The Skinny December 2022

The Skinny's songs of 2022

Lizzo — 2 Be Loved (Am I Ready)

Rina Sawayama — Catch Me in the Air

Sylvan Esso — Echo Party

LCD Soundsystem — new body rhumba

Beyoncé — BREAK MY SOUL

Young Fathers — I Saw

Joesef — East End Coast

Ma ie Rogers — That's Where I Am

Tom K McCarthy — Stay Still

Charli XCX — Beg For You (feat. Rina Sawayama)

The Minions — Cecilia Pixey — Recycled Paper Planes

Nova Twins — Antagonist

Eliza Rose & Interplanetary Criminal — B.O.T.A. (Baddest of Them All)

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be re produced in whole or in part without the explicit permission of the publisher. The views and opinions expressed within this publication do not necessarily represent the views or opinions of the printer or the publisher.

Printed by DC Thomson & Co. Ltd, Dundee ABC verified Jan – Dec 2019: 28,197 printed on 100% recycled paper

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Meet the

Championing creativity in Scotland

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Last Christmas Last Christmas. We go to see the atrocious actual film Last Christmas and nearly get kicked out for laughing too hard at how bad it is. Some one complains to the ushers twice (this Christmas, and, wait for it, last Christmas because we see it two years in a row)."

"The Santa Clause 4, where I finally kill Tim Allen. Just to drive the message home, I would probably cast Tim himself to play me, making a Gemini Man style action with a holiday twist."

"It's

Production

Anahit Behrooz Events Editor, Books Editor

would play me and Oscar Isaac would play my boyfriend in an untitled postmodern meta rom-com where he is my actual boyfriend. xx"

Rosamund West Editor-in-Chief

A Castle for Christmas, Brooke Shields plays a bestselling author who journeys to Scotland, where she falls in love with a castle, Dun Dunbar -- and faces off with the grumpy duke who owns it."

Jamie Dunn

Film Editor, Online Journalist "Over and Dunn With: handsome but miser able bastard Jamie Dunn (played by Brad Pitt – de-aged using The Irishman technol ogy) is visited by three ghosts who show him he’s a miserable bastard, but he doesn’t care as he looks like a young Brad Pitt."

Polly Glynn Comedy Editor

Lewis Robertson Digital Editorial Assistant

Peter Simpson

Digital Editor, Food & Drink Editor

panic and greenlight a Christmassy sequel to Ryan Reynolds action vehicle

6 Underground. Due to a clerical error, I have a small walk-on part as myself."

Eilidh Akilade Intersections Editor "Redacted."

Rho Chung Theatre Editor

"Christmas Clown: A found footage mockumentary in which a filmmaker (played by me) must research and escape from a killer Christmas clown (also played by me)."

Sandy Park Commercial Director "Tom Hanks. And he can call it whatever he wants."

Tom McCarthy Creative Projects Manager

a Wonderfully Muppetley Life stars me as George Bailey with every other role played by one of the muppets. Ernie from Seasame Street plays Bert the policeman and Bert the muppet plays Ernie the cab driver."

George Sully Sales and Brand Strategist "Jack Whitehall as a tryhard ad exec who learns the true meaning of Christmas by writing increasingly contrived jingles for adverts, in: Jingles All the Ways."

Heléna Stanton Clubs Editor

"Mistletoe Spritz, directed by Edgar Wright. Playing me is Dua Lipa starring across from Simon Pe ."

Harvey Dimond Art Editor "Redacted."

Laurie Presswood General Manager

"Midnight Maths the tale of a belea guered GM who has to get the annual accounts in by Christmas or lose the family business. Classic enemies-to-lovers snafu with the HMRC antagonist. I am played by Barbra Streisand in Meet the Fockers."

team

We asked – What is the title of the Netflix Christmas film of your life and who's playing you?

Editorial Sales

Business

Tallah Brash Music Editor

"Work Hard Or Die Trying, Girl, a Christmas musical combining Die Hard and its “sassy sister film” Work ing Girl. Yes, it’s the plot of an episode of Bob’s Burgers. Carrie Brownstein would play me in the lead role."

Dalila D'Amico Art Director, Production Manager "Elf played by an Elf bar."

Phoebe Willison Designer

"Love Actually, but all the characters are played by me (except the one who get's kb'd by Keira Knightley because that is a riddy I will not have any part in)."

Editorial

Words: Rosamund West

As we approach the end of the year you find us in a reflective mood, thinking back to this time in 2021 when the emergence of Omicron led to another wave of venue closures and our January issue became largely inaccurate within hours of the print deadline. Things feel more likely to continue happening now, at least. If you can say one thing for 2022, it’s that things actually happened. A lot of things happened; the lettuce ruled supreme.

Looking back on the year in culture, we’ve got a load of lists of our favourite things. The Music team have diligently compiled their top tens, which Music editor Tallah has then compiled into one ur-top-ten to convey a perfect distillation of all music in 2022. Turn to page 20 for a thrilling countdown to the much-desired title of The Skinny Album of 2022. I haven’t spoken to the winner personally, but I can confidently say that this will be the pinnacle of their career.

We then have a look back on what’s happened in music in Scotland over the course of the last 12 months, alongside a snapshot of the top specifically-Scottish releases we’ve enjoyed this year. In a tribute to one of those we’ve lost, we have an obituary of Low’s Mimi Parker, who passed away while we were making this magazine.

The Film team have also been voting, and have compiled their Films of 2022, in a list that takes in work from Korea, Iran, Ireland, the USA and Norway as well as one particular standout from round here. They’re also sharing the releases they feel didn’t get the attention they deserved in the underrated films of the year.

Continuing our year-in-review, the Comedy writers have their funniest things of 2022, Books has a round-up of their top releases, and in Clubs Jamz Supernova drops by to talk through what 2022 has meant to her.

Getting momentarily festive, our centre pages feature a beautiful pull-out-and-use sheet of wrapping paper designed by the very talented Caroline Dowsett. You can of course use any of our pages to wrap presents, but this one will look the most considered. Our Design column takes a tour of Scotland to draw together a gift list highlighting work for interiors by a variety of internationally-renowned designers and makers.

Art takes a look at a pair of exhibitions which continue through winter. Nira Pereg’s Patriarchs at Talbot Rice Gallery documents the Cave of the Patriarchs, a site sacred to both Judaism and Islam in Hebron, a city in the occupied Palestinian territory of the West Bank. In Glasgow’s Hunterian, Elizabeth Price’s first solo Scottish show UNDERFOOT explores social history featuring work in video and a recreation of the Mitchell Library carpets of the 1980s.

Corsage, a new interpretation of the life of Empress Elisabeth of Austria, arrives in cinemas this month. We meet Austrian director Marie Kreutzer to discuss the making of, modern celebrity and dog wrangling. We also meet Alexandre O. Philippe to hear about his new documentary Lynch/Oz, and why his work is about why movies matter.

Intersections shares one writer’s meditation on connection with Jewish faith and building unconventional traditions in a new home. We also meet the founders of Transgiving UK to hear more about bringing joy and connection to trans communities this festive season.

In the second instalment of our new regular Comedy column, Vittorio Angelone imagines his Dream Gig. We close the magazine with a nod to one of the year’s comedy highlights. Our final Q&A of 2022 is The Skinny on… Mr Chonkers, who submit ted his responses with the promising words “Quite deranged. However, I am as well.” Farewell, 2022.

Cover Artist

Lizzie Lomax is an illustrator living in Brighton. She works with mixed media collage, drawing and painting which she creates digitally. She works in editorial, publishing, design and advertising, and also runs Seed Magazeen, a magazine for kids who care about the environment.

lizzielomax.co.uk

I: lizzielomaxx

Mondays smelled of sweet and sour sauce, spring onions and ginger. The kitchen warmed with steam that escaped the rice cooker, one that had been part of our family since before I was born. I would watch Apaw (Granny) wash the rice under the cold stream of the tap until the water ran clear. She’d use the length of her finger to measure how much water it needed. Half a knuckle.

I make the rice now, measuring it in fistfuls and rinsing it more times than necessary, until my hands are red and painfully cold. I dip my finger in, making sure that the water level is perfect. Rice is easy to get wrong. If it’s right, a double thumbs-up. If it’s wrong, Apaw will laugh and hold up her finger to me, pointing to where the water should come to.

For next time, she says while taking my hand in hers. Our hands are different in size, shape and colour. Hers wizened from years of buttoning her children and grandchildren into soft babygrows and wringing the necks of fat ducks before roasting them as a young girl in Hong Kong.

I’m removed from Apaw’s culture in every way apart from food; measuring it like this reminds me of how she learned to – in a tiny village, from her mother, and her mother from hers. Apaw communicates with us through food. She opened a Chinese takeaway that fed a community and subsequently, my family. Making rice with only the measurements of her own hands is something she’s always done. Never used numbers. Never written it down. Apaw carried that knowledge thousands of miles in the length of her fingers. We have a lot to thank for Apaw’s cooking. So, I’ll teach my friends to measure rice this way. I’ll teach my children.

Heads Up

2022 is almost winding up but, before you hang it up for good, make the most of the last few gigs, exhibitions and all-out parties of the year.

Compiled by Anahit Behrooz

nor the

The latest in Collective’s groundbreaking Satellites Programme, nei ther the West nor the East can be a determinate location is a com plex, multimedia installation drawing on handmade paper, found objects, scent, and ceramic sculptures to interrogate the West’s co lonial impositions on Hong Kong through an examination of the gal lery’s historical and geographical legacies atop Calton Hill.

AMPLIFI

The Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh, 7 Dec, 8pm AMPLIFI, the award-winning music programme curated by Arusa Qureshi and Halina Rifai, is now in its second season, with a whole new lineup of stunning artists to discover. The last of their 2022 gigs sees Queen of Harps, a Scotland-based artist blending spoken word with harp compositions, Colombian-American soprano Steph anie Lamprea and Glasgow-based composer Sagnick Mukherjee take to the stage.

Bethlehem Cultural Festival

Various venues, Glasgow, 2–4 Dec

What could be more festive than the place where Je sus himself was born. Bethlehem Cultural Festival is a celebration of the arts, culture and heritage of Pal estine, with a packed programme of screenings, work shops and performances. Highlights from the pro gramme include a spoken word evening with the likes of Tasneim Zyada and Iyad Hayatleh and a pro gramme of Palestinian shorts curated by Sarah Agha and Wisam Al Jafari.

Endless Love Creative Makers Market

Fruitmarket, Edinburgh, 4 Dec, 10am

An Edinburgh Christmas Carol

Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh, until 31 Dec

This Edinburgh-edition of the beloved Dickens story brings the tale of festive redemption back to its roots, to the city that inspired Dickens in the first place. Blending puppetry (not quite the Muppets, but close) with live actors, An Edinburgh Christmas Carol takes us through the streets of the frosty Old Town to redis cover an old favourite in a whole new light.

Extra Teeth: Issue Six Launch

The Portobello Bookshop, Edinburgh, 7 Dec, 7pm

Nothing says cosy winter night like being snu led in with a good book. Take this to the next level with the launch of Issue Six of legendary Scottish literary mag azine Extra Teeth at the beautiful Portobello Book shop. With readings from contributors Miles Green wood, Alexandra Ye and Amanda Thomson, wine from Smith and Gertrude, and plenty of good vibes, this is the perfect way to kickstart your holiday reading.

Christmas at GFT

Glasgow Film Theatre, Glasgow, 13–27 Dec

Is it even Christmas if you haven’t watched It’s a Wonderful Life or, let’s be real, Elf. Glasgow Film Theatre returns this December with its eclectic, and at times truly bananas, collection of Christmas films: have your cockles warmed by Greta Gerwig’s Little Women, catch the rerelease of Ingmar Bergman’s classic Fanny and Alexan der, or go truly leftfield with screenings of Eyes Wide Shut or Bat man Returns.

Lost Map’s Christmas Humbug

The Old Hairdresser's, Glasgow, 16 Dec; Summerhall, Edinburgh, 17 Dec

The Berkeley Suite, Glasgow 26 Dec, 11pm

Denis Sulta Boxing Night

Andrew Wasylyk

V&A Dundee, Dundee, 6 Dec, 7pm

Andrew Wasylyk

Endless Love Creative

Denis Sulta

Maranta for Lost Map Christmas Humbug

Image: courtesy of Endless

Love Creative

Photo: Fraser Simpson

Image: courtesy of FLY

Katherine Ka Yi Liu 廖加怡: neither the West

East can be a determinate location

Collective Gallery, Edinburgh, 3 Dec–26 Feb 2023

Queen of Harps at AMPLIFI

Fanny and Alexander, screening at Christmas at GFT

Christmas

EHFM: anu + Mixed Feelings

Sneaky Pete’s, Edinburgh, 3 Dec, 11pm

It’s only appropriate that EHFM wind up a glorious year with guest DJ anu, one of the UK’s buzziest upand-coming radio DJs, known for her fortnightly Soup to Nuts show on NTS and her residency on the BBC Asian Network. Spinning the decks in EHFM’s last 2022 club night, anu will be bringing her signature vibey mix of dreampop, Bollywood-inspired beats, and dance-y hip-hop.

The Skinny 200th Issue Party

Summerhall, Edinburgh, 1 Dec, 8pm

We’re throwing a party! We’re so excited! There will be performances from top secret dream acts that we can promise are a doozy, cake from our beloved neigh bours Lovecrumbs, an exclusive The Skinny brew courtesy of Barney’s Beer, and money being raised throughout the night for mental health charity Tiny Changes. We’ve sold out of tickets online (we’re very popular) but there will be extra tickets on the door –don’t miss out!

FUTUREPROOF

Street Level Photoworks, Glasgow, until 29 Jan 2023

Returning for its 14th year, FUTUREPROOF is an annual exhibition celebrating groundbreaking photographic work from degree shows across the country’s art schools and universities. Normally solely housed at Stills in Edinburgh, this year sees the exhibition split be tween the capital and Street Level Photoworks in Glasgow, allowing for an even broader look at the unique and diverse practices emerg ing across Scotland.

CMAT

The Garage Glasgow, Glasgow, 5 Dec, 7pm

CMAT’s debut album If My Wife New I’d Be Dead ex ploded earlier this year, marking out a voracious new talent in the indie-pop landscape. The Dublin sing er-songwriter leans into rather than away from genre, blending and subverting familiar genres: her song I Wanna Be a Cowboy, Baby is a delightfully witty take on country pop, while Peter Bogdanovich melds a modern sensibility with a delicious twang.

Matthew Arthur Williams: Soon Come

DCA, Dundee, 10 Dec–26 Mar 2023

A new body of work by Glasgow-based artist Matthew Arthur Williams, this exhibition emerges from the close collaborative practices Williams builds with those around him, exploring themes of visibility, care, memory, and representation through a subversive take on portraiture and photography.

Incorporating sound and film installations, Soon Come forms an archive that queries the positionality of Black, queer identities.

Optimo (Espacio) Hogmanay 2022 Room 2, Glasgow, 31 Dec, 11pm

Beloved Scottish DJ legends Optimo (Espacio) return to their hometown for their semi-regular New Year’s Eve party. Having been filling Scotland’s venues since the 90s with their irresistible brand of house, there are very few other DJs that can guarantee such a good night – get 2023 off to a flying start in the best way.

The Beirut Groove Collective X Majazz Project Leith Arches, Edinburgh, 4 Dec, 8pm

Talisk Summerhall, Edinburgh, 11 Dec, 7:30pm

Samedia Shebeen Hogmanay Tropical Soundclash

La Belle Angele, Edinburgh, 31 Dec, 11pm Tommy Lefroy SWG3, Glasgow, 8 Dec, 7pm

Samedia Shebeen Talisk

Image: courtesy of artist

All details were correct at the time of writing, but are subject to change. Please check organisers’ websites for up to date information.

Photo: sumcoopics

Image: courtesy of artists

Tommy Lefroy

Mo'min (Majazz Project) and Ernesto (Beirut Groove Collective)

Photo: Agnieszka Straburzynska-Glaner

Image: courtesy of EHFM

Photo: Sarah Doyle

Photo: Matthew Arthur Williams

Photo: David Moffat

Photo: Sasha Gartside

Knudsen, courtesy of

Street Level Photoworks

FUTUREPROOF

The Skinny 200th issue Party

Matthew Arthur Williams at the DCA

CMAT

anu

Optimo

What's On

Music

Firstly, let’s talk about the elephant in the room, The Skinny-shaped elephant, that is. ICYMI, we are throwing a big 200th Issue Party on 1 December at Summerhall to belatedly celebrate 200 issues of our lovely publication. On the night there will be three rooms of excellent live music (one curated by new Edinburgh zine Chün) that we can’t tell you about until the night. Soz. And we’re raising money for Tiny Changes in the process. You should come.

Other celebratory events taking place in December include the Lost Map Christmas HUMBUG! shows at Glasgow’s The Old Hairdresser’s (16 Dec) with Catgut, Maranta, Brenda, Fell and Sulka, and Edinburgh’s Summerhall(17 Dec), with live sets from Ballboy, Martha, Susan Bear, Fell, Alliyah Enyo, Former Champ and L.T. Leif. Tommy Reilly’s All Star Christmas returns too for its seventh outing, taking place at The Rum Shack on 22 December.

Earlier in the month, the Scottish Alternative Music Awards return to Glasgow’s St. Luke’s (8 Dec) to celebrate the talents of Scotland’s alternative music scene. On the night there will be live performances from VLURE, The Honey Farm and Becky Sikasa, the latter of whom is nominated in this year’s Best Acoustic category alongside the likes of Linzi Clark and Lewis McLaughlin. Other nominees include Psweatpants, Dutch Wine, AiiTee, Kaputt, Brooke Combe, Tzusan and Uninvited who, incidentally, you can catch live on the same night at King Tut’s.

Less celebratory, but still worth shouting about, The Cure roll into town with local lads The Twilight Sad in tow for a huge arena show at the OVO Hydro on the 4th, while on the same night Mykki Blanco plays The Garage, clipping. play La Belle Angele and Eyes of Others plays Sneaky Pete’s. The night before in Edinburgh, you’ll catch Glaswegian upstarts Humour celebrat ing their debut EP at Sneaky’s, while on 7 December AMPLIFI returns to The Queen’s Hall with performances from Queen of Harps, Stephanie Lamprea and Sagnick Mukherjee.

Also in Edinburgh, The Beta Band’s Steve Mason plays The Caves (14 Dec), local shoegaze newcomers No Windows play Sneaky Pete’s (15 Dec) and Mogwai play Usher Hall (21 Dec) as part of a tour which also stops by Aberdeen’s Music Hall (20 Dec) and Glasgow’s Barrowlands (22-23 Dec). Glasgow also welcomes tours this month from Canada’s BADBADNOTGOOD (QMU, 13 Dec), NewDad (King Tut’s, 19 Dec), Joey Bada$$ (O2 Academy, 20 Dec) and Idlewild (O2 Academy, 21 Dec), while Be Charlotte makes a return to the live stage this month too, with an intimate show at Dundee’s Gallery 48 on the 15th. [Tallah Brash]

Film

I hope you like Christmas films, because there’s not much else to feast your eyes on this month. All the old favourites are being dusted off but there are also a few little-seen Christmas movies among the stalwarts.

Glasgow Film Theatre go heavy on the classics. You know the ones: there’s a pair of heart-soaring cry-fests featuring angels – It’s A Wonderful Life (9-24 Dec) and The Bishop’s Wife (16-24 Dec) – the glorious musical Meet Me in St. Louis (16-21 Dec) and The Muppet Christmas Carol (18-23 Dec), a film whose brilliance isn’t compromised by this new release adding extra

All

Photo: Craig R McIntosh

Photo: Rory Barnes

Photo:

Humour No Windows

Alliyah Enyo

whimsy in the form of the previously cut ballad When Love is Gone.

There are some more leftfield Xmas choices among these classics though, like Batman Returns (17-21) and Die Hard (16 Dec), and we’re chuffed to see recent Skinny faves like Tangerine (22 Dec) Carol (13 & 15 Dec) and Little Women (23-27 Dec) now firmly part of GFT’s Christmas canon. And if you like your Christmas movies on the dreamy side, there are two corkers in GFT’s lineup: Ingmar Bergman’s epic Fanny and Alexander (18-21 Dec) and the nightmarish Eyes Wide Shut (16-18 Dec) by Stanley Kubrick.

Dundee Contemporary Arts have the first two Home Alones films (17 Dec) – if you hadn’t realised they were carbon copies of one another, it should be pretty obvious in this double-bill format. The ubiquitous Die Hard (17-18 Dec), The Bishop’s Wife (19-20 Dec), It’s a Wonderful Life (18-24 Dec), and The Muppet Christmas Carol (22-24 Dec) are also on the menu.

Queen’s Park in Glasgow are putting on some Christmas films too, but fear not, they aren’t asking you to watch movies alfresco in December. They’re taking to the Bri ait with family faves like Elf (16 Dec), The Grinch (17 Dec) and The Nightmare Before Christmas (18 Dec). Best of all, these screenings are free.

Cameo in Edinburgh has a fun and slightly more eclectic selection that features Edward Scissorhands (12 Dec) and Gremlins (19 Dec), with Phantom Thread (31 Dec) thrown in as a Hogmanay treat for good measure. And if it’s a properly dark Christmas you’re after, Cameo have you covered with their Holiday Horror-a-thon (10 Dec), featuring a trio of 80s films in which psy chotic Santas run amok: Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984), Christmas Evil (1980) and Deadly Games (1989). [Jamie Dunn]

Clubs

December starts off with a Dekmantel weekender with 14 artists across Room 2 and La Cheetah. The lineup includes Marcel Dettmann, Objekt and mad miran (2-3 Dec). Subclub hosts the legendary label Numbers for a 5am license party, with Rustie (his first show in five years), OK Williams, Marie Davidson and Spencer. On Saturday 3 December at The Liquid Room, Frazi.er invites Irish techno artist Tommy Holohan, while at Sneaky Pete’s EHFM have NTS’s Anu.

Midweek picks include Edinburgh’s Sneaky Pete’s and Manchester’s Interplanetary Criminal (5 Dec). Bloodsport returns on 8 December with Oakland-based Technopagan and Parisian Dr Dr4kken at The Berkeley Suite in Glasgow.

On 10 December, Stereo presents Samurai Breaks with DJ Soyboi, a big night full of Breaks, Footwork and Jungle. Over at The Berkeley Suite, Loose Joints invites Elena Colombi, a DJ with mind-altering intensity and tone.

Friday 16 December is a busy night in Glasgow, Techno heavyweights DJ Smoker and VTSS are at SWG3, while Dubstep legend Kode9 is at The Berkeley Suite. Over at Sub Club, Eclair Fifi & Afrodeutsche go B2B. On 17 December, Headset’s Gay Garage lands at Stereo – line-up includes Skillis, VAJ.Power, Wheelman, Xivro.

powerpot at La Cheetah bring Christmas a little early with Narciss, a DJ with an edge for unpredictable sets (21 Dec). La La returns to Sneaky Pete’s all night long on the 22nd. Missing Persons Club invite horsegiirL and MRD to Berkeley Suite (bold horsegiirL + MRD)(28 Dec), while Yung Singh is at Sub Club for Magic City (29 Dec). FLY closes out 2022 at The Caves with Jezz Simpson, Gaz Miller & more. Plenty of parties remain unannounced for NYE, in Glasgow, Edinburgh and Dundee – this is worth keeping an eye on. [Heléna Stanton]

Art

In Edinburgh, Talbot Rice is currently displaying a trio of exhibitions (until 18 Feb). Qiu Zhijie’s series of ink paintings accompany an atmospheric installa tion that evokes an archaeological dig, while Nira Pereg’s video work Patriarchs explores the contentious Jerusalem pilgrimage site Al-Haram Al-Ibrahimi, or the Cave of Machpelah, and Lara Favaretto presents largescale sculptural installations.

At Fruitmarket, Andrew Gannon’s exhibition Impressions (from 10 Dec) reframes ‘the possibilities and purpose of human prosthetics’ through a series of sculptures cast from the artist’s own arm. Opposite, City Art Centre is exhibiting Glean: Early 20th Century women filmmakers and photogra phers in Scotland, curated by Jenny Brownri , as well as two more exhibi tions of the works of photographers Paul Duke (until 19 Feb) and Ron O’Donnell (until 5 Mar).

Opening 3 December, Collective presents a new exhibition by artist-cu rator Katherine Ka Yi Liu 廖加怡 as part of their Satellites Programme. nei ther the West nor the East can be a determinate location is a multisensory installation which interrogates and challenges the Western, Eurocentric frameworks that have been imposed on Hong Kong through text works,

Gremlins

Eyes Wide

Elena Colombi

Photo: Clarissa Ceci

VTSS

Detail of Three Flat-Topped Hills At Dusk Qiu Zhijie

Photo: Marta Michalak

Image: courtesy of the artist

Drawing Limb, Still Life. Jonnie Peacock’s Leg (after Matisse) Andrew Gannon

Photo: courtesy of Chris Scott

handmade paper, found objects, scents, ceramic sculptures and silver casts.

In Glasgow, at the CCA, Roger Palmer’s exhibition The Tooth of History (until 23 Dec) features new photographs and paintings largely created during the 2020 lockdowns. Nearby, Glasgow School of Art Exhibitions present a solo show by Mhairi Killin, On Sonorous Seas (until 17 Dec), in collaboration with Fergus Hall, Tom deMajo, Miek Zwamborn and Susie Leiper

In Dundee, curator and artist Cat Dunn presents Bacchanal – Le We Be Free (until 4 Feb), at the Lamb Gallery, University of Dundee. The exhibition centres on a drum created by artist Ashanti Harris for a recent performance, along with artworks and archival material relating to carnivals in the Caribbean and in Dundee. [Harvey Dimond]

Theatre

In addition to the usual smorgasbord of pantomime, December is bursting at the seams with inviting holiday theatre for audiences of all ages.

On the pantomime front, a wide variety of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs adaptations, new and old, are popping up all over Scotland. Edinburgh Festival Theatre’s production runs 17 December-22 January, St. Andrew’s Byre Theatre is running an adaptation by Gordon Barr 1-31 December, and Dundee’s Whitehall Theatre has Graeme Neil Smith’s version 10-23 December.

The Royal Lyceum is producing An Edinburgh Christmas Carol (24 Nov-31 Dec), which returns after a highly successful run in 2019. The Macrobert Arts Centre presents Maw Goose (2-31 Dec), and Perth Theatre will bring Jack and the Beanstalk to the holiday stage until 31 December.

But traditional pantomime isn’t the only offering this month. Glasgowbased street theatre group Adrenalism bring their signature ‘anarcho-slap stick’ touch to A Very Crypto Christmas (12-13 Dec) at McNeills Bar. Off the beaten panto path, the show is a 40-minute satire followed by Christmasthemed karaoke.

The Southside Group (TSG), founded by Glasgow’s The Occasion in 2020, provides adults with learning disabilities the opportunity to create and perform theatre. On 1-2 December, the group will finally perform in-person in front of a live audience for the first time in their adaptation of The Snow Queen at the Queen’s Park Govanhill Parish Church.

Cumbernauld Theatre at Lanternhouse is set to premier a new adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island, co-produced with Visible Fictions. The show runs from 2-24 December. The company is also offering Life of the Party, a magical new show for children under five, from 3-24 December.

