The Skinny March 2021

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March 2021 Issue 182

ONE Th e

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January 2020

Books

THE SKINNY

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THE SKINNY

Art January 2020

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THE SKINNY

The Skinny's song we can't wait to hear on a loud soundsystem in the after times Utah Saints — Something Good (original version, 1992) Britney Spears — Gimme More Shygirl — SLIME Lizzo — Juice Donna Summer — I Feel love Daft Punk — One More Time Marie Davidson — Work It (Soulwax Remix) Charlotte Adigéry — Paténipat Cardi B — WAP Marco Carola — Long Jump Mashd N Kutcher — Get on the Beers JK Flesh — Is This Me? Boney M — Rasputin Harry Styles — Watermelon Sugar

Listen to this playlist on Spotify – search for 'The Skinny Office Playlist' or scan the below code

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Championing creativity in Scotland

Meet the team We asked – What do you miss about clubs?

Editorial

Rosamund West Editor-in-Chief "The sense of infinite possibility. Emerging to dawn on a June night. 'Afterparties' at whoever's flat contains a single bottle of booze. Chips and cheese with garlic sauce."

Peter Simpson Digital Editor, Food & Drink Editor "Mishearing someone due to loud music, rather than mishearing them because they're wearing a mask."

Anahit Behrooz Events Editor "How the crucible of a night out intensifies all your relationships, be it with friends, crushes, or strangers. I miss that. The acute openness with which you’d approach the world."

Jamie Dunn Film Editor, Online Journalist "That moment around drink three when your crippling anxiety melts away, a banger suddenly pops on the soundsystem and you just need to dance like no one’s watching.

Also: 3am kebabs."

Tallah Brash Music Editor "Having unplanned catchups with friends I wouldn't see otherwise by the lockers in Sneaky's; one more shot before rushing to the dancefloor for the last tune; 3am chats outside, not wanting the night to end."

Nadia Younes Clubs Editor "Deep chats with strangers in the club toilets – read all about it in the coming pages!"

Polly Glynn Comedy Editor "The sweat teamed with lukewarm tinnies of Red Stripe. I want to be reluctant to go, then end up having a wild time."

Katie Goh Intersections Editor "Dancing in the club!

Crying in the club!

Vomming in the club!

The full 360 experience please."

Eliza Gearty Theatre Editor "Feeling young since the last time I went to a club was 2016."

Heather McDaid Books Editor "Boozy kebabs tasting good. It's just not the same sober and at home."

Sales & Business

Production

Rachael Hood Art Director, Production Manager "Dance battles with strangers. Those 2005 break dance classes really paid off."

Adam Benmakhlouf Art Editor "Chest pains from exercising to a level that I just can't manage outside of dancing in a darkened room to a stacked soundsystem.

And winching."

Phoebe Willison Designer "The befores & afters - the chats before in a pub/flat/park, then the kerbside debate on whose to go back to, eventually sneaking home via a snoozy ‘thanks so much see you later’ to the Uber man."

Sandy Park Commercial Director "The relief of not being turned away after spending a fortune on a ticket and travel; the gradual increase of the bass as you walk towards the main room. I thought I was past my clubbing days but will be straight to one after this."

Tom McCarthy Creative Projects Manager "GOING TO THEM!!!

It's everything though: the music, the lights, the sweat, the sounds, the strangers, the friends, the dancing and the hugs."

George Sully Sales and Brand Strategist "If I had to choose one thing, it'd be dancing with other people in a small room that isn't in my house while a DJ plays loud music and a bar serves alcoholic drinks."

Laurie Presswood General Manager "Hive jail."

THE SKINNY

Editorial Words: Rosamund West

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s you are no doubt painfully aware, this month marks a year of being in and out of lockdown (mainly lockdown, everything being mainly closed). So we’ve been thinking about that – looking back, looking around and looking forwards with some spring-induced hope to see what the future might hold.

In our lead feature, Anahit Behrooz talks to frontline workers in the NHS to find out what the reality has been over the last 12 months. We have all witnessed the strategy of propaganda to heroise / martyr this essential tax-funded service, obscuring the fact that the challenges it faces are due to ideological decisions by the Tories of underfunding and managed decline. A nurse, a doctor and a support worker tell us why it would be better to be provided with the basic tools necessary to do their jobs (e.g. a desk, free parking, a locker) than applauded of a Thursday evening. It goes without saying that pensioners shouldn’t need to raise money for something we already pay taxes to fund when ministers are handing out contracts worth millions or billions of pounds to their unqualified pals.

Back in the cultural sector, our Clubs editor, Nadia, marks a year since nightlife shut with an ode to the things she loves about clubs. Casual acquaintances, new people, the possibility of surprise and discovery are all things that we are now realising we are missing in our lives. Nadia looks at what this absence means to her, in particular the intense friendships forged in surprising locations. She also pens a tribute to visionary artist and musician SOPHIE, lost far too soon and too suddenly.

The physical and psychological restrictions of the last year have in themselves provided a space for new, sometimes surprising projects to develop. An ambitious new programme in Dundee, Ignorant Art School, aims to break apart the

hierarchies of traditional education with a series of free-to-attend events, meetings and exhibitions over three years. Our Art editor, Adam, meets some of the artists and organisers who are making it happen. We meet the founders of Cipher Press, a new publishing house that opened mid-2020 celebrating queer books. The Gayfield Enterprises Demos, released this month, has a touching origin story of a son coming across his dad’s old cassette recordings from the 80s in lockdown 1, realising he loved his music, restoring and remastering it for release.

Another strange marker of one year of lockdowns is Glasgow Short Film Festival, preparing to present their second programme online. Film editor Jamie finds out what to expect from its organisers while in our regular Q&A on the back page, Adura Onashile shares dream dinner guests ahead of the screening of her film Expensive Shit within the GSFF programme. We also explore Sweetheart, a coming-out drama more concerned with what happens next. And, as Trainspotting turns 25 (mind blown emoji) we consider how it helped change Scotland forever.

This month sees the publication of the first in our series of longer form pieces of writing produced in partnership with Edinburgh International Festival. We take a deep dive into how theatre has recovered from previous closures, from plagues to totalitarian regimes, and even evolved in the process. Then, we speculate about what it might look like after this particular crisis.

Wild speculation about the future also features in our Food section this month, as a host of folk who have adapted to weather this storm discuss how it might affect their business practices going forwards. More outdoor eating and drinking sounds like something to look forward to as it finally starts to get lighter and warmer.

March 2021 — Chat

Cover Artist Miranda Stuart Miranda Stuart is an illustrator living in Glasgow, currently re-watching old series of Derren Brown and trying to self-hypnotise into making more work. ill-miranda.co.uk I: @ill_miranda

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THE SKINNY

Love Bites

Love Bites: Michelin stars in our eyes This month’s columnist finds lockdown joy in the magic of MasterChef Words: Tony Inglis

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March 2021 — Chat

ony, come and taste this!” shouts my flatmate from the kitchen.

“So, what are we cooking, Stephen?” I ask, wandering in.

“Well, on the menu today is sous vide pork mince that’s then been lightly pan-fried for colour and caramelization. It’s going to be served with a garnish of cavolo nero, samphire, whisky-soaked baby carrots, confit jersey royals and roasted girolles, an onion and celeriac puree, yuzu gel and a veal jus infused with cumin, rosemary and black garlic,” replies Stephen, wholly inaccurately describing his extremely basic one-pot chilli.

“You’ve given yourself a lot of work to do, Stephen,” I say, bent double with laughter. “I just hope the whisky doesn’t overpower the flavour of that rich, deep sauce. Also, this needs more salt. Not surprised you didn’t realise with that unrefined palete of yours.”

This is the pattern most of our conversations take these days. With lockdown came a joint passion (or is it a shared delusion?) to spend all mealtimes with our close personal friends Marcus (Wareing, chef), Monica (Galetti, chef) and Gregg (Wallace, greengrocer, crucially not a chef, an important distinction we will not let go), and their coterie of variably talented MasterChef: The Professionals contestants.

This has brought routine – no, ritual – to our formless days, and the comfort of collective emotions.

We laugh together when some poor victim commits career suicide in the skills test, embarrassingly unable to fillet a John Dory. We wince when the judges use a slur to describe fried balls of offal (surely there’s another word for that?). We salivate at boozy, creamy desserts and cheer when Marcus waxes lyrical about some underdog’s elaborately concocted dish. We are running a three Michelin star restaurant in our heads.

Oui, chef!

Crossword Solutions Across 1. PREPAREDNESS 7. LOKI 8. IN MEMORIAM 10. RATIOCINATE 11. KGB 13. ARMAGNAC 15. HATRED 16. VENEER 17. UNNEEDED 18. ROW 19.

DOOM-MONGERS 22. RISHI SUNAK 23. HIDE 24. BORIS JOHNSON Down 2. RIOJA 3. PRITI PATEL 4. DOMINIC CUMMINGS 5. SORE 6. GANGRENE 8. INCONGRUOUS 9. MATT HANCOCK 12. STRENGTHEN 14.

RHETORIC 20. RODEO 21. CHEB

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THE SKINNY

Heads Up

The UK’s never-ending lockdown turns one this month! Happy birthday! To celebrate, we’ve rounded up the very best digital events that will help us see this milestone out.

Compiled by Anahit Behrooz

Photo: Wyndham Boylan-Garnett

Heads Up

DCA At Home, DCA: Dundee Contemporary Arts Online, Various dates and times There are maybe no words for how much we miss the cinema right now, but until that blessed day when they reopen – popcorn and all – DCA has set up its own at-home screening service with a gorgeously curated selection of contemporary cinema. Recent highlights include groundbreaking queer Georgian romance And Then We Danced, and first Saudi female filmmaker Haifaa al-Mansour’s The Perfect Candidate.

Pop Mutations II Online, 20 Mar The team behind some of Glasgow’s most beloved music venues and bars, including Flying Duck, Stereo, and Mono, are back with a second edition of their digital music festival Pop Mutations, featuring a day-long stream of some of the best in local and international music, including Cassandra Jenkins (pictured), Lilith Ai, and Bobby Kakouris, as well as art, talks, and live yoga.

Cassandra Jenkins

Glasgow Short Film Festival Online, 22-28 Mar

Photo: Music Box Films

One of the first festivals to be impacted by lockdown restrictions almost a full year ago, Glasgow Short Film Festival pioneered a mini at-home festival in August, before returning with a full festival this month. Highlights include Black Spatial Imaginaries curated by Natasha Ruwona, the searingly political No New Normal strand, and a yet-to-be-revealed, unmissable programme supported by The Skinny.

GSFF, 12th Man, dir. Caitlin Black Photo: Tommy Ga-Ken Wan

Photo: Alex Smail

The Perfect Candidate

Cocoon Radio, EHFM Radio

March 2021 — Chat

Online, 8 Mar, 6pm

Adam Kashmiry & Yasmin Al-Khudhairi

Adam

Based on music journalist Alexander Smail’s Cocoon zine, which explores the albums that have helped us survive lockdown, this month’s instalment of EHFM’s life-affirming Cocoon Radio sees Smail take to the airwaves to chat with London-based arts writer Seeham Rahman on her love of SZA’s Ctrl. March also sees pre-orders open for Cocoon Vol. 2, with 50% of the proceeds going to charity.

BBC Scotland and online, 6 Mar, 10:15pm

Cocoon Radio

Based on the unforgettable stage play of the same name, this staged and filmed production of Adam screens on BBC Scotland and iPlayer and follows the tale of Adam Kashmiry – played by Kashmiry himself – a young Egyptian trans man trapped in a claustrophobic Glasgow tenement as he awaits the outcome of his asylum claim, his isolation punctuated by haunting figures from his past and present.

