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Meet the team
Championing creativity in Scotland
We asked: What's the most brat thing you did in 2024?
Editorial
Rosamund West Editor-in-Chief
"Added this question to the pageplan."
Peter Simpson Deputy Editor, Food & Drink Editor
"Waiting until the last minute to answer this question with ‘I don’t think I’ve done *anything* that’s brat, sorry xoxo’"
Cammy Gallagher Clubs Editor "Sold my Charli xcx ticket."
Polly Glynn Comedy Editor
"Sending my pals a photo pretending I’d got engaged whilst my partner actually proposed to me."
Harvey Dimond Art Editor "Started drinking non-alcoholic beer."
Sales
George Sully Sales and Brand Strategist
"I listened to Charli xcx's hit 2024 album BRAT."
Anahit Behrooz Events Editor, Books Editor
"That is between me and the next scheduled game of Never Have I Ever x"
Eilidh Akilade Intersections Editor
"Is it brat to call my mum when I'm crying? Imo yes."
Ellie Robertson Digital Editorial Assistant
"I threw a friend a Taskmaster themed stag party and embodied the most brat person I can think of – Little Alex Horne."
Sandy Park Commercial Director
"Sighing profusely, every month, when I realise I’ve not put my monthly answer in on the morning of print day."
Business
Laurie Presswood General Manager
"I was told off by a stranger on the street for talking too loudly. For context I was on the phone to my mum, discussing her upcoming choir concert."
Ema Smekalova
Media Sales Executive
"Got banned from Germany, ate a cigarette, bought a pack of white tank tops for ages 5-7 from Poundland."
Jamie Dunn
Film Editor, Online Journalist
"I released a song called Kermode, So Confusing about my beef with another film critic. But then we shocked the world when we worked it out on the remix."
Rho Chung Theatre Editor "[Refusing to participate in the brat-themed quiz]"
Tallah Brash Music Editor
"I stole a bottle of prosecco from a gift bag I found in a bar and drank it with my pals on the way to the cloob."
Production
Dalila D'Amico Art Director, Production Manager
"Told a taxi driver I didn’t believe in traffic lights and refused to elaborate."
Phoebe Willison Designer "Learnt to DJ lol."
Emilie Roberts
Media Sales Executive
"As someone who pouts, crosses my arms, stamps my foot etc a lot, I firmly believe brat is a lifestyle. Brat every day, baby."
Gabrielle Loue Media Sales Executive "Voting for Kamala."
Editorial
Words: Rosamund West
It’s look back on the year time here at The Skinny, and what a year it has been. Remember when we thought 2016 was shit?
A more innocent time.
We’re still not ready to abandon democracy though – our Music team have been polled, the ballots have been counted, and we are ready to announce our top Albums of 2024. The winner won by a landslide, and their cultural dominance felt at times near total. We also get more specific, looking back on the year in Scottish music to round up, in our highly subjective opinions, the best releases.
Film approaches the measuring of screen work in three ways – you’ve got your best Films of the Year, for the movies that were good and received generally positive acclaim. Then there are the Underrated Films of the Year, for things our team loved but felt didn’t get the attention they deserved from the wider world. Then there’s TV of the Year, which provides a list of gems that you could dive into this very evening in the comfort of your own home. Spoiler – Married at First Sight Australia is once again overlooked, a travesty.
We have some Books of the Year, with each writer picking their favourite and sharing why they love it, while the Comedy team look back on their highlights from the live circuit and on screen. The centre pages are once again an illustrator-designed sheet of wrapping paper, this year by local hero Emer Tumilty. Pull it out and use it to wrap your gifts – it’s fully recyclable, the paper so biodegradable it’s a wonder it stays in one piece long enough for you to read the magazine. Maybe it doesn’t.
It’s been a year where grassroots organising has been more and more essential. Intersections offers a survey of some of the people and collectives who are offering community and resistance in a relentlessly hostile environment. We also look at the government’s new digital-first immigration process and consider what the true cost will be, as it further raises the barriers to entry. In Art, one writer examines the culture of complicity that has been revealed in the sector as some organisations maintain their silence over the genocide in Palestine.
With the year duly surveyed, we move on to talking to some artists about things they have made that we like. Wuh Oh, aka Pete Ferguson, talks about the distress of being dropped by a major label as his eponymous debut album is finally released and he reveals a new moniker, Ferguson. We get insight from Tina Sandwich on their recent experience of going on a DIY European tour in 2024, from sleeping in vans to bingo-based fundraising.
South African artist Gabrielle Goliath discusses the collaborative process in Personal Accounts, currently on show at Talbot Rice Gallery. We meet Guy Maddin and his frequent collaborators Evan and Galen Johnson to hear about Rumours, their new comedy about a crisis at the G7 Summit. Clubs meets Kami-O, one of Scotland’s top grime and dubstep exports, to look back on the year following his signing with White Peach.
We close the issue with The Skinny on… John-Luke Roberts, who won one of our Besties awards back in August for his Fringe show. His favourite thing about 2024 has been the sense of encroaching doom, so relatable. Happy holidays!
Cover Artist
Jannik Stegen is a German artist & illustrator. His work is highlighted by his bold and quirky characters, abstract shapes and colorful compositions. After trying out medical school, he went for a degree in visual communication and studied in Darmstadt, Valencia, Athens, Hamburg and Berlin.
IG: @jannikstegen jannikstegen.com
Love Bites: Dance With Me
This month’s columnist reflects on embracing dancing at parties and the embarrassment that ensues
Words: Annie Bowles
“Dancing at house parties is over,” my friend Nadia concluded. The rest of us nodded like bobble heads. “You go to the club to dance; you go to house parties to chat.”
We agree, chimed our internal platonic polycule hive mind. The six of us – my girl group from university days – were attending a party that night, hosted by a ga le of cool London types. At previous parties of the sort, one or more of us had reached that potent mixture of starstruck and drunk and made a fool of ourselves, either by a ressively grinding on the dancefloor or stripping (or both).
Determined to save ourselves from fatally flawed exhibitionism, we repeated our mantra. We got ready together, in our usual way. Nadia angled her cheekbones high towards us to ensure proper blending. We questioned, yet again, what to do with A ie’s hair? Oria applied her slow, quiet lick of eyeliner, an inky stroke to her hairline. Naomi wrestled herself into a corset, her breasts proud and high. Catherine bopped to Aaliyah’s self-titled album on A ie’s speaker, patting glittery eyeshadow on her pale lids. I fussed and fretted over my outfit, always ready first. Coat on, bag in hand, I waited for the others to come into the night. Some rituals are sacred without scripture.
At the party, our psalm of just a few hours past was inexplicably forgotten. As one, we flooded into the room, frothing. We shru ed off coyness with our jackets. I claimed the phone on the aux and led the procession of gyrating and vibrating. Every track was a hit (except Rather Be by Clean Bandit, Nadia let me know. “Who am I to resist the pull of nostalgia?” I replied). An unspoken connection dissolved inhibition in favour of fun. We danced without judgement into the early hours, long overstaying our welcome. In the morning, eyes ringed with smudged mascara and sleep, we barely acknowledged our transgression. The hive mind need not repeat what it already knows.
Heads Up
Puppy Teeth
Sneaky Pete’s, Edinburgh, 12 Dec, 7pm
Billed as for fans of Big Thief and Wolf Alice, Edinburgh-based band Puppy Teeth are just over a year old but already have two singles to their name, crafting an intimate, vibey mix of indie-rock and shoegaze. They’ve already played at the likes of King Tut’s, La Belle Angele and The Mash House – find them at Sneaky Pete’s this month, with support from Martha May & The Mondays and Dazed & Confused.
Christmas at Glasgow Film Theatre
Glasgow Film Theatre, Glasgow, 13-24
Dec
Get into the festive spirit with Glasgow Film Theatre’s usual eclectic Christmas programme, featuring everything from family classics (Elf! The Muppet Christmas Carol!) and old school favourites (It’s a Wonderful Life! White Christmas!) to leftfield choices (In Bruges! Eyes Wide Shut!) and the new, somewhat sacrilegious Christmas canon (Die Hard is a Christmas film, etc).
Ponyboy NYE
Stereo, Glasgow, 31 Dec, 9pm Ring in the mid-point of the decade (and forget about what a horrifying notion that is) at queer dance party
Ponyboy’s New Year’s Eve bash. The lineup is yet to be confirmed, but you can expect the usual incredible local DJs playing everything from hyperpop to techno, incredible lighting and visuals, and all-out costumes.
The Christmas Show
Royal Scottish Academy RSA, Edinburgh, until 22 Dec
Say goodbye to 2024 with a host of glittery parties, festive films and theatre, and vibey gigs to see you through the final stretch.
Compiled by Anahit Behrooz
Charli xcx
The OVO Hydro, Glasgow, 2 Dec, 6:30pm Brat summer will never die, no matter how cold it gets. Charli xcx is in Glasgow this month on the official tour for our album of the year (other accolades are available), and while it is very extremely sold out, keep an eye out for returns or console yourself at one of several afterparties: cult classic at The Berkeley Suite or Shitepop x Rahul.mp3 at Stereo.
Works in Progress II
Dissenter Space, Edinburgh, 14 Dec, 5pm
A showcase of experimental audio works both performed live and broadcast on community radio station EHFM, Works in Progress is an incredible celebration of the boundary-pushing talent emerging from Edinburgh’s underground scene. The full programme is still in the works, but the likes of maniatrix, samwooddoowmas, Camilla Grudova and Ana Tewungwa are already confirmed.
Belladonna Paloma: The Grave in Full Vigour Generator Projects, Dundee, until 15 Dec
A solo show, publication and collective reading event by Shetland-based artist and poet Belladonna Paloma, The Grave in Full Vigour transforms the gallery space of Generator Projects into part-necropolis, partreading room dedicated to exploring the divine and abject nature of the trans body. Objects and words transform into devotional totems, exploring ideas of embodiment and the boundaries between sanctity and sacrilege.
Various venues, Edinburgh, 21 Dec, 9pm Edinburgh party icons The Mirror Dance are putting on an extra special extravaganza for the last of their 2024 nights. They’re welcoming NTS host Ruf Dug and London-based DJ and producer Tia Cousins, who will kick off the night with a pub quiz in West Port Oracle’s airplane-themed basement, before heading to Sneaky Pete’s for a six-hour B2B.
Winter Arts Markets
Out of the Blue Drill Hall, Edinburgh, 6-8 Dec
Skip the hellish crowds of Princes Street and shop small and thoughtful this Christmas. There’s a wealth of Christmas Markets in the city that don’t charge a small fortune for mass-produced tat – one of our favourites is the Winter Markets at Out of the Blue, which features a host of local makers and artisans perfect for picking up treats for your loved ones (or, let’s be real, yourself).
Scottish Ballet: The Nutcracker Theatre Royal, Glasgow, 6-30 Dec, various times
Escape the ever darkening days and duck into a magical world of sugar plum fairies, dancing dolls and scheming mice in this gorgeous production of Tchaikovsky’s classic ballet. Catch it in Glasgow in the run-up to Christmas, or hang tight for a January run at Edinburgh’s Festival Theatre to brighten the gloomy month. It doesn’t get more festive than this.
World of Twist:
Zag Erlat + Shaqdi
The Rum Shack, Glasgow, 7 Dec, 9pm
The Pitt, Edinburgh, 31 Dec, 6pm
Jyoty presents We’ve Been Here Before The Liquid Room, Edinburgh, 6 Dec, 11pm As part of her world tour, Amsterdam-born and London-based DJ Jyoty is stopping off in Edinburgh for a night of genre-bending mixes and selections. Having established a name for herself on London community radio Rinse FM, she’s taking her skills into the material world – expect everything from house, garage, and grime to dancehall and R‘n’B.
LAMAYA
SWG3, Glasgow, 6 Dec, 7pm East Kilbride singer-songwriter released her debut single last year, a sultry, gorgeously produced meld of soul, R‘n’B and dance that transcends the strict boundaries between genres. At only 20 years old, she’s poised to be one of the next big names in Scottish music: catch her headlining SWG3’s The Poetry Club this month.
Headset Festival
The Mash House, Edinburgh, 20-22 Dec, 5pm
Edinburgh club night Headset turns ten this year and to celebrate the big milestone, they’re throwing a three-day festival of some of the best names in Scotland across the spectrum of rave, sound system, techno and experimental. Find the likes of Feena, Neil Landstrumm, Hu-Sane, Proc Fiskal and Eclair Fifi playing across four rooms from 5pm-5am.
The
Hogmanay Extravaganza
Monika Sosnowska: Broken Glass Dirt and Dust
Modern Institute, Glasgow, until 15 Jan
When Harry Met Sally Cameo, Edinburgh, 31 Dec, 4pm
Untitled, Monika Sosnowska
Image: Columbia Pictures
Photo: Baptiste Merel
Photo: World of Twist
Zag Erlat + Shaqdi
When Harry Met Sally
Photo: Patrick Jameson
Image: courtesy of The Mirror Dance
Image: courtesy of Sneaky Pete's
Photo: Kim Simpson
Photo: Andy Ros
Photo: Martin Senyszack
Photo: Buy oh Buoy
Jyoty LAMAYA Eclair Fifi
The Nutcracker
Out of the Blue Winter Markets
Ruf Dug
Trams from every 7 minutes
Free parking at Ingliston P&R
Free all-night trams on hogmanay
Scan here to purchase your tram tickets
£4.50 adult
£2.25 child
£8.00 family
What's On
All details correct at the time of writing
Music
It would be rude not to start proceedings with a trio of artists who play the OVO Hydro this month that feature in our top 20 albums of the year – cult classic Charli xcx (2 Dec), Dublin post-punks Fontaines D.C. (4 Dec) and New York wordsmiths Vampire Weekend (8 Dec). Also be sure to seek out Charli collaborators Romy at Old Fruitmarket (14 Dec) and A. G. Cook at SWG3 (15 Dec).
If you like your December gigs with a whole lot more Christmas spirit of course, then we’ve got you covered there too. If you want to be drowning in festive cheer, The Brothers Fife play shows in Edinburgh (Bellfield Brewery, 10 Dec) and Glasgow (The Rum Shack, 11 Dec). Meanwhile, Lost Map Records’ annual Humbug brings Afterlands, Alabaster DePlume, Susan Bear and Pictish Trail to Edinburgh’s Traverse Theatre (14 Dec), and Tommy Reilly’s All Star Christmas 9 takes over The Rum Shack (21 Dec). Lineup TBA, all proceeds to Macmillan Cancer Support.
Earlier in the month in Stirling (6 & 7 Dec), raising funds for Tiny Changes, Sing the Greys celebrates the music of Frightened Rabbit over two nights at the Tolbooth, while the following weekend in Glasgow, Music Is the Light are raising funds for mental health charity SAMH at Stereo (15 Dec) with performances from Haiver (featuring Frabbit’s Billy Kennedy), Darren McGarvey and KMD.
And the rest of the month, rich in local talent, looks like this. Jamie Sutherland celebrates The World As It Used to Be at The Hug & Pint (3 Dec) and Voodoo Rooms (8 Dec), Jill Lorean launches Peace Cult at Mono (4 Dec), Cahill//Costello celebrate their second collaborative record at The Rum Shack (4 Dec) and Sneaky Pete’s (6 Dec). Odd Luke launches Surface Tension at The Poetry Club (7 Dec), Wendell Borton launch Big Love at The Hug & Pint (13 Dec), Loup Havenith releases Understand at Stereo (13 Dec)', and all female and non-binary songwriting collective Hen Hoose celebrate EP3 at CCA (14 Dec).
Launches aside, in Edinburgh Amplifi returns to The Queen’s Hall for its last outing of the year with music from Groove Down, Juniper LAI and Nuna (4 Dec). Works In Progress takes over Leith’s Dissenter Space (14 Dec, 2-10pm) for a whole day of immersive and experimental audiovisual performances, while in the week leading up to the event successful applicants will have their music broadcast on EHFM. On the 17th, KuleeAngee bring their dancefloorfuelled indie-electro to Sneaky Pete’s (and Nice N Sleazy, 19 Dec), while Quiet Houses bring their dreamy indie-pop to Cab Vol (20 Dec).
In Glasgow, the Glasgow Songwriter Round returns to King Tut’s with Alice Faye, Grayling, Kenneth-Noah Blair and Julen Santamaria (9 Dec), while Dead Pony round off their bi est headline tour to date with a show at QMU (13 Dec). Celebrating ten years of the local queer feminist events collective, Spite House party at Mono with Lung Leg, comfort, Blue Kanues and Blues Angles (14 Dec), Theo Bleak headlines King Tut’s (19 Dec), Man Of Moon play Saint Luke’s (20 Dec), Roddy Woomble does double duty at The Hug & Pint (20 & 21 Dec), and Doss round out their year with a rager at Stereo (21 Dec).
After Christmas, Idlewild play the Night Afore at Assembly Rooms (30 Dec), while VoxBox get NYE celebrations underway early with their afternoon
Photo: Euan Roberston
Photo: Rosie Sco
Photo: Vic Lentaigne Romy
Man Of Moon
Dead Pony
BYOB VoxBox Hogmanay Jamboree (31 Dec). On 1 January, Hogmanay celebrations continue in Edinburgh with The Vaselines and Sacred Paws at Portobello Town Hall, while for First Footin’ artists like Karine Polwart, Dead Pony, Zoe Graham and Spyres play various spots across the city. In Glasgow, King Tut’s New Year’s Revolution series kicks off on the 2nd, and The Hug & Pint’s First Footing shows get underway on the 4th. [Tallah Brash]
Film
The year comes to an end with two key indie arts venues in Glasgow shut for the winter – OFFLINE is off because it still doesn’t have proper heating and the CCA has closed till April because of a budget shortfall. Summerhall in Edinburgh, meanwhile, is essentially closed (and could potentially be sold) thanks to a winding up petition applied by HMRC. If it wasn’t abundantly clear, it’s a perilous time for the bricks-and-mortar institutions which are essential to Scotland’s bright film scene. So this festive season, be sure to head out and support the venues that are still operating.
You could watch some Christmas films, perhaps? The classics are screening, of course: there are many chances to catch the likes of It’s a Wonderful Life (13-24 Dec, GFT; 21-24, DCA; 20-24, Cameo) and The Muppet Christmas Carol (15-24 Dec, GFT; 23-24, DCA; 7-15 Dec, Cameo), but there are plenty of less traditional picks too.
Cameo’s selection is particularly inspired. As well as darker visions of Christmas like Batman Returns (6 Dec), Black Christmas (13 Dec), The Apartment (12&15 Dec) and All that Heaven Allows (16-19 Dec), the Edinburgh cinema is also making a case for more recent films like Little Women (7-9 Dec) and Tangerine (24 Dec) to be welcomed into the Christmas film pantheon, along with a trio of festive 2024 releases – The Holdovers (11 Dec), All of Us Strangers (18 Dec) and Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point (24 Dec).
Away from Xmas, BFI’s high-octane season The Art of Action comes to DCA with screenings of Point Break (13 Dec), The Adventures of Robin Hood (7 Dec) and Bong Joon-ho’s blistering Snowpiercer (4 Dec). There’s also a great double bill of female-led Mexican curios The Panther Women and The Bat Woman courtesy of Invisible Women collective (10 Dec)'. GFT closes out a great year of CineMasters with a season dedicated to Scotland’s greatest-ever filmmaker, Bill Douglas. Douglas only made a handful of shorts and one feature, so the season is slim, but these stunning films shouldn’t be missed on the big screen. His award-winning trilogy of shorts – My Childhood, My Ain Folk and My Way Home – screens on 14 December and his 1986 epic Comrades is on the 21st. And to put the season in context, check out Bill Douglas: My Best Friend, Jack Archer’s documentary tracing Douglas’s friendship with his long-time collaborator Peter Jewell. That doc kicks off the season on 11 December, followed by a Q&A with Archer. [Jamie Dunn]
Clubs
On Monday 2 December, celebrate the brat bank holiday, as Charli xcx hits Glasgow. Stereo’s Shitepop x Rahul.mp3: The Brat Afterparty is sold out, however you can still catch the cult classic afterparty at The Berkeley Suite (2 Dec). On Friday 6th, Glasgow’s Poole showcases his latest release to life, bringing live abstract electronics, visuals, and vocals, to EXIT. A few streets southwards, techno’s favourite stoners – Fjaak – light up Sub Club for Sensu. Otherwise, Gary Beck and A Deeper Groove join forces to launch brand new night, Visionaire to the seaside town of Ayr (6 Dec). On Saturday, FUSE turns eight in style, hosting the SICARIA UK Tour - BACK2BASICS feat. Hometown Soundsystem go to Glasgow’s Stereo – support from SOFSOF, Luckybabe & Chicha (7 Dec). Club Nacht welcomes home Wallace, alongside his tartan army and a bag of blistering house to The Bongo Club (14 Dec). Witness hundreds of Scottish acts, across four rooms, in support of one local HERO: Skillis hosts Headset’s 10th Birthday x 3-Day Festival from Friday 20 December at The Mash House – this may never happen again (20-22 Dec).
Meanwhile, in Glasgow Illian Tape roll through to La Cheetah with stone-cold drumfunk on Friday (20 Dec), while DUENDE X Decades of Dub shares global bass flavours to EXIT on Saturday (21 Dec). On Friday 27, it’s the Animal Farm 20th Birthday at Sub Club – our forecasts predict no nonsense doof. For more doof, Fraz.ier is back in Aberdeen at UNIT 51; this time with E.DN b2b Liam Capello (27 Dec). Techno birthdays persist across
Image: courtesy of the artist Wallace
Snowpiercer
Holdovers
Bill Douglas: My Best Friend
the weekend at The Bongo Club, firstly for 15 Years Of Pulse: Ben Sims on Saturday 28 December, followed by the 23-year finale of Jackhammer with Dave Clarke and Detroit Techno Militia. Round out the year in Edinburgh at the Mash House Hogmanay. Although it’s tricky to compete with fireworks and a 5am license, EXIT, Ponyboy, and The Berkeley Suite have Glasgow clubbers in safe hands come Tuesday 31 Dec. [Cammy Gallagher]
Art
At Dundee Contemporary Arts, Soft Impressions (7 Dec-23 Mar) brings together the work of artists Helen Cammock, Ingrid Pollard and Camara Taylor Spanning both gallery spaces, the exhibition includes new and existing print works from the early 2000s to present day, focusing on the artists’ shared engagement with the medium of printmaking.
Nearby at Generator Projects, a solo show by Belladonna Paloma titled The Grave in Full Vigour (until 15 Dec) sees the Shetland-based artist transform the gallery into a necropolis-cum-reading room devoted to the divine and abject nature of the trans body.
In Edinburgh, Fruitmarket’s final exhibition of the year is a treat. The first retrospective since his death in 2021, In a State of Flux brings together numerous sculptural works by the late Barry Le Va. One of the most important American artists of the 20th century, this major exhibition spans five decades of his career. Continues until 2 February.
In Glasgow, Tramway presents an immersive exhibition by the late Scottish-Ghanaian poet, artist, photographer, writer, curator, gallerist and publisher Maud Sulter Curated in collaboration with the Maud Sulter Estate, the exhibition is the largest showcase of Sulter’s expansive practice in Scotland and showcases the artists’ rarely exhibited moving image and spoken word archives as well as large scale photographic works. Continues until 30 March.
At the Hunterian Gallery, Di ing in Another Time: Derek Jarman’s Modern Nature (until 29 Apr) draws inspiration from the renowned writer and artist’s diaries. Bringing together works from across his career, the exhibition also features commissions by six contemporary artists – Andrew Black, Luke Fowler, Jade de Montserrat, Tom Walker, Matthew Arthur Williams and Sarah Wood
It’s your final opportunity to catch Marlene Smith’s exhibition Ah, Sugar at the Reid Gallery at The Glasgow School of Art (until 14 Dec). Curated by Seán Elder, the exhibition brings together newly-commissioned photographic and sculptural work that demonstrates the artist’s ongoing interest in the material and bodily qualities of artistic practice. [Harvey Dimond]
Theatre
It’s December, and the family-friendly Christmas theatre is frankly inescapable – don’t fight it. Scottish Ballet transport you into a literal chocolate box with Tchaikovsky’s festive banger, The Nutcracker, taking up residency in Glasgow’s Theatre Royal (6-30 Dec) before touring the nation in the new year.
For the pantomime enthusiasts, your first port of call must be Glasgow’s Tron for Johnny McKnight’s Peter Pan and the Incredible Stinkerbell (until 5 Jan). Fans of this auteur of Scottish panto can also catch a production in Stirling’s Macrobert, with Snow White and the Seven De’Wharffs running until 31 December. Òran Mór’s panto comes via A Play, a Pie and a Pint, with Weans in the Wood(lands) serving up hyper local humour with a side of pastry (until 5 Jan).
Edinburgh’s Festival Theatre presents Cinderella (until 31 Dec), starring stalwarts of the genre Grant Stott and Allan Stewart as the wicked stepmother and fairy godmother respectively, featuring singing, dancing, some flying horses and a confrontingly large number of references to the Hibees. Festival Theatre’s Studio space also has a non-panto production, with Barrowland Ballroom’s The Gift (14-31 Dec) presenting physical theatre for the very young.
For a family-friendly theatre trip that doesn’t include anyone shouting ‘he’s behind you’ or lobbing sweets at your head, the Lyceum has you covered. Treasure Island (until 4 Jan) promises a swashbuckling adventure featuring a young Jim Hawkins working at North Edinburgh’s finest accommodation for reformed pirates and past-it privateers. Dundee Rep celebrates the city’s local heritage, with a live action musical production of Oor Wullie (until 30 Dec) catering to all your Jings! Crivvens! Help Ma Boab! needs.
Camara Taylor, Untitled (familiar document), Digital Print, 2014
Fraz.ier
Cinderella
Maud Sulter, Self portrait, 201 2, large format Polaroid
Artist Self Portrait, in collaboration with Ajamu
Photo: Tommy Ga Ken Wan
Even Christmas won’t stop the Traverse from developing new Scottish playwriting talent. 4Play presents four plays by new Scottish playwrights (4-7 Dec) with new, full length works by Ruaraidh Murray, Mikey Burnett, Andrea McKenzie and Katy Nixon arriving on stage on consecutive nights. The Class Act Winter Showcase (12-13 Dec), meanwhile, presents work written by young people from Firrhill High School, Trinity Academy, Tynecastle High School and Intercultural Youth Scotland, brought to the stage by the Trav’s team of professional theatre makers. [Rosamund West]
Books
It’s a bit of a quiet month book-wise, after the chaos of the various November festivals. Bookshops are largely focused on festive selling in this period: head over to Portobello Bookshop and Golden Hare Books on 5 December for a late-night browsing session (complete with mince pies and mulled wine!). Also at Portobello, Hayden Thorpe drops by the shop on 10 December to tour his stunning musical adaptation of Robert Macfarlane’s Ness. Over at Scottish Storytelling Centre, meanwhile, there’s storytelling with Queer Folk Tales on 5 December and spoken word with Loud Poets on 6 December. For a dose of festive frolic, Edinburgh Makar Michael Pedersen brings his annual music and spoken word showcase Cold Turkey to Leith St Andrew’s Church alongside Hollie McNish, Withered Hand and Gemma Cairney. And for more poetry, Glasgow Zine Library have an open mic night (11 Dec) and Glasgow Women’s Library host an Urdu Poetry Special at their monthly Story Café. [Anahit Behrooz]
Comedy
You’ve no excuse not to catch some comedy on Sunday 8 December. At Glasgow Stand, take your pick from Ray Bradshaw performing and recording a best-of from his past three solo shows (4pm, £12) or supremely daft longform improv from the Spontaneous Potter gang (8.30pm, £12), who donate a percentage of their profits to a trans charity every year. In Edinburgh, choose between a fundraiser in aid of Edinburgh Dog and Cat Home (Edinburgh Stand, 8pm, £15), headlined by Fred MacAulay; or pop to Monkey Barrel for some highly alternative entertainment: jester John-Luke Roberts presents Geoffrey Chaucer’s Mediaeval Christmas Festivitye! (8pm, £15) – a night of gleeful nonsense with (jingle) bells on.
Regular gigs gearing up for Festive specials include The Improv Show, run by Will Naameh (aka MC Hammersmith, who’s just supported Jason Manford on tour), which unleashes Christmas chaos at Monkey Barrel on 10 December (8pm, £6), while Glasgow Improv Theatre debuts a new format with Couch Surfs the Web (17 Dec, The Old Hairdresser’s, 8.30pm, £6) –spontaneous scenes based on bad Trip Advisor reviews. Open Comedy’s last show of 2024, tentatively titled Mango-ho-ho!, showcases female, trans and non-binary acts on 17 December (Artisan Roast Leith Walk, 7pm, free) while Material, Girl fills Glasgow Stand with some Christmas-week chuckles (22 Dec, 3pm, £8). We’re also VERY excited to see the return of David Callaghan’s superb multimedia comedy night Progranimate (11 Dec, The Old Hairdresser’s, 8pm, £5.50).
Finally, three nights of superb stand-up bring the year to a close. Dundee comedy fans should see Susie McCabe’s latest show, The Merchant of Menace, which comes to the Gardyne Theatre (11 Dec, 8pm, £16.75). In the same week, Liam Withnail records his first special across two shows on 14 December (Monkey Barrel, 6pm and 8pm, £10), with tickets left for the early performance only. Round it off with a HUGE lineup of some of the UK’s best-known stand-ups: Sara Pascoe is joined by Phil Wang, Rhys James, Jen Brister and Steen Raskopoulos at Edinburgh’s Queen’s Hall (15 Dec, 7.30pm, £28.50) and Glasgow 02 Academy (16 Dec, Doors 6.30pm, £30.20).
[Polly Glynn]
Photo: Matt Stronge
Photo: Jess Shurte
Photo: Natasha Pszenicki
Photo: Mihaela Bodlovic
Photo: Idil Sukan
John-Luke Roberts
Phil Wang Treasure Island
Hollie McNish
Jen Brister
Features
24 2024 in review: Albums of the Year - from Lost Worlds to brats, our writers have spoken…
31 We also found out their favourite Scottish Albums of the Year…
32 Before asking our film writers for their top ten Films of the Year both rated and underrated…
37 As well as their TV of the Year
38 And then we asked another group of writers for their Books of the Year
42 Before the comedy team got involved to remember their Year in Comedy.
44 In our Radical Review, we look at some of the grassroots organisations offering hope for the future.
47 As he releases his long-lost album, Wuh Oh talks overcoming the fear of failure after being dropped by a major label.
51 South African artist Gabrielle Goliath introduces Personal Accounts, a collaborative project on show in Talbot Rice Gallery.