At Pitlochry Festival Theatre, audiences will have the opportunity to catch Peter Pan and Wendy, Janys Chambers’ new adaptation of J.M. Barrie’s classic novel, until 23 December.

Finally, Dundee Rep is set to premier a new musical adaptation of Cinderella, by Lynda Radley and Michael John McCarthy, which will run until 31 December. [Rho Chung]

Poetry

Even as diaries wind down to make room for Christmas parties, Scotland’s fes tive season is still ripe with literary events to warm your soul. Head to Glasgow indie and LGBTQ bookshop Category Is Books (8 Dec) for the launch of musician, broadcaster and LGBTQ+ campaigner Carrie Marshall’s highly anticipated memoir Carrie Kills a Man (404 Ink) – she’s in conversation with Radio 3’s Louise Blain. Over in Edinburgh, magazine Extra Teeth is launching its sixth issue (7 Dec).

It’s been a year of strike action, and if the discourse around workers’ rights has piqued your interest in unionisation and collective action, then head to Glasgow where Dr Andy Clark is launching his new book at Strathclyde University (12 Dec) – Fighting Deindustrialisation, an examination of the Scottish women who led the fight against factory closures of the 1980s. On the other side of the Central Belt, Craig Millar’s book Workers Can Win: A Guide to Organising at Work launches in Edinburgh (11 Dec).

If poetry’s more your thing, there’s a host of regular open mics taking place across the country – Hotchpotch (Dundee, 14 Dec), Speakin’ Weird (Aberdeen, 14 Dec) and Forth Friday (Stirling, 2 Dec). If you’re after some something a little different, Edinburgh event Poetry Circus is back for the first time since the pandemic began – spoken word meets burlesque, physical theatre and cabaret at the Voodoo Rooms (7 Dec). Word Up sees poetry meet music and comedy, with performances in Edinburgh (7 Dec) and Glasgow (4 Dec) featuring Josie Long amongst others. Edinburgh’s Scottish Storytelling Centre will see performances from former Poetry World Slam champion Harry Baker (6 Dec) and the monthly installation of Loud Poets (16 Dec). There are Poets in Paisley (3 Dec), and you can take refuge from the winter weather with delicious cake at Lovecrumbs (Edinburgh, 8 Dec) with a killer line-up of poets as Thomas Stewart launches his moving and accomplished pamphlet, Based on a True Story (Fourteen Poems). [Nasim Rebecca Asl]

An Edinburgh Christmas Carol

Treasure Island

Carrie Kills a Man by Carrie Marshall

Image: courtesy Cumbernauld Theatre

Photo: Mihaela Bodlovic

Image: courtesy of 404 Ink

Josie Long

Photo: Ben Bentley

Momentary Monument - The Library, Lara Favaretto

Photo: Sally Jubb

Yule Love It

Words by: The Skinny

In terms of a special Christmas vibe, they don’t come much more special than The Dome. The 19th century New Town building, built on the site of the old Physicians’ Hall, goes all out every year. The Georgian columns are wrapped in fairy lights, an enormous Christmas tree stands in the foyer, and the entire space is decked out in lights and decorations.

Accessible Christmas

Christmas Classics

Christmas isn’t Christmas without a trip to Scotland’s capital and its iconic festive venues. There’s the Christmas Market at Princes Street Gardens with artisanal festive food from local makers, while the Big Wheel o ers unique views of the city’s winter skyline. George Street is home to the magni cent Alpine ice rink ‘Lidl on Ice’, and every year, the Norwegian county of Hordaland donates a Christmas tree to the city – nd it on The Mound

If the kids want to meet Santa, Edinburgh Zoo has you covered. The zoo, celebrating its centenary on Corstorphine Hill next year, hosts a festive grotto throughout December. Mr Claus is a busy guy this month – you can also meet Santa at Ocean Terminal in Leith, have breakfast with Santa at Cold Town House in the Grassmarket, meet Santa and his elves at their workshop at Craigie’s Farm near South Queensferry, and at Santa Land in West Princes Street Gardens, take your four-legged friends along too for a special Santa’s Paws event. Alternatively, visit the Reindeer Flying school, explore the magi cal forest and visit Mrs Claus’ kitchen at Conifox Adventure Park.

Christmas on a Budget

Christmas memories don’t have to come with a big price tag. Why not grab a co ee from The Milkman on Cockburn Street, and head for a cosy walk up the historic Royal Mile. Alternatively, stroll up Calton Hill, pop in to the free exhibitions at the Collective gallery in the former City Observatory, then take a look at the city lights from one of Edinburgh’s best vantage points.

Edinburgh’s incredible architecture takes on a new dimension at Christmas, and a walk around town with your camera is a great, free way to soak up the festive atmosphere. Castle of Light returns to illuminate Edinburgh Castle while over in Inverleith, the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh’s Christmas light show ‘Christmas at the Botanics’ features more than one million lights. For a magical evening stroll, take a walk from Victoria Street, with its incredibly instagrammable shops and charming Christmas decorations, up to the light-covered Teviot House at Bristo Square.

Something Special

For a Christmas treat, Leith’s Fingal – a former lighthouse ship converted into Scotland’s only luxury oating hotel, and recently crowned one of the UK’s best ve-star hotels – is an ideal candidate. Berthed close to the Royal Yacht Britannia, it is packed with art deco details and luxurious touches, and a spectacular ve-course afternoon tea. In the New Town, take your pick from a pair of legendary hotels – the Balmoral at the east end of Princes Street, and the winter wonder decor at the Waldorf Astoria Edinburgh – The Caledonian to the west.

This year, there are a host of accessible opportunities to get involved with Edinburgh’s festivities. George Street’s ice rink will host relaxed sessions with lowered sound levels and no ashing lights, while the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh will host an accessible night for their light show on 7 Dec. The evening will begin at twilight, o ering a smoother transition into the event. Castle of Light host a range of accessible experiences on 8 Dec – there’s an audio tour for visually impaired, a BSL tour and an autism accessible tour.

Festive Films and Theatre

The Cameo Cinema in Tollcross is one of the city’s most storied venues, having operated as a cinema for over a century. The cinema’s Christmas programme is appropriately eclectic – there are screenings of classics like It’s A Wonderful Life, and festive alternatives such as Die Hard and Gremlins. For an unforgettable Christmas evening, head along for the Cameo’s Holiday HorrorA-Thon on 10 Dec – it’s an all-night run of Christmas horror movies. A less hair-raising night can be found with classic screenings at the Scotsman Picturehouse across December.

For a festive treat, visit the Festival Theatre in Newington for Scottish Ballet’s adaptation of The Snow Queen which runs until 10 Dec. Alternatively, the Lyceum presents An Edinburgh Christmas Carol throughout December – an adaptation of Charles Dickens’ classic with a distinct Edinburgh twist. Rather ttingly, the Lyceum itself is said to be haunted by Ellen Terry, an actor who appeared in the theatre’s very rst show. Familyfriendly fare can be found around the corner at Traverse, with the magical new show Once Upon A Snowstorm from 9 23 Dec.

In With The New

Once Christmas is over, the city centre is taken over by Hogmanay fever. Sophie-Ellis Bextor gets things started with the family-friendly The Night Afore Disco Party in West Princes Street Gardens on 30 December, before the world-famous Street Party returns to Princes Street on 31 December with tens of thousands of revellers in the shadow of the Castle. The Gardens also host a Hogmanay Concert In The Gardens headlined by Pet Shop Boys.

Elsewhere, there’s an early celebration at Usher Hall courtesy of the Scottish Fiddle Orchestra (30 Dec), a Hogmanay Snow Ball Ceilidh at Assembly Rooms, and the annual Hogmanay party at Summerhall, the former site of Edinburgh University’s veterinary school. The festivities round up New Year’s Day’s Final Fling in Princes Street Gardens, featuring Tide Lines, Elephant Sessions and Hamish Hawk.

For more places to go and things to do in Edinburgh this Christmas, head to edinburgh.org/storyneverends/edinburgh-sparkles/

This Christmas in Edinburgh, take your pick from classic festive outings, luxurious treats, iconic photo ops and one-off events

Photo: Forever Edinburgh

City of Edinburgh Council / Forever Edinburgh

Features

20 Rounding up the year! To start, our music team have voted for their top ten albums of 2022 . 26 A look back at the year in Scottish music.

28 The best films of 2022 , according to our writers, plus a look at the most underrated releases of the year.

33 Our Comedy team’s funniest moments of 2022

34 The books of 2022! According to our contributors.

40 Label head, radio host, DJ, podcaster and overall tastemaker Jamz Supernova shares her highlights of 2022.

41 The problem with panto – a deeper dive into pantomime’s racism problem.

42 Design for Christmas – a selection of Scottish gifts with an interiors focus.

45 One writer responds to Nira Pereg’s beguiling exhibition Patriarchs at Talbot Rice Gallery.

46 Unpicking Elizabeth Price’s latest exhibition, UNDERFOOT, at the Hunterian Art Gallery.

49 We talk to Austrian director Marie Kreutzer about Corsage, her new interpretation of the life of Empress Elisabeth of Austria.

50 Alexandre O. Philippe on his new documentary Lynch/Oz.

On the website...

Our fortnightly film podcast The Cineskinny, weekly Spotlight On… features on some of the best new Scottish bands, all the pieces from our Guide to Christmas and Hogmanay, plus news of a very special, very fizzy collaboration we’ve been working on.

Guy's Big Cosmic Spyglass (aka JWST), from which NASA published some star pics this year (5,4,5,9)

Brew – incite (7)

Drummer for the Foo Fighters (d.2022) (6,7)

Foisted – levied (7)

Eightsome (5)

Movie arcade (anag) (5,6)

Small insect (5) 49. The fifth Black man to win Best Actor at the Oscars (b.1968) – the first (?) person to slap Chris Rock at the Oscars (4,5)

Stalwarts (anag) – it breaks the camel's back? (4,5)

Be extremely expensive – to scam Bob (anag) (4,1,4)

Industriousness – oh, wreck it (anag) (4,5)

Severe (7)

Brand of colouring pencils (7)

Tactile writing (7)

Depleting (5,2)

Subject of Baz Luhrmann's 2022 music biopic (5)

Transpire (5)

Honestly, bit of an anticlimax here. I much prefer it when the last clue is super thematic or at least, like, funny. But how the fuck do you write a good clue for 'shoe'? "Foot glove"? "Anagram of 'hose'"? Oh, yeah, the answer’s ‘shoe’, sorry. Spoilers. Merry Christmas! (4)

Compiled by George Sully

Farewell 2022

In our final issue of 2022, we look back on the year and share some of our favourite things. The music writers have voted for their top albums –find the top ten in the following pages, plus a celebration of the year’s Scottish music highlights. Film writers selected their favourite films, as well as a selection of underrated releases from the year. We’ve got the top books of the year, according to our team. And the comedy writers remember the funniest things that happened in 2022, the stand ups and TV shows that distracted us from the ongoing sense of a country hurtling towards oblivion.

Wrapping Paper Artist

Caroline Dowsett is an artist, painter and maker. Creating pieces from shapes, colours and lines. Her work is full of movement, inspired by feels, sounds words and the everyday. Working with a variety of colorful palettes, in a bold, playful approach and alongside fluid shapes to convey messages of joy.

carolinedowsett.co.uk

I: caroline_dowsett

Illustrations: Lizzie Lomax

Best Albums of 2022

We polled our music team for their favourite albums of 2022. With well over 200 different albums submitted, the ten we could just about agree on traverse dance, hip-hop, indie-rock, singersongwriter, experimental and electronica, with two (spoiler!) featuring samples of Robin S's Show Me Love...

#10: Björk – Fossora

Ten albums in and how can Björk continue to beguile, confuse and amaze? Obviously with a grief-stricken odyssey full of gabber beats, bass clarinet and a lot of mushrooms. It’s not even surprising anymore – it’s just Björk being Björk.

Her music is often transcendent, or otherworldly, but this is Iceland’s greatest export getting down in the dirt, the creeping industrial dirges feeling positively subterranean at times (Victimhood), searching for a way to process all-toohuman feelings.

The natural world’s cycles of growth, death and regenera tion loom large across Fossora, with motherhood the thematic glue holding it all together. Ancestress is a strikingly direct lament for Björk’s mother who passed in 2018, weaving beauti fully intimate moments alongside heartbreaking details like the ventilator that ‘Revealed her resilience / And then it didn’t’. But Björk’s son Sindri Eldon also features on the song, as well as her daughter Ísadóra Bjarkardóttir Barney on the final track, Her Mother’s House, hinting at wider, cross-generational cycles.

There’s undoubtedly a lot happening on Fossora, frequent ly brilliant but always interesting. Björk is an artist so consist ently innovative that she’s taken for granted if not one-upping herself. But there’s no need for gimmicks with music this good. Forget the ‘alien-Marie-Antoinette-goes-foraging’ album art – this is as real as Björk gets. [Lewis Wade]

#9: MUNA – MUNA

MUNA’s second album Saves the World was very nearly the band’s last. Dropped by their major label and plunged into lockdown, things looked over for the Californian group. Luckily Saddest Factory Records – the indie imprint set up by Phoebe Bridgers – snapped them up. Bridgers also features on the album’s sunny opening track Silk Chiffon. The gorgeous queer rom-com of a song sets the tone for MUNA’s most self-assured record yet.

‘Life’s so fun! Life’s so fun!’ frontwoman Katie Gavin sings on the breezy slice of summer pop before jolting us into perfect Robyn-esque club banger What I Want, a song that yearns for a chaotic post-pandemic night out. Lilting ballads Kind of Girl and Handle Me allow the group to lean into their country sensibilities. This mid-album quiet couplet showcases Gavin in a domestic setting: gardening, blowing on a dandelion, learning to live with who she is.

It makes sense that the band have chosen to stick their name on the record. MUNA is what this band are all about: massive singalongs, infectious beats, candid lyrics. It’s a joyful celebration of what it means to be free – both literally and artistically. [Tara Hepburn]

Fossora was released on 30 Sep via One Little Independent Records bjork.com

MUNA was released on 24 Jun via Saddest Factory Records

Photo: Vidar Logi

Photo: Isaac Schneider

charlotteandbolis.com

#8: Charlotte Adigéry & Bolis Pupul – Topical Dancer

How often does it happen that one of the year’s most thought-provoking albums is also its funniest? Using a toybox full of sonic quirks and tricks, Topical Dancer’s 13 tracks manage effortlessly to be both. Flitting between languages, the Belgian pair use punchy synths and slick, rolling bass to take apart racism and misyogyny on a record that will make you dance and laugh as much as it’ll make you think.

Both artists are from immigrant backgrounds and on tracks like Esperanto they gradually dial up the exasperation at both witless microag gressions and patronising do-goodery (‘Don’t say: I would like a black ameri cano / Say: I’ll have an African-American, please’), while on Blenda, Adigéry sings ‘Go back to your country where you belong’ before turning to ask Siri where that is.

HAHA turns the singer’s sampled laughter into first a gut-bursting moment of ecstasy and then a tortured sob. It’s catchier than almost any thing you’ve heard this year. Meanwhile, Making Sense Stop is a rubbery funk workout that tosses off increasingly elaborate riffs on the Talking Heads classic until it eventually collapses into absurdism. There’s zero doubt it would make David Byrne smile.

Topical Dancer is an impressive declaration of purpose, but most of all it’s a chronicle of a duo that never stop moving. [Max Sefton]

#7: Jockstrap – I Love You Jennifer B

jockstrapmusic.com

In a year with a few more joyous moments than the previous couple, with glimpses of the reckless freedom of pre-COVID time, Jockstrap’s debut gave us a splash of kaleidoscopic neon to get lost in. There had been promise through their earlier EPs, but I Love You Jennifer B managed to impress on every level.

There are orchestral flourishes aplenty thanks to an 18-piece band, a nod to the duo’s classical training. But the dancefloor is never far away as Taylor Skye’s gloopy beats indulge everyone’s love of a big, brash banger. This is often within the same song, and it doesn’t stop at arrangements/produc tion. Georgia Ellery has an incredibly emotive voice that manages to scale operatic highs while still telling a cogent story (Lancaster Court is basically a period drama; Concrete Over Water is howling-into-the-night purgation).

Yet it’s still catchy. This is high culture you can sing along to. Just try getting highlights like Glasgow or Greatest Hits out of your head. This style of maximalism could be an absolute car crash in the wrong hands: either inducing sonic whiplash or derision at the pretentious gall of these art school kids. But Jockstrap tread the tightrope beautifully and have made one of the best debuts of the year. [Lewis Wade]

#6: Charli XCX – CRASH

CRASH is the subject of an ongoing argument between me and my dad, who claims that it relies too heavily on samples and is a sign that the young generation don’t have any good music of their own. To that I say: is that such a bad thing? “Oh no, there’s too much Janet Jackson on this record!” Grow up.

Charli’s “Janet album” (her words) has more bangers per capita than any previous album, and a rhythm section that really captures her skill and energy as a performer. The sampling is also a nice nod to the album’s muse – so many of Janet’s hits

feature injections from other tracks (Big Yellow Taxi, You’re So Vain, and Change’s The Glow of Love, to name but a few).

CRASH is a masterclass in interpolation – every borrowed hook, from the most obvious in Beg for You, to the subtle New Order nod on Lightning, is used to maximise danceability and fun (despite being Charli’s most introspective record to date – not a single song is about being hot and dancing). Used to Know Me contains the best Show Me Love sample of the year, and I will not be told otherwise – not even by this list. [Laurie Presswood]

charlixcx.com

Topical Dancer was released on 4 Mar via DEEWEE

CRASH was released on 18 Mar via Asylum Records/ Atlantic Records

I Love You Jennifer B was released on 9 Sep via Rough Trade

Photo: Camille Vivier

Photo: Terrence O'Connor

Photo: Eddie Whelan

#5: Alex G – God Save the Animals

‘How many more songs am I supposed to write / Before I should turn it off and say goodnight?’, Alex G sings on Miracles. On his ninth record, God Save the Animals, Alex G constantly searches for belief in something, often in the face of crippling doubt. That doubt sometimes wins.

It makes the moments of clarity even stronger – moments like Runner, an easy song of the year contender which finds hope in friendship and an earworm melody. There’s hope on Cross the Sea, where he offers himself up as something to believe in. There’s even hope on Miracles, where he admits he wants kids even when he can’t imagine a future for himself.

God Save the Animals is full of the brilliantly scrappy and sincere songwriting ideas we’ve come to expect from the Pennsylvanian musician. There are surprises too, like a sudden burst of hyperpop that crashes into the end of No Bitterness, or the focus on toybox percussion that gives the record a childlike wistfulness. But like House of Sugar before it, it’s a consistent reflective spirit that makes this album so powerful. We hope he keeps writing and searching for years to come. [Skye Butchard]

#4: Rosalía – MOTOMAMI

‘I didn’t base my career on making hits / I have hits because I formed the basis,’ sings Rosalía, the Catalan flamenco modern iser turned pop experimentalist, in Spanish on the catchy and insolent Bizcochito. What is the foundation of her confounding, neck-breaking white-knuckle ride of an album? Seemingly, everything. MOTOMAMI is a cultural melting pot, an ornate fusion of re aeton, dembow, noise, hyperpop, jazz and plenty of other ingredients, zipped into a leather jumpsuit and biked headfirst into a brick wall, motors dripping in half-burnt oil and steam dissipating into the air.

To say Rosalía has no respect for boundaries would be to acknowledge that she sees them at all, gulping up styles like some musical world eater. Speeding through a tunnel, the pads on her knees skirt the tarmac, but despite being unbalanced, the power of the machine ultimately is under her control. MOTOMAMI is a harsh, often brittle, listen in comparison to the gorgeous angelic imagery of 2018’s El Mal Querer, but the thrill of each gear change propels it. How exciting that one of the world’s bi est pop stars isn’t afraid to take risks and court failure, making music from a place of freedom. [Tony Inglis]

sandyalexg.com

MOTOMAMI was released on 18 Mar

rosalia.com

#3: Kendrick Lamar – Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers

How do you follow up the only rap album to have ever won a Pulitzer Prize? If you’re Kendrick Lamar, you turn the lens firmly on yourself. Lamar’s fifth studio album, Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers, is the product of this introspective pivot, where he details with razor-sharp wordplay and stylistic precision the trauma, familial turmoil and modern-day anxieties of the Black experience.

While on 2017’s DAMN. poetry placed emphasis on the defiance, rage and emotion linked to living as a Black man in America, Mr. Morale... leads from a more reflective and vulner able place. A confessional of sorts, opener United In Grief feels like an unburdening for the rapper, setting the tone for the honesty to follow, in tracks like Father Time, Count Me Out and the quietly powerful Mother I Sober.

With this album, the master storyteller we’ve come to respect and admire for his lyricism is taking the time to get some things off his chest and it makes for a journey that is tender and often uncompromising. This is Kendrick providing an explanation for his his five-year absence but ultimately admit ting that he needed the space to grapple with his demons and his trauma, just like we all do. As he boldly proclaims in the album’s closing track Mirror, as if offering us permission to do the same, ‘I choose me, I’m sorry.’ [Arusa Qureshi]

oklama.com

God Save the Animals was released on 23 Sep via Domino Records

Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers was released on 13 May via PGLang, Top Dawg Entertainment (TDE), Aftermath Entertainment and Interscope Records

via Columbia Records

Photo: Chris Ma io

Image: courtesy Polydor Recods

Photo: Daniel Sannwald

#2: Wet Leg – Wet Leg

The indie infatuation of 2022 arrived in the form of Wet Leg with their self-titled debut album back in April. Living up to the hype they created with the 2021 release of their seminal track Chaise Longue was no easy feat. But as more album cuts revealed themselves, it quickly became clear that the Isle of Wight outfit had more depth to their act than French furniture.

Rhian Teasdale and Hester Chambers’ self-effacing friendship is at the core of the group who has brought a refresh ing zing to the often grotty, macho guitar scene. Tracks like Angelica harken to the psychedelia of The Beach Boys. Core bangers such as Wet Dream and Oh No are laden with Gen Z relatability. However, tender cuts like Piece of Shit harness pertinent themes of self-worth and make themselves heard among the album’s livelier moments. Too Late Now’s anthemic ending rounds off the listening proceedings on a high note… or a headbanging, mosh-pit inducing crescendo, if you like.

It’s fun, cheeky, sexy and cool, which is just about every thing that any great band should be. Oh, and it’s also just earned Wet Leg not one, but five Grammy nominations – excuse me, what? [Jamie Wilde]

RENAISSANCE was an album conceptual ised and brought to life partially within the isolation of lockdown: but this is not your typical lockdown album. Many other albums born of this period interpolated stillness and pause, mirroring the isolation of an unpredictable and scary time. Beyoncé took a different approach.

RENAISSANCE is an ode to collabora tive joy, of sweat-soaked dancefloors and the freedom of letting go to reinvent and discover concealed parts of yourself. It is movement and dance as spiritual commun ion, a unity found between strangers when the lights dim low. It’s Black joy and libera tion – a love letter to the queer Black DJs and producers responsible for the pioneer ing of house music in the late 1970s.

Transcending time and genre, RENAISSANCE draws from a range of styles: deep house and disco sit alongside Afrobeats, psychedelic soul, dancehall and hip-hop. Collaborators range from estab lished names in contemporary and left-field pop (BloodPop, A.G. Cook, Tricky Stewart) and legendary names in the house scene (Honey Dijon), to prominent names in hip-hop and rap (No I.D., Beam, P2J). Elsewhere, timeless icon Grace Jones lends her vocals for track MOVE.

It was an ambitious feat, years in the making, and it paid off. From the first few

bars of album opener I’M THAT GIRL, where Beyoncé drawls, poised and possessed of a self-assuredness: ‘I pull up in these clothes, look so good / Cause I’m in that ho / You know all these songs sound good’ we know we’re in for a treat. The transitions between songs are effortlessly smooth throughout. Especially notable is the transition between ENERGY into lead single BREAK MY SOUL, where Beam’s rapping on the former gives way to the instantly recognis able sample of Robin S’s Show Me Love, reworked into a contemporary ode to resilience, power and the bravery of joy in the face of adversity. Meanwhile HEATED evokes warmth and connection, Afrobeat melodies keeping the vibe fresh and fun. The final verse of this track sees Beyoncé take the mic to deliver a rap verse, show casing her impressive range, and paying sweet homage to her late Uncle Jonny.

We see a new side to the artist too, as she challenged herself to, in her words, create a space “free of perfectionism and overthinking”, where nothing matters except the now and present, of losing yourself in music and communion, and finding yourself somewhere in their midst. In short, it was a cultural reset.With RENAISSANCE, Beyoncé once again proves her dynamic and well-earned legacy.

[Anita Bhadani]

Wet Leg was released on 8 Apr via Domino Records wetlegband.com

RENAISSANCE was released on 29 Jul via Parkwood Entertainment and Columbia Records beyonce.com

Photo: Hollie Fernando

Photo: Carlijn Jacobs

#1: Beyoncé – RENAISSANCE

Highs and Lows

Words:

‘A

ll

Correct At Time of Writing’ was the get-out-of-jail card coverline we embla zoned across the front of our January 2022 issue as we unsurely readied it for print in the middle of December 2021. Sadly when we returned in 2022 our fears had become a depressing reality with many of January’s music venues and festivals facing yet more hurdles and financial uncertainty, as government advice forced temporary closures, cancellations and postponements in abundance.

But towards the end of January, things started to look up as Dan Snaith and co of Caribou rolled into Glasgow to play a sold-out Barrowlands show, with things continuing to pick up after that. In April, we tentatively launched our Music Festivals special with breakout stars of the year Wet Leg on the cover, and much to our delight, most of the festivals we covered in that issue –

Knockengorroch, Kelburn Garden Party, Hidden Door, Jupiter Rising and Riverside Festival to name a few – went ahead. Not all returns were a success, however, with Doune the Rabbit Hole currently in a spot of trouble that we quite simply do not have the time or energy to get into here, but Doune, please pay your performers. The same could be said for the newly launched in June 2022 Junction 1 venue, with a source close to The Skinny telling us they’ve yet to be paid.

There were new glimmers of hope to celebrate in the Scottish festival calendar this year too with new music, art and culture festival Otherlands making its debut at Scone Palace in August (re cently nominated for Best Festival in the DJ Mag

Best of British Awards 2022) and the excellent, not to mention the surprising return of the muchmissed Connect festival. Wehave to admit we were pretty sceptical about its return, and the fact it was taking place right next to Edinburgh Airport did have us confused, but we doff our hat to you as Connect truly did exceed our expectations and we’re genuinely looking forward to its return in 2023.

Following a pretty much back to ‘business as usual’ summer of festivalling, October brought with it the annual Scottish Album of the Year Award, now in its 11th year, which took place at Stirling’s Albert Halls for the first time. While The SAY Award did make its return to the live format at Edinburgh’s Usher Hall in 2021, this year everyone was a lot more at ease, with fewer people hiding behind masks or afraid to hug one another. On the night, Cocteau Twins’ Heaven or Las Vegas won the second-ever Modern Scottish Classic Award, with the Seonaid Aitken Ensemble paying homage to the record on the night, while Berta Kennedy was dubbed The Sound of Young Scotland for her exciting brand of slick, r’n’b-infused pop.

