspiring young minds at two Science Festival events: Walk Like An Astronaut for ages 7+ and Above And Below: An Astronaut’s View Of Our Planet aimed at those 12 and over. And there is a lot to discuss. Sullivan has led the kind of life that Hollywood makes movies about, starting with the application she sent off to NASA after her PhD (‘the odds are only zero if you don't apply,’ she says), followed by being accepted, going on to complete three space missions, breaking barriers for women in STEM (she was the first American woman to complete a spacewalk and, in 2020, the first woman to travel to the deepest point of the Mariana Trench in a submersible),

and in later years serving the US government on the President’s Council Of Advisors On Science And Technology. Space and the deep ocean may seem like polar opposites, but what connects them in Sullivan’s mind is the link between inhospitable environments and the human body.

‘It’s the science and engineering of being able to get there or operate there. We human beings are suited to a relatively narrow range of conditions, pressure and temperature. We generate some waste. We need some replenished air. You’ve got to deal with those realities, whether you’re going into space or down in the deep sea.’

These basic human needs, says Sullivan, are also inextricably tied up with the sense of wonder she feels when in hostile places.

‘Every time I’ve had this opportunity, I just marvel at it. To float up by the window of a spaceship or sit in a seat in a submersible. Right now, I’m looking through my window onto the deck behind my house. I know I could open that window and walk out onto my deck, right? But in the submersible or spacecraft, it feels like the same experience, except I know if I open the window, I die.’

The dangers of her job were brought home to Sullivan when the first space shuttle she had flown on, Challenger, exploded in 1986, minutes after it had lifted off, killing all of the crew onboard. Despite this, she went on to undertake two further space missions after the tragedy. And though now in her 70s, her appetite for orbit has never dampened.

‘You might recall that in 1998 NASA sent John Glenn back into space on a space shuttle, partly because he’s John Glenn and deserved a little more time in orbit, and partly to get some medical data on the reaction of an older human to space flight. Well, my take is that, ok, you’ve got some data on how one old fogey responds to space flight. I think you now need to get some data on how one old broad responds. And I think I’m first in line . . . ’

Kathy Sullivan appears at Gordon Aikman Lecture Theatre, Edinburgh, Saturday 5 April; Edinburgh Science Festival runs from Saturday 5–Sunday 20 April.

Across the universe

SVIC’S PICKS

BBC broadcaster, author, actor, musician, DJ, and now a List columnist, the lad Galloway flicks through some music listings to choose a number of upcoming gigs in variously sized rooms and across different genres

however, to decline.

o many gigs, not enough lifetimes. But it’s with a genuine spring in my step that I recommend a few top shows here. Orbital have been serving up the thinking person’s bangin’ choons for 36 years across ten albums and countless tours. Whether at a free rave, on a huge festival stage, in a blacked-out club, or the Glasgow Academy (where they play on Thursday 3 April), they’re still an unstoppable force in esoteric electronica. Rather than a morass of jiggling glow sticks brandished by an eccied-up young team, today the follically challenged Hartnoll brothers are more likely to gaze out at a sympathetic sea of shining domes, as men of a certain age sway gently, nursing a warm lager. Such is the way of things as bands and their audience mature. Regardless, they will forever bring the party.

When an act actually dies, however, you’d be forgiven for thinking that would be the end of that. Not so with Thin Lizzy, Lynyrd Skynyrd or The Wailers, who now feature few if any of their original members. You can add the latter’s fellow Jamaican legends Toots And The Maytals to that roster. When former boxer turned soul-belter Frederick ‘Toots’ Hibbert tragically slipped away in 2020 through a covid-induced coma, you’d imagine the band might have decided to hang up their stage gear. Nope. Daughter Leba Hibbert has taken on the Toots mantle and heads for Glasgow’s Garage (Tuesday 29 April) and Edinburgh’s Queen’s Hall (Wednesday 30 April) to pay tribute to her dad and those pioneering ska, rocksteady and reggae classics.

Away from heritage acts, if you want to witness the bleeding-edge of angry, workingclass Britain, look no further than cerebral electro-punks Benefits. The Teesside band’s sophomore album Constant Noise sees the duo donning suits and branching out stylistically, production-wise, while lead shouter and street poet Kingsley Hall’s lyrical onslaught still continues to mirror the shortcomings of the UK’s post-Brexit social decline. His stream-ofconsciousness documents smalltown life across this country and the political polarisation that is tearing communities apart. Have a listen to new singles ‘Divide’ and ‘Relentless’ and catch them at Glasgow’s Rum Shack (Tuesday 29 April). They’re visceral live and they definitely mean it, maaaan!

 Listen to Vic Galloway every Monday and Wednesday night on BBC Radio Scotland.

3 TO SEE THEATRE

Always difficult to classify but never one to ignore, Derren Brown (King’s Theatre, Glasgow, Tuesday 29 April–Saturday 3 May) brings us his latest hush-hush adventure, Only Human. Will he turn us all into AI automatons, we wonder? A Little Inquest Into What We Are All Doing Here (Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, Thursday 24 & Friday 25 April) raises numerous questions about those in the creative industries and how they respond in a culture where others’ reactions often hold a powerful sway. The piece is co-created by one of its stars, Josie Dale-Jones. Myra’s Story (Pavilion Theatre, Glasgow, Tuesday 22–Sunday 27 April) is the tale of a middle-aged homeless alcoholic trying simply to survive on the mean streets of Dublin. As the blurb states: ‘you’ll laugh with Myra. You’ll cry with Myra. What you’ll never do is forget Myra.’ (Brian Donaldson)

Orbital

Derren Brown

GOING OUT FURTHER AFIELD

Get yourself to various parts of Scotland where the cultural landscape is rich and varied. Among the upcoming delights are stage versions of two cult movies, a portrait exhibition where dogs are welcome, and a deep dive into fossil finds

ABERDEEN

CRUEL INTENTIONS

The jukebox musical based on the TV show which was based on the film which was based on Dangerous Liaisons roars north packed with 90s classics from Britney to Boyz II Men, and TLC to REM.

n His Majesty’s Theatre, Tuesday 8–Saturday 12 April.

ALAN BISSETT: THE MOIRA TRILOGY

Falkirk’s finest author brings us his award-winning ‘one-woman’ three-parter detailing the sweary and lairy life, and often filthy thoughts of single mother Moira Bell.

n Lemon Tree, Saturday 12 April.

DUMFRIES

HEJIRA

Fans of Joni Mitchell can celebrate as the band set up to honour this Canadian icon hit the road. This seven-piece mainly focus on her folk tunes from the late 1970s.

n Theatre Royal, Saturday 12 April.

DUNFERMLINE

MY DOG & OTHER VIPS

Exhibition from Teenage Fanclub drummer Francis Macdonald featuring his own rescue dog plus portraits of Bob Dylan, Michael Marra and ‘Nora Batty’. Pooches and people welcome.

n Fire Station Creative, Thursday 3–Sunday 27 April.

INVERNESS

PIRATES!

Created by Joan Clevillé and with music from Luke Sutherland, this family show follows pals Tom and Daisy as they join the rowdy world of Captain Sandy Rogers and her crew.

n Eden Court Theatre, Thursday 10–Saturday 12 April.

PERTH

BORUSAN ISTANBUL

PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA

Schubert’s ‘Unfinished’ and Beethoven’s ‘Pastoral’ are on the bill as this Turkish orchestra tour to mark their 25th anniversary, led by conductor Carlo Tenan.

n Perth Concert Hall, Saturday 5 April.

RESTLESS NATIVES

Another new musical based on a classic film, this one is about the intrepid underdogs who become the Highland Highwaymen, robbing from tourists with wit and charm, as first seen in the 1985 movie.

n Perth Theatre, Thursday 24 April–Saturday 10 May.

PITLOCHRY

NATIONAL THEATRE

CONNECTIONS FESTIVAL

Young actors from Scotland and the Isle Of Man team up for this annual showcase of drama talent, staging new works by upcoming theatre stars.

n Pitlochry Festival Theatre, Thursday 10–Saturday 12 April.

STIRLING

DINOSAUR DETECTIVES

Search for clues about the long-lost past based around the fossil finds of Mary Anning, William Buckland and Gideon Mantell whose work pretty much changed the face of history.

n Macrobert Arts Centre, Friday 18 April.

Hejira (and bottom from left), National Theatre Connections Festival, Borusan Istanbul Philharmonic Orchestra, Pirates!

Merging the literary with the silly, Isobel McArthur’s Pride And Prejudice* (*Sort Of) continues its rise as a cultural phenomenon. Lucy Ribchester revels in a show that taps into theatrical traditions but triumphs by being unashamedly modern

theatre of the month theatr e ertaeht• •

The white cotton empire-line dresses worn by the cast tell us we’re in Jane Austen-land; the marigolds and Doc Martens they’re also sporting let us know this is no ordinary adaptation. Isobel McArthur’s 2018 take on one of the literary canon’s most beloved novels has gone from cult hit to bona-fide theatrical sensation, with its large-scale UK tour now firmly placing it in the mainstream. And with good reason. It’s enormous fun, brilliantly performed.