52 We head out on tour with Tina Sandwich, following the release of their For the World EP.
57 Guy Maddin and collaborators Evan and Galen Johnson talk about crisis at the G7 in new film about Rumours
58 We sit down with Scottish grime and dubstep producer Kami-O
On the website... Yet more end-of-year chat on The Cineskinny podcast; a host of things to be won in our competitions (festival tickets! Art Passes! etc!); Spotlight On… new music interviews every week; reviews of Glasgow gigs from Kneecap, Barry Can’t Swim and English Teacher
Image Credits: (Left to right, top to bottom) Buck Meek; TAAHLIAH; Peadar Ó Goill; Big Boys; Mahnoor Khan Steve Ullathorne; Magda Michalak; Joe Crogan at Zones Production; Luc Meneghel; Miriam Schlüter; Rumours; White Peach Records
Compiled by George Sully
Across
1. Hello and welcome to another ambitiously designed end-of-year crossword! Once again it is filled with stuff either only I care about, or things that happened in 2024, such as: This rapper had a notable public beef with Drake (8,5)
12. Occlusion of one celestial body by another (7)
13. Stadium (5)
14. Possessive pronoun (2)
15. Ledge – phase (4)
16. Score 100% – playing card (3)
18. On the ___ – hiding from the law (3)
19. 2015 Disney/Pixar film featuring personified emotions (had a sequel this year) (6,3)
22. Lyric poem (3)
23. Hired killer (8)
25. 1988 buddy comedy starring Arnold Schwarzene er and Danny DeVito (5)
26. Rescue (7)
27. Raw metal (3)
28. Maker (7)
29. On land (6)
31. Bev (5)
33. In this location (4)
35. Tale (5)
37. Establish context to an anecdote (3,3,5)
39. 2024 hurricane which devastated much of southeastern USA (6)
41. Ovum (3)
43. Biscuits (7)
45. Keen (4)
47. Slightly – rather (8)
49. Unscathed (6)
51. Tops (4)
52. Self-esteem (3)
53. Luca Guadagnino's sweaty 2024 tennis movie (11)
58. Lowest point – drain (anag) (5)
60. Skeleton snapshot (1-3)
62. Santa (anag) (5)
63. Mr Loan (anag) (6)
65. The loneliest number (3)
67. Abbreviation for 25 Dec (4)
70. Cell division – is moist (anag) (7)
72. Type – diversity (7)
73. E.g. maki, nigiri (5)
76. Badgers – horses (4)
78. Book o'synonyms (9)
79. Cheese (5)
80. Arsey (anag) (5)
81. Prepare food (let them do it?) (4)
82. Sibling's daughter (5)
83. Chocolate cake – girl scout (7)
84. The ___ ___ Department, 2024 album by Taylor Swift (8,5) Down
1. ___ Harris, the first female vice president in US history (6)
2. Refusal word (2)
3. City in California (init.) (2)
4. Timekeeper – or memento (anag) (9)
5. Full (7)
6. International athletics competition (8)
7. Party pooper – I lost props (anag) (10)
8. Population survey (6)
9. Overwhelming majorities – avalanches (10)
10. Ornamental (10)
11. Slang for potato (6)
17. Bespoke – way of doing things (6)
20. 2024 breakout poker-themed indie videogame – lo, a brat (anag) (7)
21. Squid squirt (3)
24. Plan – gets a try (anag) (8)
30. Spirit – beliefs (5)
32. Massage (e.g. dough) (5)
34. Public votes – at least 50 countries have had one this year (8)
36. Paltry (4)
37. Seen – polkadot (7)
38. Pop star responsible for our 'brat summer' (6,3)
40. Reverberations – the latest instalment in The Legend of Zelda franchise, ___ of Wisdom (6)
42. Then – very (2)
44. Tree person from The Lord of the Rings (3)
46. Midwestern US state (7)
48. Mittens for your feet? (5)
50. Automobile (3)
54. Direct opposite (10)
55. Paintings – span decals (anag) (10)
56. Lady with a habit (3)
57. Switzerland won this annual music competition this year (10)
59. Crunchy water (3)
61. Oh, you're looking for a clue? For this? These two squares unconnected to anything else? You know what, put whatever you want here. I don't care. It's Christmas! Have fun with it! (2)
64. Cocky (8)
66. Critic – objector (8)
68. Cheek – lip (4)
69. Shut up (2,5)
70. Uprising (6)
71. Medical garb – JD and Turk? (6)
74. Chaos – fauns (anag) (5)
75. Problem – edition (5)
76. Triangular crisp (5)
77. Be extinguished (with a bang?) (2,3)
Feedback? Email crossword@theskinny.co.uk
Turn to page 7 for the solutions
In this month’s advice column, one reader – gasp! – fancies more than one person at a time
Can you crush on two people at once and how long are you allowed to balance both without brain confusion? When should you just commit to pursuing one?
I’ll be so real with you, sweet anonymous angel, the original draft of this response was 99% unchecked frustration and 1% advice but I have sat down, done some self-soothing, some introspection, some reading of the actual words of your question, and I have decided to take another spin.
Because what you’re asking is not about the ethics of the situation – which I simply do not think I could bear to answer one more time, that yes your feelings are valid, that yes pathologising anything that does not lead to the sanctified couple form is bad, actually – but about your capacity to handle it. Which, I guess, is really your call to make as to how easily confused your brain is. But I would question the relevance of confusion in this scenario at all, because it implies that there ought to be a singular focus here which you’re not allowing yourself.
You’re talking about a crush here, which means we’re not even wading into the messy quagmire of polyamory. You just… fancy more than one person? You’re excited about the possibilities of… multiple people? You don’t… think just one person on this good green earth is fuckable? I don’t know man, just because the Victorians would lock you in a psych ward doesn’t mean it’s inherently mind-addling.
I, personally, think you could exist in this state forever. I, personally, would kill to be you right now. Do you know how rare crushes are in this economy? Do you realise how bleak life feels with only your past lovers to think about? If you’re caught up on the idea of it eventually leading to something, maybe see how the relationships naturally develop, and which one feels like the one you want to pursue. Maybe you won’t even have to choose! Please feel free to mentally insert that one El Dorado meme here. But for now, Jesus, hang tight to the fantasy of both for as long as you can.
Shots of the year
September; Chappell Roan @ O2 Academy, Glasgow
Photo: Kate Johnston
November; Kneecap @ Barowlands, Glasgow
Photo: Marilena Vlachopolou
March; Yard Act @ O2 Academy, Glasgow
Photo: Dale Harvey
June; Troye Sivan @ OVO Hydro, Glasgow
Photo: Kate Johnston
July; Brenda @ Pop Mutations, Glasgow
Photo: Anthony Gerace
May; Honeyblood @ Stereo, Glasgow
Photo: Serena Milesi
October; Darkside @ La Belle Angele, Edinburgh
Photo: Laura Muraska-Ross
August; The Postal Service @ OVO Hydro, Glasgow
Photo: Serena Milesi
The Art of Climate Action
Waters Rising, a newly-opened exhibition at the Perth Museum, explores the story of the flood through the lens of climate breakdown
Words by: Shalmali Shetty
Floods have long shaped mythology, history and contemporary life, representing both creation and destruction. Across cultures, water is revered as the source of life, a force capable of bringing birth, death and renewal. Today, in the face of rising sea levels, increasing temperatures, and extreme weather events, this symbolism urges a re ection on climate change and prompts deeper discussions. Curated by Niamh Finlay, Waters Rising spans two rooms of Perth Museum: the rst delves into global ood myths across cultures through artistic interpretations; the second focuses on the more local events in the Scottish region of Perth and Kinross, with a welcome space showcasing salvaged artefacts from the museum collection, severely damaged during the Great Tay Flood of 1993
The rst gallery opens with ARCHE 2000, a commemorative coin by renowned German designer Heinz Hoyer, featuring a gure adrift in a sea of waste, juxtaposed with an image of ocean pollution in Ghana from 2023, on loan from National Museums Scotland. Adjacent to this is displayed The Torrent ( late 1800s) a woodcut by Johannes ten Klooster, inspired by his travels in Indonesia – this particular work was included to highlight the relentless ooding and the country’s ongoing struggles with the loss of land and property. Setting an atmospheric tone to the exhibition is Forty Below (1999), a ve-minute video work by Irish lmmaker Clare Langan, the lm’s visuals were created using hand-painted camera lenses to achieve an underwater e ect.
One of the earliest recorded ood myths, dating back
nearly 4,000 years, is the Epic of Gilgamesh from Mesopotamia, inspired by the ooding of the Euphrates river. A replica of the tablet is displayed against a printed, enlarged backdrop of the same, allowing visitors to touch and experience its cuneiform script. This epic is believed to have further in uenced the Abrahamic ood myths; also exhibited here is a rare 13th-century Illuminated Bible by William de Brailes; a mezzotint engraving by John Martin titled The Deluge (early 1800s) depicting a dramatic and terrifying moment of gures falling into cavernous depths; and an etching by James Mynde (early 1700s) of the ubiquitous story of Noah’s Ark. Featured alongside this are the Hindu ood stories from the Dashavatara (the ten incarnations of Vishnu). The display includes a gouache drawing of Manu and Matsya, the sh incarnation who warns the rst man of an impending ood.
Digressing from punitive ood narratives, the next section highlights the vibrant works of Norval Morrisseau (1932-2007), also known as Copper Thunderbird, a Canadian Indigenous artist from the Ojibwe community. These reproduced pieces re ect his culture and migratory people’s deep connection to the concept of the great ood, viewed as a metaphor for nature’s way of resetting itself. The gallery concludes with Where the Brahmaputra Meets the Clyde (2003), a series of four black-and-white photographs of the two rivers by Alan Kilpatrick, that explore cultural intersections through a personal narrative of Kilpatrick’s father, who emigrated to India in the 1950s post-World War II and post-Independence, along with other Scots in order to work in the burgeoning tea industry.
The second gallery focuses on the hyper-local context of ooding in the Perth and Kinross region, drawing attention to local concerns around climate adaptation, community resilience, and the persisting impacts of oods as we continue to experience them in daily life. Against the Flow (2018), a lm by Helen McCrorie documents the Comrie oods and the community’s e orts to cope with the resulting destruction and loss of personal belongings. This lm is set against a netted, cube-like installation adorned with personal photographs and postcards of regional oods, gathered from the general public through an open call for online submissions when the exhibition was announced. With many residents holding vivid memories of signi cant oods that have caused lasting trauma, destroyed property and businesses, and altered lives, the exhibition provides a space for re ection, community engagement and healing.
The second half of the gallery space shifts focus to global climate activism, Scottish grassroots movements, and the experiences of climate refugees. A projected video features footage from the COP28 protests arising from the controversy surrounding its host location in the UAE. Meanwhile, a copy of the Declaration of Radical Independence showcases the Govan Free State Initiative inspired by the Pollok Free State and launched during COP26 in Glasgow. This initiative, organised by the GalGael Trust, represents a unique Scottish approach to activism rooted in Glasgow and further resonates through the display of a large ve-metre scroll signed by activists, accompanied by self-printed passports that declares a free state, self-determination and challenges traditional power structures. Collaborating with 10-12 activist groups, including Stand Up for Racism, Perth Against Racism, Extinction Rebellion Dundee, Stop Climate Chaos Scotland, and the GalGael Trust, the exhibition makes diverse approaches to address climate challenges. In re ection of this, another display case features photographs, posters, placards, labels, quotes, and anecdotes from protests and campaigns, including contributions from younger activists, such as those inspired by Greta Thunberg.
Waters Rising, Perth Museum, until 16 Mar, open Mon-Sat 10am-5pm, Sun 11am-4pm.
Pay What You Choose.
Image: Courtesy of Culture Perth and Kinross.
Photo: Julie Howden
The Year in Review
In the last issue of 2024, we look back on this tumultuous year, starting with the music that’s provided a soundtrack to ongoing chaos. The Music team has been polled to find out the albums of the year – turns out there’s one very strong winner whose cultural dominance (arguably, we will argue) kicked off on these very pages with a very specific graph.
The Film team have assembled their favourite cinema releases of the year, as well as sharing a rundown of the underrated gems that you may have missed, and the best TV they’ve been watching in 2024. Books wraps up their top releases, just in time for you to buy them and give them to your loved ones (potentially in the stunning sheet of gift wrap designed by Emer Tumilty occupying our centre spread?), while the Comedy team share their funniest things of the year.
It’s been a year of organising and resistance – Intersections rounds up some of the grassroots organisations building community in a frequently hostile world, while Art documents the growing discontent with Scottish arts organisations response to the genocide in Gaza.
Emer Tumilty is a designer from Northern Ireland, now based in Glasgow. With a background in both architecture and visual communication, her work draws inspiration from the built environment and the playfulness of postmodern design. She works across a diverse range of projects from illustration and print design to murals and installations. Previous clients include Adobe, Warby Parker, Urban Outfitters, Atlantic Records, Berwick Film and Media Arts Festival, and Radiophrenia. emertumilty.com
Albums of 2024
We polled our music team for their favourite albums of the year, and while individual lists were hugely varied, one bright green record in particular dominated like never before
#9: Cindy Lee – Diamond Jubilee
#10: Still House Plants – If I don’t make it, I love u
If I don’t make it, I love u, the title of Still House Plants’ third album, could be read as a tearful farewell or a tender apology. Either way, it’s a fitting choice for a record that feels like a longstanding correspondence between kindred spirits. The trio of Finlay Clark, Jess Hickie-Kallenbach, and David Kennedy have been playing together for a decade, but this is the first album they’ve recorded while living in the same city. The result is an idiosyncratic record that bursts with emotion and a hunger for human connection.
Combining freeform jazz, discordant rock and a disregard for conventional song structures, there’s an organic beauty to these tracks, as though they’re being written in real-time. Hickie-Kallenbach’s vocals anchor the group’s sound, her soulful voice direct, yet vulnerable. Meanwhile, Kennedy’s explorative drumming and Clark’s responsive guitar surround her words like scribbles in the margins of a dog-eared novella that’s been passed lovingly between friends. It may sound like the band are composing on the fly, but no matter how chaotic their playing gets, they never lose their groove. Like the strange silence between a letter’s departure and its delivery, Still House Plants’ music hovers delicately between longing and fulfilment. [Patrick Gamble]
Why do we constantly have to reach for authenticity? Can we not fully realise ourselves in performance? On Diamond Jubilee, Cindy Lee whacks a crowbar into authenticity with her perfectly manicured hand. Like the hair of Patrick Flegel’s drag alter ego, this two-plus hour opus of retro-fetishistic, psychedelic pop is pristine, precise and impeccably paced, not a strand out of place, appearing as some unmarked relic on a website that looked like it was still loading, prompting you to send money into the ether for it, or not if you preferred.
‘All I’ve got is the truth, all I want is you’, Cindy Lee sings. Diamond Jubilee’s stories are all about dreams and journeys, about love and loss and loving again, about being with your baby or finding yourself alone. In these absolutes and archetypes, with her voice and her guitar, Cindy Lee communicates longing with the directness and containment of a spotlight. These are songs which feel like they’ve existed for decades. Performing femininity, actualising a wormhole out of the music industry rat race, making art as a way to be outside of time – Diamond Jubilee is Cindy Lee’s realisation of herself, showing that sometimes performance can be more real than the truth. [Tony Inglis]
If I don’t make it, I love u was released on 12 Apr via Bison Records stillhouseplants. bandcamp.com
AOTY #20 to #11 #20 Wunderhorse – Midas [Communion]
#19 Nala Sinephro –Endlessness [Warp]
#18 Kim Gordon – The Collective [Matador]
#17 Godspeed You! Black Emperor – NO TITLE AS OF 13 FEBRUARY 2024, 28,340 DEAD [Constellation]
#16 Mermaid Chunky – slif slaf slof [DFA]
#15 Mannequin Pussy – I Got Heaven [Epitaph]
#14 Vampire Weekend – Only God Was Above Us [Columbia]
#13 Waxahatchee – Tiger Blood [ANTI-]
#12 English Teacher – This Could Be Texas [Island]
#11 MJ Lenderman – Manning Fireworks [ANTI-]
Diamond Jubilee was released on 29 Mar via Realistik Studios
#8: Magdalena Bay – Imaginal Disk
#7: Tyler, the Creator – Chromakopia
Chromakopia was released on 28 Oct via Columbia Records
chromakopia.com
When LA pop duo Magdalena Bay released their debut record in 2021, it was such a refreshing blend of indie-rock, art-pop and synth-futurism, that I remarked to myself Grimes, and an industry of pop-plants, wasn’t needed anymore. As with all forms of radical progress, their sophomore record Imaginal Disk substitutes even their past successes; the past has no roadmap for where they’re heading. Imaginal Disk should be visualised as a butcher knife separating the promises of 2010s pop music to this present fulfillment.
In a year replete with global cultural backsliding into the arms of neofascism, leave it to Mag Bay to catch escaping utopic dreams and release them as auditory bliss. Ear candy is a gross understatement, no producer or writer treated sounds the way the duo did in 2024, full-stop. Propulsion, distortion, ambience, and romance gained new meanings as Magdalena Bay jettisoned pop into the future it forgot it had for itself (somewhere in the TikTok fire, no doubt). They are savants of sound, and Imaginal Disk is the future realising itself in front of our eyes and stretching out into the endless ether. With this, they understand why we make pop: for when despair needs a kick in the ass. [Noah Barker]
The medium is the message in Adrianne Lenker’s exquisite Bright Future, an album so haunted by the ephemerality of love and memory that the soft whoosh of the analogue tape on which it was recorded feels as much part of its lyricism as Lenker’s words. Charting the rise and fall of a relationship, Bright Future is run through with a gentle kind of vertigo: Lenker invites us into a love caught simultaneously in the promise of the past and the crushed hope of the present, where desire and heartache tangle in strange and incongruent ways.
Love here is both quotidian and miraculous (‘Stove light glows like a fire / We’re sitting on the kitchen floor / Just when I thought I couldn’t feel more / I feel a little more’, Lenker sings on Free Treasure), yet the solidity of its narrative can collapse so easily (‘The seasons go so fast / Thinking that this one was gonna last’, she says plaintively on Sadness as a Gift). The bright future of its title, we come to understand, isn’t in the assurance of what is to come, but in the possibility that such a thing could exist, and did exist, at all. [Anahit Behrooz]
Tyler, the Creator’s albums always seem to sit within a very specific cinematic universe, where he interrogates different elements of his own personality via alter egos. We’ve met Tyler Baudelaire, Igor and Flower Boy, to name a few, and now with his latest release Chromakopia, we enter the world of St. Chroma, a masked man pushing the boundaries of what he is capable of while simultaneously grappling with the paranoia of reaching midlife. Militaristic opening track St. Chroma sets the tone for an album that is sonically diverse and introspective, beginning with a voiceover from Tyler’s mother Bonita Smith urging, ‘Don’t you ever in your motherfucking life dim your light for nobody’.
Tyler is a phenomenal storyteller and through the world of Chromakopia, we witness a progression in his lyricism, with the album emphasising how he excels at creating unique narratives. We hear this in the emotional Hey Jane which offers two perspectives on an accidental pregnancy, and the raw and complicated Like Him, where he questions whether he’s destined to end up like his absent father. Through Chromakopia, Tyler deconstructs his past self and the various versions we’ve come to know for the purpose of unpacking his present and what comes next. [Arusa Qureshi]
Imaginal Disk was released on 23 Aug via Mom + Pop Music
Photo: Lissyelle Laricchia
Photo: Buck Meek
#6: Adrianne Lenker – Bright Future
Photo: Luis “Panch” Perez
#5: The Cure – Songs of a Lost World
‘This is the end of every song that we sing’, Robert Smith declares on Alone, the opening track to The Cure’s first album in 16 years. It sounds like both an in-joke and a threat, as well as a chilling obituary for a world he describes as ‘burned out to ash’. Forty-five years of the Sussex goths, and still no band does existential dread better.
Songs of a Lost World is a record about time; how unpredictably it moves, how inevitably it passes, and how easily it is wasted. From the clattering anxiety of Drone:Nodrone to the romantic, memory-stained All I Ever Am, these tracks are made of classic Cure stuff – but everything has changed.
Ghosts of Smith’s past haunt this album, from lost family members to his younger selves. The lush, swooning And Nothing Is Forever could be a wedding march, a sister to Disintegration’s Plainsong, yet it’s a deathbed promise. Smith’s voice, still boyish, holds a fearsome new grandeur, while the album’s slow-motion instrumentals are like watching an Antarctic ice shelf collapse into freezing seas. Closing epic Endsong is unrushed, spending six minutes lost in dreamy organ synthesisers and stately percussion before Smith promises, with just a flicker of a smile: ‘I will lose myself in time’. [Katie Hawthorne]
#3: The Last Dinner Party – Prelude to Ecstasy
Let’s start by saying that lead guitarist Emily Roberts used to perform as Brian May in a Queen tribute band. This fact alone should give you an idea of the dramatics and bravado we’re talking about with The Last Dinner Party and their dazzling debut, Prelude To Ecstasy. Before the hedonistic rise of Brat Summer, music fans were experiencing a lavish spring renaissance. Reddit threads were overrun with users looking for baroque bodices and ‘Mori girl’ gowns. And, after a year like 2024, these poster girls for the ethereal aesthetic have every right to stride out in lavish silks and taffetas.
When describing standout single Nothing Matters, lead singer Abigail Morris insisted: “We didn’t want a limpid love song. We wanted something carnal and free.” The album revels in this liberation, dripping candle wax over banquet tables (Burn Alive) as they cosplay Roman emperors (Caesar On a TV Screen). But for all its bombast, there’s real skill in Prelude To Ecstasy’s compositions artfully steered by keyboard player Aurora Nishevci who composed a full score for the eponymous opening track. Forget the brohemian rhapsodies and feast on those feminine urges (corsetry optional). [Cheri Amour]
#4: Kneecap – Fine Art
When Belfast rap trio Kneecap came screaming onto the scene with their record 3CAG in 2018, an entire generation of young Irish people’s lives were irrevocably changed. Here was Irish like we never knew it: funny, sharp and actually cool. Fine Art only builds on that legacy, with big swings – from the dubstep banger title track to more reflective moments like Better Way To Live (featuring Fontaines D.C.’s Grian Chatten), to the noughties vibes of Love Making. These are swings that pay off, taking Kneecap from being the funny guys-next-door of rap to something a lot more elevated.
A concept album of sorts, we follow the lads on a meandering night out, replete with skits and interludes, on a noholds-barred ride – we air grievances in the pub in Belfast, get hounded by an English record exec and taken to London (Interlude: Kneecap Chaps is genuinely laugh out loud funny), before winding up back home in time for last orders. Losing none of their trademark wit on their debut, Kneecap have been unleashed on the world, solidifying themselves alongside other great Irish exports of legend: Guinness, hating Bono, and Paul Mescal’s tiny, tiny shorts. It’s parful stuff. [Emilie Roberts].
Fine
was
on 14 Jun via Heavenly Recordings kneecap.ie
thelastdinnerparty.co.uk
Prelude to Ecstasy was released on 2 Feb via Island Records
Art
released
Photo: @tmpllnt @shotbyphox
Photo: Cal McIntyre
Photo: Peadar Ó Goill
Fontaines D.C. are at the peak of their powers. With their fourth album Romance, released in August, the Irish five-piece have gone from rawness to flair, naïvety to maturity, and dreams of becoming big to impending festival headliners. But Romance doesn’t just show how far they’ve come, it also encapsulates everything that guitar music can be in the modern day… it’s truly a rare feat.
Frontman Grian Chatten previously snarled at the mic during the band’s Dogrel days. Now, he’s melodic, effortlessly poetic and brimming with inimitability. From the suffocating energy of Starburster to the detachment of In The Modern World and the melancholic nostalgia of Favourite, Chatten’s lyrical craftsmanship is of the highest order.
Directors Luna Carmoon, Andrea Arnold and fellow Irish actor Barry Keoghan have all contributed to the album’s music videos, steeped in shadowy mystique. Pair these with the band’s most expansive sonic range to date, and it evokes the sense that Romance isn’t just an album, but an entire world of its own. Blending their authentic brand of dark in a vivid new light, the crux of Romance lies in its shapeshifting unpredictability, and it’s this which makes Fontaines D.C. the most exciting they’ve ever been. [Jamie Wilde]
Okay, okay... okay, okay, okay. Here we go! That’s right. BRAT is our album of the year, and it’s with delight that we sit down and look back on all things Pantone 3507C.
Released on 7 June 2024, BRAT is Charli xcx’s ascension to global megastar via left-field pop provocateur. BRAT is at once a celebration of Charli’s roots in underground UK rave culture and a sensitive appraisal of navigating success in a cutthroat industry. BRAT is the culmination of the work begun with the legendary SOPHIE on the iconic Vroom Vroom EP, 2020’s hyperpop masterpiece How I’m Feeling Now, and slick marketing of 2022’s commercial pop banger, Crash. BRAT is vital, it’s irresistible, and it’s changed the landscape of pop music.
BRAT throws us back to trashy 2000s electro-pop; think Princess Superstar, Bodyrox and the Ed Banger label roster. That said, there is a minimal, clean feel to the record that is clearly the product of the partnership with chart pop’s master distiller, A. G. Cook. Lyrically, Charli runs the gamut from doing lines to contemplating motherhood. Heaters 360, 365 and Club classics are all name drops, slut-drops and bass drops, while self-aware moments emerge on Sympathy is a knife and I might say something
stupid: ‘Guess I’m a mess and play the role’. The record’s narrative weaves between moments of excess and the inner monologue of a 365 partygirl growing up and considering her legacy. Whatever you feel about BRAT, its impact is undeniable. Let’s look back at the brattiest moments: brat summer; endless memes; a BRAT wall in Brooklyn; an enormous gate-fold vinyl sculpture in LA; the Apple TikTok dance; word of the year in the English Dictionary; an iconic SNL appearance; that tweet by Azealia Banks; Boiler Room Ibiza, BRAT-inspired club nights, T-shirts, club edits and A-list celebrity remixes. Kamala Harris centred her entire presidential campaign on BRAT. The record was nominated for seven Grammys. No wonder Charli is considering a change in direction for the next record, apparently ‘a Lou Reed album’; how does one follow BRAT?
It seems certain we’ll be talking about BRAT for decades to come, which makes it perfect for album of the year. Charli xcx has set herself apart as an artist who has found commercial success through being entirely herself, bringing a devoted fan base along with her and some much-needed levity in an increasingly grave world. Long live BRAT! [Vicky Kavanagh]
Romance was released on 23 Aug via XL Recordings fontainesdc.com BRAT was released on 7 Jun via Atlantic Records
Photo: Simon Wheatley
#1: Charli xcx – BRAT
#2: Fontaines D.C. – Romance
Scottish Albums of 2024
We polled our writers for their favourite Scottish albums of the year too, and the results are in...
#10 Andrew Wasylyk & Tommy Perman
– Ash Grey and the Gull Glides On [Clay Pipe Music, 30 Aug]
Andrew Wasylyk and Tommy Perman’s debut collaborative record, here’s what we said upon the album’s release earlier in the year: “The Tay estuary, situated on Scotland’s east coast, may not quite be as luscious as the Mediterranean. But through the imaginative minds of Dundee-based creatives Andrew Wasylyk and Tommy Perman, anything is possible. […] Hopeful, forward-thinking and brimming with imagination, the Tay estuary could be paradise with this as its soundtrack.”
#9 Becky Sikasa
– The Writings and the Pictures and the Song [Self-released, 8 Mar] The Writings and the Pictures and the Song saw Becky Sikasa receive consecutive shortlist nominations for the Scottish Album of the Year (SAY) Award. It’s yet another bold work of tender heart-on-sleeve soul as she tackles love in all its many forms: romance, friendship and self-love. As we type this, Sikasa is just finishing her German tour before heading off on a few dates with the one and only Nile Rodgers. She’s got a bright future for sure.
#8 Savage Mansion – The Shakes [Lost Map Records, 16 Feb]
Glasgow outfit Savage Mansion’s fourth album since 2019 is their most authentic yet, brimming with catchy choruses that linger in the memory for days. It saddens us then that before playing recent shows at The Hug & Pint they announced that they might be their last shows for a while… let’s hope that album closer The Second Life, “a sad song about a relationship that has to end even though neither party wants it to,” wasn’t a forewarning.
#7 Malin Lewis – Halocline [Hudson Records, 3 May]
Named after the visible layer of water formed between saltwater and freshwater, Skye bagpiper, fiddler, instrument maker and composer Malin Lewis released the SAY Award-nominated Halocline back in May. They said: “As a trans person, I inhabit a similar in-between space, rich with its own vibrant and colourful culture [...] From childhood, I envisioned sounds that conveyed the joy, intrigue and queerness of the world; Halocline offers a glimpse into this lifelong pursuit of expression.”
#6 Clarissa Connelly – World of Work [Warp Records, 12 Apr] Scotland-born, Denmark-based Clarissa Connelly captured the ears of our writers this year with her third album – and first on Warp Records – World of Work. Inspired by French Philosopher Georges Bataille’s L’érotisme, it fuses together Nordic folk song, Celtic myth, medieval grimoires, modern pop and experimental composition as Connelly explores its two main characters of ‘work’ and ‘desire’.
#5 Walt Disco – The Warping [Lucky Number, 14 Jun]
Words: Tallah Brash
men in his life and, by extension, to the complexities within himself. The result is dazzling.”
#3 rEDOLENT
– dinny greet [Post Electric, 17 May]
Beating Mercury Prizenominated artists like Barry Can’t Swim and corto.alto, rEDOLENT’s long in the making debut album dinny greet was this year’s surprise winner of The SAY Award. Combining impeccable drumming, tumbling electronic motifs and Robin Herbert’s unique pogoing vocal as he pieces together snapshots of his life, from debilitating mental health issues to teenage misadventure, dinny greet was a breath of fresh air in the Scottish release calendar.
Almost exactly two years on from releasing their debut album, Glasgow’s Walt Disco returned with the ultra catchy, disco-fuelled You Make Me Feel So Dumb, the lead single from their sophomore record The Warping. Here’s what we said about the album: “Where the ultra-glam outfit’s previous Unlearning personified the panache of a West End musical, The Warping dances about in time and place.”
#4 Hamish Hawk
– A Firmer Hand [SO Recordings, 16 Aug]
Released after the cut-off for the 2024 SAY Award, Hamish Hawk’s latest LP A Firmer Hand will no doubt follow in the footsteps of his last two records, so expect to see it up for the award in 2025. Here’s what we said earlier in the year:
“A Firmer Hand is an album in which Hawk daringly takes a searchlight to the complexities of the relationships with
#2 Arab Strap – I’m Totally Fine With It Don’t Give a Fuck Anymore
[Rock Action, 10 May]
Shortlisted for the 2024 SAY Award, I’m Totally Fine With It Don’t Give a Fuck Anymore was the Glasgow duo’s eighth studio album, despite how Aidan Moffat feels about it. “As soon as we started this it felt like album two. It definitely feels like a fresh start from where we used to be.” According to Moffat, it’s a record “about the difference between a tangible world and intangible world and which one you choose to believe and engage with.”