Of course, the big winner of the night was jazz pianist Fergus McCreadie, who took the title of Scottish Album of the Year for his masterful third studio album, Forest Floor, which saw his beautiful piano compositions heavily influenced by Scottish traditional music. The record entered the official UK Jazz and Blues Chart in the top spot, and also saw the 25-year-old musician receive a nod from the Mercury Prize.

The Skinny’s Scottish Albums of the Year

It’ll come as no surprise, then, that when we asked our Music Team what Scottish albums they’d been loving this year, Fergus McCreadie’s Forest Floor appeared on many a list, placing in pole position on several. But, the return of Hudson Mohawke struck a chord with many Skinny contributors this year, too, who loved Cry Sugar equally, making it impos sible to separate the two from the top spot of our Scottish Albums of the Year list. Closely following the two was Kathryn Joseph, with the quiet rage of for you who are the wronged, while Lady Neptune’s gabba-fuelled, face-melting Noz and the dark pop of Goodnight Louisa’s Human Danger weren’t far behind.

Walt Disco who, like McCreadie and Joseph were also nominated for this year’s SAY Award, saw their debut Unlearning take the sixth spot, while our November Album of the Month, Andrew Wasylyk’s Hearing the Water Before Seeing the Falls, came in seventh. A late-in-the-year aural treat came in the form of Alliyah Enyo’s breathtak ing Echo’s Disintegration, which takes the eighth spot, while the self-titled debut from Poster Paints picks up a very well-deserved ninth place, with our top ten rounded out by the gorgeous Mooching from the exceptional talents of singer-songwriter Lizzie

We take a look back at the year in music across Scotland, celebrating the highs, the lows, and our favourite Scottish albums of the year

Tallah Brash

Reid

Bemz at Kelburn

Photo: Recompose

Remembering Mimi Parker

When Mimi Parker died on 5 November – at 55-years-old, as a result of her diagnosis of ovarian cancer – Low, the consistently brilliant musical project she was a part of for nearly three decades, lost a member. Parker may have been one half of Low, but she was an absolute whole in a relationship.

In both instances, this was alongside her husband Alan Sparhawk, another absolute whole. Their partnership, a symbol of persistence and enduring love, ultimately epitomised Low. Not that their relationship was particularly public, though stru les with Sparhawk’s mental health and the strain it placed on them was not hidden. But those qualities were infused in the music they made together, the way their voices overlapped, either in direct harmony or one following the other as if tied together by rope. In a heartfelt letter eulogising Parker, one-time Low bassist Zak Sally wrote: “[Mimi was] just as happy singing at home with Alan to nobody.” This is a truth that seems so evident on their recordings – which recently Jeff Tweedy aptly described as a kind of “secular church music” – what many have described as an unpretentious approach to creativity. Her death signals, perhaps, the end of a beloved band. But, more importantly, the severing of one creative soulmate from another.

In Low, Parker was a singer and drummer. For their minimalist slowcore (a genre signifier Low pushed back against) her voice was an anchor. When writing on women’s voices in these musical styles turned to reductive descriptors like “ethereal” and “otherworldly”, you could not say that about Parker’s. Her vocals are earthly, grounding Low’s often ghostly music in reality. They showcased strength. They are crushingly human. On the title track of Low’s most recent album, HEY WHAT, when the song drifts off into the ocean, Parker’s singing crashes through the waves of ambient noise tu ing the listener back up. No matter what her singing was surrounded by – on early albums, as if emanating from a damp, dimly lit corner, or more recently outlined by fiery shoegaze – they were never engulfed, always the brightest thing in the room.

In an interview with experimental music publi cation Tone Glow last year, Parker said Sparhawk was “always trying to see what can happen” when they were making music. “And she’s the control valve for that,” Sparhawk interjected. This su ests the idea that Parker approached her artistry with an open-mindedness but also with a willingness to be a conduit, a mechanism for Low to be something truly great. Nowhere is that more obvious than on the

astounding sonic developments on their two most recent albums, which recalibrate the Low sound into something noisy and loud and chaotic. Not only are they two of the great late career pivots, but they are also two of the best albums of recent times. On HEY WHAT, Parker’s transformation is significant. From her early stripped back, effective drumming, to something approaching rock’n’roll on The Great Destroyer, here she accepted foregoing discernible

drumming altogether in pursuit of a higher purpose. When her percussion finally appears on the closing track The Price You Pay (It Must Be Wearing Off), it is utterly cataclysmic.

Parker was Mormon, converting after meeting Sparhawk in high school. To those with agnostic and atheistic tendencies, their religious devotion and spirituality could perhaps seem in conflict with Low’s progressive musicality. But it’s this juxtaposi tion which powered their art. In the Tone Glow interview, Parker was asked about her relationship with God. She said: “When it comes to faith, I think it’s healthy to doubt. If you’re not checking it, you’re missing out… I don’t know, that sort of thing is just so foreign to me. Blind faith.” It was this attitude – a healthy back and forth with your beliefs – that allowed Parker to tap into everything Low exhumed in their songs: despair, outrage, skepticism, and a questioning of authority, among them.

But that inquisitiveness never allowed the joy and comfort that faith and spirituality can bring to be blocked out. We need only look to Parker’s words on Double Negative’s Fly to feel consolation in her passing, which she sang with her usual transcendent beauty: ‘I don’t mind. Take my weary bones, and fly’.

Following the untimely passing of Mimi Parker, we take a look back at her three decade-spanning career as the drummer and vocalist of Duluth, Minnesota band Low

Words: Tony Inglis

“Mimi Parker’s vocals are earthly, grounding Low’s often ghostly music in reality. They showcased strength. They are crushingly human”

Low

Photo: Martyna Maz

Films of 2022: Memory, Desire and Fanny Packs

#1 Aftersun

Dir. Charlotte Wells

There is a sense throughout Aftersun of reaching and reaching, of brushing something vital with your fingertips only to have it slip away. In her masterful autofictive debut, Charlotte Wells transforms a simple story about a young woman looking back on a childhood holiday with her father into a devastating investigation into the ache of subjectivity, into how sun-bleached memories can collapse and coagulate and dog gedly continue into a haunted present. Like souvenir snow globes that hold entire worlds in fragile bubbles, Aftersun invites us into a grief that seems hardly articulable, that tips and whirls and beats against crystalline walls. [Anahit Behrooz]

#2

Decision to Leave

Dir. Park Chan-wook

Decision to Leave understands that the most compelling thing about a detective movie has nothing to do with closing the case: rather, it’s about how the chase demands getting so physi cally and psychologically close to a suspect that the act of watching them through a pair of binocu lars or putting them in handcuffs becomes deliri ously charged with forbidden intimacy. Park Chan-wook, the veritable GOAT of sexy twisted obsessions, is on excellent form with this darkly humorous, lush and heart-stubborn tale of a detective who’s got it so bad that he sends a murder suspect a “you up?” text. It’s extremely romantic. [Xuanlin Tham]

A Scottish film tops The Skinny’s films of the year for the first time, but Charlotte Wells’ wonderful Aftersun required no home team advantage. Elsewhere our writers have been delighted by inventive works from Korea, Iran, Ireland, the USA and Norway Aftersun

#3 Everything Everywhere All at Once

Dir.

Daniel Kwan, Daniel Scheinert

“If less is more, just think of how much more more will be!” The immortal words of Dr Frasier Crane could easily have been the mission statement for the Daniels’ dimension-hopping, generation-span ning, butt plug-cramming Everything Everywhere All at Once. It’s a touching family drama and a ludicrous sci-fi romp. It’s a hilarious slapstick comedy and a howling existential crisis. It builds exhilarating fight scenes around fanny packs and depicts tender romance with hotdog fingers. You could argue about whether Everything Everywhere All at Once was the best film of 2022, but there’s absolutely no denying that it was the most film.

[Ross McIndoe]

#4 Memoria

Dir. Apichatpong Weerasethakul

Apichatpong Weerasethakul can hardly do any wrong and when it was revealed he would be teaming up with Tilda Swinton for his first Englishlanguage feature, hearts were sent aflutter. Rightly so. Despite relocating from his native Thailand to Colombia, Memoria retains much of the woozy lyricism and time-collapsing otherworldliness that has beguiled his audiences for the past two decades. Here, with Swinton haunted by a strange unnatural thudding sound that nobody else can hear, Weerasethakul seems to be leaning into the enigmatic nature of his work but playfully building out an actual investigation of a mystery. That said, those expecting easy answers have perhaps misunderstood the assignment. [Ben Nicholson]

#5 Nope

Dir. Jordan Peele

Jordan Peele’s third feature is part sci-fi, part Western, part horror, and all a satisfying rebuttal to cinematic sentimentalisation of non-human life – this is easily the horse film of the year, if not the decade. As three characters born of Hollywood’s past seek the perfect shot, cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema finds beauty and irony in dusty vistas and nocturnal shadows. Johnnie Burn’s sound design elicits chills from simple, slightly unnatural rhythms. Daniel Kaluuya’s stoic grace and Keke Palmer’s manic optimism balance the Haywood siblings’ dance between hunter and hunted. Despite Nope’s cynical messaging, it is impossible to look away from such craftsmanship. [Carmen Paddock]

#6 The Banshees of Inisherin

Dir. Martin McDonagh

Following two unpleasantly tart American com edies, Martin McDonagh rights the ship with this existential drama set on a fictional windswept island off the coast of Ireland. It’s 1923 and civil war is raging on the mainland but it’s a falling out between two friends – one a cheery farmer, the other a curmudgeonly fiddler with one eye on the sands of time – that takes centre stage. The film begins in the world of Blarney but slowly shifts to something closer to Beckett, with McDonagh’s firecracker script delivering laugh-out-loud mo ments without shying away from the loneliness of lives lived in communities so isolated that they might as well be on the edge of the world. [Jamie Dunn]

#7 Hit The Road

Dir. Panah Panahi

Panah Panahi’s richly humanistic and often hilarious road movie would be a must-watch in any year, but in the context of the unjust imprisonment of Panahi’s father (Jafar Panahi) and the ongoing horrors being committed by the Iranian regime in the face of mass protests, Hit the Road is abso lutely vital viewing in 2022. Many critics dubbed this the Iranian Little Miss Sunshine but those comparisons don’t do justice to the sharpness of Panahi’s filmmaking, where the sight gags and raucous performances are cut through with shards of melancholy, with this lovable family of misfits becoming almost mythic in their search for free dom on the open road. [Jamie Dunn]

#8

Happening Dir. Audrey Diwan

A work of colossal empathy and venom, Audrey Diwan’s film of unwanted pregnancy in 60s France, when abortion is illegal, has a profoundly upset ting effect. As university student Annie (the film adapts Annie Ernaux’s memoir of the same name) pursues every available way out of her situation, the misogyny of men, girlfriends and institutions bears oppressively on her, and Diwan’s rigidly focused camera captures every moment of internal panic coursing through Annie’s mind. As time starts running out, the film takes on a paralysing tension that’s difficult to shake as it breaks the taboos even the most intense abortion dramas don’t approach. [Rory Doherty]

#9 The Worst Person in The World Dir. Joachim Trier

Both early press and the marketing campaign for Joachim Trier’s film pushed an idea of it as ‘a Norwegian Frances Ha’ – made easy when the main publicity still was star Renate Reinsve running down a city street. But while the film is indeed a tale of an impulsive late-twentysome thing navigating love and purpose, that compari son is ultimately superficial, doing a disservice to the slippery nature of Trier and co-writer Eskil Vogt’s perceptive, novelistic and legitimately haunting portrait of the fear of never being enough; a fear of death but also that you’ve never quite lived, with a chance you may never. [Josh Slater-Williams]

#10 Licorice Pizza

Dir. Paul Thomas Anderson

The two characters at the centre of Licorice Pizza are constantly running, and it feels like the whole movie is charged by their uncontainable youthful energy. Paul Thomas Anderson struck gold when he rolled the dice on the untested Alana Haim and Cooper Hoffman, whose tangible chemistry gives this romance its beating heart, but who also skilfully navigate the messy emotional territory their characters wander into. Their authentic work is leavened by marvellously scenery-chomping cameos from Sean Penn and Bradley Cooper, with the latter’s appearance sparking the sequence of the year. Licorice Pizza already feels like a modern classic, densely packed with pleasures and endlessly rewatchable. [Phil Concannon]

The Underrated, Overlooked and Misunderstood

Critical praise is all well and good, but what about the weirdo films that got ignored by audiences or the blockbusters that were dismissed by critics? Below you’ll find some of the films our writers reckon didn’t get the attention they deserved in 2022

Ambulance

Dir. Michael Bay

Once derided as the exemplar of all that was coarse and dumb in American cinema, Michael Bay’s high-octane style now feels like a breath of fresh air in the barren landscape of American blockbust er filmmaking. In Ambulance, he gives us cacophonous action, broad comedy, insanely dynamic drone camerawork, and a gleefully unhinged Jake Gyllenhaal performance. It’s pure Bayhem, and it’s a blast. Streaming on Now. [Philip Concannon]

All Light Everywhere

Dir.

Theo Anthony

Theo Anthony’s ambitious and pressing essay doc traces the relationship between cameras and policing, throwing out multiple well-researched threads around power, watching and oppression. From the developments of 19th-century photogra phy and weapons technology to a discomforting look inside one of today’s largest body cam manufacturers, the film undeniably speaks to recent histories while retaining an emphasis on the ambiguity of perception and truth. [Sanne Jehoul]

The Batman

Dir. Matt Reeves

There’s just something about a boy wearing eyeliner. Matt Reeves’ The Batman leans into the deeply emo – and deeply sexy – implications of the black smudge that always lingers around Bruce Wayne’s eyes, crafting a superhero film that is volatile with regret and repressed desire, in which forces of light and dark wrestle with brutish chiaroscuro across the screen. [Anahit Behrooz]

Brian and Charles

Dir. Jim Archer

Some of cinema’s most compelling ruminations on loneliness employ the artificial to reflect on the human (think Jonze’s Her or Spielberg’s A.I.). This is true of Jim Archer’s Brian and Charles, a delightfully endearing comedy that sees a clunky sevenfoot-tall robot made out of a washing machine rescue a hermit through the loving gift of friendship. [Rafaela Sales Ross]

Cyrano Dir. Joe Wright

Wright’s best film in a decade was lost in a bungled release. New songs by Bryce and Aaron Dessner amp up the yearning of Edmond Rostand’s 18th-century classic, with its well-intentioned yet flawed romantics brought to life with unselfconscious naturalism. This paean to love as ruin and salvation is also worth recommending for a career-best performance by Peter Dinklage. Streaming on Prime Video. [Carmen Paddock]

Elvis Dir. Baz Luhrmann

Lurhmann’s whirling style frames a soulful star turn, with Austin Butler capturing a talented soul isolated in his own American rock iconography. Elvis treads familiar biopic ground, but panache and heart elevate the work. What emerges is a deeply sad portrait of an artist and young man used, abused, and lost. [Carmen Paddock]

Jackass Forever

Dir. Jeff Tremaine

There are few reassuring constants in life, but the juvenile hilarity of a bunch of friends getting punched, tossed around and kicked in the nuts is eternal. The Jackass crew revive the franchise with new blood without sacrificing the wince-worthy pleasures of the stunts these lovable goofballs pull off. Streaming on Paramount+ and Now. [Iana Murray]

Kimi

Dir. Steven Soderbergh

You won’t believe this, but Steven Soderbergh made a new film, and it’s really low budget. Blow Out with Alexa is a reductive way to describe this surgically constructed tech thriller about an agoraphobic who stumbles on to a crime, as it niftily plays with shared anxieties of the pandemic and technology. Streaming on Now. [Rory Doherty]

Mad God

Dir.

Phil Tippett

A stop-motion dystopia conjured by special effects warlock Phil Tippet, Mad God is a descent through realms of Harryhausen-style monstrosities and junkyard food chains. Driven by themes of nihilism and suffering, the unhinged auteur builds war machines and torture devices, only to make viewers cringe and cower with maximum, gut-churning effect. Streaming on Shudder. [Lewis Robertson]

Onoda: 10,000 Nights in the Jungle

Dir. Arthur Harari

Onoda portrays Japan’s famous WWII holdout Hiroo Onoda, who held fort in a Philippines jungle for 29 years. A deeply sad portrait of lives lost to drilled-in doctrines and absurd rationalising of beliefs despite all evidence to the contrary, it’s a film concerned with the ravages of time but this epic adventure-drama zips by.

[Josh Slater-Williams]

Read more of our writers’ underrated films of 2022 at theskinny.co.uk

Kimi

A Funny Old Year

Ihad the privilege of seeing my first live Stewart Lee show this year (no judgement here, please) with his Snowflake/Tornado double header tour. On a wet, dark Monday in Glasgow, at a gig where not one but TWO people had to be ejected from the King’s Theatre for fighting, Lee drove me to jaw cramps and tears trying to say the unsayable. I had my reservations about the gig (some deranged snobbery on my part), thinking the experience would be unbearably impenetrable and pompous. Luckily, I’m more than happy to hold my hands up and admit I was wrong.

My other gems of 2022 include Ahir Shah’s finely tuned and hopeful Dress from February, alongside standout Edinburgh Fringe shows from Tom Walker (the Bull in a China Shop sketches in Javelin were worth the ticket price alone) and SNL-star Sarah Sherman’s electrifyingly avant garde first show at the festival. And of course, how could I not mention Mr. Chonkers – a show with such a baffling name I knew I had to take a punt on it. And what a hideously funny delight that turned out to be. [Polly Glynn]

Catherine Bohart’s This Isn’t For You and Olga Koch’s Just Friends were two of the best shows this Fringe – I don’t think it’s a coincidence that both were directed by comedian/writer/ producer Charlie Dinkin. Obviously both perform ers are incredible in their own right, but the shows share a finesse making them feel like distant cousins. For more of Dinkin’s work straight to your screen, her production company Daddy’s Superyacht have been producing sketches for Channel 4 of late, and Koch’s previous hour Homecoming (which Dinkin directed and co-wrote) is now streaming on Prime Video.

Two TV picks from across the pond which both had incredible second seasons this year are Three Busy Debras (Adult Swim via All4) and Los Espookys (NowTV). Each Three Busy Debras episode is a ten-minute bite of surrealist suburbia (think Desperate Housewives but pro duced by The Mighty Boosh), while Los Espookys is a bi-lingual paranormal comedy from the minds of Julio Torres, Ana Fabrega

and Fred Armisen. The show follows a group of friends living in a dream like city somewhere in Latin America who fake supernatural occurrences for a living. It’s one-of-a-kind viewing.

[Laurie Presswood]

All of my top picks are Fringe shows: I know the festival had plenty of issues this year – but it’s important to notice just how astonishingly high the standard was. Maybe the extend ed gestation time of the pandemic had some benefits after all.

Leo Reich’s debut Literally Who Cares was something else: in its gleeful play with Gen Z narcissism, it was reminiscent of Catherine Cohen’s Fringe 2019 Best Newcomer Show and Netflix special The Twist …? She’s Gorgeous, but with a distinctive melancholy all of its own. Amy Gledhill’s debut was also a favourite: just such joyfully funny storytelling stitched together by an unshowy celebration of resilience. I loved Jessica Fostekew’s Wench too; she’s a mighty intellect and determined to use the experience of stand-up to examine thorny issues, and with a capacity for physical comedy that’s

I want to say

Everything Everywhere All At Once was one of the best films I saw this year because it was a thoughtful, meaningful film about the experi ence of being an immigrant in the US and the disparities between a mother and daughter’s view of the world – and its effect on their relationship –as a result. But if I’m being honest with myself, it’s because of the hot dog fingers. That scene made me cry with laughter when I went to see it in the cinema. And my partner was crying with laughter next to me. And the group of pals accompanying us were crying with laughter too. All to the deafening silence of the rest of the cinema, which made me feel like I was going insane (just like Michelle Yeoh). They were hot dog fingers, guys. Hot dogs! Seriously, though. What an absolutely, unexpectedly, gorgeous film.

[Yasmin Hackett]

The Skinny’s Comedy Team share their higlights of the year featuring big gigs, sitcoms and hidden gems

pretty extraordinary. [Emma Sullivan]

Mr. Chonkers, Monkey Barrel Comedy, 6 Dec, 8pm, £10

Everything Everywhere All at Once

Image: courtesy of A24

Catherine Bohart

Stewart Lee

Photo: Matt Crockett

Photo: Idil Sukan

Books of 2022

Illustrations: Nänni-Pää

Our Wives Under the Sea

by Julia Armfield (Picador)

When a deep-sea expedition goes quietly and monstrously awry, marine researcher Leah returns to her wife Miri after too many months away, haunted and unnervingly changed. Julia Armfield’s debut novel is a masterclass in ecological horror, situating the human body as a site of palpable anxiety where supposed fixed bound aries of skin and tissue can give way to an indifferent and otherworldly breach. Building slow dread through the ever-soslightly wrongness of things, Our Wives Under the Sea reads like the damp choke of salt water in the throat, the soft, heavy tangle of seaweed that drowns and drowns. [Anahit Behrooz]

Children of Paradise by Camilla Grudova (Atlantic Books)

Camilla Grudova’s debut novel, Children of Paradise, is a grotesque ode to the sticky depths of Edinburgh’s beloved independent cinemas and the invisible workforce who lurk in their aisles after dark. It’s a croaked whisper from behind a red velvet curtain, haunting and darkly seductive, which grows louder as the hallucinatory world of the Paradise, the eponymous cinema of the novel’s Gothic happen ings, begins to unravel.

Through desperate acts of subver sion, the underpaid workers writhe against the repulsive monotony of their jobs, only to find themselves surveilled and under threat as tragedy propels the cinema’s absorption by a corporate monolith. Above all, it’s a tale of precar ity – of arts institutions and labourers, and of how these pockets of eccentric ity can be gouged out of a city by an uncaring market – one which has felt all the more relevant in Scotland since its publication. [Paula Lacey]

there are more things by Yara Rodrigues Fowler (Fleet)

Yara Rodrigues Fowler’s there are more things is a political novel rooted in power and cemented in hope. Set in present London during a time of austerity, the hostile environment, and rising fascism, it illuminates the possibilities of direct action and community-led mobilisation against

a failing system of capitalism and climate destruction. It follows the political awakening of its two young protagonists, Melissa and Catarina. Not only are they linked by the city of London, but also through shared Brazilian heritage and connections to the country’s turbulent history; a history that is given its own timeline to show how guerilla activists worked to combat the 1960s dictatorship that reigned over Brazil. As both narratives move forward, Rodrigues Fowler begins to highlight history repeating itself, but more importantly how direct action can and has been used to overcome the very systems meant to rob us of our right to hope. [Andrés Ordorica]

Time Is a Mother by Ocean Vuong (Jonathan Cape)

Ocean Vuong’s second poetry collection Time Is a Mother is a gorgeous, moving and awe-inspiring gathering of poems that feel like award-winning short films. These vignettes of loss, grief and love will take your breath away, and getting the chance to experience life as Vuong sees it will change the way you see the world around you. Running through the poems is the immutable loss of his mother, themes of family, memory and belonging, and subtle nature motifs – rain, water, snow and thunder colour the landscape. “We’ll only live once this time”, he writes. Yes, we will – and his collection will help us savour all the little, beautiful, otherwise forgotten moments of life along the way. [Nasim Rebecca Asl]

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin (Chatto & Windus)

Utterly beautiful and endlessly hopeful, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow is a love letter to life, friendship, and creativity in all its joy and pain. It follows Sam, Sadie, and Marx, who go from being ambitious college students to successful game developers through the 1990s and 2000s. Their triumphs, failures, tragedies and grief – even after becoming stars in their field – are felt so keenly that it seems bizarre that they aren’t real people.

The novel is so carefully and thoughtfully constructed that reading it feels like an invitation from Zevin to enter a game, to play. Every moment has layers of meaning, and there are references within references, where she pulls inspiration from poetry, music, art, novels, films. It’s an ambitious, magnificent jewel of a book, and one that will live within its reader for a long time. [Sim Bajwa]

So many books, so little time. Our writers tell us about some of their absolute favourite reads from this year - get your Christmas reading sorted here

Illustration: Caroline Dowsett

Shop Local

A rundown of some special offers and events happening this festive season

The Stand

When The Stand rst opened, their manifesto included creating a list of genuine comedy fans to make sure they charged them the fairest possible price. The membership scheme evolved from this idea and is still strong today with over 1000+ members. It entitles the holder to advanced show announcements, discounted tickets and member exclusives for just £15 a year.

thestand.co.uk @standcomedyclub

Edinburgh Printmakers

The wide-ranging artwork for sale at Edinburgh Printmakers showcases stunning prints from its archive as well as from its current print studio members – meaning it’s impossible not to nd art to your taste! If you visit in-person, you can also explore a range of homemade gifts from local makers too. edinburghprintmakers.co.uk/shop

The Queen’s Hall

Treat your loved ones to the gift of live music in 2023. The Queen’s Hall is Edinburgh's best music venue, with a varied programme across all genres. The intimate and idiosyncratic building plays host to everyone from international superstars to up-and-coming local talent. They o er email gift vouchers valid for three years – the perfect last-minute gift for the music fans in your life.

thequeenshall.net/gift-vouchers

Fruitmarket bookshop

This Christmas, spending time with people feels more important than ever, so in the Fruitmarket bookshop the focus is on thoughtfully selected books, gifts, and activities that you can share with those you love. Shop for our artists' editions and books alongside Japanese stationery, jesmonite candle holders and hand-poured candles that are luxurious ( but also kind to your bank balance)

fruitmarket.co.uk

BLUDGE

BLUDGE is a queer-owned “online-o e” run by a WSET-certi ed cork dork who likes drinking and talking about wine ad nauseam. We’re based in Leith – where we o er regular tastings – but we also deliver wine all over mainland GB.

Check us out for all your wine-o needs: bludge.co.uk or @bludgewine on all our socials!

The Real Mary King’s Close

Join a new immersive experience: Dr Arnott’s Sampling Sensation! This hands-on workshop invites the public to diagnose Dr Arnott’s patients using his favourite 17th-century method, examining their urine... Following a guided tour of The Real Mary King’s Close, guests will be invited to use all of their senses (including taste) to diagnose Dr Arnott’s patients and create their own concoctions.

The Stand

Photo: Jay Dawson

Image: courtesy of Edinburgh Printmakers

Image: courtesy of Fruitmarket

Edinburgh Printmakers

Damien Dempsey at The Queens Hall

Fruitmarket bookshop

The Real Mary King’s Close

BLUDGE

Enter the world of

inside his head. Presented as a paperback with dust jacket, which replicates the look of a well-worn sketchbook.