If ever there was a reminder that sometimes theatre can and should be a place for pure entertainment, Pride And Prejudice* (*Sort Of) is it. McArthur’s production has the feeling of being birthed from all the great British theatrical traditions, from travelling players throwing on changes of makeshift costumes mid-scene, to pantomime, farce and the fourth wall-bashing style more recently made popular by companies such as Kneehigh.

The premise sees five below-stairs maids taking time out from ‘emptying pissy chamber pots’ to stage their own take on the romantic goings-on up above. What follows is a whipcrack jolly through Austen’s text, amplifying every eccentric character, mining each opportunity to detour into Saturnalian silliness, and gleefully celebrating unlikely pairings of props with the author’s world. Towers of Irn-Bru and plates of Wagon Wheels adorn the Meryton ball, Mrs Bennet is played with the twang of a cockney brothel madam farming out her girls, and a karaoke machine is whipped out at every opportunity.

These musical interludes sometimes just provide superficial laughs (such as a group rendition of ‘Holding Out For A Hero’), but at other times they serve to underpin the buffoonery with a more sensitive romcom feel. This is particularly the case when Lizzie and Darcy take the mics, Darcy tersely crooning like a reluctant middle manager on a work’s night out, Lizzie drunkenly slurring ‘You’re So Vain’ at him. Similarly, a queer subplot involving Charlotte Lucas yearning for Lizzie adds an extra layer of depth to all the larking.

In among its diversions, McArthur’s script neatly hits all the Pride And Prejudice plot beats, but it is the cast’s flair that carries this piece along. And they are all fantastic, both individually and as a team. Combining the literary with the ridiculous, this is a show that boldly declares you don’t need to pick one or the other: sometimes you can have your Wagon Wheel and eat it. Pride And Prejudice* (*Sort Of), Festival Theatre, Edinburgh, Tuesday 22–Saturday 26 April; reviewed at Theatre Royal, Glasgow.

THEATRE BAT OUT OF HELL

When you’ve written one of the top-selling albums in history, people will give you some leeway. How else do you explain the fact that Jim Steinman handed over the book for this rock musical to its producers and wasn’t laughed out of the room? Loosely based on Peter Pan, the storyline (and that’s a generous term) has been germinating since 1968, picking up a lot of dust along the way.

But while the narrative fails to deliver its third of the musicaltheatre holy trinity (story, songs, performance), the other parts punch high. Drawn largely from the two Bat albums created by Steinman and Meat Loaf, the track listing is monumental: ‘Two Out Of Three Ain’t Bad’, ‘Dead Ringer For Love’, ‘I’d Do Anything For Love’, and of course ‘Bat Out Of Hell’ itself all light up the theatre. Set in a post-apocalyptic landscape ruled by ridiculous despot Falco, the action centres around The Lost, a street gang who hang out in tunnels beneath the city. When bad-boy leader Strat falls for Falco’s daughter Raven, things take a turn for the violent. Meanwhile, Falco’s marriage is on the skids as Raven’s mum tires of her husband’s increasingly nasty ways. If only the cast could literally take the words right out of their mouths, this show would soar. As it is, we have to wait for each song to come along and rescue it, which mercifully never takes long.

In some ways, it’s a travesty that five-star music and singing have been wrapped up in a three-star show. Steinman’s songs and the singers recruited to deliver them deserve better than the dialogue he wrote for them. By the end, however, we’re so drenched in anthemic rock’n’roll, any dust left on this fiftysomething-year-old tale has been washed away. (Kelly Apter)

 King’s Theatre, Glasgow, Monday 7–Saturday 19 April; reviewed at Edinburgh Playhouse.

ART

PORTIA ZVAVAHERA

Bad dreams burst through the walls in Portia Zvavahera’s exhibition of paintings, with the Zimbabwean artist digging deep into both her psyche and the spiritual forces that drive her. The result, for Zvavahera’s first exhibition in Europe, is an epic series of works shaped by an unholy alliance of fear and love channelled from her fevered imagination. The rats may be poised to pounce, but through a swirl of colours where they hide, her only mission is to keep the children safe from harm.

This moves from the early devotions of ‘His Presence’, ‘Labour Ward’ and ‘Labour Pains’ in the Fruitmarket’s downstairs gallery, to the night terrors of works created in the last year which are shown upstairs. This accidentally symbolic ascension charts a journey that is both holy and possessed. With titles such as ‘Fighting Energies’, ‘Hide There’ and ‘Lifted Away’, it is no accident that the exhibition’s title, Zvakazarurwa, is the Shona word for ‘revelations’.

Zvavahera’s paintings are highly charged torrents of emotion expressed with a deep-set urgency to exorcise all the monsters that haunt her nightmares. There is pain here, but also a faith in some higher being that comes through a sense of movement, with figures’ hands outstretched, whether in praise or else protecting their brood. Presented in collaboration with Kettle’s Yard in Cambridge where the exhibition debuted, for all the horrors on show in Zvakazarurwa, it is love that propels everything Zvavahera does. This gives her work a physical as well as spiritual energy that transcends the badness, even as it is made manifest in painted form. It is this strength that saves her. For now, at least, all Zvavahera’s demons are purged in a vivid display of higher power. (Neil Cooper)

 Fruitmarket, Edinburgh, until Sunday 25 May.

film of the month

TAdding to the growing list of #MeToo movies, Julie Keeps Quiet is subtle in both its approach and impact. Emma Simmonds praises a brilliant central performance and acclaims the film’s stark portrayal of isolation and despair

he keeping of a terrible secret is the focus of a formally restrained yet psychologically revealing drama from Belgian writer-director Leonardo Van Dijl, making his feature debut. Julie Keeps Quiet joins the ranks of similarly thought-provoking #MeToo movies, such as She Said, Athlete A, On The Record, Women Talking and The Assistant, a collection of films that is fast becoming a genre in its own right, with their shared interest in exploring the impact of sexual assault and abuse of power.

Co-written with Ruth Becquart and sleekly shot by seasoned cinematographer Nicolas Karakatsanis (Cruella, Bullhead), the film follows its titular teen (brilliantly played by newcomer Tessa Van den Broeck), a thoroughly ordinary, perfectly popular girl who also happens to be an exceptionally talented tennis player. We quickly realise that Julie may have been groomed by her much older coach, Jeremy (Laurent Caron), when he comes under suspicion following the suicide of one of his former protegees, Aline (Tamara Tricot). The scandal breaks as Julie prepares for national trials, with the exact nature of Jeremy’s relationship with Aline questioned, while an investigation is launched at Julie’s tennis academy to consider who else may have been affected. How long Julie can hold out before she says something provides the tension, while Aline’s suicide casts a terrible shadow over the film, reminding us of the chilling consequences of not unburdening yourself. At one point, the academy’s manager asks why Aline might have felt unable to speak up, and the film attempts to answer that question as it probes Julie’s own predicament: did she have loyalty to her coach and a desire to keep her mind on the job or was she simply behaving like a normal teenager and needing to process what happened? Attempts by Jeremy to contact Julie are shown to be increasingly unwelcome, with Van den Broeck superbly conveying the anxiety these approaches cause her, especially when compared to lighter, healthier interactions with friends, family and teachers.

Directing with a steady hand and admirable precision, Van Dijl plumps for a less-is-more approach, keeping audiences closely aligned to Julie and showing us her strength as much as her struggles as he emphasises her remarkable drive and resilience. The director also shows how Julie resists societal pressure, opting to do things on her terms, and how she gradually reclaims her agency. Even during tennis rallies, the camera stays resolutely on her side, keeping the focus firmly upon this estimable individual who finds herself scrutinised by curious peers and well-meaning elders.

Other characters, including Julie’s worried parents, fade almost inconsequentially into the background, emphasising their powerlessness and Julie’s troubling isolation. There’s a clinical nature to Van Dijl’s directorial approach; Julie has, after all, built a wall to protect herself and this distance is reflected in an unflashy, incredibly patient film that’s often intriguingly ambiguous while finding plenty of dramatic meat in the unsaid. You’ll be scouring each carefully constructed frame for answers.

Julie Keeps Quiet is in cinemas from Friday 25 April.

MUSIC

GRACIE ABRAMS

Californian singer-songwriter Gracie Abrams reckons she’s playing to ‘a big room of shy people.’ There was certainly no hyped-up hysteria before she took the stage for this penultimate date of The Secret Of Us tour, just the decorous hum of chat from her audience of predominantly teenage girls. She knows them well. In addition, she loves them, in that gushy awards-speech kind of way.

These are the girls who live for Taylor Swift’s serious songs. Abrams herself has benefitted from Swift’s patronage, supporting her on tour and co-writing. She has even incorporated her own surprise-song miniset from her ‘bedroom’, a B-stage kitted out to look like the room from which she streamed lockdown concerts, with the fans close enough to ask for selfies. Abrams’ songs are eloquent teen angst (boys, best friends, break-ups, breakdowns: the works) in sterile pop clothing, delivered with Ellie Goulding breathiness whether on guitar for the moderately chirpy ‘Risk’ or at piano for the vanilla diarising of ‘Gave You I Gave You I’.