#1 TAAHLIAH – Gramarye [untitled (recs), 18 Oct]
On Gramarye, Glasgow artist TAAHLIAH shows true artistic maturity as she blends glamour, emotion, and vulnerability through pop-driven motifs. When we spoke to her, she said: “The message I want to get across is that what I’ve been through has made me the person that I am today – and that’s someone I really like. The lyric at the end of [the] outro song [Holding On / Let Me Go] – ‘And I’ll keep holding on even if you let me go’ – is not holding on to that person or that relationship, it’s more about holding on to yourself, understanding who you are and taking that forth into wherever you go.”
Wherever TAAHLIAH goes next, we’re excited for it.
Ash Grey and the Gull Glides On
The Writings and the Pictures and the Song
Halocline
World of Work
dinny greet
The Warping
I’m Totally Fine With It Don’t Give a Fuck Anymore
Gramarye
A Firmer Hand
Films of 2024
The Skinny’s film writers have once again chosen their films of the year. Our top ten features tales of 80s Etruscan gravedi ers and lesbian bodybuilders via stories of horny tennis players, brassy erotic dancers and livewire Irish rappers
10. Love Lies Bleeding
Dir. Rose Glass
Love Lies Bleeding, Rose Glass’s sophomore feature, is a sapphic grindhouse version of Pumping Iron: all fluids (sweat, spit, e yolk) and veins pulsing out of skin to the beat of a neon 80s soundtrack.
Jackie (Katy O’Brian) is a drifter and wannabe champion bodybuilder who walks into Lou (a mulleted Kristen Stewart)’s gym, and subsequently, right into her heart, with their love story evolving into a messy and phantasmagoric lesbian crime caper. No other film this year can claim to have featured a meet-cute that involves injecting steroids into someone’s ass or K-Stew being swallowed and spit back up by her lover, encased in goo – and they’re the worse off for it.
[Katie Driscoll]
9. Kneecap
Dir. Rich Peppiatt
For those whose memories of Irish class are falling asleep face down on their textbook during explanations of the modh coinníollach, the Kneecap movie is here to kick the doors down and remind you the Irish language is dynamic, beautiful and worth fighting for. The Belfast rap trio’s debut film appearance is a riotous good time that shows us biopics don’t have to be boring, conventionally structured or stiff – this one incorporates the surreal (claymation drug-induced hallucination anyone?), Michael Fassbender doing yoga and most importantly: great music. Next stop is the Oscars, where the Kneecap trio of Mo Chara, Móglaí Bap and DJ Próvai are representing Ireland for Best International Feature. Best of luck to you – or should that be, go n-éirí leat, buachaillí! You won’t need it. [Emilie Roberts]
8. All of Us Strangers
Dir. Andrew Haigh
Characters are often haunted in the films of Andrew Haigh (Weekend, 45 Years), but in this bruising study of grief, the spectres are literal. Andrew Scott is devastating as Adam, a lonely screenwriter who’s trying to pen a story about his parents, who died when he was 12. His solitary life is interrupted both by a knock at the door from a horny neighbour (played by Paul Mescal) and a return to his childhood home, where he mysteriously finds Mum and Dad (Claire Foy and Jamie Bell) alive and well. Fantastical the plot may be, but the emotions being picked at (childhood loss, queer alienation, gay desire) are heartbreakingly tender and real, and the Christmas setting provides a pleasing dusting of festive melancholy. [Jamie Dunn]
7. Poor Things
Dir. Yorgos Lanthimos
Yorgos Lanthimos’s Poor Things is a moving celebration of curiosity with Emma Stone’s Bella Baxter as its pulsating heart and brain. Inspired by Alasdair Gray’s 1992 novel, this Victorian anatomical fable chronicles Bella’s liberation on a meticulously crafted steampunk mood board. Stone’s Frankenstein’s Monster-like creation harnesses her candour to reclaim control of the monstrous feminine, morphing into a fully fleshed being on a quest for purpose and pleasure. The men orbiting around her, meanwhile, are exposed as comically desperate figures.
Poor Things is an uproarious, occasionally squeamish story of (gender-based) violence concerned with who holds the scalpel and who lies on the table. Bella reflects on personal and collective responsibility throughout, emerging as a sharp mistress of her own destiny.
[Stefania Sarrubba]
6. I Saw the TV Glow
Dir. Jane Schoenbrun
Central to Jane Schoenbrun’s suburban, dysphoric fantasy horror is the exposed truth of ‘nostalgia’ – that it’s a way of misremembering the past, an act of imagination that obscures material reality. But I Saw the TV Glow also supposes that nostalgia preserves, to an unhealthy extent, an emotional state that is comfortable to remain in instead of discovering a reality-shifting new horizon.
Schoenbrun’s aching, synthesised exploration of a key chapter in the trans experience centres on choice for its timid, disaffected young protagonist (Justice Smith), and builds a potent sense of dread and inevitability for every indecisive, hesitant second he waits. [Rory Doherty]
5. Anora
Dir. Sean Baker
Anora is a comedy – until it isn’t. Mikey Madison is unapologetically brash as sex worker Ani, who fills almost every scene with personality and charm; her would-be beau, Ivan, slapsticks his way to endearment despite being the money-burning son of a shady Russian oligarch; the hired hands and sidekicks hired by Ivan’s family to break up the young lovers are hapless and clumsy. And in the last ten minutes, director Sean Baker makes you reevaluate everything you’ve just laughed at. Was that love story ever genuine? No matter how empowered you are, is all labour just exploitation? How does it feel to no longer be looked at, but seen?
[Tony Inglis]
All of Us Strangers
I Saw the TV Glow
Kneecap
Poor Things
Love Lies Bleeding
Anora
4.
Perfect Days
Dir. Wim Wenders
Wim Wenders’ Perfect Days is about life’s bi est questions and its everyday trials. It’s about where the most meaningful core of our existence lies and how much we have to cut away to get there. And it’s about a guy who cleans toilets.
That guy is Hirayama, played by Kōji Yakusho in a performance that’s as meditative and mesmerising as the film itself. Hirayama lives a monastic existence, attending each daily task with an absolute focus. The moments of contentment he finds, whether enjoying a sandwich beneath a sun-dappled tree or blaring Lou Reed’s titular track on the drive home, are utterly enveloping. Is this a life of blissful solitude or simple loneliness? The film offers no easy answers, just a warm and quiet space to think about the question.
[Ross McIndoe]
2. The Zone of Interest
Dir. Jonathan Glazer
There are two films in Jonathan Glazer’s The Zone of Interest: the film we see and the film we hear. As the Höss family enjoys an idyllic life in their dream home next to Auschwitz, the faint shouts and gunshots, and the constant low hum of the machinery of death, remind us of the atrocities being committed next door. The Zone of Interest is about the things we choose not to see and hear, the lies we swallow and the bubbles we create to cut ourselves off from the horrific reality that surrounds us, and no film this year more potently represents the world as it is in 2024.
[Philip Concannon]
1. La Chimera
Dir. Alice Rohrwache
Alice Rohrwacher’s latest is part crime caper, part modern take on Orpheus and Eurydice. Josh O’Connor (never looking better than in rumpled linen suits) gives a career-best performance as Arthur, a man grieving an unclear past heartbreak while he and his tombaroli friends plunder ancient Etruscan gravesites and sell the bounty. Just as Arthur is trapped in his own past and the allure of the treasures of his adopted country, the sun-dappled milieu of 1980s Italy feels decades older through Rohrwacher’s lens. Millennia of art, loves, and losses have shaped and continue to shape landscapes and people – even those, like Arthur, who just pass through. [Carmen Paddock]
3. Challengers
Dir. Luca Guadagnino
It may seem strange that – in the year that brought us Gladiator II, Twisters and Furiosa – the most edge-of-your-seat, adrenaline-in-your-mouth film revolved around a game of tennis between two washed-up players and a failed polycule, but that’s the power of irrepressible Italian auteur Luca Guadagnino. His long-anticipated sports drama Challengers is a race to the proverbial bottom (because in this game, there’s only one top), where tennis plays out like sex and sex plays out like a grudge match. Exhilarating, sweaty, and backed by an unhinged techno score by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, Challengers is the epitome of Here We Fucking Go cinema, a frenetic ode to the power of desire to make you worse, actually.
[Anahit Berhooz]
La Chimera
Perfect Days
Challengers
The Zone of Interest
Overlooked, Unloved, Misunderstood
Some films are universally adored, but others require a bit of work to appreciate their greatness. Here are 12 overlooked movies from 2024 that were misunderstood by critics, ignored by audiences and done dirty by their distributors
About Dry Grasses
Dir. Nuri Bilge Ceylan
Dependable brilliance can bring its own kind of fatigue for an arthouse superstar. Films will do well at the festivals, roll through the art cinemas for a week and then slink off to be revived in a Criterion box set in twenty years. This path has done a massive disservice to About Dry Grasses, a film that speaks with singular, coruscating honesty to our historical moment. [Joe Creely]
The Apprentice
Dir. Ali Abbasi
Sebastian Stan delivers an uncanny performance as Donald Trump in Ali Abbasi’s forensic study of the relationship that made him who he is – that with lawyer Roy Cohn. Jeremy Strong’s turn as the chilling Cohn brings this film home, along with a cracking soundtrack. Also – it’s a biopic that looks good. Unheard of! [Emilie Roberts]
Drive-Away Dolls
Dir. Ethan Coen
Following Joel’s gothic Macbeth, Ethan’s solo debut is a much more Coen-esque affair. A wild caper involving a severed head and a lot of dildos, Drive-Away Dolls is carried by winning performances from Margaret Qualley and Geraldine Viswanathan, and directed with a panache lacking in too many comedies. It has an irrepressible spirit that’s hard to resist. [Philip Concannon]
The First Omen
Dir. Arkasha Stevenson
Arkasha Stevenson hijacks demonic classic The Omen to tell an eerily relevant story of bodily autonomy. All hail electrifying protagonist Nell Tiger Free, whose commitment makes this sequel exciting enough to appeal to new audiences and acolytes of Damien alike. Forget the finale – the full-frontal childbirth scene and a Possession homage will have you whisper “What the hell am I watching?” in the best possible way. [Stefania Sarrubba]
Hundreds of Beavers
Dir. Mike Cheslik
A film does not need a big budget, realistic effects or even dialogue to be successful; it just needs pratfalls. Chronicling one unlucky applejack salesman’s journey to master trapper, Hundreds of Beavers is a raucous throwback to Buster Keaton’s best silent films – with its extras dressed in full-body animal costumes. [Carmen Paddock]
Juror #2
Dir. Clint Eastwood
UK audiences might have enjoyed Nicholas Hoult as a juror grappling with a dark secret, but in the US, Clint Eastwood’s courtroom thriller was inexplicably sidelined by Warner Bros, playing in fewer than 50 cinemas. Hopefully word of mouth will see the 94-year-old director’s latest receive the justice it deserves. [Patrick Gamble]
Megalopolis
Dir. Francis Ford Coppola
Francis Ford Coppola’s confounding labour of love is verbose, pompous, problematic, inane, ugly and downright batshit. But it’s to be admired rather than ridiculed, because witnessing a generational artist reach for something and fail is an antidote to the ambitionless grey slop of most modern blockbuster filmmaking. [Tony Inglis]
Problemista
Dir. Julio Torres
Through visionary Julio Torres’s kaleidoscopic eyes, Problemista presents The American (fever) Dream. Channelling the colours and shapes of Chagall and the bureaucratic dead-ends of Mandabi, it adopts a surrealist imagination to confront cold material truths. The film torques the wackiness of cryogenics and Craigslist, and ennobles the chaos of an artist’s actualisation.
[Lucy Fitzgerald]
Sasquatch Sunset
Dir. Nathan Zellner, David Zellner
Feces and vomit and shrooms – oh my! The Zellner Brothers’ absurdist ‘nature’ comedy shines a whole new light on the talents of Jesse Eisenberg and Riley Keough, with a Bigfoot biopic that lacks in plot what it makes up for in heart. A gloriously gross-out and existential romp. [Heather Bradshaw]
Sometimes I Think About Dying
Dir. Rachel Lambert
Fran likes cottage cheese. That’s her ‘fun fact’ for the office icebreaker, which she divulges with eyes averted. Daisy Ridley imbues a sense of intense loneliness into her character, who muses on being dead. She’s torn between merging into the furniture or being seen, but in a life permeated with emptiness, the intricacies of human connection call. [Eleanor Capaldi]
The Sweet East
Dir. Sean Price Williams
A choose-your-own-adventure-in-Wonderland as if crafted by Harmony Korine, The Sweet East follows Lillian (Talia Ryder) as she navigates the wild west of the Eastern Seaboard, meeting offbeat characters along the way. What’s most fun and subversive are the film’s playful nods to Lolita and Edgar Allen Poe, all the while hilariously challenging the trope of young, passive femininity. [Katie Driscoll]
Trap
Dir. M. Night Shyamalan
M. Night Shyamalan’s post-comeback thrillers all have a more noticeably playful, heightened tone, but this deliberately ludicrous cat-and-mouse thriller set at a pop concert is his funniest and most delicious yet. Josh Hartnett is simply dazzling as a wholesome father and secret serial killer whose neatly ordered world collapses over two hours. [Rory Doherty]
Sasquatch Sunset
Rewards Season
Resident Rewards Edinburgh is the Forever Edinburgh programme designed to help Edinburgh residents make the most of their city – here’s a look at what’s on offer
Words by: Peter Simpson
Edinburgh is an iconic city for a reason – it’s a great place to visit, and a great place to live – but annoyingly, regular everyday life has a habit of getting in the way of all the fun stu the city has to o er. It can be easy to forget just how much there is to see and do across the city, and that’s where Resident Rewards Edinburgh from Forever Edinburgh comes in. Resident Rewards is a programme of discounts and o ers designed to help Edinburgh locals explore their city, and make the most of its sites, attractions and hospitality. So if you want to make the most of living in one of Europe’s most interesting cities and save a bit of cash in the process, Resident Rewards is the place to go, and their Star Reward is a great place to start. Each month sees a new Star Reward – an exclusive deal from an Edinburgh business or attraction, available to residents only. December’s Star comes from the excellent Lind & Lime gin distillery in Leith. EH postcode residents can get 25% o their Tour & Tasting in December; if you’re looking for an excuse for a pre-Christmas get-together, this could go near the top of the list. Deals on the way in early 2025 include discounts at Brazilian steakhouse Fazenda and the Ten Hill Place Hotel in the Southside, as well as a ‘kids go free’ deal at Camera Obscura.
If you’re more of a ‘selection box’ person and like a bit of variety, check out the Resident Rates. These are special rates on a host of well-loved Edinburgh attractions and venues for EH residents, with a wide range of options to choose from. Looking for a unique alternative to a night in the pub? With the Magical Bubbler Cocktails experience at the Department of Magic on Blair Street, you’ll put together your own cocktail concoction, and EH residents get 20% o . Got a sweet tooth? Edinburgh bakery Mimi’s Bakehouse o er a 20% discount on online orders of their cupcakes, brownies and traybakes, delivered to local residents within 48 hours. If you want a night o from cooking, Resident Rates o ers a 10% discount on food and drink at Hot Toddy, just o the Royal Mile, and 15% o at The Brasserie at The Scholar by Holyrood Park. Resident Rates also o er a few opportunities to look at your home city with fresh eyes. Ricky’s Bicycle Tours take visitors on a pedal-powered journey on cycle paths and side streets from the city centre to the Shore – but for locals, it’s a great way to see Edinburgh from a fresh perspective (and maybe nd a few new shortcuts for the next time you’re out on
your bike). A £4 discount is available for EH residents. Alternatively, an Edinburgh Bus Tour is ideal for those of you who need a quick refresher on the city’s world-famous architecture, or a new vantage point for your photos. All Edinburgh Bus Tour buses are wheelchair-friendly, with audio guides available in multiple languages and subtitles on display screens, and Resident Rates get you 10% o your fare. For a full list of Resident Rates, check out the Forever Edinburgh website.
Resident Previews are early chances for Edinburgh residents to check out new exhibitions, events and experiences before they open to the general public. Past Resident Previews have included early access to exhibitions at the National Museum of Scotland, as well as early access to the revamped Nelson Monument on Calton Hill and exclusive tours of the new galleries at the National Galleries Scotland on the Mound – keep an eye on Forever Edinburgh’s socials and sign up to their Resident Newsletter to be the rst to nd out about new Resident Previews.
For a genuine, can’t-beat-it freebie, look out for Resident Free and Half Price Days. These are opportunities to try out local businesses and attractions at speci c times for free or close to it. The Holyrood Distillery, in the shadow of Arthur’s Seat, is an amazing building that celebrates the city’s distilling history alongside cutting-edge technology and impressive architecture. It’s well worth the trip, and EH residents get a regular chance to visit the distillery for free thanks to Resident Rewards.
Christmas is one of the most magical times to visit Edinburgh, but much like the residents that make the city so welcoming, that magic stays here year-round. Get out and explore some of the great stu Edinburgh has to o er – consider it a Reward for all your hard work.
Sign up to the Forever Edinburgh resident newsletter for the latest updates at edinburgh.org/residentrewards
Image: Courtesy of Forever Edinburgh
Camera Obscura
Image: Courtesy of Forever Edinburgh
Hollyrood Distillery
Small Screen Delights
Baby Reindeer (Netflix)
The show that stoked the fear of ‘Sent from iPhone’ into a nation, Richard Gadd’s Baby Reindeer is an exploration of how one act of kindness can snowball into something far more tragic and sinister. Martha (Fiona Harvey) goes from local weirdo customer to Donny (Gadd)’s stalker, sparking conversations around the complexities of mental illness, ambition, unprocessed trauma and sexual assault. [Katie Driscoll]
Big Boys (Channel 4)
In January, season two of Jack Rooke’s zillennial university sitcom continued to be the sweetest show on TV. I can think of no other show that has so accurately captured the limbo of a mid-league English university in David Cameron’s Britain. Somehow, it manages to punctuate grief-stricken scenes with Cheryl-era X Factor jokes that have you laughing through the tears. [Louis Cammell]
Dark Matter (Apple TV+)
If you think you’ve seen too many multiverse stories recently, I promise Dark Matter is leagues ahead of any trendy comic book nonsense. Blake Crouch’s TV adaptation of his own 2016 sci-fi novel is a grounded, compelling and ultimately human puzzle-box thriller, where the science is a tool to explore those relatable ‘What if…?’ questions that haunt Joel Edgerton’s physics professor Jason. [George Sully]
English Teacher (Disney+)
Without diluting any of his signature smarts, Brian Jordan Alvarez handles the medium change from online comedy to television with aplomb. Playing The TV you should have been watching this
an avuncular, passionate young teacher at a Texan high school, inveighing against homophobia and culture wars, he amusingly navigates the jeremiads of overbearing parents and the revelations of generational gaps. Cutting, profane but also sincere, Alvarez reshapes the traditional sitcom template in his image. [Lucy Fitzgerald]
The Franchise (Now TV)
The Marvel machine might be an easy target, but that doesn’t mean it’s not cathartic to see Succession’s Jon Brown and The Thick of It’s Armando Iannucci land a good few punches. Himesh Patel’s exasperated First AD weathers us through the production of Tecto: Eye of the Storm, the latest DOA effort from Maximum Studios. A perfectly-cast antidote to superhero fatigue. [LC]
Manhunt (Apple TV+)
Showrunner Monica Beletsky turns the hunt for John Wilkes Booth into both a nail-biting thriller and a poignant (never didactic) examination of the United States’ foundation in racist violence. With extraordinary attention to detail in production, neo-noir greats Carl Franklin and John Dahl helming several episodes, and a career-best turn from Tobias Menzies, the result is both sobering and electrifying. [Carmen Paddock]
Mr & Mrs Smith (Prime Video)
The best possible outcome of the IP era, this take on the 90s Brangelina vehicle turns it into something that’s completely different in style and tone, while still retaining the core concept – what if we explored a regular romantic relationship through shoot-outs and car chases? – that made the movie
tick. A real luxury of a show, filled with lush locales, stylish outfits and expertly chosen guest stars. [Ross McIndoe]
One Day (Netflix)
The miniseries format serves David Nicholls’ timehopping novel extraordinarily well, separating each 15 July on which Emma Morley (Ambika Mod) and Dexter Mayhew (Leo Woodall) flirt, fight, and fall in love over 14 years into its own self-contained episode. With Mod and Woodall turning in luminous performances, the petty frustrations and the sublime, star-crossed romance mark One Day as a future classic. [CP]
Ripley (Netflix)
As a TV series, Steven Zaillian’s Netflix adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s novel The Talented Mr. Ripley is naturally a much slower burn than Anthony Minghella’s 1999 film adaptation – perhaps agonisingly so – but is all the better for it. It forces us to stew in both the increasingly tangled deceptions that Andrew Scott’s glassy-eyed Ripley mires himself in, and the jaw-dropping chiaroscuro of virtually every shot throughout the show. [GS]
Shōgun (Disney+)
Adapting the first mammoth novel in James Clavell’s Japanese saga, Shōgun isn’t just an exemplary historical drama because of its huge scale and excellent performances (not least from Emmy-winners Hiroyuki Sanada and Anna Sawai), but because every episode is meticulously designed with dramatic pressure points that are developed with incremental, intensifying poise. It’s the rare miniseries that deserves sequel seasons. [Rory Doherty]
Top to bottom: Baby Reindeer; Big Boys; Dark Matter
Top to bottom: English Teacher; The Franchise; Mr & Mrs Smith
Top to bottom: One Day; Ripley; Shōgun
Books of 2024
Our intrepid book team tell us about their favourite books of the year – get ready to make that pile of books by your bedside even bi er
Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar (Picador)
Kaveh Akbar has written a deeply moving tale of grief that is rich with inventive narration. Martyr! navigates the inner turmoil of its protagonist Cyrus, along with all the people who love him, and in turn, who are often frustrated by his myopic views on life. The ending was magical and life-affirming and I feel fuller for having spent time with Akbar’s poetic prose. [Andrés Ordorica]
Private Rites by Julia Armfield (4th Estate)
Against the backdrop of a decade-long downpour in a near-sinking city, three sisters process the loss of their father, an eminent architect and absent parent. Navigating their own complicated, queer relationships with lovers and with each other, Agnes, Isla and Irene’s personalities clash as the age-old competitiveness instilled by their father resurfaces even after his death. Meanwhile, watchful eyes peer out from the rain, still falling, through the floor-to-ceiling windows of their late father’s floating mansion, as the truth of their childhoods and respective mothers threatens to rise with the water levels. [Paula Lacey]
Nostalgia by Agnes Arnold-Forster (Picador)
Nostalgia is generous with its historical, medical, scientific, cultural, socio-political, economic and critical insights into the disease that nostalgia used to be, its universal practice, and the collective weapon it has the potential to be. It traces the diagnostic roots of the emotion and tracks its evolution with sagacity and diligence. It is a thrilling and informative nonfictional read dedicated to observing the minute and major shifts that nostalgia has taken on as a condition and field of study. Arnold-Forster refreshes the field’s contemporary examination of this phenomenal subject matter with wit, intrigue, and relevance. [Maria Farsoon]
Mother Naked by Glen James Brown (Peninsula Press)
Mother Naked is a minstrel, Segerston is a small town and The Legend of The Fell Wraith is a terrifying story told through twists and turns the length of the book. Plumbing the horrors of the pre-reformation church and its tyranny, this vivid green book lays bare deep fissures of wealth and exploitation through their disastrous impact on a small community. Glen James Brown’s writing is electric; this is not a period piece, it’s a call to arms. [Marguerite Carson]
Goblinhood: Goblin as a Mode by Jen Calleja (Rough Trade)
Before this book, I had never known non-fiction to be quite so riotously fun. Pop culture analysis through the lens of goblinhood is as mischievous and quirky as the little green fellas that you will come to spot everywhere after gobbling up this work. Calleja has the most readable voice as she excitedly tours us through why our favourite figures are goblin-coded and the depths of intimate personal trauma without missing a beat between the two. [Jo Hi s]
Illustrations: Mahnoor Khan
and beyond from a prolific homegrown talent, Limelight interrogates our relationship with technology in distant and not-too-distant futures through a bold and incisive lens. Croal explores love, grief, and the pursuit of a better self with a mixture of eerie images and empathy, always focusing on the human heart of her stories. A wonderful exploration of humanity and technology in all its myriad compli cations. [Katalina Watt]
My Friends by Hisham Matar (Viking)
Hisham Matar crafts a beautiful piece of personal, character-driven fiction from real-life events in his utterly deserved Orwell prize-winner. In the 1980s, two Libyan students at the University of Edinburgh find their lives upended by a tragic event at a protest outside of their country’s London embassy. 30 years later, one of them recounts the fallout of that day against the backdrop of the Arab Spring.
It Lasts Forever and Then It’s Over Anne De Marcken
A horror-comedy of a zombie novel, and Then It’s Over new (after)life as she heads west through a postapocalyptic wasteland, carrying a dead crow in her chest and losing limbs as she goes, towards somewhere she knows, loves, but can’t quite remember.
[Terri-Jane Dow]
Welcome to Dorley Hall by Alyson Greaves (Neem Tree Press)
Stefan’s best friend Mark disappears shortly after going away to uni at the Royal College of St Almsworth. When he encounters a woman who looks just like Mark years later, he is plunged into an obsessive quest that leads him to Dorley Hall, the exclusive student housing on the edge of campus, and what lies beneath it… This is a propulsive, thought provoking and deeply emotional look at power, gender, violence and redemption.
[Eris Young]
[Louis Cammell]
Namesake: Reflections on A Warrior Woman by N.S. Nuseibeh (Canongate)
This is the book I’ve been thinking about since I first read it; the book I will recommend to anyone who’ll listen. Namesake is an essay collection about identity in the context of the occupation of Palestine. Nuseibeh draws parallels between herself as a British-Palestinian woman from East Jerusalem and her famous ancestor Nusaybah bint Ka’ab al Khazraji, the legendary female warrior. Mostly written before October 2023, Namesake is as relevant now as ever, exploring topics like violence, religion and womanhood with a clear and approachable voice that will continue to resonate through time and geography. This is the kind of book the world might not deserve, but it desper-
Intermezzo by Sally Rooney (Faber) Liminal states of desire and grief take centre stage in Sally Rooney’s fourth – and perhaps best – novel Intermezzo, in which two brothers find themselves trapped in the sticky quagmire of tangled relationships following the death of their father. I have been trying to pick apart just why I love Rooney’s writing so much, why I underlined this book like some kind of sacred text, and I think it is because she takes desire so seriously – the ecstasy of its subjunctive mood and the devastation of its (almost always) inevitable fallout. I felt it so acutely throughout Intermezzo: the tenderness and insanity about placing ourselves entirely in someone else’s control. But also, maybe, that is all that intimacy ever is. [Anahit Behrooz]
That Beautiful Atlantic Waltz gives up its secrets guardedly, so when everything comes together the effect is unexpectedly profound. Tender-hearted, graceful, and subtly philosophical, this is a novel to be cherished. It’s an artful, and emotionally mature, evocation that every single life is extraordinary. [Alistair Braidwood]
That Beautiful Atlantic Waltz by Malachy Tallack (Canongate)
Comedy Picks of the Year 2024
The final season of Curb Your Enthusiasm saw Larry David on trial after committing an uncharacteristically heroic – albeit illegal – act. Yet, it was the ensemble’s standout moments, especially those with J.B. Smoove, Susie Essman and the late Richard Lewis, that made Season 11 truly memorable.
On the stand-up front, I caught Larry Dean’s Dodger at Monkey Barrel in October – a charming, time-hopping show that explored his relationship with his Nan. Even with a story this moving, it’s Dean’s playfulness and sheer number of jokes that would have made his Nan proud.
[Ben Venables]
If you’re a regular user of TikTok, you’ll no doubt have come across Brian Jordan Alvarez on your For You page. As he gyrates sensually to a sound bite from Gilmore Girls mixed with Olly Alexander’s cover of Breathe, it’s hard to look away. It makes no sense and yet it may just be the most effective indirect marketing campaign of the year. Ratings
for his new show English Teacher have skyrocketed since the dancing began and for good reason – it’s a lighthearted, feel-good sitcom about a gay teacher in Texas, trying desperately to make a difference to his kids. The writing is witty and endearing in its tackling of contentious political and social debates, as Alvarez’s Evan Marquez faces gun-toting conservatives, book banning parents and chronically online teenagers.
When Ramy Youssef released his latest special More Feelings, Trump being back in the White House seemed highly unlikely. But months later, here we are and the sentiment expressed in More Feelings is all the more pertinent. Youssef interrogates his position as a Muslim in Hollywood, talking openly about his support for Palestine and frustration at the overwhelming apathy from Americans who refuse to engage with the reality in Gaza. More Feelings is bold in its jokes on Muslim representation and stereotypes, but Youssef’s tender delivery ensures it never veers towards the unnecessarily inflammatory. Instead, it’s a show that asks us to consider
empathy even when we’re divided, and to maybe even feel hopeful for the future of humanity.
[Arusa Qureshi]
I loved Camille Bordas’s new novel, The Material –insightful on the nature of comedy and the newly elevated role of comedians – ‘the artists that the public turn to for enlightenment, for comfort and understanding’ – and a really enjoyable read. Jordan Brookes’ Fontanelle was the standout show for me at the Fringe – a beautifully complex creation (the image of a chandelier kept coming to mind in thinking about it afterwards, but that might also have been the Titanic vibes). Sh!t Theatre’s Or What’s Left Of Us was also a knockout – funny, yes, and also sad and angry, and very beautiful.
And on TV, season two of deadpan romcom Colin From Accounts, was a joy – the leads, played by real life couple, Harriet Dyer and Patrick Brammall, are sensational, but it’s a real ensemble piece and the rest of the cast are excellent too.
[Emma Sullivan]
Janey Godley
Brian Jordan Alvarez, English Teacher
Photo: Steve Ullathorne
The Skinny’s Comedy Team give us the lowdown on their most memorably funny moments of the year
If you missed the show that won Lara Ricote the Best Newcomer Award at 2022’s Fringe, GRL/ LATNX/DEF is now available for free on YouTube. Lara’s a bold new voice in comedy, and not just because she sounds like Bart Simpson on 1.5x speed (her words, not mine). Watch until the end for the most committed and out-there bit of musical comedy in a long while.
[Louis Cammell]
It’s hard to pick highlights from live comedy this year – but Sam Lake’s impression of Penelope Cruz in a plane was peak Fringe for me. A bit further afield, I saw Caitriona Dowden doing some new material at the Women In Comedy Festival which was brilliant – equal parts stupid and completely idiosyncratic.
When David Sedaris came to the Usher Hall in July he told a story about meeting the Pope and was predictably weird and funny in equal measure. The highlight, however, was his outfit – a fulllength priest’s cassock and a hideous pair of
shoes that I’m completely obsessed with (Google ‘comme des garcons shoe double toe’).