£ 27 | ISBN: 0571542484 | Faber Music

Porty by Post

Porty by Post is a monthly book subscription service by The Portobello Bookshop. They curate two boxes each month, selecting the boldest and brightest new writing from across a variety of genres to feature in a beautifully wrapped, bespoke box alongside a gift from a local brand and specially printed booklet containing an exclusive author interview.

theportobellobookshop.com @portybooks

£ 27 | ISBN: 057154214X | Faber Music

15

Macastory's Jack and the Beanstalk

Join Ron, Ferg and Claire as they take you on a great big Christmas cracker of an adventure in Macastory’s storytelling panto Jack and the Beanstalk (2pm, Sat 17, Sun 18, Thu 22 & Fri 23 Dec) 55 minutes of perfect panto patter, full of all the usual panto fun, excitement and laughs, specially devised for a young audience and their parents… it’s a BIG story for LITTLE people!

Scottish Storytelling Centre, 43 45 High St, Edinburgh scottishstorytellingcentre.com

Standing Like Statues: The Enter Shikari

Authorised Biography

The Alchemy Experiment

The Alchemy Experiment is an inclusive arts venue and collective aiming to create a space for art and creativity in Glasgow. Since opening amidst the pandemic in October 2020 we have slowly been growing our gallery/art event space to be a known and well-regarded creative hub. Each weekend before Christmas the space will be hosting a rotation of independent local artists, makers & small brands.

Full info at alchemyexperiment.com

Inside Voice - Sketchbooks 2011-2022

musician and artist Keaton Henson with this hauntingly beautiful collection of drawings and doodles from his sketchbooks over the last 12 years. Curated by Keaton himself, Inside Voice gives a rare glimpse of what’s

CAPS LOCK ON: Lyrics + Debris 2007-2022

This limited edition, artist-approved lyric book for the band Everything Everything with its stunning neon hardcover is Everything (Everything) fans could wish for and more! The full-colour edition presents over 300 pages of lyrics to all songs released, a treasure trove of previously unseen images, archive material of notebooks, chord sheets, set lists and more!

Argonaut Books

Sta ed by knowledgeable, experienced booksellers and boasting a curated collection of titles new, classic and rarely seen from all genres, Leith’s Argonaut Books has you covered for the easy and the hard-to-buy-for readers in your life. With some particularly special Christmas stock chosen with discovery in mind, you’re guaranteed to nd something exciting you’ve never seen before!

17 Leith Walk | argonautbooks.co.uk

The very rst authorised biography of one of the most invigorating, inventive and independent bands the UK has ever produced! Written by Enter Shikari expert Luke Morton, Standing Like Statues tells the Enter Shikari story alongside a series of interviews with all members of the band and their team. This hardback edition is printed in full colour with a huge selection of unseen photographs.

Porty by Post

Macastory's Jack and the Beanstalk

CAPS LOCK ON

Standing Like Statues

Rounding up 2022

As a label head, radio host, DJ, podcaster and overall tastemaker broadcasting in the industry for over a decade, Jamz Supernova is an immense talent. Join us as we enjoy her hot take on 2022 –discussing clubs, music and podcasts

Interview: Heléna Stanton

2022 has been a major year for you! Any moment you’ve reflected on and just instantly gone, “Wow I did that”?

Omg, 100%. I think reflecting on summer as a whole and the variation of sets I was fortunate to play, I definitely feel that when I look back! Not only did we fully emerge from a pandemic but for me, it was about touring as a new mum. While it has been challenging, it’s also been super rewarding to have this balance in which I can be mum and DJ at the same time! A moment of that duality was at Worldwide Festival playing in the south of France to an incredible crowd in a beautiful setting and looking behind me and my baby is sleeping behind the monitor, protective headphones on, just out of earshot and eye level of the madness!

Any advice for DJs who are currently a part of community radio and want to branch out to bi er platforms in 2023?

I would say to treat your community radio show the same way you would if it was on a larger platform. Really curate the show and make sure it’s the highest quality your resources allow for. Then I would say consistency. Commit to the show but also commit to sharing and shouting about it on social media. This helps to further build a community and awareness. I’ve never particularly loved social media but this year I made a pledge to get back to shouting about the work I do and looking at how I can cut that down into short-form content for online. I would say find what platforms you’re comfortable with and create content in the way you’d like to receive it, slowly but surely, you’ll build the right following!

Best new artist(s) you’ve discovered this year? I’d probably say in no particular order: Agaama, Jaydonclover, Bel Cobain, Rudi Creswick, Kai Kwasi and Flaurese.

Best track(s) of 2022?

Dego – Start Again (Feat. Samii) cktrl – Love + War Chronixx – Never Give Up Jeshi – 3210

Hagan – Textures

Lil Silva – To The Floor (Feat. BADBADNOTGOOD)

Don Pascal – Cape Verdean Bruk (Cape Verd 'n' Bass Remix)

Village Cuts X Swordman Kitala – Digida Blck Mamba – Rudeboy Ting

Chloe Robinson & DJ ADHD – Pax (Four Tet Remix) 700Bliss – Anthology

Podcast recommendations of 2022?

Gonna be cheeky and say my own! Season 1 and 2 of Jamz Supernova’s DIY Handbook! It’s a

handbook for creatives and entrepreneurs, I think we levelled up for Season 2! Have You Heard George’s Podcast? is beautifully written and interesting. Questions posed!

Decode – Skepta Konnichiwa. This is a deep dive into a cultur ally important album! A great reminder of what a time to be alive musi cally! Tape Notes, this one is a real nerd out into the process of how people make music.

Sweet Bobby, this whole season is WTF! A true story of how love can blur our reality.

2022 has been the first full year back for (a lot of) DJs on the Club Circuit. Looking back, how have things changed for you?

I think the most signifi cant change has been in myself and my confidence. The DJ I was in 2019 is very different to now, I have a better understanding of how I want to com municate through my selections and the journey I want to create! In terms of the crowd, what’s been great is that people only go out if they want to for various reasons, so when they are there, you get their full attention – I feel a lot more appreciated as a DJ! But the flip side of the pandemic and the increase in the cost of living is that it’s harder to sell tickets upfront so only time will tell what that means for venues and artists. But for now, I’m leaning into the positives and that’s being able to give the people in front of me the best show I can!

Who are your ones to watch in 2023?

I’m gonna pick out the womxn from my Future Bounce family! SUCHI. A Manchester-based,

Norwegian producer who explores her South Asian heritage and love of dance music through her productions! She’s already globetrotting as a DJ and her release Seher on Future Bounce has been one of my faves!

Bianca Oblivion! Bad gyal producer from LA! Part of the Latinx community making Global Club music, Bianca is the voice of the next generation! Sola, think the lovechild of Timbaland and Burial, but with the voice of Des’ree and you’ll get Sola, a brilliant visionary! Through her music and art, she creates this.

Jamz Supernova

Photo: Terna Jogo

The Problem with Panto

As an American transplant to Scotland, I already felt out of my depth when I was first exposed to the art of British panto mime. Having been raised Korean and Jewish, my exposure to Christmas traditions in my own home country is limited as it is – forget about Christmastime institutions abroad.

So imagine my surprise when the image below appeared in my inbox. This year, Beacon Arts Centre offers a new adaptation of Aladdin. On the far right of the promo image, Mark Cox (Abanazer) sports a glittery, green analogue of Jafar’s famous getup. And in the centre, Jimmy Chisholm sports an inexplicable Ancient Egyptian costume as Widow Twankey. The rest of the costumes include imagery from all over the Asian continent, from the religious art of the South-East to the exa erated sleeves of China’s Qing Dynasty.

To get something like a frame of reference, I turned to Ayanna Thompson’s recent book, Blackface (yes, we should all read it). Looking at the above photo, Thompson’s definition of black face should sound familiar: “On the most basic level, blackface is the application of any prosthetic – makeup, soot, burnt cork, minerals, masks, etc. – to imitate the complexion of another race.” By this definition, one could argue that Cox’s heavy makeup in the Aladdin promo image is, in fact, blackface. If we agree that Cox’s cartoonish visage is blackface of some kind, it should seem all the more sinister that, as the villain Abanazer, Cox is the only actor in the lineup to receive that treat ment. What does it say about Asian-ness that only the villain is in blackface?

accent, because they privately thought that your people were laughable, and now you’ve given them the chance to express that in public.” The contin ued success of racist pantomimes speaks to a broader culture that has always thought that a little racist joke is OK, as a treat.

None of this is to say that pantomime should be done away with entirely. Pantomime is a vital and supremely creative art form – it is many children’s first exposure to theatre. And, with reliable sources of income all but evaporating for theatre artists, pantomime remains an indispensa ble feature of the theatrical ecosystem.

I’ll start by pointing out that this image – which features only white actors – is Orientalism, and it is, wholly and unequivocally, harmful and inappropriate. In 2020, Lucy Lillistone covered backlash against Forum Theatre’s Christmas production of Aladdin. At the time, the production company doubled down on their decision to include the archetype of ‘The Chinese Policemen’, citing only tradition. This apathy among white theatre-makers lays bare what artists and audiences of colour have known for years. They highlight the attitude that, if it’s harmful to you, that’s your own problem. While I don’t think this issue can be reduced to something as simple as representation or ‘diverse casting’, the question bears repeating: why is pantomime seemingly exempt from the bare minimum of anti-racist consciousness?

Would Aladdin pantos be OK if the titular character were played by an Asian actor? I think not. In a theatrical tradition that so unabashedly melds every Asian culture into a single, comedic Franken-culture, the issue is hardly limited to the cast. While casting is a large part of the equation, our commentary on it must go deeper.

The logic of white people who have done blackface, Thompson writes, stems from the “belief that ignorance is a type of innocence.” To me, this is the actual crux of the problem with Aladdin pantos: the pantomime stage is implicitly considered a white, therefore ‘innocent’, space. If pantos choose to employ ‘diverse casting’, they are nevertheless inviting marginalised performers into their space, rather than giving them any ownership over it. Putting Black and brown bodies on display onstage does not an anti-racist production make. Blackface performance, Thompson says, reveals implicit biases – this includes the belief that racist tropes are funny, and therefore OK to play on stage. As Bo Burnham says in What’s Funny (2010), “Everybody laughs at the Chinese

As a famously adaptable art form, pantomime is uniquely positioned to comment directly on our day-to-day environment; it already does in so many ways. Actor Michelle Kelly says, “Creating theatre that welcomes children and first-time theatre-goers is a noble aim; it is made all the less noble when only white children and first-time theatre-goers are truly welcome.” When we think of pantomime as “for children”, it often feels like the unspoken meaning is “for white children” – after all, as Kelly points out, are Asian children not also children? Don’t they deserve to feel safe and respected? Representation is instructive – it teaches children how their community feels about what they see. And if pantomime is to truly welcome all audiences, it has some growing of its own to do.

To read the more in-depth version of this article, visit theskinny.co.uk/theatre

“Putting Black and brown bodies on display onstage does not an anti-racist production make” – Theatre editor Rho Chung does a deep dive on pantomime's racism problem

Aladdin at Beacon Arts Centre, Greenock

Image: courtesy of Beacon Arts Centre

Simple Pleasures

Our resident Local Heroes curator has rounded up the most desirable and sustainable interior pieces from across the country. Each is intended to help create distinctive spaces over the festive season and beyond

Words: Stacey Hunter

Photo: Studio Brae Michiel Bosman

December is studded with gorgeous gift guides, however the season also has our thoughts turning towards sustainability and items with longevity in mind. So, this month, we’ve brought together our favourite interior items. All can be a well-deserved gift to ourselves, our family, or to a friend who appreciates our thoughtful eye for what might look wonderful in their home.

Enhancing a space with contemporary design from Scotland is a great way to #shopsmall and support the local design and craft community. Our selected designers from across the country are working with a spectrum of looks from the minimal and conceptual to the zesty and colourful – all would happily sit together in a room as a snapshot of the contemporary design scene and its key trends.

Glasgow’s Shweta Mistry has just launched her Harmony wallpaper design. It is meticulously

hand-painted with delicate brushwork detailing depicting stylised fish and rhythmic water, creat ing a timeless design for any style of decor. Luxury wallpaper is a frugal way to beautify a small intimate space such as a recessed alcove with a vanity – it needn’t be applied to a whole room.

Tokes Sharif is the Edinburgh-based cerami cist behind Studio Brae whose sleek, modern silhouettes bring elegance and tranquillity to any space – we particularly like his handmade func tional pieces such as the Minimalist Candelabra in textured grey stoneware.

Katy West is a designer and educator based in Glasgow. The Bread ’n Butter butter dish has been made in collaboration with local bakers two. eight.seven, using a model cast from one of the first loaves of bread that they made and sold on the Southside of Glasgow. It evokes traditional creamware, clear glaze on slip-cast earthenware clay and stamped with cobalt blue. This object celebrates the everyday luxury of bread and butter, reminding us to take time to enjoy simple pleas ures in life.

Also exhibiting with the popular two.eight. seven is Saskia Pomeroy. Her colourful and contemporary glazes for hand thrown stoneware plates retain a seventies earthiness of tones. Her work is distinctive, employing a traditional throw ing technique married with a modern approach to decoration bringing warmth and playful joy to kitchens and dining rooms.

Zitozza are an exciting new find for us – based in Fife and led by Hungarian-born designer Zita Katona, their wide range of jute products are breathing new life into a traditional, sustainable material. This rug from the Semafóro collection has been hand block-printed in brutalist architectureinspired motifs. The zesty colours are toned down by the coarse texture of the natural jute bringing warmth and comfort together with practicality.

This Lace Lichen Cushion by Camban Studio is created using fine quality cashmere offcuts that may have otherwise gone to waste. The cushions are one-off pieces that are designed to make the most of available luxury offcuts. These cushions are hand screen-printed in Aberdeen with Camban Studio’s signature ‘Lace Lichen’ design in a metallic copper pigment against a dark navy in 100% cashmere.

Nestled in the Cairngorms are Yellow Broom, where zero-waste, hand-turned pendant lights are made. Created using sycamore they are comple mented by natural tan leather handles and braided fabric flex in pastel hues. Inspired by a traditional industrial inspection lamp, these simple lights can

be presented individually or in groups. They are made using wood that is sourced and milled locally.

In Orkney, Hilary Grant shows once again that her studio is unsurpassed in terms of its approach to sophisticated colour palettes. The new collection features hues with names like Ink, Rosehip and Haar, or North Sea, Barley and Oatmeal. All feature highly specialised knitting patterns, including cascading colour changes, that lend a folky character to the designs for which the studio is internationally renowned.

Shweta

Photo: Nick West

Camban Studio

Harmony Wallpaper by Shweta Mistry

Hilary Grant

Zitozza Saskia Pomeroy

Katy West

Fragmented Patriarchs

Words: Sofia Cotrona

Walking into the darkened upper floor of Talbot Rice Gallery, the sound of cacophonic prayer chants and back ground noises lead visitors towards Nira Pereg’s multi-channel video installations ISHMAEL (2015) and ABRAHAM ABRAHAM SARAH SARAH (2012) – the first two parts of the Patriarchs trilogy.

In this series, the Israeli artist looks at the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron, a city in the occupied Palestinian territory of the West Bank. The cave is one of the most sacred monuments in both Islam and Judaism, as it contains the tomb of the prophet and common patriarch Abraham and his wife Sarah. It is also symbolic of the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian religious and sectarian conflict. The site underwent a strict spatial separation to keep Muslim and Jewish worshippers apart, following the 1994 massacre of 29 Muslim wor shippers in the mosque by US-born Israeli settler Baruch Goldstein. After the attack, eighty percent of the site was reserved for Muslim worshippers and twenty percent for Jewish worshippers.

The first two first parts of the Patriarchs series focus on the bureaucratic processes of religious separation, as Pereg documents the strictly surveilled protocols that rule the religious use of this site.

ABRAHAM ABRAHAM SARAH SARAH captures two of the ten yearly occasions when the spatial separation in the Cave of the Patriarchs is revoked and one religious group gains access to the whole site for 24 hours. Pereg is the first civilian to document the different phases of this process. The audience witness the clearance of religious artefacts from the cham bers, the inspection led by the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) and finally the appropriation of the space for complete use by either Muslim or Jewish worshippers, emphasising the transformation of the Cave into either a mosque or a synagogue.

Meanwhile, ISHMAEL observes the strictly surveilled steps necessary for a muezzin to call the Adhan – the five calls to prayer – in the context of the architectural division of the site, which left the minaret (used to call worshippers) on the Jewish side. Pereg follows the journey of the muezzin as they call the Adhan, back and forth from the dividing doors, the synagogue and to the minaret, escorted by IDF soldiers. Pereg’s interest in the bureaucracy of religious practices is evident in her decision not to focus on worship in either installa tion. ABRAHAM ABRAHAM SARAH SARAH focuses on the preparation for prayer, while in ISHMAEL we hear Muslim and Jewish calls to prayer, although the muezzin is concealed behind a green door and the frames of worshippers in the mosque don’t portray them in the act of praying.

Pereg’s works highlight the mechanisms of exclusions in order to build complex and layered narratives about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, partly influenced by her own positionality – as an Israeli artist, her nationality gave her the ability to record these documentaries, yet it inevitably reduced her access to certain Muslim spaces. For example, at the end of ABRAHAM ABRAHAM SARAH SARAH, the artist doesn’t have permission to record the Muslim worshippers entering the mosque as she does with the Jewish worshippers.

Yet the artist doesn’t shy away from traumatic events such as the 1994 massacre – and the every day forms of violence and surveillance endured by Muslim Palestinians. ISHMAEL narrates the disap propriation of the Muslim minaret and records an instance where the sunset Adhan is forbidden by Israeli authorities in response to Jewish settlers’ demand to have their own call to the Mincha prayer at the same time. The title itself draws attention to these ideas – Ishmael was Abraham’s firstborn, who was then cast out and denied his rightful place. This religious narrative charges Pereg’s work with the themes of dispossession and disappropriation that defines the experience of living in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

Pereg rejects binary narratives around the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, using fragmented

footage to obstruct a linear, frontal viewing of her documentaries. For instance, the simultaneous projection of ABRAHAM ABRAHAM SARAH SARAH on two opposite walls of the gallery forces the audience to continuously alternate between following the actions of one religious group or the other. Viewers are unable to watch Pereg’s work in its entirety, leading to a fragmented and disparate viewing experience. The artist deploys similar tactics In ISHMAEL too, where three frontal screens follow the journey of the muezzin to and from the minaret, while a fourth, displayed at a 90-degree angle, only comes to life to capture the Jewish public call to prayer at sunset. .

Furthermore, in this installation, the Jewish and Muslim calls to prayer are played simultane ously, creating a multivocal effect which talks of incompatibility yet imagines an alternative reality where the two can coexist.

Through these fragmented views of religious and ethnic tensions, Pereg’s works present an array of complex narratives, using the Cave of the Patriarchs as a site for producing manifold ac counts of the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

One writer responds to Nira Pereg’s beguiling exhibition Patriarchs at Talbot Rice Gallery

Patriarchs continues at Talbot Rice until 18

ABRAHAM ABRAHAM SARAH SARAH, 2012, Nira Pereg

Image: courtesy the artist

Inspiral Carpets

Words: Harvey Dimond

UNDERFOOT, Elizabeth Price’s first solo show in Scotland, centres on a complex but tightly structured video installation of the same name, and SAD CARREL, a hand-tufted rug produced by the artist in collaboration with Dovecot Studios in Edinburgh. The crisp, techni colour visuals of the carpets in the video fore ground the metallic gold and silver spiralled embellishments of the textile work, stretched sculpturally across a semi-circular structure.

This visual rapport stands in for a broader affinity between the video and textile work: the curator of UNDERFOOT, Dominic Paterson, de scribes this as a departure for the artist from previous projects and emphasises that this conver sation between the two works really sits at the heart of the show. Paterson notes the fascinating link between textile production and computer programming, which creates a circular, reciprocal narrative between textile technology and the digital components deployed in the exhibition. The emergence of computer technology can be partially attributed to the Jacquard Loom, well known as one of the first programmable technologies.

Many visitors from Glasgow will recognise the boldly patterned carpets that feature in UNDERFOOT as being from the post-1981 Mitchell

Library (which are brought to life through digital animation). The video guides the viewer through still images of a modern library space, detailing its spatial, social and material characteristics in vivid and meticulous detail. Price’s specific interest in carpets – which Paterson describes as “lowly things” – continues an ongoing investment in, and affinity for, other materials such as neckties (the subject matter of recent film Felt Tip). In UNDERFOOT, the recognisable carpets of the Mitchell Library become metaphor for “the interac tions between social history, popular culture and formal knowledge.”

The library, of course, remains an iconic Glasgow venue and public resource, accessible to Glaswegians from a vast range of backgrounds: Paterson describes it beautifully as “a confident, generous and expansive social sphere in which free access to art, books and culture is offered to all.” The library’s importance to the communities it serves, especially during the current cost of living crisis, cannot be underestimated, and UNDERFOOT highlights the importance of public and civic inclusiveness at a pivotal moment, after more than a decade of austerity.

Although Price was born in Bradford and raised in Luton, she has a long-standing

relationship with Glasgow, having travelled to the city as a touring musician during the 1980s as part of the indie band Talulah Gosh. Music remains an integral aspect of her practice, and UNDERFOOT is no exception, with a specific nod to the inde pendent music scene in the city that thrives to this day. The video also has continuities with earlier works, primarily the practice of using the lecture as a structuring device, a tool Price has deployed in various works over the past 15 years.

Paterson explains that the exhibition was a collaborative venture from the get-go. The independ ent Glasgow-based curatorial team Panel and artist and writer Fiona Jardine extended an invitation to the artist to produce a new textile commission. While the artist worked with Dovecot Studios in Edinburgh to produce the textile work, the Hunterian was selected as the final exhibition venue.

Price’s interest in 19th-century architecture – which both the Mitchell Library and the Hunterian Museum and Art Gallery are examples of – binds these two spaces together, in spite of their distinct and perhaps disparate functions and social settings. Price also spent time in the University of Glasgow’s archives, with invaluable support from former Master Weaver Dr Jonathan Cleaver. The starting point for the exhibition was an initial forage into the Stoddard Templeton Collection at the University of Glasgow this is reflected in the inclusion of two archival images, which show female workers engaged in the pro duction of carpets. The film is narrated entirely by anonymous women workers, whose analysis forms a specific space that emphasises their own desires, their language becoming more sensuous and evocative as the film unravels.

UNDERFOOT continues at The Hunterian Art Gallery, Glasgow, until 16 Apr 2023

The Skinny meets curator Dominic Paterson to unpick Elizabeth Price’s latest exhibition, UNDERFOOT, at the Hunterian Art Gallery

UNDERFOOT 2 Elizabeth Price

Image: courtesy of the Hunterian, University of Glasgow

It’s a Royal Knockout

In Corsage, Austrian director Marie Kreutzer brings a radical new interpretation of the life of Empress Elisabeth of Austria to the screen. Kreutzer talks to us about parallels she sees with modern celebrity and the secret to wrangling dogs on set

Interview: Carmen Paddock

The films of Austrian director Marie Kreutzer focus on women at breaking point.

In Kreutzer’s latest, Corsage, she reimagi nes the life of Empress Elisabeth of Austria – beautiful, reclusive and ubiquitous on Viennese tourist tat – on the eve of her 40th birthday. Vicky Krieps’ fierce performance as Elisabeth gives life to a woman fighting a station she did not choose and delighting in small freedoms.

Elisabeth’s quest for liberty goes alongside a need for connection. Scenes with her family and servants flash between affection and irritation under close quarters. Kreutzer drew much from research but, in a run-time just shy of two hours, impressions count more. “I had to boil relation ships down to their essence,” Kreutzer tells us. It would be easy to make Elisabeth’s husband, Franz Joseph II, the antagonist, but the reality was nuanced. “He took care of people,” she explains. “He never let anyone go. That’s how I came up with the idea that he always knew servant’s names and was friendly to them.” By contrast, Elisabeth often calls her servants by the wrong name. “He loved his wife, but he was too small for her in many ways,” Kreutzer adds, and she doesn’t just mean figuratively. Corsage is the first film about Elisabeth to – accurately – cast an actress as Elisabeth who’s taller than the actor playing Franz. Their children, Crown Prince Rudolf and Archduchess Marie Valerie, are created with equal honesty. “[Elisabeth] had a very close relationship

to her children but did not raise them,” says Kreutzer. “They were raised by people who told them that their main goal in life was to be perfect, so they were trying to meet the expectations of that structure. It was important to show Elisabeth surrounded by people but really lonely.”

Complicating the picture, Elisabeth adheres to a strict exercise and diet regime, snapping at maids when they cannot tighten her corset enough. This contrast of freedom and self-restric tion drew Kreutzer in. “I wanted to show that point between two sides of [Elisabeth]. She knew her looks and waist were her currency. That’s hard to let go, if that’s all you have.” But this creation “was never her – she was thrown into it as a 16-yearold.” Watching Elisabeth stru le with being loved for perfection or for herself proves the film’s crux, and the outcome feels uncertain. “It was important to show her when her life starts to shift,” explains Kreutzer. “It’s hard work being perfect. That was her job for too long.”

Kreutzer read 19th-century newspapers to see how Elisabeth was spoken about by contem porary observers. “The articles are like those about Meghan Markle, judging her for how she was dressed or if she had gained weight. It’s very similar to what we observe today with celebrities, and more so with royal figures because they have to meet public expectations and the expectations of their system. But this is not a film about royalty, but women who are still raised to please.”

A striking sequence occurs when Elisabeth meets French artist Louis le Prince, who invented an early form of motion-picture camera. Kreutzer doesn’t remember how the filmmaking pioneer made his way into her story, but it came from research unconnected to Corsage. “I like the idea of Elisabeth being able to create another image of herself. It’s a symbol for another way.” Freed by le Prince’s proto-silent film, the empress kicks her heels and screams. By contrast, Rudolf remains “in classic portrait mode” during this moving image.

Elisabeth’s story has been immortalised on film most famously in Ernst Marischka’s saccharine Sissi trilogy but Kreutzer’s design vividly sets Corsage apart. She drew inspiration from Elisabeth’s quarters – “big, beautiful, but very dark” at Vienna’s Hofburg. With every window facing a courtyard, there’s little light or greenery. Corsage’s palaces are empty, decrepit, and decaying. “When designers showed me original furniture and clothing, I would say it’s too kitschy,” Kreutzer says. Consequently, the team incorporated early 20th-century designs, adding a playful bent to Elisabeth’s own modern outlook. Kreutzer then focused on lines, silhouettes, and unusual textures that looked “very beautiful” on 35mm in these cavernous yet claustrophobic spaces.

Elisabeth loved her horses and dogs, who feature prominently and frequently in her poems, diaries and letters. Kreutzer’s experiences with the animal stars of Corsage varied. “The horses were amazing. The dogs were much more difficult,” Kreutzer says, noting she picked dogs fitting the Empress’s specifications rather than camera-ready animals. “It was worth it but stressful. There was a lot of meat and sausage around.”

Corsage’s subversion reaches its apotheosis in its closing minutes. To Kreutzer, Elisabeth becomes the director of this plausible fiction by “taking control of her life and how it would go on.” There is room for conspiracy: Elisabeth never showed her face in public as she aged, and later imperial por traits are “made-up paintings” inspired by old images. “It’s not really seeing the same person,” Kreutzer says. “There is space for speculation.” For a film determined to create its own history for one who never had the chance, it’s a radical, refreshing spin.