Image: Courtesy of the Artist

12-27 Mar Image: Courtesy of French Film Festival UK

Credit: Sarah Carrington

fff@home, French Film Festival UK

Sarah Carrington: Malin Sea, Shared Shores, New Paintings of Scotland and Ireland

The Translators

Open Eye Gallery, Online, 9-27 Mar — 8 —

Tanatsei Gambura

International Women's Day on EHFM Online, 8 Mar, 11am

THE SKINNY

Hippodrome Silent Film Festival

Image: Courtesy of James Owens

Safe As Milk Arusha Gallery, Online, 8 Mar-8 Apr

Tendril Thrill and the Poppy's Fickle Will, James Owens Photo: rawtape

NOVA + Ransom FA Leith Theatre, Online, 27 Mar, 8pm

Prix de Beauté Photo: Courtesy of artist

The second in Leith Theatre’s Live in Leith series of gigs sees two of the most prolific rising stars in Scotland’s music scene – last year’s Scottish Album of the Year Award-winner NOVA and Aberdeenbased grime MC Ransom FA – take centre stage for a one-off performance showcasing the very best of Scottish rap.

Photo: Courtesy of Dael Orlandersmith and Traverse Theatre

Contoured Thoughts, Evan Ifekoya

Part of the ongoing Artists’ Moving Image Festival taking place throughout 2021, this month sees a week’s worth of digital screenings by artists Minia Biabiany, Evan Ifekoya, and Matthew Wayne Parkin exhibited on LUX Scotland’s website and delivered in partnership with Glasgow’s Tramway. Exploring themes of anti-colonialism, protest, and intimacy, the works collectively interrogate the structural trappings of artistic production.

Staying true to their fundamental ethos – that poetry is, in fact, for everyone – StAnza have responded to the limitations of the pandemic with enviable creativity, offering a festival packed full of readings, workshops, a virtual poetry cafe, a Dial-a-Poem hotline, and postcard poems for those with shaky internet connections. Their line-up is also magnificent, with names such as Jericho Brown, Tishani Doshi, and Ciara Ní É set to perform.

Photo: Hannah McGlynn

Photo: Courtesy of Sophie Duker

Shedinburgh Fringe: Replay Online, Until 22 Mar Broadcast from sheds across the country, Shedinburgh Fringe was a runaway success in a summer that saw the cancellation of its formidable namesake. Featuring some of the best in comedy and new writing, this revival of their “Greatest Huts” (no, really), sees shows by acts such as Sophie Duker, Deborah Frances White, and Annie George given a second online run before the festival returns this summer.

Shedinburgh Wacky Racists in The Shed

Ciara Ní E

Online, 29 Mar, 8pm Photo: Douglas Robertson

Photographing Fairies, Stills Online, Until 19 Aug — 9 —

Omar Afif, Pianodrome Sessions Online, 5 Mar, 6:30pm Photo: Matthew Wright

Image: Courtesy of Stills

Emma Smith & Signy Jakobsdottir, Soundhouse

March 2021 — Chat

Ongoing Winner of the 2019 Scotsman Fringe First Award, Until the Flood – written and performed by Pulitzer Prize finalist Dael Orlandersmith – is an impressionistic chronicle of the aftermath of Michael Brown’s murder in Ferguson, Missouri in 2014. Drawing on extensive interviews and the history of race and class in America, Orlandersmith forges an unforgettable rallying cry, as potent as when it first appeared on Traverse Theatre’s stage.

Online, 13-20 Mar

Online, 6-14 Mar

Until the Flood

Traverse Theatre, Online

GIVE BIRTH TO ME TOMORROW, Artists' Moving Image Festival

StAnza Festival NOVA

Until The Flood

Usually housed in Scotland’s oldest cinema, this year’s HippFest is going online while still staying close to its roots, curating the very best classics and under-the radar productions from the silent film era. The festival opens with the unmissable Body and Soul (1925) by Oscar Micheaux, one of the most prolific AfricanAmerican filmmakers of the early 20th century, and includes highlights from Louise Brooks and Marlene Dietrich’s filmographies.

Heads Up

Photo: Courtesy of Hippodrome Silent Film Festival

A unique group show exhibited on Arusha Gallery’s website, Safe as Milk brings together work by 12 contemporary artists, including James Owens, Sophie Vallance Cantor, and Anna Choutova, to explore our collective relationship with hyper capitalism and food culture.

Challenging and subversive, the exhibition lays bare the carnivalesque and ritualistic nature of food today, and the ways in which our consumption can become fraught.

Online, 17-21 Mar

March 2021

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THE SKINNY

5 Meet the Team — 6 Editorial — 7 Love Bites — 8 Heads Up 12 Crossword — 20 Clubs — 24 Showcase Josephine Lohoar Self 34 Trainspotting at 25 — 40 Albums — 41 Film & TV — 43 Food 44 Books — 45 Comedy — 46 The Skinny On… Adura Onashile

Features

16 One year into the current crisis, we talk to NHS frontline workers about their working conditions and issues which existed long before COVID. 18 An ambitious new programme in Dundee, Ignorant Art School, takes transformative politics as its starting point.

19 We meet new queer publishing house Cipher Press.

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22 As the world attempts to come to terms with the sudden and tragic passing of SOPHIE, we remember the musician, artist and all-round creative powerhouse.

26 In the first of our series in partnership with Edinburgh International Festival, an exploration of how theatre has survived past crises from plagues to wars, and what that means for the future.

29 The Gayfield Enterprise Demos sees home recordings from the 1980s given a long overdue first release.

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30 Our Local Heroes column celebrates the sunny designs of Kate & the Ink. 32 Get the lowdown on Glasgow Short Film Festival’s second online edition.

33 We meet the writer-director and star of new coming-of-age film Sweetheart, a fresh take on the coming-out drama.

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36 Aidan Moffat talks to us about male fragility, optimism in spite of darkening days, and the return of Arab Strap.

38 Poppy Hillstead talks Pixar, mumblers, BTS fans and people’s enduring unease with the word ‘clitoris’.

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Image Credits: (Left to right, top to bottom) Miranda Stuart; Ruth Ewan; Cipher Press; Courtesy of Numbers; Rachel Tunstall; Kevin Low; Clare Bowes; In Dog Years; Chloe Sheppard; Brent Bartlett; Kat Gollock; Poppy Hillstead

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On the website...

More reviews from Glasgow Film Festival, a chat with Made Kuti and Femi Kuti, our take on Arab Strap’s long-awaited new album

March 2021 — Contents

35 We meet the first artist to feature on new Dundee label Exiled Records, Melbournebased DJ Lachy Bozin, aka LBEEZE.

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March 2021 — Chat

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1. Readiness, e.g. "The UK had poor pandemic ___" (12) 7. The trickster god in Norse mythology (4) 8. Obituary (2,8) 10. Form logical conclusions – a recitation (anag) (11) 11.

Soviet Union's intelligence agency (3) 13. Brandy from southwest France (8) 15. Antipathy (6) 16. Façade (6) 17. Superfluous (8) 18. Argument (3) 19. Pessimists (4,7) 22. "We owe mums everywhere an enormous debt of thanks for doing the enormously difficult job of juggling childcare and work" (26 Jan 2021) – Sir is a hunk (anag) (5,5) 23. Conceal (4) 24. "I shook hands with everybody, you'll be pleased to know" (3 Mar 2020) – no, Sir Nosh Job (anag) (5,7)

Down 2. Spanish wine variety (5) 3. "Those [BLM] protests were dreadful" (12 Feb 2021) – pet liar tip (anag) (5,5) 4. "Obviously I did not request Public First be brought in because they were my friends. I would never do such a thing" (14 Feb 2021) - dicing communism (anag) (7,8) 5. Painful (4) 6. Body rot (8) 8. Not consistent (11) 9. "So many have played a part in helping exceed the national goal of 100,000 daily coronavirus tests" (2 May 2020) – can mock that (anag) (4,7) 12. Toughen (10) 14. Persuasive talk (often empty) (8) 20. Cowboy competition (5) 21. Tit (4)

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Turn to page 7 for the solutions

Compiled by George Sully

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THE SKINNY

March 2021

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THE SKINNY

One Year In Illustration: Miranda Stuart

A

s we reach the one year point of a world defined by COVID-19, we channel the strange mixture of rage, fatigue and cautious hope that seems to permeate the collective consciousness.

Our lead feature explores the position of the NHS beyond the distracting propaganda of ‘Clap for Carers’ and rainbows everywhere. Workers on the frontline share some of the realities of years of managed decline under successive Tory administrations, and why painting them as heroes and martyrs can be used to perpetuate the harm caused by fiscal ideology.

One year, too, from the closure of nightlife, our Clubs editor pens a love letter to the communal experience of going out, making friends with strangers, dancing. We mourn the loss of SOPHIE, a visionary sadly departed.

Looking forward, we examine some of the projects in art, publishing and theatre looking to profoundly reshape our ways of working, to challenge the status quo, and truly build back better.

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THE SKINNY

March 2021 – Feature

Intersections

Inside the NHS, One Year On One year on from the first national COVID-19 lockdown, we speak to NHS staff about their working conditions, the toll the last year has taken on their wellbeing and why the NHS was struggling long before COVID arrived in hospitals Interview: Anahit Behrooz Illustration: Miranda Stuart

S

ummer, 2020. Edinburgh’s Princes Street Gardens unveils Rather than the existential horror that typically frames the its annual floral clock design, hundreds of cheerful plants conversation around the tolls of COVID, for Agnès and her clustered closely together in the shape of the NHS logo. fellow workers, the pressure points have been markedly mateSix months later and a mere hundred yards away, the Christmas rial. “The biggest difficulty for us is that we are probably not tree that towers yearly over The Mound now looms over an staffed enough to manage the capacity of our normal ICU unit,” enormous display of brightly coloured bulbs arranged in the shape Agnès explains. “That’s one of the biggest issues with the NHS of a rainbow. Walk down any street since last March and rainbows at the minute: most of the time we’re not staffed enough for a dedicated to the NHS peek out behind normal hospital, and then [you] add curtains, perch on fences and dissolve on an intensive care unit for COVID, in chalky drizzle on pavements. which has an equal number of beds The NHS has long been akin to as our normal ICU.” the UK’s national religion, but this Although ICUs are typically past year has seen this devotion take defined by a one-to-one nurse-toon an almost zealous fervour: millions patient ratio, Agnès says that, donated, prizes awarded, claps and “this wave we’ve not had [any rainbows filling our homes. Yet for extra] help. Two nights ago, I Agnès, ICU Nurse staff working on the very frontlines of looked after four patients, which our healthcare service, this emphasis is really unusual.” on emotional catharsis has often erased very real structural and The disruption of staffing has also created long-term material concerns, half-obscuring a picture that is far less stress among doctors, many of whom are still in the process of colourful, and far more complicated, than is typically shown. completing their training. “A failure to progress in training is a “My colleagues and I are mostly depersonalising [the big black mark on your career forever,” explains Chris*, a junior pandemic],” says Agnès*, who works as an ICU nurse. “The doctor specialising in emergency medicine. “I have colleagues emotional side disappears, in a way which is really horrible to who are in surgical training and because non-emergency think about. It’s the only way we can get through it.” surgery has evaporated, some of them have been told, ‘there will

“Coronavirus didn’t ruin the healthcare service. It was already ruined”

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THE SKINNY

“The idea of a lawyer not having an office or a desk is absurd.