She puts her hand up to being an introvert but does hold back a few more spirited tunes for the closing salvo, including the (relatively) thundering melodrama of ‘I Miss You, I’m Sorry’ and a (sort of) sassy attitude with ‘That’s So True’. These are the songs she will need to exploit for her main stage turn at TRNSMT in July. Judging by the cavalcade of happy faces bouncing along for ‘Close To You’, there should be a nice supportive energy awaiting her on Glasgow Green. (Fiona Shepherd)  Reviewed at OVO Hydro, Glasgow.

FILM

LAST SWIM 

‘Do you think we’re good people?’ Ziba asks her friends anxiously, as she reels from a diagnosis that threatens her bright future. Set in London, this teen blow-out flick from debut writer-director Sasha Nathwani and co-writer Helen Simmons offers a sober, soul-searching contrast to the usual hedonistic hilarity, infusing its end-of-school shenanigans with a more melancholic air. Deba Hekmat (Hoard) plays Ziba, a nerdy and beautiful British Iranian teen, who is hiding her condition from pals Tara (Lydia Fleming), Shea (Solly McLeod) and Merf (Jay Lycurgo).

An aspiring astrophysicist who has won a place at UCL, Ziba arranges a road trip across London for results day, which ominously starts to feel like a final hurrah, taking them from Portobello Road to Hampstead Heath and Primrose Hill. Joining the quartet is promising footballer Malcom (Denzel Baidoo) who has just received his own earthshattering news.

Although it lacks the finesse and impact of last year’s How To Have Sex, which took a more compelling look at a teenage girl in crisis, Last Swim is still a very striking effort. Gorgeously shot by Olan Collardy, the film’s dreamy, almost-surreal quality reflects its protagonist’s addled, flailing mindset and there’s welcome emotional depth. The charismatic young cast is ably led by Hekmat, with newcomer Baidoo also showing particular promise.

Sadly, not all the characters feel fleshed out and Ziba’s selfabsorption, however understandable, does get wearing as she hijacks results day for her own ends. But the gut-punch of being a promising young woman who may not get a chance to realise her ambitions is well conveyed. And there’s an authenticity that stretches beyond the protagonist’s predicament, with the film capturing both the freedom and fearfulness of youth. (Emma Simmonds)

 In cinemas from Friday 4 April.

Strictly favourite Nikita Kuzmin leaves the glitterball behind to embark on his first solo tour. Kelly Apter reckons it’s an impressive debut that soars when the Ukrainian dancer lets the emotions flow

Each time the roaring wave that is Strictly Come Dancing hits the shore, it leaves behind a few precious pebbles. Having been sufficiently polished by the giant BBC show, these shiny stones start to build a life for themselves, some more successfully than others. One of the first Strictly offspring to hit the road, Anton Du Beke proved that his comic timing is just as sharp as his dancing (there’s a reason he’s now a judge on the programme). Most recently, Johannes Radebe brought no end of joy to dance fans with his Freedom Unleashed tour. In-between, several other members of Strictly’s professional cast have struck out on their own, to varying effect.

Like them, Nikita Kuzmin has already garnered an enviably large following from his four years on Strictly and one series of Celebrity Big Brother. So although playing large-scale venues on your first ever tour might seem a bold move, the screams meeting his arrival on stage suggest Kuzmin is right to know his worth. Plus anyone who leaves their home in Ukraine aged nine to pursue their dream, win multiple championships in Italy as a teenager, before being snapped up by TV producers in Germany and the UK, was never going to settle for smalltime. Midnight Dancer is a big, ambitious show, if something of a mixed bag. Joined by nine dancers and a singer, Kuzmin is clearly trying to entertain the inordinately wide demographic that tunes into Strictly on a Saturday night.

Hitting the spot for some will be the ‘don’t look at my bum . . . oh go on, then’ moments; routines danced to ‘It’s Raining Men’ and ‘I Will Survive’; and sequins galore. Others will engage more with the emotionally charged moments in the second half, which take a more contemporary approach. A waferthin narrative about a nasty agent, the film star he represents, and the man she loves is threaded throughout, but you’d be forgiven for being completely baffled by it. Better to focus on the choreography and its execution, which never falls short. Andreea Toma, in particular, is stunning as Kuzmin’s leading lady, while Rebecca Lisewski’s vocal prowess is remarkable.

Kuzmin may not have the witty repartee of Du Beke or the mesmerising presence of Radebe, but this is still an impressive debut. Attempts at comedy in the first half and fleeting vignettes that feel strangely aimless are all forgotten after the interval when the show takes a monumental turn for the better. Routines inspired by Moulin Rouge! and La La Land are delivered with purpose and flair, a moment of hilarious audience participation has everyone in stitches, and two sequences that demonstrate Kuzmin’s emotional reach are captivating. A little more finesse and focus, both stylistically and narratively, and Nikita Kuzmin will be a force to be reckoned with.

dance of the month

Midnight Dancer, SEC, Glasgow, Thursday 3 April; reviewed at Edinburgh Playhouse.

FILM

ONE TO ONE: JOHN & YOKO

There’s an incendiary passion to Kevin Macdonald and Sam RiceEdwards’ captivating documentary portrait of John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s creative New York life in the early 1970s. Set over the same time period when Gil Scott-Heron released ‘The Revolution Will Not Be Televised’, these co-directors strike a similar ironic and poetic tone, using a montage of TV commercials, archive footage and audio recordings. It’s also reminiscent of Radu Jude’s recently released Eight Postcards From Utopia

The title refers to benefit concerts which John and Yoko held after learning of gross negligence at the Willowbrook school for children with special needs; 16mm footage of a concert is interspersed with often hilarious phone calls of the pair attempting to get their creative pursuits (including Yoko’s dogged pursuit of flies for an exhibition) and activism off the ground. Macdonald and Rice-Edwards humorously and cleverly juxtapose the righteous political messaging of Richard Nixon’s consumerist America with the counterculture and civil rights movement. The assault of advertisements and nicely edited together clips viscerally catapult the viewer into a turbulent moment in time.

Trailblazing black journalist John Johnson’s empathic reporting for ABC News is present as is Shirley Chisholm’s reaction to the shooting of segregationist George Wallace. Images of the Vietnam War are spliced between protests against Nixon, and writer AJ Weberman going through Bob Dylan’s bins. John and Yoko’s domestic life in Greenwich Village is presented through photographs and home movies of their cosy apartment, complete with a bed placed in front of the TV, and intimate sessions of them jamming together. While it skips over certain details including Lennon’s affair (already extensively covered in The Lost Weekend: A Love Story), it’s refreshing to see the duo’s endeavours and collaborations share top billing in this celebratory, highly entertaining and informative documentary. (Katherine McLaughlin)

 In cinemas from Wednesday 9 April.

COMEDY ROB COPLAND: GIMME (ONE WITH EVERYTHING)

As Rob Copland acknowledges with apparent ambivalence, this show, wrestling with ideas of what constitutes success in life, has been conventionally triumphant, winning prizes such as the Victoria Wood Award in Edinburgh and landing him a mini-tour. With eight years under his belt as a decidedly cult comic, still working as a pot-washer in a bakery, these plaudits may undermine Copland’s sense of struggle. But they’re fully deserved for Gimme (One With Everything)’s ebullient collision of existential angst and joyously idiotic, unpretentious clowning.

He veers towards surrealism in a wonderfully whimsical routine about entering a shoe shop barefoot. Yet his gurning, excitably possessed follow through on the idea isn’t arthouse: it’s pure Jim Carrey, mugging for maximum entertainment, his cartoonishly animated features and limber, irrepressible physicality constantly being pressed into action. Whether he has ADHD or not seems almost incidental. Yet he blurts out some great gags about the condition, while the terrible experience of his great-uncle during World War II adds a certain pathos and correspondence with his own situation.

But while his exhortation to live for now with childish abandon might be garlanded with philosophical enquiry and snatches of personal insight, this hour is so full of varied, wilfully daft surprises that it doesn’t seem altogether integral. That being said, virtually every seemingly throwaway bit of business pays off narratively, especially in a bravura final ten minutes in which Copland flips the script just as he appears to be winding up, achieving poignancy and a real sense of communal bond with the crowd. (Jay Richardson)

 Reviewed at The Old Hairdresser’s, Glasgow, as part of Glasgow International Comedy Festival.

comedy• •ydemoc

OTHER THINGS WORTH GOING OUT FOR

If you fancy getting out and about across the central belt this month, there’s plenty culture to sample such as a highly innovative dance festival, a rising star portraying an acting icon, and a new stage production of a classic 1945 play

ART

IAN HAMILTON FINLAY

This legendary artist’s centenary is marked with a collection from a man who was a sculptor, poet, printmaker, gardener and all-round provocateur.

n Modern Two, Edinburgh, until Monday 26 May.

COMEDY

DIVINA DE CAMPO

I Do Think is a one-woman show that considers life’s ups, downs and everything that might exist within the gap, preaching that in this maddening world, all you can really control is your own sense of self.

n The Stand, Glasgow, Sunday 20 April.