Corsage is released 26 Dec by Picturehouse Entertainment

“This is not a film about royalty, but women who are still raised to please”

Marie Kreutzer

Corsage

Photo: Robert Brandstaetter

Eye on the Doughnut

There are few Hollywood films as influential as The Wizard of Oz, and there seem to be few people who have been more influenced by it than David Lynch. After diving into the critical conversations and cultural psyches surrounding Star Wars, Psycho, Alien and The Exorcist, Alexandre O. Philippe’s latest docu-essay picks the brains of critics and filmmakers – all Lynch super fans – to investigate the link between the technicol our land of Oz and the great American surrealist.

Unlike 78/52 (Philippe’s dissection of Psycho’s shower scene) or Memory (his dive into the mythical roots of Alien), Philippe structured his film as six sequential monologues, letting talents like Karyn Kusama, David Lowery and directing duo Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead explore the full extent of their thoughts. “The first step, once we had agreed to do this together, was to set up what I call a jazz interview,” Philippe explains. “I got them on the phone and I recorded very low-res, just on my iPhone, the proceedings. The shortest was about 90 minutes, the longest was about three-and-a-half hours. We were riffing on the idea of Lynch and Oz and I was fishing for what could be their theory.”

Hearing passionate speculation on Lynch’s influences, as well as testimonies of how his filmography inspired generations of creatives in kind, is an engrossing and illuminat ing experience. It seems Philippe asked of his subjects a similar commitment to the abstract that Lynch’s films ask of their audience. “You have to go after people who are going to have an interesting theory,” he says, “and who are also willing to go down this particular rabbit hole with you, go all the way there.”

After transcribing these “jazz interviews”, Philippe would work back and forth with each speaker on what became their essay, only then sending them to recording studios. An exception to this preparation was legendary filmmaker John Waters, whose discussion of his directing peer sounds noticeably more conver sational. “I felt like it was asking a little bit too much of the great John Waters to do [all] that,” says Phillippe. “So for [Waters], we sent him straight to a recording studio and I just kept fishing until I felt like I had enough. And I got his chapter based on what he gave me.”

Philippe’s dissection of Psycho’s shower scene or his dive into the mythical roots of Alien features myriad famous talking heads analysing these iconic films. Lynch/Oz, however, only features its celebrity contributors on the soundtrack. Each essay is aided only by a vast variety of film and archive footage, something that immensely compli cated the editing process. “It’s massively challeng ing to not have the luxury to cut back to a talking head,” he reveals, before singing the praises of his editor David Lawrence. “David had all these folders of clips, and for certain moments, he would create

folders with several contenders for each little moment, and we would look at them and review and discuss which one we wanted to use. And when you multiply that by, I don’t know what, 2000 clips?”

The mind bo les. “It’s a legitimate art form.”

David’s brother, Aaron, scored the film, having the mammoth task of merging the iconic music synonymous with Oz and Lynch’s worlds – with the caveat that he could only use electric guitar. “I love that kind of restriction of, ‘This is your sandbox, one electric guitar, and that’s all you have. Now play within that.’ It’s very similar to what we did on Leap of Faith” – Philippe’s film on The Exorcist where the only interviewee was its director, William Friedkin. “That was a cello only, single cello score that was supposed to essentially echo William Friedkin throughout the film.”

Philippe’s first films were a lot broader in tone, focusing on the expansive, eclectic fandoms of Star Wars and George A. Romero. As his career contin ued, his zeal for unpacking culture strengthened, even as the films developed a more refined critical voice. “The early films were more about pop culture,” he says, “but they’re still about obsession in a way, and about these moments in cinema that are so culturally important, and so important to understand. I don’t make behind-the-scenes films, I make films about why movies matter.”

Lynch is famously reluctant to explain the deeper meanings of his work, so a film unpacking the inter textual resonance of his filmography could, on paper, seem redundant. But it turns out Philippe shares Lynch’s resistance to thematic dictation.

“Lynch/Oz is not about explaining Lynch,” he stresses. “I think it’s about opening more doors to more myster ies, if anything. It’s fundamentally about the mysteries of influence and inspiration on the creative process. We’re just pointing the way to the red shoes and the curtains.”

Philippe did approach Lynch to appear in the film, but anticipated the inevitable rejection. “I mean, he was very nice about it, but he said, in classic Lynchian fashion, ‘I need to keep my eye on the doughnut.’ So that was that. That’s the best re sponse you can get from him.”

Alexandre O. Philippe takes another deep dive into a corner of film culture by exploring the connective tissue between the nightmarish worlds of David Lynch and the Technicolor dreamscape of The Wizard of Oz. We peek behind the curtains

Interview: Rory Doherty

Lynch/Oz is released 2 Dec by Dogwoof

“I don’t make behindthe-scenes films, I make films about why movies matter”

Alexandre O. Philippe

Alexandre O. Philippe

Photo: Bas Bogaerts

A Latke in Common

Words and Illustration:

Over lockdown, my Dad got very into DNA kits. He swabbed nearly every family member this side of the Atlantic, and, in doing so, discovered several more. He managed to connect our family (albeit through marriage) to Peter Sellers and Daniel Mendoza, the 18th-centu ry Jewish boxer. Irritatingly, he also discovered that we are distantly related to several people I went to school with, who are now permanent features on our family tree.

He is understandably proud of our Jewish heritage; consistent efforts have been made throughout history to ensure our family did not make it to the 21st century. For him, our existence is a triumph laughing in the face of centuries of antisemitism.

In 1940, my grandfather buried the dog tags marking him as Jewish in the sands of Calais. Later, when Germans captured his unit, they asked all Jewish soldiers to step forward. Had it not been for two men who restrained him, he would have. Later still, filling out his papers, he listed his mother’s maiden name as ‘Cone’ rather than the identifiably Jewish ‘Cohen’, and checked himself into the Lamsdorf prisoner of war camp as ‘Protestant’.

These methods of survival and identity are core components of our family history – so it is with most Jewish families. Our family emigrated from Tsarist Russia, arriving in Leith and settling in Edinburgh before migrating to London. Coming to Edinburgh to study, and later live, and hearing, “you’re the first Jewish person I’ve ever met” felt odd: after all, I had grown up surrounded by Jewish family and friends.

Judaism is a coy mixture of ethnicity, religion, and culture. I love the experiences and traditions that come with being Jewish; although being adopted from China, I do not fit into typical stereotypes of what Judaism looks like.

My flatmate Pernina and I are both Jewish. They were raised in a more observant household whereas my family practised ‘Judaism Lite’; they were raised kosher, whereas I regularly watched my Dad devour crab platters. However, we have a mezuzah on our door, a chanukiah in our windowsill and the shared experience of growing up in Jewish households. Our family traditions aren’t the same –and yet, we’ve created new traditions together.

Food is vital to Judaism; in the depth of my dissertation mania, my dad couriered chicken noodle soup and Mrs Elswood Haimisha pickles from the closest Jewish deli he could find (Mark’s Deli in Glasgow). Pernina and I love sharing food we grew up with; the challah, the kneidl, even the gefilte (fish) balls because food is tied firmly to human history and emotion. Traditional food is a

Josephine Jay

reminder of meals that have gone before and those that will come again. In a Jewish household, it is a sin to leave a table with anything less than the top button of your trousers undone. Woe betide anyone foolish enough to mention hunger within earshot of a Jewish grandma; we carry this tradi tion forward where we can.

Last year, we held a wonky vegan Rosh Hashanah to usher in the Jewish year 5780. We sat on the floor of our cramped flat, dipped apple slices into honey in hope of a sweet year while trying to guard food from the dog. This year, we’re hosting a Friday Night and DnD (Dungeons and Dragons) Dinner. We’re proud of being Jewish and sharing our unorthodox interpretations of Judaism; there is beauty and resilience in the continuation and adaptation of tradition. Where some might argue there is bastardi sation and loss of authenticity, we find joy in the mutative nature of practice and repetition.

Last year, being an only child, I raced my dog to find the afikomen (a piece of the Passover Matzah). Shamefully, he won. Matzah at Passover represents the unleavened bread made by Jewish people fleeing Egypt in the Torah. The afikomen is broken at the start of dinner, sections from the previous year are produced to signify continuity while children compete to find hidden pieces. Afterwards, all are given pieces of the afikomen to bring to their next Passover with the understanding that life blows people in all directions. Attempting to outpace a sausage dog for a cracker is surreal yet important to me because it reinforces elements of my own childhood and the significance of family.

Recently, I bought cabinets from Facebook Marketplace. After, I met the seller for drinks where it drifted into conversation that we were both Jewish. The questions, “would you raise your children Jewish” and indirectly, “to bris or not to bris?” arose. I love that we connected in this unconventional way.

Judaism, in Edinburgh in particular, is impor tant to me because of the people it brings into my life. When lighting candles on the Sabbath, the prayer notes ‘we prepare to honour the Sabbath keeping faith with You (G’d) and the generations that have gone before... for family and friendship, loyalty and love.’ These are important words in trying times. I love that we can continue our traditions here, keeping them alive and new.

There’s joy in tradition – whether old, new, or something in-between. One writer reflects on connecting with the Jewish faith and community through both the conventional and unconventional

“We’re proud of being Jewish and sharing our unorthodox interpretations of Judaism; there is beauty and resilience in the continuation and adaptation of tradition”

From Me To You

Winter’s rough – this one more so than most. But Transgiving UK are bringing a bit of joy to trans communities across the country. We speak to its founders about collective care, the power of gifting, and allyship amid seasons greetings

Words: Pernina Jacobs

Illustration: Viki Mladenovski

The festive season can be hard for a lot of people, but especially the LGBTQ+ community. Many don’t feel safe with their families, or can no longer celebrate with them. According to the LGBT Youth Commission on Housing and Homelessness, 77% of homeless LGBTQ+ youth in the UK stated that their identity was a causal factor in them becoming homeless. We are nearing the time of year when chosen family – people not biologi cally related to you that you choose to build a community with – are even more impor tant than usual. I spoke to Tash and Seren, some members of my chosen family, about their project Transgiving. Now in its second year, their project sends care packages to trans and non-binary people over the festive period. Although both are based in Cardiff, the project’s scope is wide, sending pack ages across the UK, with recipients includ ing single parents, refugees, and people in precarious living situations.

I asked Seren and Tash how Transgiving first came about. “We were chatting about community and mutual aid support, and wanted a way to give back,” says Tash “We could have given back monetary amounts, but we decided that art is something people don’t see as a necessity. Art shouldn’t be seen as a luxury. Getting a gift at Christmas shouldn’t be a luxury.” A gift turns love into something tangible, some thing solid; being able to share that is so powerful. “So many trans people are creative, but they can’t afford art, so we decided to start Transgiving and send out parcels that are personalised and contain art from other members of the community.”

Tash notes how much trans people’s lives are geared towards survival, leaving little fiscal and emotional space for pleasure. “I remember when I was saving up for my surgery, I forgot how to spend money on myself,” Tash says. “A lot of people feel like they are going to die without

medical care; everything becomes about survival. Transgiving is about bringing joy and community to people so they can have that thing to live for. It shows that people are creating and making beautiful work out of being trans.” This changes the conversation surrounding trans identities and moves it into a more positive space; instead of focusing solely on hardships the community face daily, Transgiving has created a space for trans joy.

This year Seren and Tash have also set up a grant, awarded on a sliding scale, to pay contribu tors. For both, it’s key that Transgiving engages with trans and non-binary creators. “Transgiving stemmed from our own experiences of mutual aid from the community, and we’ve taken a lot of inspiration from trans mutual aid groups. There’s something about that T4T solidarity that we really wanted to focus on,” says Seren. “It’s about celebrating trans creativity, in a time where trans people rarely receive that celebration.”

Transgiving UK

That lack of trans celebration isn’t just seasonal; the climate for trans and non-binary people in the UK is seemingly getting steadily worse, not better, with Rishi Sunak making one of his first acts as Prime Minister an attempt to remove legal protections for trans people from the Equality Act (2010). Last year Transgiving sent out 120 packages to trans and non-binary people across the UK. These are filled with art – post cards, stickers, notebooks – as well as hot choco late, sweets, and a handwritten card. Seren ex plains how the demand for packages has more

than doubled since last year, with almost 250 sign-ups. “It has been harder to get donations, perhaps because of the cost of living crisis, and there’s more demand than there are allies donat ing. The spaces have filled up incredibly quickly without much promotion, because peoples’ needs are so great.” The cost of living crisis has dispro portionately affected marginalised groups and allyship, especially financial, is plateauing as everyone is currently stru ling to make ends meet. What can allies do to really support trans people this winter? “Fund a Transgiving parcel!” Tash exclaims. “And, if you have the ability, give money to charities, or take part in mutual aid.” But support doesn’t have to be solely monetary based. “If you have a trans person in your life, protect them – we all know that Christmas is the ideal time for arguments to begin at the dinner table. That just doesn’t go for transphobia that’s easy to identify, but also the presenting of trans issues as a debate. So you can protect trans people not just by getting their names and pronouns right, but really being there and supporting them.”

“If you’re an ally and you know a trans person who isn’t going to be able to go home for Christmas, invite them over,” says Seren. “Make that space for them. That’s the fantastic thing about being trans – finding community in so many different spaces.”

For more information about Transgiving UK and how to get involved, follow their Instagram @transgivinguk.

“It’s about celebrating trans creativity, in a time where trans people rarely receive that celebration”

Seren, co-founder of

Big Nights Out

With a little help from event discovery platform Skiddle, we take a look at what’s happening across Edinburgh and Glasgow this December

Words by: Tallah Brash

While December is widely known as the season to be jolly, it’s also the season to get all your friends and colleagues together for one last BNO before the year ends. With that in mind, we take a look at what Skiddle has on o er this December across Edinburgh and Glasgow, from queer parties to nights honouring the legendary spirit of New York’s Studio 54 via comedy and a Hogmanay DJ set from Irvine Welsh.

Riverside Festival presents… Daniel Avery @ TV Studio, SWG3, Glasgow, 3 Dec A giant of the British electronic music scene, Daniel Avery has production credits under his belt for the likes of Metronomy and Hercules & Love A air. Celebrating his latest solo album, Ultra Truth, which features contri butions from the likes of HAAi, Kelly Lee Owens and SHERELLE, Avery swings by SWG3’s TV Studio space this December to play his rst-ever live set in Scotland, thanks to Riverside Festival. Not to be missed.

249’s Queer Party @ Summerhall, Edinburgh, 16 Dec

As December hits its midpoint, you’ll likely be looking for fun things to do for your Christmas night out with either pals or work colleagues. Look no further than 249’s ramshackle queer party for all, with open mic hosted by Edinburgh drag queen royalty Alice Rabbit. On the night, there will also be live performances from local artists AKELA, Chloe Roze and Maniatrix as well as DJ sets from DJ Foxxy and Headset’s Skillis. Plus a surprise Christmas Gameshow. Surprise!

Nightvision presents…

We Are the Brave @ The Liquid Room, Edinburgh, 17 Dec

Edinburgh promoters Nightvision are seeing out December with a bang in the form of several big nights at The Liquid Room, including Fraz.ier (3 Dec) and Hogmanay (31 Dec). On 17 December they’re doing a full com plex takeover to celebrate Alan Fitzpatrick’s We Are the Brave label, with Fitzpatrick, Theo Nasa and ModeA all playing in the main space while T78, Rudosa and Kairogen bring the party to The Warehouse.

Rotunda Comedy Club Xmas Show @ Rotunda Comedy Club, Glasgow, 23 Dec

What happens if you eat Christmas decorations? You get tinsel-itis!

[insert eye-roll here] Yes, that was an attempt at a Christmas joke and, we know, we know, it was rubbish! For much better jokes, and for a Christmas night out with a di erence, may we suggest Glasgow’s Rotunda Comedy Club Xmas Show, with award-win ning comedians, a three-course dinner and DJs, helping you laugh and dance your way into Christmas. Snow joke!

STREETrave @ Sub Club, Glasgow, 28 Dec

Scottish promoters STREETrave have been putting on some of the most iconic parties across Scotland since 1989, and this December that trend continues with the return of their massive annual festive party at the equally iconic subterranean Glasgow venue Sub Club. Expect back to back oor- lling beats from the likes of Jon Mancini, Iain Boney Clark, Collin Patterson, Graeme Park, K-Klass and Utah Saints, U-U-Utah Saints!

Huey Morgan @ St Luke’s, Glasgow, 29 Dec Broadcaster, DJ, producer, author and Fun Lovin’ Criminals frontman Huey Morgan is bringing big-time holiday vibes to Glasgow this December to help brighten those weird in-between Christmas and NYE days with a massive party on the 29th.

Inspired by the legendary parties of Studio 54, the disco ball is polished and ready for Morgan, along with a little help from local lads Shaka Loves You, to bring the funk, disco, soul and more to St. Luke’s.

Hogmanay Party feat. Irvine Welsh @ Noir, Little White Pig, Edinburgh, 31 Dec

If you’re looking for something supremely unique to do with your last night of the year, why not choose to spend it at the Hogmanay Party at Noir in the basement of Edinburgh’s Little White Pig, situated at 26B Dublin Street, in the capital’s New Town. Once there you’ll nd

Trainspotting author Irvine Welsh behind the decks, and if you want, you can choose to nip outside at midnight to catch a glimpse of the reworks from the castle.

Happy New Year!

skiddle.com

Photo: Steve Gullick

Photo: Darwon Rashid

Photo: Tom Barnes

Alice Rabbit @ 249

Daniel Avery

Huey Morgan

Music Now

With Tallah taking her knowledgeable hands off of the reins for a few months, there’s a new face covering the Music Now column (me)! Let’s start by looking back at some of the releases we missed last month. Aberdeenshire artist Fiona Soe Paing released Sand, Silt, Flint a vivid, avant-folk exploration linked to the landscapes of the north-east, and there were EPs from Terra Kin (Too Far Gone) and Billy Got Waves (Rocket Boy 2/3), as well as heaps of smashing singles. Joesef released Just Come Home With Me Tonight, Rosie H Sullivan shared So I’ve Been Told, Calum Stewart (The Ninth Wave) released In Dissaray as Health and Beauty, Pleasure Pool put out Love Without Illusion, swim school returned with kill you, Redolent delivered extreme mood swings, MEMES released Monday I Looked Like Death, brown bear shared Close Call, and the recent Sound of Young Scotland winner Berta Kennedy released Travel At Peak Time.

Think December might be a time purely for pulling out the cheesy Christmas albums? Think again. We’re especially excited to hear the latest offering from Aidan Moffat’s Nyx Nótt project. Due on 2 December via Melodic Records, film and TV soundtracks are the inspirational epicentre of his latest body of work, Themes From, featuring instrumental compositions intended to identify with varying film and TV genres. “I don’t think Nyx has ever heard of Arab Strap,” says Moffat in an accompanying press release, showcasing the stylistic leap he’s aimed for with his latest work. Elements of Moffat’s sardonic humour do carry over into the fun of the album itself however, switching between tracks such as Porno and Swashbuckler like the flick of a remote switch.

There’s a cohesiveness inherent in Themes From that marks a more upbeat shift from Nyx Nótt’s darker debut. But tuning into each instrumental composition, there’s certainly a lot of varying textures to enjoy. From iridescent drum cymbals to squelching sax solos and tender piano melodies, each track is individualistic in its own right. Moffat’s Arab Strap compatriot, Malcolm Middleton, has also gone off venturing into a new side project called Lichen Slow – their debut single Hobbies (re leased last month) is worth checking out.

From the telly to anarchy, on the same day, Glasgow guitar warriors Shredd unveil their debut album, The Place Unknown Running a gamut of influences from the likes of King Gizzard to Queens of the Stone Age and Biffy Clyro, this ten-track debut is everything that fans of the band would hope for. Relentless from the first minute to the last, high energy levels are sustained with

masses of fuzzy distortion and cacophonous arrangements. ‘Are we all brain dead?!’ exclaims lead vocalist Chris Harvie on Parasite, illustrating the pent-up anger that’s clearly influenced the aura of the band’s debut. But di ing beneath the heavy surface is where the album’s real gold can be found; its soaring melodies and topical lyrics offering ruminations on mental health and an outward-looking ethos shining a positive light among the brooding soundscapes. This is poised to be the soundtrack to the mosh pits of Glasgow’s DIY venues in the months to come.

Portents by A. Wesley Chung, also due on 2 December, is another album worth adding to this month’s listening list. Chung is an American songwriter/musician based in Glasgow. He’s switched one west coast for another – California for Glasgow – and as well as being involved in previous indie-folk bands, Scotland is his new home for his ever-evolving solo material. Essences of Fleet Foxes can be heard in Chung’s work, especial ly in his neatly layered vocals and the spacey guitars of Sunday Blues, which echo the barren, woody landscape featured on the album’s cover superbly. Other numbers such as the album’s title track offer extra dashes of grit while the seven-minute closing track Lost & Found rounds off proceedings with lush layers and textures melding together meditatively. Couple all of this with the tender lyrical themes on the cycles of death and renewal, the result is a thoroughly enjoyable listening experience.

In the realm of EPs, there are two especially atmospheric releases worth noting. Glasgow avant-garde artist Clair has unveiled a series of remixes of her track Body Blossom to be released on 2 December on limited copies of transparent forest green vinyl. Titled Body Blossom Revelations, each ‘revelation’ offers a distinct, enchanting portrayal of the original that truly invites you to open up your sonic senses. Featured remixers include Polypores (aka Stephen James Buckley) and Edinburgh musician Euan Dalgarno. Aaliyah Enyo also imbues a sense of wilderness in her latest material recorded under Lost Map Records’ VISIT▲TIONS artist residency project. Written and composed in rural seclusion in a bothy cabin on the Isle of Ei , Enyo’s two offerings are hypnotic constructions based around her celestial vocals. Her spacious soundscapes are wholly immersive, encapsulating a strong sense of solitude and the ethos of the VISIT▲TIONS project, to break away from the connectivity saturated modern world, acutely. And when it comes to new singles, keep your ears peeled for Without You by Moonsoup and INM from half girl/half android singer KLEO

In this month's new music column, we celebrate new releases from Nyx Nótt, Shredd, A. Wesley Chung, Clair, Alliyah Enyo and more

Words: Jamie Wilde

Shredd

A. Wesley Chung

Photo: Daniel Blake

Photo: Beth Chalmers

Film of the Month — Corsage

There is a moment very early in Marie Kreutzer’s puckish new period piece Corsage that effortlessly paves the way for what follows. It comes directly after the Empress Elisabeth of Austria (a phenomenal Vicky Krieps) affects a faint to skip out on an official state engagement with her husband, Emperor Franz Joseph (Florian Teichtmeister). When her car riage returns to the palace, she ascends the stairs in a sequence that crackles with non-conformity. Perhaps it’s the trendy hairstyles of her ladies in waiting. Perhaps it’s the incursion of moody modern music in the form of Camille’s She Was. Perhaps it’s the magnetic insouciance of her walk, which makes the use of slow-motion feel less like the stuffy shuffling of historical drama and more like the swa er of an action movie. Perhaps it was that knowing look to the camera as she passed? None of this knocks proceedings out of kilter, but the effect su ests the blooming of a gloriously revisionist portrait.

It’s as if Kreutzer’s desire was not only to present a woman straining against the strictures of an unforgiving 19th-century patriarchy, but to weave that same teeming insurrection into the film’s fabric. While the trappings of stately costume drama are present and correct – from locations to outfits to dialogue – they’re shot through with contrapuntal details, interpretations, and aesthetic choices. Perhaps most notable is the slow disin tegration of hermetically sealed historicism which is represent ed by incidental anachronisms. They come in the form of errant props from the future – a motorised tractor, a plastic mop and

bucket, an electric tattoo gun, a heroin habit, a modern ocean liner. By the time that last one appears, historical accuracy has largely been left in the film’s wake.

Instead, this is a portrait of Elisabeth – or ‘Sisi’ to friends and fans – that re-imagines her as a complicated, modern woman navigating an antiquated realm. She is a figure limitingly concocted by her people and the historical record, not to mention the industries that have traded in her subsequent iconography. Corsage, as a result, feels like a peek behind the curtain, even if the exposed ‘reality’ is invention. The action is joined in 1877, shortly before Sisi’s 40th birthday, and portrays her daily travails. She bristles at the way she is discussed by loose-lipped subjects and side-lined by her husband; but she also spends her time travelling Europe, far from court, and obsessing over her self-image as she squeezes into the painfully tight bodice that maintains her youthful elegance.

In other similar films, her dalliances with men – such as Colin Morgan’s besotted riding instructor – might become defining, but not here. Krieps infuses Sisi with contradictions and a sense both of a fragile susceptibility and wilful self-determination. She be comes the film’s ultimate anachronism and whether she’s noncha lantly smoking a cigarette, sticking her finger up to the Austrian establishment, or berating an underling for not tying her corset tight enough, you could watch Krieps’ charismatic turn all day. As a result, Corsage reflects its protagonist, a refined period ornament injected with a riotous, rebellious energy. [Ben Nicholson]

Director: Marie Kretuzer Starring: Vicky Krieps, Florian Teichtmeister, Katharina Lorenz, Jeanne Werner, Alma Hasun, Manuel Rubey, Finnegan Oldfield, Aaron Friesz, Rosa Hajjaj, Lilly Marie Tschörtner, Colin Morgan

Scotland on Screen: A Year in Scottish Film

Five Great Scottish

Shorts from 2022:

The Bayview (Daniel Cook)

Go Home (Razan Madhoon)

Maureen (Shiona McCubbin)

Earworm (Bryan M Ferguson)

Too Rough (Sean Lìonadh)

We’re not used to cinematic masterpieces emerging from Scotland in successive years but that’s exactly what’s happened. In 2021 we had Limbo, Ben Sharrock’s extraordinary tragicomedy about a Syrian refugee trapped on a remote Scottish island and facing the absurdity of the British immigration system. Hot on its heels, a similarly world-class feature arrived in the form of Charlotte Wells’ beautiful and achingly sad Aftersun. Paul Mescal and young Frankie Corio both give fine-grained and lived-in performances as a father and daughter going through a life-altering few days on a low-rent package holiday in Turkey, but it’s Wells’ confident filmmaking that really astounds. The characters’ inner turmoils are never spelt out in the dialogue, with Wells trusting her performers and her images to express the film’s tsunami of emotions.

Wells’ debut was the knockout opening film at the 75th Edinburgh International Film Festival. With the collapse of the CMI in October, 'for a moment there it looked like there might not be a 76th edition of this long-running event, but word is EIFF’s Creative Director, Kristy Matheson, has been asked to come back and deliver a festival next August as planned. She’ll do well to find a more fitting film to kick off those proceedings.

Aftersun wasn’t the only home-grown work to go down a storm at a festival this year. The most entertaining screening of 2022 was surely Glasgow Film Festival’s British premiere of Jono McLeod’s My Old School. It’s a funny and surprisingly moving documentary recounting the notorious tale of Bearsden Academy student Brandon Lee. If you were around in Scotland in the mid-90s, you’re sure to know some of what went on, but McLeod, who was in Lee’s class at school, gives us the inside scoop with the help of his and Lee’s former classmates. Its stranger-than-fiction story is even more bizarre and jaw-drop ping when told by the people involved.

