Life is full of little oddities and coincidences. Putting together a magazine like this certainly throws up curiosities from time to time. Small example: we’ve put together a feature for this month on tattoos; while penning an unrelated piece on Larry Dean, our writer (without any coaching from me) mentions the comedian’s tattoo. Also in this issue, there are more references to Hearts and Hibs than all the last three years’ mags put together. There are two separate and unrelated mentions of Airdrie (the town not their football team though; that would just be taking things way too niche). You may spot your own doubles or trebles or uncanny synchronicities across the issue. What it all means is unclear.
What is certain is that we have the Glasgow comic Larry Dean on our cover. Though if he has his way, he’ll soon be the ‘US-based Glasgow comic Larry Dean’. He’s looking to move Stateside for reasons related to love and possibly Elvis Presley, but in our interview he also speaks out about the ‘small-man syndrome’ across his homeland as well as our occasional inability to laugh at ourselves.
Laughing is partly what this issue is about as we get immersed in the Glasgow International Comedy Festival (Dean is appearing at the usually not-comedy setting of Barrowlands) by asking a bunch of acts about their favourite words and chatting to rising star Pravanya Pillay. Not part of the festival but still quite hilarious is our back-page Q&A from the one and only Chief Commissioner Cameron Miekelson. Some of his answers may shock you but remember, it’s just a character talking. It’s Jack Docherty. Pretending to be a top cop. It’ll be fine. And then there are those tattoos. We ask a select number of Scottish creatives about their own favourite inking, and explore this still overwhelmingly white-male world to find out if more inclusive strides are being made. Elsewhere, we visit such far-flung locations as Thailand and Stockbridge, get very excited about the stage version of cult movie Wild Rose, feel the shivers go up as well as down our spines with Ghost Stories, revel in the silent-movie past of HippFest, and analyse the career of 20th-century playwriting behemoth Arthur Miller. Not one but two of his works are being staged in Scotland this month. Which is weird.
Brian Donaldson EDITOR
Friers
Donaldson
Southam
McLean
Laidlaw
Merino
Isabella Dalliston
Ailsa Sheldon, Brian Donaldson, Claire Sawers, Craig McLean, Danny Munro, Dominic Corr, Eddie Harrison, Emma Simmonds, Eve Connor, Fiona Shepherd, Greg Thomas, Isy Santini, James Mottram, Jay Richardson, Jay Thundercliffe, Jo Laidlaw, Kelly Apter, Kevin Fullerton, Louise Holland, Marcas Mac an Tuairneir, Megan Merino, Miranda Heggie, Murray Robertson, Neil Cooper, Paul Dale, Rachael Fulton, Rachel Ashenden, Rachel Morrell, Rob Adams, Stewart Smith
Edinburgh
front
Smouthpiece
moke fills the boardroom as the sputtering Texan men gnaw on their cigars. A demon at the head of the table (face pockmarked, belly festooning over his too-tight trousers) declares ‘folks, we’re at a loss on celebrity alcohols. We’ve tried Dolly Parton’s Pina Dolladas, Rihanna’s Bitch Better Have My Moët, and Bob Dylan’s The Limes They Are A-Changin’ special edition Coronas. But nothing works. We need someone bigger. Wait, no, smaller. We need the element of surprise.’
Slamming his fist on a table, a lone middle-aged Scottish man spits out his cancer pole and yelps ‘Travis! I’ve said it over and over again! Travis need their own craft beer! I, as a proud Scottish man, demand it!’
‘Yeehaw,’ says the man at the head of the table (remember, he’s Texan), ‘I do declare, we’ve found ourselves a winner!’
The above scene almost certainly bears no relation to Travis’ foray into beer production, but it’s as reasonable an explanation as any for the existence of their brand-new session lager Raze The Bar. It was produced in collaboration with Signature Brew, a company which claims to make ‘beer that makes music better’. Enough cans may even make ‘Driftwood’ listenable.
Who knows how big Raze The Bar will be. Perhaps one day Travis will find their beer stocked at a festival they’re headlining and can enjoy the questionable pleasure of having it lobbed at them by a drunk fan, their own creation frying their expensive amps as Fran Healy intones ‘Why Does It
Fancy a pint? You’re in luck: our regular opinion chugger Kevin Fullerton is returning to his roots as a drinks journalist and scratching his head over Travis and Del Amitri’s move into branded alcohols
Always Rain On Me?’ And they’re not the only veterans of Scottish soft rock to dive guitar-first into a vat of the world’s leading depressant. The staunchly inoffensive Del Amitri have announced a special edition whisky which a press release describes as a ‘vibrant, almost-pink liquid’, making it sound more like an off-brand sports shampoo than a luxury spirit. The band apparently spent ‘a year tasting whiskies’ before creating their own, in one of the most gentlemanly synonyms for burgeoning alcoholism I’ve ever come across.
How have we found ourselves in this strange world of Edinburgh Castle-fillers shilling for booze companies? As ever, the answer points towards a music industry that’s heaving its dying breaths, with Spotify having taken a meat cleaver to the concept of album sales. Meanwhile, both Kate Nash and Lily Allen have logged onto OnlyFans to sling pictures of their fleshy bits and make a point about the lack of money in touring.
It used to be a known cliché that when a superstar musician hit a period of creative decline, they spent more time in meeting rooms than recording studios, ferrying their revenue from one country to the next before the taxman caught up with them. These were bands drowning in lucre, but now even middling acts are forced to perpetually diversify their income streams, focusing energies on merch more than tunes. They need the cash and we give them diddly. So, if you’re desperate to hear Travis’ new album, remember to pay up. It’ll keep them in beer money.
March has arrived, so time to reflect on some M words, kicking off with a double points score for Miriam Margolyes. The comic veteran (who would no doubt be miffed at being dubbed in such a way) has just been announced as returning to the Edinburgh Fringe for further Dickens-shaped shenanigans. MediCinema , the British charity dedicated to improving the wellbeing of NHS patients through the power of film, received a BAFTA, and Massive Attack are putting on a summer gig which will be 100% battery powered. Mansplaining is back in vogue with the re-publication of Rebecca Solnit’s essay Men Explain Things To Me which first coined the term. For all you ladies out there, mansplaining is when a man explains to a woman something that she is perfectly well aware of already, thanks.
PlayList
Winter’s end is almost in sight, so put a spring in your step with our latestissue soundtrack. Hear songs by Scottish artists such as Sacred Paws, Nati, Racecar and Peter Capaldi as well as top tunes from the likes of Lucy Dacus, Jessie Buckley and The Clash
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 March 1995, a Hollywood star-studded issue of The List hit the streets. Jodie Foster appeared on the cover for her role in Nell, for which she received her fourth Oscar nomination, while Robert Redford discussed his latest film Quiz Show, a retelling of the Twenty-One TV scandal of the 1950s. Elsewhere, Stephen Fry told us about his appearance in new American romcom IQ (an unlikely reverse foreshadowing of QI) and sax maestro Tommy Smith was busy setting up Scotland’s first permanent jazz school.
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 cultural artefacts that touch their heart and soul. This time around, Greg Thomas tells us which things . . .
Made me cry: I was disarmed by Cillian Murphy’s portrayal of Bill Furlong in the film version of Claire Keegan’s Small Things Like These. We could do with more representations of white masculinity as gentle and empathetic within mainstream culture.
Made me angry: The capitulation of the tech bros to Trump’s authoritarian agenda was particularly brain-melting. The removal of fact-checking on Meta will no doubt birth new horrors in the manosphere before too long.
Made me laugh: I went to see an evening of performance art and experimental music at The Old Hairdresser’s the other night. The improv/ noise scene is sometimes viewed as a bit po-faced and devoid of humour, but this was a delight. As well as a great performance from Rotter Otter, the artist David Sherry delivered a side-splitting series of ‘big statements’ on art and culture, periodically rolling around on the floor and buttering his sleeves with margarine. The Bohman Brothers’ set centred on an imaginary invasion of man-eating woodlice. I haven’t laughed so hard in months.
Made me think: An exhibition of installation, photography and video by the Scottish-Ghanaian artist Maud Sulter at Tramway. I always thought of Sulter as a poet, but there’s so much to her practice that I wasn’t aware of.
Made me think twice: I remain a David Lynch agnostic but the outpouring of love and sadness over his death has made me think I must be missing something.
Skin up
People get tattoos for a myriad of reasons, and as a means of self-expression there’s no better way to outwardly declare your identity. But what happens when things get dark in an otherwise progressive environment? As Rachel Ashenden discovers, marginalised communities are fighting back to push tattooing culture towards a more inclusive future
Few places embodied the old-school ethos of tattooing quite like Terry’s Tattoo Studio in Glasgow which, to the great sadness of many, closed its doors in 2024 following four decades of business. Once helmed by the legendary Terry Wrigley, the studio was a haven for walk-ins seeking ink of any style imaginable. Whether you craved your soon-to-be ex’s name in calligraphy, sweeping Japanese motifs or hyper-realistic portraits of your dog or dad, Terry’s was the place to go.
During Terry’s heyday, the tattoo landscape was far more territorial than we know it today; the rule was to never set up a shop within ten miles of a fellow artist. The closure of such an iconic establishment runs alongside a wider transformation in a booming tattoo industry, where studios can be found on practically every street corner.
What was once a walk-in affair has evolved into a highly specialised, social media-driven landscape, where clients seek out tattooists for a particular style or design and can wait months, even years, for muchcoveted spots. A recent YouGov survey revealed that one in four of the British public now have a tattoo. With its stigmatised association with criminality and societal deviance fast eroding, Gen Z and millennials are leading the charge in embracing tattoos in a way that previous generations could not or did not want to.
A surging demand for inky declarations of bodily autonomy (particularly for those whose bodies have been marginalised) has fuelled calls for systemic reform within the industry. The tattoo world faced its own #MeToo moment during the pandemic, as survivors’ stories exposed widespread sexual misconduct. Many harrowing accounts revealed male tattooists exploiting their power over vulnerable clients under the needle, with inappropriate behaviour in studios often left unchecked or even ignored. In the wake of this ethical reckoning, there is a growing push to dismantle tattooing’s patriarchal hierarchy, in turn creating safer, more inclusive environments where clients and artists can express their identities freely.
Girl Club. That year was significant for Fidjit as it marked the end of an abusive relationship with another tattooist. Inspired by the life and legacy of Virginia Woolf, the original drowning-girl design represented someone ‘keeping their head above water’ in the face of adversity. To her surprise, demand for the tattoo quickly snowballed. Under her needle, clients shared personal stories, revealing the tattoo’s resonance with themes of survival after sexual assault, domestic violence and mentalhealth struggles.
Amid the cultural shift stands Fidjit Mac, a Glasgow-based tattooist who works with illustrative and clean-black compositions. In 2015, Fidjit inked a face half-submerged in water on a client: a tattoo that would later come to define her work and inspire a community called the Drowning
‘What started as a deeply personal symbol for me has evolved into something far removed from its original meaning,’ Fidjit reflects. On the tenth anniversary of the Drowning Girl Club, she isn’t sure about the exact number of members, but it’s certainly over 4000 people. Friendships and even romantic connections have blossomed between strangers who recognise the tattoo on each other’s bodies: a visible sign of safety and solidarity in a culture that predominantly silences survivors.
As a survivor herself, Fidjit finds fulfilment in supporting clients reclaim an inch of power and regain confidence through tattooing. They leave the studio with a renewed sense of owning their bodies, carrying with them a physical declaration of healing. Each year, Fidjit hosts marathon flash tattoo events to raise funds for Rape Crisis Scotland.
She also uses her platform to support the End Not Proven campaign, which seeks to abolish the controversial Scottish verdict that has denied justice to many survivors of sexual assault. Among the most touching of stories shared by clients is the brother of Miss M, the first woman to successfully sue her rapist following a not-proven outcome. He now bears two Drowning Girl tattoos: one traditional and another wearing diving gear, symbolising his sister’s strength in the face of unimaginable trauma.
Also in Glasgow, Charissa Gregson, owner of Shadow Work Tattoos, has been a vocal advocate for inclusivity and representation in the industry. Having worked in tattooing for half her life, and having honed a neo-traditional style, Gregson speaks openly about challenges faced by black and POC clients. ‘I find it bizarre that in 2025, people are being turned away because artists can’t deal with their skin tone,’ she laments.
‘It’s a boldness to just say “I don’t care to learn”. People assume that because tattooing is an alternative environment, everyone is progressive and inclusive. But it’s just like any other space: unless people have actively examined their biases, those same prejudices persist.’
Gregson urges the tattooing community to learn how to work with a spectrum of skin tones, expressing that the default canvas shouldn’t be white skin. Simultaneously, she recognises that, for the client, it can be a great source of comfort to be tattooed by someone with shared lived experiences, given that the process requires physical vulnerability.
Shadow Work Tattoos is one of many studios in Scotland that proudly foster proactively inclusive environments for LGBTQ+ clients. Similarly, the recently opened Soft Soul Studio in Edinburgh offers a traumainformed, holistic space that combines tattooing and reiki. Over in Glasgow, Stephen Speirs couldn’t fathom the idea of being an openly gay tattooist when he started his apprenticeship 20 years ago. With no queer role models around to guide him through the industry, his identity and work felt like an impossibility. Perhaps shaped by that experience, Speirs’ studio, Deviltown Tattoo, now actively strives to create a safe and welcoming space for non-binary and trans clients.
For artists such as Charlie (@c.h.arl on Instagram), a young apprentice at Dark Crow Tattoo in Glasgow, tattooing and queerness are fundamentally intertwined. Acknowledging that older LGBTQ+ tattooists have paved the way for him to express his identity freely, Charlie has wholeheartedly embraced queer-coded imagery in his work. One of his most popular designs is the carabiner, a significant symbol among queer women and the transmasculine community, with its meaning shifting depending on whether it’s worn on the left or right side of trousers. This creative reclamation echoes the long history of coded symbols in queer tattooing. Just as carabiners signify identities among certain parts of LGBTQ+ culture today, earlier generations reclaimed motifs like pink triangles, lavender flowers and nautical designs as declarations of queerness. Through his work, Charlie continues this legacy, reshaping powerful emblems of resilience, identity and pride.
We get inked to outwardly signify who we are, what we stand for and who or what we love. As Charissa Gregson recommends, there’s no better way to relish the vibrancy of tattoo culture than by attending an event with like-minded souls. Later this month, the 12th International Scottish Tattoo Convention returns to Edinburgh’s O2 Academy, bringing together approximately 200 artists from around the globe to showcase their craft as a defiant medium for self-expression. Our bodies tell stories, and tattoos are a permanent way to narrate experiences that are more than skin deep.
Fidjit Mac
Charissa Gregson
my tattoo story
We spoke to a number of Scottish creatives and asked them about a tat that is close to their heart
I think of my tattoos as an art collection, and my favourite thing about them isn’t any one in isolation but the mishmash of different styles tapestried together into one big skinsuit. I describe them as consistently inconsistent; they’re random souvenirs from past stages of life, people I’ve met and places I’ve been. But, if you forced me to pick a favourite, I’d choose the calligraphic pieces that wrap around my shoulder blades. They just fit so perfectly in that spot. They were done by Jack Landless at Dagren Tattoo in Dunfermline.
My old pal King Creosote kindly reminds me that I used to hate tattoos. He had one done (a banjo, no less) in the mid-1990s and apparently I sneered at him for it. A few years later, however, I went under the gun myself and was inked at Hanky Panky in Amsterdam. Allegedly, Slipknot had been in the day before, which made me chuckle. A rather painful back piece was then chiselled, oozing blood and plasma. My long-suffering brother had to sheepishly wipe it down that night. I swore it would remain my only tattoo. Yet 26 years later, most of my upper body is now covered. As many others will attest, tattoos become something of an addiction, with symmetry a crucial factor. It still hurts every time though. The most personal is my chest piece: a gaudy, garish and gory Sacred Heart which is dedicated to my dearly departed mother, a devout Catholic who loved religious iconography. She wouldn’t thank me for it, however. She hated tattoos . . .
Rachel Ashenden, arts journalist
After my tenth tattoo, I gave up on the need to justify the ink on my skin with deep symbolic significance. This cowboy cat, complete with chaps and a silly little whip, is my 11th. But now that I’m thinking about it, this one might represent my maturing attitude towards my body: it is mine to decorate and embellish however I see fit, and I’m not looking for permission anymore.
Amelia Bayler, comedian/podcaster
I love getting tattoos. I love the buzz from the anticipation beforehand and the buzz during and afterwards. It’s no coincidence that the amount of tattoos I got increased rapidly once I got sober. My only escapism now is tattoos (plus crisps and binge-watching TV dramas). Some favourite tats of mine include matching ones on my thighs (one that says ‘crisps’ inside a love heart and a matching one that says ‘dips’) and a simple one on my upper arm that says ‘hot bitch.’ My fave ever is definitely a tiger on my forearm by an amazing artist called Yussuf whose style is very traditional with thick black lines. I love how my tiger looks like it has places to be. He’s my inspiration.
John Tamburrini, guitarist with Bottle Rockets
I’ve always liked the idea of being covered in tattoos, having my whole body as a canvas. Only my first ever tattoo was especially meaningful, just so my parents wouldn’t be too mad at me. From then on, I simply got what I thought was cool. A lot of the imagery is quite dark and gothic which is not really a reflection on my personality. It’s hard to have a favourite because it can always change but for the moment it’s probably the lady getting the necklace wrapped around her neck by the skeleton; it reminds me of something you’d see in a Tim Burton movie.
Poppy Apter, theatre/film/TV casting assistant
It may not be the favourite of my ten tattoos, but the best tattoo story belongs to the Hello Kitty on the back of my neck. It was my first tattoo and a bold placement choice for a first-timer; having a tattoo gun aimed at the back of my head was certainly an experience. I got it during my first month of drama school when I was 19, matching with a girl I’d just met. We thought we’d become close friends, but it didn’t quite work out. Now she lives in America, and I’ll probably never see her again. But we’re forever bound by a fictional, anthropomorphised cat.