DANCE

POMEGRANATES

Jonzi D returns as choreographer-in-residence for this dance festival now in its fourth year, featuring a theme of masks. Among the treats is a premiere of a dance-theatre work from Charlotte Mclean and Malin Lewis, plus exhibitions, walking tours and discussions.

n Various venues, Edinburgh, Friday 25–Wednesday 30 April.

FILM

MR BURTON

Harry Lawtey (Rob from Industry and Harvey from Joker: Folie à Deux) gets a plum role as the young Richard Burton alongside Lesley Manville and Toby Jones.

n In cinemas from Friday 4 April.

DEATH OF A UNICORN

The Gen Z scream queen Jenna Ortega stars with Paul Rudd and Will Poulter in this horror-comedy in which the eponymously titled mythical creature gets bashed into by a car. Scary consequences ensue . . .

n In cinemas from Friday 4 April.

MUSIC

PIT PONY

With two albums under their belt (the recent Dead Stars follows up 2022’s World To Me), this five-piece from Newcastle do some folky bits, platform scuzz-guitar moments, and even throw in a splash of glockenspiel. You can’t say they’re not a diverse bunch.

n Sneaky Pete’s, Edinburgh, Saturday 12 April.

NORTHERN STREAMS

This weekend festival of Nordic and Scottish music, song and dance returns with the likes of Denmark’s Christine Kammerer, Sweden’s Kristina Leesik, Norway’s Gro-Marthe Dickson and Scotland’s Joss Cameron.

n Scottish Storytelling Centre, Edinburgh, Friday 18–Sunday 20 April.

STEREOFUNK FESTIVAL

The 20th anniversary of Stereofunk arrives with the boutique festival boasting another top line-up. To wit, the likes of N-Trance, Fragma, Atomic Kitten, East 17 and Oshi.

n Hamilton Park Racecourse, Saturday 26 April.

THEATRE

AN INSPECTOR CALLS

Stephen Daldry directs this award-winning (19: count them) production of the JB Priestley classic set in 1912. Inspector Goole interrupts a posh family gathering to announce his inquiry into the death of a young woman.

n King’s Theatre, Glasgow, Tuesday 1–Saturday 5 April.

Death Of A Unicorn (and bottom from left), Pomegranates, Ian Hamilton Finlay, Divina De Campo

PICTURE:

KELVIN LEE GRAY

staying in

PRIMA QUEEN

London’s Louise Macphail and Chicago’s Kristin McFadden comprise Prima Queen, a duo that have gigged with kindred spirits such as Wet Leg and Dream Wife but are merrily finding their own path across a cluttered indie-pop field. A debut album, The Prize, is soon to be launched into the world, with songs featuring titles such as ‘Oats (Ain’t Gonna Beg)’, ‘Ugly’ and ‘Meryl Streep’, preaching themes of friendship, empowerment and vulnerability. (Brian Donaldson)

 The Prize is released by Submarine Cat Records on Friday 25 April.

PICTURE: KIERA SIMPSON

STAY TUNED

It’s all about the music. Or at least, the often-fascinating stories behind the bands who made our most-loved tunes. Neil Cooper picks some of his own favourites among the gazillions of top music podcasts doing the rounds

With more music-related podcasts out there than you might care to shake a stick at, ghosts from the past can easily send seekers down online rabbit holes in search of enlightenment. For many, this often begins with The Fall. Oh! Brother is the tellingly named show hosted by siblings Paul and Steve Hanley, who both served lengthy stints in the ultimate outsider group and lived to tell the tale. Since 2021, Oh! Brother has seen the Hanleys engage an array of former band members, celebrity fans and other fellow travellers for discursive chats about life in and out of Mark E Smith’s ever-changing ensemble. Highlights include conversations with the band’s former keyboardist Marcia Schofield, exfootballer Pat Nevin, and music-loving authors Ian Rankin and John Niven. If at times it sounds like a bunch of old blokes in a pub gathered like a post-punk reincarnation of Last Of The Summer Wine, that’s because sometimes it does. Working in similar territory is Electronically Yours With Martyn Ware, with former Human League and current Heaven 17 stalwart Ware opening up his extensive address book. Since chatting to Richard Hawley back in 2020, Ware has featured more than 200 conversations with assorted new and not-sonew pop stars and producers, including Frankie Goes To Hollywood’s Holly Johnson, Howard Jones and all four members of Propaganda. Closer to home, Mogwai’s Stuart Braithwaite and novelist Irvine Welsh have both made appearances. Best of all was Bob Last, the co-founder of Edinburgh’s Fast Product records and Human League manager, who once sacked Ware from his own band.

Coming out of the same late-1970s Sheffield scene as Ware and co was Roger Quail, the original drummer with Clock DVA who, like Heaven 17, took their name from Anthony Burgess’ novel A Clockwork Orange. In My Life In The Mosh Of Ghosts, Quail charts his personal musical coming-of-age by way of bite-size episodes that move from him seeing The Runaways and 999 in 1977 through his own time playing as part of Sheffield’s fertile underground scene. Finally, The C86 Show sees David Eastaugh in conversation with a host of parallel-universe indie-pop survivors, from The Nightingales’ Robert Lloyd and Swell Maps’ Jowe Head to Helen McCookerybook of The Chefs and Johny Brown of The Band Of Holy Joy. This isn’t nostalgia. It’s history.

a smubl • a lbums •

LISTEN BACK

Time to gambol gallantly towards G in our alphabet-themed series of album recommendations. This month, we lean into classic ambient and a hearty dose of intriguing experimentation

Welcoming listeners into a world inspired by the glaciers of Iceland, Gaister’s eponymously titled 2024 debut marks the first collaboration between songwriter Coby Sey, soprano Olivia Salvadori and Bo Ningen drummer Akihide Monna. Only a few synths, drums and a mixture of Japanese, Italian and English vocals are used to create a soundscape that’s frantic and ill at ease, its tectonic plates restlessly shifting between meditative calm and horror-movie terror. Sparse though it may be, Gaister’s selfimposed limitations made it one of the most consciousness-expanding releases of last year. Eschewing an earthy approach in favour of distant synthetics is Boards Of Canada’s ambient masterpiece Geogaddi (2002). It ushered in a new digital age with haunted instruments trapped inside machines, voices vocoded out of all recognition, ultra-processed acoustic instruments, and drumbeats altered by the hands of computer programming. With a shadowy threat underpinning its chilly calm, the duo have claimed Geogaddi was a response to the September 11 attacks. To contemporary ears, its grim sense of subversion feels like a trek through the hinterlands of the internet’s early untamed era. (Kevin Fullerton)

 Other G listens: Grush by μ-Ziq (2024), Game Theory by The Roots (2006), Gorilla by The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band (1967).

STaking it easy clearly isn’t in Stewart Copeland’s vocabulary, with the composer and former Police drummer’s latest venture finding him immersed in the natural world. This big beast of the music industry talks to Danny Munro about tour riders for birds, jazz wolves, and ‘making cool shit’

tewart Copeland has lived a thousand lives since The Police first split up nearly 40 years ago. From scoring films for Francis Ford Coppola to presenting for the BBC and hosting Snoop Dogg in his LA home, this charismatic American is a cultural chameleon with a different hat for each day of the week. Copeland’s latest project, Wild Concerto, marks yet another first for the versatile artist who has put together a full-length album in collaboration with the the animal kingdom’s finest voices.

‘The record company, Platoon, have an association with Martyn Stewart who has this incredible collection, and so they called me to write a concerto based on these sounds,’ explains Copeland. The collection in question is an archive of over 100,000 field recordings collected by Stewart, a celebrated naturalist who has been aptly dubbed the ‘David Attenborough of sound.’ Having worked in this area since 1975, Stewart has left few corners of the globe untouched, recording a vast array of exotic animals in the process, many of which are now extinct or endangered.

Entrusted with transforming the collection into a concerto was Copeland and triple Grammy-winning producer Ricky Kej, making for a process the former found to be rather cathartic. ‘I found that with, say, a red-breasted nuthatch, it has a pitchless melody. It has articulation, it has contour, it goes up and down; it has rhythm of sorts, but not 4-4, not a constant. But if you put it up against a real melody, a flute, like actual pitches . . . the brain joins the two together. And pretty soon you start hearing that the sparrow is now singing in tune, because the melody has been suggested by orchestral instruments, and it’s pretty interesting.’