And last but not least, I know this is a fairly well-trodden meme format, but the best iteration of it, and the thing that’s made me laugh the hardest recently, was setting the intro to Super Graphic Ultra Modern Girl by Chappell Roan to the McLovin scene from Superbad
[Laurie Presswood]
Although Phil Ellis’ Come On And Take The Rest Of Me was my overall favourite gig this Fringe (fingers crossed it tours), one of the funniest gigs of the year was Nish Kumar’s Work-In-Progress at Pleasance Cabaret Bar. At a late-night Saturday show in the middle of the festival, you’d expect some characters in the crowd. For Nish, it was the two women who, after arriving late, left ten minutes into his show to catch their train. Once they’d drunkenly shuffled out of the building (which was excruciatingly funny in itself), Kumar turned detective quick-as-a-flash to find out more about these gig derailers. With the help of a railway
YouTuber (step aside Francis Bourgeois) hidden in the crowd, Nish Kumar PI tracked them and their train down to unbelievable wheezes and whoops. Some real Fringe magic.
And, as the year comes to a close, I’d like to raise a glass to Janey Godley. Her stand-up was brazen, unabashed and loved by many, yet it was her dedication to supporting new and up-andcoming talent, and her generosity towards them, which will be missed on the Scottish comedy scene the most.
On screen, Such Brave Girls, which I caught at the beginning of the year but was *technically* released at the tail-end of 2023, was a wildly refreshing sitcom from Kat Sadler. Razor-sharp and with some of the realest, cattiest dialogue on telly, it drilled into the psyche of dysfunction and the manifestation of trauma in a deeply funny way. Also watch for a career-best performance from Sherlock star Louise Brealey.
[Polly Glynn]
Nish Kumar
Lara Ricote Jordan Brookes
Photo: Idil Sukan
Photo: Anneliese Nappa
Photo: Steve Ullathorne
Radical Review
At the end of a difficult year, we’re grateful for the grassroots organisations who have shown us another way. We unpack a handful of these groups’ practices and teachings, and look towards 2025 with hope
Words: Jj Fadaka
Illustration: Magda Michalak
For marginalised communities across Scotland, 2024 has been one long inhale, with little release. Whether we’ve been waiting for election outcomes, the national budget, rent reviews, or an end to police brutality and far-right riots, after we survive one hurdle, there’s soon been another on the horizon. We’ve found relief in collective anger, although the foundations of already pressured communities have been pushed to their limit. Meeting to strategise, cry and rest together has helped us hold each other tightly.
If 2024 has taught me anything, it’s how to create in the face of destruction. We’ve had our finances and sense of safety slowly chipped away. At the beginning of the year, I wanted to hide and give in to the world’s apparent apathy. The industry I work in – the arts and culture sector - was tight-lipped and closed ranks at any mention of genocide. My finances seemed to cover less and less of my necessities. Across Scotland, justified desperation and anger was spilling on the streets, in organised and spontaneous protests. Meanwhile, as reported by The Scotsman and Big Issue respectively, an increase in shoplifting and the number of unhoused people exposed the slow churn of local services.
We could have stayed stuck: a shit politician got into power so let’s wait another four years; the far-right has taken the streets so let’s stay home; the police officer got off so we’ll forget the victim’s name. But grassroots groups have taken up arms, opened their circle and reformulated our avenues for change. Companionship and collective grief have been short-term relief in fighting for a world that exalts rather than tolerates our existence. For the end of 2024, I want to share practices from grassroots groups for community building and resisting an increasingly hostile world.
State the Reality of the Matter with Art Workers for Palestine
It’s maddening to watch human-made disasters unravel on our screens, look up to the institutions
we engage with and feel as if the world has already moved on. In 2024, Art Workers for Palestine (AW4P) reignited accountability in the Scottish cultural sector by demanding explicit solidarity with Palestine from the country’s leading art organisations.
These institutions are smarter than we give them credit for. Anger in response to vague, abstract, footnote mentions of genocide – particularly those funded by the UK government – is justified.
AW4P cut through the noise of obscurity to state the reality of the matter. The Global North is funding, enacting and ignoring multiple genocides
‘Strong labour power should come with the community to hold the mess and anxiety of protest’
across the Global South. Investment companies like Ballie Gifford strategically fund the arts to move our understanding of their companies from war profiteers to benevolent philanthropists. The Scottish arts sector allows itself to be the storefront of this art-washing, moving its workers further away from the radical potential of art to critique and protest.
Such a statement may feel uncomfortable. After all, the arts have been purposefully de-politicised to accommodate more funding, with little consideration of how money changes us and our morals. AW4P proudly identify themselves as workers; for them, art workers are the backbone of an industry staying silent on the lived reality of many people featured in its exhibitions, films, programmes and advertising. These prestigious spaces exist because we enter them, recommend
them and create within them. We cannot forget the right to life for each of us, whether or not we have the money to buy your attention. Refusal to be a silently smiling majority frees our creativity to be used towards collective liberation.
Use your Labour Power with Fossil Free Books Fossil Free Books (FFB) is a collective of workers in the book and literary industry. From their inception in 2023, they have challenged the idea that one writer is more important than the rest of the planet. Bringing authors and book workers together, they demand the industry’s bi est sponsors divest from fossil fuels.
This isn’t a union but the worker solidarity is palpable upon realising that whatever your bookish role, your livelihood relies on the (good) practices of the book industry. FFB tells us we can’t continue to pretend art is made in a dark room by a lone auteur. Rather, it is a practice handed down from those producing paper to those using their hourly wage to buy a new novel. They all deserve clean air to breathe, a life free of bombing and to live to see the realisation of the world they read and dream of.
Solidarity isn’t easy, especially in an industry that intentionally separates artists and audiences. ‘Making it’ as an author comes with the (often false) promise of stability, but at this crucial political moment, so-called success might also mean abandoning your beliefs and the people who believe in your work. FFB don’t expect anyone to have all the right answers or to brave the realities of labour action alone. The group makes resources to educate their community on bloody money that cleans itself in book festivals and literary prizes. They create templates to help workers explain why they want to withdraw their labour while also inviting industry leaders to join their demands for change. FFB understands that bravery relies on the faces that meet you on the picket line. Strong labour power should come with the community to hold the mess and anxiety of protest.
Do-It-Yourself with Porty Pride
We can re-make spaces that already exist. Old activist methods often don’t need to be thrown away, but simply remade, in the image of people that look and feel like you. Porty Pride stands alongside Edinburgh’s bi er Pride. It’s a volunteer-led, community-driven LGBTQ+ space hosting panels, intergenerational parties, film screenings, and (of course) a march. Anyone can su est an event, as long as they have the will to see it through, giving local queer people a platform to DIY Pride. This gives inroads for a Pride that can centre intersecting marginalisations in the queer community; silenced, angry, questioning, joyful, quiet voices that would be drowned out by the need for a palatable ‘queer’ face elsewhere.
The power of stepping away from corporations – who remember they have queer staff once a year and use Pride for pink-washing – reclaims Pride as a radical queer space. Rejecting tokenistic sponsorship saw Porty Pride become the first fossil-free Pride in Scotland, keeping the organisation accountable to their local community, rather than an abstract list of funders.
Doing it yourself means you might not start big, but there is beauty in creating something that matters a lot to a small number. Attendees, volunteers and event participants put energy and resources in and get meaning out of it. Instead of a
corporation eventually co-opting our history and activism and selling it back to us, our many big and small contributions can create something spectacular, here and now.
‘Everything worth hearing this year, I heard on the street’
Put New World Theories into Practice with Radical Book Fair
Educational spaces aren’t free of restriction, discrimination or capitalism. Engaging with radical theory can induce feelings of self-doubt and imposter syndrome. Lighthouse Books has long been a refuge for those seeking change, hope, and warmth. Every year at the Radical Book Fair, they bring the curious and compassionate together to share radical ideas and imagine new worlds.
The Radical Book Fair looks to the future with optimism and practicality. This year’s theme ‘We Are It’ invited attendees to make a collective film, share actions in response to local and global issues and rest together. If we are to build a new world, they say, we have to make space for each of us. Before you think about sharing knowledge, consider
format, inclusivity, aftercare, discussion – and give people a meal! World-building is hungry work.
The Radical Book Fair creates a hub to respond to issues particular to Scotland. Rampant transphobia is especially close to the queer community they are intertwined with. They’ve long spoken up against transphobia, complicity and silence in the arts, cultural and literary sectors and provided a meeting space for organising groups, book clubs and community events.
Access to independent publishers means access to under-represented voices and disrupts the hegemony of white, middle-class professional writers. From anarchy to trans-feminism to the Black radical tradition, the Radical Book Fair brings ideas outwith the mainstream into collective focus. Come to find your future co-conspirators and stay to get ideas for your first action.
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Yet still, we will come together this winter to grieve, rest, and celebrate with our loved ones. We will retreat with our grievances, less naive and maybe more cynical about so-called cultural leaders and voices for change, but we will have a newfound energy. We will be braver, bolder and more outspoken, with a collective voice of different registers and languages. Let the curated press releases and notes app apologies die in 2025. Everything worth hearing this year, I heard on the street.
A Rift in the Scottish Arts
Over the last 14 months there has been growing discontent at Scottish arts organisations and their response to the genocide in Palestine – Glasgow-based artist and writer Hussein Mitha tells us more
In the last 14 months we have witnessed a widening rift in the Scottish arts – as well as an intensification of its radical currents and subcultures.
Many cultural institutions who have long ridden the ‘decolonial’ wave and projected an image of ‘progressive’, anti-racist, socially-engaged commitments, found themselves structurally silent, complicit and lacking in solidarity when it came to the colonial genocide of Palestinians. Many of them who protested on social media about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine (Creative Scotland, for example) have had nothing to say about the daily massacre of Palestinians, enabled by the UK and Scottish governments. The urgent injunctions made by Palestinians for us to witness what was happening and for us to take action were met with stony indifference, unhinged cognitive dissonance, or outright hostility. Many, who dedicate themselves to the ‘contemporary’ and use hashtags like ‘A better world’ (SCAN – Scottish Contemporary Art Network), had nothing to say about the genocidal horrors of the present: the relationship of art to the contemporary. The configuration ‘contemporary art’ has never seemed more inadequate, more lacking, more flagrantly disingenuous, when the horrors of the lived moment are structurally unmentionable by the very same organisations that seek to connect art to the contemporary or the socially-engaged.
Many cultural organisations have been complicit financially through ties and sponsorships with Baillie Gifford, an Edinburgh-based investment company complicit in Israeli holdings, and have resisted attempts by art workers and audiences to act until eventually relinquishing and cutting ties with Baillie Gifford for fear of damage done to reputation. A handful of the most established and well-known artists in Scotland also still have work in the Zabludowicz Collection, a formerly London-based collection which acts as an art-washing front for Israel and has close personal ties to the Netanyahu regime, around which there has been a longstanding boycott and campaign to ‘deauthor’ (a process by which artists can remove work from the collection).
All of the above is complicity. Had the liberal bourgeois cultural institutions and artists of the imperial core taken a stand, and united in cultural resistance, refused to be silent about the genocide being livestreamed to them, Israel would not have been enabled to operate with such impunity. Israel has long manufactured consent for its colonial brutality via cultural means. Its profuse use of art and culture to manufacture consent and silence is part of its longstanding strategy to maintain the conditions in the imperial core that allow it to attempt to eradicate Palestinians. Colonial brutality is fuelled by imperial cultural consensus, by silence. The genocide is manufactured here, in the imperial heartlands, in every sense: both in terms of arms and culturally. Let history record that the official cultural institutions across the west, from Berlin to Toronto, to New York, Frankfurt and Edinburgh, played their role in facilitating the genocide. Had a professional art class not put their careers before Palestinian lives, had they refused with every fibre of their being to remain silent, Palestinian artists would not have died. Had organisations in Scotland stood by
their radical, decolonial programming, their supposed championing of oppressed voices and histories, their commitment to underrepresented artists, and understood the power of the relationship between art and the contemporary, and used the full weight of their cultural platforms to mobilise for Palestine and resist, we could have broken through the silence, the consensus and the horror.
“Colonial brutality is fuelled by imperial cultural consensus, by silence”
On the other hand, across Scotland, countless cultural practitioners, community organisers and arts workers as well as grassroots cultural groupings have pushed back against this structural inertia, moral apathy, cowardice, indifference and silence of our larger organisations and institutions. Throughout Scottish culture, often disabled-led, queer, youth, racialised, and working-class arts workers and increasingly politicised small and artist-run spaces have mobilised unrelentingly for Palestine. 148 cultural organisations across Scotland have now endorsed PACBI – the cultural boycott of Israel, forming an ever-broadening front against genocide and imperialism in the arts. More and more people seem to be outraged and frustrated by the official bodies of the Scottish arts and the flagrant classism and racism that is structural and endemic. More and more art workers are questioning and holding their employers and funders to account, and we are at a new conjuncture which requires an ongoing politicisation of aesthetics, and a using of art towards liberation, rather than the aestheticisation of politics that has been the dominant trend of contemporary art in the last few decades.
As the forces of silence and normalisation rage on unrelentingly, the ongoing genocide in Gaza, and conflagration of Israeli a ression into Lebanon, Syria and Yemen, threaten to become background noise. There are those who maintain the status quo across the Scottish cultural sector who want this to happen. It is also inevitable that the government will attempt a major crackdown on the cultural boycott if we let them. Now more than ever, it’s important for all of us who work in culture and who are principled anti-imperialists, who believe in a future for all and real justice for the oppressed, unite and collectively refuse to go on with business as usual. Let us reach into the radical currents within our subcultures and communities that can forcefully resist the official, dominant culture. Let’s not allow this rift to be papered-over and managed by the forces in the art world that maintain the genocidal status quo. Radical art should be a continuing renewal of outrage against the dominant mode of representation that prevents us from seeing the truth. In times where the meaning of art seems at stake, we have to build class power and re-state the power of expression for world-changing collective liberation, as the Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish said:
“Every word has the power to change the world.”
The Simple Life
With his debut album as Wuh Oh finally released, we talk to Pete Ferguson about his experiences in the major label game, and look to his future as Ferguson
“The lost album is finally found.”
Shelved four years ago by the major label that signed Wuh Oh, aka Pete Ferguson, off the back of seeing the £50 music video for his single Daddio, in October, his long-lost debut album, Wuh Ohs, finally saw the light of day. Shared with countless labels by a friend seeking a job in A&R, the playful video for Daddio – starring Ferguson in his best Beetlejuice meets Andy Warhol getup – incited an unexpected bidding war.
“It was all extremely hectic,” Ferguson recalls, perched on a park bench in The Meadows after a leisurely stroll in the November winter sun. “My ego was exploding. I ended up signing to one of the Sony labels and realised quite quickly after I’d signed with them that they didn’t have much of a plan for me... When I went to my meeting to drink champagne and sign papers, one of the high-ups in the label whispered in my ear, ‘I promise you’ll never regret this.’ And as soon as they said that, I thought, ‘I have a feeling I’m gonna regret this. I think I already regret this.’”
Strangely, the label wasn’t interested in releasing Daddio as their first port of call. “They wanted me to release really obscure weird things because I guess it would take the pressure off me and the pressure off them, because if a really weird thing doesn’t connect, who cares,” Ferguson says. He continues with a sigh: “The wind was taken out of my sails, and the excitement at the label got less and less.
“By the time it came to the point of releasing [Daddio], everybody had kind of jumped ship, and I had lost hope in myself and in the project, and so it just kind of fizzled out. And then COVID happened; TikTok became a huge deal.”
When things started going south with the label, Ferguson pitched a single – Hypnotized – to pop icon Sophie Ellis-Bextor, who loved it. He took it to the label, and after a few months of feigning excitement, they finally admitted it wasn’t something they could get involved with. They gave him their blessing to release the song (which the pair did in 2023, accompanied by a glorious video shot at the Barrowlands) and essentially dropped him in the same breath.
After this rollercoaster, Ferguson turned to alcohol, something he admits he’d long been using
as a coping mechanism. “I felt so extremely alone and isolated and it made me feel like such a failure. There was such an immense feeling of, if I can’t make myself a success when I’m signed to a major label then I must not be good enough. And now I realise, actually, that’s not true... Basically, I’ve come to realise: music is about life, and life is not about music.”
“I just got fed up of writing shit songs for David Guetta maybe to release”
Pete Ferguson, aka Wuh Oh
Since parting ways with the label, daily life looks very different now for Ferguson. Attending regular AA meetings, coffee dates and time with friends and family the priority, music now forms part of what he describes as “a simple happy life.” He confesses, “I went through such a journey [as Wuh Oh] of doing everything I possibly could so that nobody could see or judge the real me. I started writing music to make songs that I love and to show some people. So that’s basically what I’m going to do. I’m still happy to write songs with people or for people when it seems fun and inspiring... but I just got fed up of writing shit songs for David Guetta maybe to release,” he laughs.
With Wuh Oh a thing of the past, he’s looking to the future, and his new mononymous project as Ferguson. “I just want this to be me doing the music that I always loved.” Moving away from an electronic sound, he promises a strong emphasis on melody and harmony, and on pop, but with a sound more rooted in the 60s, 70s and 80s, albeit “with no expectations of reaching Beatlemania,” he quips. With 14 songs almost ready to go, featuring himself on vocals, his brother Mike on drums and Stevie Jackson from Belle and Sebastian – “my favourite band of all time” – on guitar, he describes it as “chaotic messy pop”. Count us in!
At this point, it’s worth noting the difference in Ferguson’s demeanour when talking about his new project and his changed relationship with
music compared to where we started. Coming out the other side a changed person, he says the experience has ultimately been a valuable one. Offering advice for artists desperate to get signed to a major, he treads with caution. “It’s good to remember that it’s business,” he starts. “The money is good, but you have to do it all by yourself, they’re not your family or your friends [...] And do everything you can not to let your performance on that record label dictate how you feel about yourself as a person and as an artist.
“Do not let the fear of failing and being dropped affect the way that you make your music because at the end of the day, it really doesn’t matter,” he says candidly, ending with a shrug and a hearty guffaw: “People get dropped all the time.”
Wuh Ohs was released on 10 Oct via Wuh Oh / Movie Records; available at Bandcamp: wuhoh.bandcamp.com
Keep your eyes peeled for new music from Ferguson in the new year
Words: Tallah Brash
Photo: Joe Crogan at Zones Production
Online Only
The Home Office most certainly likes to keep busy. One writer explores the true cost of the country’s digital border
In 2022, the Home Office unveiled its plan to create an ‘end-to-end digital customer experience’ for immigration, moving every step of the process online – from application form to immigration documents. The plan sees the complete phase-out of all analogue paperwork by 31 December 2024, with Biometrics Residencies Permits (BRP) and Cards (BRC), along with all legacy documents including passport stamps and residency letters, set to be replaced by eVisas: fully digitised records of immigration status, accessible online-only.
First introduced with the EU Settlement Scheme (EUSS) in 2019, which handled residency rights for EU citizens in the UK after Brexit, eVisas were progressively introduced to other schemes before applications opened to all in spring 2024. Individuals currently holding BRP, BRC and other documents need to create a UK Visa and Immigration (UKVI) account, download the Home Office app, and scan their documents using a smartphone to prove their status and access their eVisa. Additionally, legacy document holders may first need to obtain a BRP via a no-time-limit (NTL) application, before they can upload it to their UKVI account and obtain their eVisa. When requested to prove their status – for example, when taking up a new job, applying to rent or buy property, or accessing benefits – individuals will need to log-in to their UKVI account and generate a unique-use sharecode to give to the relevant authorities. The latter will then need to connect to the View-and-Prove online platform and input the share-code to view the eVisa.
Though the Home Office introduced eVisas as ‘simpler and more intuitive’ to use, the new system only seems to transfer the complex offline bureaucracy of immigration to online space, offloading all responsibility to the eVisa holder. While this series of events may seem rather straightforward to the technology-minded, it relies on three key components which fundamentally challenge its accessibility: a reliable internet connection, access to (quality) digital devices, and sufficient digital literacy to use them. Those cover all three barriers to digital inclusion identified by Ofcom and subsequently recognised by Parliament, as well as two of the four criteria outlined by the EU.
Florence*, who is in the UK on a student visa, transferred to an eVisa earlier this month. When she registered her UKVI account, she stru led to scan her BRP with her Android phone, despite the phone complying with the Home Office app’s requirements. “I had to ask a friend with an iPhone, but still it didn’t work. I did manage in the end through asking other friends,” she says. “I find it easy to use these gadgets, but I can imagine it would be a challenge for someone who’s not technology literate.”
Digital exclusion can critically impact an individual’s capacity to engage in public life and
access services including jobs, benefits, and education. Research by the Good Thing Foundation, a digital inclusion charity, and the University of Liverpool, note that factors of digital exclusion intersect with other forms of disadvantage, increasing risks of exclusion for individuals living in poverty, and disabled and elderly people. A recent report from Audit Scotland found that 15% of all adults in Scotland lack foundational digital skills.
Digital rights organisation Open Rights Group (ORG) has warned that eVisas will further increase the digital divide, with communities concerned by the policy already at higher risk of digital exclusion. Individuals using legacy documents, who are usually older, may be particularly affected, ORG argues, along with individuals with limited digital literacy who may stru le to keep their UKVI account safe from threats such as scams and phishing, a risk factor increased by the existing language barriers many already face.
Digital literacy is not only a key skill in using technology and identifying malicious actors, but is also important when navigating technical issues, which an online-only system may make all the more frequent. The3Million, an organisation which supports EU citizens in the UK, has gathered reports from eVisa holders under the EUSS across the past five years of the scheme. These include erroneous information automatically collected during the application causing delays and rejections, prolonged interruption to the system leaving
Words: Mayanne Soret Illustration: Amy Lauren
individuals without access to their eVisa, and data entanglement, where parts of someone’s data is displayed on someone else’s eVisa. The organisation has put forward a proposal to replace the current system with personal QR codes leading to a static online-only immigration status, saying the code could be used from a mobile phone or with physical cards and passport stickers. Despite these concerns, the Terms and Conditions for UKVI accounts states that the Home Office is not liable for ‘any loss or damage that arises from use of the UKVI account’ including ‘information that is lost or corrupted while data is being transmitted, processed or downloaded from the UKVI account.’ Thankfully, a Resolution Centre for technical issues is available, along with a list of organisations who can provide support. The Home Office also offers digital access support for eligible applicants via phone or face-to-face, weekdays only.
Amid the UK’s ever-violent treatment towards migrants, it is difficult to trust that the eVisas program has emerged solely from a desire to improve customer service, or that it will be implemented with sufficient care and support. While digitalisation may be convenient for some, the UK’s move towards an online-only immigration system in the face of growing digital exclusion risks leaving already vulnerable communities behind.
*Name has been changed to protect privacy
The Experience of the Survivor
The Skinny meets Gabrielle Goliath, the artist behind Personal Accounts, a decolonial and collaborative project of repair now on show at Talbot Rice Gallery
Personal Accounts is a deeply immersive and contemplative series of video and sound works, where Johannesburg-based artist Gabrielle Goliath addresses the global normativities of gendered and racialised violence and its impact on survivors. Goliath worked in close collaboration with survivors and allies transnationally in Johannesburg, Tunisia, Oslo, Milan, Stellenbosch and now, for the exhibition at Talbot Rice, Edinburgh. Fresh from representing South Africa at the Venice Biennale with a rendition of Personal Accounts, Goliath tells us more about how she is using her platform at Talbot Rice to investigate these concerns.
I’ve seen artworks by Sue Williamson in which she has done something that looked on the surface kind of similar to yours – by way of the media used and where she gets victims and perpetrators (sometimes perpetrators of injustices during the Apartheid era) to talk about the same subect matter. Would you describe her as an inspiration?
Well, I wouldn’t necessarily cite Sue Williamson as a precedent but rather, I look to a chorus of extraordinary black, brown femme and queer scholars, and practitioners who are really tackling head on a regime of representation itself inherently raced, classed and gendered, so a work such as Personal Accounts, as with all my other works really looks to tend and attend to the laundry of the social catastrophes of slavery, of colonialism and Apartheid. But of course, the ways in which we continue to inhabit the aftermaths of those catastrophes, and it shapes and informs all of our lives, and in actual fact, resultantly produces a differentially valued life. And so that is the bedrock to my entire practice.
Have you collected participants’ thoughts on the process or the film depicting them?
I think it’s been really important to think about how the work is produced right from the beginning. It’s produced in community and in dialogue with many, many individuals and partner organisations, so the preface to the making of this work is highly relational, and it’s my way of seeking to work in a subject-centred, ethical mode of artmaking that is extractive or ethnographic to some degree. And so in making my work, I look to firstly make sure that I put in place these relationships, friends, friendships, partnerships that make possible a way of me being held to account and of course being accountable to those who get involved in the work, from partner organisations such as the Talbot Rice Gallery to the collaborators that are assembled within a particular
context. They are made very much aware of what this work is about and invited to participate. And so those conversations are really quite key. Personal Accounts is really centering around the experience of the survivor. One really then does need to think quite carefully about that particular subject position. I looked to untether them from the really reductive, problematic frame of victim and victimhood, but in actually exceeding that so regularly the terms of engagement, the terms of participation have political, affective, poetic and aesthetic implications.
Would you say you gave up authorship as the artist with the initial concept to some degree in Personal Accounts?
Personal Accounts is very much driven by the agential capacity to give or to withhold. There are those who participate in this work who may be striving towards visibility as trans activists, for example. They want to be visible in the work they are in. There are those who choose to withhold and not disclose their identity. All of these decisions are so important and significant for each one of those individuals. And I think that’s what the work really grapples with. It’s this idea of giving an account and accounting for oneself, and the voice of the survivor is one that is so regularly discredited.
Words: Akin Oladimeji
That makes sense. I like how daring it is to only let the audience hear sighs and filler words – but what do you think about those that might feel that you’re redacting the collaborators’ monologues and silencing them?
Well, I think firstly, it’s really important to note that it is a consented-to decision. So that’s really important. And then of course, as I say, it’s this grappling with this so-called dichotomy of those who have a voice and those who do not. And what this work is really asking of those who come to it is to consider what happens when we forego lexicality. What happens within that paralinguistic space? And I think it’s really important to grapple with this idea of so-called transparency. That language apparently affords us to be known and transparent to one another, but in actual fact, rather to claim a form of opacity. I’m very careful around the languaging as well of the work. This is not about editorial censorship, redaction, or a cut, all of which implies a form of conceptual and aesthetic and material violence, but in actual fact, this is driving towards an alternative, a different kind of aesthetic encounter. Also, it’s important to note, this is not a work about physical violence. These are not all solely accounts of violence and so this is not work that is asking for only victims to come forward. So that’s a really important aspect.
Personal Accounts, Talbot Rice Gallery, Edinburgh, until 15
Gabrielle Goliath, Personal Accounts, 2024, La Biennale di Venezia
Photo: Luc Meneghel
Just Do It!
Following the release of her excellent For the World EP, we hit the road with Tina Sandwich to find out if the stress of touring in Europe is worth it or not
Words and Photos:
Miriam Schlüter
“Idon’t know if you’ll have heard of this place, but most of us actually met in a place called Aberdeen,” says Tilly O’Connor, aka Tina Sandwich, into the microphone. A packed back room on the Rue Blanche, just two doors down from the famous Moulin Rouge, responds with some tentative cheers. Two people come up to her after the show: they have been to Aberdeen, can she believe it?
For two weeks, O’Connor and her band have been touring Europe. Exploring cities, sleeping in vans, and meeting people along the way, they have taken part in a form of cultural exchange that is unique, tender, and always fuelled by music. I got the chance to sit down with O’Connor and speak to her about her experience of planning, executing, and living through a kind of experience that seems sometimes reserved for the super rich.
“We got asked to do it – the same way you get asked to do any show, really,” says O’Connor about how the tour came about. Seven shows in total, with nights off in between: Utrecht, Rotterdam, Paris, Stuttgart, Frankfurt and Düsseldorf. Not only a lengthy, but an expensive undertaking. She mentions the financial uncertainty that was present from the very start. “There was probably a bit of uncertainty. Do you really wanna do it? It’s going to cost a lot of money. But the rewards could be worth it.
“It became clear very early on that we would need to do a fundraiser type thing,” reflects O’Connor. On tour in support of London rockers LEAP, the majority of any profits would go to them. While headlining bands, able to potentially profit from or cover costs with ticket sales, can have a much easier time organising tours, the expenses pile up much quicker when you’re playing as a support act mostly benefiting from the exposure to new audiences rather than financial reward.
Having to ensure that each band member was able to take a two week holiday at the same time was only the first hurdle. Flights, ferries, van hire, board and lodging for five people (plus the occasional friend who decided to tag along) quickly added up.
“The van was probably the bi est all-in expense, but that was mostly covered by the bingo night,” explains O’Connor. A bingo night at Nice N Sleazy to help fundraise and celebrate the release of their For the World EP was only one way the band tried to pull in money to make the dream of touring Europe a reality. An unconventional sort of evening at the Glasgow hotspot, the night felt almost like a celebration of community.
“We had a lot of favours and love pooled in from all our friends in the scene, donating prizes and stuff like that. That was really lovely,” reminisces O’Connor. The bar was packed, filled with friends and fans alike excited to contribute.
Chatting to the sound engineer
Topping the night off with an intimate live set, a sense of vulnerability shone through that seems typical for a band who know how to make a crowd dance but don’t shy away from discussing delicate, political and emotional matters in their music either. That exact mixture of fun and tenderness, of seriousness and silliness, translated effortlessly to audiences all across Europe.
“We found a bit of a language barrier with chat between songs. Maybe even just accents,” says O’Connor when asked about the experience of playing to crowds of non-native English speakers. But while understanding each other in a literal sense was sometimes difficult, there seemed to be an inherent level of understanding carried via the music, as evidenced by the fruitful merch sales and post-gig conversations the band experienced. As fulfilling as those exchanges were, there was some pressure attached to them as well: “We’re riding on our coattails a little bit, needing to sell T-shirts every night to get to the next city pretty much,” O’Connor explains.
For her as the frontwoman, trying to make the tour happen has also been a huge personal sacrifice. “For the past six months, all my spare money has gone on getting Airbnbs.” There is no such thing as a work/life balance when it comes to touring: it is something your heart and soul has to go into in order to make it happen.
O’Connor also reflects on having to be in charge of the organisational side of things. “I found it quite stressful as well, I was always worried about the rest of the band not liking it. Will they not like this Airbnb or will they not like this choice I made about going to this city or something like that? So I found that super stressful, the weight of everyone’s opinions.”
But somehow, everything seemed to fall into place for them: each band member seems to be elated, glowing with how joyous the experience has been for them. “Everything I was stressed about, everything I was frightened of hasn’t happened. It’s really been a dream.”