PICTURE: RACHEL ROAMS
I might just go back into the closet for a while “
Kicking off our Glasgow International Comedy Festival coverage, local hero Larry Dean strides into town for a bigtime gig at Barrowlands. The comic reveals to Jay Richardson his apprehension about performing at such an iconic venue, why the Scots find it difficult to laugh at themselves, and the reasons behind his proposed move to America
Whenever he can, Larry Dean indulges in what stand-ups call ‘vicaring’ before a show (or at least the Catholic equivalent), by greeting his audience at the door. An unexpected smile is a ‘win-win’ which lifts everybody’s mood (his own included), the engaging Glaswegian suggests, and laying the groundwork for crowd interaction. When we meet for a cup of tea in the city centre, he apologises for running late: diary confusion. He’s not the eagerto-entertain, physically spasmodic Dean, intensely baring his soul on stage, literally disco dancing as he trauma-dumps during one memorable routine. But he is thoughtful and measured, and no less forthcoming, opening up about some difficult experiences.
Still, it’s surprising to hear that the triple Edinburgh Comedy Awardnominee is dreading bringing his show, Dodger, to the Barrowland Ballroom, a Glasgow institution that he’s wanted to perform in since attending music gigs there in his teens. As a once disruptive, problem schoolkid, the 35-year-old is usually only concerned with finding former teachers at his hometown gigs. But the iconic venue has a frighteningly wide stage, and he figures it’ll likely be the most chaotic gig of his tour, certainly the loosest. ‘I’ve not seen many comics put a show on at Barrowlands,’ he notes, ‘and I might just find out why.’
Truth be told, Dean ‘hates’ performing in Glasgow. ‘I get so worried that somebody will take something wrong,’ he admits. ‘It’s like a village. Everyone talks to each other. And news spreads quickly. Being Catholic, most people in this city are my third cousin. I have to explain to my family that I give my Nanny a weird voice because if I did her real voice for the whole tour I’d go mad. My best shows are ones where I haven’t compartmentalised reality. But I’d be hanging from a tree if I was doing that every night. Somehow, getting my Nanny’s voice wrong is worse for my relatives than me talking about masturbating in front of 1500 people.’ The gay comedian (who came out to audiences before his family) reasons ‘that if they’re not happy about it, at least the Frog & Bucket were impressed.’
In mitigation though, and with considerable ‘cringe’ for him, his father once supportively told him that one of his favourite routines was his son confessing to finding his dad’s cuckoldry a turn-on. Dean smiles, weakly. ‘He pronounced it “cuch-hol-did”. Like it’s a rural Scottish village.’ He reckons he’s funniest when he’s at his most insecure. Candidness is empowering, allowing him ‘to own my own business’ before others can attack him with it. Nevertheless, outside of short club spots, Dean has quit announcing himself as gay, taking his friend and fellow comic Sofie Hagen’s advice to simply allude to his boyfriend and let the crowd join the dots.
‘Everyone who’s liberal will do the most powerful thing a liberal can do,’ he grins. ‘Pat themselves on the back and think “yeah, and I’m ok with that”. You’ve already won because they leave feeling good about themselves.’ Not everyone is onboard. Or as smug. Some online commentators, perhaps in denial about what they’re feeding their algorithms, protest that he’s constantly referencing his sexuality, when in reality ‘it’s maybe one clip in 20.’ As an act who aspires to observational relatability, this frustrates him given that he’s less camp than, for example, Michael McIntyre or Hal Cruttenden. Yet by being ‘straight-passing,’ he
can turn it to his advantage. ‘Would McIntyre be seen as an everyman if he was talking about his husband?’ he wonders. ‘I might just go back into the closet for a while, see how that works. Then I’ll come back out again. It’s nice to be able to play with it.’
His recent Royal Variety Performance debut was generally well received, both in the room and on television. But he’s irked that one of his signature physical bits, a brilliant routine about the way in which different nationalities smile, seems to have offended some Scottish viewers. ‘There’s this feeling that making fun of Scotland to an English audience is traitorous for those that think Scotland is the only country worth living in,’ he laments. ‘I just think we have smallman syndrome sometimes and these people hold us back. We’re known for our sense of humour; we’re known for Billy Connolly, Frankie Boyle and Kevin Bridges. But we sometimes find it really difficult to laugh at ourselves.’
Processing grief and the passing of his beloved grandmothers, his current show Dodger follows Dean’s 2022 work Fudnut, about the death of his director and friend Paul Byrne. Going further, it’s also about a troubled childhood relationship with his mother. ‘That’s kind of the deep-seated stuff, the weird first part of my life. But as I say in the show, that’s why I got so close to my grandmothers. Because if you’re missing something from your childhood, kids will fill it in some way.’
His most recently deceased ‘daftie’ Nanny directly inspired his love of comedy and horror films, reflected in the tattoo he unveils in the show, the often gruesome, gurning faces he deploys, and the creepy images and motifs that understatedly slid into Dodger. With former stand-up Jim Campbell as Dean’s new director and chief sounding board for jokes, his erstwhile Edinburgh Fringe flatmate Hagen helped with pacing the narrative: ‘Sofie’s way more in touch with her emotions than I am.’
The Danish comic advised him to worry less about the quantity of gags and more about giving his existing ones space to breathe. He cites The Exorcist as a storytelling template for taking your time, carefully building tension. ‘I think of jokes as being like jump scares; they’re surprises. I want my show to make the audience care and listen. The more I can push that, the funnier it’ll get. And it ought to be hilarious by the end. Obviously, that’s hard to achieve though. Especially in the UK because we’re so pessimistic.’
Throw in a recent diagnosis of high-functioning autism, and it’s clear that Dean has plenty to psychologically draw from. And yet the animated, snake-hipped performer, who credits both Elvis Presley and Jim Carrey’s larger-than-life turn in The Mask as formative influences (inspiring his expressive facial contortions and bodily jerks, ‘adding sprinkles’ to punchlines) appears quite self-contained and content. He recently made his feature acting debut in the romcom This Time Next Year as Hamish, a lovelorn, enduringly romantic London bus driver: ‘it was fun, pretending to give a crap about a relationship I had years ago, which is so not me.’
And in June he’ll marry his partner, the English actor and fellow Presley-obsessive Mikey Crump. Having just come back from a pilgrimage to Graceland, they could return for their honeymoon and would uproot to Memphis if it ‘wasn’t one of the most dangerous cities in America. What you save on rent, you spend on guns and dogs.’ Compromising, if they can acquire visas, they’re leaving for New York or Los Angeles by the end of the year. ‘We’re told that they like the Scottish and English there,’ he observes. ‘So it’ll be nice to potentially have a bit of an advantage. Assuming they can understand my accent . . . ’
Larry Dean performs Dodger at Barrowland, Glasgow, Sunday 16 March.
LARRY
SOUNDS FUNNY
CONNOR BURNS
These Glasgow Comedy Festival folk work with them all the time. But of all the words that have ever been said out loud, which one makes them giggle the most?
I absolutely love the word glaikit. I’ve been called it my whole life by my family and it just perfectly sums up what it is. A glaikit face is just that: void of expression and a bit daft looking.
King’s Theatre, Friday 14 & Saturday 15 March.
AMANDA DWYER
My favourite funny word is shenanigans. I can’t even really pinpoint why; it just makes me smile when I hear other people use it and I love using it to describe anything my cat gets up to. Like he’s eaten a plastic bag and he needs an emergency vet appointment and I’ll say to the vet ‘oh, he’s been up to all sorts of shenanigans.’ And then we’ll laugh and laugh, until I have to pay when leaving.
Van Winkle West End, Saturday 15 March.
JIN HAO LI
Obenrusk. It means smellier than smelly. The full scale goes smelly, rancid, putrid, gunquant, trasmus, blümengaark, registimus-tre-lacard, obenrusk. Example sentence: ‘Darius, this spoilt milk is bloody obenrusk! Throw it out before we divorce!’ Divorce is quite funny too, very forceful. If you get divorced you have to mean it.
The Old Hairdresser’s, Friday 21 March.
MARK NELSON
For me, the funniest word is bawbag. It’s such a wonderfully emotive, descriptive and disparaging word, and creates an immediate image. Whereas other Scottish insults can often also be terms of endearment, there is no ambiguity about a bawbag.
Blackfriars, Friday 21 March.
JAY LAFFERTY
Scots are masters of a funny word. We are especially smashing at coming up with words to describe someone who has done something stupid. The English might say fool; or if they’re feeling mean, idiot. Scots can take our pick: walloper, dafty, rocket, numpty, dunderhead, or the gold-star standard: eejit! There is no better word to spit oot when you’re in a rage. Also though, there’s jobbie, a word that Billy Connolly made famous the world over. It’s a fabulous descriptive word that can be deployed to describe a situation, a feeling, a poo and a person. It’s a top insult. Far worse than being called a shit is hearing ‘see him? He’s a wee jobbie!’
The Stand, Saturday 22 March.
JOHN TOTHILL
If I’m having an argument with someone and they bring out a moreover, that’s the end of the conversation. Moreover?! Ok, John Bercow. What a stupid little word. If moreover was a person, he’d be a 15-year-old who runs Debating Club. Or, I suppose, an Eastern European heiress: ‘have you met my beautiful daughter, Morova?’
The Old Hairdresser’s, Sunday 23 March.
SCOTT AGNEW
Cow became a favourite at a gay after-party in my flat circa 2005. As the sun rose and booze ran out, a hairdresser kept the party going by drinking my aftershave. To assert his good moral character, he spent the morning shrieking ‘I am 35 years old and I have never been a cow!’
Blackfriars, Thursday 27 March.
SUSAN HARRISON
Balls. It’s got a double meaning, it can be used as an expletive, or a description of (let’s face it) a comical part of the body. And of course, as anyone who’s ever doodled on a foggy window knows, it’s one half of the famous word double-act Cock And . . . But then there’s also lettuce. It’s a floppy word which is fun to say and although it might not look like much on the page (or in the fridge), the humble lettuce shouldn’t be underestimated. It once outlasted a prime minister after all.
The Old Hairdresser’s, Friday 28 March.
PETER RETHINASAMAY
Fuksheet. The fuksheet is the sail on a boat. And you attach it to the fukmast. The editor of this magazine will probably not want to use this as they will think I am swearing, but I am not: it’s an actual word. My funniest word. Come to my show please and we will have a fucking good time.
The Old Hairdresser’s, Saturday 29 March.
Not lost for words (clockwise from top right): Scott Agnew, Jay Lafferty, John Tothill, Susan Harrison, Amanda Dwyer, Jin Hao Li, Connor Burns, Mark Nelson, Peter Rethinasamay
Rising star Pravanya Pillay’s fascination with the Iraq War and New Labour somewhat surprisingly played into her decision to ditch medicine for comedy. She tells Jay Richardson what a Glasgow audience can expect from her surrealism-tinged debut
Pravanya Pillay has supported Sophie Duker and Olga Koch on tour, the latter calling her ‘very, very funny’ and ‘the most fashionable person I know.’ And London-based Pillay certainly has a pretty radical new look in mind for her Glasgow International Comedy Festival debut. ‘I love cycling because I feel like a vehicle: invincible,’ she explains. ‘I’m braver, taking risks I wouldn’t elsewhere. I was thinking “oh, this is so great. Imagine if I never had to get off? If I was attached to the bike, like a Bike Centaur?” It’s about wanting to escape. And saying the weird thing in your head out loud.’
Currently a work-in-progress show, Pillay anticipates Bike Centaur pulling out into the traffic of the Edinburgh Fringe in 2026. The 30-year-old has already notched some impressive accolades from her three years of stand-up, including finishing third in So You Think You’re Funny? and being nominated for Channel 4’s Sean Lock Award and Chortle’s Best Newcomer. Television spots include Rhod Gilbert’s Growing Pains and shooting a stand-up set for the BBC’s Asian Network Comedy in Glasgow, alongside a string of Radio 4 writing credits.
Pillay was struggling with a medical degree in Bristol when she became obsessed with old Daily Show videos about the Iraq War. Running through her anecdotes, heightened with surrealist touches, is a preoccupation with New Labour too. ‘We’re all Labour in my family, quite politically engaged, and I’m interested in post-World War II British politics in general. For my cousins, who are ten, 15 years older, 1997 was a romantic time, a dawn of new hope. But I’m fascinated by electoral spin, the messaging behind it. And with Iraq, the fall from grace was pretty sharp.’
Despite the Daily Show influence, Pillay hasn’t gone down the satire route, realising it isn’t really her scene. ‘But I’m really interested in that time period; it’s deep in the mix of stuff I’m pushing right now to see what fits.’
5 More Shows To See
MARJOLEIN ROBERTSON
The Shetlander is a busy bee this festival, with the final part of her Folktales trilogy at The Flying Duck while Òran Mór hosts O, her no-holds barred show about the body and ill-health. Ideal for those who missed it first time around or want to sample its joys again.
Having stormed the Edinburgh Fringe to nab last year’s Best Newcomer Award, Kent-Walters slaps the white paint back on his face to transform once more into Frankie Monroe, the showbizsaving owner of The Misty Moon working men’s club in deepest, darkest Rotherham.
The Stand, Wednesday 19 March.
On your bike
JAMALI MADDIX
Penetrating and potent analyses of modern Britain and its political and social environs are the least we can expect from Maddix these days. Hot crowd work and waterfalls of gags are a delightful bonus.
Òran Mór, Friday 21 March.
AN AFTERNOON FOR JANEY
To say that this will be a highly emotional event is a huge understatement. The death of Janey Godley has left a void in Scottish comedy, but today a little bit of it will be filled with sets from those close to her plus a screening of the Janey documentary.
King’s Theatre, Sunday 23 March.
WATCHING BAD MOVIES WITH GREAT COMEDIANS
There may well be no greater joy at GCF than witnessing some comics tearing apart the most loathed movies of the 1990s. Billy Kirkwood, Kate Hammer (pictured) and Rick Molland are among the wags ripping into the likes of Batman & Robin and Troll 2.
GFT, Tuesday 25 March.
Pravanya Pillay performs Bike Centaur at Riding Room, Glasgow, Sunday 16 March.
There is a country song for humaneveryemotion and experience “
Wild Rose, the story of an aspiring Glaswegian country singer, is already a successful film and now looks set to become a hit stage musical. As opening night approaches, Claire Sawers talks to writer Nicole Taylor and star Dawn Sievewright about the emotional intensity of country music, creating an unofficial anthem for Glasgow, and the buzz of learning new skills
Nicole Taylor remembers the ‘big bang’ moment when her love of country music grew into a full-blown obsession. ‘Country music has been everything to me since I was about 12,’ says the Scottish screenwriter. ‘Growing up I remember my dad would put on Patsy Cline or Brenda Lee tapes in the car. I was up late one night and the Country Music Association Awards were on TV. Mary Chapin Carpenter was singing “He Thinks He’ll Keep Her” and that song just did something to me. It’s about a woman not satisfied in her marriage. It was like an entire movie, someone’s whole life story in three minutes. Yesterday I listened to a beautiful country song called “Casseroles” about grief, or another amazing one, “Bottle By My Bed”, about infertility. There is a country song for every human emotion and experience. The storytelling is phenomenal. Country music is so direct, so unpretentious; that’s what I love about it.’
Twenty years after her Mary Chapin Carpenter epiphany, when Taylor was just starting out as a screenwriter, her passion project was commissioned: the film script for Wild Rose. Irish actress Jessie Buckley went on to star as Rose-Lynn Harlan, a young Glaswegian mum fresh out of jail and obsessed with making it to Nashville as a country singer. Brummie legend Julie Walters played her sceptical mother, fed up of hearing about her daughter’s pipe dreams. That 2018 film won three Scottish BAFTAs including Best Writer for Taylor. The film’s soundtrack went to number one in the UK Country Albums Chart and its grand-finale moment is the song ‘Glasgow (No Place Like Home)’, co-written by Oscar-winning Hollywood star Mary Steenburgen. That song has since become a pub karaoke classic, often accompanied by floods of tears.
‘I love that “Glasgow” has become this unofficial anthem,’ beams Taylor. ‘Also, a lot of Glaswegian women have come up to me and said “my mince is your mince”’, she adds, referring to a lowkey yet potent scene in the film where Rose-Lynn tells her mum their mince and tattie recipes are indistinguishable. ‘It’s basically Glaswegian for “I love you” but they are too emotionally repressed to say it. I love that people love that line.’
Now, a brand-new musical based on the film is coming to the Lyceum in Edinburgh. Tickets flew out the box office so fast they had to add another fortnight of shows to meet demand. ‘It’s cheesy to say, but I still have the air of a competition winner about me,’ Taylor admits with a laugh. She’s backstage at the Lyceum on a break from rehearsals, visibly buzzing. It’s the first time she has written for theatre and while she says she doesn’t always ‘know the grammar’ (‘I mean, how do I do a closeup?’ she muses), she’s enjoying learning a new process.
‘I just remember burning with this idea all those years ago; this was a time long before Taylor Swift, when country music was still so nerdy and no one was interested. From the get-go I wanted it to be a film, and I also knew I wanted it to become a stage play.’ Unlike TV (Taylor wrote Three Girls for the BBC, the harrowing, BAFTA-winning true story of a Rochdale sex-abuse ring, and was lead writer on Netflix smash One Day), theatre allows for live tweaks from the writer. ‘I feel electrified by the whole process. It’s not like being stuck at home with a scene; now I can workshop lines with the actors. I can hear them on stage making the lines their own. It’s a very dynamic process.’
Glasgow actor Dawn Sievewright will be playing Rose-Lynn while Blythe Duff takes on the role of her mother, Marion. As part of her preparations, Sievewright has been working her way through a seven-and-a-half-hour playlist of country songs shared by Taylor. ‘I realise sending Dawn that was probably not a socially acceptable thing to do,’ winces Taylor. ‘Yeah, Nicole is an incredible country fan!’ says Sievewright. ‘I think her script really gets that across. It’s like Rose-Lynn says, “it gets whatever’s in there out” [she grabs her heart]. I think that’s why country music is so close to Scottish people’s hearts. We feel things greatly, whether that’s deep sadness, ecstasy, revenge, anger, heartbreak; just sit in a pub on a Saturday night in Glasgow city centre and that’s what you’ll hear.’