And yet for doctors it’s expected” Chris, Junior Doctor

*Names have been changed

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March 2021 – Feature

“One of the toughest things for colleagues I’ve seen is the balance,” he continues. “Lockdown is hard enough, [but] you feel like you’ve got the worst of both worlds. You’ve got no outlet. Mental health is so tough because being a healthcare worker is a really tough job, now you come home and everything just seems that bit worse. If you’ve had a stressful day you come home and it just sort of sits.”

For Agnès, the roots of this mental health crisis are unequivocally systemic. “For the last probably 15 years, [the NHS] has been going downhill. It’s not financially supported enough, we’re constantly robbing Peter to pay Paul. We’re talking about having more patients than we normally would, but nurses on the wards have been doing this for years. Our ICU unit may have been quiet on particular days, but when it was quiet we were instantly moved to normal units to fill staffing gaps elsewhere. That can be quite demoralising, to work in places you’ve never worked before, in teams you’ve never worked with, taking on different roles that you’re not used to.”

The cause of these untenable working conditions? “It’s all money related and the NHS has not been adequately funded,” she says. “I think the government likes to play the media slightly: that this is a pandemic, that everybody hates COVID, COVID is evil. But actually, if we had been adequately prepared for this, maybe we could have dealt with COVID better.”

And it’s not just medical staffing and funding. Cleaning and domestic staff – whose experiences are often notably absent from these conversations due to the precarity of their often privately contracted work and the dangers of speaking out – have also experienced devastating losses. A report published by NHS Digital in January of this year revealed that almost 1000 full-time cleaning posts have been cut over the past decade.

Inadequate funding similarly lies at the heart of Chris’s frustrations. “If you have…” he pauses, casting around. “Say, bad osteoarthritis in your hip, it impacts

what you can do in the world, it really destroys your health. It’s not a big, sexy thing like a cancer operation but it’s a very simple problem to fix. How do you fix somebody’s hip arthritis? You give them a joint replacement.

How do you provide a joint replacement? Well, you need to provide theatres, surgeons, anaesthetists, and nursing staff. It’s not complicated. So much of it comes down to money and resources and we just don’t have that.”

It’s a disheartening, claustrophobic state of affairs that feels very much at odds with the public narratives that have been created around the NHS over the last year, narratives of heroism that have often worked to reify exploitation, framing structural neglect as personal sacrifice.

“I didn’t really pay a massive amount of attention,” Max says about Clap for Carers. “You could understand people wanting to appreciate and that’s nice, but, day-to-day, things didn’t really change, we were just doing the same job. It didn’t really make much difference.”

Agnès is even more emphatic. “Every single person that I know hated it. Because we’re not [heroes]. We’re having to go above and beyond our normal jobs because things aren’t being funded properly, and that’s been swept under the carpet. It’s a bit like, ‘make them heroes and martyrs and then it’s okay that they’re being put through this, it’s okay that some of them are dying.’”

In this way, the treatment of NHS staff is a symptom of a much larger sickness: of a political landscape whose obsession with militarism and conflict refuses narratives of care that lie beyond sacrifice and of a government that uses emotional manipulation to distract from the very material, everyday concerns of its care workers.

“The hospital I work in has done away with parking charges temporarily, but that contract is still owned by a private company, and they will come back,” says Chris. “I’ve worked in the same department for three years and I don’t have a locker.

These are really little things that you don’t even think about in your day-to-day work. And then I speak to friends who are, like, lawyers, about how it’s really difficult to work when you don’t have a desk. And they’re like: ‘What do you mean? Where’s your office?’ The idea of a middle-level lawyer who’s been practising for five years not having an office or a desk is absurd. And yet for doctors it’s expected.”

Ultimately it comes down to a question of value – sincere value that goes beyond superficial political gestures. “I think doctors have always had this weird, high level of respectability within society,” Chris acknowledges. “I don’t think that’s really changed. But none of us feel truly valued because value is something larger. If I was really valued in society, I wouldn’t work 90 hours a week. If I was really valued in my work, I wouldn’t do unpaid work.”

Agnès agrees. “I’d like a hospital that worked. I’d like our nurses to want to stay because they’ve been trained properly and I’d like our doctors not to work two hours late every day and not be paid. If everybody loves the NHS so much, we need to fund it that way. We haven’t been.” She pauses. “Coronavirus didn’t ruin the healthcare service. It was already ruined. This just applied more pressure to a failing system.”

Intersections

be a huge gap in your training, you won’t be able to learn how to do these things properly, and that’ll just be accepted.’ Maybe it’s selfish to say that has impacted us, but it has: it’s our livelihoods, our jobs, the roofs over our heads.”

Max*, a clinical support worker, adds that these stresses have very real mental health impacts. “Obviously it’s all more stressful now, but these didn’t just become stressful jobs in the last year. Having access to mental health support is something that’s been overlooked for such a long time.

THE SKINNY

Class Politics Catching up with six of the artists and organisers of The Ignorant Art School, they each give a sense of the transformative politics and social justice ambitions that thread through Cooper Gallery’s new programme

Art

Interview: Adam Benmakhlouf

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The Great Brain Robbery, 1971. Keith Paton, Moss Side Press Ltd.

a commitment to decolonising practices. More specifically, The Ignorant Art School promises to expand across five ‘Sit-Ins’ (borrowing from protest vocabulary) through the next three years.

Through the first iteration, the events are exclusively online. For researcher, writer and artist Hussein Mitha, this offers some new possibilities for people who might otherwise find taking part in group conversations difficult. Mitha will invite attendees to send voice notes and typed messages to their virtual event, titled A Reading Class (11 Mar). Speaking about the reading they’ve set on collective working-class art and culture, Mitha say, “We live under a society where everything is under the control of the bourgeoisie [middle classes]… the alternative is a society run by a different class – what did that look like for people in the 1920s after the Russian revolution? What happened to that and what does that look like today?” In the

group, there’s no presumed knowledge, and the focus will be a collective endeavour of reading a selection of texts together.

And where do the art school and the arts generally come into radical redistribution of power? Writer, feminist theorist and lecturer Minna Salami will host the Beauty Class (1 Apr) as part of The Ignorant Art School, and deftly deconstructs this question when it’s posed to her. “When you look at feminist traditions, in particular Black and women of colour feminist traditions, Minna those borders have always been disrupted.” She continues, “Women of colour have been prevented from entering spaces of power, including education. This applies to all women and people of colour, but Black women in particular… So, throughout history, women of colour have had to use the arts in order to transmit radical ideas to each other in spaces where they weren’t allowed to enter domains of power. ” On the meeting point of art and politics, Ruth Ewan mentions her artwork, A Jukebox of People Trying to Change the World, ongoing since 2003.

This is a CD jukebox of 2000 political and utopian songs. Speaking about the way her practice doesn’t fit neatly into an individual-centred style of production, Ewan admits, “None of it’s my music, it’s something that’s gathered then shared across this physical platform, and people are constantly adding to it.” This work is the inspiration for two events on 3 and 17 March when participants will collaboratively create an audio drama, assisted by Ewan, theatre director John McCann, storyteller Erin Fairley and historian Siobhan Tolland.

In September, the first exhibition of The Ignorant Art School will feature Ewan’s metric clock, based on the time system that came around during the French Revolution, of dividing the day into ten decimal hours, divided into 100 minutes, each 100 seconds long. Also pivoting around time and socialism, on 25 March artist Stella Rooney will present her film work which gathers oral histories surrounding the closed-down Timex factory in Dundee, and the attempts to organise to prevent its

closure. “Many people may look back on the dispute and say they didn’t win, but… I do think we can learn from how the whole community around the Dundee plant coalesced, there was real solidarity – and it’s a part of history that people outside of Dundee don’t know a lot about, particularly young people. Today, we face a lot of precarious work, a lot of unequal working relationships, but that’s a real example of working-class people fighting back in Scotland.”

And providing some practical tools for the fight against unfair power dynamics, A Salami Slogan Class (15 Apr) is the most practical session in the first series of events, hosted by designer and educator Neil McGuire. Compared to the breadth of ambition around the overarching themes, McGuire thinks of his short poster and slogan workshop as a “small gesture.” He goes on: “But I’m interested in how these small gestures can accumulate over time.

These can be small to [the organisers or facilitators] but might be big to someone else. I’m interested in problems in mainstream art education, the tensions and trying to find ways through them, but you can’t always do that in one go. It’s an ongoing process.

“Throughout history, women of colour have had to use the arts in order to transmit radical ideas to each other”

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Photo: Matthew Arthur Williams

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he Ignorant Art School is the banner title of Dundee’s Cooper Gallery’s new three-year programme of free-to-attend exhibitions, meetings and events. It launches with a diverse series of events this month and next – only a selection of which are covered here. Speaking to Director Sophia Hao, she expands on the reference to a 1987 book by the political thinker Jacques Rancière, The Ignorant Schoolmaster: Five Lessons in Intellectual Emancipation. “The whole idea [of the book] was to dissolve [educational] hierarchy, [instead] teaching through learning. It was controversial across Europe.” While Hao admits the true story of an exile teaching Flemish students French from scratch, without knowing any Flemish, is interesting, she describes the project’s further expansion into deeper considerations of power structures, and the implications of

Ruth Ewan, Clocks, Governments, People, Letterpress print, 2012.

For full details of all the events coming through this month and next and the coming three years, see dundee.ac.uk/cooper-gallery/events

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Uncompromisingly Queer One year on from the UK going into lockdown, we talk to the founders of Cipher Press to get to know one of the shining lights to have emerged from the pandemic in a celebration of queer publishing Books

Interview: Michael Lee Richardson

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“A story that might have been told many times before but subverted and made queer, that’s what’s interesting to me” Jenn, Cipher Press 1990s, following teenager Julie Winter. “I think Andrea Lawlor summed it up best saying it’s a little surly, a little melancholy, a little dirty,” says Jenn. “It’s the only book I’ve ever read about a queer adolescent experience that has really resonated with me. Part of the story is centred on the relationship the protagonist, Julie, has with her brother, who’s missing. She gives little hints about where he might be and the gist of it is that he’s moved away and he’s probably HIV+. It’s sweet, as well. I think a lot of queer people who were teenagers in the 90s, pre-internet, when you were still making mixtapes and going to little markets and buying beads, will love it.”

“I think for people who were teenagers growing up queer at that time, the AIDS epidemic was this bizarre background noise,” continues Ellis. “You didn’t really know much about it, you maybe weren’t friends with anyone who was experiencing it. She really captured that sense of something pervasive without articulating or being specific. It kind of makes you want to go back and give yourself a hug!”

As for the future of Cipher, their next step is Brontez Purnell’s ‘cult masterpiece’ 100 Boyfriends — 19 —

– “he’s just so visionary, you’re reading his sentences and they’re hilarious and they’re filthy and they’re foul-mouthed and then suddenly, out of the blue, he’ll say something so profound that it just sort of blows your mind” – and to publish new UK authors, having received Arts Council funding to do just that. Their first UK debut publishes in late 2021.

“We’re trying to find debut writers who are trans, non-binary, queer writers of colour and queer working-class writers,” notes Ellis, “with the intention of publishing outside of the white, queer experience. We would like to be a varied press telling all types of different stories.”

Dryland by Sara Jaffe is released 18 Mar; 100 Boyfriends by Brontez Purnell is released 6 May Cipher’s current open call for submissions closes on 31 May – full information can be found at cipherpress.co.uk

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aunched mid-pandemic in August 2020 with the publication of Large Animals – Jess Arndt’s debut collection of strange, beautiful and biting short stories – Cipher Press quickly established themselves as a force to be reckoned with in independent publishing, with a bold, strident list of uncompromisingly queer books. As we catch up with co-founders Ellis and Jenn to talk queer literature’s past, present and future, we ask where did the idea of setting up a queer press come from?