The band, operating for the last two-and-ahalf years between Aberdeen and Glasgow, are used to having to organise things between the five of them, taking into account people’s various schedules and responsibilities. At this point, they’re a well-oiled machine, on and off the stage. “I feel like we’ve sort of formed a hive mind now,” O’Connor reflects. “We’re just delirious with the gi les all the time.”
When asked if she thinks the organisational and financial effort that went into the tour was worth it, she points out that worth is something that’s hard to define. “It’s great to just have lots of fun with your friends and see lots of cities you wouldn’t necessarily get to see. That’s so worth it,” she says. But the artistic fulfilment they have gained
from the experience is worth mentioning, too. “I’ve enjoyed meeting everyone and chatting after the show and it just didn’t feel draining in any way – I wish I was doing it again tonight. It felt very recharging, reaffirming almost?
“Those Düsseldorf shows at the end were the best of the run and having so many kind people come up after to chat about how much fun they had kinda made us all feel like, ‘hell yeah, we should be doing this’.” At the end of the day, while hometown crowds provide a sense of loyalty and familiarity that can be comforting for local bands trying to define their sense of self, heading out into uncharted waters is an experience that O’Connor would recommend to any band – if only for the excellent European hospitality that Tina Sandwich experienced along the way!
We end our chat by asking what advice O’Connor would give to any Scottish bands trying to tour internationally? “Just do it!” she says. “Big advice: stay out in the countryside and not in the city. You can’t really party after the shows all night but I think that’s probably done us good. We had really gorgeous places to stay, lots of peace and quiet. And yeah, you don’t have to worry about paying for parking and your van being broken into. It’s not super rock’n’roll but I think it’s the way to do it. And then you have the odd night, like your day off, where you can go a little crazy. That would be my advice: don’t go too hard every night, get a good sleep. Prioritise sleep. And be nice to the venue staff and they’ll be nice to you.”
For the World was released on 8 Aug Tina Sandwich play in support of Parliamo at Beat Generator Live!, Dundee, 29 Dec with headline shows planned in the new year in London (19 Feb) and Edinburgh (26 Feb)
instagram.com/tina__sandwich
Pinball
Shop Local
An Independent Zebra
An independent gift, homeware and furniture shop in the heart of Edinburgh’s glorious Stockbridge neighbourhood. An Independent Zebra brings you some of the best makers, artists and designers from across the UK, uniquely curated to make you smile. Shop in store or online.
Soul of Fire Artists’ Charcoal is handmade in Scotland using traditional methods and local, sustainable resources. Their charcoal sticks come in all shapes and sizes, re ecting the willow trees they’re made from. And they can be used by anyone, no matter what age or ability, and no matter what project is on the go. Buy yours online today:
Ragamuffin
A unique collection of knitwear from Scotland & beyond alongside clothing in natural bres and a range of gorgeous accessories. Each piece is carefully chosen to be worn and treasured. Ragamu n loves colour, loves wool, loves fairtrade, loves handmade and loves ethical manufacture. Brands include Harley of Scotland, Eribe knitwear, Greengrove Weavers, Amano knitwear and Pachamama.
278 Canongate, Edinburgh EH8 @ragamu nedin
The Craft Pottery
The Craft Pottery is a paint-your-own-pottery studio in the heart of Glasgow. They host regular pottery painting sessions in their studio, as well as themed events every week. Look out for their collaborations with local businesses around the city for special events. Whether you’re studying at GSA or have never held a paintbrush, you’re guaranteed to have a great time.
thecraftpottery.com @thecraftpottery
Art and Vintage
A feature of Abbeyhill since 2016, Art and Vintage is a friendly local cafe, shop and arts space o ering great food, monthly dinner nights, specially selected vintage nds and fantastic art and gifts made by independent artists and makers.
artandvintage-edinburgh.co.uk
The Craft Pottery Studio
The Craft Pottery Studio is an independent pottery and teaching facility tucked away in the heart of Glasgow’s city centre. With a variety of classes, workshops, courses, events, and studio rentals, they cover everything from traditional throwing techniques to modern hand-building styles. For beginners or experienced potters alike, it's a welcoming space to grow!
thecraftpotterystudio.com @craftpotterystudio
The Craft Pottery
The Craft Pottery Studio
Photo: Paul Marr
Ragamuffin
Art and Vintage
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Soul of Fire
Image: Mary Buchanan
A rundown of some special offers and events this festive season
Strangers Brewing
Local favourites Strangers Brewing create handcrafted, artisan brews on a small farm along Union Canal in Linlithgow. Alongside a great range of traditional Scottish ales and crisp lagers, check out their seasonal specials too – like stout with chillies or a saison with local rhubarb. Grab a mixed case, and look out for their gluten free options, gift sets, and merch. Shop online at strangersbrewing.co.uk.
@strangersbrew
of
Department of Magic
Step out of the cold and into immersive, magical experiences in Edinburgh this winter! At the Department of Magic, you can test your puzzle-solving skills in two top-rated escape rooms, make delicious potion cocktails in their cosy potions tavern, or indulge in a tasty afternoon tea lled with enchanting, locally-made delights. More than 1,500 5-star reviews on TripAdvisor. departmentofmagic.com @department.magic
Splatter Art Studio
Unleash your creativity this Christmas with Splatter Art! Gather your loved ones for a fun- lled day of vibrant colours and joyful mess. This unique experience lets you express yourself while creating unforgettable memories together. Perfect for families, friends and couples, it’s a chance to bond, laugh and take home a masterpiece that celebrates your time together. Join them for a splatter-tastic holiday!
splatterartstudio.co.uk @splatterartstudiouk
The Alchemy Experiment
The Alchemy Experiment is a creative art space, gallery & co ee shop that features original artwork and prints from over 100 local artists. In the run up to Christmas, the space will host its annual Festive Markets with a rotation of local artists & makers every Saturday & Sunday. The space also caters to events, workshops, talks and more.
alchemyexperiment.com
@thealchemyexperiment
The Big Show is back at Monkey Barrel this winter! Throughout December, you can see some of the best comedians in the country on stage in Edinburgh. Forget markets and late-night shopping, brighten up your festive period by seeing a selection of top stand-up talent at Scotland's best comedy venue (Chortle Awards) monkeybarrelcomedy.com @monkey.barrel.comedy
Fruitmarket
This Christmas, Fruitmarket Bookshop are featuring design-led storyful objects that showcase their ethos and ethics and have thoughtfully selected so many good books too. They’ve been described as a ‘dangerous’ and tempting shop and a bookshop ‘for the person who has everything’. Mainly, they’re thinking through contemporary culture with great books and well-made objects.
We chat with Guy Maddin and his regular collaborators Evan and Galen Johnson about Rumours, their new comedy about a crisis at the G7 Summit. They tell us how they embraced a more conventional film style without losing any of their puckish surrealism
The first thing you’ll probably notice about the new Guy Maddin film is that it doesn’t look like a Guy Maddin film. For more than three decades, Maddin’s signature has been his delirious adoption of early cinema aesthetics allied to a surreal sense of humour, but Rumours – which Maddin co-directed with regular collaborators Evan and Galen Johnson – looks shockingly like an ordinary movie. “There’s no way to justify using archaic, early part-talkie film vocabulary units in something set in the present,” Maddin explains. “I also wanted the challenge of going... the word ‘normie’ isn’t right, but just something that would have fewer alienating effects.”
Yes, as evidenced by the Universal Pictures logo before the film, Rumours is by far the closest to the mainstream that Maddin has ever ventured. However, before we place bets on Maddin dethroning James Cameron as Canada’s most commercially successful director, it’s worth taking a closer look at the film’s content. Rumours is a comedy about a group of clueless world leaders getting lost in the woods at the G7 Summit, and its plot prominently features masturbating zombies and a brain “the size of a hatchback,” while the third act hinges on an AI chatbot designed to entrap paedophiles. “Oh yeah,” Maddin admits with a chuckle. “It’s still plenty alienating.”
The idea of a comedy about the G7 had been percolating for Maddin and the Johnsons for a while, forming a subplot in a screenplay they’d been developing that had sprawled into something unmanageable. They junked the rest and focused on the G7 idea, feeling that this annual meeting of the world’s most powerful people was ripe for skewering. What happens when these leaders are faced with a genuine apocalyptic scenario, and they can rely on nobody but themselves to figure out how to deal with it? The increasingly ra ed politicians spend much of Rumours wandering aimlessly in the fogbound forest, futilely attempting to draft a joint statement on the unspecified crisis.
Any film about politicians flailing in the face of adversity will undoubtedly be read for its political intent, but Evan Johnson says they were keen to avoid any obvious commentary through their depictions of these international relationships. “We wanted the neoliberal hollowing out that is G7 summits, the empty spectacle and how to make an engaging movie about that, but it means you have to avoid meaning when you can in creative ways,” he says. “Or you can goad people, like, tempt people into thinking, is this a symbol? No, it isn’t. And sometimes it is! That’s the other thing: there are obvious things in there that are metaphors. There are big clunky obvious symbols in the movie, and yet at times we try to deny that that’s true.” Galen Johnson adds: “It’s right there in the title, Rumours. It’s like, nothing is confirmed.” Maddin and the Johnson brothers are unequivocal in their praise of their cast, all of whom are terrific fun to watch. The ensemble is led by Cate Blanchett (as the stern German Chancellor), Charles Dance (as the inexplicably British US President) and Denis Ménochet (as the French
Words: Phil Concannon
President, obsessed with sundials). But Rumours is stolen by the hilarious Roy Dupuis as Canadian Prime Minister Maxime Laplace. Largely unknown here, Dupuis is described by Maddin as being as big as Brad Pitt in French Canada, and someone who could “run for Prime Minister and sweep Quebec”. In Rumours, Laplace is the Alpha of the group; a heroic, square-jawed lothario who makes both Blanchett’s chancellor and the British PM (Nikki Amuka-Bird) weak at the knees, and the filmmakers clearly enjoyed placing a fellow Canuck in this role.
“We’re Canadians and we’re used to needing a Canadian star for our government financing,” Evan Johnson says, “and Roy is our favourite Canadian star. The idea that Canada would be leading was funny because we’re like the 7th most important G7 country. Although interestingly – or possibly not interestingly – Canada was invited to the G7 under Pierre Trudeau, because Pierre Trudeau was the most bilingual world leader in French and English and they wanted someone who could help lead the group, so Canada was added. So there’s some historical truth to the idea, but for us it was a joke about Canada.”
One wonders what the G7 themselves would make of this lampooning, or the fact that the film opens by thanking the group for their (non-existent) consultation and the poster for Rumours announces itself as The Official Motion Picture of the G7. “Yeah, we just made up this claim,” Maddin admits. “We were surprised that our distributor let us say that.” Evan Johnson adds: “I think we got a note from one distribution person who su ested that you can’t say that. But we said it!” Perhaps it’s his newfound status as a mainstream studio director that has put Maddin in a particularly bullish mood, as he declares, “I say, G7, lawyer up!”
Rumours is released 6 Dec by Universal
Rumours
Guy Maddin, Evan and Galen Johnson
Keeping it low-key
Kami-O is one of the country’s top grime and dubstep exports. Having recently signed with White Peach, with two albums under his belt to date, we sit down with the elusive Scottish producer to seek out the sauce
Words:
Cammy Gallagher
The Skinny: You’ve been signed to one of the most hype 140 labels in the UK. How do you keep it so low-key?
Kami-O: I’m not particularly hype. I’m quite introverted. I keep myself to myself a lot of the time. I definitely don’t do the scene. I don’t drink and can be a bit socially anxious. In any arts scene there’s always pressure to do drugs and drink, especially in Scotland, and you know, to be the guy sitting with a fizzy water… I wonder if this has held me back.
Do you think you gravitate towards an introspective sound?
Yeah, my tunes aren’t exactly reload material. I like something that’s intricate but also hard-hitting. I’m trying to find that perfect balance between wheelup-worthy tunes and something you could listen to on a train journey.
‘Wheel Up Train’.
Haha, I’m going to coin a genre here. I’ve had a few over the years that fit the brief, like Aavaas, from my first album. That gets a big response from a dubstep crowd.
Were there any particular influences behind your first album Biren?
I wanted to do something with my Indian heritage. I’ve got loads of family over there that I’ve never had a chance to meet. Obviously, I’m not Indian. I’ve only experienced the culture through my grandpa who moved here when he was 21, so I wanted to do it respectfully.
What kind of impact has the culture had on your life here?
I was lucky to grow up around all the subtle parts of my grandpa’s lifestyle. The food he ate, the incense he burned, and the records he had. It gives you a better appreciation of people. When he moved over, he was the only person of colour in his area… it must have been brutal.
What did he think about the final product?
He passed away beforehand. That was my reason for doing
it in the first place. I got my mum to do the artwork, I wanted to make it this family-based project. We had a good relationship, but he didn’t know me as an adult, so it was a way of exploring his life, and my relationship with him.
There’s a mature sound to your music. How would you describe your process in the studio and where did it all begin?
I went to Riverside Music College back in 2010. I had gotten FL studio around the time and just wanted to be like Sir Spyro and Mala, so it wasn’t the best thing for me then.
How old are you now? 30 this Friday.
Doing anything special?
I’ll be in uni. I’m doing Sound for the Moving Image at The Art School. The course suits where I’m at right now. I’d like to work with film and add another kind of feather to my cap. We recently went on this big walk recording sounds outside, so I tried
to make this stripped-back kind of DMZ dubstep soundscape only using foley.
What defines a dubstep track for you?
The best ones are just a handful of well-made elements. This is something I suffer from. I’ll have like 1000 elements just to keep it interesting. Some of the best tracks, like Pulse X or Rhythm & Gash, are just an eight-bar loop for six minutes and people love it. I’m quite critical with my own stuff. I can get an idea down on paper in an hour, but it’s how to make that loop four minutes and interesting the whole way throughout that can take months.
You certainly managed it with Clash. How did the White Peach link-up come around?
I met Zha, who runs the label, four years ago at FUSE in Glasgow. We hadn’t spoken since, but about a year ago I shared a showreel of tunes and he asked to put something out. I’m working on a second EP for them now.
How would you assess the 140 scene this side of the border?
I’m a big fan of Feena. Also, CRPNTR is one of the best rappers I know, he’s also just written a play, he’s got such a way with words. Zolf and Spray had me on their Subcity show Grime is Now – they seem to really care about it, which is nice because sometimes in Glasgow people don’t understand the style. Grime mixing is very fast... you’re flying between tracks. I think the transition from a sevenminute techno transition to five grime tracks back-to-back can be a bit jarring.
Any shows to shout about?
I recently played Sneaky Pete’s for Form 696 and Big Zuu was on the mic. The energy was nuts... I’ve never been in a band, but I would guess that’s what it would feel like. My next show is Headset on 20 December at Mash House.
Kami-O plays Headset's 10th Birthday at The Mash House, Edinburgh, 20 Dec
With her blistering documentary debut A Night of Knowing Nothing, Payal Kapadia announced herself on the world stage and she’s only going to win over more admirers with her beautiful and delicate sophomore feature, All We Imagine as Light.
On one hand, All We Imagine as Light is a poetic character study comprising the interwoven portraits of three women, all of different ages but brought together by their shared profession and having moved to Mumbai from elsewhere. On the other hand, Kapadia has created a lyrical ode to Mumbai at night, one that is slick with rain and cast in a dreamy blue hue that is reflected by the uniforms worn by the three characters. In the opening moments, disembodied voices talk about coming to the city – a city of dreams but also one of loneliness. Mumbai is drenched in the blue of sadness, the blue of distance, the blue of longing.
Each woman is stru ling with their own form of dislocation or isolation. Prabha (Kani Kusruti) is dealing with an estranged marriage, her husband having moved to Germany for work shortly after they were wed; she hasn’t heard from him in over a year, but she longs for intimacy. The younger Anu (Divya Prabha) has a boyfriend, but he is Muslim, so they sneak around in secret and worry about the impossibility of their situation. Parvaty (Chhaya Kadam) is older and a widow who is being
forced out of her shanty town home by developers who claim she doesn’t hold the correct papers.
Kapadia takes what might be two-dimensional stereotypes of women in Indian cinema and beyond – the waiting wife, the loose young harlot, the forgotten widow – and brings them fully to life. Here they are imbued with the energy of the city and, in turn, imbue the city with themselves. Prabha’s relationship with her absentee husband is complex and full of inconsistency; when a kitchen gadget arrives from Germany, presumably from him, she is torn between being grateful and angry. Anu’s reputation amongst the other nurses for promiscuity, meanwhile, belies the sweetness of her courtship with Shiaz (Hridhu Haroon). Parvaty and Anu’s stories hint at political narratives going on around them, whether based on social standing or religion, but Kapadia remains true to these three women.
In the film’s third act, the action is relocated as the trio take a trip out to the small seaside village that Parvaty is from. Here Kapadia allows for some almost magical realist touches that allow for these women to experience some of the connection and support that they have not had – or understood to be – around them in the city. Expressive but subtle, All We Imagine as Light has a keen eye for the blueish ennui of the city and for the gestures and glances that proffer connections, whether fleeting or quietly profound. [Ben Nicholson]
How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies
Director: Pat Boonnitipat
Starring: Putthipong Assaratanakul rrrrr
A good-for-nothing Twitch streamer attempts to worm his way into his dying grandmother’s good graces for financial gain in the feature debut of Thai director Pat Boonnitipat. When the screen-addicted M (Putthipong Assaratanakul) finds out that his ‘amah’ (Usha Seamkhum) has Stage 4 cancer, he decides to trade in his (non-existent) professional gaming career for a few weeks of hardcore brown-nosing that will guarantee he is first in line for her inheritance.
Beyond the clickbaity title is a perfectly-pitched comedy-drama that stays as far from the exploitative as it does from the saccharine, instead painting a heart-rendingly authentic family portrait anchored by Assaratanaku's performance. To use streamer-speak, his resting derp face
Queer
Director: Luca Guadagnino
Starring: Daniel Craig, Drew Starkey, Lesley Manville, Jason Schwartzman, Henry Zaga, Omar Apollo rrrrr
In Mexico City, sometime in the early 50s, an American expat in a crumpled linen suit cruises seedy bars looking for another shot of tequila and someone to take home. This is Lee (Craig), who’s stopped in his tracks one night when he claps eyes on the lean frame and delicate features of Eugene (Starkey), a younger man whose emotions, and crucially his sexuality, remain unreadable, even after he and Lee sleep together. Craig has surely shaken the spectre of Bond with this twitchy, rakish and deeply compassionate turn. Lee cuts a pitiful figure in his various addictions, which extend beyond Eugene, but there’s also something beautifully endearing about his optimistic hunt for love and understanding. Starkey’s role is less complex: Eugene is simply an
belies an underlying charisma that’s wielded with just enough restraint so as to sneak up on you, as it does on his character’s target. Seamkhum’s own charm, as his elderly relative who he realises too late he can’t live without, is hidden behind her own deceptive performance as the at-first prickly pensioner. Both actors’ smiles burn holes through the screen, yet they deploy them sparingly to great effect.
Similarly to 2019’s The Farewell, grandma’s imminent death kicks off an exploration of the moral complexities of white lies. When should we protect our loved ones from hard truths, and who gets to decide? Without discussing them outright, the film’s characters bump clumsily against such questions. As with real life, resolution sometimes eludes them. Boonnitipat does an expert job of avoiding easy answers while still delivering a recognisable – yet fresh – narrative arc. [Louis Cammell]
Released 26 Dec by Vertigo Releasing; cert. 12A
inscrutable object of lust; luminously shot by cinematographer Sayombhu Mukdeeprom, it’s easy to see why he sends Lee into a horny tailspin.
There’s a pleasing artifice to Luca Guadagnino’s vision of midcentury Mexico. Shot on expressivelylit soundstages, with miniatures charmingly deployed to depict skylines, Queer’s aesthetic su ests a drug-fuelled fever dream long before Lee starts shooting up. An anachronistic soundtrack featuring the likes of Nirvana, New Order and Prince adds to the discombobulation. This confident, highly stylized film only falters in its final stretch, with Guadagnino reaching for an approximation of Lynchian surrealism to bring Lee’s search for human connection to a bitter close. But until then this is a haunting study of unrequited desire filled with heartbreak and tenderness, centred on a revelatory performance from Craig. [Jamie Dunn]
Released 13 Dec by MUBI; certificate 18
On Becoming a Guinea Fowl
Director: Rungano Nyoni
Starring: Susan Chardy, Elizabeth Chisela, Henry B.J. Phiri rrrrr
On Becoming a Guinea Fowl opens with Shula (Chardy) driving down a dark road in Zambia wearing headwear straight out of a 2009 Lady Gaga lookbook. When she finds her uncle’s body dumped on the verge she is inscrutably unmoved, and as we follow her through the next few days as her family reunites for the funeral, her reaction becomes increasingly complex as long-buried secrets begin to come to light.
In its opening stages, Rungano Nyoni’s film su ests something familiar: a generational culture clash film. But she tears up this trope with furious intensity, refusing to let any issue be simple. Each character in this family is dense with complexities and implicit connections to the film’s central traumas. Every familial
Think The Sha y Dog. Think Ingmar Bergman’s Scenes From A Marriage Think any insufferable Amy Schumer pop feminist movie. Mix these disparate works together and you get Nightbitch, a tonally unstable comedy/body horror that lacks teeth. Amy Adams plays an exhausted mother who sacrificed her professional ambition as an artist to do the thankless work of rearing a toddler largely alone in suburban tedium. She cleans up weapons-grade messes in the kitchen every day and tolerates a caricaturally unhelpful husband. But she experiences a spiritual and physical metamorphosis: she transforms into a red husky and taps into an unprecedented sense of freedom as she roams the suburban streets at night, rediscovering her infinite power. Guided by her female ancestral line (stupidly manifesting as dogs watching over
interaction – which at times are incredibly funny, and at others slyly vicious – pulsates with hidden depths. This pinpoint balance of tone makes the moments where On Becoming a Guinea Fowl loses its nerve all the more frustrating. Dream sequences and flashbacks often feel like they have wandered in from a less interesting film, one less prepared to gamble on the audience’s ability to read into its usually expertly measured ambiguity. But beyond plotting, it is the atmosphere that makes the film soar. Hovering somewhere between Weerasethakul and Haneke in its tranquil yet unnerving iciness, the film comes to a head in its searing finale which unleashes a dormant intensity that cements this as one of the finest cinematic explorations of trauma in recent times. [Joe Creely]
Released 6 Dec by Picturehouse Entertainment; certificate 12
her in the park), the film speaks to the inherited pain of the female condition, I guess…
Interstitially Nightbitch is affecting, but largely it suffers from Barbie Essentialist Syndrome: it’s full of rudimentary Feminism 101 soliloquies of soporific impact. The heavy-handed monologues are as radical in their insight as Florence Given’s first book, ultimately leaving you questioning, who is this for?
The film’s presentation of its grand thesis – Woman Has Multitudes! – is amusingly uninspiring. I wish it fully leaned into the freakish potential of its animating substrata; I wish it really sat in the dark contemplation of the beast. Nightbitch is simply not weird enough or smart enough. To put a bow on the film’s identity crisis, there’s a ‘Weird Al’ Yankovic soundtracking. Woof! [Lucy Fitzgerald]
Queer
How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies
Nightbitch
On Becoming a Guinea Fowl
Scotland on Screen: Review of 2024
It's been a horrible year for arts funding in Scotland, but our film festivals and programmers continue to keep the scene vibrant with their rich and diverse curation and events. We speak to some of our favourites to hear their highlights of 2024
Allison
Gardner – CEO,
Glasgow Film; Director, Glasgow Film Festival
Cinema adjacent highlight of 2024?
I’d have to say Vi o Mortensen attending the festival with The Dead Don’t Hurt. It was a great screening and a very special moment. I was very honoured to present our inaugural ‘Cinema City’ award to him at GFF24.
Favourite film of 2024?
I think Poor Things was exceptional, and we had a great preview with Alasdair Gray’s son introducing the screening at GFT, which made it very special.
What are you looking forward to in 2025? GFF25, my last one before I retire in October. I love the audiences, filmmakers and industry colleagues and I will miss it hugely, so let’s make it a good one!
Paul Ridd – CEO and Festival Director, Edinburgh International Film Festival
Cinema adjacent highlight of 2024?
Has to be a tie between the brilliantly wild energy of the packed-out UK premiere of Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance as the last night of our Midnight Madness at EIFF, and the Opening Night of GFF with Rose Glass’s Love Lies Bleeding – Allison Gardner was a class act host for one of the best films of the year.
Favourite film of 2024?
No film moved me as much this year as Sean Durkin’s The Iron Claw – fantastic performances, cinematography and production design. I was struck by the intricacy of its construction and doomy grandeur. Loved the symbolically loaded use of wrestling, the ‘curse’ red herring and the subtle descent into nightmare. A major film.
What are you looking forward to in 2025? I have adored the experience of my first year as CEO and Festival Director at EIFF. Working with such a brilliant group of people to put together our Festival has been a total joy. I’m looking forward to my second year and all its possibilities. Bring it on!
Matt Lloyd – Director, Glasgow Short Film Festival
Cinema adjacent highlight of 2024?
I enjoyed desecrating Ingmar Bergman’s childhood cinema with a rare dual 16mm projection of Nick Zedd’s Whoregasm.
Favourite film of 2024?
Two shorts have bookended this year for me. Firstly, the Haitian film Dreams Like Paper Boats by Samuel Suffren, which tenderly yet unsentimentally portrays a fatherdaughter relationship long after the mother has left for a better life in America. In crisp monochrome with dashes of surrealism, it seemed to capture the spirit of Bill Douglas’s Trilogy. And in the last month, I’ve caught the latest work by UKbased Iranian artist Maryam Tafakory, Razeh-del. It’s her most effective fusion yet of textures, archive film and text on screen, combining in a timely recounting of the history of Zan, Iran’s first women’s newspaper. Maryam has made a significant professional sacrifice this year in publicly withdrawing her work from several international festivals that have stifled criticism of Israel’s genocide in Gaza, and her fearless commitment to liberation for all is etched into every frame of this monumental work.
Special mention to two long films: La Chimera (dir. Alice Rohrwacher) and The Wild Robot (dir. Chris Sanders)
What are you looking forward to in 2025? Making jam and riding my bike.
Alison Strauss – Director, HippFest
Cinema adjacent highlight of 2024?
Hands down this was the screening of The Ru ed Island: A Shetland Lyric (1933) for the Opening
Night of HippFest 2024 in March at the Hippodrome Cinema, with live music accompaniment by Inge Thomson and Catriona Macdonald, both from Shetland themselves. The film was directed by Jenny Gilbertson who moved from Glasgow to Shetland and fell in love with the island, and with her leading man! It’s an extraordinarily beautiful film and deserves to be more widely seen. The new music commission was the realisation of a long-held ambition of mine, over seven years in gestation, and the cherry on the
The Ru ed Island HippFest 2024
cake was that our screening was introduced by Janet McBain, founding curator of the Scottish Screen Archive who unearthed Gilbertson’s film in a henhouse back in the 70s.
Favourite film of 2024?
Àma Gloria (dir. Marie Amachoukeli) – a completely immersive portrait of love and variations of familial bonds and how they are impacted by socio/political economics, featuring an unforgettable performance by six-year-old Louise MauroyPanzani as Cléo.
What are you looking forward to in 2025?
Memoir of a Snail (dir. Adam Elliot). I loved Elliot’s last feature, the stop motion animation for grownups, Mary and Max, which came out 15 years ago. Finally, this new feature will be released here in February and I can’t wait. It’s billed as a ‘tragicomedy’ and is apparently loosely inspired by Elliot’s own life – following the life of a lonely misfit called Grace. I’m anticipating laughs, tears and lovably dark, detailed animation.
Megan Mitchell and Sean Welsh –Programmers and Producers, Matchbox Cine and Weird Weekend
Cinema adjacent highlight of 2024?
We were most proud of our one-two Weird Weekend screenings of Louise Weard’s
four-and-a-half-hour Castration Movie Pt 1 and the new, hour-long film we commissioned from Louise for our annual UNSEE event. We brought Louise over for the festival, the audience was incredible and the atmosphere was fantastic.
Favourite film of 2024?
Louise Weard’s UNSEE, “the most important trans film of the year” according to Vera Drew, director of The People's Joker. It was a mystery to the audience before it screened and was intended to be shown only once, in the hour before the clocks go back. To have people arriving to the already packed festival at 1am just to see it was heartwarming and it was great to hear and read all the responses afterwards. Louise made a transgressive, hilarious, heart-breaking film that we’re definitely a little sad is now lost forever.
What are you looking forward to in 2025? A sleep (and releasing The People’s Joker to UK cinemas).
Rachel Hamada – Director, Take One Action
Cinema adjacent highlight of 2024?
One of the screenings I’m proudest of this year is our Making Masculinities short film programme and discussion, which was curated in partnership with Pillow Talk and SQIFF at Glasgow’s CCA. At a
time when misogyny and transphobia seem to be rife, we wanted to present a safe holding space to collectively, openly and even playfully contemplate and explore masculinities in all their guises.
Favourite film of 2024?
My pick for 2024 is a late entry, Naqqash Khalid’s In Camera. It’s exciting to see such original, confident work from a young writer-director who’s not scared to play with form and to take on the cognitive dissonance of contemporary British life. Khalid is a director who is clearly up for interrogating unspoken systems and conventions and that’s very much up our street!
What are you looking forward to in 2025?
In 2025, I’m beyond excited for our Real Utopias film festival, which will tour Glasgow, Inverness, Aberdeen and Dundee after kicking off in Edinburgh on 18 September. We’re currently crowdfunding to ensure we can work on a really ambitious programme, much of which will be co-designed with grassroots groups in and around those cities. The plan is to collectively explore through film and activities ways of building better futures in the here and now.
Milo Clenshaw – Producer, Alchemy Film & Arts
Cinema adjacent highlight of 2024?
Vi o Mortensen and Solly McLeod at Glasgow Film Festival
Photo: Eoin Carey
This is an easy answer for me; by far the most electric screening room I’ve been in this year, and the one I’ve been most proud to be a part of, was Alchemy’s Artist in Focus screening of work by Palestinian filmmaker Noor Abed. The films themselves are powerful, but it was the Q&A that followed which made the event feel especially magic.
Favourite film of 2024?
It’s impossible to choose only one! I’m really glad that I managed to catch We Are Parable’s Glasgow premiere of Banel & Adama (dir. Ramata-Toulaye Sy) – it’s a film that’s stayed with me all year.
What are you looking forward to in 2025?
We’re lucky to get to work with some great artists through Alchemy’s residencies programme, and a lot of those projects will have their premiere at next year’s Alchemy Film and Moving Image Festival. I’m looking forward to seeing the audience’s response to new work by Luke Fowler, Corin Sworn, Mark Lyken, Francisco Llinás Casas, Maybelle Peters and Miwa Nagato-Apthorp.