Sievewright grew up in Bishopbriggs before moving to London aged 17. She made her West End debut in the Legally Blonde musical and has since appeared onstage in National Theatre Of Scotland’s Our Ladies Of Perpetual Succour and Glasgow Girls by Cora Bissett. You may also recognise her from TV stints in BBC’s Shetland and Disney+’s Star Wars: Andor. Immmediately prior to Wild Rose rehearsals starting in Edinburgh, Sievewright had been in London playing Hermia in A Midsummer Night’s Dream for the Royal Shakespeare Company. While she may have wielded a shotgun menacingly in Shetland, she’ll be acting fierce in an altogether different way for Taylor’s adaptation.
‘I love learning all the time, pushing myself. But also, musical theatre is where I started out, so going back to it is a bit like slipping on an old familiar jumper.’ Sievewright comes from a musical family; her mum is a ballroom and Latin dancer, and her dad runs an events company. ‘We always had the stereo blaring out music. I remember The Chicks being a massive part of my childhood, my auntie loved Shania Twain, and I remember singing LeAnn Rimes at karaoke when I was about 12. There was blues, rock’n’roll, Jools Holland . . . then I was into Britney Spears, Blue, Foy Vance; a real mix. But meeting Nicole and [Wild Rose director] John Tiffany, my eyes have really been opened to the mind-blowing spectrum of country music. It has such breadth and reaches so many different people. I went to a Chris Stapleton show with John at the Hydro: there were lassies in their 20s dripping in sequins and an 82-year-old man dancing in a leather waistcoat. They were all going crazy!’
The musical features an eight-piece band onstage throughout, playing country classics from Dolly Parton and Lynn Anderson, as well as newer tracks by Carrie Underwood and Caitlyn Smith. ‘I open with “Country Girl” by Primal Scream which is a real big kicker, and I do “Tacoma” later, which is a beautiful, belty, ballady song. As a performer, that one is hard to sing and it gives me butterflies. But “Glasgow” at the end . . . I won’t lie: that one is genuinely hard to sing without crying. Lots of rehearsing will help. We might need emotional-support animals backstage.’
If the original film hit everyone right in the feels, Taylor is hoping her adaptation for the stage will put ‘everyone through the wringer. I want packs of women coming along! I just want it to be such an amazing, uplifting night out. Scottish women and country music: that’s a real thing. It’s why I spent most Saturday nights as a teenager at the Grand Ole Opry. I want to get across some of that passion for the music.’
Rose,
Edinburgh, Thursday 6 March–Saturday 19 April.
Wild
Lyceum Theatre,
Nicole Taylor, Blythe Duff and Dawn Sievewright
PICTURES: MIHAELA
MixoloGy a blenD of
THE NOBLE
In Glasgow at least, the traditional pub’s demise has clearly been exaggerated. The Noble comes from the folks behind Glaschu, The Duke’s Umbrella and Blue Dog, and is a 100-cover venue aiming for a classic British-pub vibe while focusing on quality food and drink. On the menu is a Glasgow pie filled with chicken tikka masala, and the ‘best bacon roll in Scotland’ (or so the gallus claim goes). Expect some sophisticated concoctions, with signature martinis made using a rotovap: a pricey scientific instrument used to capture and combine flavours through vacuum distillation. (Jay Thundercliffe)
16 Bothwell Street, Glasgow, thenoble.uk
eat & drink
Stockbridge syndrome P
If you’ve been to a new restaurant in Edinburgh recently, chances are it was in Stockbridge. Ailsa Sheldon wanders by the Water Of Leith to check out the capital’s hottest dining district
Well Stocked (clockwise from above): Skua, Sotto, Cardinal, Eòrna
icturesque Stockbridge has seen a huge surge of openings, from fine-dining restaurants such as Eòrna, Avery and Moss to neighbourhood favourites Stockbridge Eating House and Sotto, plus Insta hits Lannan Bakery and Mootz General Store. So what’s behind the growth in this popular postcode, and is it sustainable?
Since Paul Gunning opened fine-dining favourite Purslane in 2011, he’s witnessed a huge change in the area. ‘It used to be a casual dining scene with pub food. Now it’s become a hotbed for all these amazing restaurants.’ Community and convenience attracts businesses to Stockbridge, reckons Glen Montgomery, sommelier and co-owner of elegant Eòrna. ‘We wanted to be in a place where there was an interested local audience,’ he says. ‘There’s a really nice diverse population: locals who’ve lived here for years, students, young families, and well-heeled professionals. The people around here are quite savvy in their support of local and artisanal independent businesses. They also like to gossip! So if you’re doing a good job, you know they’ll be talking about you and spreading the word. But if you’re not doing something well enough, word of that can spread quickly too.’
Chef Tomás Gormley has played a key role in the area’s new era. First came Skua, a smouldering small-plates restaurant; then Cardinal, a more grownup tasting menu affair (on the Stockbridge/Canonmills border); finally we had artisanal knife-and-kitchen shop Messer (because all these chefs have
to shop somewhere). ‘Stockbridge is great,’ Gormley says, ‘and the community of small independent businesses is incredibly welcoming.’ Many new restaurants have replaced older establishments, so is this a real shift or simply an updated directory? ‘Stockbridge has long been known as a vibrant foodie haven,’ says Adele Conn, content creator and Stockbridge resident (@tartanspoonblog). ‘Over the years, its restaurants and bars have continuously reinvented themselves, creating new incarnations of beloved spots.’
‘I don’t think it’s a new thing, as there have always been lots of restaurants here,’ notes Gormley. ‘I think the way we look at restaurants has changed and you hear about new ones opening more. Many businesses are replacing quite old ones, which shows how well a restaurant works in this part of town.’
James Clark, owner of Italian hang-out Sotto believes the density of restaurants is a strength. ‘Instinctively, people think they should be as far away from competition as possible, but it doesn’t work like that,’ he argues. ‘People congregate in areas with lots of good options, and I think Stockbridge is now seen as the neighborhood for an evening out in Edinburgh.’
‘I don’t think it’s a problem to have this concentration of businesses,’ adds Montgomery. ‘Each has its own identity and offering, so it depends what the patron is looking for. There’s something for everyone: a rising tide lifts all boats!’
Lifestyle content creator Pippa Perriam (@itspippa) points towards a deeper shift away from the city centre. ‘The variety of independent restaurants setting up shop here is a real testament to both the area’s appeal and the strength of Edinburgh’s food scene. Clearly there’s an appetite from locals as so many places have been embraced so quickly. While there’s always a risk of saturation, I think this growth reflects a shift in how people dine out in Edinburgh. Rather than most consumer-spend being focused in the city centre, we’re seeing more neighbourhoods developing their own distinct food scenes.’
There’s clearly a confidence in the area, bolstered by plenty of community spirit: long may it last. Now, who’s hungry?
side dishes
That new-paint smell emanating from those empty bars and restaurants is a surefire sign that spring is on its way. Jo Laidlaw tiptoes through the snowdrops to spill the Eat & Drink tea
The Michelin Guide came, saw and conquered, with their annual stars ceremony visiting Scotland for the first time (guys, seriously, what took you so long?). The Glasgow bash resulted in new stars being awarded to Edinburgh’s Avery and Lyla, with new Bib Gourmands for Ga Ga, Margo, Skua, Ardfern and Fish Shop in Ballater, making it a great night for the Scottish hospo industry. Congrats to all.
Sticking with Glasgow, there’s certainly something in the air when it comes to new bars. Bearsden Athletic Club has crossed the starting line: they’re focusing on a laid-back, community vibe with a refurbished beer garden and kitchen to come, while The Marlborough in Shawlands (formerly The Shed) promises classy spaces and latenight opening. New indie coffee shop Through The House on the High Street looks good too. And there’s a hat-tip due to existing Michelin star holder Graeme Cheevers (Unalome) who’s expanding the empire to launch new restaurant Loma inside Cameron House at Loch Lomond.
Things are a little quieter in Edinburgh, which means plenty of time to hit up last month’s new openings: Barry Fish and Moss are both very worthy of your attention. There’s good news for those in the western suburbs: Buzzworks are launching their popular Herringbone bar/café concept in Barnton (possibly the best thing to happen to the roundabout there since traffic lights). Finally, Eat Out Edinburgh is back, with deals and tasting menus from over 50 citycentre restaurants helping you discover your new fave on a budget.
PICTURE:
Barry Fish
TipList
Our TipList suggests the places worth knowing about in different themes, categories and locations. And we’re not afraid to get into the hottest topics of our times either. That’s right: this month, it’s burgers
BEST BURGERS
Quirky venues
Glasgow Edinburgh
EDINBURGH GLASGOW
CHILO’S
BOOZY COW
Monkey Shoulder Brand
Ambassador Alex
King shares his top burger spots
BUTTA BURGER
147 George Street, Edinburgh, buttaburger.co.uk
Whether it’s their branding or ingredients, Butta has it down when it comes to smashing out sandwiches. Found right in the centre of town, their rep has been built on their wagyu beef patties. They recently went viral for slapping chips in one of their burgers (hello chip buttie lovers!).
DOWN THE HATCH
FINGAL
480 Paisley Road & 488 Great Western Road, chilos.co.uk
Alexandra Dock, fingal.co.uk
17 Frederick Street, boozycow.com
BATTLEFIELD REST
55 Battlefield Road, battlefieldrest.co.uk
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.
Giving Glaswegians a great burger when everywhere else is shut and one of the first to get on the smash burger train too. Stick to an Aberdeen Angus beef patty on brioche (although the meat still shines through on the doubled and pimped-up options). Also in Edinburgh, Stirling and Uddingston, with more expansion plans in the pipeline.
KIM’S MINI MEALS
This unassuming basement entrance opens into a cavernous space with plenty of room for groups. The smash burgers are the undoubted stars: confidently seasoned with a hit of black pepper that lingers, they more than hold their own against sides like the (utterly filthy) loaded fries.
13 Antigua Street, Edinburgh & Port Edgar Marina, South Queensferry, downthehatchdiner.com
DENNISTOUN BAR-B-QUE
585 Duke Street, dennistounbbq.com
5 Buccleuch Street, facebook.com/mrkimsfamily
Nostalgia is key here, with burgers that come from old Americana, whether smashed, mustard-fried, or thick and crumbly. The Carnival is simple perfection, all gooey monterey jack and softened onions.
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.
THE DUKE’S UMBRELLA
363 Argyle Street, dukesumbrella.com
PABLO EGGS-GO-BAO
62 Inverleith Row, eggsgobao.com
This gastropub maybe isn’t known for burgers, but their signature patty is well worth seeking out. French steak-haché style, it almost feels like shreds of steak rather than ground beef. Properly pink, with squeezy cheese, jalapeños and a hash brown, it’s wild and it’s delicious.
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.
EL PERRO NEGRO
PARADISE PALMS
152 Woodlands Road, el-perro-negro.com
41 Lothian Street, theparadisepalms.com
Bright and bold Paradise Palms is the antidote to a grey weather day. It’s a bar, a restaurant, a record shop and a venue, decked in neon lights and kitsch ephemera. Cocktails are a specialty, plus a menu of American-style veggie/vegan soul food.
All sorts of awards and accolades have been thrown at this West End cult favourite (you’ll also find them in Edinburgh’s Bonnie & Wild). The pick of the menu is a smashed patty luxuriating in bone marrow and roquefort butter with black truffle mayo called the Top Dog. Probably because it is.
SINGAPORE COFFEE HOUSE
FAT HIPPO
86 St Vincent Street, fathippo.co.uk
The best of the upmarket burger chains jostling on St Vincent Street (and plenty of other places).
Patties have a cracking balance of crispy browned exterior and juiciness, served on demi-brioche (as in not quite as buttery) rolls. One of the few spots where a side is included; you can even upgrade to waffle fries. (David Kirkwood)
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.
FAT PATTY’S
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.
Edinburgh Street Food, Leith Street, instagram.com/fatpattysburgers
HANOI BIKE SHOP
8 Ruthven Lane, hanoibikeshop.co.uk
The buzzing Edinburgh Street Food venture has proved a big hit. Among its traders, Fat Patty’s brings thin Cali smash-style burgers to the table, with lovely nubbins of caramelised and charred meat, topped with pickles and addictive house sauce. Guaranteed to trigger finger lickin’.
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.
THE LIONESS OF LEITH
The perfect choice for a big feed and even bigger burgers. This Canadian joint also has some of the tastiest poutine you’ll find anywhere in the UK. I love a no-fuss burger, so the Original Double Cheese or The Hatch burgers are my goto. Just don’t forget the house poutine on the side.
SMOKEY TROTTERS KITCHEN
233 London Road, Glasgow & 1 Burn Place, Cambuslang, facebook.com/smokeytrotters
21–25 Duke Street, thelionessofleith.co.uk
NONNA SAID . . .
26 Candleriggs, nonnasaid.com
Burger Mama has ruled the roost at this Leith corner bar since 2018. With patties made from flank and skirt steak, their 6oz burger hits the sweet spot, served with cheddar, dill pickles and tangy mayo, all sandwiched in a brioche bun.
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.
I’ve had some decent burgers in my time, but Smokey Trotters is definitely up there. The menu is jam-packed with absolute winners; you’ll need to be rolled home after ordering way too much, but it’ll be worth it. They also have residencies at Inn Deep and Golf Fang, plus Smokey’s Dairy in Ibrox.
PORTOBELLO TAP
87 Portobello High Street, crossborders.beer/portobello-tap
THE TIKI BAR & KITSCH INN
214 Bath Street, tikibarglasgow.com
The Tap draws a loyal Porty crowd with its Cross Borders brews, cool beer garden and top-notch burgers in a basket. No cutlery here; just grab it with both hands and bite into a nicely charred classic patty, oozing with mustard and ketchup, American cheese and sweet, fried onions.
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.
SALT HORSE
THE WEE CURRY SHOP
57–61 Blackfriars Street, salthorse.beer
7 Buccleuch Street, weecurryshop.co.uk
Twenty-odd seats, an open kitchen and the steady stewardship of the Mother India group make for a delightfully quaint ‘front room’ experience where dishes are classically composed but light and modern.
With 14 draught lines and more than 200 cans and bottles, this is nirvana for hopheads. While the drink options dazzle, don’t miss their banging burgers: 5oz smash patties, jazzed up with tangy burger sauce, monterey jack cheese and bourbon pickles. A wining combo. (Jo Laidlaw, Paul McLean)
IN PARTNERSHIP WITH
Fat Patty’s Fat Hippo
Smokey Trotters Kitchen
EXTRA_ORDINARY
For all Finnieston’s foodie plaudits, the area experiences a lot of churn with several places choosing not to reopen their doors in January. Extra_Ordinary was therefore a welcome new-year addition: once a Six By Nico, the site was more recently Sole Club. Now its doorway says X_O, evoking the spicy-umami tendencies of the sauce of the same name. So begins a well-pitched debut that borrows and balances. Inside we have a small plate and steamed buns situation: take a pencil and tick your choices, dim sum-style. The artwork owes a little bit to the ‘lonely man’ logo from London chain Bao: that’s Taiwanese. Clearly, and cleverly, we’re to expect a bit of everything, so there’s bao and mian bao, okonomiyaki pancakes from Japan, and Korean fried cauliflower.
Thankfully, head chef Tobias Fiegel (who previously worked at famed fine-dining café Edition Roasters in Sydney, as well as under Stuart Ralston at Edinburgh’s Aizle) has the skill to get salts and acids going toe-to-toe with starch. Udon and mussels come in a herby broth that hints of citrus and soy before becoming delicately fishy. A pork sando, nicely on-trend, arrives as a cute double stacker that’s crustless and crisp, juicy and buttery.
The pig’s head bao is strikingly gorgeous as it perches and wobbles on the plate after being pulled, breadcrumbed and fried. It’s all just fancy enough, but it’s also fun and it’s also tasty.
And there’s lightness too. Tomato ‘sashimi’ is outstanding: salty, mineral and brisk in equal measure, with tofu and tomato both gloriously meaty (yet obviously meat free). In other countries, in other dining contexts, would these dishes be served more simply and feel less restauranty? Almost certainly. But for Glasgow, for right now, it’s a beautiful thing. (David Kirkwood)
1132 Argyle Street, Glasgow, xoglasgow.co.uk; average price for four small plates £25.
BAR FOOD THE BONNINGTON
Neighbourhood hang-out The Bonnington has a new lease of life in the capable hands of Carlo Carozzi, who also runs The Peruvian at Edinburgh Street Food. South American influences start strong on the cocktail menu: a Pisco Sour Of Chicha includes pisco and chicha morada, a purple corn juice. Whipped up into an icy fresh sour, the herbal notes of the pisco sing.
The Peruvian flavours haven’t quite made it to the bar menu yet (although Carozzi says more will be added over time), and fried egg, haggis, HP sauce and toast definitely feels more Leith than Lima. However, this is still cracking pub food. A generous dish of coronation fried cauliflower is crisp and moreish, with a creamy curried sauce. Breaded monkfish cheeks are chunky, full of flavour and served with homemade tartare sauce. A large plate of oyster mushrooms with black garlic has smoky savoury depth, served with beautifully sweet slow-roasted onions and a warm, fresh flatbread. A cheesesteak delivers the goods, stacked high with tender beef and cheese, plus excellent chips. Puds are proper too: top marks for bramley apples and candied walnuts buried under a soft, burnished meringue.
There’s clearly a savvy desire to keep the regulars on side, but it would be fun to share tequeños, lomo saltado or cassava fries in this cheery pub setting. That aside, the makeover has nicely zhuzhed up the space in warm emerald greens. Service is friendly and fun, the pints crisp and cold, and the food is great quality and brilliant value.
(Ailsa Sheldon)
284 Bonnington Road, Edinburgh, thebonningtonleith.com; average price for two courses £22.
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 helpful agony aunt. This month, she’s offering advice to someone missing a Glasgow stalwart
Dear EADith
I was sorry to see The Baby Grand in Glasgow close, particularly because of its live pianist who’d been ivory-tinkling for 40 years. Where do I go now for a fix of free live music and some great Scottish-inspired food?
TunesWithMeTea
Dear TunesWithMeTea
You’re in the right place for music. Glasgow is a UNESCO City Of Music, with everything from pricey superstars to free local talent. The food accompaniment, however, can be a different matter. Some venues do humdrum pub grub, others maybe a toastie or crisps. At other places, all you’ll get is a withering look if you ask for a menu.