“In the 80s and 90s there was a huge LGBTQ+ publishing scene in the UK,” begins Jenn.

“At Frankfurt Book Fair, on the Thursday night, it was like a big queer publishing party with all the LGBTQ+ publishers. Then slowly, over the years, they all just disappeared. I suppose what we want to do is publish queer books for queer readers, but we also want to publish in a quite traditional, mainstream way. We’d like to think, with the stories we publish, even though we have queer readers in our minds, that everyone will enjoy them, as well.”

“It’s a bit of an experiment, in many ways,” continues Ellis, “to see if it’s actually going to work!

Even though we have queer readers in our minds when we’re publishing, we would like to think that the stories we publish, everyone will enjoy them as well. I was on furlough for two months and we did a chapbook that felt quite community-led, that wouldn’t have happened without the pandemic.

That was a nice little introduction, it was like a mini launch of the press, in a way.”

“We were going to bring Jess Ardnt over to do an event at the ICA with Dodie Bellamy and Isabel Waidner, which would have been amazing, and all that kind of stuff we obviously couldn’t do,” adds Jenn. “It feels a little bit like we haven’t actually launched Cipher Press properly. I feel like we need to have a party once the pandemic is over!”

As for those stories Cipher looks to spotlight, Jenn explains: “There are so many amazing LGBT books coming out with bigger publishers, but I suppose the point of us is to pick up the books that they might be too nervous to publish. One thing I’m looking for when I read submissions is different ways to tell stories. A story that might have been told many times before but subverted and made queer, that’s what’s interesting to me, whether in terms of the language or the structure or the characters or even just what the story is about.”

Their next book, Sara Jaffe’s Dryland, is a tender, meditative queer coming of age set in the

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To All the Clubs I’ve Loved Before Clubs

Nearly a year since they shut, our Clubs editor reflects on the wonders of the club toilet and why clubs are so important Words: Nadia Younes Illustration: Connie Noble

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club feeling like Mis-Teeq in the Scandalous video.

Sadly, these friendships might not always last but in those moments you feel like you’ve developed an unbreakable, lifelong bond.

There’s something about club toilets that make you feel safe. No toilet roll in your cubicle?

Someone will pass you some. Throwing up?

Someone will knock on your door to check you’re OK. Crying in the corner? Someone will be there to wipe away the tears and help you fix your makeup. There are few other places where people come together quite like they do in club toilets. They are a place where age, gender and sexuality don’t matter, and where anyone who tries to make them matter will quickly be put in their place.

I miss the club toilets almost as much as I miss clubs themselves. I miss the feeling of the bass from the speakers pulsing through your body so much that you feel a bit sick. I miss that knowing look you throw to your friends when your favourite tune comes on. I miss discovering a new favourite tune that you will go on to play at least 50 more times that night, and on nights to come. I even miss the annoying people in clubs, who you spend the whole night trying to avoid and eventually end up screaming at in the smoking area. I miss the joy, the euphoria, and the escape from reality that is so singular to the club experience.

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here’s a section in writer and performance artist Travis Alabanza’s latest theatre production, Overflow, dedicated to the wonders of the club toilet. “Club toilets have taught me more about sisterhood than any book,” says the protagonist, Rosie, when detailing a memory of unity between a group of new friends.

That statement will ring so true to anyone who has ever shared one of those fleeting, yet incredibly intimate moments.

Entering the club toilets can be like entering Narnia; you don’t know what’s going to happen or how long you might be in there. More often than not you’ll leave with a new perspective on life and at least one new date in your phone calendar for a cheese and wine night. In years to come, you’ll find yourself scrolling through social media when one of those fleeting friends pops up with the announcement of an engagement, or a new job, or that they’ve baked their first focaccia, and it will always remind you of the bathroom bond you once shared.

It’s approaching a full year now since clubs in the UK were forced to close and since many of us have experienced one of those moments of intense, transient friendship in a club toilet. You’ll never feel more confident or ready to take on the world than after a lengthy pep talk with your new best pals in the loos, and you’ll walk back into the

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Nightclubs have been hit incredibly hard by the ongoing COVID pandemic, with a recent survey by the Night Time Industries Association suggesting that over 80% of nightclubs within the UK would not survive past February. Many businesses in the sector have been forced to turn to crowdfunding over the course of the last year due to insufficient financial support from the government to assist with their survival.

“Clubs are an essential and joyous part of life. They are a place to feel free: free of judgment, free of labels, and free of inhibitions” Losing nightclubs would mean losing a crucial part of UK culture, and the impact of their loss on the creative community would be catastrophic.

While some have been able to adapt their venues to become COVID-secure and allow for social distancing, many have sadly lain empty for the last 12 months. But new trials incorporating health passports using the YouCheck app and a new ventilation system called the Pathogen Reduction System could see the live music and nightlife sectors slowly return, with trials due to begin at London’s 100 Club and Bristol’s Exchange this month.

For what feels like the first time in the last year, the return of nightclubs was finally addressed in one of the government’s Coronavirus updates last month by the Prime Minister, who suggested that rapid lateral flow tests – which can provide test results within 30 minutes – could be used to allow for the safe reopening of the sector. However, when, or even if, these will be introduced and exactly how they will operate was not clarified.

Clubs are an essential and joyous part of life.

They are a place to feel free: free of judgment, free of labels, and free of inhibitions. They have been there through my highest and lowest of times and I, like many, cannot bear the thought of them never coming back. To all the clubs I’ve loved before, you are my sanctuary and I hope we will be back together soon.

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Books

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In Memory of SOPHIE Music

As the world attempts to come to terms with the sudden and tragic passing of SOPHIE, we remember the musician, artist and all-round creative powerhouse Words: Nadia Younes

a previously unreleased track, UNISIL, made during the recordings for the 2015 compilation album, PRODUCT. In a special broadcast paying tribute to SOPHIE on Clyde Built Radio on 3 February, station head and Huntleys + Palmers label boss Andrew Thomson described Autechre as “SOPHIE’s idols” and said the remix “felt like a full circle, just in the sense of the connection between Numbers and SOPHIE and Autechre.”

Anonymity was key in the early stages of SOPHIE’s career. For a long time, nobody really knew who SOPHIE was and remixes of SOPHIE tracks were strictly forbidden, “unless it’s Autechre,” SOPHIE once specified, making that BIPP remix all the more poignant. It wasn’t until the video for It’s Okay to Cry – the lead single from Oil of Every Pearl’s Un-Insides – dropped that SOPHIE fully let the fans in.

It’s Okay to Cry marked an important moment in SOPHIE’s career, both personally and professionally. It was the first time SOPHIE’s own voice and image had been used, announcing SOPHIE’s identity, and it led to SOPHIE coming out as transgender. It also led to SOPHIE’s breakthrough into the fashion world, with Creative Director of Louis Vuitton, Nicolas Ghesquière, commissioning an extended version of the track and video to accompany the presentation of the fashion house’s Paris Fashion Week-closing Spring-Summer 2020 Collection.

Oil of Every Pearl’s Un-Insides went on to be a massive global success and was even nominated in the Best Dance/ Electronic Album category at the 2019 Grammy Awards.

Watching the video for It’s Okay to Cry back now, its visuals of SOPHIE floating through clouds and space accompanied by SOPHIE’s insistence that it’s okay to cry feel, in some way, comforting for many of us attempting to process SOPHIE’s sudden and tragic passing.

SOPHIE changed the landscape of music and pushed the boundaries of what pop music could be. That’s why those three words flooded our timelines after the announcement of SOPHIE’s passing. SOPHIE was, and always will be, a visionary, a pioneer, and an icon. SOPHIE was taken from this world far too soon, but SOPHIE’s legacy will live on in the music of the many artists SOPHIE inspired and in the hearts of all those who connected with SOPHIE, in one way or another, throughout SOPHIE’s brief but incredibly bright life.

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Image: Courtesy of Numbers

March 2021 – Feature

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n the moments after the announcement of SOPHIE’s sudden passing on 30 January, social media timelines were awash with tributes to the late artist. Among those tributes, the same words kept popping up: visionary, pioneer, icon – such was SOPHIE’s mass impact on the lives of so many across the world.

SOPHIE died at around 4am on Saturday 30 January in Athens, Greece, aged 34, after an accidental fall. SOPHIE’s death was announced on Twitter in a joint statement by record labels Transgressive and Future Classic – the labels responsible for releasing SOPHIE’s Grammy-nominated debut album, Oil of Every Pearl’s Un-Insides – in a statement that read: “Tragically our beautiful Sophie passed away this morning after a terrible accident. True to her spirituality she had climbed up to watch the full moon and accidentally slipped and fell. She will always be here with us.”

Shortly after the news broke, SOPHIE’s girlfriend, Athensbased DJ Evita Manji, shared a loving tribute on Instagram: “Sophie was a real angel, she was the sweetest, the kindest to every soul and everything around her… She was so curious about what is out there in the cosmos, I can feel her being happy and excited to explore the unknown [...] she’s an immaterial girl now, she can be anything she wants... and she is in everything around us.”

The day after SOPHIE’s passing residents of Glasgowbased club night Shoot Your Shot, Bonzai Bonner and Tiu Makkonen, hosted a virtual event on Twitch during which past Shoot Your Shot DJ sets were streamed and the chatroom was open for people to share memories of SOPHIE. Despite the short notice, 230 people attended the online event and were able to come together in some way to remember SOPHIE. SOPHIE’s talent was undeniable, and vision unfaltered.

From SOPHIE’s early releases on Glasgow-based labels Huntleys + Palmers and Numbers right through to Oil of Every Pearl’s Un-Insides, and all the collaborations in between, SOPHIE’s stamp was firm on every release. It feels oddly fitting that just days before SOPHIE’s passing we were taken right back to where it all started, and gifted something of a swansong in the form of a new release on Numbers.

The new release features a five years in the making Autechre remix of SOPHIE’s 2013 breakthrough track, BIPP, and

Music

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Image: Courtesy of Numbers

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Showcase

Image: Josephine Lohoar Self

Image: Josephine Lohoar Self

March 2021 – Feature

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Gunter Falls in Love

The Fabric of You

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Showcase

Josephine Lohoar Self Photo: Burghard Engel

Photo: Marilena Vlachopoulou

Photo: Marilena Vlachopoulou

Photo: Euan Robertson

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osephine Lohoar Self is a Scottish BAFTA-nominated writer and director working predominantly in stop motion animation. In 2017 she graduated from The Glasgow School of Art in Fine Art: Painting & Printmaking. Josephine’s short stop motion animated film The Fabric of You was longlisted for Best Animated Short at the 2021 Academy Awards as well as being nominated for a Scottish BAFTA. It received a Special Mention during its premiere at The Edinburgh International Film Festival in 2019 and has gone on to play at Oscar-qualifying festivals such as LA International Short Film Festival and Bucheon International Animation Festival. She was also an alumna of the 2020 Berlinale Talents programme at Berlin International Film Festival.

Last December she was commissioned by the Irish National broadcaster RTÉ to produce and direct a short animated film called Gunter Falls in Love. The film played across a selection of their platforms over the festive period and is now on its year long festival circuit. Currently based in Berlin, Josephine is developing her next animated film with support from the British Film Institute while also pitching for commercial projects.

I: @josephinelohoarself josephinelohoarself.com — 25 —

Theatre

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Why Theatre Will Survive Think theatre might struggle to recover from COVID-19? It's made quite a few comebacks before. In the first of a new series platforming emergent writers, produced in partnership with Edinburgh International Festival, we investigate when theatres went dark in the past, and what – or who – turned the lights back on Words: Eliza Gearty Illustration: Rachel Tunstall

March 2021 – Feature

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ast October, the journalist Ravi Ghosh put forward a daunting query in Prospect Magazine. “Will theatre survive?” he asked.