Adjudicating on which animal he found to be the most tuneful, the sticks legend has a clear winner: ‘the wolves of the Arctic. Oh man, are they some jazz wolves; the Coltrane wolves of the Arctic Circle,’ he laughs. ‘You put a trombone up against that and it’s some very deep jazz!’ Wild Concerto’s release coincides with Earth Day, with the album consisting of 12 movements intended to reflect an annual 40,000-mile pole-to-pole migration of

PICTURE: HARRISON PARROT

Ricky Kej, Martyn Stewart and Stewart Copeland

WILD THING

the Arctic tern. It’s a striking concept, though perhaps one to be enjoyed from home, as Copeland suspects logistical difficulties may prevent a run of Wild Concerto live shows. ‘I don’t know what the rider for the redbreasted nuthatch is going to look like,’ he chuckles. ‘A lot of sesame seeds . . . ’

Though performing live will always be the drummer’s true calling, Copeland says it’s a passion for the process that sees him still pushing boundaries in his 70s with endeavours like Wild Concerto. ‘I’ve earned the privilege of being able to devote my energy to just making cool shit, with or without commercial motivation,’ smiles the voracious drummer from his replete home studio. ‘It’s life’s blood. I’m a lot like a shark. If I stop moving forward, I suffocate.’ Copeland is constantly looking ahead to his next project, but he remains perfectly happy to reminisce about what he was up to way back when. Just recently, he has provided a foreword for The Police Lineup, a collection of 200 previously unseen photos of The

Police in their heyday, snapped by his former classmate Lawrence Impey. Later this year, the California resident will tour his Have I Said Too Much? show, an informal evening of conversation in which fans are assured they will hear ‘all the old war stories.’ Rather than be bitter about having to repeatedly reminisce about his past, Copeland remains grateful for the longevity of the music he and his friends made in the 70s and 80s.

‘When all this music was created, from The Rolling Stones and The Beatles all the way down to me . . . it was all made as fast food,’ Copeland muses. ‘But by some miracle, around the year 2000, the young people decided, or discerned, that the originals are kind of better than the knock-offs that they’re getting today. So it’s a great blessing and fills our hearts with love for the young people.’

Wild Concerto is released by Platoon Records on Friday 18 April; The Police Lineup is published by Rocket 88 Books in October.

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 Judith Ralston, the BBC Scotland weather presenter who is now cohosting travel show Scotland’s Greatest Escape

What is your first memory of watching TV? Mary, Mungo And Midge in the 1970s.

Which programme that’s no longer on screen would you love to see return? Absolutely Fabulous. Every single episode was funny and uproariously entertaining. I’d love to see how Patsy and Edina deal with society now.

You’re a primetime chat-show host: what’s your ideal line-up of three guests (living or dead)? Austin Powers/ Mike Myers, Leonard Bernstein and the Queen.

Which sitcom have you laughed at the most? Father Ted I still belly laugh when it comes on.

When was the last time you felt scared while watching TV? The news.

What’s the best TV theme tune ever? Dallas. I used to play it when I was in the wind band at school and those sweeping horns are tremendous.

What was the last show you binge-watched? I’m not a binge-watcher as I don’t have the patience. But I did watch two back-to-back episodes of Scotland’s Greatest Escape with my kids the other night.

Who is your all-time favourite fictional TV character? It’s got to be Worzel Gummidge. Happy memories of that programme as a child and I loved Jon Pertwee.

Scotland’s Greatest Escape is available on BBC iPlayer.

GAMES THE LAST OF US PART II REMASTERED

Although it was first released almost 12 years ago, The Last Of Us has had a resurgent cultural impact over recent times, largely thanks to a critically acclaimed TV adaptation from HBO. The game’s sequel arrived in the summer of 2020 just as covid was picking up pace (awkwardly appropriate given its subject matter) and it hit players hard. This was adult storytelling that made the original game look like Sonic The Hedgehog; its complex narrative took full advantage of the medium’s interactive nature, forcing players to confront a number of hard truths (the ugly fallout of which spilled out into the real world in toxic online discourse).

Now the game is about to break out of the PlayStation ecosystem and jump to PC, just over a week before its own adaptation hits the small screen. Players will continue the story of Ellie and Joel as they eke out an existence in a broken world, while the implications of Joel’s fateful decision at part one’s climax gradually manifest into an explosive new destiny for the pair. Here’s hoping the PC port has a better launch than its predecessor, a disaster that made the Cordyceps outbreak look like a case of athlete’s foot. (Murray Robertson)

 Out on PC, Thursday 3 April; out now on PS5.

PICTURE:

JAMIE SIMPSON

In the first couple of months of this year alone, Mha Iri has gigged in London, Poland, India, Canada and the US, and at a ski-themed festival in the Netherlands. Yet she remains a largely unknown quantity in Scotland, having swapped her native Edinburgh in her early 20s for sunny Melbourne where a chance presenting gig at a local radio station led her down the rabbit hole to the world of psytrance production.

‘When I was first learning, I was totally consumed by it,’ she says. ‘I’ve got a very obsessive mind so if I’m interested in something I’ll learn every single aspect of it and I can do that quite quickly. I didn’t have a back-up so that made me really focus on it.’ Mha Iri was already well schooled in big beats thanks to a techno-loving older brother, her dad’s pirate CD collection, and her own teenage experiences of the illegal rave scene around central Scotland which really fired her passion for techno and drum’n’bass.

She moved back to Scotland during the pandemic to find a somewhat fragmented scene, one in which the profile she had built for herself in Australia counted for nothing. ‘When I realised I wasn’t in demand, it was an ego check for me on where I was in the global scene, which was nowhere,’ she insists. ‘But it still felt like the right change at the right time.’ Mha Iri has re-immersed herself in production, and released ‘Your Heart’ during covid as a call for empathy.

future sound

Our column celebrating new music to watch continues with Penicuik-based techno DJ and producer Mha Iri. She talks to Fiona Shepherd about reality checks, nature-inspired beats, and sticking to her musical guns

In a nod to her roots as a reggae singer/songwriter, tracks often feature her own effects-laden vocals. ‘I do have a diverse palette. When I play a set, I might start at 135bpm and end on 160. I enjoy exploring and going through a bunch of different genres. When I first started producing, I was more melodic; now I try to use less channels but make the most out of each element. I try to keep it as simple as possible but still have loads of movement with little percussive hits.’

Speaking of elements, she’s channelled her love of nature into a series of themed EPs for her new label PIAS Electronique, each accompanied by suitably elemental visuals. First off the block was the feminine feel of an earth-themed Leader Of The Pack EP. New track ‘Elements Of Dance’ kicks off the fire-themed follow-up (‘all hot tracks,’ she promises) with ‘water’ to follow in summertime (when an aquatic photo shoot will be more inviting) and ‘air’ closer to the end of the year.

‘There doesn’t seem to be much demand for hard techno in Scotland at the moment,’ she admits. ‘But it’s always changing: the bpm goes up, the bpm comes down. I just write what I want if it’s in style or not. Eventually it will because it’s a constant circle so for me it’s about staying true to my sound.’

Fire is released by PIAS

BOOKS 3 TO READ

In these weird times when the real world is unruly and scary, you’d think that non-fiction might be taking a backseat in readers’ lives, with the novel providing a more obvious safety blanket for worried minds. But the very opposite appears to be the case, and these three tomes will appeal to a variety of audiences interested in true stories. Human rights activist Sepideh Gholian’s The Evin Prison Bakers’ Club (Oneworld, Thursday 10 April) is intriguingly subtitled ‘Surviving Iran’s Most Notorious Prisons In 16 Recipes’ and considers this courageous 30-year-old as she tries everything she can to survive incarceration, including baking up a storm. Humankind author Rutger Bregman publishes Moral Ambition (Bloomsbury, Thursday 24 April) in which he implores people to ‘stop wasting your talent and start making a difference,’ insisting that transforming idealism into action might be the only way to make this crazy world a better place. And author, presenter and curator Philip Hoare’s William Blake And The Sea Monsters Of Love (Fourth Estate, Thursday 10 April) examines the creative minds who took inspiration from that iconic English poet and painter to replicate his sense of wildness and revolution within their own work. (Brian Donaldson)

In this column, we ask a pod person about the ’casts that mean a lot to them. This month it’s Lydia Thomas, co-host of Changing The Odds, a show which considers the long-term consequences of 2005’s Gambling Act which propelled Britain to become the world’s biggest online gambling market

my perfect podcast •stsacdop podcasts• •stsacdo

Which podcast educates you? I’m a massive fan of The Rest Is History but I can’t decide if I prefer ancient history subjects like the Aztecs or Ancient Rome, or the more modern ones like Nixon or 1970s Britain. I sometimes click on a modern history subject and think I know loads about it, but then I realise discussing it in a historical context makes it more interesting.

Which podcast makes you laugh? Clinton Baptiste’s Paranormal Podcast. Clinton appeared in Phoenix Nights for about five minutes as a really bad psychic but he’s probably one of the most memorable characters. In this, Clinton relays messages from the ‘other side’ to his listeners: like Marlon Brando reviewing Helen in Braintree’s performance in Cats

Which podcast makes you sad or angry? One of the best podcasts I’ve ever listened to is The Witch Trials Of JK Rowling. I know there’s fierce debate either side on the issue of trans rights and women’s rights but I think most people like me fall completely outside it, watching it all play out with fear and confusion. But this podcast took on that debate in such an effective way, and the host Megan Phelps-Roper, who isn’t revealed as a former Westboro Baptist Church member until quite far along in the series, completely spins it on its head.