My pick is The Butterfly And The Pig, which has great Scottish food and a near nightly line-up of free gigs, from open mic to trad, jazz and beyond. Set in a lovely Georgian townhouse, there’s a restaurant and bar on the lower-ground floor and tearoom upstairs. Like me, it’s charmingly old-school; it feels like the trendy offspring of a cosy country pub and a theology department staffroom, where you can sink into Chesterfields and enjoy performances on the wee stage. Personally, I prefer their tearoom for delicious cakes and shabby-chic crockery, but Mr EADith loves the bar for hearty portions of comfort-leaning food and pints in dimpled mugs. We chuckle at their eccentrically rambling menu: lovely black pudding salad is ‘Cilla Black is back in black in a pudding . . .’ and crispy haggis fritters are headlined ‘och aye . . . the three-legged monster.’
It goes on, trust me (just like Mr EADith). Their steak pie (‘the size of Desperate Dan’) could grace any Hogmanay table and knows it: a bronzed show-off puffed up top with gravy squeezed in among masses of chunky meat. The menu does fancy too (and book the restaurant for even fancier vibes), plus there are daily vegan and veggie options. But Mr EADith usually gets their succulent doublepatty burger (his mouth is certainly big enough). Get chips, with anything; they’re homemade and achingly nostalgic. (As told to Jay Thundercliffe) 153 Bath Street, Glasgow, thebutterflyandthepig.com; average price for two courses £24.
BAR FILES
Creative folks reveal their top watering hole COMEDIAN STUART NIXON
Glasgow’s West End is great for pubs but my favourite has to be The Rock. I’ve been to The Rock for birthdays. I’ve been to The Rock for funerals. One time when we were in school, we snuck in and I saw the girl I fancied getting off with my friend, and I cried in the car park on the roof. It’s very friendly and is maybe the most reasonably priced boozer in the area. I went to Hyndland Secondary and a lot of my old teachers still drink there and tell me I’m actually a good boy. I always said I would get married in The Rock. I am not married.
Stuart Nixon performs What A Good Comedy Show at The Old Hairdresser’s, Glasgow, Friday 14 March, as part of Glasgow International Comedy Festival.
MADE FOR MIXING
PADDYWAX CANDLE BAR
This artisanal candle shop has been operating since 1996, selling a range of scents and vibrant ceramic vessels designed to be refilled. For those who want to get more involved in the process, the shop hosts group candle-making workshops, with a BYOB policy (corkage is £5 per bottle). Simply choose your vessel, pick a fragrance, and pour your own unique candle in-store. While this makes for a perfect special-occasion activity, Paddywax does reserve spaces for walk-ins, so if you happen to find yourself in central Edinburgh and overcome by a need to craft, head along to their gorgeous Hanover Street store. (Megan Merino) n 49 Hanover Street, Edinburgh, paddywax.com; instagram.com/ paddywaxcandles
travel & shop
Avoid the chaos of Bangkok and Phuket, says Danny Munro, who believes Krabi and the Khao Sok National Park should be staple attractions for those visiting Thailand
I’m ashamed to say I had never heard of Krabi until a friend suggested we meet there around a week before I set off for Thailand, pushing it near the top of my list of recommendations. Located on the west side of the country’s stunning south coast, Krabi can be accessed by boat from Phuket or via a short flight from Bangkok, and comes with a distinctly more relaxed, subdued atmosphere than those two popular tourist spots.
Like most places in Thailand, the food is spectacular, people are friendly and the temple culture rich. But the province’s real strength derives from the breathing room that locals and visitors are afforded while going about their days. With wider roads and a less prominent feeling of the hustle and bustle present elsewhere in the country, visitors can go at their own pace.
Days in Krabi could be spent rock climbing on its iconic limestone cliffs, trying to track down the local monkey population or basking on a number of white sandy beaches. Ao Nang and Railay beaches (both accessible by a 15-minute boat ride) are beyond picturesque and feel less jam-packed with tourists than the shores of neighbouring Phi Phi Islands.
Two and a half hours north, with a total area three times the size of Edinburgh and a rainforest older and more diverse than the Amazon, Khao Sok National Park remains somewhat of a hidden gem. Located in the Surat Thani area, this sprawling park is said to be home to a staggering 5% of the world’s animal species. For as little as £70, visitors can embark on a two-day guided tour, complete with traditional meals, evening and sunrise safaris, as well as an expedition to one of Thailand’s Sticky Waterfalls, which can be scaled entirely on foot despite heavy currents, thanks to the frictional properties of its limestone (or something along those lines, anyway).
For accommodation, overnight guests are put up in charmingly modest water bungalows that are crafted sturdily using bamboo and are known to bob gently up and down. Khao Sok is not the destination for those seeking luxury, though the prospect of gliding past a herd of water buffalo or even an elephant or two makes it an experience any traveller would be worse off for missing.
During the warmer months, the saturation of tourists in Khao Sok and the surrounding areas can leave visitors and locals feeling cramped and overstimulated. Avoid this altogether by visiting Southeast Asia during low season, which generally falls anywhere between late June and early November.
tourismthailand.org
WanderList: Thailand
my favourite holiday
Theatremaker Liam Rees recalls a once-in-a-lifetime trip to join the circus in Costa Rica
In 2022, Edinburgh Festival Carnival were looking for young arts practitioners to take part in an exchange programme with performing arts groups from around the world. I threw my hat in the ring thinking nothing would come of it until the organisers saw I could speak Spanish and asked if I wanted to work with a circus in Costa Rica. ‘But I’m a theatre director; I don’t know anything about circus,’ I half-heartedly protested. ‘That’s fine, you’ll learn while you’re there.’
And so I ran away to join the circus, one which was run almost entirely by twentysomethings, none of whom were getting paid, but our travel, accommodation and food were all covered. In the arts world we’d call this ‘getting paid in experience.’ It’s usually a scam, but this was one of the rare times that it was worth it. Every day we’d practice (or, in my case, learn) circus skills and lead workshops for local kids.
The weekends were for going to the beach, partying and guarding our belongings from the monkeys. Alongside soaking in this tropical paradise, I also discovered the darker history of Scots in the region, from the disastrous Darien scheme to Gregor MacGregor’s non-existent nation of Poyais. It was a hot, humid fever dream. But I still can’t get that place out of my head.
Liam Rees presents The Land That Never Was, The Studio, Edinburgh, Friday 14 March; Tron Theatre, Glasgow, Friday 21 & Saturday 22 March.
on your doorstep
Rachael Fulton ditches the ropes and rates the best indoor climbing arenas in central Scotland for bouldering
EDINBURGH INTERNATIONAL CLIMBING ACADEMY
This abandoned quarry-turned-arena is a world-class climbing venue and the biggest of its kind in Europe. Thanks to a major funding injection and recent bumper refurb, EICA’s shiny new Olympic-grade boulder problems are crafted by some of the world’s top route setters. The arena’s sheer scale can be daunting for beginners, but classes and coaching are available from entry-level to advanced. Like many climbing centres, temperatures can vary: layer up and strip off as appropriate. n edinburghleisure.co.uk
THE CLIMBING ACADEMY
The Climbing Academy’s ‘mothership’ hub is Bristolbased, but Glasgow’s Kinning Park is home to one of its best UK venues. The Newsroom is a huge boulderingspecific site with problems that change every week, providing a constant test of strength and skill for returning climbers. Female-only climbing nights and queer-friendly socials make this a highly inclusive community space. The Tiny Academy also runs from here and starts climbers young, up to four years old. n theclimbingacademy.com
ALIEN BLOC
This local indie site at Alien Bloc is the bouldering arm of Edinburgh’s Alien Rock. Much smaller in scale than EICA, this intimate site has slopers, overhang caves, moonboards and traverses for their extra-terrestrial clientele. This venue has a fantastic community vibe, and there’s a friendly gang of helpful staff to help climbers tackle its challenging atlas of problems. n alienrock.co.uk
The Climbing Academy
CGAIT KEEPERS
After rupturing her achilles from racing the Edinburgh Marathon, Katie Alexander decided to open a running shop and clinic, naming it Achilles Heel in honour of her recovery. She tells Megan Merino how it all began and the changes she’s witnessed ever since
elebrating its 25th anniversary this year, Achilles Heel is the creation of former personal trainer and long-distance runner Katie Alexander. The shop specialises in running gear as well as offering podiatry, diet advice, massage therapy and physio appointments in its own adjoined clinic. ‘I remember saying to a friend one day on a whim that “there’s not enough good running shops in Glasgow; I’m going to open one,”’ recalls Alexander. After being offered a small unit in De Courcy’s Arcade, she decided to take the plunge.
‘I phoned a few of the brands who came up to take a look and I opened up. It only had three seats and we could only get about five people in it.
Three years later we came here.’ This ‘here’ is her store on Great Western Road, a recently renovated space that now employs more than 20 people, housing high-end brands from Saucony, Hoka and On to lesser-known names such as Norda, for those looking to run on-road or on-trail.
Optional gait analysis is offered in-store by staff members, and customers can test out shoes on a treadmill for both fit and feel. Technical running socks and carefully curated activewear line the shop’s bright walls, while the open-plan neighbouring unit provides a calm waiting area for visitors to their clinic.
While Achilles Heel has historically been a hub for weekly club runners and also sponsors athletic organisations for young people, Alexander has been delighted to see lots of new participants come through the door. ‘This is good for Scotland because we were known for not being a very fit nation,’ says Alexander. ‘Now everyone is running, meeting at coffee shops and even dating via run clubs. I think it’s incredible.’
593 Great Western Road, Glasgow, achillesheel.co.uk; instagram.com/achillesheelltd
shop talk
WEST END OUTDOORS
The performative fitness craze that takes over our lives every January may have once again faded into oblivion, but Isy Santini recommends three independent Scottish retailers inspiring shoppers to stay active all year round
On the outskirts of Glasgow and not far from the West Highland Way, West End Outdoors stocks all the camping and hiking essentials needed for making the most of Scotland’s beautiful countryside. If you’re planning a trip further afield, their winter sports range will see you shredding it on the slopes in no time.
n 190 Milngavie Road, Glasgow, westendoutdoors.co.uk; instagram.com/ westendoutdoors
PROJEKTRIDE
Whether cycling is your passion or just a means of getting around, ProjektRide have you covered. They sell premium brands both new and second-
hand, as well as assembling custom builds. Their workshop provides tune-ups, part replacements and deep cleans to keep your bike shipshape.
n 82 Newington Road, Edinburgh, projektride.co.uk; instagram.com/projektride
CLAN SKATES
Scotland’s oldest skateboard shop is going strong 30 years on. They’ve got plenty of colourful skateboards to choose from, gorgeously embellished with patterns reflecting the store’s Scottish roots (and there’s a beautiful collection of surf and snowboards). Clan Skates also houses clothing from hoodies to socks. n 45 Hyndland Street, Glasgow, clanskates.co.uk; instagram.com/clanskates
Clan Skates
PRIDE & PREJUDICE (SORT OF)
Created by Isobel McArthur (with a little help from a certain Ms Austen), this Olivier Award winner takes a classic text, whips off its top hat, grabs it by the breeches and positively shakes it into submission. Sort of. Spawned and guided through its early days at Glasgow’s Tron, this has become a juggernaut all of its own, and a big UK tour into the summer lets everyone in on the riotous musical fun. (Brian Donaldson) n Theatre Royal, Glasgow, Monday 3–Saturday 8 March; Festival Theatre, Edinburgh, Tuesday 22–Saturday 26 April.
going out
PICTURE: MIHAELA BODLOVIC
“ ” Smell and music can transport you to a certain place
Having graced the big screen for 20 years, including in 2014’s Lai Bhaari, the highest-grossing Marathi-language film of all time, it seems nothing can stop Radhika Apte as she spreads her wings internationally. The Indian actress is about to appear as Uma in Sister Midnight, a droll arranged-marriage comedy set in Bombay from first-time director Karan Kandhari, a role which earned Apte a British Independent Film Award nomination for Best Actress last year. She talks to James Mottram about the power of movie music and the rise of Indian film talent
What did you like about the script for Sister Midnight? It was quite absurd! The whole thing. Just a bit bonkers. Like, anything happens. And it felt very exciting. It was very honest.
How does it compare to other films you’ve done? People are so scared of writing things in action; they spell out everything. A lot of times you read scripts where you think that a look or body language can’t convey something and you have to put it in words. This was literally the opposite, which was very exciting for an actor.
Uma goes on such a transformation in this film. Can you describe her? She’s full of heart. The character is so endearing and innocent and rebellious. She just says ‘why not?’ and, in that regard, I think there’s this rebellious child in her which needs to be present in all of us.
What was it like working with a first-time director like Karan Kandhari? In my head, Uma is Karan. He was juggling so many things: his first feature in a different country, different crew, crazy shifts. We had such a hectic shoot. We had six weeks, half of them night shoots, and not enough days off. It was really hectic. He was juggling a lot and yet he was trying to maintain such a beautiful connection with me constantly.
From Iggy Pop to Bengali folk, Sister Midnight also has a terrific soundtrack. Was the music helpful? Karan and I didn’t really know each other, apart from the fact that I had read his script and then we decided to work together; and it took five years for the project to happen. So when we met each other again in a rehearsal space, we basically had no idea where to start, and so the music was the best place to begin. The moment he put music to particular scenes, I knew exactly how to enter. There’s an entry, there’s suddenly a door. Music is that, right? Smell and music, I feel, are two things that can transport you and take you to a certain place. So I think that’s what the music did.
Do you feel like this is a unique role for you? I really do. Actually, I don’t think I’ve ever come across anything like this in my career. And also, the process was very unique for me. So it really stands out in my work.
You’ve worked with director Michael Winterbottom and actor Dev Patel before on The Wedding Guest. Are you hoping to do more international movies? I really just like doing films that challenge and excite me, whatever language and wherever they are. Because now London is also home, I’d love to do more work here.
You’ve just worked with Justin Lin, the director of Star Trek Beyond and several Fast & Furious films, on reallife missionary drama Last Days. What can you tell us about that project? I’m a police inspector. We were shooting in a very hot Thailand, in my first trimester! But the team was just the best.
With films such as the Cannes-winning All We Can Imagine As Light, Sister Midnight and the upcoming Santosh, it seems like a good time for Indian film? Definitely Indian talent, let’s say, because this is British; in fact, all three films are collaborations. But there’s a lot of Indian talent involved. They’re not Indian films in the traditional sense but the stories are based in India and the people are from India. And I think putting that on a global platform just changes things. I think especially because they’re not Indian films, for me that’s most exciting, because it suddenly gives them a very universal appeal. In the sense any story is universal and just because you see Indian faces, it doesn’t need to be Indian.
Sister Midnight is in cinemas from Friday 14 March.
GAELIC CULTURE CEÒLRAIDH GHÀIDHLIG GHLASCHU
Commonly known as the GG, Ceòlraidh Ghàidhlig Ghlaschu is the world’s largest Gaelic choir, singing choral music in the language since 1893 in Glasgow. Another page in the choir’s history is turned this year as Iseabail Mactaggart lifts the baton relinquished by Kenneth Thomson, the GG’s musical director of 42 years. A concert at Glasgow’s Royal Concert Hall will mark that moment.
DI Brown, a longstanding member of the choir, is one of the Mòd Gold Medal winners who will feature in this concert as soloist alongside the likes of Joy Dunlop and Iain Cormack. ‘The evening will be a celebration of some of Kenny’s best known choral arrangements alongside songs he has always admired,’ notes Brown, recognising Thomson’s lasting contribution not only to singing but to the music that is sung. The city centre venue is key to this concert’s appeal, with Brown insisting that ‘such a celebration needed somewhere that was slightly more prestigious for this one-off event.’
While this is a retrospective, the concert looks forward too. Mactaggart will also be singing with the choir while Brown states that ‘there may be some other surprise items which will involve her as well.’ Showcasing a huge range of talented singers keeping Gaelic alive at community level, Brown insists that ‘we feel blessed as a choir to have such amazing ability in our midst.’ (Marcas Mac an Tuairneir)
Royal Concert Hall, Glasgow, Friday 14 March.
Kavi Pujara’s ‘Neighbours, Dundonald Road’
ART AFTER THE END OF HISTORY
Where did all the working-class photographers go? That was the question posed by Johny Pitts when he started curating After The End Of History: British Working Class Photography 1989–2024. The answer came in images by a diverse array of more than 25 artists who comprise this exhibition. As the show arrives in Edinburgh from the Hayward Gallery as part of a UK tour, it highlights an often-overlooked era in British photography.
‘As a kid, I started to see the old world disappear and this new world ushered in by neo-liberal capitalism,’ says Pitts, who draws the exhibition title from American political scientist Francis Fukuyama’s much-discussed 1992 book, The End Of History And The Last Man. ‘On the one hand there was the complete destruction of working-class community, but then there was this kind of resurrection of it through capitalist consumption. Yet what lingers are the ghosts of a working-class culture, and even within that framework that is anti-working class, a kind of working-class identity and solidarity emerge.’
COMEDY
Exhibition highlights include Richard Billingham’s warts-and-all studies of his family, Elaine Constantine’s image of a northern-soul dancer in motion, and Kavi Pujara’s ode to Leicester’s Hindu community. ‘I’m hoping that this show can give a little appraisal of the last 30 to 35 years,’ says Pitts, ‘and help show what was done to the working classes, where we might have gone off the trail, but also where there have been moments of connection and where working-class communities have built something. As the world seems to be falling apart, this is trying to show a different end of history.’ (Neil Cooper)
My dad essentially introduced me to all of the comedy I watched growing up. One night I remember him telling me we should watch The Best Of Kenny Everett’s Television Shows; it was some sort of tribute to a guy my dad said was brilliant but had passed away years ago. I watched this medley of Kenny’s silly, hilarious characters, celebrity send-ups, bits to camera, and fell in love.
I wouldn’t say I was a lover of physical comedy (I don’t feel like I appreciate slapstick), and yet I honestly think watching Kenny Everett singing ‘Da Ya Think I’m Sexy?’ as Rod Stewart (as his arse inflates throughout the song and he floats up into the ceiling) is one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen. I estimate that I watch it twice a month on average. Rod was an actual guest on the show and a friend of Kenny’s, but nobody was safe from his caricatures, no matter how famous they were.