My Old School’s screening was closely followed for entertainment value by a trip to Hawick’s Alchemy Film and Moving Image Festival and the world premiere of Notes From a Low Orbit, Mark Lyken’s poetic documentary about Hawick and its residents. The feature was commissioned by the festival and, certainly, a big part of its appeal was watching the film in the presence of many of the people who featured in it. But as well as being a love letter to a very specific place, Lyken’s film also

works as a wry examination of the absurdity of small-town life and the skew-whiff communities that form within them. It is sure to delight audiences well beyond the Scottish Borders.

There were more Scottish gems to emerge from this year’s EIFF. We were bowled over by A Cat Called Dom, the first feature from Will Anderson and Ainslie Henderson, long the most exciting filmmakers on Scotland’s short film scene. It’s an ingenious documentary swirling with ideas, picking apart the creative process and its messy interactions with real life. The premise is that Anderson and Henderson are collaborating on a project when Anderson is blindsided by the news that his mother has cancer. Rather than spend time with her, however, Anderson buries himself in work but is being constantly remind ed of his situation by a naive animated cat (the eponymous Dom) that mysteriously manifests on his Macbook. For all its smart-arse trickery and metatextual rug-pulling, A Cat Called Dom is a deeply moving film about a young man who loves his mum and has suddenly realised she’ll not be around forever.

We were moved by another piece of meta-filmmaking from EIFF: the disarmingly charming Winners, directed by Iranian filmmaker Hassan Nazer, who’s called Scotland home since coming here as an asylum seeker in 2000. The film centres on a movie-daft kid who lives in a rural village in Iran and somehow gets his hands on the 2016 Oscar for Best International Feature Film. It also turns out that the Fagin-like character who employs many of the local kids in town is a Silver Bear-winning actor and we’ll just let you guess who’s driving the taxi that picks up the kid when he journeys to Tehran. A love of Iranian New Wave cinema isn’t essential to appreciating the sunny charms and gorgeous visuals of Winners, but a working knowledge of the work of Abbas Kiarostami, Mohsen Makhmalbaf and Jafar Panahi would certainly help you follow its trail of delicious Easter e s. The film is a lark and a cineaste’s paean to his home nation, but in 2022 it doubles as a poignant act of solidar ity with the filmmakers who’ve stayed in Iran and paid heavy prices for that.

Winners won the Audience Award at EIFF while A Cat Called Dom won the inaugural Powell and Pressburger Award. Not too shabby. Let’s hope the festival manages to return in 2023.

A look back at the five best Scottish features from 2022, plus our favourite Scottish shorts

Words: Jamie Dunn Notes From a Low Orbit

Pinocchio

FilmDirector: Guillermo del Toro

Starring: Ewan McGregor, Gregory Mann rrrrr

It’s unfortunate that Guillermo del Toro’s decade-in-the-making animat ed Pinocchio arrives on the heels of Disney’s hopeless ‘live action’ version, but this is a distinct improvement: the union of this gothic master and the Jim Henson Company delivers a fantasti cal and heartfelt reimagining of Carlo Collodi’s tale, taking the familiar characters on new adventures.

Geppetto loses his son Carlo in the First World War. One night, drunk and grief-stricken, he resolves to make a new child out of a pine tree housing Sebastian J. Cricket (Ewan McGregor, at peak charm). His actions are noticed by Tilda Swinton’s wood sprite, who takes pity on the old man and gives life to Pinocchio – but despite the best

efforts of the conscientious cricket, this ‘real boy’ is spirited and disobe dient. The moral of Collodi’s original feels out of reach.

Much of the humour here is broad, with some macabre absurdism standing out in sharp and welcome relief, and the tale moves between high-action setpieces at a breakneck pace. The result loses some of the poignancy of the original tale. That said, the new and astute early 20thcentury setting gives weight to the fairytale. Children are victims of two wars here – not only in bombing raids but in fascist indoctrination. In the face of this, the best action is often disruption and disobedience. Del Toro gives Pinocchio several encounters in which to develop his humanity, but neither director nor the little wooden boy loses sight of the beauty of humanity at its most rebellious and non-conformist. [Carmen Paddock]

Released on Netflix 9 Dec; certificate PG

Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery

Director: Rian Johnson

Starring: Daniel Craig, Ed Norton, Janelle Monáe, Kathryn Hahn rrrrr

Knives Out is an oddball in the murder mystery game. It indulges in genre tropes and archetypes, but also subverts our expectations with extended, unwieldy diversions. Now that the cat’s out of the bag as to just how incorrigibly playful writer-direc tor Rian Johnson gets, you wonder how tired a follow-up can be. Thankfully, we’re not getting stale quite just yet, thanks to a deliriously fun sequel that makes you wish every mid-budget blockbuster was as meticulously crafted as this.

As Benoit Blanc and his exag gerated drawl are captivated by another perplexing mystery, you feel it mirrors how much the character has bewitched star Daniel Craig, willing to throw himself into the broadest of comedic roles. He’s aided

by a glitzy cast of horrible suspects, and a script that doubles back over itself a dozen times, spinning us in different directions before a shatter ing climax that will have audiences grinning and cheering (or, it would if the crowd-pleasing film wasn’t relegated to Netflix). The whole affair is a self-admitted exercise in ridicu lousness, wholly embraced by the game cast and flairs of slick style.

The class satire in Knives Out wasn’t exactly its sharpest asset, and as Glass Onion turns its gaze to new money tech giants, the most shocking reveal is how didactic Johnson’s social commentary can get. More than that, the film’s fre quent calls to the pandemic and internet life mean it’ll likely be dated by the new year. But if Glass Onion is only of its moment, rarely has a moment ever felt this electric.

[Rory Doherty]

Released on Netflix 23 Dec; certificate 12A

Director: Atsuko Ishizuka

Starring: Natsuki Hanae, Yuki Kaji, Ayumu Murase, Kana Hanazawa, Rino Sashihara, Atsushi Tamura rrrrr

Goodbye, Don Glees! revolves around a group of social rejects who are spending one last summer together before they head off to separate high schools and – although they’re all trying not to say this part out loud – onwards to separate lives. When an unfortunate twist of fate leads to them being blamed for a forest fire, they must go off on one last adventure into the woods to try and prove their innocence.

Toto (Yuki Kaji) is the stuffy, straight-As student laser-focused on his future ambitions. Roma (Natsuki Hanae) is the passive one, so scared to do the wrong thing that he ends up doing nothing at all. And Drop (Ayumu Murase) is kind of a manic pixie dream child, wise beyond his years and impishly immature at the

same time. Together, they make for a thoroughly good hang.

Atsuko Ishizuka’s film ably captures the same precarious period of life that’s familiar from iconic summer adventures like Stand By Me and The Goonies – those teenage years where the world of childhood begins to feel too small and the adult realm looms terrifyingly large up ahead. With its looping storyline, gentle humour and stunning sunsplashed visuals, Goodbye, Don Glees! also feels like it’s very much taking its cues from the works of star anime director Makoto Shinkai. And even if Ishizuka’s film never quite hits the heights of a movie like Your Name, it still makes for an incredibly sweet and sensitive coming-of-age tale, powered by a highly likeable lead trio. [Ross McIndoe]

Lynch/Oz

Director: Alexandre O. Philippe Starring: Any Nicholson, Rodney Ascher rrrrr

Alexandre O. Philippe’s visual sensi bilities are an ideal vehicle through which to juxtapose Victor Fleming’s Technicolor extravaganza The Wizard of Oz (1939) and David Lynch’s obtuse, equally fantastical worlds in works from Eraserhead (1977) to What Did Jack Do? (2017). Right from the start of Lynch/Oz, however, the vision is larger: the first film shown in the documentary’s dominant splitscreen format (Oz on the left, suc cessor on the right) is Frank Capra’s It’s A Wonderful Life. Lynch is the focus but the ubiquity of the Wicked Witch and the Wizard’s curtains spans decades, genres, and voices.

and Lynch’s (or their own) oeuvre. Lynch is, unsurprisingly, absent; numerous clips remind viewers that the Midwestern auteur is loath to ascribe meaning, or share his own. The result is a full-scale celebration of beautifully rendered images that invites further independent exploration.

Released 2 Dec by Anime Ltd; certificate 12A

Filmmakers including Karyn Kusama, John Waters (stealing the show), David Lowery, Rodney Ascher, Amy Nicholson, and the duo Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead speak through parallel scenes from Fleming

Given The Wizard of Oz's ubiq uity on TV over the years, its pervasive influence makes sense. However, one brief segment finds similarities between Oz and Gone With the Wind, Fleming’s Oscar-winner from the same year. Why has Oz proved to have more staying power than that boxoffice ju ernaut? Perhaps because it’s a family film with a Campbellian hero’s journey. Perhaps its early colour images, no matter the topic, ingrained themselves indelibly in a cinematic code that directors and audiences understand. Unfortunately, that’s not for this 110-minute docu mentary to decide. [Carmen Paddock]

Released 2 Dec by Dogwoof; certificate 15

Goodbye, Don Glees!

Pinocchio Lynch/Oz Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery

Goodbye, Don Glees!

NEWBARNS TAPROOM, LEITH

The excellent Newbarns Brewery open their long-planned taproom at their Leith HQ –spoiler alert, it’s great

13 Jane St, Leith, EH6 5HE

Thu-Fri, 5-10pm; Sat, 2-10pm; Sun 2-8pm

newbarnsbrewery.com

If you’re planning a catch-up with pals this Christmas, may we su est one of Leith’s many brewery taprooms? If nothing else, you have options: Moonwake’s spot is a mezzanine that lets you look down on the brewery like an omnisci ent narrator, while Campervan’s taproom is right in the brewery, giving the added frisson of looking like you’ve broken in and just started drinking. Round at Abbeyhill, Bellfield’s taproom is a brilliant half-indoor, half-outdoor space that seems to get larger and more intrigu ing every time we visit.

The latest taproom on the scene comes from Newbarns, and on our last visit to the Newbarns Brewery in 2020, this taproom was little more than a dream. Well that’s not strictly true – it was a large pile of industrial ‘stuff’, a couple of toolkits, some very large pieces of wood, and a dream. Two years on, as we stroll down the fairy-lit path off Jane Street, it’s clearly a hive of activity, in that it’s just gone 6pm and you can hear the crowd inside from the end of the road.

Step inside and, not gonna lie, it’s a bit of a weird shape – the Taproom has a double-height ceiling, an interior wall that was clearly once an exterior wall, and a triangular floor plan that funnels everyone straight to the bar. It’s all soft lighting, white washed walls and dark wood; pair that with the industrial tanks and brewery equipment through the back and there’s a bit of an on-stage, off-stage feeling to proceedings. At one point, there’s a buzzing noise coming from behind those brewery tanks. Late night beer production? One of those weird sounds that large brewing equipment presumably makes? Nope, it’s Jonny Hamilton – one of the Newbarns brewers – putting together some IKEA stools with a power drill, before popping them down in the corner ‘in case anyone needs a seat’.

Crucially, the beer from those tanks is excellent. Eight taps of sessionable goodness from across the Newbarns slate, from the light and zesty Table Beer to an impecca bly crisp Pilsner. As Gordon from the brewery told us on our previous visit,

“if you want [a beer] that you recog nise, but it’s just a little bit nicer, or a little bit different, that’s basically what we’re aiming for.” They’re all delicious, with noticeable variation from tap to tap but all well within the ‘nice pint’ category. Newbarns make beers for drinking in the pub, so it maybe isn’t a surprise that, on creating their own pub, they’ve absolutely smashed it.

This place is a bit like the greatest hits of the UK pub all playing at once – big barrels for standing around, little tables for a quiet chat, a booth-like bit in the back that everyone’s coveting, a well-stocked bar, a well-used dart board, a billiard table that comes with some lengthy instructions, lots of tiny little mirrors… but at no point does any of it feel like pastiche.

As much as we hate to just shrug and say ‘it has a good vibe’, the Newbarns Taproom has a very very good vibe. It already feels like a community pub, with its own regulars (tonight, they’ve come dressed as ‘pub patrons from various completely unconnected periods in recent history’) and its eccentricities, great staff and good music on the stereo. Pints are all priced at around a fiver, so you can actually stay all night without going bankrupt. There are enormous bags of crisps for sharing with your pals, and a massive out door courtyard for warmer days ahead. There’s a queue for the darts, but if you can work out the billiards it’s all yours – if you’re anything like us, we reckon you’ll be back here often enough to get the hang of it.

Words: Peter Simpson

Photo: James Porteous

Photo: James Porteous

Book Reviews

Blood Salt Spring

By Hannah Lavery rrrrr

Hannah Lavery, Edinburgh’s Makar, has long been lauded for her ability to interrogate Scotland’s past and present through poetic and theatrical forms (she is the author of The Drift and Lament for Sheku Bayoh). Her debut collection Blood Salt Spring builds on this work through its powerful meditation on race, nation hood and belonging.

In the section Blood, Lavery explores both race and ancestry through memories of growing up in Scotland. She skilfully employs conflict and contradiction throughout to highlight the damage ‘Scottish exceptionalism’ can have on margin alised people. This is particular ly evocative in poems such as Questions of Percentage, Halfling and Remix for the Brown Girl.

In Salt, the collection drills further into its interrogation of racism and the current socio-political landscape where terms like equality and diversity are thrown around as fodder on both sides of the political spectrum. Poems like Scotland, You’re No Mine and Hush Now (Shitty Brown) tell of the daily racism and microa ression many Black and POC deal with.

However, some of the most affecting moments in this collection come when Lavery writes of love, particularly a mother’s love. In her poem I Sang You Rainbow Songs she offers thoughts on watching a child deal with bullying and homophobia, ‘Mothering you my love/ is knowing before you do/ but still not knowing.’ There is so much story in this brief poem, and yet, its power comes from Lavery’s deft ability to marry the personal with the political.

[Andrés Ordorica]

You Must Believe in Spring

By Mohamed Tonsy rrrrr

Edinburgh-based writer Mohamed Tonsy’s You Must Believe in Spring literalises the thorny legacy of the Arab Spring’s protests and coups, imagining an Egypt in the year 2034 still under the military rule that was meant to be but temporary. Written primarily in English with flashes of transliterated, untranslated Arabic, Tonsy’s debut is a remarkable work of political imagination that refuses to bend backwards for a Western gaze, that holds at its heart the latent rage of the Egyptian people and stages a complex inquiry into what it means to live and die both in and for a changed, unrecognisable country.

In his author’s note, Tonsy writes of his own experiences fight ing in the 2011 protests, and the physical damage it wrought on his career as an athlete. His protagonist Shahed curiously mimics Tonsy’s path; but if this is an autofictive piece it is at a disorienting remove, as Tonsy positions his character as a child of the very revolutionaries he himself was. It is one of the novel’s most compelling sleights-of-hand: there is a politics to futurity, Tonsy’s narrative understands, that can be ominous as well as hopeful, that can tell us as much about where we came from as where we are going.

Unapologetically dense and rich, You Must Believe in Spring pulls past and future into an uncompromising present, keeping the spark of revolu tion stubbornly alive.

[Anahit Behrooz]

Raising Raffi

By Keith Gessen rrrrr

Keith Gessen’s collection of essays has the light, conversational tone of a chat with an old friend as they reflect on five years of parenthood. And while Raising Raffi would still have lots going for it without having accidentally captured the madness of 2020-22, this certainly lends the book additional weight.

Gessen left Soviet-era Russia for the US at age six, and the difference between his and his son’s cultural starting-points is central to many of his preoccupations. These include: parenting books that offer a one-sizefits-all approach (spoiler: one size does not fit all); bedtime stories around the world; the US school system, for all its strengths and weaknesses; and a bilingual upbringing.

A funny and disarmingly sweet book, Raising Raffi is written with the discipline of a committed reader who has found refuge in reading amidst the trials of parenthood, a global pandemic and the outbreak of war. Gessen illustrates and backs up all of his points with academic preci sion, practically giving the reader an abridged literature review every time he wants to broach a subject. Basically, he’s done all of the reading so you don’t have to.

This is a piece of life writing that is part memoir, part meditation and part self-help guide by way of literary criticism. It’s a curated guide of what the common wisdom may be, and why it might actually be no help at all. [Louis Cammell]

By R.F. Kuang rrrrr

In an alternative version of Victorianera Oxford, translation is wielded like a weapon for the British Empire. From trains and gardens to buildings and factories, silver bars are imported from overseas and enchanted by the academics of Oxford’s Babel institu tion. Each bar is given a ‘match pair’ of similar-meaning words from differ ent languages which powers the metal with potential to heal, craft or destroy.

When European languages begin to fade in power, children born under the British empire in Asia, the Caribbean and the Americas are taken from their homelands and brought to England, trained to find new match pairs – and new power – from their native languages. Born in China and taken to England, Robin Swift becomes one of Babel’s young, bright students, devoted to the potential for translation to build bridges across nations, until he learns that the underbelly of coloni alism is built on Oxford’s silver bars.

It’s a neat analogy to real history, as Babel’s Britain becomes relentlessly hungry for more silver at the expense of their – and their colonial subjects’ – humanity. Kuang is an Oxford alumnus and a transla tor herself, and her relish in recreat ing Oxford in this slightly alternative England is palpable. Extensive footnotes (both whimsical and densely theoretical), give Babel its scholarly texture, and Kuang’s worldbuilding walks a fine line: using the magic of translation to underpin the real horrors of Britain’s history. The result is a triumphant, harrowing fantasy. [Katie Goh]

Hajar Press, 13 Oct

Babel

Dream Gig

Edith Auld

Istru le to grab a hold of the good gigs and keep them in my head longer than the adrenaline of the moment lasts. I’d love to recount a crystalline memory of a time where I entered a complete flow on stage at the bi est venue in the world, performed no pre-written material and after the gig Kevin Bridges, Daniel Kitson and Bill Burr started chanting “Vittorio is the greatest comedian I’ve ever seen, undoubtedly the voice of his generation,” over and over again. But I don’t have that story to tell, and even if I did I think it would be frustratingly fleeting in my mind.

I can, however, tell you in minute detail about the time I performed to 14 people in a Kensington Pub and a French woman in the front row started playing Candy Crush during my set.

Even when a gig is going stupendously well, I will inevita bly fixate on the man who is yet to unfold his arms in the third row. However, the task at hand is to write about my best ever gig so I should at least give it a go.

In September 2021, I performed my first ever solo show at the Spice of Life in Soho. The longest I’d ever performed for before was a loose 30 minutes at best and I had no clue if my vaguely assembled nonsense was going to amount to 15 minutes or a ropey 45. I was so terrified of it being horrific that I booked four opening acts to make sure the audience weren’t being ripped off (they’d paid the princely sum of a fiver). Big thank you Christopher Macarthur-Boyd, Katharyn Henson, Luke Chilton and finally Aaron McCann. They’re all brilliant.

To top it off, one of my favourite comedians in the whole world (a handsome young man by the name of Alfie Brown) arrived during the opening acts. I had invited him along but had no expectation of him attending. He wandered in while I was poring over my notes for the show in a blind panic. He asked me how I was feeling, to which I responded “I just hope it’s an hour long,” and he, in his warmest and kindest voice, replied “well… it has to be.”

It was. 67 minutes in fact and it wasn’t great, but I proved to myself that I could perform my own show and that not-great show eventually became my debut hour at the Edinburgh Fringe, which has rather changed my life.

Next I’ve been tasked with curating my own dream gig. Similar to the retrospective part of this article, even my imagination is filled with dread at all of the things that could, and in my mind would, go wrong with any venue I imagine. Nonetheless here goes!

The gig would need to be in a basement: always a base ment, never not a basement. I don’t know why but comedy lives underground. We are the scum on the bottom of Art’s shoe and should not be exposed to daylight if at all possible. I don’t have a particular basement in mind but anything underground would work I guess. Nuclear bunker, dungeon, get that fella from The Incredibles (The Underminer) to dig a big hole.

I know I’ve ‘dream-booked’ them, but the lineup is a real doozy. I’d have Daniel Kitson hosting, Kevin Bridges to open, Bill Burr and Mitch Hedberg in the middle and Patrice O’Neal on last. I’ll do 5 at the start of the middle section, give myself an easy ride.

After good gigs I listen to Dvorak’s 8th Symphony and eat a guilt-filled chicken donner wrap. After bad gigs I listen to Tyler the Creator’s most angst-filled songs and eat cookie dough ice cream. Balance is very important to my artistic process. I hope this gig goes dreadfully.

Vittorio Angelone WIP, Monkey Barrel Comedy, 16 Dec, 8-9pm, £7

Best Fringe Newcomer nominee, Vittorio Angelone, talks about his bad memory and bad memories in his Dream Gig

Illustration:

“We are the scum on the bottom of Art’s shoe and should not be exposed to daylight if at all possible”

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

Tue 29 Nov

FIRST AID KIT

O2 ACADEMY GLASGOW, 19:00–22:00 Folk pop from Sweden.

HOLLY HUMBERSTONE SWG3, 19:00–22:00 Indie pop from the UK.

STEREOLAB SWG3, 19:00–22:00 Avant pop from London.

KISHI BASHI STEREO, 19:00–22:00 Indie rock from Seattle.

BADFLOWER ST LUKE’S, 19:00–22:00 Rock from California.

ROD STEWART THE OVO HYDRO, 18:30–22:00 Rock from the UK.

Wed 30 Nov

SHINEDOWN

O2 ACADEMY GLASGOW, 19:00–22:00 Rock from Florida.

Thu 01 Dec

THE PROCLAIMERS

O2 ACADEMY GLASGOW, 19:00–22:00 Pop from Scotland.

HEARTLESS BASTARDS MONO, 20:00–22:00 Rock from Ohio.

HALOCENE

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, 19:00–22:00 Rock from the US.

ABBIE OZARD THE GARAGE GLASGOW, 19:00–22:00 Indie pop from the UK.

ZOLA BLOOD STEREO, 19:00–22:00 Indie pop from London.

ELECTRIC SIX ST LUKE’S, 19:00–22:00 Rock from Detroit.

ANNA MIEKE

THE HUG AND PINT, 19:30–22:00 Folk from Ireland.

Fri 02 Dec

NINE BELOW ZERO ORAN MOR, 19:00–22:00 Blues from the UK.

THE PROCLAIMERS

O2 ACADEMY GLASGOW, 19:00–22:00 Pop from Scotland.

BAY STRANGE SWG3, 19:00–22:00 Punk from Glasgow.

DJ POOLBOI SWG3, 19:00–22:00 Lo-fi house from Texas.

HUGH CORNWELL & BAND

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, 19:00–22:00 Rock from the UK.

SKIPINNISH BARROWLANDS, 19:00–22:00 Trad from Scotland.

GOLD PANDA STEREO, 19:00–22:00 Electronica from the UK.

GOZER (FOREVER MACHINE + VOID OF LIGHT)

THE FLYING DUCK, 19:00–22:00 Post-metal from Sheffield.

SENTINEL #3 (PC WORLD + LADY NEPTUNE + MEMORABILIA + LIZZIE URQUHART)

THE OLD HAIRDRESSERS, 20:00–22:00

Eclectic lineup. PAUL HEATON + JACQUI ABBOTT THE OVO HYDRO, 19:00–22:00

Singer-songwriter from the UK.

LEAD SISTER THE HUG AND PINT, 19:30–22:00

Folk punk from Glasgow.

Sat 03 Dec

PLACEBO (CRUEL HEARTS CLUB)

O2 ACADEMY GLASGOW, 19:00–22:00

Rock from London.

BLANCMANGE

QUEEN MARGARET UNION, 19:00–22:00

Synth pop from London.

DANIEL AVERY SWG3 19:00–22:00 Techno from Bournemouth.

DANCING ON TABLES

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, 19:00–22:00

Pop rock from Dunfermline.

SHREDD ALBUM

LAUNCH STEREO, 19:00–22:00

Garage rock from Glasgow.

ERIC CHENAUX (AILIE ORMSTON + JOSH THORPE)

THE OLD HAIRDRESSERS, 20:00–22:00

Avant folk from Canada.

ROD STEWART

THE OVO HYDRO, 18:30–22:00

Rock from the UK.

Sun 04 Dec

DUCKWRTH SWG3, 19:00–22:00 Rap from LA.

MYKKI BLANCO

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, 19:00–22:00

Rap from California.

THE GAME BARROWLANDS, 19:00–22:00

Rap from California.

DALE BARCLAY BRAIN TUMOUR RESEARCH FUNDRAISER (THE LEATHER CORRIDOR, NATALIE PRYCE, LAURA ST. JUDE, BOAB) STEREO, 19:00–22:00

Eclectic lineup.

THE VACANT LOTS THE FLYING DUCK, 19:00–22:00 Post-punk from Brooklyn.

JOHNNY MAC & THE FAITHFUL ST LUKE’S, 19:00–22:00 Folk from Glasgow.

MOKUSLA (DHRAMA + BUTTERMYLK) THE OLD HAIRDRESSERS, 19:30–22:00 Synth folk from Glasgow.

THE CURE THE OVO HYDRO, 19:00–22:00 Rock from the UK.

Mon 05 Dec

THE SNUTS KING TUT’S, 19:30–22:00 Indie from Scotland.

PIERCE THE VEIL SWG3, 19:00–22:00 Rock from the US.

THE SCRATCH SWG3, 19:00–22:00 Acoustic from Dublin.

MOONSPELL (ESOTERICA) CATHOUSE, 19:00–22:00 Goth metal from Portugal.

CMAT THE GARAGE GLASGOW, 19:00–22:00 Pop from Dublin.

Tue 06 Dec

THE SNUTS KING TUT’S, 19:30–22:00 Indie from Scotland.

LUKE LA VOLPE SWG3, 19:00–22:00 Folk from West Lothian.

JOHN MOODS BROADCAST, 19:00–22:00

Art pop from Berlin.

ALTERBRIDGE THE OVO HYDRO, 19:00–22:00 Rock from the US.

KELLEY SWINDALL (ROBYN RED + LIV DAWN)

THE HUG AND PINT, 19:30–22:00 Country folk from New York.

Wed 07 Dec

THE LONGEST JOHNS ORAN MOR, 19:00–22:00 Folk from Bristol.

RIMZEE KING TUT’S, 20:00–22:00

Rap from London.

THE HU SWG3, 19:00–22:00

Heavy metal from Mongolia.

BEING AS AN OCEAN (HAIL THE SUN + SAVAGE HANDS + ACRES) CATHOUSE, 19:00–22:00 Post-hardcore from California.

DYLAN JOHN THOMAS BARROWLANDS, 19:00–22:00

Singer-songwriter from Scotland.

GIRLS IN SYNTHESIS THE FLYING DUCK, 19:00–22:00

Post-punk from London.

NATHAN EVANS ST LUKE’S, 19:00–22:00 Folk from Scotland.

TJ BORDEN (ROMY DANIELEWICZ + AMS) THE OLD HAIRDRESSERS, 19:30–22:00

Experimental from New York.

Thu 08 Dec

UNINIVTED KING TUT’S, 20:00–22:00

Indie rock from Glasgow.

TOMMY LEFROY SWG3 19:00–22:00

Pop rock from London.

DYLAN JOHN THOMAS BARROWLANDS, 19:00–22:00

Singer-songwriter from Scotland.

BURNTDOWNSHED (BRASSER)

THE FLYING DUCK, 19:00–22:00

Rock from Glasgow.