Ghosh isn’t the only person who has considered this question. Andrew Lloyd Webber made headlines when he said that he didn’t think commercial theatre would survive the pandemic.

On top of concerns over the economic destruction wreaked by COVID-19, and its implications for the performing arts, others have wondered if theatre will simply have the same appeal in a post-pandemic world. “When will we want to be in a room full of strangers again?” wrote Helen Lewis last spring in The Atlantic.

For us, a year into this pandemic and the restrictions it has inflicted on our lives, the idea of crowding into a room together and watching a show may feel instinctively repellent. This could be the legacy that COVID-19 leaves us with: the fact that we now associate many of our old habits and hobbies with danger. Right now, it may seem weird to even imagine going back into theatres.

After all of this, will we even want to?

“I think we’ll want to get back onto the stage… but also retain the flexibility and wider reach of online performances” Kirsten Cairns

But history tells us that this isn’t the first time that theatre has been knocked over by the present, feared for its future, and come out intact on the other side. Across the world, over the ages, there are many examples of the industry and artform experiencing drastic setbacks and bouncing back.

We take a look at examples from history in the UK when periods of crisis and upheaval threatened theatre with extinction – and uncover how, and why, it ultimately survived.

Plagues, plagues and more plagues This isn’t the first time the UK’s theatres have shuttered their doors because of a health crisis.

The bubonic plague put an end to public performances in London in 1592-93 (the young Shakespeare self-imposed a partial furlough, penning love sonnets instead of epic, five-act plays. Understandable.) Outbreaks of the plague during this period were common. “Visitations of the plague meant that theatres were closed down once every decade in the late 16th and early 17th century,” explains Martin Butler, professor of English at the University of Leeds. “Plague was an occupational hazard for the industry. We don’t have a lot of information, but miserable is the word I would use.” On the bright side, Shakespeare reportedly wrote some of his most famous plays while self-iso’ing. Historians speculate that he could have written King Lear, Macbeth and Antony and Cleopatra during a particularly horrific outbreak in 1606. That’s after he got all the love poetry out of his system in the earlier lockdown of 1592, of course.

Piously petty Puritans Plagues were already reaping enough havoc, but — 26 —

that didn’t stop the Puritans, aka history’s ultimate killjoys, from trying to hammer the final nail in theatre’s coffin. Oliver Cromwell and his un-merry bunch seized power in the 1640s and promptly booted out the King. “The Cromwellian regime wanted to establish what they thought of as a godly state,” says Butler. “They didn’t like theatre because it was seen as being immoral and destructive – in the same category as dancing, drunkenness, swearing and not going to church on Sundays.”

In 1642, the Puritans closed all the theatres in London for 18 years. Scotland was ahead of the curve – the Kirk (Church of Scotland) had passed legislation to ban plays back in 1575. The law was fairly leniently applied, however, and folk plays continued to be illegally performed, namely in local communities during revelries such as May Day, Midsummer and Hogmanay. But despite early resistance against the Kirk’s rule, the 17th century turned out to be a particularly crushing period for Scotland’s thespians, too. The loss of the pro-theatre royal court in 1603, followed by Cromwell’s Commonwealth and its reinforcement of the Kirk’s most hard-line policies, was a combined blow that Scottish theatre struggled to recover from.

It was definitely bleak, but as Butler observes, “When theatre is not regarded as legal, there are various entrepreneurs who do their own thing.” Somewhat bringing to mind how online plays today are constructed for the solo viewer rather than a live audience, the 17th century saw the emergence of ‘closet drama’ – plays that were written to be read instead of performed, either by

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Theatre

what you get are theatres that look like they are built for scenes,” says Butler. “Before, you had stages that were just a big platform in the middle of an open space with people gathering around it.”

The 18-year theatrical ban predicated creative changes that would transform the industry forever. “The playhouses are restored and the theatre companies are renewed,” says Butler, “but massive things have changed. You’ve got women actors, scenic sets and opera.”

World War One and The Spanish Flu Fast-forward three centuries and the world experiences a double whammy that really knocks it for six. Last year was pretty bad – featuring deadly bushfires, COVID mutations and even ‘murder hornets’ – but 1918 could have given 2020 a run for its money. In the final throes of a global conflict that had already taken the lives of millions, a killer pandemic swept across the war-torn world. It killed an estimated 20 million people.

Many theatres shut during the war, but what changes did the government make when a pandemic hit? Surprisingly – although it does bring to mind the behaviour of certain contemporary politicians at the beginning of our own pandemic – very little.

Theatres that were open remained open. Public — 27 —

health officials would encourage theatres to be ‘well-ventilated’, but there was no official order to close, even when performers got ill and died.

Although shows were technically allowed to go on, we can certainly speculate that this period of loss, grief, fear and uncertainty had a significant impact on the arts. The explosion of artistic innovation and revelry that followed the war and the pandemic seems akin to a massive sigh of relief. “The First World War is an example of when performing arts not only survived crisis, but also came out stronger,” says Anselm Heinrich, professor of Theatre Studies at the University of Glasgow. “The avant-garde across dance, visual art, film, theatre… clearly came out of life-threatening crisis. That might not have happened if it were not for the crisis of the First World War and the Spanish flu. It reinvigorated [people] – they had a new thirst for creative expression.”

The Rise of ‘The Talkies’ It’s the roaring 20s! War is over! Get out your dancing shoes and start throwing about your best silk shirts cause the economy’s booming and it’s all uphill from here.

That is, unless you’re the theatre industry.

While vaudeville (variety performance) did rise in

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the solitary reader or out loud in a small group.

(Scottish playwright William Alexander’s The Monarchick Tragedies is an example.) It was also when the UK first began to experiment with opera.

“Cromwell began to tolerate certain activity,” Butler informs us. “Opera gets condoned in a very small way because it’s regarded as being music instead of theatre performance. So theatre may be illegal, but what you’ve got is a kind of diversification.”

When the monarchy was restored in 1660, the ban was lifted. After all that time, did people have an appetite to get back into the theatre?

“Absolutely,” says Butler. The Cromwellian regime had been repressive, and the public wanted to let off some steam. What’s more, they now had a king back who actively encouraged it. “King Charles the second was notorious for his love of pleasure, in all respects,” Butler explains. “One of the things that he enjoyed when he was in exile was seeing continental theatre. When the court comes back, it brings with it some of the theatrical innovations that hadn’t previously been seen – most notoriously, female actors. Of course, before the 1642 ban, there had been no female actors; only boys in drag.” King Charles also brought back scenic sets from his time abroad. “Architecturally, after 1660,

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Theatre

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popularity during this period, an alternate style of 1980s East Berlin. People could read performancentertainment soared to such colossal heights es; they could read little gestures. That could be that it threatened to eclipse theatre forever. We’re one of the reasons why theatre has always surtalking about cinema, the vivid, affordable, accesvived – with theatre, you have an immediate sible medium that spell-bound audiences in their impact; cinema was always more remote.” thousands and drew theatre professionals into its For Mark Brown, theatre critic at The Herald orbit like moths to a flame. on Sunday and the author of Modernism and “At first, it was the theatre proprietors who Scottish Theatre since 1969: A Revolution on took cinema into the Stage, theatre survived theatres. They started the advent of cinema, slotting in films as part and later TV, because it of the entertainment ultimately serves a very without realising that it different purpose. was exactly that medium “Theatre is a contributhat would threaten their tion to the way we feel existence as the years and think,” Brown says. went on,” says Heinrich.

“Importantly feel.

At the time, “there were Theatre – exceptional no cinemas. You’d have theatre – makes you feel Mark Brown one act after another – a more than you should comedy act, for example, followed by a film, a band understand. That’s why I always say that the art and a dance troupe. Live performance venues, such form to which theatre is closest is not realistic as the Britannia Panopticon Music Hall in Glasgow, television or cinema drama. It’s actually poetry.” would structure variety shows in this way.”

Cinemas didn’t really exist until after the World War Two In 1939 war engulfed the nation once more, and First World War. Then they boomed. “Cinemas the government ordered the closure of all enteropened everywhere and there was huge competitainment venues for the sake of public safety. tion for theatres,” explains Heinrich. The arrival of Hundreds of theatre practitioners lost their source ‘talkies’ – films with synchronised sound – only of income overnight (sound familiar?). Under further solidified cinema as the public’s entertainpressure from creatives union Equity and influenment of choice. By the early 1930s, many theatres tial figures such as playwright Bernard Shaw, the in the UK had closed down. “A lot of the buildings government backtracked and reopened the were transformed into cinemas and then, later in theatres within a matter of weeks. (Note: The the 60s and 70s, into bingo halls,” says Heinrich.

Skinny does not endorse this strategy when “That was the trajectory for those spaces.” it comes to today’s situation. Open when it’s So why did theatre survive at all? Film was a safe, Nicola!) new storytelling technology that required no Interestingly, the Second World War also suspense of disbelief – it could put a mirror up to the world and reflect it back directly. Once cinema created space for a positive development: mastered sound and could capture dialogue, it the creation of arts seems plausible that theatre could have just funding. “It’s 1940, trailed away. What kept it alive?

Britain is on the brink of Heinrich theorises that it was to do with being defeattheatre’s “immediacy of entertainment. Cinema of ed by Nazi Germany. course is wonderful,” he says, “but in a way you What do you do?” posits have no influence [on the experience] as an Heinrich. “You invest in audience member. In theatre, you have a direct the military, of course, in rapport and also a direct influence on proceedindustry, but you also ings.” During musicals and variety shows of that Martin have to keep spirits up period, audience members did stop performances on the home front, so you invest in the arts as well.

– if they didn’t like something, they would boo the It was the beginning of the Arts Council.” Although actor off. “For audience members there was that it was affected later by Thatcher’s government, arts possibility to influence things, and for performers funding “never really ceased” after the war. there was the opportunity to get feedback straight The funding’s effect on an arts scene that away. You could get feedback [for a film] a few would flourish for years to come was almost months later when it was shown – but actors immediate. The Edinburgh International Festival craved that instant rapport with audiences, was a direct outcome of the Second World War, that liveness.” funded by the Edinburgh Council and the Arts “That liveness” has also proven to have a Council. Conceived of by the Austrian opera festival lasting political allure. Referring to periods of manager Rudolf Bing, it strived to bring people political censorship, Heinrich points out: “You together and “heal the wounds of war” through the could say things on stage that you couldn’t on arts. In 1947, the Jewish composer Bruno Walter, screen. You could get away with little gestures, who had suffered Nazi persecution during the war, innuendos.” He talks about East Germany before reunited with the Vienna Philharmonic orchestra for the wall came down, and how performances in the region were riddled with artful insinuations. “If you a poignant performance. The Edinburgh International Festival remains one of the world’s speak to theatre actors from that time, they say leading arts festivals and draws hundreds of those were the best times ever,” he says. “They’d thousands of visitors to Edinburgh every summer. never played to a more knowing audience than in

“Theatre – exceptional theatre – makes you feel more than you should understand”

2020 was the first year since its formation that a live event didn’t take place.

What’s next?

What’s next for theatre? We reached out online to ask people in the business what they thought.

It would be glib to imagine that every theatre professional is feeling overly positive about the future of their industry right now: as professor Heinrich points out, “these times have really threatened the livelihood of so many artists – particularly ones who are freelancers and do not have full-time contracts with national companies.”

It’s important to recognise the devastation that has occurred – to not romanticise this loss, or depict it as a necessary precursor to change.