Which podcast is your guilty pleasure? I really love Uncanny presented by Danny Robins. Ghost stories are a guilty pleasure for a lot of people but are often easily dismissed as most people don’t believe in ghosts. But having the sceptic and Danny trying to find explanations makes it scarier! Sometimes the sceptic’s ideas are so ridiculous you think, well, the ghost story HAS to be true. I’ve had a few sleepless nights because of it.

Pitch us a new podcast idea in exactly 25 words Hunt down serial reviewers online and read their reviews: a comic panel has to figure out what kind of person they are. Then they’re revealed . . .

Changing The Odds is available on BBC Sounds; see a whole heap more of this Q&A at list.co.uk

A typographical nightmare for those who like their words, grammar and punctuation largely rules-based, the new album from Bon Iver comes at us screaming and shouting in ALL CAPS. Mercifully, Craig McLean finds that the songs within will cleanse palates and stir souls

The first album in six years from Justin Vernon, the man who made snowbound isolation into a thing of conceptual artistry and beauty (Bon Iver = bon hiver = French for ‘good winter’), comes freighted with a sense of an ending. Not to mention a freewheeling approach to punctuation and typography. SABLE fABLE is billed as ‘the epilogue’ on a ‘project’ that began, 18 years past, with For Emma, Forever Ago. That debut record emerged as Vernon recovered from a bout of mononucleosis hepatitis in his dad’s cabin in the Wisconsin wilderness. This was broken folk music where the songs were as fractured as the protagonist’s heart, Vernon’s yearning realised in a bewitching, keening falsetto.

Over three subsequent albums, Vernon roamed near (2011’s self-titled second album was also recorded in Wisconsin, in an old vet’s clinic that Vernon turned into April Base Studios), far (2016’s 22, A Million introduced a kaleidoscope of electronic and hip-hop influences), wild (he perfected the vocoded vocal, turning it into a form of lovelorn speaking-in-tongues) and wonky (he worked with Kanye West). And now, finally, seemingly, an endpoint of sorts.

This fifth album, recorded at the reopened April Base after years of renovations, opens with last autumn’s EP Sable. It’s represented here in its entirety (including the 12-second, high-pitched tone titled ‘…’ and with first full track ‘THINGS BEHIND THINGS BEHIND THINGS’ setting the scene. Over skipping, fluttering, cardiac beats, picked guitar and mantric, repeated lines, Vernon casts himself as a man adrift and awry: ‘I would like the feeling, I would like the feeling, I would like the feeling gone/Cause I don’t like the way it’s, I don’t like the way it’s, I don’t like the way it’s looking.’

Then comes ‘SPEYSIDE’. Despite being another bit of geographical misdirection (like second-album track ‘Perth’, it’s not about ‘our’ version of those locations), it does sound like a Scottish folk song: acoustic guitar, fiddle, woodsy vocals, and lyrics full of regret, reproach and self-loathing. Then, a final testimony: ‘AWARDS SEASON’ is part a cappella open-heart surgery about romantic endings and beginnings, mournful sax rushing in to amplify the torment. After that sepia-toned intro, and a palate-cleansing, composure-gathering, 30-odd seconds pause, we’re into the subsequent nine songs, albeit hardly off to the races: Vernon is not a man to be rushed, emotionally or in terms of BPM. But we are off into a kaleidoscopic romance, the quietly blossoming production colouring Justin’s journey.

The song titled ‘From’ has the lush textures of West Coast 1970s production, Steely Dan with beards. ‘Everything Is Peaceful Love’ is a glorious, silkily seductive soul song. The chipmunk introductory vocals on ‘Walk Home’ presage a horny slow-jam. Vernon describes it as ‘a romp where you can’t wait to pull your clothes off fast enough and jump inside bed with your one true lover,’ which is certainly another kind of geographical misdirection for a song that’s sluggish sounding, if no less mesmerising. ‘If Only I Could Wait’ is an atmospheric, desperate duet with Danielle Haim, and here, at least, Vernon is on point in his description: ‘a bilateral crying question. How long can the two of us hang on to each other?’

Amid all the narrative hokey-cokey, and the playful use of silences and ellipses and ALL CAPS thematic shouting, there are songs that are simply, utterly beautiful. The penultimate ‘There’s A Rhythmn’ is a comforting country-gospel lament, and the final ‘Au Revoir’ is 122 seconds of minimal, ambient comedown. If SABLE fABLE is a mic drop, it’s one that has found glory in the torrid torture of love.

SABLE, fABLE is released by Jagjaguwar on Friday 11 April.

PICTURE: GRAHAM TOLBERT

album of the month

COMEDY NIGHT

BY ROBIN

7–9PM FRIDAY 9 MAY

PODCASTS

(IN)JUSTICE:

KILLER PRIVILEGE

(Message Heard/The Standard)

One man killing another in a drug-fuelled brawl is nothing new; you only have to look at the crime pages of any tabloid. So what makes the case of 23-year-old Alex Morgan, brutally murdered in an extended, horrific attack by his friend Bennet von Vertes, son of an obscenely rich art dealer, while both were high on drugs, special enough to warrant its own six-part podcast? The answer lies in the series title. While the first three episodes of (In)Justice: Killer Privilege do raise questions as to who is granted a voice in an increasingly wealth-stratified society, they also examine the roles which entitlement and money play in allowing those born into rarified air to essentially get away with murder.

The first episode treads an uneasy mix of wealth porn and cliffhangers, chronicling the lives that Morgan and von Vertes led in Zurich and London. But in episode two, the focus shifts to Morgan’s mother Katja Faber. A barrister by training, she has both the emotional and legal vocabulary to tell her story in precise, harrowing detail. In doing so she gives voice to an experience those mothers of all the other sons murdered in such vicious circumstances don’t have.

Wealth cannot protect anyone from such horrors. It can, however, protect the perpetrator, as episode three goes on to shockingly demonstrate. The podcast flits around reportage, salacious suspense and genuine emotional power, but it is Faber’s story that is by far the most moving.

(Lucy Ribchester)

 All episodes available now.

TV THE STUDIO (Apple TV+)

Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg have, of course, grown up a lot since their screenwriting collaboration on Superbad in 2007. But even just a slight whiff of that juvenile mayhem would not have gone amiss in this often-sterile satire on the Hollywood machine. Unsurprisingly, Rogen takes top billing as Matt Remick, the newly appointed head of Continental Studios, a struggling behemoth that needs a major hit. Remick believes in cinema as art and is determined to create big-screen history in his new role through integrity and vision. Bummer for him, then, that his boss, Bryan Cranston’s Griffin Mill, takes the opposite view: ‘film’ is a dirty word and the bottom line is the top priority. Remick blunders through his opening days in the post, upsetting top directors (Martin Scorsese and Sarah Polley among them) and lying through his teeth to all and sundry in a bid to rescue himself while merely digging ever widening and increasingly deeper holes to fall into. You’ll never find yourself covering your eyes feeling cringe or despair as every move goes pretty much as you’d imagine it would. It’s not all bad news, though, with Kathryn Hahn, as per usual, being the best thing in everything she appears in (here as a permanently raging marketing exec) while Catherine O’Hara happily dials down any potential Moira-isms to play the mentor stabbed metaphorically in the back by her pupil when she is passed over for the top job.

The Studio is never a drag, it just fails to soar (and the constant celebrity cameos are either obvious or stale) while Rogen and co attempt to make an occasionally lacklustre script sizzle. There’s a real temptation to wonder how much more on-point it might have been with someone like Armando Iannucci or Jesse Armstrong guiding the project. The swearing would certainly be more creative. (Brian Donaldson)

 New episodes available every Wednesday.

ALBUMS SELF ESTEEM

A Complicated Woman (Polydor)

Rebecca Lucy Taylor’s dreams came true (sort of) when Prioritise Pleasure, her second album as Self Esteem, topped many a 2021 Album Of The Year list. A stint as Sally Bowles in Cabaret followed, along with another West End gig composing music for the Jodie Comer-starring production Prima Facie

Gobbling up these opportunities only made the day job of writing her third album harder and there is lyrical ambivalence throughout A Complicated Woman. Taylor is pictured on the sleeve in Puritan plaits, baring her teeth (or screaming?), but once again it does sound like she’s having fun while wrangling with lyrics musing on her public-figure status, mental health, burnout, what it takes to survive, wanting fame and then not being too fussed when she gets it.

‘I’m not complaining, I’m whinging in a new way’ she ruminates on opening track ‘I Do And Don’t Care’. ‘The Deep Blue Okay’ also captures a tension between the uplifting music and IRL shrug of the sentiments. Contrasts abound. ‘Mother’ is a Peaches-style prowling electro-pop takedown.

‘Cheers To Me’ is sparkling sweet-and-sour dance-pop with a potty mouth.

Taylor is joined by guest boss-ladies Nadine Shah, Sue Tompkins (of Glasgow’s Life Without Buildings) and Moonchild Sanelly, while the House Gospel Choir are also on hand to provide a devotional boost using some utterly ungodly language. An 11-piece all-female band will feature at her album launch shows, all the better to convey the bigger strings-laden sound here, like Florence & The Machine without the bombast. (Fiona Shepherd)

 Released on Friday 25 April.