I love Kenny’s sheer commitment to the bizarre and the exaggerated. I love the high camp of his attitude in every iteration and, in many ways, the total innocence of it all. His comedy was clever and stupid, had something for everyone, and expertly skewered pop culture, showing it back to us as the insane circus it actually is. What a shame we didn’t get many more years of his genius. I’ll just have to watch his Rod Stewart again.
Alexandra Haddow: Third Party, Monkey Barrel, Edinburgh, Saturday 1 March.
SILENCE IS GOLDEN
Robert Eggers’ smoking-hot remake of Nosferatu is 2025’s break-out hit, taking more than $165m worldwide. Over a century since the release of FW Murnau’s classic, the fact that such a staple of silent cinema can so profoundly influence contemporary filmmaking is a clear tribute to the form. Centred around the refurbished, A-listed Hippodrome cinema in Bo’ness, Scotland’s silent film festival HippFest makes a well-timed return to celebrate its 15th edition under director Alison Strauss. HippFest blends Scottish content with Hollywood classics, plus unique opportunities to see rare European silent films. So why should silent films find themselves back in fashion during the digital age?
Back in the 1960s and 70s, it was their television revival which provided a fresh audience for iconic performers like Laurel And Hardy or Buster Keaton; the former’s Big Business and We Faw Down both screen this year, as does Keaton’s Our Hospitality. For the Friday-night gala, icon Mary Pickford plays a Scottish lass in The Pride Of The Clan, and there’s early work from cinematic greats such as John Ford’s The Shamrock Handicap with an early role for Janet Gaynor from A Star Is Born. There’s an increasing market in screening classic films to devoted fans who want to see their idols on-screen as part of a shared event, making festivals like HippFest a destination for eclectic viewers from home and abroad. Digital restorations have also widened out the variety of films that can be discovered. While the talents listed above are probably well-known to cineastes, far less familiar fare includes rare Scandinavian silents like the opening film from Sweden, With Reindeer And Sled In Inka Länta’s
As Scotland’s only silent film festival returns for its 15th year, Eddie Harrison dives into the latest HippFest programme and asks why we’re still drawn to the wordless genre in these modern times
Winterland. Finnish folk horror Before The Face Of The Sea is also new to UK audiences while fresh prints and newly commissioned live-music scores demonstrate how today’s technology can showcase the visual creativity of cinema’s pioneers.
There’s a celebration of the work of Alma Reville, now revealed as a driving force behind the early work of her husband Alfred Hitchcock, with 1925’s The Pleasure Garden showing how Reville fuelled the style of one of cinema’s giants. And there’s also The Dark Mirror, a collection of Scottish films about the Union Canal in Falkirk. In a collaboration with musicians Tommy Perman and Andrew Wasylyk, artist Moira Salt’s reworking of archive material spotlights the work of the immigrants who built waterways that are still used today.
One excellent innovation at the 2025 HippFest is that after the bigscreen public events, several of the movies can be viewed online over a 48-hour period by enthusiasts all around the world; perhaps there’s even an additional thrill in extracting something new via the latest in homeentertainment technology. One thing is certain: silent cinema offers a more cultured and sophisticated alternative to the ad-filled, commercially orientated, quick-fix, single-use media consumed today. With live musical accompaniment, silent films can take us back to the immersive world enjoyed by our great-grandparents, bringing the distant past to vibrant life, 24 frames a second.
HippFest, The Hippodrome, Bo’ness, Wednesday 19–Sunday 23 March.
The quiet ones (clockwise from top left): Big Business, The Pleasure Garden, The Pride Of The Clan, Before The Face Of The Sea
THEATRE ARTHUR MILLER
‘A kind of popular fascism was developing in the United States.’ So recalled the great American playwright Arthur Miller during an interview for the 2017 documentary Arthur Miller: Writer. He was not, of course, referring to the age of Trump (Miller died in 2005 at the age of 89), but America of the 1940s and 50s, overrun by the paranoia and vindictiveness of McCarthyism. At that time, the Soviet Union had ceased to be a wartime ally and had become the harbinger of imagined and invisible dark forces, twisting the innards of America’s body politic. The world of film and theatre was a seeming nest of reds, and writers including Miller were hauled before the House Un-American Activities Committee to confess any allegiances to communism.
Entrepreneurs of the current moral panics washing across the western world have imputed similar, almost supernatural powers to various groups: the LGBT+ lobby that wants to ‘trans your kids’ or the shady liberal elites engineering the Great Replacement by which the country’s white christian majority will be subsumed. It’s no surprise, then, that it seems to be Miller Season again in the UK. Courtesy of an unblinking brilliance, his work deals with the psychological parameters of social ostracism and moral absolutism, from the brittle 17th-century theocracy of The Crucible (1953) as a community is torn apart by witch trials, to the Brooklyn slum of A View From The Bridge (1955) where an Italian-American dock worker betrays his cousin to immigration services for fear he is corrupting a teenage niece.
Over the coming months, Scotland plays host to a trio of adaptations: the Tron Theatre gives us A View From The Bridge while a touring version of Death Of A Salesman starring David Hayman as Willy Loman comes our way, and Scottish Ballet’s version of The Crucible makes a bold return during May. (Greg Thomas)
A View From The Bridge, Tron Theatre, Glasgow, until Saturday 15 March; Death Of A Salesman, Pavilion Theatre, Glasgow, Wednesday 5–Sunday 9 March, Festival Theatre, Edinburgh, Wednesday 19–Saturday 22 March.
MUSIC
DILJEET KAUR BHACHU
On her beautiful debut album Double Lives, Glasgow-based artist, poet and activist Diljeet Kaur Bhachu explores ancestry, heritage and identity, weaving poetry, Hindustani classical and electronics into a tapestry of improvisation and pre-composed material. A collaborator with Carnatic guitar maestro Kapil Seshasayee and Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra, the classically trained flautist has also worked with poets Roshni Gallagher and Lisa Fannen, informing her approach on the album. ‘I had a sense of wanting to create soundscapes around the words,’ she says. ‘And John Cavanagh worked his magic to realise the ideas on the production.’
On ‘Another Life’, Bhachu incorporates Hindustani classical music, singing over harmonium. ‘Thinking about my heritage, it made perfect sense to bring it into the album after trying a few things out live over the past year: the drones and some familiar melodies from my upbringing in the Sikh musical tradition. I sought advice from my teacher Ranjana Ghatak and looked at how other artists have incorporated the tradition into their practices. With “Another Life”, I knew I wanted to incorporate the lyrics: the Panjabi words translate as “in another life, what could have been,” and the raag that I’m using is one I felt evoked feelings of loss and longing.’
On ‘India Is A Mother, Twice Removed’, Bhachu’s flute improvisation draws on motifs from her studies. ‘I didn’t intentionally pick a raag, which feels fitting for the thematic ideas behind the track, of a somewhat disjointed connection to a heritage and tradition.’ (Stewart Smith)
The Jazz Bar, Edinburgh, Friday 21 March, as part of Novus.
GOING OUT FURTHER AFIELD
Get yourself away from the central belt and into various parts of Scotland where the cultural landscape is just as rich. Among the month’s highlights are a well-established jazz festival and a craft exhibition which considers knowledge and power
ABERDEEN
OUTER SPACES
Taking place in a disused location in the city’s historic Shiprow, three local artists (Lauren McLaughlin, Maria Muruaga and Kirsty Russell) have put together an exhibition which platforms socially engaged artworks and also explores often hidden mentalhealth challenges.
n Unit E, Saturday 1–Sunday 16 March.
ABERDEEN JAZZ FESTIVAL
The Granite City reverberates to sounds of jazz, blues and even a bit of flamenco, in rooms such as Cowdray Hall, Bon Accord Baths and The Blue Lamp and featuring the likes of Melodie And The Chillers, Niki King, Portable Infinity, and the Philip Adie Trio.
n Various venues, Thursday 13–Sunday 23 March.
DUMFRIES
STUART MITCHELL
Tips Not Included is the name of this touring show by the popular Glasgow comic (Will Ferrell is a fan) who is set to start running his own comedy club later this year.
n Theatre Royal, Saturday 29 March.
DUNDEE
DUNDEE TAPESTRY
This bold stitch-work reveals Dundee’s rich past, vibrant present and promising future through a series of beautifully crafted panels, drawing on stories and experiences of the city’s communities from the mid19th century to today.
n V&A Dundee, until Sunday 6 April.
CONFESSIONS OF A SHINAGAWA MONKEY
Inspired by short stories from Haruki Murakami, this Vanishing Point drama features performers from Scotland and Japan, puppet monkeys, and a stunning soundscape for its vivid tale of redemption. n Dundee Rep, Thursday 6–Saturday 8 March.
DUNFERMLINE
HAG
Subtitled ‘Knowledge, Power & Alchemy Through Craft’, Hag opens on International Women’s Day, bringing together the work of 13 of Scotland’s most inventive craft artists. The exhibition also features commissioned portraits of each artist in their studio.
n Carnegie Library & Galleries, Saturday 8 March–Sunday 8 June.
INVERNESS
SIX
A bona fide musical-theatre sensation which had its modest debut at the Edinburgh Fringe and is now an international smash. Henry VIII’s wives grab the mic to tell us their own stories and reposition how we look at 16th-century history.
n Eden Court Theatre, Tuesday 4–Saturday 8 March.
PERTH ANIMAL FARM
Bolton’s Octagon Theatre bring us their critically acclaimed take on George Orwell’s classic novel about the dangers of replacing one tyranny with another. Stories which portray how power corrupts have rarely been more relevant.
n Perth Theatre, Wednesday 26–Saturday 29 March.
STIRLING
THE BIG COMEDY ROADSHOW
Those good folk at Gilded Balloon keep delivering excellent multi-act bills all year round, and this one features top Scots such as Jay Lafferty and Scott Agnew, plus top non-Scots Laura Lexx, Sara Barron and Jen Brister.
n Macrobert Arts Centre, Wednesday 19 March.
Animal Farm (and bottom from left), Aberdeen Jazz Festival’s Niki King, Dundee Tapestry, Stuart Mitchell
film of the month
Tensions simmer inside a New York kitchen as cultures and personalities clash in La Cocina. Emma Simmonds praises both the film’s sublime black-and-white visuals and director Alonso Ruizpalacios for keeping a multi-stranded plot on the boil
With a second Trump presidency now a grim reality and an immigration crackdown in progress, La Cocina takes a timely look at the cultural melting pot that is a New York restaurant kitchen, introducing us to the invisible workforce that keeps the food coming. Written and directed by Mexican filmmaker Alonso Ruizpalacios (Güeros), it’s loosely based on Arnold Wesker’s 1957 stage play The Kitchen (which became a 1961 British film from director James Hill), with the source material’s European migrants replaced by Latin Americans.
Combining culture clashes, mystery and romance, this elegantly monochromatic effort is set in The Grill, a Times Square restaurant, with the bulk of the action taking place in a bustling basement kitchen, staffed significantly by the aforementioned immigrants, alongside Americans and those of Middle Eastern descent. The film’s roving camera captures the cavernous building, multiple moving parts and a fast-paced, often chaotic atmosphere.
Although the film shares some stress levels with The Bear, it completely avoids the food porn that is such a huge feature of that show, not least as the fare at this tourist trap is presumably pretty dire, while black-and-white doesn’t exactly lend itself to depicting delicious meals. Instead, the human drama dominates. We’re inducted into the establishment alongside 19-yearold Estela (Anna Díaz), a sweet, diminutive soul who scams a job there
despite not being of legal age. She’s a family friend of one of the cooks, Pedro (Raúl Briones), a hot-headed Mexican dreamer and troublemaker. Pedro has recently pulled a knife on a colleague and is in a tempestuous relationship with American waitress Julia (Rooney Mara, modestly taking her place amid less well-known faces) who has unhappily discovered she’s pregnant and is set on having an abortion.
Meanwhile, a different kind of scandal is brewing as the restaurant’s accountant Mark (James Waterston) and manager Luis (Eduardo Olmos) begin a series of interrogations in their attempts to track down a thief after they discover that $800 has gone missing from the previous night’s takings. ‘Being the gringos’ enemy is easy. It’s being their friend that’s fucking hard,’ Pedro tells his cretinous boss Luis, as La Cocina highlights the precariousness of this kind of employment and the resentments (and camaraderie) between races. It sports a simmering sense of rage about the injustice of it all, channelled through the increasingly desperate character of Pedro, whose frustrations will eventually boil over in the unashamedly overblown conclusion.
The idea for this film originally came to Ruizpalacios when he was working as a waiter and dishwasher at a London café during his student days, and happened to read Wesker’s play. He wanted to draw attention to the complex caste system that exists in big kitchens, the fact that there’s not enough time to produce anything especially edible and, with
thousands of people to serve on a busy day, how things need to operate with the well-drilled intensity of a ship. If La Cocina really does a number on the American Dream after we watch Pedro’s hopes being smashed to smithereens, a supposed success story emerges in this restaurant’s ArabAmerican owner, the formidable Mr Rashid (Oded Fehr).
When he stalks the kitchen aisles, in ostensibly friendly and sometimes more overtly unfriendly fashion, the effect on the staff is chilling. Rashid refuses to give a hand up to those who have come after him in their quest for a better life, dangling the promise of sponsoring visas simply to improve morale, but appearing to have no intention whatsoever of actually following through.
Ruizpalacios keeps the plates spinning impressively, resulting in a film that overflows with drama, comedy and crushing disappointment, featuring a freewheeling visual style (Juan Pablo Ramírez’s cinematography is sublime) and an abundance of intriguing players. In its quieter scenes, La Cocina boasts the beauty of a Fellini, while there’s a US indie, almost mumblecore feel to other moments. There are points where it is crying out to dig further into these fascinating characters’ stories, but it still offers a tantalising overview of the issues as it brings a frenzied, volatile environment vividly to life.
La Cocina is in cinemas from Friday 28 March.
MUSIC
THE MAKROPULOS AFFAIR
Is eternal life a dream or a nightmare? That’s essentially the question posed in Janáček’s penultimate opera The Makropulos Affair. Like a lot of his later work, the Czech’s composition process was fuelled by an infatuation with a much younger woman which perhaps partly explains the opera’s fixation on immortality, the weariness of life and fear of ageing.
After making her company debut last season, Orla Boylan returned to the Scottish Opera stage as protagonist Emilia Marty who has lived over 300 years under many guises, including the titular name of Elina Makropulos. Boylan excels in the role, her authoritative soprano powerfully conveying the anguish yet also the character’s vulnerability having experienced three centuries’ worth of loss and heartbreak. Time is indeed of the essence in this piece, and sadly it sounded as though the orchestra could have used some more of it. There were no major issues, but the cohesion and synchronicity displayed on stage were sadly not echoed in the pit. Playing will tighten up over the run, no doubt, but it was a shame the orchestra didn’t dazzle in what was their first performance under conductor Martyn Brabbins.
Director Olivia Fuchs’ new production (co-produced with Welsh National Opera) is certainly smart and stylish. Reams of paper float up from the stage showing how life’s events are both documented and layered, while the projected image of a changing human eye serves as a reminder of all that Elina or Emilia (or whoever she is) has seen throughout her long life.
(Miranda Heggie)
ART THE SCOTTISH COLOURISTS: RADICAL PERSPECTIVES
One hundred years on from their first group show, the Scottish Colourists (Samuel John Peploe, Francis Campbell Boileau Cadell, George Leslie Hunter and John Duncan Fergusson) are on display, side by side once more, in the very city where they lived and trained. Bound together by their love of the French impressionists and fauvists, which manifests itself in bold use of colour and animated, visible brush strokes, Dovecot’s exhibition successfully positions the quartet within the wider European post-impressionist movement.
Peploe and Fergusson positively stand out, the quality of their work showing the kind of masterful technique and singular style you’d expect from internationally canonised names. Their vibrant still lifes, landscapes and portraits ooze with pleasing colours and textures, acting as an invigorating endorphin generator against the cool-toned bleakness Scotland offers at this time of year.
Thanks to detailed labels, we also learn a lot about each artist. A particularly memorable bio is written for Cadell, revealing his prodigal beginnings, queerness and a stint serving in World War I (the only Colourist to do so). Elsewhere, the inclusion of Bessie MacNicol’s oil paintings act as an important nod to the first generation of women formally training at Glasgow School Of Art during the late 1800s, further contextualising the social landscape surrounding the Scottish Colourists throughout their careers.
While it may not be the first time these pieces have been displayed together, it will no doubt be many visitors’ introduction to Scotland’s leading 20th-century artists. Selections in the exhibition from Matisse and Derain are a large selling point but largely unnecessary against the stronger homegrown narratives. Learning about Scotland’s art scene from the 1800s to the mid 1900s, and seeing the strong links between Edinburgh, Paris, Venice and other pioneering European cities, is both delightful and enlightening. (Megan Merino)
Dovecot Studios, Edinburgh, until Saturday 28 June.
Festival Theatre, Edinburgh, Saturday 1 March; reviewed at Theatre Royal, Glasgow.
SJ Peploe’s ‘Luxembourg Gardens’
Hands-On Workshops
Family Shows
Inspiring Talks Mindblowing Science Nights Out
GLASGOW FILM
FESTIVAL
From disturbing social dramas to quirky sci-fi animations, Glasgow Film Festival has once again gathered together a diverse range of movies. Eddie Harrison picks apart a clutch of films hitting town this month
Glasgow Film Festival’s eclectic 2025 line-up platforms previews of imminent attractions. Out later this year, Chinese film Brief History Of A Family () marks an auspicious debut for writer/ director Lin Jianjie, an accomplished domestic drama that maintains a subtle ambiguity right to the final frame. Wei (Lin Muran) is a wealthy schoolboy who strikes up a friendship with the reserved Shuo (Sun Xilun), but when Shuo’s father dies in unknown circumstances, his abrupt arrival in Wei’s household causes displacement issues. This is a Saltburn-adjacent narrative of a bad seed in a posh family, but far less sensational than Emerald Fennell’s movie due to Jianjie’s methodical, calm delivery.