However, rifling through the responses we received, there’s something heart-warming about the hope that still shines through. Kirsten Cairns, a stage director, runs “a wee opera company” called Enigma Chamber Opera out of her flat in Glasgow.

It had just opened and run its debut show in January 2020, a few months before the world closed down. Cairns and her company created an online opera called The Impresario this year.

“I think we’ll want to get back onto the stage… but also retain the flexibility and wider reach of online performances. The future may be some kind of hybrid,” she wrote. “Shows in theatres but beamed out in the world! Shows which use multimedia, projections, film, VR…” Tabitha Fallace had been working as a youth director in South Lanarkshire for years before winning and accepting a place at drama school to pursue her own ambitions as an actor. Training during the pandemic has been “weird”, but she still feels she’s in the right place. “It has offered us the opportunity to be creative, playful and express ourselves at a time when a lot of us feel like we are looking into the void,” she says. “We don’t know what the future holds as performers but I know every one of us feels grateful for each day we get to spend creating.” She reckons occupying a Butler post-pandemic landscape could be a chance to “rebuild and reimagine the confines of our creative limits. After all, who hasn’t felt this year that life has been stranger than fiction?”

The future of theatre? These are the people who hold it in their hands. We already know that the need for theatre will outlast COVID-19. For those working in the field, its future depends on whether we will act to save them.

“When theatre is not regarded as legal, there are various entrepreneurs who do their own thing”

— 28 —

This is the first of six extended features that platform emergent writers and explore the arts in 2021, produced with support from Edinburgh International Festival

THE SKINNY

A Family Affair A hidden gem from the post-punk era, The Gayfield Enterprise Demos sees Kevin Low and Fiona Carlin’s stunning bedroom pop jams receive a long overdue first release Interview: Michael Lawson Music

Photo: Chris Hill

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Kevin. “But the nice thing was if you came up with ideas electronically they were there the next day.”

“The decision to go with more of a synth vibe was a good one,” Fiona agrees. “If I had an idea for a bassline or a melody I could work away with the technology and sequence it myself. Working and writing the music in the bedroom was also more collaborative compared to the rehearsal room.”

Like The Wild Indians, the breakaway project soon came to an end as the pair moved into the next chapter of their lives. It begs the question as to why this beguiling relic from the golden era of DIY music was never released the first time around. “It honestly never occurred to us, which probably sounds ridiculous,” Kevin admits. “We were working away in this tiny bedroom and really enjoying it but it was a very different time – a much simpler, more primitive time.”

He nevertheless dismisses any suggestions of regret at not doing so, insisting that working alongside his son to release it all these years later has been just as rewarding. “It’s been an amazing thing to do,” he gleams. “Some dads referee their son’s football matches or stuff like that – which the thought of always terrified me to be honest.

Having Adam release my old music seems like a much better idea. That’ll dae nicely thank you!”

seatedrecords.bandcamp.com

“Some dads referee their son’s football matches... having Adam release my old music seems like a much better idea”

— 29 —

Fiona Carlin

March 2021 – Feature

The Gayfield Enterprise Demos is released on 5 Mar via Seated Records

Photo: Kevin Low

remastering them with the help of Jonas Gustafsson and Wheelman respectively. He then whittled down eight tracks that would make up the release before deciding on The Gayfield Enterprise Demos – alluding to the fact that the music was made in a flat on Gayfield Square, and was the fruit of the Thatcher government’s New Enterprise Allowance scheme – as its title.

Planning a limited edition tape release and locking in 5 March as a launch date, Adam decided to upload one of the tracks, Nothing Else Will Ever Be the Same, to YouTube as a teaser. The reception it received – from excited comments on music forums to direct messages from record stores keen to stock the tapes – provided instant Kevin Low confirmation of the quality of the music. “I didn’t think there was gonna be much interest at all,” ne of the city’s foremost crate diggers, Adam admits. “I just thought it’d be a nice thing to Glasgow DJ, producer and radio host get out there. But I’ve already had people reach Adam Low is used to unearthing overout from Canada, France and across the UK asking looked oddities in secondhand record stores to stock them.” across the country. His latest sonic discovery – a It’s easy to see where this excitement stems collection of around 80 battered cassette tapes from. A synthesiser jam tinged with emotion and dug out from his parents’ loft – is far closer to punctuated by Fiona’s hauntingly beautiful vocals, home. “There were mountains and mountains of there’s a wonderfully simplistic, proudly DIY them to go through but I thought I’d give it a go energy that emanates from the track, not dissimiduring the first lockdown,” he recalls. “Initially I lar to that of Flaming Tunes, Gareth Williams & was looking for the stems with the view of potenMary Currie’s home-recording cult classic. The tially doing some remixes. Then I discovered that a rest of the release – ranging from hushed love lot of it was exactly the kind of music that I’m into songs to Chicago house-inspired instrumentals – which was a bit of a shock.”

– is no less impressive.

The pair originally met on a photography The recordings on the tapes are the work of course at what was then Napier Technical College, Adam’s dad Kevin and his friend Fiona Carlin: a dating for a while and staying friends even after the stunning assortment of synthesiser-led bedroom romance fizzled out. “Frankly I always felt Nothing pop explorations laid down in Kevin’s Edinburgh Else Will Ever Be the Same was about us,” Kevin flat back in 1986. It became immediately apparent admits. “Love stuttering into friendship. Although I to Adam that these uncut gems had to be rescued spoke to Fiona about the lyrics recently and she from obscurity. Kevin, on the other hand, wasn’t said it was more a compilation of failed love stories.” quite as enthusiastic.

“We were listening Inspired by the to all these cassettes that sounds of Fast Product Adam found and he was and Postcard Records, really liking them while I they also formed a band, was there going ‘really?!’”

The Wild Indians, with Kevin jokes. “It’s fair to other students on the say that I was extremely course. When they dissceptical.” Ignoring these banded in 1986, Kevin and paternal doubts, Adam Fiona decided to trade in plodded on, digitising the their instruments for tapes at the National synthesisers and continLibrary of Scotland’s ued to make music Kevin Low Sound and Moving Image together. “It felt like quite a Archive and restoring and bold idea at the time,” says

THE SKINNY

March 2021 – Feature

Local Heroes

Photo: Clare Bowes

In Bloom As the world begins to feel a little brighter, Local Heroes turn their attention to the sunny designs of Kate Dowling, aka Kate & the Ink Interview: Stacey Hunter — 30 —

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Local Heroes Photo: Holly Booth Photo: Kate Dowling

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attracted to the simple colourways and abstract shapes. Being an 80s child, I think Memphis in all its asymmetric, colourful glory is fabulous. I would love to dabble more in other homeware products inspired by these styles.”

She also loves nostalgic references and this year worked with a local seamstress to design and make a quilted wall hanging of a retro sun. “I wanted to create a piece with modernist / bohemian vibes and these have proved to be super popular for kids’ rooms and reading corners. My ‘UK Shipping Areas’ chart (designed after years of hearing my dad listening to the shipping forecast) has been one of my best selling designs.

“As I grow my small business, ultimately I want to stay loyal to my original inspiration: retro design, bold colour and usefulness. I hope that my products brighten up lives, whether that’s a wall hanging on a wall or a card received through the post. I would also love to help people channel their own creativity through colour and pattern.” @kateandtheink kateandtheink.com — 31 —

March 2021 – Feature

t’s spring and little pinches of colour are beginning to poke their way through the ground, bringing some much-needed happiness and optimism with them. As our thoughts turn to spring cleaning and rearranging the homes that we have become very familiar with over the past year, we speak to Kate Dowling about her sunny and bright design business Kate & the Ink where she designs useful, bold, colourful products with a nod to retro design eras.

Dowling studied product design at the Glasgow School of Art and, after having her son in 2016, started her own design business that could work around childcare and being a new mum.

She launched her range of greeting cards, notebooks and art prints and is stocked in gift shops like Paper Tiger in Edinburgh, Sunshine No.1 and Braw Wee Emporium in Glasgow, Oklahoma in Manchester and Pencil Me In in Elgin.

Her new colour block range includes two tea towels, greeting cards and some art prints that have been inspired by 80s and early 90s fashion, print and pattern design.

“I also love the colour and imagination in some children’s cartoons like Hey Duggee (my son is 4.5 so I pretty much dream in Duggee!) I love the simple, clean vector graphics and definitely take inspiration from their design style. This year, almost unintentionally, my focus has been to create clashy, happy prints that brighten up our homes. When I started these designs, my sketchbook was almost screaming, ‘I just want to make people smile!’

(In less of a sinister way than that sounds!)”

Dowling’s continual hunt for design problems to solve led her to her best-selling meal planner design. “Changing our shopping habits in lockdown and having to be more organised got me started on a magnetic fridge planner with a perforation down the middle. It seems that other people want to think ahead about what they eat, be organised while also maintaining style in their kitchens.”

Bauhaus and Memphis are two design styles that the Edinburgh-based designer comes back to regularly. “I’m

THE SKINNY

Short Circuit Get the lowdown on Glasgow Short Film Festival’s second online edition, featuring dogs, dance, and absolutely no Zoom-based dramas

Film

Interview: Jamie Dunn

March 2021 – Feature

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ater this month, Glasgow Short Film Festival will become the first UK cinema event forced to go virtual for a second time as we pass the one year mark since COVID-19 began to run rampant through the UK population. The 2020 edition was due to take place 18 March, but it became clear it would be unsafe to do so; lockdown 1.0 went into force two days later.

When we catch up with GSFF director Matt Lloyd and co-director Sanne Jehoul to look back on a turbulent 12 months, they seem quite sanguine about having to abort at the 11th hour. “In some ways, we were lucky,” says Lloyd. “Because we had to cancel at such short notice it meant there was no question of us going straight online back then. So we were able to postpone until August and see how others did it.

“It’s actually people like Alchemy [Film & Arts Festival] – who had enough time to change direction but not a lot of time – who were at the vanguard.”

While Alchemy were lying on the barbed wire so other festivals could cross over into the digital realm more easily, improvements were being made internationally in terms of viewing platforms, including an online hub specifically designed for short film festivals. One innovation that many festivals have adopted when they’ve moved online is a flexible video-on-demand (VOD) channel where the films are available for longer, to be watched at the viewers’ convenience, rather than live-streamed as Alchemy did at their pioneering digital edition.

“That VOD approach makes a lot of sense,” says Lloyd, “because obviously, we do consume media in a very different way at home online. But for me, it loses any kind of sense of it being a festival; it

loses the impetus of getting people to actually participate and watch things at certain times.”

The upcoming GSFF will take a hybrid approach, then, with some elements of the programme available for the duration of the festival, while others will be presented as a live stream followed by 48 hours on-demand. “That’s something that worked well for us last year,” says Lloyd.

“There was a certain amount of buzz around these sort of semi-live screenings through social media, and that’s not something we wanted to let go of the second time around.”

One way this edition will differ from August is that it has been assembled entirely during the pandemic, which means Lloyd, Jehoul and their team have been able to address the strange new world in which we find ourselves. The full programme isn’t announced until 10 March, but Lloyd and Jehoul can tease some highlights.

The most direct response will be Locked Down, a programme of inventive filmmaking under lockdown. “The films that we’re showing in that programme tend to be along the lines of people working alone under restrictive conditions, which is what a lot of short filmmaking is anyway,” says Lloyd. “And thankfully I think we’ve managed to put this programme together without any Zoombased dramas, and there have been a lot of Zoom-based dramas,” he laughs.