Paul Gallagher – Programme Manager, Glasgow Film
Cinema adjacent highlight of 2024?
I’m going to cheat and mention a whole series of screenings I programmed at GFT this year, to mark the cinema’s 50th Anniversary. We celebrated the
occasion by playing 14 films through the month of May that have struck a chord with GFT audiences over the past 50 years, including Cinema Paradiso, City of God, In the Mood for Love, 2001: A Space Odyssey and Aftersun. The response from audiences was amazing, and the buzz and sense of love for cinema (and for GFT) in all these screenings was really very special.
Favourite film of 2024?
Perfect Days by Wim Wenders – a patient, thoughtful, wise and beautiful film which is a very effective balm for our troubled times!
What are you looking forward to in 2025?
The Brutalist by Brady Corbet. I’ve already seen this, and I can’t wait to bring it to GFT audiences in January and February. It’s an awesome piece of filmmaking, in the truest sense of the word, made for the big screen and a truly epic viewing experience – with a built-in intermission that just enhances the feeling of it being an event. Look out for details of 70mm screenings at GFT in the new year.
Richard Mowe – Director, French Film Festival UK
Cinema adjacent highlight of 2024?
Jim’s Story, the ninth feature from Arnaud and Jean-Marie Larrieu, adapted from a novel by Pierric Bailly. They were in London in November as part of
this year’s French Film Festival UK with the premiere, and it was a memorable occasion to be in the same room as those fraternal filmmaking brothers, Arnaud (58) and Jean-Marie (59), who have been making their idiosyncratic range of work for 25 years.
Favourite film of 2024?
Emilia Pérez (dir. Jacques Audiard). On the surface, it sounds like one of the most unlikely of premises for a film by the French auteur behind A Prophet and Dheepan. It’s a Spanish-language musical themed around a Mexican drug cartel and featuring a dealer who wants to escape the whole scene because he is finding his true self as a woman. Yet Audiard pulls it off with a frenetic energy that bludgeons the viewer into submission, not least because of the high voltage score and dazzling technical trickery (it was all shot in a studio). Pedro Almodóvar must be devastated he did not stumble across the story first because it would have been a perfect fit.
What are you looking forward to in 2025?
Can’t wait to see Timothée Chalamet in James Mangold’s A Complete Unknown. From what I’ve seen of the trailer he looks pretty convincing as Bob Dylan, surrounded by the likes of Johnny Cash, Pete Seeger, Joan Baez, Woody Guthrie and so many more. I just hope he can match the look with the sound.
Alchemy Film and Moving Image Festival - Focus on Noor Abed
Photo: Sanne Gault
Music Now
What a way to end the year – CHVRCHES frontwoman Lauren Mayberry presents her debut solo album, while Scotland’s own female/non-binary songwriting collective Hen Hoose drop another EP of excellent collaborations
Words: Ellie Robertson
Before unwrapping December, there were a few firecrackers that didn’t make it into last month’s column; make sure to check out EPs from Psweatpants (2LeftFeet), Washington (XTC), Loup Havenith (Understand) and Pedalo (Migration), as well as singles from Blanck Mass (Bloodhound), Jacob Alon (Confession), Zoe Graham (When Living Came Easy), SISTER MADDS (Purgatory), C Duncan (Delirium), Linzi Clark (The Couch), Sacred Paws (Another Day), Cloth (Polaroid), Gout (Bed Sores) and Franz Ferdinand (Night or Day).
The last month of the year has only just started, and we’re already tired of overplayed Christmas hits. Make a little time for synth-pop this season, and check out Vicious Creature (EMI Records, 6 Dec), the debut solo album from CHVRCHES frontwoman Lauren Mayberry. Since the Stirling native teased the release with lead single Change Shapes back in March, we’ve been keen to get our hands on the full record, and it’s well worth the wait – Mayberry shows a side of herself that didn’t quite fit into CHVRCHES, a more confrontational character that doesn’t always play nice with others. About the writing process, Mayberry wanted to “feel comfortable telling certain people to fuck off when they treat me like shit – on this record, and in these songs, I get to do that.”
It shows in tracks like Punch Drunk and Sorry, Etc. These are fiery invectives that are deeply danceable, like much of Mayberry’s work. The record also has a sensitive side, showcasing emotive melodies and revelatory songwriting like in Oh, Mother and A Work of Fiction. Throughout, mixes sound bassy, bubbly, and cola-sweet, but Mayberry still doesn’t compromise on her more complex feelings. If what you’re hearing on supermarket PAs this month is monstrously commercial, this is one Vicious Creature that could use some love.
That’s not the only December drop with a year-long build-up. Local female and non-binary songwriting collective Hen Hoose release the third and final instalment in their 2024 discography, EP3 (4 Dec), pairing together prominent artists for a five-track end-of-year bash. Their previous compilations came to us back in June and September, so make sure to check those out before the grand finale.
EP3 opens on Bad Decisions, a collab between Scottish Alternative Music Award-winning DJ/Producer K4CIE and rapper XZO. Fucked Up is a buzzing, icy blend of styles from Scottish music mainstays Carla J. Easton and Elisabeth Elektra. On The Mountain, Tanya Mellote provides a dreamy, ethereal score to a spoken-word performance by disability rights campaigner Kiana Kalantar-Hormozi Ray A s and Sarah Rayes, two prolific multi-instrumentalists, create the brilliantly complex For All I Can, and dance track Pressure, by AMUNDA and Nightwave, closes this triptych of records. Hen Hoose founder MALKA said back when the collective was formed: “All artists have been affected by the pandemic, the problem is women were at a disadvantage in the industry to begin with.” What started as a means to protect those undervalued by the Scottish music industry has become a highly successful creative force in its own right. We can’t wait to see what Hen Hoose hatches in 2025. For a strong dose of nostalgia, check out World (6 Dec), the newest album by Edinburgh-based composer Daniel McGurty. Written in the vein of ambient 90s computer music
– the album even borrows its aesthetic from the PS1 era – these nine tracks make use of shimmering chimes and rapid drum loops that will transport you right back to a time when dial-up dominated. On 13 December, Becca Starr releases Defixio on her label Family Starr Records. As well as the hip-hop prowess we expect from the SAMA winner, Starr shows off dark and soulful vocal performances, R’n’B-style beatmaking, and a confrontation with personal, troubling themes – after all, Defixio is a Latin term for a cursed piece of text. On the same day, plucky-but-grungy Glasgow four-piece Wendell Borton release their debut album Big Love. It’s got that capital-R Rock combo of heavy electric guitars and precise, falsetto vocals, and the LP provides a much-needed antidote to winter blues.
One to watch next year could be Glaswegian pop composer ODD LUKE, who releases Surface Tension on 6 December via Verdigris Records. This EP is a selection box of dynamic dance hits, and if it seems like ODD LUKE is a ready-made rising-star, his experience as a touring musician for artists such as Lewis Capaldi might explain how he can effortlessly attain that larger-than-life sound. The new Christmas single by MALKA (When You’re Here, 3 Dec) has a place on your festive playlists, and don’t forget to check out singles by Little Acres (Kintsugi, 2 Dec), Sonotto (First Date, 9 Dec), Maranta (Into The Evening, 13 Dec), and Ciar Nixon (Murmurations (Fade), 16 Dec).
Scan the QR code to follow and like our Music Now: New Scottish Music playlist on Spotify, updated on Fridays
Photo: Charlotte Patmore
Lauren Mayberry
MARGO, GLASGOW
Margo’s pan-European, all-comers approach makes a great first impression
Margo is massive. From the big M dangling in the middle of Miller Street to the high ceilings, mezzanine level and big booths, the sheer scale of the place is impressive. That scale extends to an exciting, varied and Quite Large menu that feels less like a kitchen hedging its bets and more like a group of chefs aching to play with all of their new toys at once.
And so reporting back from somewhere like Margo risks ending up like those weird Google reviews of a river path or forest; there’s a non-zero chance we all approach from completely different angles, with contradictory expectations, and no-one learns anything. Also, dare I say it, running hog-wild down the menu without a care in the world might not result in the most helpful write-up for you lot. Instead, after a bit of di ing, we’ve found that the average UK restaurant-goer spends around £30 per head when they go for dinner… so that’s the budget. £30 per head, times two heads, sixty bucks, spoiler alert: we pretty much did it.
The menu is divided into four sections, increasing in size and price as they go, so you’ve got to be tactical. We go for the classic fewfrom-each plan, and a fairly omnivorous palate. A whole lemon sole in prawn butter does sound delicious, but it’s two-thirds of the budget so it has to miss out. No matter your strategy, some items are mustorders. The ham hough croquettes (£4) might look dinky, but that’s just a trick of perspective. They’re two to
three good bites of crunchy, crispy shell and gooey, savoury interior, all covered in cheese. The focaccia (£5) isn’t quite at that level, but it is a very nice bit of bread served with a smoosh-it-yourself garlic butter that’s sweet, salty and fatty all at once. Crucially, there’s enough of it to help mop up the various sauces that will come along later. It’s monumental. It’s jumbo. It’s a good amount of bread. The beetroot, goat’s curd and cocoa tortellini (£9) is a sweet, earthy and surprisingly goth dish; if we’re being honest, there’s slightly too much sweetness here, but when the curd cuts through the beet it’s a good time. The charred pumpkin (£9) is more successful, with a serious char on the squash, and a pumpkin seed butter that brightens up everything it touches. It’s seasonal, it’s a bit zesty, it’s no croquette but it’s a solid option. Next up is pork belly with hispi cabbage (£12), working in a fatty-and-sour mode with a load of cider and mushrooms thrown in. When you hit a particularly crusty bit of pork, it all comes together, while its tablemate – a stuffed roll of Swiss Chard (£12) – is excellent in a totally different way. It’s fibrous, it’s herby, packed with goats cheese and there are pistachios all over the place. These are both very rich so eating them in tandem is a bit like watching a band with two front people who can’t agree on who’s the leader, but it’s just as entertaining as that would be. At this point we look across at the next table, and don’t recognise a single dish they have.
Anyway, dessert! In one corner, a brown butter almond tart (£6) that’s a cross between an apple pie and the bi est amaretti biscuit you’ve ever seen. A dollop of creme fraiche, poached quince that’s so tasty we suspect they’ve replaced it with a nicer fruit (but no, it’s genuinely quince!), and a sweet, sticky, chewy bounce to everything. In the other, a zingy and clean lemon posset (£6) topped with an extremely herbaceous and absolutely delicious sorrel granita. Did we think we’d be saying the phrase “delicious sorrel granita” in 2024? No, but we’re glad it’s happened. Also we’ve gone £3 over, but these desserts are worth breaking the rules.
Margo is very impressive and almost too vast to judge on one visit, but we’ll give it a go. The cooking is great and the variety is impressive, and once you accept that ‘orderer’s remorse’ is an occupational hazard you’ll have a really good time. Get the croquettes, save room for dessert, and don’t be afraid to roll the dice. Whole lemon sole in prawn butter, we’ll be back for you in 2025.
Words: Peter Simpson
Photo: Naomi Vance
Photo: Naomi Vance
By Ali Smith rrrrr
In Ali Smith’s Gliff, the sublime is described as ‘something that elevates you, fills you with wonder because it’s amazing and terrifying… at the same time.’ It’s something that fills you with awe, but unsettles you to the core. Smith’s latest book – a natural dystopian progression from her Seasonal Quartet – is something of the sublime itself. Every sentence in Gliff is perfectly calculated so that it’s laced with meaning, metaphor, and story. It’s incredible to read, but also, on a profound level, filled with horror.
It follows the story of two young people, non-binary Briar and their sister Rose, through a world where they have become ‘unverifiables.’ This is a new subclass of society, where Smith never fully explains the characteristics of its inhabitants: many are dissidents, but many could have been consigned for reasons of race, gender, class, or parentage. The State encircles the homes of the unverifiables with red paint, and their inhabitants are taken to re-education camps and forced to undertake dangerous labour. It’s not uncommon for children, who are stripping batteries, to be severely burned or lose a hand.
Although set in a near future, the horror of Gliff comes in its realism. In a post-Brexit, capitalist and hyper-productive Britain, it’s not outwith the realm of our imaginations for Gliff to become our world, and soon. Gliff is a remarkable read; poignant, perfect, and utterly terrifying. [Beth Cochrane]
Feast While
By Mikaella Clements and Onjuli Datta rrrrr
Candenze is a small, backward town set high in the mountains and nobody goes there. The Siccos are a sprawling family as much a part of the landscape as Big Joe the mountain, a single girl born to each generation. San Rocco is evoked often and rarely associated with the Catholic religion he belongs to; Candenze takes its morals from old stories, whispers and folklore.
Angelina Sicco loves it though, it’s her hometown and her project. She’s working to turn it into a queer outpost as (almost) the only lesbian in town, and it’s working – sort of. Until she accidentally wakes a monster, something from deep in the pit, and it’s hungry.
Mikaella Clements and Onjuli Datta’s second novel together, Feast While You Can is a vivid queer horror that toes the line between the supernatural and the purely paranoid. The monster is terrifying, and it might all be in your head. Staging a complex critique into isolated, strange places and what it means to ‘develop’ them – set against the inescapable visibility of being queer and brown in a white, straight space – Feast While You Can mines the heart of what it means to belong, and to escape. Clements and Datta’s writing is sure; by turns unsettling and exciting and always seeking to climb inside you. Writing queerness, and queer sex, deftly and effectively is not easy, but this book makes it look it. [Marguerite Carson]
By Tommy Orange rrrrr
Wandering Stars by Tommy Orange is a transcendent novel about one family’s intergenerational pain and grief. Set across two centuries, the novel follows the Star family from the horrors of a massacre in 1865 to a shooting in 21st-century Oakland.
Orange offers an intimate exploration of his cast of characters who descend from the Cheyenne people as they navigate trauma and displacement. The story never waters down the cultural erasure and systemic racism still faced by Native American people, instead confronting it head on with affecting honesty. Written with the adept skill of an archivist and heart of a poet, this novel is truly expansive thanks in large part to how Orange weaves the historical into the familial. There is an ever-present question haunting the Stars – how can you keep alive a history that was beaten out of your people?
The vestiges of this pain manifests into various addictions starting with alcohol and moving to the present-day opioid crisis. What will become the family’s salvation is storytelling and the passing on of ancestral knowledge. This desire to commune with the ancestors drives the youngest Star back to the land in hopes of finally healing his family: “I’ve known what this world’s about. I been running into it.” At times the viscera of addiction can feel uncomfortably raw, but even in moments of deep crisis, Orange holds space for humour and fierce love.
[Andrés
Ordorica]
By Jane Flett rrrrr
Jane Flett’s Freakslaw is a riot of a novel, one where the irresistible force of the titular travelling fair and its exotic inhabitants meets the immovable object of the conformist townsfolk of Pitlaw, a place where those who don’t fit the locals’ norm are mocked, bullied, and socially ostracised. With a dark magical realism, and using carnival tropes and types, there are – among many others – echoes of Fellini, Tod Browning’s Freaks, Something Wicked This Way Comes, and even The League of Gentleman, as both sides wish for individuals to become ‘one of us’. The novel is populated by vivid characters. Among the most memorable are young townsfolk Ruth and Derek, who are intrinsically drawn to the fair and the possibility of alternative lives, and the charismatic and otherworldly Zed and Nancy. Nancy in particular is an unforgeable creation, wishing to watch the world burn just to see what it feels like. Whether using a Barbie for voodoo, enjoying a breakfast vodka, or trepanning an unsuspecting lover, there’s a nihilism in Nancy which is both terrible and attractive. Flett’s turn of phrase throughout is an absolute joy, memorable and eminently quotable, with the most unexpected points of reference (Sartre and the Singing Kettle!). In terms of the sheer thrill of reading, I haven’t enjoyed a novel this much all year. Full of rich language, arresting imagery, and visceral horror, it’s magical, sensual, weird and completely wonderful. Welcome to the Freakslaw. [Alistair Braidwood]
Simon & Schuster, out now
Harvill Secker, out now
Doubleday, out now
Gliff
Hamish Hamilton, out now
Wandering Stars
Freakslaw
You Can
Dream Gig
Glasgow comic and half of Material, Girl with Susan Riddell, Amanda Dwyer takes part in an absurd gig while dreaming up something even more fantastic!
Illustration: Jack Murphy
Incredible gigs stick with you and my most recent one was just last month at the Old Hairdresser’s in Glasgow. It had the makings of being absolutely rotten for me because my period arrived earlier that day… I spend hours dreading the gig: ten minutes before I have to leave the house, I’m crying on my couch about how much I do not want to go tell jokes. It’s really pathetic of me in hindsight, but, at the time it feels like the worst thing in the world. Reluctantly I drag myself to the venue. The show’s called Gnash and is an experimental comedy gig which focuses on the relationship between art and comedy. Sounds a bit mad, and for all I know, it could be a disaster.
The show starts, and as it goes on my mood is completely transformed – it’s bloody miraculous! There’s some prop-based stand-up to start, followed by an insane interactive bedtime story about a big bit of ham and the moon. The act before me is a full-on puppet show, only with a live band doing the soundtrack. Think Punch and Judy, but with real jokes and less domestic abuse. It’s one of the most creative, amazing, original things I’ve ever seen and the audience love it. I’m sweating buckets at this point because I’m thinking ‘How am I going to follow all this weird and wonderful stuff and hold their attention for 20 minutes just standing there with my silly wee jokes?’ –there’s absolutely no chance.
I reluctantly make my way to the stage, fully expecting to die a big death, but the opposite happens. The audience is so lovely and I end up running over by a few minutes because they’re laughing so much.
There was just a wee bit of magic in the room that night and I went home with my PMT completely cured. Highly recommend following a puppet show over a straight white guy telling jokes about his knob any day. It was just so different and fun and did something wholesome for my inner child.
As for my dream gig – I think if we’re talking like out of this world dreamy – there would have to be some sort of therapy dog or even better – therapy PIG – in the green room. A corner of the
room designated to nervous farts wouldn’t hurt either and it makes the farter undetectable. I mean is that too much to ask? Can a girl not fart in peace when she’s petrified? ‘SAKE.
The setting is my high school auditorium, purely because in the centre of the stage someone once did a poo and during the investigation into whose poo it was, there was a circle drawn around it. That circle is still there and has forever been known as ‘the jobby circle’ and I love the thought of the acts getting to perform in the famous jobby circle.
Anyway, I’m hosting the show to mostly tipsy millennials (they just get me better than anyone else). The line-up consists of Maria Bamford, my comedy bestie Susan Riddell and David Brent from The Office. He thinks he’d be a natural and dies on his arse for twenty minutes straight. I can’t think of anything more cringe than that, and I love a wee bit of cringe. We all console him backstage and he brings out his guitar for a sing song. Bob Mortimer headlines – he can do anything he wants and I will find it hilarious.
My ex-husband is in the audience and no matter how much he doesn’t want to laugh at me he simply can’t help it; he finds me too hilarious. He stands up and admits I was the funny one after all, in front of hundreds of witnesses. One guy in the audience thought that he could do better though and he approaches me at the end to give me some advice. I knock him out with one punch and face zero repercussions. I celebrate by having a big pizza and a game of chap door run away with Bob Mortimer.
Material, Girl is at The Stand, Glasgow every 3rd Sunday of the month. The next Material, Girl is on 22 Dec, 3pm, £7-£8
The show also has an accompanying podcast (available wherever you get yours)
Amanda Dwyer: I Did Something Bad (WIP),Van Winkle West End, 15 Mar 2025, 1.50pm, £3-4. Part of Glasgow International Comedy Festival
Listings
Looking for something to do? Well you’re in the right place! Find listings below for the month ahead across Music, Clubs, Theatre, Comedy and Art in Glasgow, Edinburgh and Dundee. To find out how to submit listings, head to theskinny.co.uk/listings
Glasgow Music
Mon 02 Dec
THE SHEEPDOGS
ORAN MOR, 19:00–22:30 Rock from Saskatoon.
KATIE GREGSONMACLEOD
SWG3, 19:00–22:30 Indie from Inverness.
CHARLI XCX THE OVO HYDRO, 18:30–22:30 Pop from Essex.
Tue 03 Dec
NIKO B SWG3 19:00–22:30 Rap from the UK. ENTER SHIKARI BARROWLANDS, 19:00–22:30 Rock from St Albans.
KATY J PEARSON
ST LUKE’S, 19:00–22:30 Indie pop from the UK.
JAMIE SUTHERLAND THE HUG AND PINT, 19:30–22:30 Singer-songwriter from Edinburgh.
Wed 04 Dec
JILL LOREAN MONO, 20:00–22:30 Indie from Glasgow.
JAMES MCVEY SWG3, 19:00–22:30 Singer-songwriter from the UK.
JANICE BURNS + JON DORAN
THE OLD HAIRDRESSERS, 19:00–22:30 Trad from the UK. FONTAINES DC THE OVO HYDRO, 18:30–22:30 Post-punk from Dublin. STRAIGHT ARROWS THE RUM SHACK, 19:30–22:30 Alt indie from the UK. Thu 05 Dec
LUKE LA VOLPE KING TUT’S, 19:30–22:30 Blues rock from West Lothian.
SODA BLONDE NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, 19:00–23:00 Alt pop from Dublin. THE JOY HOTEL QUEEN MARGARET UNION, 19:00–22:30 Indie rock from Glasgow. THE DAMNED BARROWLANDS, 19:00–22:30 Rock from London. HOPE OF THE STATES STEREO, 19:00–22:00 Post-rock from Chichester. PETE TONG THE OVO HYDRO, 18:30–22:30 Dance and electronica. CAHILL//COSTELLO THE RUM SHACK, 19:30–22:30 Ambient from Glasgow.
68 (THE HOMELESS GOSPEL CHOIR) THE HUG AND PINT, 19:30–22:30 Noise rock from Atlanta. THE HORRORS ROOM 2, 19:00–22:30 Rock from the UK.
Fri 06 Dec
MARTIN STEPHENSON & THE DAINTEES ORAN MOR, 19:00–22:30 Singer-songwriter from the UK.
LUKE LA VOLPE
KING TUT’S, 19:30–22:30 Blues rock from West Lothian. THE MARTELLS (NERVOUS HABITS + RIVIERA + WHITNEY KING) NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, 19:30–23:00 Indie from Glasgow. LAMAYA
SWG3 19:00–22:30 Soul from East Kilbride. LOLA YOUNG (BUG EYED) THE GARAGE GLASGOW, 19:00–22:30 Indie from London. KING NOBODY (MISOPHONIA + THE UNDERNEATH) THE GARAGE GLASGOW, 19:00–22:30 Metal from Scotland. THE JESUS AND MARY CHAIN
BARROWLANDS, 19:00–22:30 Rock from East Kilbride. THE SLOW READERS
CLUB STEREO, 19:00–22:00 Indie electro from Manchester. THE BURGERS (START FROM SCRATCH + LOST ANGELS) THE FLYING DUCK, 19:00–22:00 Punk from China. BONE IDLE BROS THE OLD HAIRDRESSERS, 19:00–22:30 Country from Scotland.
GLASGOW
EXPERIMENTAL MUSIC SERIES (DRONEHOPPER + STEPHEN CHASE + ANTONIA KATTOU + RICHARD CRAIG) THE GLAD CAFE, 19:30–22:30 Experimental. THE SNUTS THE OVO HYDRO, 18:30–22:30 Pop from Scotland. POTENTIAL FRAUD (PALE FIRE + KEV HOWELL) THE RUM SHACK, 19:30–22:30 Rock from Scotland. EUROS CHILDS THE HUG AND PINT, 19:30–22:30 Alternative. WEATHERMAN (STONE ASHES + IZIT? & WENDS + LOUIS RIVE) ROOM 2, 19:00–22:30 Eclectic lineup. POOLE
EXIT GLASGOW, 20:00–23:00 Experimental and electronica. CIVIC HOUSE PARTY X RUBADUB CIVIC HOUSE, 17:00–00:30 Music from Glasgow. Sat 07 Dec THE CHATS O2 ACADEMY GLASGOW, 19:00–22:30 Rock from Australia. THE LILACS (STRANGE DIMENSIONS) KING TUT’S, 19:30–22:30 Indie from Wigan. TELEVISION PERSONALITIES (CULT FIGURES + BIG LANES) MONO, 20:00–22:30 Post-punk from the UK. THE SKIDS (SPEAR OF DESTINY )
QUEEN MARGARET UNION, 19:00–22:30 Punk rock from Scotland.
DIIV SWG3, 19:00–22:30 Shoegaze from the US.
ODD LUKE
SWG3, 19:00–22:30 Singer-songwriter from Glasgow. THE HOME TEAM CATHOUSE, 19:00–22:30 Indie from Seattle. THE JESUS AND MARY CHAIN
BARROWLANDS, 19:00–22:30 Rock from East Kilbride. CUD STEREO, 19:00–22:00 Indie rock from Leeds. THE CROOKS THE FLYING DUCK, 19:00–22:00 Indie from Glasgow. STONE FOUNDATION (NEW STREET ADVENTURE) ST LUKE’S, 19:00–22:30 Soul from the UK. Sun 08 Dec
DAVID SHAW SWG3, 19:00–22:30 Singer-songwriter from New Orleans.
WHILE SHE SLEEPS BARROWLANDS, 19:00–22:30 Metal from Sheffield. MIXED BILL #4: ONAT ONOL (HUNKS OF FUNK + BUFFET LUNCH + NORMAL SERVICE + MERCUROCHROME) STEREO, 19:00–22:00 Eclectic lineup. THE COWBOY MOUTH THE GLAD CAFE, 19:30–22:30 Alt rock. VAMPIRE WEEKEND (TEENAGE FANCLUB) THE OVO HYDRO, 18:30–22:30 Indie rock from New York. Mon 09 Dec
RESTLESS ROAD ORAN MOR, 19:00–22:30 Country from Nashville.
SWG3, 19:00–22:30 Post-hardcore from the US. OLLIE WRIDE THE GARAGE GLASGOW, 19:00–22:30 Electro. JULIA HOLTER ST LUKE’S, 19:00–22:30 Experimental from LA. UNCLE FRANK (FRANK BENBINI + NAIM CORTAZZI) THE HUG AND PINT, 19:30–22:30 Soul from Leicester. Tue 10 Dec
PERENIAL NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, 19:30–23:00 Alt indie metal from England.
NAMESBLISS SWG3 19:00–22:30 Hip-hop from the UK. MATTIEL STEREO, 19:00–22:00 Indie rock from Atlanta. JACK J THE FLYING DUCK, 18:00–22:00 Balearic from Canada. JAZZ AT THE GLAD (ARIANE MAMON) THE GLAD CAFE, 19:30–22:30 Jazz.
Wed 11 Dec
THE SOUP DRAGONS ORAN MOR, 19:00–22:30 Funk and rock. CVC KING TUT’S, 19:30–22:30 Rock from Wales. INDIE CHAOS (CECILE + SNAILS FROM JUPITER + SPICE DREAM) NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, 19:00–23:00 Indie from Glasgow.
ONE LEG ONE EYE (HARRY GORSKIBROWN) THE GLAD CAFE, 19:30–22:30 Experimental folk. Thu 12 Dec THE VIEW O2 ACADEMY GLASGOW, 19:00–22:30 Indie rock from Dundee. THE DEEP BLUE KING TUT’S, 19:30–22:30 Indie from Manchester. CROWDED FLAT’S NOT SO SECRET SHOW NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, 19:30–23:00 Indie from Glasgow. KISHI BASHI SWG3, 19:00–22:30 Alt indie from the US. BRAD COX SWG3, 19:00–22:30 Country from Australia. THE SAW DOCTORS BARROWLANDS, 19:00–22:30 Rock from Ireland. GLASGOW ALLSTARS (5TH ELEMENT + SOUL LEVEL COLLECTIVE + SKYMAN) STEREO, 19:00–22:00 Hip-hop from Glasgow. APOLOGIES (LOVE FIELD + PUSH BAR) THE OLD HAIRDRESSERS, 19:00–22:30 Indie from Falkirk. THE HUMAN LEAGUE THE OVO HYDRO, 18:30–22:30 Synth-pop from Sheffield.
Fri 13 Dec THE VIEW O2 ACADEMY GLASGOW, 19:00–22:30 Indie rock from Dundee. THE ERA (SAINT SAPPHO + CHEEK TO CHEEK) KING TUT’S, 19:30–22:30 Pop rock from Glasgow. DEAD PONY QUEEN MARGARET UNION, 19:00–22:30 Rock from Glasgow. CLAY RINGS SWG3, 19:00–22:30 Alt rock from Glasgow. ALCEST THE GARAGE GLASGOW, 19:00–22:30 Post-metal from France. THE SAW DOCTORS BARROWLANDS, 19:00–22:30 Rock from Ireland. LOUP HAVENITH STEREO, 19:00–22:00 Slowcore from Glasgow. FRANTIC LOVE (FIENDZ YT + LITTLE HANDS OF SILVER) THE FLYING DUCK, 19:00–22:00 Hard rock from Glasgow. WENDELL BORTON (HOMEWORK + TREQUARTISTA) THE HUG AND PINT, 19:30–22:30 Pop from Aberdeen.
Sat 14 Dec
CHINA CRISIS
ORAN MOR, 19:00–22:30
Synth pop from Liverpool.
THE RIFLES
KING TUT’S, 19:30–22:30 Indie rock from London.
10 YEARS OF SPITE HOUSE (LUNG LEG + COMFORT)
MONO, 20:30–22:30 Eclectic lineup.
JEFF MILLS
SWG3 19:00–22:30 Techno.
THE KAIROS
SWG3 19:00–22:30 Rock ‘n’ roll.
THE COLONY (BEYOND TIES + HOPES AVENUE)
THE GARAGE GLASGOW, 19:00–22:30 Metal from Glasgow.
GUN BARROWLANDS, 19:00–22:30 Hard rock from Scotland.
ROMY
OLD FRUITMARKET
GLASGOW, 19:00–22:30 Electronica from London. THE MEN THEY
COULDN’T HANG
ST LUKE’S, 19:00–22:30 Folk punk from the UK.
JOSIE DUNCAN
THE GLAD CAFE, 14:00–18:00 Indie.
SECRET COAST
SONGWRITERS
THE GLAD CAFE, 19:30–22:30 Songwriting showcase.
KATIE MALCO
THE HUG AND PINT, 19:30–22:30 Indie rock from the UK.
Sun 15 Dec
CHINA CRISIS
ORAN MOR, 19:00–22:30 Synth pop from Liverpool.
KAMERON MARLOWE
SWG3 19:00–22:30 Country from Nashville.
A.G COOK
SWG3 19:00–22:30 Producer from the UK.
TOM MEIGHAN
BARROWLANDS, 19:00–22:30 Rock from the UK.
MUSIC IS THE LIGHT: SAMH FUNDRAISER (HAIVER+ DARREN
MCGARVEY (AKA
LOKI THE SCOTTISH RAPPER)) STEREO, 19:00–22:00 Eclectic lineup.