Four Mothers () is an Irish-set adaptation of Gianni Di Gregorio’s 2008 Italian film Mid-August Lunch. James McArdle plays Edward, a gay novelist living in Dublin and struggling with the pressures of promoting his new book, specifically the commitment he’s made to do an American tour which threatens to disrupt his continuity of care to his ageing mother Alma (Fionnula Flanagan). While recovering from a stroke, she can only communicate through a tablet, but Edward’s problems are only multiplied when his friends head off on holiday and collectively dump their own mothers on his doorstep.
Four Mothers offers strong roles not just for Flanagan, but for Dearbhla Molloy, Stella McCusker and Paddy Glynn, plus there’s a pivotal part for Niamh Cusack as Maura, a psychic the mothers seek advice from. Edward’s truncated social life and publishing deal aren’t explored with much depth, but Four Mothers does give articulate voice to the four female characters, highlighting the importance of age inclusiveness. These old ladies might seem rude, but they understand exactly what’s happening to them.
A rather more brutally immediate family crisis is brought to shocking life in Red Path (), a Tunisian drama from Lotfi Achour that’s short of onscreen violence but is still deeply traumatic to behold. Ashraf (Ali Helali) is a 13-year-old goat-herder whose older cousin Nizar (Yassine Samouni) is murdered by jihadist terrorists. Fortunately, the bloody act itself isn’t shown, but Ashraf returns to his family carrying his cousin’s head in a bag as a warning. Achour’s poignant film is based on real events, with a specific focus on how the young man works through his grief. It’s a powerful, unsparing film which paints an involving picture of individual trauma.
Julian Glander’s quirky animation Boys Go To Jupiter () is rendered in crude lo-fi style and depicts Florida teenager Billy 5000 (Jack Corbett) on a mission to save up $5000 by completing various deliveries to his neighbours over a winter break. The loophole he’s hoping to exploit turns out to be a scam, but the intervention of a kindly alien blob leads him to a happy ending. The other-worldly creature is connected to the research into hybrid fruits conducted by Dr Dolphin (Janeane Garofalo), but that’s about all that is clear in this rather obscure space oddity.
Glasgow Film Festival runs until Sunday 9 March; see glasgowfilm.org for full screening details.
Screen time (from top): Brief History Of A Family, Four Mothers, Red Path
THEATRE THE TESTAMENT OF GIDEON MACK
In a world in which god is all but non-existent, what is left for the devil to do without their number one play mate? It’s one of many questions in Dogstar Theatre’s compelling adaptation of James Robertson’s The Testament Of Gideon Mack. A profound piece on grief and the loss of faith, it follows the flip-flopping timeline of the Reverend Mack’s youth, emancipations and later struggles with belief, and his flirtations with sin and infidelity. Gideon is a perceptive, generous, though altogether uncomfortable man who loses god but finds the devil after falling into a gorge; the latter is played exceptionally by adaptor Matthew Zajac, who captures the jaded sense of an eternity in a numbed world without a bitter rival left.
The shades and hues of Mack’s personal hell present themselves effectively, underscoring the play’s supernatural elements and coaxing the audience deeper into his journey as the storytelling structure bounces across the timeline. The use of a pulpit and coloured standing stone offers an arresting weight, and allied to the sound of rushing waters, it all comes together to maintain a simple, clean, though occasionally safe production which preserves the essence of Robertson’s original work.
With key performances from Zajac and Molly Innes (as Gideon’s longsuffering mother Agnes), the crux of this show’s success is how Kevin Lennon crafts Gideon with a captivating presence while poking at the listlessness of our own struggles through the mires of life. In Meghan De Chastelain’s production, the levels of credibility and debate become grounded (the inescapable influence of Scottish Presbyterianism echoing throughout), rooting the universal scrabble of good and evil firmly on home territory in a compelling deconstruction of faith and the devil you know. (Dominic Corr)
Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, Thursday 6–Saturday 8 March; Dundee Rep, Thursday 13 & Friday 14 March; reviewed at Macrobert Art Centre, Stirling.
COMEDY
ZOE LYONS: WEREWOLF
Zoe Lyons has boldly entered her drawstring trousers and jigsaws era, with the 53-year-old finding straight-up hilarious material in this lowoctane, low-oestrogen state of affairs. In a phase of life that can often be limiting and cruel for women comedians, she has become a curmudgeonly queen of self-deprecation (although obviously she’d never accept that compliment). She lines up gags about ageing ungracefully, underachieving in her career, and becoming irate at Brighton-bin etiquette, knocking them all down masterfully, like a row of dominoes.
A few bladders may well have been compromised at her bits about sagging neck skin or mid-calf socks. Her ‘heavily fleeced’ crowd is ageing with her, she notices, and it’s true. No one seems under 40 tonight, and her warm crowd-work finds that a devoted lesbian couple in their 70s have journeyed from Stonehaven for her show.
from her wife and buying a Porsche. She’s back with her partner now
in a more settled place and this is
Lyons had a blip in her 26-year marriage during the pandemic, separating from her wife and buying a Porsche. She’s back with her partner now and, while that crisis phase gets mined for cringe-comedy gold, she’s not going too deep on the turmoil which caused that breakdown. She’s clearly in a more settled place and this is not stand-up as therapy; Lyons also can’t be doing with self-help guff about finding a better version of yourself. Werewolf is ingratiatingly human philosophising on how not to let a ‘fragile prick’ of an ego run the show and making peace with being as good as you are going to get. (Claire Sawers)
The Stand, Glasgow, Saturday 29 March; reviewed at Monkey Barrel, Edinburgh.
PICTURE: PAUL CAMPBELL
THEATRE GHOST STORIES lllll
Jeremy Dyson and Andy Nyman’s eerie modern-shocker theatre experience perfectly reflects Italo Calvino’s assertion that ‘the more our houses are enlightened, the more their walls ooze ghosts.’ Professor Goodman (Dan Tetsell) is an expert on the paranormal. His research has made him a sceptic, except he cannot explain a handful of experiences that he’s recorded. These are the recollections of night watchman Tony (David Cardy), a neurotic young man Simon (Eddie Loodmer-Elliott), and wealthy older man Mike (Clive Mantle). In Goodman’s lectures to the audience, he relays their ghost stories.
Marshalled from the creative whims and eccentricities that brought us The League Of Gentlemen (Dyson) and numerous Derren Brown stage shows (Nyman), Ghost Stories is a work of cultural pedigree, obsession and passion; first performed on stage in 2010, it was later adapted into a 2019 Fangoria Chainsaw Award-winning film. Atmospherics are everything here and the duo’s sheer control of basic stagecraft puts them up there with William Castle or Harry Houdini, showmen who liked to lace their presentations with the terrifying pulse and doubt of spiritualist mischief.
Dyson and Nyman’s writing style is broad and gothic, teasing and playful of a genre they clearly both love. Professor Goodman represents rationalism and reason in the face of paranormal experiences but Nick Manning’s extraordinary sound design and Scott Penrose’s excellent special effects derail his efforts from the off. Their work, along with that of lighting designer James Farncombe, and set and costume designer Jon Bausor, is creepy beyond the tolerance of mere mortals.
Buried deep here is a possible tribute to a key play by one of Scotland’s most gifted 21st-century playwrights and directors. To say what that is would be the spoiler of spoilers. (Paul Dale)
n Festival Theatre, Edinburgh, Wednesday 26–Saturday 29 March; Theatre Royal, Glasgow, Tuesday 8–Saturday 12 April; reviewed at Theatre Royal, Bath.
FILM FLOW lllll
This exquisitely animated, dialogue-free adventure unfolds in an abandoned, flood-prone landscape. Flow follows a group of animals, led by a wary and anti-social feline, as they attempt to keep their heads above the mounting water. The Latvian director of 2019’s Away, Gints Zilbalodis, skilfully takes the helm.
The animals in question are a labrador, capybara, secretary bird and ring-tailed lemur, as well as the aforementioned cat. Each one is given a distinct and plausible personality: the labrador is excitable, the capybara lazy, the secretary bird haughty, while the lemur is fiercely protective over its treasured stash of human stuff. The film makes for a fascinating contrast to recent release The Wild Robot, a similarly charming, significantly more commercial tale which also took place in animal-dominated environs but was hampered by some clumsily relayed lessons. Here, events are more open to interpretation, but Flow is so pleasant to watch and easy to follow that it should still boast a wide appeal.
Rendered entirely on the free, open-source software Blender, Flow evolved from Zilbalodis’ 2012 short Aqua and took fiveand-a-half years to complete. The astonishingly beautiful results have been rewarded with nominations for Best Animated Feature and Best International Feature at this year’s Academy Awards. The absence of humans is ominous and potentially apocalyptic, and yet there’s something pleasingly sanguine about this quietly moving story of co-operation and survival. Without uttering a word, Flow speaks powerfully about the precarious environmental situation we find ourselves in, and the wonder and defiance of the natural world. (Emma Simmonds) n In cinemas from Friday 21 March.
OTHER THINGS WORTH GOING OUT FOR
If you fancy getting out and about this month, there’s plenty culture to sample such as a show about the transformative power of dance, a star-studded spy thriller, and the stage adaptation of a TV classic
ART
PORTIA ZVAVAHERA
The first exhibition in Scotland by this Harareborn artist combines printmaking, batik and painting techniques to weave new worlds from the dreamscape. The title, Zvakazarurwa, means ‘revelations’ in Shona, and includes both new and recent paintings.
n Fruitmarket, Edinburgh, Saturday 1 March–Sunday 25 May.
DANCE
REBORN
Strictly pair Amy Dowden and Carlos Gu’s show is all about the transformative power of dance, particularly given their own personal battles.
n Pavilion Theatre, Glasgow, Wednesday 19 March.
FILM
CATALAN FILM FESTIVAL
A Scotland-wide tour of the festival which will show audiences the current shape of Catalan cinema (spoiler: it’s going very well indeed). Films being screened here include Casa En Flames, Polvo Serán and Los Destellos.
n Various venues, Saturday 8–Monday 31 March.
BLACK BAG
Steven Soderbergh has been a busy boy of late with his supernatural chiller Presence followed swiftly by this spy thriller with a cast to kill (or die) for: Cate Blanchett, Marisa Abela, Pierce Brosnan and Michael Fassbender for four. You want more names? Well, how about Regé-Jean Page, Naomie Harris and Tom Burke. Enough for you? Thought so.
n In cinemas from Friday 21 March.
KIDS
HANSEL & GRETEL
Northern Ballet re-imagine the classic fairytale in their own inimitable style, as a series of spirited animals tell Hansel and Gretel about the damage they (and other silly humans) are doing to the planet.
n Festival Theatre, Edinburgh, Sunday 23 March
MUSIC
TINDERSTICKS
Stuart Staples and his gang converge on Glasgow for this date on their Soft Tissue album tour. A classic ‘genuine return to form’ story, this. n Pavilion Theatre, Glasgow, Friday 14 March.
BARRY ADAMSON
We hailed the ex-Magazine bassist’s 2024 Cut To Black album as ‘genre-defying’ and ‘an instant classic’. Now you get the chance to experience all that wonderment live and direct.
n Cabaret Voltaire, Edinburgh, Sunday 16 March.
THEATRE
BOYS FROM THE BLACKSTUFF
Man-of-the-moment James Graham collaborates with the legendary Alan Bleasdale on this stage adaptation of a classic BBC drama about Liverpool during Thatcherism, and which spawned the catchphrase ‘gissa job’. Ask your dad.
n Theatre Royal, Glasgow, Tuesday 11–Saturday 15 March.
CHEF
Stories about kitchens and chefs feel two a penny these days, but back in 2014, Sabrina Mahfouz’s tale of a haute cuisine pioneer who ended up running a prison kitchen (as an inmate) had less company.
Hansel & Gretel (and bottom from left), Catalan Film Festival’s Polvo Serán, Portia Zvavahera, Boys From The Blackstuff
CHIMAMANDA NGOZI ADICHIE
Eleven long years have passed since the last novel by the acclaimed Baltimore-based Nigerian author, which is not to say she has been idle. Adichie has become a mother (including to twin boys), written essays (one for her late father) and railed against Trumpism whenever she could. The new book, Dream Count, revolves around the interweaving stories of four women, set in both Africa and America, and covering the immigrant experience, motherhood, friendship and the ‘Americanisation of language’. (Brian Donaldson) Dream Count is published by Fourth Estate on Tuesday 4 March.
HAPPY
Things have been quiet on the Sacred Paws front in recent years. But as the indie-pop duo make a long-awaited return with their third album, they talk to Louise Holland about not sweating the songwriting process and trying to have fun along the way
Six long years since their last release, Sacred Paws are finally back with a new album and they’re determined to enjoy the ride. Jump Into Life is quintessential Paws, but there’s also something new here from vocalist/ guitarist Ray Aggs, and vocalist/drummer Eilidh Rodgers: a slight shift in the ether, a progression with a purpose. First single ‘Another Day’ is a bubbly, bittersweet track about heartbreak and strength. But it’s also the song that best captures the growth that has happened during their lengthy hiatus.
‘The way it’s structured and the way the melody sort of grew out of the guitar part . . . it’s a lot more complex than the way we normally write,’ explains Aggs. ‘It was exciting to us because it sounds a bit different, a little bit more ambitious maybe. It has these cool riffs with the harmonies, just things we haven’t done that much of in the past. So yeah, we’re excited by it.’
Rodgers shares her bandmate’s enthusiasm about that song. ‘Weirdly, we were scheduled to record and it fell through, then we just kept working and we wrote that one after. We were really excited about it when we came out of the studio because it’s the newest one, but I think also it’s still my favourite.’
The album is the third full-length release from the duo, following 2019’s Run Around The Sun and their 2017 SAY Award-winning debut, Strike A Match, and the pair took a pragmatic approach to the writing process. ‘I think if some people have the origins of an idea, then they’d maybe work on it until it became something else,’ says Rodgers. ‘But if
FEET
either of us is not particularly excited by something, then we tend to shelve it and come up with something fun.’ Aggs agrees, stressing that they don’t approach creating tracks in a regimented fashion. ‘We always write together, so that would be gruelling. We’d probably get a bit sick of each other! Or sick of the process. So it does need to be fun.’
Fun seems to be an overarching mantra for the duo these days and, like its predecessors, Jump Into Life takes complex emotions and delivers them in such a way that listeners could be forgiven for thinking all the songs on the album are happy: they’re not. What Sacred Paws do well is subvert norms and cliché in favour of nuance. ‘It’s a cathartic thing of taking a really huge emotion and going as extreme as you can with it,’ says Aggs. ‘With the melodies as well, we’re trying to make them quite grand. It’s funny because when you’re in the emotion and writing the song it feels like it’s never gonna be big enough to capture those feelings, but then you listen back and it’s two years later and you’re like “woah, I was really going through it!”’
As a band, think of Sacred Paws like taking photographs on an old-school camera as opposed to a phone: they create songs you want to physically hold, put in a box for safekeeping and bring special ones out when a given mood or feeling emerges. Ray Aggs and Eilidh Rodgers have honed the craft during their years away and planted a flag on a sound that is unmistakably their own.
Jump Into Life is released by Rock Action Records on Friday 28 March.
smubla • albums •
future sound
Our column celebrating new music to watch continues with Upturned Boats, the new creative vehicle for Glasgow-based singer-songwriter Graeme Black. He and bandmate Pete MacDonald talk to Fiona Shepherd about creative juices, salty sounds and benevolent dictatorships
Blame it on the banjo. During lockdown, Graeme Black took up the instrument, grappled with the clawhammer playing style and then found his way back to the guitar he had laid down since leaving his previous band, State Broadcasters. New parenthood and anxieties around performing had kept him from music in the interim but now the songs began flowing once more and a new outfit, Upturned Boats, bobbed into view.
‘At first, there wasn’t really any thought behind it,’ says Black. ‘I was just trying to stave off the madness, but since I’ve started writing songs again they are just pouring out of me. The convention in rock music is that people are more prolific and write arguably their best music when they are younger. I would counter that I’m writing more than I ever did.’ As to the evocative name, Black says ‘I’ve always liked that imagery of a wooden rowing boat. There’s something ghostly but really appealing because they offer shelter.’
Although Upturned Boats is a vehicle for Black’s songs, he’s joined in the band by erstwhile State Broadcasters buddies Pete MacDonald on keys, Fergus MacDonald on guitar and Cameron Maxwell on bass, plus Roy Mohan on drums. ‘I’m making all the creative decisions,’ says Black, ‘which is quite weird for me because I don’t feel like a natural leader.’
‘It’s more of a dictatorship really,’ chips in Pete MacDonald, also a longtime member of Randolph’s Leap. Is it a benevolent dictatorship? ‘Very benevolent.’
smubla • albums •
For Black, the music marks a return to his first love of indie rock. ‘I’ve lived my entire adult life with The Wedding Present and I wanted to reflect those early influences, but my favourite band is Wilco and I really like Big Thief, so I wanted to try to knit those together. Pete and Fergus seem to be able to make sense of my incoherent ramblings about how I want the songs to sound.’
‘We like the idea of making something more chaotic sounding, something slightly discordant,’ adds MacDonald. ‘I always think of salt water and salt air which has a bitterness and harshness to it, and that feeds into the band name. It’s not comfortable but there is something reassuring in its harshness, so it’s placing something that has slightly pointed, sharp bits and rough edges within something warmer.’
‘You’re beginning to sound like me when I’m trying to describe what I think a lead guitar part should sound like,’ says Black. ‘“A crisp packet floating in the wind . . . ”’
There may be floating crisp packets to come, when the band record an album. For now, there’s both gentle desolation and hopeful encouragement in the six songs of Upturned Boats’ debut EP, from delicate post-rock lullabies ‘Car Park Sadness’ and ‘Please Don’t Go’ to warm wafts in ‘Flightless Bird’ and ‘About Love’, blending burnished guitars and chiming electro piano. No hint of clawhammer banjo though.
Upturned Boats release their debut EP digitally on Friday 7 March.