SOROCHE: MUSIC ON HEIGHTS AND CLIMATE CCA: CENTRE FOR CONTEMPORARY ART, 19:00–22:00

Eclectic lineup.

THE VAMPS THE OVO HYDRO, 19:00–22:00

Pop from the UK.

GLASGOW STREETSOUND

PRESENTS: (MOTOPIA + FLEW THE ARROW + IVY GUO + KILLER WHALE) ROOM 2, 19:00–22:00 Eclectic lineup.

Fri 09 Dec

THE SKIDS ORAN MOR, 19:00–22:00 Rock from Scotland.

KEHLANI (DESTIN CONRAD)

O2 ACADEMY GLASGOW, 19:00–22:00

R’n’B from California. NICKY LIPP (MEGAN WYN) KING TUT’S, 20:30–22:00 Indie from Scotland. LEFTFIELD SWG3, 19:00–22:00 Electronica from the UK. PG CIARLETTA SWG3, 19:00–22:00 Singer-songwriter from Scotland.

GLU

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, 19:00–22:00 Noise rock from Bordeaux.

THE SAW DOCTORS BARROWLANDS, 19:00–22:00 Rock from Ireland.

JILL LOREAN (ORDER OF THE TOAD + THE WORST FRIEND) THE OLD HAIRDRESSERS, 20:00–22:00 Indie from Scotland.

I LIKE TRAINS

THE HUG AND PINT, 19:30–22:00 Post-rock from Leeds.

Sat 10 Dec

LIZZIE REID ORAN MOR, 19:00–22:00 Indie folk from Scotland.

BALADO KING TUT’S, 20:30–22:00

Rock from Glasgow.

THE PLASTIC YOUTH SWG3 19:00–22:00 Jangle pop from Glasgow.

COCHISE

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, 19:00–22:00

Country rock from the UK.

MR BEN & THE BENS BROADCAST, 19:00–22:00 Indie from Lancaster.

GUN BARROWLANDS, 19:00–22:00 Hard rock from Glasgow. DUTCH WINE STEREO, 19:00–22:00 Indie punk from Glasgow.

ANNY LEIGH & LAITH ANDREWS

THE FLYING DUCK, 19:00–22:00 Singer-songwriters from Scotland.

THE BYSON FAMILY ST LUKE’S, 19:00–22:00 Folk from Glasgow.

ALICE BOMAN THE HUG AND PINT, 19:30–22:00 Alt indie from Sweden.

Sun 11 Dec

SCOUTING FOR GIRLS O2 ACADEMY GLASGOW, 19:00–22:00 Pop from the UK.

BILLY STRINGS SWG3, 19:00–22:00 Bluegrass from the US.

JOHN RUSH BAND THE OLD HAIRDRESSERS, 19:00–22:00 Folk pop from Scotland.

JOSEPHINE SILLARS (PHILOMENAH + CASUAL WORKER)

THE HUG AND PINT, 19:30–22:00 Protest pop from the Highlands.

Mon 12 Dec

SUPERSONIC STEREO, 19:00–22:00 Hip-hop from the UK.

Tue 13 Dec

BADBADNOTGOOD QUEEN MARGARET UNION, 19:00–22:00 Electronica from Toronto.

PAOLO NUTINI THE OVO HYDRO, 18:30–22:00 Soul pop from Scotland.

ASTRID WILLIAMSON THE HUG AND PINT, 19:30–22:00 Pop rock from Scotland.

Wed 14 Dec

ANDY MCKEE

ORAN MOR, 19:00–22:00 Guitar from the US.

BAD WOLVES CATHOUSE, 19:00–22:00 Heavy metal from Cali fornia.

TOM MEIGHAN THE GARAGE GLASGOW, 19:00–22:00

Rock from the UK.

FAT WHITE GHANDI (ISABELLA STRANGE + DJ COMPUTER MOUSE + BERLIN ANATOMY ) THE OLD HAIRDRESSERS, 19:30–22:00

Punk from the UK.

PAOLO NUTINI THE OVO HYDRO, 18:30–22:00 Soul pop from Scotland.

Thu 15 Dec

THE VIEW O2 ACADEMY GLASGOW, 19:00–22:00 Indie from Dundee.

SPEAR OF DESTINY KING TUT’S, 20:00–22:00 Rock from the UK.

THE VASELINES CCA: CENTRE FOR CONTEMPORARY ART, 20:00–22:00 Alt rock from Scotland.

VOLBEAT THE OVO HYDRO, 18:30–22:00 Rock from Denmark. BEN MHÒR (FIDRA) THE HUG AND PINT, 19:30–22:00 Alt folk from Glasgow.

Fri 16 Dec THE VIEW (SHAMBOLICS + THE ROLY MO) O2 ACADEMY GLASGOW, 19:00–22:00 Indie from Dundee.

NITEWORKS SWG3, 19:00–22:00

Electro-trad from the Isle of Skye.

LOVE MUSIC HATE RACISM (KIOKO) STEREO, 19:00–22:00 Eclectic lineup. ALTERED IMAGES ST LUKE’S, 19:00–22:00 New Wave from Scotland.

LOST MAP’S CHRISTMAS HUMBUG! THE OLD HAIRDRESSERS, 20:00–22:00 Eclectic lineup.

ANDREW WASYLYK CCA: CENTRE FOR CONTEMPORARY ART, 19:00–22:00

Composer from Scotland.

PAOLO NUTINI THE OVO HYDRO, 18:30–22:00 Soul pop from Scotland.

KATEE KROSS THE HUG AND PINT, 19:30–22:00

Singer-songwriter from Scotland.

MAHUKI CADRE THE BLUE ARROW, 23:00–22:00 Jazz from Scotland.

Sat 17 Dec

CHINA CRISIS

ORAN MOR, 19:00–22:00 New Wave from Liverpool.

THE VIEW (RIANNE DOWNEY + SLIX)

O2 ACADEMY GLASGOW, 19:00–22:00 Indie from Dundee.

TOMMY MCGUIRE KING TUT’S, 20:30–22:00

Singer-songwriter from Scotland.

THE MARY WALLOPERS

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, 19:00–22:00 Folk from Ireland. GLASVEGAS BARROWLANDS, 19:00–22:00 Indie rock from Glasgow.

LIGHTS OUT BY NINE (ROOT CAUSE)

THE HUG AND PINT, 19:30–22:00 Soul blues from Scotland.

Sun 18 Dec

THE VIEW O2 ACADEMY GLASGOW, 19:00–22:00 Indie from Dundee.

MOY BROADCAST, 19:00–22:00 Indie pop from Glasgow. LOUIS BERRY STEREO, 19:00–22:00 Folk rock from Liverpool.

PAOLO NUTINI THE OVO HYDRO, 18:30–22:00 Soul pop from Scotland.

THE SUPERNATURALS

THE HUG AND PINT, 19:30–22:00 Indie rock from Glasgow.

Mon 19 Dec

JUBILEE

ST LUKE’S, 19:00–22:00 Country pop from Lanark shire.

BLUE THE OVO HYDRO, 18:30–22:00 Pop from the UK.

Tue 20 Dec

JOEY BADA$$

O2 ACADEMY GLASGOW, 19:00–22:00 Rap from New York.

THE WANDERING HEARTS

ST LUKE’S, 19:00–22:00 Folk Americana from the UK.

PAOLO NUTINI THE OVO HYDRO, 18:30–22:00 Soul pop from Scotland.

Wed 21 Dec

EASY DAYS KING TUT’S, 19:00–22:00

Indie pop from Glasgow.

JACK BROTHERHOOD BROADCAST, 19:00–22:00 Indie from Glasgow.

VOODOOS ST LUKE’S, 19:00–22:00 Indie from Glasgow.

Thu 22 Dec

MOGWAI

BARROWLANDS, 19:00–22:00 Post-rock from Scotland. SCHEME ST LUKE’S, 19:00–22:00 Punk from Glasgow.

Fri 23 Dec

THE BIG DAY

KING TUT’S, 20:30–22:00 Alt pop from Glasgow.

MOGWAI

BARROWLANDS, 19:00–22:00 Post-rock from Scotland. BRAW ROOM 2 19:00–22:00 Folk pop from Glasgow.

Wed 28 Dec

CHRIS ANDREUCCI

KING TUT’S, 20:30–22:00 Country from Scotland.

Edinburgh Music

Tue 29 Nov

NATION OF LANGUAGE

THE CAVES, 19:00–22:00 Indie pop from New York.

BRAD STANK SNEAKY PETE’S, 19:00–22:00 Jazz pop from Liverpool.

Wed 30 Nov

THE GAME

O2 ACADEMY EDINBURGH, 19:00–22:00 Rap from California.

DAVE ARCARI SNEAKY PETE’S, 19:00–22:00 Alt blues from Loch Lomond.

Thu 01 Dec

VELVET INSANE

BANNERMANS, 19:00–22:00

Glam rock from Sweden.

THE RILLS

SNEAKY PETE’S, 19:00–22:00

Indie from Lincoln.

HUGH CORNWELL

LA BELLE ANGELE, 19:00–22:00

Punk rock from the UK.

THE SKINNY'S 200TH ISSUE PARTY

SUMMERHALL 20:00-LATE

Top secret line-up revealed on the night.

Fri 02 Dec

HOODOO BONES

(STEEPWATER CANYON + MOJO SOUP)

BANNERMANS, 19:00–22:00

Rock from Edinburgh. JOANNE SHAW TAYLOR

THE QUEEN’S HALL, 19:30–22:00

Blues rock from England.

GOTH GF (PINLIGHT) WEE RED BAR, 19:00–22:00

Singer-songwriters from the UK.

BLANCMANGE

THE LIQUID ROOM, 19:00–22:00

Synth pop from London.

THE QUILTER ( ZOE GRAHAM)

SNEAKY PETE’S, 19:00–22:00

Indie pop from Glasgow.

ERIC CHENAUX SUMMERHALL, 19:30–22:00

Avant folk from Canada.

Sat 03 Dec

BREABACH

THE QUEEN’S HALL, 19:00–22:00 Folk from Scotland.

WREST

THE LIQUID ROOM, 19:00–22:00

Indie from Edinburgh.

HUMOUR (CASUAL DRAG) SNEAKY PETE’S, 19:00–22:00

Post-punk from Edinburgh. MODERN STUDIES SUMMERHALL, 19:30–22:00

Chamber pop from Scotland.

COCKNEY REJECTS

LA BELLE ANGELE, 19:00–22:00 Punk from London.

Sun 04 Dec

THE FAUVES (THE LENGTHMEN) BANNERMANS, 19:00–22:00 Rock from Australia.

EYES OF OTHERS SNEAKY PETE’S, 19:00–22:00 Indie dub from Edinburgh.

CLIPPING

LA BELLE ANGELE, 19:00–22:00 Hip-hop fom LA.

Mon 05 Dec

ANNY LEIGH & LAITH ANDREWS SNEAKY PETE’S, 19:00–22:00 Singer-songwriters from Scotland.

Tue 06 Dec

MOTHER VULTURE BANNERMANS, 19:30–22:00 Blues punk from Bristol. FRENCHY & THE PUNK WEE RED BAR, 19:00–22:00

Post-punk from Europe/ the US.

THE SCRATCH SNEAKY PETE’S, 19:00–22:00 Acoustic from Dublin.

Wed 07 Dec

AMPLIFI (QUEEN OF HARPS + STEPHANIE LAMPREA + SAGNICK MUKHERJEE)

THE QUEEN’S HALL, 20:00–22:00 Folk pop from England.

SKINNY LISTER THE CAVES, 19:00–22:00 Folk rock from London.

JOHN MOODS SNEAKY PETE’S, 19:00–22:00 Art pop from Berlin.

Thu 08 Dec

THEIGNS & THRALLS (THE GALLOWGATE MURDERS ) BANNERMANS, 19:00–22:00 Metal from the UK.

THE NATIVE SNEAKY PETE’S, 19:00–22:00 Indie from Plymouth.

PROJECT SMOK THE MASH HOUSE, 19:00–23:00 Neo-trad from Scotland.

Fri 09 Dec

DALAS (CHANGO MONKS + SPAT) BANNERMANS, 19:00–22:00

Rock from Canada.

ELEPHANT SESSIONS

THE QUEEN’S HALL, 19:00–22:00

Folk from Scotland.

QUIET THE ART WEE RED BAR, 19:00–22:00

Post-rock from the UK.

SKERRYVORE

THE LIQUID ROOM, 19:00–22:00

Celtic rock from Scotland.

SWEATY PALMS (MARANTA) SNEAKY PETE’S, 19:00–22:00

Post-punk from Glasgow.

BROKEN RECORDS + TINDERBOX ORCHESTRA SUMMERHALL, 19:30–22:00

Eclectic lineup.

Sat 10 Dec

CALLUM EASTER

THE QUEEN’S HALL, 19:00–22:00 Rock ‘n’ roll from Edin burgh.

TREBLE HELIX (HAZY SUNDAYS) SNEAKY PETE’S, 19:00–22:00

Psychedelic from Edin burgh.

Sun 11 Dec

AYNSLEY LISTER

THE CAVES, 19:00–22:00

Blues rock from Leicester.

THE MARY WALLOPERS

THE LIQUID ROOM, 19:00–22:00

Folk from Ireland.

MR BEN & THE BENS SNEAKY PETE’S, 19:00–22:00

Indie from Lancaster.

TALISK SUMMERHALL, 19:30–22:00

Trad folk from Scotland.

Mon 12 Dec

THE LA MAYBE (THE REINFORCEMENTS + THIRTEEN)

BANNERMANS, 19:00–22:00

VESSELIN STANEV

THE QUEEN’S HALL, 19:30–22:00

Piano from Bulgaria.

CRAWLERS

THE LIQUID ROOM, 19:00–22:00

Alt rock from Liverpool.

LOGAN’S CLOSE (ALICE FAYE) SNEAKY PETE’S, 19:00–22:00

Indie from Edinburgh.

Tue 13 Dec

LOGAN’S CLOSE (JAMES GILHOOLY ) SNEAKY PETE’S, 19:00–22:00

Indie from Edinburgh.

Wed 14 Dec

HARDWICKE CIRCUS BANNERMANS, 19:00–22:00

Rock from Carlisle.

FIELDS OF THE NEPHILIM (WITCH OF THE VALE + TWOSTED NERVE + DJ FRANKIE D) O2 ACADEMY EDINBURGH, 19:00–22:00

Goth rock from Stevenage. STEVE MASON THE CAVES, 19:00–22:00

Singer-songwriter from Scotland.

GRAVEDANCER SNEAKY PETE’S, 19:00–22:00

Country from Arkansas.

Thu 15 Dec

NO WINDOWS

SNEAKY PETE’S, 19:00–22:00

Dream pop from Edinburgh.

Fri 16 Dec

SIN DOGS

BANNERMANS, 19:30–22:00

Heavy rock from Glasgow.

ABOLISH GOLF WEE RED BAR, 19:00–22:00

Eclectic lineup.

DICTATOR

THE MASH HOUSE, 19:00–23:00

Indie pop from West Lothian.

Sat 17 Dec

RICHARD HAWLEY

THE QUEEN’S HALL, 19:00–22:00

Alt rock from England.

SUPER MOONS (MIKE MCKENZIE)

THE MASH HOUSE, 19:00–23:00

Indie from Scotland.

Tue 20 Dec

OCEAN COLOUR SCENE

USHER HALL, 19:00–22:00

Rock from the UK.

Wed 21 Dec

MOGWAI USHER HALL, 19:00–22:00 Post-rock from Scotland.

Thu 22 Dec HÜSH SNEAKY PETE’S, 19:00–22:00

Alt rock from Edinburgh.

Fri 23 Dec

MIDNIGHT AMBULANCE

THE CAVES, 19:00–22:00 Alt rock from Edinburgh.

Fri 30 Dec

BAD MANNERS

LA BELLE ANGELE, 19:00–22:00 Ska from the UK.

Dundee Music

Wed 07 Dec

BLUE ROSE CODE BEAT GENERATOR LIVE!, 19:30–22:00 Alt folk from Edinburgh.

Fri 09 Dec

SHAM 69 BEAT GENERATOR LIVE!, 20:00–22:00 Punk rock from the UK.

Sat 10 Dec

SOLAR SONS (CATALYSIS + INDCIA + HYPERSTASIS) CHURCH, 19:00–22:00 Eclectic lineup.

Glasgow Clubs

Thu 01 Dec

PICKLEHEADS XOXO (EMISHKA + JAYJAY + OCEAN + PLANTAINCHIPPS) STEREO, 23:00–03:00 House and afrobeats.

Fri 02 Dec

SHLOMO SWG3, 23:00–03:00 Techno and rave.

TURBINES (OXHY + MM + 500 + HERE AND NOT YET) STEREO, 23:00–03:00 Experimental, hard drum and bass.

BASS INJECTION THE FLYING DUCK, 23:00–03:00 Drum and bass.

DEKMANTEL LA CHEETAH CLUB, 22:00–03:00 House and techno.

DEKMANTEL ROOM 2, 22:00–03:00 House and techno.

Sat 03 Dec

ANGY KORE + GABRIEL PADREVITA SWG3, 23:00–03:00 Techno.

FUSE X SOILSE: NIKKI NAIR (DOUBT + VAJ. POWER + EFFUA) STEREO, 23:00–03:00 Bass, breaks and jungle.

DEKMANTEL LA CHEETAH CLUB, 22:00–03:00 House and techno.

VOCAL OR VERSION: REAGGAE DANCE WITH GUTO PRYCE (SUPER FURRY ANIMALS) THE RUM SHACK, 20:00–03:00 Reggae and dance.

DEKMANTEL ROOM 2, 22:00–03:00 House and techno.

Sun 04 Dec

ANOTHER DIMENSION GLASGOW: BEAT THE SUNDAY BLUES (RAXON + KAIROGEN + IRIS PERTEGAZ) LA CHEETAH CLUB, 23:00–03:00 House and techno.

Regular Glasgow club nights

The Flying Duck

SUNDAYS GOLDEN DAYS

Weekly house and techno night for losing yourself in the beats.

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 interna tional techno.

Thu 08 Dec

BLOODSPORT: TECHNOPAGAN & DR DRAKKEN

THE BERKELEY SUITE, 23:00–03:00 Techno and house.

Fri 09 Dec

BEN NICKY (SICKMODE + KUTSKI + DAVID RUST + TYLER JACK) SWG3, 21:00–03:00 Techno and house.

SWIFTOGEDDON SWG3, 23:00–03:00 Pop and dance.

THE YELLOW DOOR: ONE LAST DANCE THE BERKELEY SUITE, 23:00–03:00 Techno and house.

Sat 10 Dec

PRTY: RAVE ALERT SWG3, 22:30–03:00 Techno and rave.

STEREO PRESENTS: SAMURAI BREAKS & DJ SOYBOI (H3L3NA + VAJ.POWER) STEREO, 23:00–03:00 Jungle, footwork and rave.

QUEER HISTORY OF DANCE MUSIC CCA: CENTRE FOR CONTEMPORARY ART, 21:00–03:00 Jazz and dance.

LOOSEN UP: FERGUS CLARK + CHARLIE MCCANN + DAVID BARBAROSSA THE RUM SHACK, 21:00–03:00 Afro and disco.

Sun 11 Dec

OPAL NIGHTS

THE FLYING DUCK, 23:00–03:00 Dance.

Wed 14 Dec

EUTONY

LA CHEETAH CLUB, 23:00–03:00 Industrial techno and dance.

Fri 16 Dec

VTSS

SWG3, 22:00–03:00 Techno and house.

MAXIMUM KONTROL THE FLYING DUCK, 23:00–03:00 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.

RIVER RAPID RECORDS (ECLAIR FIFI + AFRODEUTSCHE) SUB CLUB, 23:00–03:00 House, hip-hop and rave.

Sat 17 Dec

HEADSET: GAY GARAGE (WHEELMAN + XIVRO + SKILLIS + VAJ.POWER) STEREO, 23:00–04:00 Garage and breaks.

GROOVE.FM

THE FLYING DUCK, 23:00–03:00 House. DIVINE! CCA: CENTRE FOR CONTEMPORARY ART, 21:00–03:00 Old school vinyl dance.

ANNA & HOLLY’S DANCE PARTY THE RUM SHACK, 21:00–03:00 Rock’n’roll and soul.

Sun 18 Dec

CODE PRESENTS

TOMMY FOUR SEVEN LA CHEETAH CLUB, 23:00–03:00 Techno and house.

Wed 21 Dec

POWERPOT PRESENTS: NARCISS (H3L3NA + MISS CABBAGE + VNC.PTK) LA CHEETAH CLUB, 23:00–03:00 Trance and techno.

Fri 23 Dec

HANNAH LAING SWG3 23:00–03:00 House and techno.

FANTASY SNACK PARTY STEREO, 23:00–03:00 Bass and club.

Tue 27 Dec

ANIMAL FARM 18TH BIRTHDAY: KOBOSIL SUB CLUB, 23:00–03:00 Techno and house.

Wed 28 Dec

A.D.S.R VII LA CHEETAH CLUB, 23:00–03:00 Breakbeat and techno.

STREETRAVE SUB CLUB, 23:00–03:00 Dance.

SUNDAYS (THIRD OF THE MONTH)

CHEERS FOR THIRD SUNDAY

DJ Kelmosh takes you through Mid-Southwest ern 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 dedi cated to validating your drunk-eyed existence.

WEDNESDAYS

GLITTERED! WEDNESDAYS

DJ Garry Garry Garry in G2 with chart remixes, along with beer pong competi tions all night.

THURSDAYS ELEMENT

Ross MacMillan plays chart, house and anthems with giveaways, bouncy castles and, most impor tantly, air hockey.

FRIDAYS

FRESH BEAT Dance, chart and remixes in the main hall with Craig Guild, while DJ Nicola Walker keeps things nos talgic 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.

Fri 30 Dec

FRAZI.ER: CONCEPT AFTER PARTY SWG3, 23:00–03:00 House and techno.

Sat 31 Dec

REZERECTION NEW YEARS EVE PARTY SWG3, 20:00–03:00 Dance and rave.

NEW YEAR’S EVE: MELLA DEE SWG3 21:00–03:00 House and techno.

HEALTHY X EVENT RESEARCH PROGRAMME

X STEREO: FIRST FOOTING [HOGMANAY ] STEREO, 22:00–04:00 Hogmanay party.

PLANT BASS’D THE FLYING DUCK, 22:00–04:00 Techno and electro. GLITCH41 NYE PARTY THE RUM SHACK, 19:30–03:00 Hip-hop, grime and jungle.

Sun 01 Jan

XXL GLASGOW: REINIER ZONNEVELD SWG3, 21:00–03:00 House and rave.

Edinburgh Clubs

Thu 01 Dec

GRAFFITI PARTY THE MASH HOUSE, 23:00–03:00 Party.

Fri 02 Dec

SO FETCH

LA BELLE ANGELE, 23:00–03:00 Pop.

PARABELLUM (K.ARMA + VMBRA + TENBIT)

THE MASH HOUSE, 23:00–03:00 Techno and hardcore.

OVERGROUND THE MASH HOUSE, 23:00–03:00 Turbo rave.

Sat 03 Dec

BIG LANES (BETAMAX) WEE RED BAR, 23:00–03:00

Post-punk disco. EHFM: ANU SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–03:00 House from London. WE ARE STILL YOUNG LA BELLE ANGELE, 23:00–03:00 Emo.

SAMEDIA SHEBEEN THE MASH HOUSE, 23:00–03:00 Tropical.

Mon 05 Dec

STAND B SIDE + ARCHIVES: INTERPLANETARY CRIMINAL SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–03:00 UK garage from Man chester.

Thu 08 Dec

GEORGE IV & MANGO LOUNGE: POCKET SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–03:00 UK garage from London.

Fri 09 Dec

HOUSE OF TRIX WEE RED BAR, 19:00–22:00 House and acid.

AMAPIANO X AFROBEATS PARTY LA BELLE ANGELE, 23:00–03:00 Afrobeats. NOOK THE MASH HOUSE, 23:00–03:00 Experimental dubstep.

Sat 10 Dec

HAND MADE WITH LOVE SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–03:00 Disco.

REGGAETON PARTY LA BELLE ANGELE, 23:00–03:00

Reggaeton.

CLUB NACHT (PENTLAND PARK + KIERAN APTER) THE MASH HOUSE, 23:00–03:00 Genre blasters.

DILF

THE MASH HOUSE, 23:00–03:00 Festive fling.

Thu 15 Dec

MARGINS

SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–03:00 House and dance.

Fri 16 Dec

ATHENS OF THE NORTH SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–03:00 Funk and soul.

249’S QUEER PARTY FOR ALL SUMMERHALL, 21:00–03:00 House and disco.

CIRCLE (ONA:V) THE MASH HOUSE, 23:00–03:00 Techno and electro.

PRTCL808 (DARREN AFTER)

THE MASH HOUSE, 23:00–03:00 Tech house.

Sat 17 Dec

HEAL YOURSELF & MOVE

SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–05:00 House.

DECADE

LA BELLE ANGELE, 23:00–05:00 Pop punk.

Mon 19 Dec

CHAOS IN THE COSMOS

SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–05:00 Italo disco.

Thu 22 Dec

DR. NOS WEE RED BAR, 23:00–03:00 Ska and reggae.

LA LA: ALL NIGHT

LONG SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–05:00 House and techno.

Fri 23 Dec

MEANWHILE SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–05:00 House.

TONTO TECHNO (CHARLIE SPARKS) LA BELLE ANGELE, 23:00–05:00 Tonto techno.

PARABELLUM THE MASH HOUSE, 23:00–05:00 Techno and hardcore.

FIRST EDITION THE MASH HOUSE, 23:00–05:00 Techno.

Sun 25 Dec

HEADSET 8TH

BIRTHDAY X CHRISTMAS DAY (FEENA + LWS + NEIL LANDSTRU,, + SKILLIS + STEPHEN BROWN) THE MASH HOUSE, 23:00–05:00 Techno and garage.

Mon 26 Dec

TAIS TOI: KANDER SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–05:00 Techno from Manchester.

CLUB NACHT (OPTIMO)

THE MASH HOUSE, 23:00–05:00 Genre blasters.

Fri 30 Dec

TELFORT’S GOOD PLACE SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–05:00 House.

TONTO TECHNO THE MASH HOUSE, 23:00–05:00 Tonto techno.

AUDIO WARFARE THE MASH HOUSE, 23:00–05:00 Techno.

Sat 31 Dec

HOGMANAY SUMMERHALL, 21:00–03:00 Dance and disco.

BFLF HOGMINI LA BELLE ANGELE, 14:00–16:00 Rave and techno.

SAMEDIA SHEBEEN HOGMANAY TROPICAL SOUNDCLASH (LOS CHICHANOS (LIVE)) LA BELLE ANGELE, 23:00–05:00 Tropical.

PULSE (ALARICO ZUCCHI) THE MASH HOUSE, 23:00–05:00 Techno.

Dundee Clubs

Regular Edinburgh club nights

Cabaret Voltaire

FRIDAYS

FLY CLUB Edinburgh and Glasgow-strad dling night, with a powerhouse of local residents joined by a selec tion of guest talent.