BOOKS FRANCESCA SIMON Salka (Faber)



The literary market is currently in the grip of a fantasy-romance craze. Love, with a liberal dollop of magic, is all the rage. In the midst of this hype, Francesca Simon’s Salka refuses to follow the crowd: for better or worse. Adapted from her cantata The Faerie Bride, performed at Aldeburgh Festival in 2022 and drawing from the medieval Lady Of The Lake Welsh myth, Salka follows this titular character as she leaves the lands of faerie to join her beloved Owain in the human world.

There is, however, a single condition to their union: if Owain deals her three heart-blows, she must return to the lake forever. Despite a mutual infatuation, their relationship is strained by Owain’s hostile and insular community. Do not be deceived by the three-star rating here: Salka is sure to be polarising as it is a strange beast; lyrical but slow, experimental yet unexciting. Is it a love letter to the tradition of oral storytelling? Perhaps. Is it a misfire? Quite possibly.

Simon, in addition to retelling a medieval story, seeks to revive its form. And in doing so, she sacrifices many of the hallmarks of modern literature, namely psychological realism and fully realised characters. This is not necessarily a flaw: Salka is intentionally more akin to medieval poetry than modern prose and Simon chooses every word with intention, so beautifully does each sentence flow from the page.

Yet, for genre readers, fed on a diet rich in propulsive plot, complex characters and expansive world-building, Salka will fall short. For romance readers, expecting plenty of tension and drama, it may again fail to deliver. Perhaps in the hands of those accustomed to the cadence and lyricism of narrative poetry, and appreciative of Simon’s labour over each turn of phrase, Salka may find a home. (Eve Connor)  Published on Thursday 24 April.

TV of the month

CJoe Lycett’s new travelogue has tinges of Dave Gorman and a smattering of Louis Theroux but with added smut. Claire Sawers enjoys the Brummie’s camp cavorting around North America in search of all the Birminghams he can get his patterned mitts on

ontinuing the good work of Telly Savalas (who famously made an iconic 1981 promo video for Birmingham, despite never actually setting foot in the place), comedian Joe Lycett’s latest mission is to evangelise about his hometown, aka the UK’s second biggest city. It turns out there are 17 Birminghams in America plus one in Canada, so the camp activist/prankster-turned-painter sets off on a month-long road trip to try and visit them all, driven around in a big tour bus by a man called Randy (of course he is).

The city’s actual lord mayor endorses the expedition, even supplying a faux-serious NATO-style agreement for all the Birminghams to sign. ‘I feel just like Condoleezza Rice!’ squeals Lycett as he packs his suitcase. Laden with pork scratchings, Ryvita, police whistles and Barbara Cartland novels (all made in Birmingham, apparently), Lycett meets bat handlers, bacon enthusiasts and LARPers en route.

Cue jokes about Ozzy Osbourne and that bat-biting incident, weapon trivia (Birmingham has a long history of gun manufacturing, did you know), and innuendo about a town called Intercourse. As Lycett cavorts around the country, napping on his Cat Deeley cushion and blasting Duran Duran as he goes, we spot Amish residents travelling by horse and carriage, discover exactly why Margaret Thatcher once

autographed a hotdog bun in one of the American Birminghams, and learn about ‘Birminghamsters’: that’s Michigan speak for a Brummie.

The project brings to mind Dave Gorman’s ambitious America Unchained, with shades of Louis Theroux’s boyish questioning style, only more mischievous and smutty. Lycett slides in some socio-economic commentary among the seaside humour, striving to find American commonalities with Birmingham’s underdog, industrial character. The first couple of episodes veer toward the absurd and entertaining rather than hard-hitting political insight, Lycett playing it more as innocent bystander rather than probing investigator; for example, when he visits a gun shop and listens sagely as the shopkeeper talks about an 80-year-old woman from his bible-study group that was a recent customer.

It’s certainly fun watching Lycett prat around in colourful Irregular Sleep Pattern shirts and tie dye two-pieces, hearing him ask folks in a diner if they have heard of Alison Hammond, or spread the fake news that Richard Hammond is her brother. Joe Lycett is uniting the States of Birmingham, one Cadbury’s chocolate bar at a time.

Joe Lycett’s United States Of Birmingham starts on Sky Max, Tuesday 22 April.

GAMES ASSASSIN’S CREED SHADOWS (Ubisoft)

Last year, every one of Ubisoft’s major releases severely underperformed. As a result, the success or otherwise of Assassin’s Creed Shadows is now existential for the French publisher which has been around since 1986. Fortunately, this latest entry in the popular 18-year-old series is a captivating return to form. Set in a stunning evocation of late 16th-century Japan, the story is split between female shinobi Naoe, and Yasuke, a black samurai based on a historical character of the same name.

After a cutscene-heavy prologue, players take control of Naoe, a killer who must embrace the shadows while stealthily dispatching lone enemies. The tank-like Yasuke takes centre stage much later, at which point players can switch between the two. These divergent styles of play should help satisfy both stealth purists and those more in tune with the combat-heavy mechanics of recent entries such as Odyssey and Valhalla. Forced to play as Naoe for the first dozen or so hours makes Shadows a tough ordeal; when spotted, she’s easily outnumbered and ill-equipped to defend herself.

The game’s recreation of feudal Japan is packed with fascinating cultural touches and it’s outrageously picturesque at every turn. From mist-caressed hills to pastel lavender trees, the view is frequently jaw-dropping. And it’s no static backdrop; bushes bristle in the wind as blossom cascades across mountain paths, all while the seasons rotate every few hours (just like Scotland). With so much riding on its success, Ubisoft absolutely had to stick the landing with Shadows (it’s been delayed twice since last autumn). Despite a lacklustre and sometimes intrusive story, there’s just so much fun to be had exploring this beautiful world. (Murray Robertson)

 Out now on PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S.

ALBUMS

JOE LOVANO & MARCIN WASILEWSKI TRIO

Homage (ECM) 

The Scottish connection with this second album by one of America’s top saxophonists and Poland’s leading piano trio might at first seem tangential. Joe Lovano has worked with the Scottish National Jazz Orchestra and featured in fellow saxophonist Tommy Smith’s Evolution sextet, while Marcin Wasilewski and his long-time colleagues have visited Scotland as both trumpeter Tomasz Stanko’s rhythm section and as a highly accomplished, self-contained group.

Although composed by Polish violinist Zbigniew Seifert, opening track ‘Love In The Garden’ sounds as if Smith’s love for the late, great Glasgowborn saxophonist Bobby Wellins might have rubbed off on Lovano. This ballad-cum-tone poem is very reminiscent of Wellins in general, and of the specific mood he and pianist Stan Tracey created on ‘Starless And Bible Black’ from Tracey’s classic Under Milk Wood album.

There are other moments where Wellins springs to mind but that’s not to suggest anything derivative. Lovano and Wasilewski’s trio (bassist Slawomir Kurkiewicz and drummer Michal Miskiewicz deserve equal billing) have developed a great understanding and mutual confidence in exploring melodic and atmospheric possibilities. Lovano’s three longer compositions at the heart of the album produce consistent beauty. The insistent piano figure of ‘Golden Horn’ nudges the saxophonist into feathery, playfully probing lines. ‘Homage’ itself, with Lovano switching to the Hungarian tárogató with deep expression, is classic European quartet jazz, despite being recorded in New Jersey at the legendary Van Gelder Studio.

If the two further tracks, both short spontaneous improvisations, don’t add hugely to the album’s overall impact, there’s enough impressive playing (Wasilewski, fluent and imaginative; Kurkiewicz, muscular and present; Miskiewicz, economical but detailed) to suggest that a gig by Lovano and the trio would be a very worthwhile addition to our jazz calendar. (Rob Adams)

 Released on Friday 25 April.

smubla • albums •

ALBUMS ESSENCE MARTINS

Sleeping On It (FAE Music)

Essence Martins’ sophomore EP is a 20-minute shadowboxing session with her past self, as the young singer-songwriter grapples bravely with stinging feelings of regret and inadequacy. The release of Sleeping On It coincides with Martins’ 24th birthday, though the Londoner sounds weary beyond her years as she laments unbefitting exes and reprimands herself for the fateful times she didn’t listen to her own advice.

Proceedings open with ‘Mrs Right’, a melancholic track about watching the other half of a failed situationship move on, a feeling many of Martins’ Gen Z listenership will no doubt relate to. It was this opening track that earned Martins a co-sign from R&B icon Jill Scott, who recently showed her 2.4m Instagram followers a clip of the break-up ballad, captioned ‘I like to see it.’ Martins’ introspective nature shines on the aptly titled ‘Told Me So’ and it’s hard not to feel sympathetic as she pines for ‘a love who’s deserving’ on the radio-ready yearning anthem ‘Quiet & Perfect’.