LAVA SCAMP
From no-fi auteurs to imaginary bands from Airdrie, music critic and author David Keenan has championed them all. As a book of his writings is published alongside an accompanying compilation album, Neil Cooper assesses the work of a man once dubbed by avant-garde composer William Basinski as ‘off-the-charts mind-bogglingly brilliant’
David Keenan’s 2017 debut novel This Is Memorial Device erupted into view like a counter-cultural dam bursting. The book’s wild depiction of smalltown Scottish post-punk pop life was based around the short-lived crash and burn of a group called Memorial Device. Keenan’s epic immortalisation of the ultimate legends-in-their-own-living-room seemed to come from the inside, with the author conjuring up an entire parallel universe. When the stage adaptation was first performed at Edinburgh College Of Art’s Wee Red Bar, it featured a poster for a Memorial Device show and which remains there to this day.
After five more novels in as many years, such devotion to detail can be seen and heard in Volcanic Tongue: A Time-Travelling Evangelist’s Guide To Late 20th Century Underground Music. Keenan’s bumper-sized compendium of music writing, culled from his years as The Wire magazine’s crusader-in-chief, is accompanied by a compilation album of the same name. The latter features the sort of no-fi auteurs (with monikers such as Ashtray Navigations, Orphan Fairytale and The Bachs) who sound like they might have once shared a bill with his imaginary band.
Volcanic Tongue was the name of the shop Keenan ran for a decade with his partner Heather Leigh in Glasgow’s Hidden Lane. This became a deep-dive haven for the couple’s very personal stock of out-there underground sounds, reflecting Keenan’s own musical odyssey. From a brief tenure with Creation Records’ 18 Wheeler, Keenan sang and played guitar with Telstar Ponies before his musical adventures took him from post-rock to hardcore jazz to freeform freak-outs.
This John The Baptist-like devotion was also the case with Keenan’s assorted lines of inquiry in The Wire: industrial, kosmische, Japanese Noise, acid psych and a million other sub genres were in the mix. He coined defining phrases such as ‘New Weird America’ before prompting readers to reach for their dictionaries to check on the provenance of ‘hypnagogic pop’.
Keenan inspires faith from his readers. This is most evident in the Memorial Device Twitter feed, anonymously created and bestowing fellow travellers the honour of M.D.A.N.T. (Memorial Device Alternative National Treasure). While Volcanic Tongue displays his fascinating musical roots, these days Keenan is embracing his status as a fully fledged man of letters.
Volcanic Tongue: A Time-Travelling Evangelist’s Guide to Late 20th Century Underground Music is published by White Rabbit on Thursday 6 March; an album of the same name is released by Disciples on Friday 28 March.
GAMES AVOWED
Developer Obsidian is doing something novel with its Pillars Of Eternity series. Avowed is set in the same world, Eora, but rather than being a classic top-down RPG, it’s a first-person action RPG, placing players at the heart of its gorgeous, semi-open universe. It’s an interesting twist for a developer that has a long history of creating sequels or spinoffs to beloved games from other developers, most notably its work on Star Wars Knights Of The Old Republic II: The Sith Lords, Neverwinter Nights 2 and Fallout: New Vegas (considered by some to be the standout entry in that series).
While Avowed dutifully pays homage to Pillars Of Eternity and its sequel Deadfire, this standalone adventure is set in the Living Lands, a diverse map featuring the sort of lush forests, vertiginous coastlines and dingy caves that Elder Scrolls players have been yearning to explore ever since the release of Skyrim almost 14 years ago. Avowed has a much stronger focus on its companions, so expect to make the sort of connections forged in the Mass Effect, Dragon Age and Baldur’s Gate series. And, like last year’s Dragon Age: The Veilguard, combat is likely to focus more on reaction than tactics. (Murray Robertson) Out now on PC and Xbox Series X/S.
first writes
In this returning Q&A, we throw some questions about ‘firsts’ at debut authors. This month we feature playwright and screenwriter Alice Austen, author of 33 Place Brugmann, a WWII-set novel which doubles as love story and philosophical puzzle
What’s the first book you remember reading as a child? I was not quite six when I started school. I was what we now call a whole-word reader and was being taught phonics. My father pulled me out of school, took me on a driving trip, and taught me to read from road signs and menus. When we returned home, I read my first book: Little Women
What book made you decide to be a writer? Once I could read, I devoured every book I could get my hands on. I would sneak into our attic and read my mother’s paperbacks: Le Carré, Hemingway, Doctorow, Graham Greene. When I was 14, I read Márquez’s One Hundred Years Of Solitude, which cemented my desire to write.
What’s your favourite first line in a book? ‘All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way’: Anna Karenina
Which debut publication had the most profound effect on you? I remember feeling such excitement when I read Zadie Smith’s White Teeth. I found it fresh and compelling, and the voice was so assured. It inspired me.
What’s the first thing you do when you wake up on a writing day? I go outside, regardless of weather, plant bare feet on ground and meditate, looking at the big lake which I can just glimpse through trees. A double or triple espresso and I’m ready to go. I try not to look at my phone until after I’ve written.
What’s the first thing you do when you’ve stopped writing for the day? I did athletics at university and training has always helped me sort through ideas and thoughts. I usually do a workout, often jotting things down when I’m finished.
In a parallel universe where you’re the tyrant leader of a dystopian civilisation, what’s the first book you’d burn? The first and only book I’d burn is the manual on how to burn books.
What’s the first piece of advice you’d offer to an aspiring novelist? Find your own voice. Write and write and write. Don’t give up.
33 Place Brugmann is published by Bloomsbury on Tuesday 11 March.
LISTEN
Vinyl sniffers, it’s time to add more records to your Discogs wishlist as we indulge you with another surfeit of alphabet-themed album recommendations. This time we’re steadying our tonearm on the letter F ‘Make way!’ exclaims Joe Casey at the start of Protomartyr’s Formal Growth In The Desert (2023). These Detroit noisemakers may be post-punk underdogs but here they behave like pugnacious champs, unleashing body blows on anyone who dares doubt their commitment to forbidding grooves. Casey remains the draw for his surreal writing, selling lines like ‘I was sucking on a rubber ear for your and my amusement’ with the conviction of a carnival barker. Hammering guitars launch his leftfield observations skyward, in a dynamic both hauntingly spare and wrapped in panoramic roars of distortion.
Also in the ‘down but far from out’ category is Nina Simone’s Fodder On My Wings (1982), which hit store shelves with a shoulder shrug from the public and critics alike. Soul, classical and calypso inflections are embedded in stories influenced by her time in Switzerland, Liberia and France. It’s as intricate and lyrically raw as anything from her imperial 1960s phase and, though flawed, ‘Alone Again Naturally’ or ‘Thandewye’ contain a bracing drama. (Kevin Fullerton) Other F listens: Finally We Are No One by Múm (2002), Four-Calendar Café by Cocteau Twins (1993), Fables Of The Reconstruction by REM (1985).
PICTURE: JOE MAZZA
Cinema under the stars in Edinburgh’s only Planetarium
Dynamic Earth invites you to experience your favourite film like never before in our state-of-the-art Planetarium. Enjoy an evening under the stars complete with themed cocktails, mocktails and snacks. For full show times this March and April, visit our website.
ALIEN MAMMA MIA!
GRAVITY
THE MARTIAN
HIDDEN FIGURES
the spin doctor
When actors try their hand at music, the results can be, let’s face it, variable. But for Peter Capaldi, known primarily for his magnetic on-screen presence, music came first. Having rediscovered the songwriting bug in recent years, he tells Craig McLean about his complete lack of pop-star ambition
Before he was a 66-year-old grandfather of two from Springburn and releasing Sweet Illusions, a brilliant, poetic, electronic-flavoured rock album, Peter Capaldi was an actor. But lest we think this is a dilettante-ish midlife move from a bored thesp, long before he was Doctor Who, Malcolm Tucker, or even (as he says of his breakout role in 1983’s Local Hero) ‘an easy-going buffoon, a gangly youth in a Bill Forsyth gentle comedy,’ Capaldi was a musician.
Back in 1980, a 22-year-old Capaldi was frontman of The Dreamboys, a wild-eyed, wild-haired Glasgow outfit. Their drummer was Craig Ferguson, future American TV chat-show star. One of the tracks from their slim oeuvre, ‘Shall We Dance’, has some 35,000 views on YouTube. When I relay this to him, Capaldi is both appreciative and dismissive. ‘Wow,’ he says. Those thousands of plays? ‘That’s me, mostly.’
One of the top comments under the clip goes ‘I can tell by Peter’s dramatic punk note intonations that he must have been an angsty, artsy teen slash young adult.’ Astute observation? ‘Not bad,’ says Capaldi, a wry, dry figure with a smile forever playing at the corners of his lips. ‘I was more relaxed than that, having more of a good time than that suggests. Art school was a great place to go to, because it signalled a looseness and creativity that I was very open to. I was angsty, but no more so than was required by my chosen profession. I felt that doing music was a very natural thing to do if you had a creative streak. And it was very available,’ he says, meaning it was easy to make a post-punk/ goth-adjacent racket. ‘The sounds of guitars and drums and all that . . . ’
As a youngster in Glasgow, he remembers struggling to find the music that spoke to him. ‘But then I saw Simple Minds. They’d just been signed and were at The Mars Bar, just off St Enoch Square. It was a tiny little place. Jim Kerr had his mascara on and his Henry V haircut. They were playing all these weird songs. I thought “I like this. This is me. Let’s go here.” And that’s what I did.’
But he did it only for a bit, with acting soon gazumping rock’n’roll as his primary creative outlet. Four decades on, though, Capaldi’s songwriting flame re-ignited during long hours in his trailer on the 2020 Atlanta set of superhero film Suicide Squad. Using a ‘really cheap electric guitar’ and GarageBand software, he channelled long-ago memories into what became his long-delayed debut album, St Christopher Now, finally, comes a follow-up. For Sweet Illusions, he decided to push himself ‘a bit harder with the writing. I had no sense, really, of what the whole thing should be. But it’s nostalgic in some way. I gave up music in the early 80s so the songs evoke being in the west of Scotland, and that synthesiser/guitar/neon feeling that was around then.’
And what do we read into the album title? ‘That’s kind of what it is, isn’t it: a sweet illusion? I like the idea very much of being a musician. But whether or not I feel myself as a musician as a religious kind of calling . . . ’ He stops, shrugs and delivers another assessment. ‘I’m not trying to be a pop star. I just like writing songs and working with musicians,’ Capaldi says, adding that there might well be some gigs. ‘It’s a natural extension, to try and do that live. However, I don’t want the obligations of a career. My rule is if it stops being fun, we stop.’
Sweet Illusions is released by Last Night From Glasgow on Friday 28 March.
smubla
TV FEAR
When Martyn (Martin Compston) and Rebecca (Anjli Mohindra) move their family into a historic four-story house in Glasgow, they think they have it made . . . then they meet their downstairs neighbour Jan (Solly McLeod). Fear, a three-part psychological thriller, follows the couple as their worst nightmare comes true. What starts with inappropriate advances from Jan escalates when Rebecca refuses him and he sends a letter to the police accusing the couple of sexually abusing their two young children. To make matters worse, Jan is the stereotype of a basement-dwelling tech wiz and hacks into his neighbours’ wifi, allowing him to watch and listen to them on all their devices.
Fear is almost a compendium of modern paranoias: false accusations, technology, and even our own neighbours. The series exploits these oftenbaseless anxieties, but does so to very great effect. Much of this is down to McLeod’s performance as the awkward and perpetually uncomfortable Jan. Even before he hits on Rebecca, his presence summons an instant knot in the stomach, leaving you to wonder how he’s going to inevitably sour the situation.
Fear is a stressful watch not only because of Jan himself, but also as it’s so easy to root for Martyn and Rebecca. They’re in awe and truly appreciative of their new home’s splendour; they’re fun, caring parents and they clearly love each other to death. When the accusations threaten to push them into the arms of Martyn’s violent, gun-toting father (James Cosmo), we are just as tempted as them to abandon morality and do whatever it takes to make a problem go away. (Isy Santini)
Available on Prime Video from Tuesday 4 March.
In this column, we ask a pod person about the ’casts that mean a lot to them. This month, it’s John Robins, the Edinburgh Comedy Award-winning stand-up who co-hosts How Do You Cope? alongside Elis James, a podcast where guests tell them about the major challenges they’ve faced in life
my perfect podcast
Which podcast makes you laugh? I’m a big fan of Three Bean Salad. I’ve known presenters Ben Partridge, Henry Paker and Mike Wozniak for years through comedy, but getting to hear their brains all working together on zeitgeist topics such as submarines or flightless birds always makes me howl.
Which podcast makes you sad or angry? I tend not to really seek out content that makes me sad or angry; I get enough of that for free in life. But I guess The Rest Is Politics does make me fear for a world that consistently finds itself under the control of a handful of men who cannot control their egos.
Which podcast is your guilty pleasure? Well there’s nothing guilty about it, but the output of David Earl and David Edwards has been an incredibly soothing balm in difficult times. I went back and listened to Brian Gittins And Friends during a recent period of illness and at times I couldn’t move from laughing; at one point my bath actually started to overflow because I couldn’t get up to turn off the tap. Now I’m going through their show Random Movie Generator at a pace of knots.
Tell us someone who currently doesn’t have a podcast but totally should? Adrian Chiles. Simple. As. That. He’s the voice of the nation. He’s our conscience and our curiosity.
Pitch us a new podcast idea in exactly 25 words Adrian Chiles sits in motorway service stations talking to people whilst eating a Whopper Meal and sometimes goes to WH Smith to read the papers.
New episodes of How Do You Cope? are available on Wondery every Sunday.
BOOK OF THE MONTH
For her new book, Xhenet Aliu wraps her characters and story in an invisible thread which subtly pulls you towards them. Kelly Apter hails a writer who doesn’t rely on twists and turns to keep the reader engrossed
Adeep yearning to belong runs throughout Xhenet Aliu’s second novel, residing in each nook and crevice we enter. All of the finely drawn characters that populate Everybody Says It’s Everything and its tale of everyday life in Waterbury, Connecticut, are running to stand still, on a constant quest for something more. And with each childhood reflection, each attempt to embrace an ever-changing world, and each unmet desire to connect, Aliu compels us to run alongside them.
At the heart of this story sit twins Drita and Petrit, whom we meet aged nine, then as teenagers and in their mid-20s, taking us from the early 1980s to late 90s. Adopted at birth by Jackie and Dom, from now deceased Albanian parents, the sister and brother bond as children but soon grow apart. She’s a well-behaved academic high achiever; he’s a wastrel that bounces from one bad scenario to the next. Both are curious about their Albanian heritage, but Petrit takes it a step further, seeking kinship with a brethren ready to head out to Kosovo and fight for their people.
While he’s yearning to belong to a cause, Drita longs for purpose, having dropped out of university to look after their sick mother. She, in turn, has her own internal ache, with Aliu taking us back in time to 1970 when Jackie and Dom first become entwined in loveless matrimony. We also see inside the malnourished (in every way) childhood of Petrit’s girlfriend Shanda, leading to an understandable struggle to function outside a drug-induced haze. Each character has their own clear voice, and we’d head out to bat for any of them (though Dom, unremitting in his chauvinism and bigotry, remains twodimensional and devoid of a backstory, which feels remiss).
It’s not always necessary to follow the ‘write what you know’ adage, but it serves us well here. Aliu was herself born in Waterbury to an Albanian father, bringing an authenticity to both the city’s post-industrial floundering, and the nuances of Balkan culture. Setting the bulk of the novel in 1999 also allowed Aliu to revisit a fledgling online world accessed via dial-up modems, as Drita seeks connection in a way so many would in the years to come.
And while Everybody Says It’s Everything is not without tragedy and intrigue, it doesn’t seek to hook the reader with sharp twists and turns. Instead, Aliu quietly wraps an invisible thread around our hearts and minds, pulling us gently but irrevocably into these troubled yet hopeful lives. Only then do you realise that you can’t wait to get back to these characters, and that you’ll miss them when it’s all over.
Everybody Says It’s Everything is published by Random House on Tuesday 18 March.
ALBUMS NATI
Golden EP (Nati/OMG Music)
Feisty Fifer Nati first made an online splash during lockdown with TikTok renditions of traditional Scottish tunes and a smattering of originals. Shortly after, she charmed the masses in real life at TRNSMT and then with her debut EP Older, a broadly themed suite on growing up and facing your thirties. Now she contemplates new beginnings and fresh viewpoints on follow-up EP Golden, galloping out the traps with ‘Heard It All Before’, a beefy Scotpop number in the Saint Phnx/Nathan Evans vein with big licks and Celtic flourishes. Fired up by scorn and bitter experience, she offers grim determination and lusty vocals, testing her tone at points, travelling from mischief to softness in the space of a line before returning to her signature hearty hollering.
The rest of the EP is also characterised by strong pop tunes dressed in rockier robes. On ‘When I Find Her’, co-written with Vistas’ frontman Prentice Robertson, she embarks on a search for self, fuelled by independent spirit, grungy backing and a bubblegum middle-eight breakdown. Meanwhile the carefree Katy Perry scurry of the title track flaunts its commercial country-pop mastery with a feelgood rush, a brief pause for breath on the bridge and then a second giddy wind. No wonder she’s giggling by the end.
‘This Town’ is familiar territory no matter where you’re from. This choppy cheerleader celebration of hometown roots is powered by the positive outlook of many a country-pop banger, but there is some ambivalence in the line ‘give me real life’, implying an appreciation of feeling grounded by your environment while also straining at the leash for fresh experiences. Closing track ‘Midnight’ dials it back with a breathy vocal but Nati’s natural extroversion pushes through as the song builds to the beat of a marshal rhythm and ends on a suitably rousing note. (Fiona Shepherd)
Released on Friday 21 March.
TV BERLIN ER (Apple TV+)
Set in a jam-packed hospital, Berlin ER is a grimy peek into the lives of a group of doctors attempting to stay sane while avoiding catastrophe, as patients turn into medical emergencies. Co-created by former emergency room physician Samuel Jefferson, alongside Viktor Jakovleski, this eight-part German series examines the strain that underfunding and substance abuse can place on medical staff.