JAZZ LAMBAUX THE FLYING DUCK, 19:00–22:00 Experimental pop from France.
SIOBHAN MILLER ST LUKE’S, 19:00–22:30 Folk from Scotland.
NUCLEAR CLUB (GF + CLAY RINGS) THE OLD HAIRDRESSERS, 19:00–22:30 Alt rock from Perth. SLIPKNOT (BLEED FROM WITHIN) THE OVO HYDRO, 18:30–22:30 Heavy metal from Iowa. Mon 16 Dec THE MARY WALLOPERS BARROWLANDS, 19:00–22:30 Folk from Ireland.
SAM FENDER THE OVO HYDRO, 18:30–22:30 Pop from the UK. CIAR NIXON THE HUG AND PINT, 19:30–22:30 Alt folk from Glasgow. Tue 17 Dec AND SO I WATCH YOU FROM AFAR (DELTA SLEEP + SLOW CRUSH) ST LUKE’S, 19:00–22:30 Rock from Belfast. SAM FENDER THE OVO HYDRO, 18:30–22:30 Pop from the UK. ELLA KENNEDY (DRENCHED IN DREAMS) THE HUG AND PINT, 19:30–22:30 Indie folk from Scotland. Wed 18 Dec
KARATE KING TUT’S, 19:30–22:30 Rock from Boston. DAD’S BEST FRIEND (SAM LEYDEN + SILVERTONE + VOID) NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, 19:30–23:00 Indie from Glasgow. LIV DAWN SWG3 19:00–22:30 Singer-songwriter from Scotland.
EVERGREY CATHOUSE, 19:00–22:30 Prog metal from Sweden. THE MARY WALLOPERS BARROWLANDS, 19:00–22:30 Folk from Ireland. THE GUILTY MEN THE HUG AND PINT, 19:30–22:30 Rock from Manchester. Thu 19 Dec
BELUGA LAGOON
O2 ACADEMY GLASGOW, 19:00–22:30 Folk from Scotland.
THEO BLEAK
KING TUT’S, 19:30–22:30 Rock from Dundee.
KULEE ANGEE
NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, 19:00–23:00 Pop from Glasgow. THE MARY WALLOPERS BARROWLANDS, 19:00–22:30 Folk from Ireland.
SARA RAE (PARDON) THE HUG AND PINT, 19:30–22:30 Singer-songwriter from Glasgow.
Fri 20 Dec
BAD NERVES KING TUT’S, 19:30–22:30 Pop rock from Essex. MOONEY (CHLOE HAWKINS + SONOROUS + DISCO MARY )
BABY CHAOS STEREO, 19:00–22:00 Rock from Ayrshire.
MAN OF MOON ST LUKE’S, 19:00–22:30 Alt rock from Glasgow. HOW TO SWIM (THE MARTIAL ARTS) THE GLAD CAFE, 19:30–22:30 Indie pop from Glasgow.
DYLAN JOHN THOMAS THE OVO HYDRO, 18:30–22:30 Indie folk from Scotland. THE PRIMEVALS (OPIUM CLIPPERS + THE REVERSE COWGIRLS) THE RUM SHACK, 20:00–22:30 Garage rock from the UK.
RODDY WOOMBLE THE HUG AND PINT, 19:30–22:30 Indie rock from Scotland. DISCOLA (THE BACK PAGES + XPOSURE & THE EUPHONICS) ROOM 2, 19:00–22:30 Rock from Glasgow. Sat 21 Dec
PUBLIC HOUSE + SLOWDANCE + FAT SALAMI + NOVA SCOTIA
SWG3 19:00–22:30 Eclectic lineup.
CALLUM BEATTIE BARROWLANDS, 14:00–17:00
Singer-songwriter from Scotland.
CALLUM BEATTIE BARROWLANDS, 19:00–22:30 Singer-songwriter from Scotland.
DOSS STEREO, 19:00–22:00 Electro punk from Glasgow. COLONEL MUSTARD AND THE DIJON 5 OLD FRUITMARKET
GLASGOW, 19:00–22:30 Alt rock from Glasgow. TRAVIS THE OVO HYDRO, 18:30–22:30 Rock from Glasgow.
RODDY WOOMBLE THE HUG AND PINT, 19:30–22:30 Indie rock from Scotland. Sun 22 Dec
DEL AMITRI
BARROWLANDS, 19:00–22:30 Rock from Scotland. RY BUDD THE OLD HAIRDRESSERS, 19:00–22:30 Cyberpunk from Glasgow.
ARCHIE & FERESTER
THE HUG AND PINT, 19:30–22:30 Folk from Scotland. Mon 23 Dec
DEL AMITRI
BARROWLANDS, 19:00–22:30 Rock from Scotland. Sat 28 Dec
VINTAGE EXPLOSION
BARROWLANDS, 19:00–22:30
Rock ‘n’ roll.
CHRIS ANDREUCCI
ST LUKE’S, 19:00–22:30 Country from Scotland.
Fri 06 Dec
SAM MILLAR
BANNERMANS, 19:00–22:30 Rock from Manchester. THE SKIDS (SPEAR OF DESTINY )
THE QUEEN’S HALL, 19:00–22:00 Punk rock from Scotland. GIRLS ROCK SCHOOL (LOU & THE KILLJOYS) WEE RED BAR, 19:00–22:00 Riot grrrl.
Thu 02 Jan
THE MARCHES (BARRANQUISMO + MISCELLANIA + PINKY PROMISE)
KING TUT’S, 19:30–22:30 Pop rock from Scotland. Fri 03 Jan
CASEVETI (EYES OF HOME + THE KEITHS + THE NOISE CLUB)
KING TUT’S, 19:30–22:30 Alt rock from Glasgow.
Sat 04 Jan
AVENUE STREET (THE FEAR + HITLIST + THE HIGH FLATS)
KING TUT’S, 19:30–22:30 Indie rock from Glasgow. FOG BANDITS (ESCAPE GOATS + HAZEL TERRACE)
THE HUG AND PINT, 19:30–22:30 Alt rock from Glasgow.
Sun 05 Jan
ILI (NEAVE MARR + FLORENCE JACK)
KING TUT’S, 19:30–22:30 Pop from Glasgow. BALDERDASCH (KARYS + PAPASOB + CAITLIN CONNOR) THE HUG AND PINT, 19:30–22:30 Eclectic lineup.
Edinburgh Music
Mon 02 Dec
CALLUM EASTER + THE ROULETTES (IONA ZAJAC) THE QUEEN’S HALL, 19:00–22:00 Rock and pop from Edinburgh. STARFACE (ALDOUS) WEE RED BAR, 19:00–22:00 Indie rock.
Tue 03 Dec
EDDIE 9V THE CAVES, 19:00–22:30 Blues from Atlanta. ACUA ((A MEAN GREEN) 3P SLOT MACHINE)
SNEAKY PETE’S, 19:00–22:00 Psych.
Wed 04 Dec
ANNA KIARA (HEAVENQUEEN + DIKAJEE) BANNERMANS, 19:30–22:30 Metal.
AMPLIFI (GROOVE DOWN + JUNIPER LAI + NUNA)
THE QUEEN’S HALL, 20:00–22:00 Eclectic lineup.
Thu 05 Dec
HEIDI TALBOT ( BOO
HEWERDINE) THE QUEEN’S HALL, 20:00–22:00 Folk from Ireland. CALUM BOWIE THE LIQUID ROOM, 19:00–22:30 Singer-songwriter from Scotland.
SIOBHAN MILLER THE LIQUID ROOM, 19:00–22:30 Folk from Scotland. CAHILL//COSTELLO SNEAKY PETE’S, 19:00–22:00 Ambient from Glasgow. SEÁN R. MCLAUGHLIN THE MASH HOUSE, 19:00–22:00 Folk.
Sat 07 Dec
STOP STOP
BANNERMANS, 19:00–22:30 Rock from Birmingham. SWING INTO CHRISTMAS (THE DOWN FOR THE COUNT ORCHESTRA) THE QUEEN’S HALL, 14:30–16:30 Jazz and Blues from Edinburgh SWING INTO CHRISTMAS (THE DOWN FOR THE COUNT ORCHESTRA) THE QUEEN’S HALL, 19:30–22:00 Jazz and Blues from Edinburgh
EUROS CHILDS (SELMA FRENCH) WEE RED BAR, 19:00–22:00 Alternative.
CALUM BOWIE THE LIQUID ROOM, 19:00–22:30 Singer-songwriter from Scotland.
SKINNY LISTER THE MASH HOUSE, 19:00–22:00 Punk.
Sun 08 Dec
TELEVISION PERSONALITIES (CULT FIGURES)
BANNERMANS, 19:00–22:30 Post-punk from the UK. UNCLE FRANK (FUN LOVIN’ CRIMINALS’ FRANK BENBINI + NAIM CORTAZZI) THE VOODOO ROOMS, 19:30–22:30 Soul from Leicester.
JAMIE SUTHERLAND THE VOODOO ROOMS, 19:30–22:30 Singer-songwriter from Edinburgh.
JACK J (LIVE) SNEAKY PETE’S, 19:00–22:00 Ambient.
Mon 09 Dec
EVERYTHING EVERYTHING THE ASSEMBLY ROOMS, 19:00–22:30 Art rock from Manchester. KOZA MOSTRA THE VOODOO ROOMS, 19:30–22:30 Folk rock from Greece.
AULD SPELLS SNEAKY PETE’S, 19:00–22:00 Dream pop.
Tue 10 Dec
THE VIEW
LA BELLE ANGELE, 19:00–22:00 Indie rock from Dundee. Wed 11 Dec
SIMEON CHIEN & THE NOISY BOYS (BEARFACE) BANNERMANS, 19:00–22:30 Rock.
THE WONDER STUFF O2 ACADEMY EDINBURGH, 19:00–22:30 Alt rock from the UK. Thu 12 Dec
BORIS GREBENSHIKOV THE LIQUID ROOM, 19:00–22:30 Rock from Russia. PUPPY TEETH (MARTHA MAY & THE MONDAYS + DAZED & CONFUSED) SNEAKY PETE’S, 19:00–22:00 Indie rock.
Fri 13 Dec THE KYMATIKS (MOTHMAN) BANNERMANS, 19:00–22:30 Folk rock from Scotland. PORKPIE (PRETTY GREEN) THE QUEEN’S HALL, 20:00–22:30 Ska from Scotland. FREE MONEY (3P SLOT MACHINE + DOLL BOY ) WEE RED BAR, 19:00–22:00 Alt indie. THE BLUEBELLS THE LIQUID ROOM, 19:00–22:30 Indie from Scotland. THE KAIROS (RED VANILLA + TWISTED ENDS) SNEAKY PETE’S, 19:00–22:00 Rock ‘n’ roll. THE SOUP DRAGONS THE MASH HOUSE, 19:00–22:00 Funk and rock.
Sat 14 Dec
DANIEL MARTINEZ FLAMENCO COMPANY THE QUEEN’S HALL, 19:30–21:30 Folk from Spain. MIDGE URE USHER HALL, 19:00–22:30 Pop from Scotland. NORTH ORBITAL WEE RED BAR, 19:00–22:00 Indie rock. PRETTY CIME (SHAMBOL!CA + SO BORING) SNEAKY PETE’S, 19:00–22:00 Garage rock. 999 (COWBOY HUNTERS + SHOCK & AWE) THE MASH HOUSE, 19:00–22:00 New Wave.
Sun 15 Dec
1945 BANNERMANS, 19:00–22:30 Punk rock from Montreal. AYNSLEY LISTER THE CAVES, 19:00–22:30 Blues rock from Leicester.
DICTATOR SNEAKY PETE’S, 19:00–22:00 Indie pop.
Mon 16 Dec
TOYAH + ROBERT THE QUEEN’S HALL, 20:00–22:30 New Wave from the UK. JAZZ LAMBAUX (MANIATRIX + JOCK FOX) SNEAKY PETE’S, 19:00–22:00 Experimental pop from France.
Tue 17 Dec
KULEEANGEE SNEAKY PETE’S, 19:00–22:00 Indie from Glasgow. Thu 19 Dec
ISABEL MARIA (AMATEUR + SPACEMAN) BANNERMANS, 19:00–22:30 Singer-songwriter from Sunderland.
RICK ASTLEY USHER HALL, 19:00–22:30 Swing and festive classics. Fri 20 Dec THE IRRESISTIBLE URGES (THE CROM + THE SHOREZ) BANNERMANS, 19:00–22:30 Rock from Edinburgh. DEL AMITRI USHER HALL, 19:00–22:30 Rock from Scotland. LOST IN VANCOUVER SNEAKY PETE’S, 19:00–22:00 Indie rock. THE EXPLOITED + AFTERPARTY LA BELLE ANGELE, 19:00–03:00 Punk.
Sat 21 Dec
RHABSTALLION BANNERMANS, 19:00–22:30 Rock from the UK.
Sun 22 Dec
BLUE CHRISTMAS 2024 LA BELLE ANGELE, 19:00–22:00 Blues.
Mon 23 Dec
ABANDONED STUFF BANNERMANS, 19:00–22:30 Rock from Scotland.
Fri 27 Dec
SKERRYVORE O2 ACADEMY EDINBURGH, 19:00–22:30 Folk from Scotland. THE POSTCARDS LA BELLE ANGELE, 19:00–22:00 Post-punk. Sat 28 Dec VIDA THE MASH HOUSE, 19:00–22:00 Alt rock.
Sun 29 Dec
BLACK CAT BONE THE VOODOO ROOMS, 19:30–22:30 Blues rock from Edinburgh. BAD MANNERS LA BELLE ANGELE, 19:00–22:00 Ska from London.
Dundee
Music
Thu 05 Dec
THE SKIDS (SPEAR OF DESTINY ) CHURCH, 19:00–22:30 Punk rock from Scotland. Sat 07 Dec
PORKPIE
CHURCH, 19:00–22:30 Ska from Scotland. WINTER METALFEST BEAT GENERATOR LIVE!, 13:00–22:30 Metal.
Mon 09 Dec
LUKE LA VOLPE CHURCH, 19:00–22:30 Blues rock from West Lothian.
Fri 13 Dec
KIMMIC
DUCK SLATTERY’S, 19:00–22:30 Rock from Dundee. DEREK FORBES BEAT GENERATOR LIVE!, 19:30–22:30 Rock from Scotland. Sat 21 Dec
THE MIRROR TRAP BEAT GENERATOR LIVE!, 20:00–22:30 Indie rock from Dundee. Thu 02 Jan
BAD MANNERS CHURCH, 19:00–22:30 Ska from London.
Glasgow Clubs
Mon 02 Dec
SHITEPOP X RAHUL.
MP3: THE BRAT
AFTERPARTY (BABYJAII + TEKHOLE + ELFZ + SUNSHINEBBY + HONEY + ZULAA + LOLA DING + MASSEDUCTION + DILL + ADRASTEIA) STEREO, 23:00–03:00 Pop and baile funk. CULT CLASSIC: THE CHARLI AFTERPARTY THE BERKELEY SUITE, 23:00–03:00 Pop.
Wed 04 Dec
INR PRESENTS: HANG TOUGH + TEODOR + LEWIS ROBERTSON LA CHEETAH CLUB, 23:00–03:00 Garage and electro. Thu 05 Dec LF SYSTEM SUB CLUB, 23:00–04:00 House. Fri 06 Dec
SWIFTOGEDDON SWG3, 23:00–03:00 Pop. HOMETOWN SOUND SYSTEM FEAT. HORSEMAN STEREO, 23:00–03:00 Dub and dancehall. DIGITAL GARDEN (ROO HONEYCHILD + PIGEON STEVE) THE FLYING DUCK, 23:00–03:00 Club from Glasgow. SENSU (FJAAK + JUNIOR) SUB CLUB, 23:00–04:00 Techno. MISSING PERSONS CLUB: 12TH BIRTHDAY (SLIN B2B TARKNO + DJ SMOKER + ANDY BARTON) THE BERKELEY SUITE, 23:00–05:00 Techno. EXIT PRESENTS: D.PHYLLEIA + SLYNN + BOX5IVE EXIT GLASGOW, 23:00–03:00 Techno and electro. Sat 07 Dec QUEER THEORY: CAMP AS CHRISTMAS NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, 19:30–23:00 Cabaret. HOLY PRIEST SWG3, 23:00–03:00 Hard techno. FUSE GLASGOW X STEREO: SICARIA (CHICHA + LUCKYBABE + SOFSOF) STEREO, 23:00–04:00 Dubstep, grime and bass. RED MUSEUM VIII X SVBKVLT (SIDEPROJECT + HYPH11E) THE FLYING DUCK, 23:00–03:00 Experimental club from China and the UK. LA CHEETAH 15 X DEKMANTEL SOUNDSYSTEM LA CHEETAH CLUB, 23:00–04:00 Techno. WORLD OF TWIST: ZAG ERLAT + SHAQDI THE RUM SHACK, 21:00–01:00 Disco and psych. Wed 11 Dec
DISCLAIMER: OLIVIA ROSLIN LA CHEETAH CLUB, 23:00–03:00 Breakbeat and garage. ANJUNADEEP SUB CLUB, 22:00–04:00 Techno and house.
Regular Glasgow club nights
The Rum Shack
SATURDAYS (THIRD OF THE MONTH)
MOJO WORKIN’ Soul party feat. 60s R&B, motown, northern soul and more!
SATURDAYS (SECOND OF THE MONTH)
LOOSEN UP
Afro, disco and funtimes with three of the best record collections in Glasgow and beyond.
Sub Club
SATURDAYS
SUBCULTURE
Long-running house night with residents Harri & Domenic, oft' joined by a carousel of super fresh guests.
FRIDAYS (SECOND OF THE MONTH)
RETURN TO MONO
SLAM’s monthly Subbie residency sees them joined by some of the biggest names in international techno.
Cathouse
WEDNESDAYS
CATHOUSE WEDNESDAYS
DJ Jonny soundtracks your Wednesday with all the best pop-punk, rock and Hip-hop.
THURSDAYS UNHOLY
Cathouse's Thursday night rock, metal and punk mash-up.
FRIDAYS CATHOUSE FRIDAYS Screamy, shouty, posthardcore madness to help you shake off a week of stress in true punk style.
SATURDAYS
CATHOUSE SATURDAYS
Or Caturdays, if you will. Two levels of the loudest, maddest music the DJs can muster; metal, rock and alt on floor one, and punky screamo upstairs.
SUNDAYS (FIRST OF THE MONTH)
HELLBENT
From the fab fierce family that brought you Catty Pride comes Cathouse Rock Club’s new monthly alternative drag show.
SUNDAYS (SECOND OF THE MONTH) FLASHBACK
Pop party anthems and classic cheese from DJ Nicola Walker.
SUNDAYS (THIRD OF THE MONTH)
CHEERS FOR THIRD
SUNDAY
DJ Kelmosh takes you through Mid-Southwestern emo, rock, new metal, nostalgia and 90s and 00s tunes.
SUNDAYS (LAST OF THE MONTH) SLIDE IT IN Classic rock through the ages from DJ Nicola Walker.
The Garage
Glasgow
MONDAYS BARE MONDAYS
Lasers, bouncy castles and DJ Gav Somerville spinning out teasers and pleasers. Nice way to kick off the week, no?
TUESDAYS #TAG TUESDAYS
Indoor hot tubs, inflatables as far as the eye can see and a Twitter feed dedicated to validating your drunk-eyed existence.
WEDNESDAYS GLITTERED! WEDNESDAYS
DJ Garry Garry Garry in G2 with chart remixes, along with beer pong competitions all night.
Regular Edinburgh club nights
Cabaret
Voltaire
FRIDAYS
FLY CLUB
Edinburgh and Glasgowstraddling night, with a powerhouse of local residents joined by a selection of guest talent.
SATURDAYS
PLEASURE
Regular Saturday night at Cab Vol, with residents and occasional special guests.
The Bongo Club
TUESDAYS
MIDNIGHT BASS, 23:00
Big basslines and small prices form the ethos behind this weekly Tuesday night, with drum'n'bass, jungle, bassline, grime and garage aplenty.
FRIDAYS (THIRD OF THE MONTH)
ELECTRIKAL, 23 00 Sound system and crew, part of a music and art collective specialising in BASS music.
FRIDAYS (MONTHLY, WEEK CHANGES)
SOUND SYSTEM LEGA-
CIES, 23 00
Exploring the legacy of dub, reggae and roots music and sound system culture in the contemporary club landscape.
FRIDAYS (EVERY OTHER MONTH)
DISCO MAKOSSA, 23 00
Disco Makossa takes the dancefloor on a funk-filled trip through the sounds of African disco, boogie and house – strictly for the dancers.
FRIDAYS (EVERY OTHER MONTH)
OVERGROUND, 23 00
A safe space to appreciate all things rave, jungle, breakbeat and techno.
THURSDAYS
ELEMENT
Ross MacMillan plays chart, house and anthems with giveaways, bouncy castles and, most importantly, air hockey.
FRIDAYS FRESH BEAT
Dance, chart and remixes in the main hall with Craig Guild, while DJ Nicola Walker keeps things nostalgic in G2 with flashback bangers galore.
SATURDAYS I LOVE GARAGE Garage by name, but not by musical nature. DJ Darren Donnelly carousels through chart, dance and classics, the Desperados bar is filled with funk, G2 keeps things urban and the Attic gets all indie on you.
SUNDAYS SESH
Twister, beer pong and DJ Ciar McKinley on the ones and twos, serving up chart and remixes through the night.
Thu 12 Dec
FLIPSIDE LA CHEETAH CLUB, 23:00–04:00 Techno and bass. Fri 13 Dec
DAIRE
SWG3 22:00–03:00 EDM.
QUEER HISTORY OF SYLVESTER (JUNGLEHUSSI) SWG3, 23:00–03:00 Disco.
ALLIYAH ENYO + NAAFI TILL LATE [FUNDRAISER FOR GAZA ESIMS] STEREO, 23:00–03:00 Electronic and ambient. 12TH ISLE (DJ SUNDAE + ANNABEL FRASER) THE FLYING DUCK, 23:00–03:00 House from Paris. LEZURE 076: MAVEEN + TEKHOLE + EWAN PARTIAL + SLOAN OF LEZURE
LA CHEETAH CLUB, 23:00–04:00 Techno and house.
I LOVE ACID FT. LUKE
VIBERT + EMERALD THE BERKELEY SUITE, 23:00–04:00 Acid.
4 YEARS OF CURATED
WAX (ADI + ELK + PATCH FD)
EXIT GLASGOW, 22:30–03:00 Techno and electro. Sat 14 Dec
ILIAN TAPE
LA CHEETAH CLUB, 23:00–04:00 Techno. CÉLESTE W/ JUDE BRADSHAW THE BERKELEY SUITE, 23:00–04:00 Trance and techno.
Sat 21 Dec
DISFUNCTION: BASSWELL SWG3, 23:00–03:00 Techno. BRUCE GLENNY B2B
RORY JAMES B2B LOVESHAUN SWG3, 23:00–03:00 House.
DOSS AFTERPARTY STEREO, 23:00–03:00 House. OCCULTMAS (DJ M.O. + OC OBI ) THE FLYING DUCK, 23:00–03:00 Club from Glasgow. EZUP IS 12
LA CHEETAH CLUB, 23:00–04:00 Techno and house. ABYSS RELAUNCH: GARY BECK + LIAM CAPPELLO + JUNIOR (SENSU) + DAN-R ROOM 2 23:00–04:00 Techno and house.
Sun 22 Dec
LET YOUR ELF GO! CHARITY PARTY SUB CLUB, 23:00–05:00 House and techno.
Thu 26 Dec
JAIVA X THE GLAD CAFE NYE PARTY! (BUTHOTHEWARRIOR) THE GLAD CAFE, 20:00–01:00 House and disco.
EXIT NEW YEARS EVE EXIT GLASGOW, 22:00–03:30 House and techno.
Wed 01 Jan
NEW YEAR’S DAY 2025! LOUIE VEGA SUB CLUB, 21:00–02:00 House. EXIT X HEALTHY NEW YEARS DAY EXIT GLASGOW, 12:00–03:00 House and ambient.
Edinburgh Clubs
SAMEDIA SHEBEEN PRESENTS DJ DANIFOX THE MASH HOUSE, 23:00–03:00 House and Afrobeat. UNTITLED THE MASH HOUSE, 23:00–03:00 Techno.
ACT ONE MIO ALBUM LAUNCH THE MASH HOUSE, 23:00–03:00 House.
Wed 11 Dec
OVERGROUND
SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–03:00 Rave.
Thu 12 Dec
FRIDAYS (FIRST OR LAST OF THE MONTH)
HEADSET, 23 00
Skillis and guests playing garage, techno, house and bass downstairs, with old school hip hop upstairs.
SATURDAYS (FIRST OR SECOND OF THE MONTH)
MESSENGER, 23 00
Roots reggae rocking since 1987 – foundation tune, fresh dubs, vibes alive, rockers, steppers, rub-a-dub.
SATURDAYS (MONTHLY )
MUMBO JUMBO, 23 00
Everything from disco, funk and soul to electro and house: Saturday night party music all night long.
SATURDAYS (MONTHLY )
SOULSVILLE INTERNATIONAL, 23 00 International soulful sounds.
SATURDAYS (EVERY OTHER MONTH) PULSE, 23 00
Techno night started in 2009 hosting regular special guests from the international scene.
Sneaky Pete’s
MONDAYS
MORRISON STREET/STAND B-SIDE/CHAOS IN THE COSMOS/TAIS-TOI House and techno dunts from some of Edinburgh's best young teams.
TUESDAYS RARE
Weekly house and techno with rising local DJs and hot special guests.
THURSDAYS (FIRST OF THE MONTH) VOLENS CHORUS Resident DJs with an eclectic, global outlook
FRIDAYS (SECOND OF THE MONTH)
HOT MESS A night for queer people and their friends.
SATURDAYS (LAST OF THE MONTH)
SOUL JAM Monthly no-holds-barred, down-and-dirty disco.
SUNDAYS POSTAL
Weekly Sunday session showcasing the very best of heavy-hitting local talent with some extra special guests.
The Liquid Room
SATURDAYS (FIRST OF THE MONTH)
REWIND
Monthly party night celebrating the best in soul, disco, rock and pop with music from the 70s, 80s, 90s and current bangers.
The Hive
MONDAYS MIXED UP MONDAY
Monday-brightening mix of Hip-hop, R'n'B and chart classics, with requests in the back room.
TUESDAYS TRASH TUESDAY Alternative Tuesday anthems cherry picked from genres of rock, indie, punk, retro and more.
WEDNESDAYS COOKIE WEDNESDAY 90s and 00s cheesy pop and modern chart anthems.
THURSDAYS HI-SOCIETY THURSDAY Student anthems and bangerz.
FRIDAYS
FLIP FRIDAY
Yer all-new Friday at Hive. Cheap entry, inevitably danceable, and noveltystuffed. Perrrfect.
SATURDAYS BUBBLEGUM Saturday mix of chart and dance, with retro 80s classics thrown in for good measure.
SUNDAYS
SECRET SUNDAY
Two rooms of all the chart, cheese and indie-pop you can think of/handle on a Sunday.
Subway
Cowgate
MONDAYS
TRACKS Blow the cobwebs off the week with a weekly Monday night party with some of Scotland’s biggest and best drag queens.
TUESDAYS TAMAGOTCHI
Throwback Tuesdays with non-stop 80s, 90s, 00s tunes.
WEDNESDAYS TWISTA Banger after banger all night long.
THURSDAYS FLIRTY
Pop, cheese and chart.
FRIDAYS FIT FRIDAYS
Chart-topping tunes perfect for an irresistible sing and dance-along.
SATURDAYS SLICE SATURDAY
The drinks are easy and the pop is heavy.
SUNDAYS SUNDAY SERVICE
Atone for the week before and the week ahead with non-stop dancing.
The Mash House
TUESDAYS
MOVEMENT House, techno, drum ‘n’ bass and garage.
SATURDAYS (FIRST OF THE MONTH)
SAMEDIA SHEBEEN Joyous global club sounds: think Afrobeat, Latin and Arabic dancehall on repeat.
SATURDAYS (LAST OF THE MONTH) PULSE
The best techno DJs sit alongside The Mash House resident Darrell Pulse.
MOJXMMA X STEREO: TYGAPAW (PLANTAINCHIPPS + BELLAROSA + SALAM KITTY + STAR EYE) STEREO, 23:00–04:00 Techno and club. LOOSE JOINTS: UPSAMMY + LIBRA
ESTERLINA + DILLY JOINTS + SUMA BAC THE BERKELEY SUITE, 23:00–04:00 Breakbeat and experimental.
LOOSEN UP THE RUM SHACK, 21:00–01:00 Afro and disco.
EXIT CLUB - JUNGLE EXIT GLASGOW, 22:00–03:00 Drum ‘n’ bass and jungle. Tue 17 Dec
JAMIE BLACK: CAMP AS CHRISTMAS. DARK AS SIN. NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, 19:30–23:00 Synth pop cabaret extravaganza.
Wed 18 Dec
TALKLESS DANCE
MORE LA CHEETAH CLUB, 23:00–04:00 Techno and jungle.
Thu 19 Dec
BREATHE PRESENTS: KRYSTAL KLEAR SUB CLUB, 23:00–04:00 House and electro.
Fri 20 Dec
DISSONANCE (DJ
GARLIC BREATH B2B DJ ALADJI + ISO YSO) STEREO, 23:00–03:00 Club and bass.
GET SASSY WITH... HAYLEY ZALASSI LA CHEETAH CLUB, 23:00–04:00 House and deep house. Fri 27 Dec
CO -ACCUSED WITH ANTHONY ROTHER THE BERKELEY SUITE, 23:00–04:00 Techno and electro.
Sat 28 Dec
STACK CITY GLASGOW
SWG3, 22:30–03:00 House and hardcore. VOCAL OR VERSION THE RUM SHACK, 21:00–01:00 Reggae, ska and roots.
Sun 29 Dec
STREETRAVE X SUB CLUB SUB CLUB, 22:00–04:00 House.
Mon 30 Dec
FRAZI.ER B2B DARIA KOLOSOVA SUB CLUB, 23:00–05:00 Techno.
Tue 31 Dec
NRG NYE SPECIAL (999999999 + CADZOW + DKEN) SWG3 21:00–04:00 House and techno. PONYBOY NYE STEREO, 21:00–05:00 Queer club.
NEW YEAR’S EVE 2024 WITH HARRI & DOMENIC SUB CLUB, 23:00–05:00 Techno and house.
Tue 03 Dec
LF SYSTEM
SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–03:00 House.
Wed 04 Dec
LF SYSTEM SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–03:00 House.
Thu 05 Dec
BOTANICA (WENDS + MGANGA) WEE RED BAR, 22:00–03:00 Dub, reggae and jungle.