If you’d prefer to escape from the world of the pandemic, Jehoul has co-curated something alongside critic Jessica McGoff that should be right up your alley: Big Dog Energy. “I don’t even know how we got to it,” she says of her canine programme. “I think we just saw dog films in the

Dogs at Polling Stations

In Dog Years

— 32 —

submissions and a lot of people on the team responded to them in the way that you’d respond to cute animal feels.” Suffice to say, Amores Perros this is not. “We decided to do a programme about non-bleak dog films, which is harder than you might imagine if you want decent work. Pet therapy in cinema form is what I would call it.”

Since lockdown began, cinema has acted as a time portal, allowing us to relive life before human contact and social interaction were outlawed. GSFF will be hoping to evoke these vicarious pleasures with Bangers & Mosh, a programme dedicated to heady late nights on the town. “We wanted to explore physical intimacy and being close to strangers and getting sweaty and messy in a pub or a club,” says Lloyd. “There’s an element of dance to it, but it’s also just a programme about nightlife and messiness – and not even particularly great nights. I don’t know about you, but even just having a shitty night out is something I crave at the moment.”

We heartily concur with Lloyd that messy nights out are much missed. But we long, too, for the buzz and the chaos of a really fun IRL film festival. Jehoul is in full agreement, and for her, it’s the small connections, those five minutes of banter with a stranger before or after a screening, she covets. “I think that’s a lot of what festivals are about: you relate to each other because you’re sharing something. It’s those brief moments of understanding and shared joy and shared interest that I really miss.”

Glasgow Short Film Festival takes place 22-28 Mar; the full programme is announced 10 Mar; glasgowshort.org

Dog of My Dreams

THE SKINNY

Summer Loving New coming-of-age film Sweetheart is a fresh take on the coming-out drama: it’s more concerned with what happens next. Writer-director Marley Morrison and star Nell Barlow discuss the supportive shoot and avoiding the cliches of queer cinema Interview: Eilidh Akilade Film Photo: Chloe Sheppard

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“Deliberately the film wasn’t a coming-out film: it was a whathappens-next film” Marley Morrison then, alongside that, there’s the social anxiety I experienced, and realising that you’re something but not quite knowing how to navigate that.”

AJ grapples with this something-ness. Barlow describes this teenage state that AJ knows all too well: “You’re very self-righteous, you’re very opinionated about certain things and you have to, in a way, divorce your family to then come back to them.” This awareness that AJ gains demands a separation before a later unity. The portrayal of the struggle in reaching that point is partly what makes the film so real: how do you gain that necessary separation when your family are around every corner of a Dorset caravan park?

But bringing to life the character of AJ was also a point of catharsis, at least for Morrison. “A lot of my stuff has dealt with identity and things like [that] – I feel like this film was my way of putting all of that to bed. I think you can spend a long time obsessing over certain aspects of your personality and your past,” she says.

— 33 —

It was also a process of rewriting the queer canon for the next generation. Morrison realised that “a lot of the films with queer characters I was watching as a teenager seemed to be rooted in a lot of trauma.” Sweetheart was about rectifying this.

Pain is important – but it’s not all that the queer community experience. There is joy and heartache and boredom, and not everything ends in death or destruction. AJ’s family aren’t homophobic: they love AJ and are simply trying – and sometimes failing – to find the best way to express that love.

For Morrison, looking beyond the conventional queer storylines was vital: “Deliberately the film wasn’t a coming-out film: it was a what-happensnext film.” Coming-of-age is not confined to coming out. It’s refreshing to see.

Down to the very narrative itself, Sweetheart subverts expectations. “It’s constantly shapeshifting – sometimes they’re laughing together and sometimes they’re really cross with each other, and it doesn’t really matter what the order is particularly,” Barlow says. “And I think that’s very honest.”

Sweetheart has its world premiere at Glasgow Film Festival 2021, screening 3-6 Mar glasgowfilm.org

March 2021 – Feature

weetheart. The title is fitting: it’s dreamy and nostalgic and somewhat swoon-worthy; but it also makes you wince ever so slightly on the ‘sweet’, and then the ‘heart’ comes, heavy and all too full, over your awkward teen tongue. It’s not one thing – just like its 17-year-old protagonist AJ, and just like the film itself.

Written and directed by Marley Morrison, Sweetheart follows AJ, played by Nell Barlow, on her family holiday to a caravan park. Her family is – somewhat painfully – straight, and AJ is anything but. It’s amid the banality of the holiday that AJ meets Isla (Ella-Rae Smith), just about the most gorgeous lifeguard ever – and AJ is, of course, absolutely smitten.

Sweetheart is Morrison’s debut feature; it is also Barlow’s first lead film role. And so, it’s a film of firsts. “It’s kind of something I feel like we did together,” Morrison says. “We supported each other. And she put a lot of confidence in me, which I’m very, very grateful for; and, respectively, I put my trust in her.” There is an intergenerational support here: not merely between Morrison and Barlow, but in the film itself between AJ and her mother Tina, played by Jo Hartley.

Barlow echoes this mutual support that Morrison speaks of. “[Morrison] just completely took me by the hand – she actually used to do that, literally, on set. When she wanted you she just held your hand, and she’d kind of pull you in.”

And this intimacy – between writer/director and actor – is palpable on screen. It’s in the closeness we feel to young AJ. Her awkwardness, her pain, her confusion: it’s all there, played out in these – somehow unmissable – subtleties.

This intimacy with AJ is one Barlow feels herself. “I found it quite sad actually because it feels very lonely and then you – this sounds very naff – you think about AJ feeling lonely and…” She trails off as her face falters. “You felt sorry for the person that is experiencing that.” Finding oneself in those teen moments once more – that intensity of emotion, ever brimming beneath the surface – is a state that is both surreal and all too real.

The film is partially inspired by Morrison’s own experience growing up, often spending her family holidays in caravan parks. But AJ – unlike Morrison – is growing up with social media, in an age where queerness is “semi-OK now”. This was the challenge for Morrison: to bring her own self and her own story under a Gen Z lens, without creating something out of touch and unrealistic. “I think there’s an element of me remembering how much of a pain in the ass I was,” she admits. “But

THE SKINNY

How Trainspotting Changed Scotland Film

How Danny Boyle’s swaggering and hilarious film about a group of young heroin addicts in Edinburgh seared itself on a generation’s consciousness and helped change Scotland forever Words: Christopher Henson

March 2021 – Feature

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ant to feel old? 23 February marked 25 years since the release of Trainspotting.

Danny Boyle’s masterwork was arguably the most influential British film of the 90s. Its frenetic pace, blending of tragedy and comedy, stylised set pieces and pulsating soundtrack set it apart from the po-faced realist dramas of underclass minutiae that characterised the decade.

The film captures the alternating absurdity and banality of the day-to-day lives of several Edinburgh addicts. When Trainspotting splattered into cinemas, anyone who saw it – perhaps shown by their parents to warn them of the perils of drug abuse and inner toilet exploration – has the image of Ewan McGregor and Ewen Bremner bolting down Princes Street to Iggy Pop’s Lust for Life burned into their consciousness. The scene, and the film, contain iconography that lives long in the mind. McGregor’s Renton sinks into the carpet; he laughs at us, the puzzled motorist trying to navigate the spaghetti junctions of the film. He sees a baby on the ceiling and reacts as we all would.

British film has since tried to replicate Trainspotting’s vim, vigour, and blend of crushing realism and stylisation – none have bettered it.

Set in the barren badlands outwith the cushy haunts of Edinburgh, but filmed almost exclusively in Glasgow, Trainspotting paints a lasting picture of Scotland. The high-rises, the affluent Princes Street an oxymoron amid the drab pubs, clubs and decaying streets and crumbling flats. Scottish life in the 90s looks like a far worse vocation than any vice, be it heroin, booze, or a spot of ultraviolence.

“Every time I’m on Princes Street, I still feel a jolt; I still feel like sprinting” It is not, however, the mise-en-scène that underpins the Scottishness of the film. Its imagery, a world away from pipers and haggis and the grandeur of affluent Edinburgh, only tells part of the story. The script’s inflections of humour and pathos amid a dreary set of circumstances, the

tone of helplessness through which, like a ray of sunlight through an overcast Scottish morning, ends on a note of hope and prospects, are the rhythm of the film’s Scottish heart. The film came out three years before devolution and the Scottish Parliament, wherein the UK’s oft-forgotten problem child, with its unhealthy lifestyle choices and antisocial behaviour, began to get its shit together.

Twenty-five years on, Scotland has had a makeover; the 21st century has seen the nation go from strength to strength as a European player.

Choose an international hotspot for tourism.

Choose a whisky industry that is at the apex of the global food and drink chain. Choose a classy option for travellers and revellers. Every good actor that you like watching in everything? Scots, the lot of them.

Alas, as Renton so eloquently puts it, Scotland is still “colonised by wankers!” But perhaps not for much longer. Trainspotting marks a turning point in Scottish fortune. The journey of the film feels like a collective, national kicking of a few bad habits.

The film endures among my generation.

When I came to Edinburgh for university, it was at the forefront of my mind. Every time I’m on Princes Street – even with the trams and volley of fragrances pouring out of Lush, people taking a — 34 —

picture of the castle, and then a picture of themselves and the castle – I still feel a jolt; I still feel like sprinting. Edinburgh locations were used far more in T2, the sequel which, I think it is fair to say, has been overlooked somewhat. I am not sorry to say that I recognised a lot of its nightlife spots, after many nights out on those particular sickstained tiles.

Trainspotting is true to its word in showing us the lowest of the low. It has many horrible people doing many horrible things and ending in horrible situations. It is also one of the funniest films ever made. When Spud (Bremner) flung his dung-filled bed sheets over the breakfast table, the girl he spent the night with and her unassuming parents, my whole being contorted with laughter. When the gang stand over the cot, and Sick Boy (Jonny Lee Miller) breaks down, I wanted the carpet to swallow me up like it does Renton. The artful variations of tragedy and comedy, the symphonic rise and fall of horror and humour, endears Trainspotting to the hearts and minds of filmgoers. That same splatter within the messy, ludicrous, terrible, and ultimately hopeful two hours of film, secures it as a modern Scottish masterpiece.

Trainspotting is streaming on All4 and available on DVD/Blu-Ray

THE SKINNY

Into the Light Melbourne-based DJ Lachy Bozin, aka LBEEZE, becomes the first artist to feature on new Dundee label Exiled Records with his Dancing in the Dark EP. He tells us about the new EP and how music helped him overcome his battle with drug addiction Interview: Jamie Wilde Clubs

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Photo: Brent Bartlett

Bozin’s musical upbringing focused primarily on electro. “I always wanted to make weird lo-fi like Mall Grab or DJ Seinfeld,” he says. But 2015 marked a year which would go on to shape his future sound significantly. “Over that year of researching what sound I liked the most, I found artists like DJ LOSER [and] Antonio aka Raw Ambassador… I’d never heard such raw music before and I became the biggest fanboy of them.”

However, 2015 also found Bozin embroiled in a toxic and intense relationship. For him, being able to discover music during this time offered a new hobby and solace from the trauma he had suffered. And, more recently, the COVID-19 pandemic has presented new challenges. Having survived two near fatal drug overdoses and a car accident in 2020, Bozin recently took the brave step to seek help.

In October last year he shared a Facebook post detailing his battle with drug addiction, and stating how he’d been able to channel his experiences into his Induced Expressions cassette tape, with track titles Reach Out and Next Path highlighting his struggles. Now he offers helpful advice for others who may also be struggling to cope.

“Clean your room/house, exercise, write in a little diary how you are feeling every day and look back on it, watching your progression evolve,” he says.

“There’s always somebody to talk to and I’m willing to be there for you also.”

Bozin’s Dancing in the Dark EP is the first release to come out on new Dundee label Exiled Records. The imprint is headed by two renowned locals in the city’s electronic circuit – Ben Rothes of Hilltown Disco and Theo Middleton of Public House, who say he was just the kind of artist they were looking to feature on the label.