The drama revolves around newly minted head of department Dr Zanna Parker (Haley Louise Jones) who discovers the fever pitch of A&E and strange camaraderie its employees share; only to be dragged into bureaucracy by the administration and haunted by the life she left behind. By Zanna’s side, Slavko Popadić of Crooks fame plays Dr Ben Weber, a physician burdened with the addiction issues he and his patients face. The entire cast give riveting performances as caregivers who burn the candle at both ends, resorting to drastic measures to cope with the unbearable challenges they face. Desperate to escape or suffering between sweat-ridden raves, questionable ethics arise amid mysteriously dwindling opiate supplies and violence from the people they’re tending to.
Somewhere between Scrubs and Orange Is The New Black, the tense, visually moody and at times delirious chaos of Berlin ER ultimately strays far from those more chipper counterparts. A dark, party-like atmosphere descends over characters’ lives as an eclectic soundtrack accompanies a veritable horde of split-second decisions with harrowing consequences. Despite the constant commotion, the series still manages to hold on to several entangled storylines with ease while retaining a pitch-black comic edge. Combined with a completely unexpected conclusion, this is a compelling and perfectly bingeable watch. (Rachel Morrell)
New episodes available on Wednesdays.
ALBUMS RACECAR
Pink Car (self-released)
The sophomore album from Edinburgh alt electro-pop trio Racecar is an explosion of genres and styles, each track opening up multiple trap doors that reveal endless sonic halls and corridors to explore. Opener ‘Lay Me Down’ begins with indie-influenced springy drums and bright guitars. It’s a reserved start to the record, which ultimately heads in a more chaotic but emotionally honest direction. ‘The Big One’ emerges with a beautiful firstverse melody, steadily building with a fuller bass line and layers of guitars, synths and strings, before releasing into huge electronic catharsis.
From there the Pandora’s box is flung open as we weave between raw vocals and piano motifs in ‘Lullaby’, trad strings in ‘Zephyr’, hyper pop-esque production in ‘Nightshow’, and Europop territory in ‘Wolf’. Orchestration of a song such as ‘Fall Leave’ sounds as though it’s been lifted from a modern musical-theatre production, an air of sentimental irony wafting around in a way that is so saccharine it kind of works. Meanwhile a funky warbling bass and filthy breakdown in ‘Inevitable’ feel anything but.
Racecar’s knack for writing gorgeous melody lines, often played on piano or sung by lead vocalist Izzy Flower, gives the collection a contemporary elegance reminiscent of current experimental bands such as Jockstrap or Porridge Radio. But a knowing playfulness, perfectly exemplified in the record’s artwork (a literal pink car, as an apt follow-up to the eponymous orange vehicle of their first album), gives the impression that this project has a sillier conceptual undercurrent. (Megan Merino)
Released on Friday 7 March.
PODCASTS
ROMANOV: CZAR OF HEARTS (BBC Sounds)
Romanov: Czar Of Hearts begins in the mid-60s aboard the infamous Soviet K-19 nuclear submarine. Lurking somewhere in the North Sea, the sub was dubbed ‘The Widowmaker’ after 20 of its sailors fell victim to a nuclear-reactor leak four years earlier. But it’s a junior crew member which this podcast is especially interested in. Plying his trade in the galley is a young Russian-Lithuanian cook named Vladimir Romanov who, unbeknown to his fellow crew, would one day own the very vessel he was cooking in.
A freewheeling financial career in the Baltics ensued for Romanov, who eventually found himself at the door of Tynecastle Park in 2004, armed with a net worth said to be in excess of £100m. With Hearts strapped for cash at the time, Romanov was handed the keys to the building, making for a now well-documented eight-year ownership spell that peaked with two Scottish Cup wins but ended in near-death for the club in 2013.
Entrusted with telling the tale of the Romanov era is broadcaster and Hearts fan Martin Geissler who, clearly committed to doing the story justice, analyses the moments of near glory and corporate backstabbing with commendable precision. In one rather chilling episode, the host goes so far as to sit down with Graham Rix, the footballing outcast who was inexplicably headhunted by Romanov to become Hearts manager in 2005, despite being a registered sex offender at the time.
At seven episodes in length, those with a passing interest in Scottish football may struggle to stick with the series in full, while many Hearts fans will understandably feel as though they’ve heard it all before. Yet, it’s the podcast’s in-depth nature and access to a multitude of insightful figures that help Romanov: Czar Of Hearts do such a good job of explaining why the former navy chef currently lives in exile in a remote Russian village aboard a now refurbished K-19. (Danny Munro) All episodes available now.
Miscarriages of justice and communities fighting back against establishment bodies who have done them wrong make for stirring television. Brian Donaldson believes that Toxic Town is yet another example of a drama that will make you sad, angry and aghast, all at the same time
TV of the month
At the very beginning of 2024, a mild-mannered ITV drama threw a grenade into the British establishment. Mr Bates vs The Post Office brought an otherwise little-known scandal smack bang into the public eye when a number of subpostmasters were accused of theft (‘false accounting’ is the polite term that’s adopted) when the reality is that a shiny new computer system they were forced to start using was horrendously faulty. Within days of the broadcast, their stories had reached the press and then parliament, with initial small steps towards recompense being taken.
Toxic Town has a whiff of the next Mr Bates. The terrible true story of the Corby mothers who gave birth to babies with similar physical defects around the same time pointed to something murky in the system. That something turned out to be poisonous particles released into the air from construction sites where the old steelworks once stood, often ferried around by vehicles which merely spread the toxic materials around town (pretty much hence the name).
Directed by the brilliant (and excellently named) Minkie Spiro (credits include Better Call Saul, Fosse/Verdon and Barry), you’d probably have an inkling already that this will have been written by either James Graham or Jack Thorne (if you guessed the latter, you win). The acting is largely flawless with Jodie Whittaker an absolute revelation as the ferociously determined and inyour-face Glaswegian who slowly realises that her son’s birth defect is not an isolated occurrence. Aimee Lou Wood plays another young mother who, it’s easy to argue, is left with even deeper trauma, while Rory Kinnear stumbles into proceedings as the well-meaning lawyer who takes on the case because of his personal connection to the area as well as feeling a burning sense of injustice.
Without being painted as ghoulish archetypes, it’s easy to spot the baddies, led by a staunch Labour council leader played by Brendan Coyle (the actor was born in Corby) who demands people fall in line or hell will mend them. It takes a while but Robert Carlyle’s seasoned councillor Sam eventually stands up to his boss, managing to let a little bit of Begbie out there to steady the nerve. Maybe the dour young engineer, whose job was to monitor a proper cleanup and whose dad was a hardcore steelworks guy but now needs breathing apparatus to survive, will save the day?
Ultimately, the link to Mr Bates can’t quite hold. The Corby mothers have had their day in court and if you’ve avoided reading about how all this is concluded, it would be unfair to spoil it here. The four-parter is not exactly what you’d call binge-worthy given its harrowing subject matter and heart-rending scenes of loss and despair, but you may well tear through it to see whether justice prevails. In your heart you want the mums to win but the nagging doubt is forever there that a compromise, a deal, or part-justice will be the best that comes of it.
Toxic Town is available now on Netflix.
SYLVIE COURVOISIER & MARY HALVORSON
Bone Bells (Pyroclastic Records)
Taking inspiration from sources as diverse as Monty Python, Dutch sculptures, Argentinean-American literature, Swiss art and British pub names, pianist Sylvie Courvoisier and guitarist Mary Halvorson have created an utterly distinctive soundworld. Bone Bells is their third album together since 2017’s debut Crop Circles, and is a collection of eight compositions (four by each musician) that are full of character, contrasts, deftly executed tonal shifts and compelling patterns.
Halvorson’s opening title track blends melancholic tunefulness with discordant playfulness and sets a beautifully plotted guitar improvisation against bright, spiky piano arpeggios. Its successor, Courvoisier’s ‘Esmeralda’, combines robust pianism and elegantly sighing guitar notes with sparse investigation of the piano’s inner workings and mesmerising melodicism. The duo’s understanding is uncanny and has been forged over much rehearsal and live performing to the degree that neither player takes sole credit for how a piece develops. Courvoisier initiated ‘Nags Head Valse’, a darker-than-dark waltz that makes you wonder what on earth they encountered in that pub, but it’s a genuine collaboration that suggests a conversation between the two women, vividly remembering a shared experience.
Elsewhere, ‘Silly Walk’ is brilliantly fidgety with superbly synchronised piano and guitar, and the hectic, intricate melody of ‘Float Queens’ triggers inquiring soloing from Halvorson and atmospheric progressions from Courvoisier. Both musicians have projects away from the duo (Courvoisier plays classical piano concerts and with her sextet Chimaera, Halvorson with her own six-piece Amaryllis) and their work in those will reward exploration. There’s a special magic in their music as a duo that has the power to call the listener back for more, whether it’s with the quicksilver phrasing of ‘Folded Secret’ or the stark and mysterious quality of final track, ‘Cristellina e Lontano’. (Rob Adams)
Released on Friday 14 March.
BOOKS CARY GRONER The Way (Canongate)
Cary Groner’s The Way imagines a grim (and scarily plausible) future. It’s 2048 with an avian flu having long since decimated the human race, and Will Collins ekes out a meagre existence at a desolate Buddhist retreat in Colorado. A message from an old friend, and the prospect of a cure, sets him on a journey across the wastelands of the United States, accompanied by a talking raven, a similarly chatty cat, and a troubled young girl.
Groner’s novel is certainly accomplished. He writes with clarity and ease, and the road-trip conceit provides a sense of momentum that makes for a pacy and engaging post-apocalyptic riff off a traditional western. It’s unfortunate, then, that the story itself is plagued by a distinct lack of ingenuity. It does not help that the initial premise bears more than a passing resemblance to the wildly successful The Last Of Us.
The most promising element (Will’s kinship with his anthropomorphic travelling companions) is quickly sidelined after the introduction of foul-mouthed, wise-cracking teen Sophie, who is more a hasty archetype than a fleshed-out character. After which, the narrative unfurls entirely as the reader expects, its twists and turns signposted miles ahead. Readers may forgive this lack of originality, particularly as The Way succeeds in being both fun and thoughtful in equal measure; a timely eco-dystopia for the post-covid world. And yet it’s hard to shake the feeling that this good novel is just a draft or two away from being a great one. (Eve Connor)
Published on Thursday 13 March.
OTHER THINGS WORTH STAYING IN FOR
A packed month of things to do indoors or consume on your travels include a new album from one third of Boygenius, the podcast set in a fiery hellscape, and a comedy about a tiny place being invaded by Hollywood
ALBUMS
LOGIC1000
The Australian DJ and producer also known as Samantha Poulter takes the reins of the DJ-Kicks mix series with the release of her own entry, featuring tracks by Qendresa, DJ Plead, Astrid Sonne and Smerz.
!K7, Friday 28 March.
LUCY DACUS
Forever Is A Feeling marks the first album from the Boygenius member since 2021 and comes ahead of a summer tour. Appearing on the record are Phoebe Bridgers, Hozier, Bartees Strange and Melina Duterte.
Geffen, Friday 28 March.
BOOKS
KRISTEN PERRIN
How To Seal Your Own Fate starts off in the autumn, as we get reacquainted with Annie Adams who is busy settling into her new home. That can’t be too easy given she found two dead bodies there over the summer.
Quercus, Thursday 27 March.
GAMES ATOMFALL
In this what-if action survival game, the true-life Windscale nuclear accident has turned northern England into a radioactive quarantine zone. Our protagonist has to fight off mutated creatures, a doomsday cult and rogue military agents.
Rebellion, Thursday 27 March.
PODCASTS
WELCOME TO
HELL
Comics Daniel Foxx and Dane Buckley usher a guest into their satanic lair for some salacious chat, bitchy gossip, and hot (very hot) tea. Among those who have dared to show up in hell are Tom Allen, Deirdre O’Kane and Sofie Hagen.
hellpod.com, new episodes every Thursday.
DOUGH
Ever wondered how people make money on everyday products? Entrepreneur Sam White and futurist Tom Cheesewright certainly do, and in each episode of this series they explore a different product and explore where it could go next.
BBC Sounds, new episodes every Thursday.
TV SMALL TOWN, BIG STORY
When a Hollywood production team rolls into a small Irish town, everyone’s lives are turned upside down. Especially when one of the LA big shots is Wendy Patterson (Christina Hendricks) who grew up there and once had a possible extraterrestrial experience with Séamus Proctor (Paddy Considine). Chris O’Dowd has created this so it’s only fair he should also allow himself to be in it.
Sky Atlantic, new episodes every Thursday.
THE HUNT FOR PETER TOBIN
This two-parter looks at the investigation which finally trapped the Scottish serial killer who left misery and carnage in his wake between 1991 and 2006.
BBC Scotland, Tuesday 4, 11 March.
DOPE THIEF
Things not to do in life: pose as drug enforcement agents and rob a house which turns out to be a front for a huge narcotics operation. Brian Tyree Henry and Wagner Moura play the foolish friends who do just that.
Apple TV+, Friday 14 March.
Small Town, Big Story (and bottom from left), Logic1000, Welcome To Hell, Atomfall
back
THE Q& A
WITH CHIEF COMMISSIONER CAMERON MIEKELSON
After eight series laying down the law in Scot Squad, Chief Commissioner Cameron Miekelson (aka Jack Docherty) takes top billing in spin-off show The Chief where his oldschool ways are challenged by progressive policing methods. The top cop takes on our Q&A and reveals all about investigating Airdrie, inventing batons and terrorising bams
Who would you like to see playing you in the movie about your life? Who do you think the casting people would choose? If it’s a big-budget Hollywood movie, Timothée Chalamet. For Netflix it would be Big Gerry Butler. And for STV it would be Fish.
What’s the punchline to your favourite joke? ‘He fell down the stairs.’ That is a joke, funny story, or procedure that is completely unacceptable in a modern, inclusive police force, and we would like to apologise to anyone who is triggered by that punchline.
If you were to return in a future life as an animal, what would it be? A unicorn. Another Scottish icon.
If you were playing in an escape room, name two other people (wellknown or otherwise) you’d recruit to help you get out? Pablo Escobar and the wee Scottish boy from The Great Escape Both excellent escapees.
When was the last time you were mistaken for someone else and what were the circumstances? I was once mistaken for the chief of the fire brigade, as I was snoozing on a camp bed while watching Cash In The Attic
What’s the best cover version ever? ‘I Fought The Law’ by The Clash, because the law always wins!
Whose speaking voice soothes your ears? My own, and you can hear it soon as I release the audiobook of my autobiography No Apologies.
Tell us something you wish you had discovered sooner in life? That all human beings are capable of fundamental change. And air fryers.
What tune do you find it impossible not to get up and dance to, whether in public or private? Currently it is ‘Hot To Go!’ by Chappell Roan. Or anything by Megan Thee Stallion.
Describe your perfect Saturday evening? Arresting Hearts fans for noise nuisance as they wail in the streets after being spanked by Hibs.
If you were a ghost, who would you haunt? I don’t need to be a ghost to terrify the bams. The threat of me or my force making an appearance should be enough to deter all criminal activity in Scotland.
If you could relive any day of your life, which one would it be? Any arrest is a good day. Except the wrongful ones where we have to let them out later. When we do, we sincerely apologise to them even when it wasn’t our fault.
Did you have a nickname at school that you were ok with? And can you tell us a nickname you hated? Cammy at school. Sir in the force. Online I have been referred to as Cam The Bam, Chief Wiekelson, Chief Freakelson, Chief Commissioner C****: it is not big, it is not clever, it is a hate crime and you will be prosecuted once we’ve worked out how to enforce the appropriate accompanying legislation.
If you were to start a tribute act to a band or singer, who would it be in tribute to and what would it be called? The obvious answer would be a tribute to The Police called The Rozzers.
When were you most recently astonished by something? This morning when we had our monthly blue-sky meeting and I casually invented the double-ended baton. Astonishing. I make it my mission to astonish myself on a daily basis. Haven’t missed a day for seven years now.
Which famous person would be your ideal holiday companion? David Attenborough would be amazing, talking you through all the flora and fauna on your trip. Unless you were on a city break. Then, once he’d pointed at a pigeon you’d feel he was just there for the free food. Or Simon Calder from The Independent because he always seems to know the best deals.
As an adult, what has a child said to you that made a powerful impact? As a young officer, I once chased down a bag snatcher. I returned the stolen bag and the grateful woman pulled out a soft sheeplike toy and gave it back to her daughter. As her smile replaced her tears, that young girl looked up and whispered ‘thank you Mr Police.’ And those words, that girl’s gratitude, is why I am a policeman. That, and the healthy pension provisions.
When did you last cry? In this job, it can be easy to become hardened, for your empathy to become calloused, so crying rarely comes easily. But watching the Hibs defence will do it.
What’s the most hi-tech item in your home? I own a hi-tech games console upon which I often play Grand Theft Auto. It compromises my principles but at the same time is tremendous fun.
What’s a skill you’d love to learn but never got round to? I am still perfecting my ability to remember every one of my passwords to all the devices and information I have to access. And not make them all ‘p_assword’. Not that any of them are ‘p_assword’. ‘P_assword’ is, and I can’t state this enough, not my password.
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? Possibly the room that includes the photos of all the people I’ve dressed up as at police fancydress parties over the years. Great fun but different times and probably no longer relevant today.
If you were selected as the next 007, where would you pick as your first luxury destination for espionage? Airdrie. That’s where we think the hacker lives that keeps changing my Wikipedia page.
The Chief is available on BBC iPlayer now and airs every Thursday on BBC Scotland.
hot shots
Award-winning theatre-maker Daniel Bye introduces us to his Imaginary Friends at Glasgow’s Tron Theatre (14 & 15 March), in which a failing comedian starts taking notice of the voices in his head. Bad move. But could it be that they’re actually giving him useful ideas?
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Given the complaints at how long films are these days, Glasgow Short Film Festival (19–23 March) is a boon for those who like things sweet as well as short. Among the treats are work from Indonesian artist and filmmaker Riar Rizaldi, lots of Bill Douglas Award entrants, and Basri & Salma In A Never-Ending Comedy (pictured).
Long before ‘supermodel’ was in general usage, Twiggy (aka Lesley Hornby) was pretty much the template for Moss, Turlington, Schiffer et al. The face of London’s swinging 60s has her full story told in a new documentary out in cinemas on 7 March, directed by Sadie Frost.