Martins wears influences on her sleeve, having cited the likes of Leith Ross, Olivia Dean and Phoebe Bridgers as direct inspirations. On the titular track it sounds as though Martins could go toe-to-toe with any of those names, as she and producer Jules Konieczny find themselves in the pocket of an uplifting break-up track that wouldn’t sound out of place on a boygenius album. Not every song on this collection bears as much weight as the title track, though it’s hard not to be drawn in by Essence Martins’ knack for selfreflection. (Danny Munro)

 Released on Friday 4 April.

TV DREAMERS (Channel 4)

After she choked onstage last year, Puppy and the rest of the Chapeltown Collective dance crew are determined to make it to a national dance showcase, but they must balance dancing with their personal lives. Budding romances, substance abuse, troubled family lives, and competition between friends all threaten the dreams of these young people.

Dreamers has a clear love for Leeds, where it’s set and filmed. We follow Puppy through much of her daily life around the city, watching her work shifts at a local fast-food restaurant, going on nights out with her friends, and performing at community centres to raise money. This is an affectionate look at Leeds and the lives of working-class young people there. While that affection does make Dreamers an endearing show, it also makes it more slow-paced than it perhaps needs to be. Many of the central conflicts are not introduced until a few episodes in and, at only 20 minutes per episode, Dreamers doesn’t necessarily have the luxury of stopping to smell any roses.

You would hope that this leisurely speed would allow for more character-led moments, but they too feel a little flat. Puppy is quiet and unsure of herself, but not much else. Her best friend Koby is flamboyant and determined, but again those are his only two traits. The most interesting character is Puppy’s mum Erica who doubles as leader of Chapeltown Collective. She’s a supportive mother-figure but her own struggles with addiction and a relentless ambition mean she may not always have the teens’ best interests at heart.

Dreamers is, however, unique in its inclusion of contemporary dance routines, which help to set it apart from other coming-of-age dramas. Fans of dance will likely still enjoy the show for its choreography and a representation of one tight-knit collective united by a love of performing. (Isy Santini)

 All episodes available now.

OTHER THINGS WORTH STAYING IN FOR

A packed month of things to do indoors or consume on your travels include a theatrical Swedish rock outfit, a podcast about fighting back, the return of a beloved dystopian anthology series, and the grand finale of a long-running serial-killer drama

ALBUMS KILLS BIRDS

Kim Gordon reckons this Los Angeles band are ‘hot as fuck’ and who are we to argue? Their EP Crave includes a Pixies-inspired visualiser for track ‘Trace’ which acts as a tribute to some cute dogs. Again, awesome.

n Lucky Number, Friday 11 April.

GHOST

The Grammy-winning Swedish rock lords deliver Skeletá, their first full album since 2022 and which has the band now helmed by Papa V Perpetua. A perfect act for those souls who want to be ‘Satanized’.

n Loma Vista Recordings, Friday 25 April.

DBA!

This Merseyside threesome proudly present their debut EP Skip! Worried! which taps into Beck/ Eels/Elastica influences and features tunes which don’t hang around too much after the twominute mark.

n Digital release, Tuesday 29 April.

BOOKS

KIT DE WAAL

The Best Of Everything is a new novel from this acclaimed Birmingham-born author, portraying the love that can steal its way into people’s lives.

n Tinder Press, Thursday 10 April.

GAMES

CLAIR OBSCUR: EXPEDITION 33

It’s the moment you’ve been waiting for as you can lead the members of Expedition 33 on their quest to destroy the Paintress so she can never paint death again.

n Kepler Interactive, Thursday 24 April.

PODCASTS

RECLAIMING WITH MONICA LEWINSKY

She may be forever linked to that affair with US president no 42, but Lewinsky has done everything to reclaim her life. This podcast includes others who have made it their mission to turn it all around, such as Molly Ringwald and (is there anything he won’t do just now?) Alan Cumming.

n Wondery, new episodes every Tuesday.

TV BLACK MIRROR

We’ve reached the seventh set of Charlie Brooker and Annabel Jones’ tales of dystopia, dysfunction and disaster. Another almost impossibly starry line-up is in tow including Awkwafina, Peter Capaldi, Issa Rae and Harriet Walter.

n Netflix, Thursday 10 April.

YOUR

FRIENDS & NEIGHBOURS

Strap in as this new show has already been granted a second season. Jon Hamm plays Andrew Cooper who has just been fired in disgrace but is keen not to let his life go straight down the toilet. So he starts robbing from his rich neighbours. Naturally.

n Apple TV+, Friday 11 April.

YOU

The misadventures of Joe Goldberg (Penn Badgley) reach their denouement as everyone’s favourite fictional serial killer returns to New York in order to live out a peaceful life. No chance.

n Netflix, Friday 25 April.

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (and bottom from left), Kills Birds, Your Friends & Neighbours, Kit de Waal

THE Q& A WITH REBECCA VASMANT

Pioneering DJ/producer/label boss Rebecca Vasmant has a busy summer ahead with festival appearances, headline gigs and a second album. She takes on this Q&A to tell us about buying a horse, getting emotional about said horse, and hoping she’s reincarnated as, you guessed it, a horse

Who would you like to see playing you in the movie about your life? I would love to see my grandmother play me so that she could be back with us and see all of the things I have been doing since she’s been gone and hopefully make her proud.

What’s the punchline to your favourite joke? ‘The music industry is gender equal.’

If you were to return in a future life as an animal, what would it be? Definitely a horse. These beautiful animals feel so connected, deep and in tune with their own and other beings’ emotions and I would love to experience that through a horse’s eyes.

If you were playing in an escape room, name two other people you’d recruit to help you get out? I would recruit my best friend because she is always calm and clearthinking in a crisis, and my partner because he is the same. Plus, I trust both people with my life and know they would get us out of anything together as a team.

When was the last time you were mistaken for someone else and what were the circumstances? I have actually never been mistaken for someone else! I don’t quite know what that means; probably something deep but I’m not sure what.

What’s the best cover version ever? Bobby Womack’s version of ‘California Dreamin’’ by Barry McGuire.

Whose speaking voice soothes your ears? Has to be Erykah Badu.

Tell us something you wish you had discovered sooner in life? I wish I had discovered being kinder to myself sooner in life. That and the absolute joy of playing music to people as a DJ, because I started fairly late, around 22.

Describe your perfect Saturday evening? Playing a brilliant early-hours show, followed by an evening of being with every single person I love who are all in the same place at once.

If you were a ghost, who would you haunt? I’d definitely haunt all of the people I love, so that I could alter their realities and make everything amazing for them every day.

If you could relive any day of your life, which one would it be? I would relive every happy day I have ever had, because they’re all as special as the other days.

What’s your earliest recollection of winning something? I won a stuffed animal from a claw machine at a music festival which was around eight years ago. I’m not really sure I can remember winning anything else.

Did you have a nickname at school that you were ok with? And can you tell us a nickname you hated? I was called Rebs which I loved because it’s cute and only my friends called me that. I was also called Froggy because my dad is French which was mean.

If you were to start a tribute act to a band or singer, who would it be in tribute to? I would start a Nina Simone tribute.

When were you most recently astonished by something? Last time I ate cheese fondue or listened to any Sault music because both are equally astonishing experiences.

Tell us one thing about yourself that would surprise people? I own a horse called Peso.

When did you last cry? The day I bought Peso!

What tune do you find it impossible not to get up and dance to, whether in public or private? Anything that moves me emotionally and makes me feel happy.

Which famous person would be your ideal holiday companion? Any nice person who is also famous, so that we could have a cute time and make a great new friend from the holiday.

What’s the most hi-tech item in your home? My brain.

What’s a skill you’d love to learn but never got round to? Figure skating. I always thought it was beautiful but never built up the courage to try it.

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? None because I love all the rooms in my house, so would absolutely refuse.

If you were selected as the next 007, where would you pick as your first luxury destination for espionage? Glasgow, 100%. Glasgow is amazing and needs to be in a movie like that. I love it so much.

Rebecca Vasmant’s single Sun Song featuring Emilie Boyd is released on Thursday 3 April with new album Who We Are, Becoming released on Friday 9 May, both via Women In Jazz x New Soil; Rebecca Vasmant Ensemble plays Queen’s Park Spring Weekender, Glasgow, Saturday 3 May and Sneaky Pete’s, Edinburgh, Wednesday 14 May.

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Femi Kuti laid on a supreme gig at Celtic Connections earlier this year, and he’s back with a brand spanking new album Journey Through Life (out on 25 April). The Afrobeat star’s collection aims to pay humble tribute to his family, from iconic dad Fela down to his own children who have all followed him into the music business.

Just say no to vicious American and Russian state propaganda by supporting an innovative Scotland/Ukraine music hook-up. At Glasgow’s Glad Café (10 April), Sonica and Dnipro’s Construction Festival join forces to lay on an eclectic line-up featuring sound artists Khrystyna Kirik (pictured) and SHHE as well as genreblending collective Dali Muru & The Polyphonic Swarm.

Finally, a pop reunion that doesn’t totally feel like a cynical cash grab as Siobhán Donaghy, Mutya Buena and Keisha Buchanan take to the stadium circuit having just released a new single (their first since 2019) under their own label. Sugababes swagger into Glasgow’s OVO Hydro on 17 April.