SATURDAYS PLEASURE Regular Saturday night at Cab Vol, with residents and occasional special guests.

Sneaky Pete’s

MONDAYS (FIRST OF THE MONTH) HEADSET Scottish rave label with a monthly, guest-filled night.

TUESDAYS

POPULAR MUSIC DJs playing music by bands to make you dance: Grace Jones to Neu!, Parquet Courts to Brian Eno, The Clash to Janelle Monáe.

WEDNESDAYS

HEATERS Heaters resident C-Shaman presents a month of ambiguous local showdowns, purveying the mul tifarious mischief that characterises Sneaky’s midweek party haven.

THURSDAYS (FIRST OF THE MONTH)

VOLENS CHORUS Resident DJs with an eclectic, global outlook

FRIDAYS (FIRST OF THE MONTH) MISS WORLD All-female DJ collective with monthly guests

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 bikram disco.

SUNDAYS POSTAL Multi-genre beats every Sunday at Sneaky Pete's, showcasing the very best of 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-brighten ing 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 WEDNES DAY 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 novelty-stuffed. 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

XO Hip-hop and R'n'B grooves from regulars DJ Beef and DJ Cherry.

THURSDAYS SLIC

More classic Hip-hop and R'n'B dance tunes for the almost end of the week.

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

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.

Fri 02 Dec

FLOOR ABOVE PRESENTS: YTP FT MEZER THE ARCHITECT + M4RY JAN3 KINGS, 23:00–03:00 Electro and techno.

Sat 03 Dec

DISTORTED EUPHORIA & MOAR. WINTER BIRTHDAY CHURCH, 22:30–03:00 Trance and dance.

ACID BONER KINGS, 23:00–03:00 Acid and techno.

Sat 10 Dec

DICKY TRISCO ALL NIGHT LONG KINGS, 23:00–03:00 Disco.

Glasgow Comedy

Oran Mor

AYE NEWS

11 DEC, 6:00PM 8:00PM

Political satire with a sharp eye on UK politics.

The Glee Club

CHRISTMAS COMEDY SPECIAL

1-21 DEC, TIMES VARY Christmas Comedy Specials at The Glee Club offers the best comedians and a deli cious festive menu.

THE INDIANS ARE COMING 11 DEC, 6:30PM-10:00PM Balle Balle! Round up your friends for an uplifting night of laughter.

FRANKIE BOYLE WORK IN PROGRESS 4-12 DEC, 5:00PM 7:00PM

Trying out new material ahead of a new series of New World Order.

BANK HOLIDAY COMEDY 27 DEC, 7:30PM 10:00PM

Four superb stand-up co medians and a great range of tasty food offerings.

HOGMANAY COMEDY SHOW 31 DEC, 6:30PM 9:00PM

See in 2023 with the best comedians, excellent food, and an afterparty to remember.

The Stand

Glasgow FRANKIE BOYLE: WORK IN PROGRESS 8-11 DEC, TIMES VARY New material from the fantastic Frankie Boyle.

THE STAND CHRISTMAS SPECIAL 15-17 DEC, 8:30PM 10:00PM

Christmas cheer from the very best comics from the UK and beyond.

SPONTANEOUS POTTER: THE UNOFFICIAL IMPROVISED PARODY 12 DEC, 8:30PM 10:00PM

​​An entirely impro vised Harry Potter comedy play, based on an audience suggestions improvised on the spot.

DARREN CONNELL AND THE FUNNY BUNCH 18 DEC, 8:00PM 10:00PM

Come and join Darren and some of his favourite acts for a great show of standup comedy.

ROB NEWMAN LIVE ON STAGE 8 DEC, 8:30PM 10:00PM

The award-winning comedian's new show is a stand-up epic that goes from cave paintings to car-free cities.

WORD UP 4 DEC, 8:30PM 10:00PM

A fast-moving spoken word cabaret. Featuring the best poets, comedians and musicians from across the UK.

BONA FIDE CHRISTMAS SPECIAL! 21 DEC, 8:30PM 10:00PM

The cream of Scotland's comics prove their worth by performing material written especially for the theme of the night.

SOME LAUGH LIVE 11 DEC, 8:30PM 10:00PM

The Some Laugh Podcast's first ever live show.

HOGMANAY SPECIAL 27-31 DEC, 8:00PM 10:00PM Get ready to wave goodbye to the old and start afresh.

Edinburgh Comedy

Monkey Barrel Comedy

ALFIE BROWN: RED FLAGS GALORE! (WORK IN PROGRESS) 3 DEC, 8:00PM 9:00PM

In his new show, award win ning comedian Alfie Brown mediates on what it means to have a healthy relation ship in the modern age.

JOHN NORRIS: MR CHONKERS

6 DEC, 8:00PM 9:00PM

It's a solo show. A clown show. Absurd. Simple. Outrageous. Stupid. Fun.

THE INDIANS ARE COMING

11 DEC, 4:30PM-5:30PM Balle Balle! Round up your friends for an uplifting night of laughter.

THE BIG SHOW XMAS AND NY SPECIALS! 12-27 DEC, TIMES VARY The BIG SHOW is back this Christmas with top standup from some of the best on the circuit.

VITTORIO ANGELONE: WORK IN PROGRESS 16 DEC, 8:00PM 9:00PM

Fresh off of a sold out fringe run, Best Newcomer Nomi nee 2022 Vittorio Angelone presents a work in progress version of his 2023 show.

MICKY OVERMAN: THE STUFF (WORK IN PROGRESS) 17 DEC, 8:00PM 9:00PM

A brand spanking new work-in-progress show from stand-up and sketch comedian Micky Overman.

The Stand Edinburgh THE BEST OF SCOTTISH COMEDY 8 DEC, 8:30PM 10:00PM

A carload of the best com ics on the contemporary Scottish circuit.

THE STAND CHRISTMAS SPECIAL 15-17 DEC, 8:30PM 10:00PM

Christmas cheer from the very best comics from the UK and beyond.

STU & GARRY’S IMPROV SHOW 6 DEC, 8:30PM 10:00PM

The Stand’s very own Stu & Garry’s long-running improv show: taking audience suggestions and making comedy gold.

WORD UP 4-7 DEC, 8:30PM 10:00PM

A fast-moving spoken word cabaret. Featuring the best poets, comedians and musicians from across the UK.

Regular Glasgow comedy nights

Drygate Brewing Co.

FIRST AND THIRD TUESDAY OF THE MONTH DRYGATE COMEDY LAB, 7PM

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, 21:00

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 COM EDY, 19:00

An evening of awardwinning comedy, with four superb stand-up come dians 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.

Fridays

THE FRIDAY SHOW, 21:00

The big weekend show with four comedians.

Saturdays

THE SATURDAY SHOW (THE EARLY SHOW), 17:00

A slightly earlier performance of the big weekend show with four comedians.

Saturdays

THE SATURDAY SHOW, 21:00

The big weekend show with four comedians.

Monkey Barrel

Second and third Tuesday of every month

THE EDINBURGH REVUE, 19:00

The University of Edin burgh's Comedy Society, who put on sketch and stand-up comedy shows every two weeks.

Fridays MONKEY BARREL COM EDY'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 improvis ers join forces to perform based off two audience members dating profiles.

Saturdays MONKEY BAR REL COMEDY'S BIG SATURDAY SHOW, 17:00/19:00/21:00

Monkey Barrel's flagship night of premier stand-up comedy.

Sundays MONKEY BARREL COM EDY'S BIG SUNDAY SHOW, 19:00/21:00

Monkey Barrel's flagship night of premier stand-up comedy.

CLINTON BAPTISTE VS RAMONE

NO UPCOMING DATES, 8:00PM 10:00PM

Buckle up for a battle of charisma, verbal one up-manship and hair raising paranormal wizardry as the two megastars meet to finally decide who holds the title as Britain's Greatest Paranormalist.

ERIC NEUMANN 1 DEC, 8:30PM 10:00PM

New York's Comedy Cellar regular and one of the fastest rising standup comedians in the United States.

SUSAN MORRISON IS HISTORICALLY FUNNY 18 DEC, 2:00PM 4:00PM

Comedy meets history, and it doesn’t always go well.

BONA FIDE CHRISTMAS SPECIAL! 18 DEC, 8:30PM 10:00PM

The cream of Scotland's comics prove their worth by performing material written especially for the theme of the night.

THE BEST OF SCOTTISH COMEDY HOGMANAY SPECIAL 27-31 DEC, 8:00PM 10:00PM

The Stand’s flagship contemporary Scottish comedy show returns for Hogmanay.

Glasgow Theatre

Oran Mor

ORAN MOR CHRISTMAS PANTO: RAB HOOD & THE SHERIFF OF SHETTLESTON 1-31 DEC, TIMES VARY A chaotic, pantomime ver sion of Robin Hood arrives in town.

The King’s Theatre

BEAUTY AND THE BEAST 1-31 DEC, TIMES VARY Be a guest at this lavish pantomime.

Theatre Royal

THE COMMITMENTS

1-10 DEC, TIMES VARY

Musical packed full of soul classics.

SCOTTISH BALLET’S

THE SNOW QUEEN 1-31 DEC, TIMES VARY

A lavish production of the winter classic with music from Rimsky-Korsakov.

NATIVITY! THE MUSICAL PRESENTED BY THE PANTHEON CLUB 1-3 DEC, TIMES VARY

A primary school stages a chaotic Nativity play in this goodnatured musical.

Tramway

CITIZENS THEATRE PRESENTS RED RIDING HOOD 9-23 DEC, TIMES VARY A festive spin on the the girl who defeats the wolf.

Tron Theatre

THE WONDERFUL WIZARD OF OZ 1 DEC-8 JAN 23, TIMES VARY

A witty, modern take on the transformatory classic.

Edinburgh Theatre

Assembly Roxy

THE GHOST OF A SMILE 10-11 DEC, TIMES VARY

Two Charles Dickens ghost stories given a comic, and festive, twist.

Festival Theatre

SCOTTISH BALLET’S

THE SNOW QUEEN 1-10 DEC, TIMES VARY

A lavish production of the winter classic with music from Rimsky-Korsakov.

THE PANTO: SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS 17 DEC-22 JAN 23 TIMES VARY

A lavish panto classic.

Royal Lyceum Theatre

AN EDINBURGH CHRISTMAS CAROL 1-31 DEC, TIMES VARY

Discovering the Scottish roots of this festive classic.

The Edinburgh Playhouse

THE COMMITMENTS

1-3 DEC, TIMES VARY

Musical packed full of soul classics.

MY FAIR LADY 14 DEC-7 JAN 23, TIMES VARY

Time for a loverly produc tion of the classic Pygma lion musical.

The Studio

THE GIFT

17 DEC-4 JAN 23, TIMES

VARY

Family friendly fun about the unexpected joys of giving and receiving.

Traverse Theatre

ONCE UPON A SNOWSTORM

9-23 DEC, TIMES VARY

A gentle family winter tale based on the picture book by Richard Johnson.

Dundee Theatre

Dundee Rep

CINDERELLA

1-31 DEC, TIMES VARY

A festive musical retelling of the classic fairytale.

Glasgow Art

16 Nicholson Street

CHRISTMAS SHOW: FUNDRAISER

2-20 DEC, TIMES VARY

Fundraising exhibition featuring the likes of Beth Shapeero, Natsumi Saka moto and Empower Women for Change.

CCA: Centre for Contemporary Art

ROGER PALMER: THE TOOTH OF HISTORY

1-23 DEC, TIMES VARY

Photographic prints and works on paper by Glasgow-based artist exploring the intersection between industrialisa tion and colonisation in Glasgow.

ROBERT MCNEIL: FLIPSIDE

3-17 DEC, TIMES VARY

A new perspective on wellknown war documenter and artist.

Glasgow Women’s Library

GATHERING STITCH

1 DEC-4 FEB 23, TIMES

VARY A collaborative textile piece created by survivors of sexual violence, placed in conversation with textile work from the library archive.

VANESSA BAIRD: NEW WORKS

1 DEC-28 JAN 23, TIMES

VARY

A new series of quotidian paintings by one of Nor way’s leading contemporary artists.

GoMA TASTE!

1-31 DEC, 11:00AM

4:00PM

Featuring work by Andy Warhol, Sarah Forrest and David Shrigley, this exhibi tion looks at how taste is created and art archives are curated.

DOMESTIC BLISS

1-31 DEC, 11:00AM

4:00PM

Exchange and civic space.

Building on the gallery’s space as a former house and civic space, Domestic Bliss examines how artists develop practice alongside social and political change, and the ways in which public and domestic labour intersect with art.

CLARA URSITTI: AMIK

1 DEC-29 JAN 23, 11:00AM 4:00PM

Sculpture, film and scent installation consider ideas of trade and histories of human, animal and botanic migration.

SWG3

CREATIVE RESILIENCE: SCENE BUT NOT HEARD

1 DEC-5 JAN 23, 12:00PM 6:00PM

Bringing together 26 artists of marginalised genders, this exhibition is a celebra tion of the creative and political possibilities of street and urban art.

Street Level

Photoworks

FUTUREPROOF 2022

1 DEC-29 JAN 23, TIMES

VARY

Annual exhibition platform ing some of the most groundbreaking photog raphy to emerge from art schools, universities and colleges in the past year.

The Briggait

KAYLEIGH SARAH MCGUINNESS: NEIGHEANAN NAN

(THE DAUGHTERS OF)

1 DEC-3 JAN 23, TIMES

VARY

A new body of work exam ining processes of being situated in time and space through the materiality of the Scottish landscape.

Tramway

NORMAN GILBERT

1 DEC-5 FEB 23, TIMES

VARY

A major exhibition of vibrant paintings by seminal Glasgow Southside artist.

IZA TARASEWICZ

1 DEC-29 JAN 23, TIMES

VARY

Working from her farm in Poland, material artist Iza Tarasewicz co-opts rural systems of production to craft installations that entangle cellular, social, agricultural, and celestial interactions.

Edinburgh Art Arusha Gallery

NINA ROYLE: DOWN YOUR TRESSES

1-4 DEC, TIMES VARY

Vivid paintings exploring ideas of iconography and modern deities.

KIRSTY WHITEN: SHOOKETH

9 DEC-6 JAN 23, TIMES

VARY

Visceral, vulnerable paintings walking the line between the hyperreal and mythic, exploring ideas of healing and emergence.

City Art Centre

GLEAN: EARLY 20TH

CENTURY WOMEN

FILMMAKERS AND PHOTOGRAPHERS IN SCOTLAND

1 DEC-12 MAR 23, TIMES

VARY

Presenting work by 14 pio neering early 20th-century photographers and film makers and their relation ship with the environments of Scotland.

RON O’DONNELL: EDINBURGH: A LOST

WORLD

1 DEC-5 MAR 23, TIMES

VARY

Previously unseen photo graphs from the 60s and 70s by Ron O’Donnell paint an intimate, urban portrait of Edinburgh.

PAUL DUKE: NO RUINED STONE 1 DEC-19 FEB 23, TIMES

VARY

A photographic series exploring the built environ ment and its residents at a time of significant urban regeneration and social flux.

AULD REEKIE RETOLD 3 DEC-19 JAN 23, TIMES

VARY The results of one of Edin burgh’s most comprehen sive archival projects, this exhibition brings together long-hidden objects from the city’s museum collec tions.

Collective Gallery

KATIE SCHWAB: THE SEEING HANDS

1 DEC-5 MAR 23, 10:00AM 5:00PM

An interactive exhibition considering ways of explor ing and expressing tactility.

KATHERINE KA YI LIU: NEITHER THE WEST NOR THE EAST CAN BE A DETERMINATE

LOCATION

3 DEC-26 FEB 23, 10:00AM 5:00PM

A multisensory installation featuring text, handmade paper, found objects, scent, ceramic sculptures and silver casts exploring the Western, Eurocentric frameworks that have been imposed on Hong Kong.

Dovecot Studios

KNITWEAR: CHANEL TO WESTWOOD

1 DEC-11 MAR 23 10:00AM 5:00PM

Bringing together some of the most influential knitwear pieces of the 20th century in a groundbreaking and cosy exhibition.

COLLABORATE! 21ST CENTURY COMMISSIONS AND CREATIONS PART I 1-31 DEC, 10:00AM 5:00PM

Showcasing the creative process behind some of Dovecot’s most dynamic rug and textile collabora tions.

Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop

ALICE DUDGEON + OISÍN GALLAGHER: LINE DRAWINGS

1 DEC-7 JAN 23 11:00AM 5:00PM

Sculptural wooden forms informed by the surround ings of the gallery and developed from a series of ink drawings.

Fruitmarket

HAYLEY TOMPKINS:

FAR

1 DEC-29 JAN 23, 10:00AM 7:00PM

A vivid exhibition of new and existing work exploring the sensuous materiality of paint and colour.

ANDREW GANNON

10 DEC-8 JAN 23, 10:00AM 7:00PM

A series of increasingly unwearable prostheses created from the artist’s arm that examine current discourses around dis ability. The exhibition is accompanied by regular live drawing performances.

Ingleby Gallery

PETER LIVERSIDGE: AN ECHO

1-17 DEC, 11:00AM 5:00PM

An uncanny exhibition exploring the theme of the double - its fragmentations and its possibilities.

Open Eye Gallery

DIRECTORS’ CHOICE

1-23 DEC, TIMES VARY

A curation of some of Scotland’s most prolific working artists.

Out of the Blue Drill Hall

MARIA STOIAN: FORGERIES

1 DEC, 10:00AM 4:00PM

A work-in-progress glimpse of riso artist Maria Stoian’s graphic memoir, and the creative processes behind writing the self.

Royal Scottish Academy RSA

THE CHRISTMAS

SHOW

1-22 DEC, TIMES VARY

Featuring over one hundred works by Royal Scottish Academicians.

Scottish National Gallery

IN THE FRAME:

CONSERVING SCOTLAND’S ART

1 DEC-16 APR 23, TIMES

VARY

An exhibition showcasing the ambitious conservation work taking place at the National Galleries.

Scottish National Portrait Gallery

ARTISTS AT WORK 2

1 DEC-12 FEB 23, 10:00AM 5:00PM

An exhibition of painting, sculpture, photography and jewellery created by staff at the National Galleries of Scotland.

Stills

FUTUREPROOF 2022

1 DEC-28 JAN 23, 12:00PM 5:00PM

Platforming emerging photographic talent from across Scotland’s art schools, universities, and colleges.

Summerhall

ANUP VEGA: AÑJANAM/LIGHT WATCHING

1-23 DEC, 12:00PM 5:30PM

Paintings exploring cosmic ideas of emptiness and illusion.

WONDERLUST

1 DEC-28 FEB 23 12:00PM 5:30PM

Blown-up, nostalgia-tinged polaroids are given an eerie, haunted feel in this photographic series.

CULTURE HOUSE 1-23 DEC, 12:00PM

5:30PM

A curated selection of work from Summerhall artists-inresidence.

Talbot Rice Gallery

QIU ZHIJIE

1 DEC-18 FEB 23, TIMES

VARY

Large-scale paintings and topographies exploring developing geopolitical landscapes.

NIRA PEREG

1 DEC-18 FEB 23, TIMES

VARY

Video installations that explore ideas of ceremony, ritual, and contested po litical spaces across Israel and Palestine.

LARA FAVARETTO

1 DEC-18 FEB 23, TIMES

VARY

Large-scale sculptures and installations that investigate the space between destruction and reconstruction, collapse and recovery.

Torrance Gallery

WINTER EXHIBITION

1 DEC-14 JAN 23, 11:00AM 5:30PM

A bumper winter exhibition showcasing many of the gallery’s regular artists.

Dundee Art

DCA: Dundee

Contemporary Arts

MATTHEW ARTHUR WILLIAMS: SOON

COME

10 DEC-26 MAR 23, TIMES VARY

Newly commissioned film and sound installations re form traditional portraiture by defying erasure and re considering what it means to document the Black queer experience.

The McManus HIDDEN HISTORIES: EXPLORING EQUALITY, DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION IN DUNDEE’S ART COLLECTION

1 DEC-30 DEC 23, 10:00AM 5:00PM

Exploring the McManus 20th-century collection through different posi tionalities, to examine the responsibility of the museum as institution in responding to history.

CASTS AND COPIES

1 DEC-30 SEP 23, 10:00AM 5:00PM

Examining the artistic and historic significance of cop ies, fakes, and forgeries.

V&A Dundee SINCERELY, VALENTINES: FROM POSTCARDS TO GREETINGS CARDS

1 DEC-8 JAN 23, 10:00AM 5:00PM

Exhibiting an archive by J. Valentine & Sons, Scotland’s pioneering com mercial photographers who popularised the holiday postcard on a global scale.

PLASTIC: REMAKING OUR WORLD

1 DEC-5 FEB 23, 10:00AM 5:00PM

A dynamic exhibition thinking through the ma teriality and technological capacities and difficulties of plastic.

Dundee Venues

Chai teas, delicious doughnuts and top local cuisine –Dundee has lots of venue discoveries to offer this winter

Words: Jamie Wilde

THE NEWPORT RESTAURANT 1 HIGH ST, NEWPORT ON TAY, DD6 8AB

If you fancy a short break from the hubbub of the city, then The Newport Restaurant situated on the opposite side of the River Tay offers some of the best food in the region. Its kitchen is run by Masterchef winner Jamie Scott. Yes, this is a bit fancier than most restaurants, with some of its tast ing options coming in at fairly lofty prices – but don’t be deterred. The venue’s welcoming vibe is wholly accessible for all kinds of din ers. Its locally sourced food is outstanding, and its three-course market menu is ideal if you’re keen to dine out without breaking the bank.

CHAIIWALA 42-44 REFORM STREET, DD1 1RT

Over the last few years, Dundee’s Reform Street has been branded as the city’s new food haven. Various restaurants have come and gone in the same space of time, but the latest aiming to cement its place in Dundee’s city centre is Chaiiwala. The popular tearoom and Indian street food venue has locations across Scotland, including in Glasgow and Edinburgh. Its hot and cold drinks like chai teas and mango and rose faloodas (milkshakes with ice cream) are solid tastebud tinglers. One of its most popular food options is the desi breakfast, which comes with daal, chana masala, spiced beans, a masala omelette plus a roti and drink all for under £10. Burgers and naan wraps are also available, but make sure to leave room for its desserts like galub jamun deep fried doughballs.

MILAS

5 WHITEHALL ST, DUNDEE DD1 4AA

A short stroll past the Overgate and around the corner onto Whitehall Street will take you to Milas, one of the city’s few Turkish restaurants. This venue may not be as lively at posting on social media as others, but Dundonians have been flocking here in numbers for all manner of occasions. Spacious inside, grilled meats pair with Turkish and Middle Eastern meze delicacies on the restaurant’s diverse menu. Its chef special dishes like incik (lamb shanks) are ideal for those seeking authentic flavours, while the lahmacun – a crispy, flatbread-style Turkish pizza – offers an ideal gateway for beginners in Turkish cuisine.

ESPRESSO LAB

31 COMMERCIAL ST, DUNDEE DD1 3DA

Espresso Lab is a very inviting new coffee house based on Commercial Street (it’s also right next to Waterstones which makes for a perfect coffee and book afternoon). Coffee lovers are in for a treat here. Since opening earlier this year, the venue has seen a surge in popularity. Espresso Lab takes its brews seriously, sourcing its coffee beans from locations all around the world. Its Kyoto-style cold brew coffee – which takes a full day to make – is one of its specialities that’s served on ice and well worth a try, and pairs well with its enticing range of Italian desserts. A great addition to Dundee’s coffee shop scene.

WRECKING BALL DOUGHNUTS

12 EXCHANGE ST, DUNDEE DD1 3DL

A literal stone’s throw from Espresso Lab will take you to another new gem that’s been quickly making a name for itself.

Wrecking Ball Doughnuts is housed on Exchange Street, which may be small in size, but its cluster of independent businesses give the street its rich character. Run by the people behind The Newport Bakery and Daily Grind Coffee Co, deliciously dirty doughnuts are the port of call here. Sweet, sugary, fun to look at and available in all kinds of flavours, sweet treats in Dundee just got a whole lot more eye-catching. Open Friday to Sunday only.

Image: courtesy of the venue

The Newport

Image: courtesy of the venue

Wrecking Ball Doughnuts

The Skinny On... Mr Chonkers

One of our comedy team’s highlights of the 2022 Fringe, a ‘hideously funny delight’ – Mr Chonkers by John Norris returns to the Edinburgh stage for one night only this December and submits to our Q&A in celebration

What’s your favourite place to visit and why?

Palmdale, California, USA. Home of the pop vocal group The Doodletown Pipers.

What's your favourite food and why?

Mac and cheese. This is an American dish that features a pasta shape that we like to call ‘macaroni’ and a product from old milk we like to call ‘cheese’. I like it because it tastes good.

Favourite colour and why?

Ice blue. The eye color of Jerry Weintraub, co-founder of The Doodletown Pipers.

Who was your hero growing up?

Bob ‘Big Bob’ Anderson of The Doodletown Pipers.

Whose work inspires you now? The CIA.

What three people would you invite to your dinner party and what are you cooking?

Emmitt Cash, Jim Gilstrap, and Taffy Anderson (three key members of The Doodletown Pipers). If I were in charge of making dinner then I’d have to say I’d whip up a pot of my world famous Beef Water!

What’s your all time favourite album?

Here Come The Doodletown Pipers by The Doodletown Pipers

What’s the worst film you’ve ever seen?

Help! by The Beatles. The film is actually alright but I really hate what those long hairs did to the Pipers.

What book would you take to a desert island?

Probably How to Get Off Of a Desert Island by Jacko Bingbong. Ha Ha Ha… That was just a little joke. Not a real book I don’t think. And it’s not a real author. Just thought of a silly name and then wrote it down. I’d probably bring 50 Shades of Grey by E.L. James.

Who’s the worst?

Doodletown Piper? I mean, the answer has to be Richard ‘Little Rickie’ Doran. No one else comes close. Despicable man.

When did you last cry?

I am crying as I write this. Actually, no, I am technically ‘sobbing.’

What are you most scared of?

I am most scared of letting an audience down. I never want people to show up feeling like they’re not getting a good show… I am fully prepared to give my all every time I step out on stage. For example: during the Fringe I had a show where I only had two audience members turn up. I later found out they were an elderly Latvian couple on vacation. Though this was a humble crowd, I persevered and gave them the show of a lifetime! Blood! Sweat! Tears! And while this confused couple stared at me, realising far too late that they were supposed to be in the venue across the street, I raged into that dark theatre with all the passion and props at my disposal. When these two severely frightened patrons clamoured over the rows of seats to the door (which I had locked) I knew that I did my best. Whether this is ‘good’ or not… Well… That’s for the authorities to decide. The trial is due to start in early 2023.

When did you last vomit and why? Two hours ago. Got overwhelmed thinking about a reunion of The Doodletown Pipers.

Tell us a secret?

I still have all of my baby teeth.

Which celebrity could you take in a fight?

The entire Royal family.

If you could be reincarnated as an animal, which animal would it be? Why, the humble capybara, of course!

Mr Chonkers by John Norris, 6 Dec, Monkey Barrel Comedy, Edinburgh, 8pm, £10

Photo: Alan Michnoff