Fri 06 Dec
ALIEN DISKO WITH SPECIAL GUEST: HIGH P (PINK RIZLA RIDDIMS) THE BONGO CLUB, 23:00–03:00 Hardcore and jungle.
JYOTY PRESENTS WE’VE BEEN HERE BEFORE THE LIQUID ROOM, 23:00–03:00 Hyperpop.
WE ARE STILL YOUNG LA BELLE ANGELE, 23:00–03:00 Emo and pop punk. DIFFUSION THE MASH HOUSE, 23:00–03:00 Techno and house. BORLEY ROOM PRESENTS THE MASH HOUSE, 23:00–03:00 Techno. CIRCLE: SABRE THE MASH HOUSE, 23:00–03:00 Techno and electro.
Sat 07 Dec
ELATION: T E S T P R E S S THE LIQUID ROOM, 22:30–03:00 Trance and techno. EHFM X REFUGE
RED ROOM SOUND: FACTA & SMIFF SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–03:00 UK techno.
Fri 13 Dec
RADIO RATZ (RADIO RATZ DJZ) WEE RED BAR, 23:00–03:00 Alt and dance. MISS WORLD: MANTRA, FEENA & MIIRA
SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–03:00 Jungle. SO FETCH: 2000S PARTY XMAS SPECIAL LA BELLE ANGELE, 23:00–03:00 Pop and hip-hop. INKOHERENT X ETERNAL THE MASH HOUSE, 23:00–03:00 Techno.
TRANCEPARENCY THE MASH HOUSE, 23:00–03:00 Trance.
Sat 14 Dec
WALLACE (RHYTHM SECTION) + PERCY MAIN + HOBBES THE BONGO CLUB, 23:00–03:00 House and disco.
ASCENSION WEE RED BAR, 19:00–22:00 Industrial and goth. HAND -MADE WITH LOVE
SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–03:00 Boogie.
SWIFTOGEDDON LA BELLE ANGELE, 23:00–03:00 Pop.
DECADE X YOU ME AT SIX DJ SET THE MASH HOUSE, 23:00–03:00 Emo and pop punk. Mon 16 Dec
MILE HIGH CLUB
SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–03:00 UK techno.
Wed 18 Dec
MEMBRANE: JON K & DAKSH SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–03:00 Experimental.
Thu 19 Dec
AGORA X ILIAN TAPE: ZENKER BROTHERS
SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–03:00 Techno.
Fri 20 Dec
EDINBURGH DISCO LOVERS
SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–03:00 Disco.
HEADSET’S 10TH BIRTHDAY
THE MASH HOUSE, 17:00–05:00 Techno.
Sat 21 Dec
THE MIRROR DANCE: RUF DUG B2B TIA COUSINS
SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–03:00 Space disco.
KEEP IT STEEL: ANTI XMAS LA BELLE ANGELE, 23:00–03:00 Metal.
HEADSET’S 10TH BIRTHDAY THE MASH HOUSE, 17:00–05:00 Techno.
Sun 22 Dec
HEADSET’S 10TH BIRTHDAY
THE MASH HOUSE, 17:00–05:00 Techno.
Mon 23 Dec
YBZ X PSYKED
SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–03:00 Bass.
Wed 25 Dec
HEADSET CHRISTMAS DAY THE MASH HOUSE, 22:00–05:00 Techno.
Fri 27 Dec
XMAS MEGARAVE
2K24
THE BONGO CLUB, 23:00–05:00 Techno and jungle.
TELFORT’S GOOD PLACE
SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–03:00 House.
Sat 28 Dec
15 YEARS OF PULSE: BEN SIMS THE BONGO CLUB, 23:00–05:00 Techno and house.
DILF: FESTIVE FLING! LA BELLE ANGELE, 23:00–04:00 Disco and house.
EDINBURGH UNDERGROUND THE MASH HOUSE, 15:00–22:00 Day rave.
Sun 29 Dec
JACKHAMMER: 23RD BIRTHDAY (DAVE CLARKE + DETROIT
TECHNO MILITIA) THE BONGO CLUB, 23:00–05:00 Techno.
Mon 30 Dec
SNEAKS ALL STARS
SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–03:00 Club.
Tue 31 Dec
PLEASURE X HECTORS
NYE HOGMANY SPECIAL (KT + NOODLE + MACKA + MORE)
CABARET VOLTAIRE, 22:00–05:00 Techno and house.
FLY NYE 2025 (LUUK
VAN DIJK + THEO KOTTIS) THE CAVES, 23:00–05:00 House.
RARE NYE: BIG MIZ
SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–05:00 Acid.
SAMEDIA HOGMANAY TROPICAL
SOUNDCLASH: NYE PARTY
LA BELLE ANGELE, 22:00–05:00 Latin and global. OVERGROUND THE MASH HOUSE, 22:00–05:00 Rave. Fri 03 Jan
DISORDER: RESIDENTS SPECIAL THE BONGO CLUB, 23:00–03:00 Drum ‘n’ bass and jungle.
Dundee Clubs
Fri 13 Dec WE ARE STILL YOUNG CHURCH, 22:30–03:00 Emo and pop punk. Fri 20 Dec
FLAKHOUSE PRESENTS: ALEX FARELL
BEAT GENERATOR LIVE!, 23:00–02:30 Techno and industrial. Tue 31 Dec
DUNDEMO CHURCH, 22:30–03:00 Pop punk and emo.
Glasgow
Comedy
The Glee Club CHRISTMAS COMEDY SPECIAL 5-21 DEC, 8:15PM –10:30PM Four of the best comedians out there, a delicious festive menu and an afterparty.
The Old Hairdressers
HAROLD NIGHT
3 DEC, 7:00PM –10:00PM
Two Glasgow Improv Theatre house teams performing The Harold. Featuring F.L.U.S.H. and Raintown! YER DA WANTS A WORD
10 DEC, 7:00PM –10:00PM
Glasgow Improv Theatre Presents: Monthly show from Yer Da! Stick your name in the bucket for the jam at end.
COUCH SURFS THE WEB
17 DEC, 8:30PM –10:00PM Glasgow Improv Theatre Presents: A night of improv comedy where Couch... surfs the web.
The Stand
Glasgow THE STAND CHRISTMAS SPECIAL 12-14 DEC, 7:30PM10:30PM A brilliant weekend line-up.
HOGMANAY SPECIALS 27-31 DEC, TIMES VARY See out the year in style with a comedy bill worthy of more than a dram.
SCREEN TIME
5 DEC, 7:30PM –10:30PM Exciting new multimedia comedy.
RAY BRADSHAW: SPECIAL RECORDING
8 DEC, 3:00PM – 4:00PM Ray Bradshaw films a very special show.
THE BIG CHRISTMAS KIDS SHOW
7-21 DEC, 1:30PM –3:00PM Crazy Christmas comedy for the kids.
SPONTANEOUS POTTER
8 DEC, 7:30PM –10:00PM
An unofficial improvised parody for Potter fans everywhere.
LOOKING FOR LAUGHS: REAL BLIND
DATE
15 DEC, 3:00PM –5:30PM
Comedy dating show.
MATERIAL GIRL
22 DEC, 2:00PM –5:00PM A showcase of female-led stand-up.
Edinburgh
Comedy
Monkey Barrel
Comedy Club
RACHEL FAIRBURN: WORK IN PROGRESS
21 DEC, 8:00PM –9:00PM
Join Rachel (Live at the Apollo) as she tries brand new material ahead of her 2025 tour.
CAMPFIRE IMPROV
20 DEC, 10:00PM –11:30PM
Gather round the campfire to watch some of Scotland’s top improvisers create hilarious scenes based on stories from a special guest monologist.
GARRET MILLERICK: ONE TREE PONY
13 DEC, 8:00PM –9:00PM
Creator and star of BBC R4's hit new comedy Do Gooders brings his standup to Monkey Barrel for a special one off performance.
LIAM WITHNAIL: LIVE AT MONKEY BARREL
14 DEC, TIMES VARY Join Liam Withnail as he presents a special one-off night of his classic stand up routines from over the years, to be filmed for his debut special.
GEORGE
ZACHAROPOULOS: THE RIGHT SWIPE THAT RUINED MY LIFE
15 DEC, 8:00PM –9:00PM
George met a girl in 2018. The Dream Girl. A doctor, a mother of two, beautiful, smart, and funny. And then things happened...
GEOFFREY CHAUCER’S MEDIEVAL CHRISTMAS FESTIVITYE
8 DEC, 8:00PM –10:00PM
John-Luke Roberts presents a night of ridiculous carousing hosted by the “great poot” Geoffrey Chaucer.
The Queen’s Hall
SARA PASCOE, PHIL WANG, RHYS JAMES, JEN BRISTER, AND MORE: LIVE AT CHRISTMAS
15 DEC, 7:30PM –10:00PM Stacked comedy lineup.
The Stand
Edinburgh
THE STAND CHRISTMAS SPECIAL
12-14 DEC, 7:00PM10:30PM A brilliant weekend line-up. THE SUNDAY NIGHT LAUGH IN 15-22 DEC, 7:30PM –10:30PM
See your week out with a line-up of the best comedians.
HOGMANAY SPECIALS
27-31 DEC, TIMES VARY
See out the year in style with a comedy bill worthy of more than a dram.
COMEDY FUNDRAISER FOR EDINBURGH DOG AND CAT HOME
8 DEC, 7:00PM –
10:30PM
A fantastic line-up of comics give their time and talent to raise money for Edinburgh Dog & Cat Home.
CHRISTMAS SPECIAL EARLY SHOW
14 DEC, 4:00PM –
6:30PM
Our Christmas Special with outstanding line-up of some of the best acts in the UK.
HOGMANANY EARLY SPECIAL
31 DEC, 3:00PM –
6:00PM
See out the year in style with a comedy bill worthy of more than a dram.
Glasgow Theatre
Oran Mor WEANS IN THE WOODLANDS
2 DEC-5 JAN 25, TIMES
VARY
An original, subversive panto full of the usual laughs and boos.
Royal Conservatoire of Scotland
A CHRISTMAS CAROL
3-6 DEC, TIMES VARY Dickens’ classic festive tale is brought to life by students from the BA Performance for Deaf and Hard of Hearing Actors programme in a uniquely visual retelling. SHE LOVES ME
3-6 DEC, TIMES VARY
Based on the same source as You've Got Mail, this classic enemies-to-lovers musical was nominated for five Tonys when it premiered in 1964.
Theatre Royal
SCOTTISH BALLET: THE NUTCRACKER
6-30 DEC, TIMES VARY Scottish Ballet’s retelling of the dance classic, ripe for the festive season with its dreamlike narrative and Tchaikovsky’s magical score.
Tron Theatre
PETER PANTO AND THE INCREDIBLE STINKERBELL
1 DEC-5 JAN 25, TIMES
VARY
The new Johnny McKnight pantomime takes on a journey from Glasgow’s West End to a magical otherworld.
The King's
Theatre
PETER PAN
1 DEC-5 JAN 25, TIMES
VARY
Return to Neverland in this classic panto with legends Elaine C Smith and Johnny Mac.
Edinburgh
Theatre
Festival Theatre
PANTO 2024: CINDERELLA
1-31 DEC, TIMES VARY
Head to the ball this Christmas with a classic panto - just be sure to leave before midnight.
Regular Glasgow comedy nights
Drygate Brewing Co.
FIRST AND THIRD TUESDAY OF THE MONTH
DRYGATE COMEDY LAB, 19:00
A new material comedy night hosted by Chris Thorburn.
The Stand
Glasgow FIRST MONDAY OF THE MONTH MONDAY NIGHT IMPROV, 20:30
Host Billy Kirkwood and guests act entirely on your suggestions.
TUESDAYS RED RAW, 20:30
Legendary new material night with up to eight acts.
FRIDAYS THE FRIDAY SHOW, 20:30
The big weekend show with four comedians.
SATURDAYS THE SATURDAY SHOW, 20:30
The big weekend show with four comedians.
The Glee Club
FRIDAYS FRIDAY NIGHT COMEDY, 19:00
The perfect way to end the working week, with four superb stand-up comedians.
SATURDAYS SATURDAY NIGHT COMEDY, 19:00
An evening of awardwinning comedy, with four superb stand-up comedians that will keep you laughing until Monday.
Regular Edinburgh comedy nights
The Stand
Edinburgh
MONDAYS RED RAW, 20:30
Legendary new material night with up to 8 acts.
TUESDAYS (FIRST OF THE MONTH) STU & GARRY’S IMPROV SHOW, 20:30
The Stand’s very own Stu & Garry’s make comedy cold from suggestions.
THURSDAYS THE BEST OF SCOTTISH COMEDY, 20:30
Simply the best comics on the contemporary Scottish circuit.
FRIDAYS THE FRIDAY SHOW, 21
The big weekend show :00with four comedians.
SATURDAYS THE SATURDAY SHOW (THE EARLY SHOW), 17:00 A slightly earlier performance of the big weekend show with four comedians.
Royal Lyceum
Theatre
TREASURE ISLAND
1 DEC-4 JAN 25, TIMES VARY
A playful musical adaptation of the Robert Louis Stevenson classic set in Edinburgh and on the high seas.
The Edinburgh Playhouse
JOSEPH AND THE AMAZING TECHNICOLOUR DREAMCOAT 3-29 DEC, TIMES VARY Andrew Lloyd-Webber goes Biblical in this musical classic.
The Studio
THE GIFT 14-31 DEC, TIMES VARY
The ephemera of gift giving become the entire story in this balletic ode to imaginative play.
Traverse Theatre
TROUBLE IN SPIRITLAND 17-18 DEC, 7:30PM10:30PM
Adapted from the mythic epic narrative poem of the same name, this electrifying spoken-word piece explores ideas of unrest and social struggle.
South Block
ETHAN GOURLEY: UNVEILED PERCEPTION
2-16 DEC, 9:00AM –5:00PM
Paintings that encourage the viewer to foreground their own interpretation, exploring the potential of art to speak in dialogue with the viewer.
Street Level
Photoworks
SHEILA ROCK: REBELS AND RENEGADES
1 DEC-23 FEB 25, TIMES VARY
Part of a two-part exhibition foregrounding the work of two pioneering female directors who captured the zeitgeist of the punk era.
JILL FURMANOVSKY: REBELS AND RENEGADES
SATURDAYS THE SATURDAY SHOW, 20:30
The big weekend show with four comedians.
Monkey Barrel
SECOND AND THIRD
TUESDAY OF EVERY MONTH
THE EDINBURGH REVUE, 19:00
The University of Edinburgh's Comedy Society, who put on sketch and stand-up comedy shows every two weeks.
WEDNESDAYS TOP BANANA, 19:00
Catch the stars of tomorrow today in Monkey Barrel's new act night every Wednesday.
THURSDAYS SNEAK PEAK, 19:00 + 21:00
Four acts every Thursday take to the stage to try out new material.
FRIDAYS MONKEY BARREL COMEDY'S BIG FRIDAY SHOW, 19:00/21:00 Monkey Barrel's flagship night of premier stand-up comedy.
FRIDAYS DATING CRAPP, 22:00 Tinder, Bumble, Grindr, Farmers Only...Come and laugh as some of Scotland's best improvisers join forces to perform based off two audience members dating profiles.
SATURDAYS MONKEY BARREL COMEDY'S BIG SATURDAY SHOW, 17:00/19:00/21:00 Monkey Barrel's flagship night of premier stand-up comedy.
SUNDAYS MONKEY BARREL COMEDY'S BIG SUNDAY SHOW, 19:00/21:00 Monkey Barrel's flagship night of premier stand-up comedy.
MARY: A GIG THEATRE SHOW
19-21 DEC, 7:30PM10:30PM Music and spoken word come together in this bold reimagining of Mary Queen of Scots' life story.
Dundee
Theatre
Dundee Rep OOR WULLIE THE MUSICAL 3-30 DEC, TIMES VARY Scotland’s most mischievous boy is back for Christmas.
Glasgow Art
Glasgow School of Art
MARLENE SMITH: AH, SUGAR 2-14 DEC, 10:00AM –4:30PM Newly-commissioned photographic and sculptural work explore the material and bodily qualities of artistic practice.
Glasgow Women’s Library
KATE DOWNIE: CONVERSATIONS WITH JOAN
2 DEC-25 JAN 25, TIMES VARY
Contemporary painter and printmaker places herself in conversation with Joan Eardley, exploring the ongoing affinities within Scottish art.
GoMA
SCOTT MYLES: HEAD IN A BELL
1 DEC-23 FEB 25, 11:00AM – 4:00PM
An exhibition of painting, sculpture, print, moving image and sound exploring ideas of exchange and circulation, and the cyclicality of materiality.
JOHN AKOMFRAH: MIMESIS: AFRICAN SOLDIER
1 DEC-31 AUG 25 11:00AM – 4:00PM
A film installation from acclaimed artist exploring the significant contribution of over six million African, Caribbean and South Asian people from across former colonies who fought and died in World War I.
1 DEC-23 FEB 25 TIMES VARY
Part of a two-part exhibition foregrounding the work of two pioneering female directors who captured the zeitgeist of the punk era.
The Briggait CHRISTINA MCBRIDE: DINNSEANCHAS
1 DEC-8 JAN 25, TIMES VARY
A series of photographic works exploring the specific of the Irish landscape and its entanglements with the Irish language.
The Modern Institute MONIKA
SOSNOWSKA: BROKEN GLASS DIRT AND DUST
2 DEC-15 JAN 25, TIMES VARY
Sculptural works exploring architectural entropy, inspired by the structural and societal changes that occurred in the shift from pre- to post-Soviet Poland.
Tramway
LEONE ROSS: DIRTY DANCING FLOWERS
1 DEC-23 MAR 25, TIMES VARY
Words act as the building blocks for a series of paintings and prints that explore the interplay between image and text in vibrant, experimental ways.
MAUD SULTER
1 DEC-30 MAR 25, TIMES VARY An immersive exhibition by the Scottish-Ghanaian poet, artist, photographer, writer, curator, gallerist and publisher whose work sought to claim space for Black Artists and address the erasure and representation of Black Women in art.
Edinburgh Art &Gallery
ANNUAL WINTER
EXHIBITION
7-21 DEC, TIMES VARY
Featuring one artwork from each artist represented by the gallery, this show showcases work across a variety of media.
City Art Centre INKED UP: PRINTMAKING IN SCOTLAND
1 DEC-1 JUN 25, TIMES VARY A survey of the historic versatility and experimentation in Scottish printmaking practices.
-9
VARY
Examining the intersection between popular culture and contemporary figure drawings, this exhibition explores and subverts the traditional distinction between high and low art.
THROUGH LINE
1 DEC-2 FEB 25, TIMES
VARY
The culmination of a series of four group exhibitions at the City Art Centre featuring the work of nine artists including David Connearn, Ian Hamilton Finlay, and Andrew Lamb, spotlighting contemporary art and craft practice in Scotland.
Collective Gallery PASS SHADOW, WHISPER SHADE
1-22 DEC, 10:00AM –5:00PM
A group show by artists in the 2024 Satellites Programme exploring ideas of inheritance and legacy.
Dovecot
Studios
STITCHED: SCOTLAND’S
EMBROIDERED ART
2 DEC-18 JAN 25, 10:00AM – 5:00PM
A new exhibition in collaboration with the National Trust for Scotland brings together an extraordinary collection of their embroidered textiles.
PTOLEMY MANN
2 DEC-15 MAR 25, 10:00AM – 5:00PM
A groundbreaking exhibition marrying intricate techniques of hand-weaving with vibrant, expressive painting.
Edinburgh Printmakers
HOPE/DÒCHAS
1 DEC-16 MAR 25, 11:00AM – 4:00PM
An exhibition of work by the Edinburgh Printmakers’ Members Community.
Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop
ETCHINGROOM1: WHAT A WONDERFUL DAY IN A WONDERFUL WORLD
2 DEC-1 MAR 25, 11:00AM – 5:00PM
A collaboration between Ukrainian artists Kristina Yarosh and Anna Khodkova, this mural articulates the artists’ experiences of conflict and their strategies for resilience.
Fruitmarket
BARRY LE VA: IN A STATE OF FLUX
1 DEC-2 FEB 25, 10:00AM – 6:00PM
The first retrospective since the artist’s death in 2021, this exhibition is a survey from the 1960s to his last works, exploring the particular relationship between drawing and sculpture across his work.
Ingleby Gallery
STILL DANCING...NEW ADVENTURES IN NONREPRESENTATIONAL PAINTING & SCULPTURE
4-20 DEC, 11:00AM –
5:00PM
Following a stint at The Armoury Show in New York, this exhibition arrives in Edinburgh, exploring the significance and potential of abstraction.
Museum of Edinburgh
TAPE LETTERS
1 DEC-23 FEB 25, 10:00AM – 5:00PM
A project exploring practices of sending messages on cassette tape as an unorthodox method of communication by Pakistani migrants between 1960-1980.
Open Eye Gallery
EDINBURGH ENVIRONS
3-21 DEC, TIMES VARY
A group exhibition exploring the landscape of Edinburgh.
ALBERTO MORROCCO
3-21 DEC, TIMES VARY
A retrospective of paintings by the seminal 20th-century Scottish artist.
Royal Botanic Garden
FUNGI FORMS
2-7 DEC, 10:00AM –
6:00PM
An exploration of the biological and cultural presence of fungi, told through music, literature, fashion, design, scent and visual art.
Royal Scottish Academy RSA BENNO SCHOTZ AND A SCOTS MISCELLANY
1 DEC-19 JAN 25, TIMES VARY
Showcasing the work of Scottish-Estonian artist Benno Schotz alongside the work of other artists who made Scotland their home over the decades.
THE CHRISTMAS SHOW
1-22 DEC, TIMES VARY
A wide selection of work by Royal Scottish Academicians, many of which are available to purchase.
Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art WOMEN IN REVOLT! ART AND ACTIVISM IN THE UK 1970–1990
1 DEC-26 JAN 25
10:00AM – 5:00PM
Fresh off a stint at Tate Britain, this exhibition documents two decades of seismic social and political change and the art that emerged from and challenged the ensuing culture.
EVERLYN NICODEMUS
1 DEC-25 MAY 25, 10:00AM – 5:00PM
The first ever retrospective exhibition by landmark Edinburgh artist, whose joyful artworks explore and resist the global oppression of women and the profound impact of racism.
Stills
JESS HOLDENGARDE: GLIMMER
7 DEC-8 FEB 25
12:00PM – 5:00PM Camera, body, light, silver, and sound come together to explore how photographic practice can encapsulate moments of transition.
Talbot Rice
Gallery
GUADALUPE MARAVILLA: PIEDRAS DE FUEGO (FIRE STONES)
2 DEC-15 FEB 25, TIMES
VARY
Sculptures, paintings and murals explore narratives of healing and recovery, drawing on global healing and shamanic practices.
GABRIELLE GOLIATH: PERSONAL ACCOUNTS
2 DEC-15 FEB 25, TIMES
VARY
This first solo exhibition in the UK by South African artist Gabrielle Goliath uses video and sound installations to explore decolonial and Black feminist projects of repair.
Dundee
Art
Cooper Gallery THE IGNORANT ART SCHOOL: SIT-IN #4: OUTSIDE THE CIRCLE
2 DEC-1 FEB 25, TIMES
VARY
Sit-in #4: Outside the Circle, is an exhibition and public event series inspired by and generated from feminist and queer movements since the beginning of the 20th century.
DCA: Dundee
Contemporary
Arts
HELEN CAMMOCK + INGRID POLLARD + CAMARA TAYLOR: SOFT IMPRESSIONS
7 DEC-23 MAR 25, TIMES
VARY
Print works by three landmark artists examine artistic practices as a means of responding to identity and re-thinking historical narratives through soft, poetic actions.
Generator
Projects
BELLADONNA
PALOMA: THE GRAVE IN FULL VIGOUR
1-15 DEC, 12:00PM –5:00PM
Half-show, half-reading event, this exhibition by Shetland-based artist is devoted to the divine and abject nature of the trans body.
V&A Dundee
KIMONO: KYOTO TO CATWALK
1 DEC-5 JAN 25, 10:00AM – 5:00PM
Part-fashion survey, partexploration on material culture, this exhibition traces the history of the kimono from 17th-century Japan to contemporary runways.
A FRAGILE
CORRESPONDENCE
1-30 DEC, 10:00AM –5:00PM
The Scotland commission from the 2023 Venice Architecture Biennale arrives in Dundee, examining the fascinating connection between land, language, and architecture.
Glasgow venues round-up: December 2024
Ahead of the festive season, we look at some of the best food spots that have popped up recently around Glasgow
Words: Tara Hepburn
BRUNSWICK CELLARS
239 SAUCHIEHALL ST, G2 3EZ
Brunswick Cellars is the newest addition to the Glasgow nightlife scene but don’t be confused if the name rings a few bells. The original Brunswick Cellars occupied the very same spot ten years ago, closing its doors in 2014. A decade later and it has been given a new lease of life by Skye Live Festival’s Ali McFly. The room is relatively small but well-equipped for noise and now more than punches above its weight on visuals and lighting. It’s a refreshing burst of energy in the Sauchiehall Street area – open Thursdays to Saturdays until 3am, it has hosted a variety of club nights since opening earlier in the year. Musically, Brunswick does all kinds of stuff, from vinyl-only nights to Freshers Week parties and the club’s regular night Trace. Hosted by Chris Curtis, Trace is as musically open-minded as the Brunswick Cellars itself as Curtis is joined by a different guest DJ each time, meaning no two Trace nights are the same.
HOUSE OF GODS
65 GLASSFORD ST, G1 1UP
In the past year Glasgow’s hospitality development has trended upwards, with fairylit bars and popular restaurants taking up residence on rooftop spaces around the city. House of Gods has carved out a niche for itself in this area with a rooftop bar that you can visit all year round. The secret garden sits on the hotel’s roof but is basically a glass box, offering views over the city centre and serving a crowd-pleasing menu of cocktails made with the kind of care you’d expect from a luxury hotel. Which is what House of Gods is – an elegant hotel with rooms styled like Orient Express cabins, and a butler service to bring guests milk and cookies at the touch of a button. Still, the bars in this hotel have become a Glasgow destination in their own right, from the dark wood cosiness of the downstairs bar (particularly stylish when decked out for Christmas) to the light and floral rooftop restaurant.
MARGO
68 MILLER ST, G1 1DT
Margo is the long-awaited latest venture from the team behind two of Glasgow’s most popular restaurants: Ox and Finch and Ka Pao. Occupying a large space on Miller Street, this stylish spot is the team’s first venture outside of the West End. A former library, the high-ceilinged space is cleverly used, with a mezzanine dining level and high side tables. The menu focuses on locally sourced ingredients and seasonal produce,
with a desire to do as much in-house as possible. Margo even do a bit of in-house butchery. The result is a seriously accomplished menu; from the salty, crackly focaccia right through to the short dessert menu – the chocolate nemesis comes highly recommended – there is so much to enjoy here. The menu is designed to share, mainly small plates, with a few show-stopping big plates such as whole lemon sole or sirloin served on the bone. Some menu highlights include: crab tart, beetroot tortelloni, charred pumpkin and a simple but delicious roasted broccoli with almonds. If there was a bad dish on the menu, we couldn’t find it.
SEBB'S
68B MILLER ST, G1 1DT
It’s hard to mention Margo without mentioning Sebb's, the cool cocktail bar which lurks downstairs and opened within a few weeks of the restaurant. The two make for good neighbours with some crossover vibes, particularly in the neatness of this basement bar’s aesthetic. This is another stylish place, warm-toned and dimly lit with beautiful glassware. Their menu is similarly considered, but this time it’s the cocktails that take centre stage. The list is innovative, and staff are keen for customers to sample their in-house creations. The cherry sour is particularly good, as is the chip shop martini (a more pickly twist on a traditional Gibson). There’s a pretty fulsome food menu too – think elevated bar bites – all cooked up in a busy open kitchen.
Sebb's
The Skinny On... John-Luke Roberts
2024 Besties winner and gloriously silly comedian John-Luke Roberts chats colours, crackle and crying ahead of his festive fête at Monkey Barrel this month
What’s your favourite place to visit and why?
My grandparents’ old cottage in the countryside –it feels like safety. I know this is publicising a comedy show, but I think my answers are largely going to be sincere – rest assured though, the show is very funny.
Favourite food and why?
Ramen, I think. Edible, drinkable, it’s every type of meal in one. It’s even got an e in it, which means it’s technically also breakfast.
Favourite colour and why?
Big fan of colours generally, especially bright ones. If I had to narrow it down to one I’d maybe go with a nice, warm yellow (because I am looking at my nice, warm yellow sofa). I’m very fond of seafoam, but that’s my ex-spouse’s favourite colour, so I’m worried that my attachment to the colour might just be a slightly toxic way of keeping a wound open. Yeah, on second thoughts, fuck seafoam! Seafoam broke my heart!
Who was your hero growing up? Not seafoam, that’s for damn sure.
Whose work inspires you now? Sisyphus. What a trooper.
What three people would you invite to your dinner party and what are you cooking?
I would invite Snap, Crackle and Pop. I would prepare a bowl of Crunchy Nut cornflakes, just to see the looks on their faces. Huh, maybe the answers *aren’t* going to be sincere.
What’s your all time favourite album? The Soundtrack to Austin Powers: The Spy Who Sha ed Me
What’s the worst film you’ve ever seen? It would be a dead heat between Man of Steel and Prometheus, but I first saw Man of Steel in the cinema ON MY BIRTHDAY, so that pips it.
Who or what makes you laugh the most?
I once spent half an hour laughing at an aubergine. I don’t know why – it was quite a normal-looking aubergine. I then felt very resentful, because I’d spent quite a lot of money on training at clown school, and here was a completely untrained vegetable knocking it out the park.
Who’s the worst?
I can’t pick just one, that’s not fair.
When did you last cry?
I cry all the time, but I’ve just realised I haven’t cried for a few weeks actually, so the first thing I’ll do when I finished writing this is make myself cry.
What are you most scared of?
I was thinking about what the scariest thing would be, and I thought “well people are really scared of snakes and spiders, so a snake with spider’s legs would be the scariest thing ever” but actually, on reflection, I think that would be less scary than both. Spiders are maybe scary because they have so many legs, and snakes are maybe scary because they don’t have any – so combining them would cancel them out and create the least scary creature ever.
When did you last vomit and why?
I think it was a good few years ago, after eating a steak tartare in Portugal. The weather was too good for raw steak to be a good idea.
Tell us a secret? No.
Which celebrity could you take in a fight? Elmo, depending how strong the person whose hand he’s on is.
If you could be reincarnated as an animal, which animal would it be?
For sure a bird of some kind. I was thinking an eagle, but on second thoughts, a little bird might be better. I could flit about more and people would leave me food in tubes in the garden.
What’s your favourite plant? Big old trees.
What’s your least favourite thing of 2024? The sense of encroaching doom. OK, I’m gonna cry now.