“LBEEZE felt right for a few reasons,” says Middleton. “The main — 35 —

“Even I think it’s very dark… To me, it’s about a boy trying to make it through life without any problems” Lachy Bozin one being that he represents what we want to push in both sound and attitude. The EP is noholds-barred. It’s a great starting point for the label and a solid foundation for us to build on.”

Brimming with his signature warped vocal style and own brand of psycho electronics, the EP is not for the faint-hearted and Bozin’s personal struggles over the last few years played an important role in shaping the sound of the EP. “Even I think it’s very dark… To me, it’s about a boy trying to make it through life without any problems,” he says. “All the vocals were recorded in one take and it really brings out how I was feeling at that present time.”

Distorted cries of “leave me alone” wail through the EP’s third track, Bad Mouth, while ‘express yourself’ forms the repeated mantra for the Kluentah remix of Faded To Me. It’s an explosive debut release for the new label, but it’s also a positive indicator for Bozin and his future work as he relishes in his newfound sobriety, with his talents pushed to the forefront on Dancing in the Dark. “If you like my work, I feel that now I’m sober my concentration and attention is all explicitly on music this year, so stay tuned and stay positive,” he says.

While our current experiences of lockdown and isolation may be forcing some of us into dark places, Bozin’s story highlights just how much music can help people through times of struggle.

And if it ever feels like the dark is becoming too much to bear it’s important to remember that there’s always someone out there to talk to.

Dancing in the Dark is released on 5 Mar via Exiled Records exiledrecords.bandcamp.com

March 2021 – Feature

undee’s electronic music scene is both alive and well despite the COVID-19 pandemic. The city may have lost its most formidable venue, The Reading Rooms, in recent years, but that hasn’t prevented its creative community from thriving. Exiled Records are the latest newcomers hoping to make a name for themselves across Tayside and beyond, and they’ve summoned Australian DJ LBEEZE for their first release.

LBEEZE is the moniker of half-Australian, half-Transylvanian artist, producer and record label owner Lachy Bozin. Bozin runs Up North Records from his current base in Melbourne, with the label’s releases largely focusing on EBM, post-punk, techno and experimental, while his own music specialises in using twisted vocal recordings to create menacingly dark soundscapes.

Although based on the other side of the world, Bozin has already started to build a profile in Scotland, having featured on a compilation released on Fife label Idlestates Recordings in January this year, and with his first solo vinyl EP, Dancing in the Dark, due out on Dundee’s Exiled Records this month. “To be honest, I have no idea how these Scottish connections came about,” says Bozin. “Nobody in Melbourne really plays EBM or knows the name LBEEZE.”

Music

THE SKINNY

Behind the scenes for Arab Strap’s Here Comes Comus!, Dir. Bryan M. Ferguson

March 2021 – Feature

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Making the Most of the Night Aidan Moffat talks to us about male fragility, optimism in spite of darkening days, and the return of Arab Strap Interview: Lewis Wade — 36 —

peaking to us during the dual restrictions of snow storms and lockdowns, Aidan Moffat has no idea what day it is, but is resolutely chipper in the face of delayed release dates, postponed gigs and another weekend stuck inside. “Perversely, it’s actually a really good time to be releasing a record,” he says. “People are at home, and without gigs they’re maybe starting to readdress the value of recordings, I think they’re engaging more.”

The value of the music industry and the importance of its survival has been discussed at length recently, though most efforts at helping have had to be at a grassroots level, from venue Crowdfunders to Bandcamp Fridays. “There’s been discussions in parliament over the last year about Spotify rates and things like that. Obviously I’d rather be out playing gigs – we’ve got everything crossed for the September dates – but it’s worked out okay.”

As Days Get Dark is the first Arab Strap album since 2005. Both Moffat and Malcolm Middleton have been busy in the interim, with dozens of collaborations, albums and projects between them, remaining active in the Scottish music scene as well as further afield. But the acclaim and love for the duo’s original, superlative ten-year run never seemed to disappear, with their fandom increasing as a new generation of listeners were able to discover the band through the wizardry of the internet.

This cultish devotion was confirmed when the pair reunited for a string of ecstatically-received gigs in 2016 and 2017, while the hunger for new material can now finally be sated. Despite the album being a clear sonic continuation, Moffat is clear on the desire to move forward instead of dwelling on nostalgia and trying to recapture the 90s. “This album feels like its own new thing to me,” he says. “It’s a completely different world [now]; when I grew up, the idea of a mobile phone, that was just for Star Trek. The way that technology and society have progressed in my lifetime is phenomenal. It happens so quickly, but you get used to it so quickly. Even in the past year, with something like wearing a mask, it’s amazing how quickly we adapt to these new things.”

Fortunately, the creative process was relatively unscathed by COVID. “We started recording in 2019 and when the pandemic started we had three weeks left that we had to cancel and move to summer.

Malcolm would go in one day and do some guitar parts, then I’d do a drum day, a vocals day... a lot of the later recording we did separately to keep our

THE SKINNY

Photo: Marilena Vlachopoulou

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Aidan Moffat, Arab Strap rebuffs with a laugh: “I just really wanted to upset people; genuine grief and sadness. When I was growing up, in the 80s, men still didn’t really talk about their feelings, and when I was a young man in the 90s it was all lads mags and Britpop and all that kinda shit, and it always struck me as interesting – why don’t men get emotional? [...] There was never any humour intended, just sheer bleak darkness.”

As Days Get Dark may revel in a crepuscular fervour, but things look bright for Arab Strap as we (hopefully) move away from lockdown and the snow starts to melt, which may be just in time for Moffat: “I went sledging last week and nearly fucked myself right up – I’m no use at it, I can’t balance, went straight into the bushes every time.”

Hopefully we’ll be at a healthier place as a nation

by September to allow a return to live music as Arab Strap hope to hit the road, including an already sold-out night at the Barrowlands.

“I feel like we’re right on the cusp of possibility (the September dates),” Moffat muses, “we’re definitely going to play them, but we’ll push them back if we need to, who knows maybe we’ll make another record before then.”

As Days Get Dark is released on 5 Mar via Rock Action Records.

Read our review at theskinny.co.uk/music Arab Strap play Barrowlands, Glasgow, 10 Sep arabstrap.scot

March 2021 – Feature

Aidan Moffat, Arab Strap

“I do enjoy social media but I wonder why I put myself through the pain sometimes”

Photo: Kat Gollock

“When I was a young man in the 90s it was all lads mags and Britpop [...] it always struck me as interesting – why don’t men get emotional?”

That saxophone makes an appearance in the infectious Turning of Our Bones, the first single released back in September, along with what sounds like synthesised bongos, setting out the album’s experimental stall early on. Second single, Compersion Pt. 1, provides some stellar guitar (see also: Tears on Tour) and “strange timings” that Moffat managed to work into something resembling disco. “It’s 7/4 but you can still dance to it – I was quite pleased with that.”

The murkiness of the lyrical concern is particularly prominent on Kebabylon, which is “not necessarily a place, but a time, from 3am to 7am in the city when the streets are full of secrets (back in the old days). It was inspired by a book I read about London street sweepers and there was a line, something like ‘we’re there to keep your secrets’, because of the things they find, y’know, knickers, drugs, condoms etc, all manner of stuff.

They’re some of the lowest paid workers in society, but in some ways they’re like guardian angels, which I thought was great.”

One of the album’s bluntest songs also has an unlikely literary inspiration. Fable of the Urban Fox is a (very) thinly-veiled statement on the media’s portrayal of immigration, but actually came from an earnest effort to learn more about foxes after noticing some roaming about near Hampden Park. “I was reading a book called Foxes Unearthed by Lucy Jones. There’s a couple of chapters on how the media started to demonise them when they came into urban areas from the countryside (where they were being murdered).

“It’s an obvious metaphor, but I don’t see the point in being subtle with these things. It’s really about the papers and the media and the way they control public thought. One fox attacked a child, didn’t do any particular harm, and suddenly all foxes were pests and had to be destroyed. And it’s exactly the same attitude that the right-wing papers have on immigration and refugees, and it just seemed to me that it’s the same thing.”

Ultimately, Moffat doesn’t think of it as a political song, though: “it’s about kindness!”

On the flipside of that, Tears on Tour is much more comfortably in the Arab Strap wheelhouse, taking an adolescent idea about being an anti-comedian as a starting point and making an important comment on male emotional fragility (or the supposed lack thereof). I thought I’d detected a streak of dark humour in all this, an idea Moffat

Music

social distance. By the time we got to the mixing stage we could be in the same room (it’s a pretty big room). It made the album late; it should’ve been out last October and we should’ve finished our tours by now, that’s the only real downside.”

Windows are a key recurring theme in the album, beginning with the album artwork: two open (digital) windows, one showing a 19th century painting (The Night escorted by the geniuses of Love and Study by Pedro Américo), the other a mostlyhidden, suggestively lewd photo, with a block of flats in the background. “At first [the painting] was just in a frame but we thought it was a bit boring... we also wanted a theme of windows, at one point we had a cover that was a sort of tower block, suggesting stories behind the windows, but we realised it looked a bit like the first Streets album.”

Strangely, one of the album’s most prescient lyrics – ‘We gab with ghosts in windows’ – was the only one written before the album was conceived; “that’s something I wrote a few years ago, I’d been writing something for a dance actually, and it just seemed to fit the song perfectly.” Bluebird, the track that line is taken from, explores our relationship with technology and social media, settling for an ambivalence that Moffat sums up neatly: “I do enjoy social media but I wonder why I put myself through the pain sometimes.”

Given the title, the other key motif is the night/darkness: “The night [in the painting] is a seductress, there’s a look on her face saying ‘you will enjoy me’, not in a sexual way, but the night is a place where exciting things happen... it’s a time when maybe we think too much, and a time when romance could happen.” Each of the album’s songs involves darkness or takes place at night, giving it a remarkably cohesive feel, although the arrangements are some of the most varied and eccentric Arab Strap have made (“the saxophone’s my fault,” Moffat quips).

THE SKINNY

Entering the Chat As series three of her podcast drops, Poppy Hillstead talks Pixar, mumblers, BTS fans and people’s enduring unease with the word ‘clitoris’

Comedy

Interview: Louis Cammell

W

hen the hugely popular Gossipmongers podcast re-emerged in September 2020, people had just one question: Where’s Poppy? Poppy Hillstead, one of the pod’s original host trio, eventually broke her silence on Twitter to say that she’d been kicked off the show via her co-hosts’ agents, and all of the old episodes taken down without prior notice.

Such a departure would surely send anyone into a spin, but having spoken to Hillstead, it doesn’t seem to be playing on her mind.

Hillstead’s name, face and voice are undoubtedly front and centre of her podcast Poppy Hillstead Has Entered the Chat. Does it reflect a desire to realize a project totally her own, and does it mark that Hillstead has truly arrived onto the comedy scene?

“Yeah, maybe,” she says. “I like that.

Because, you know, I used to do behind-thescenes stuff in comedy. I used to run live gigs and I always wanted to do my own stuff.”

Her new podcast, which has just entered its third season, has made its own splash by being a pretty ingenious take on the form. It consists of real conversations Hillstead has had with anonymous people in chat rooms, re-enacted with the help of fellow comedians. It’s a rare gem in a market dominated by cosy chats between friends.

“Because I come from an animation background originally, I like when you’re talking to someone and you can’t see them and you kind of get this whole visual thing going on in your mind.

So then I thought ‘this could be quite cool as an animation’,” she says.

March 2021 – Feature

Image: Poppy Hillstead

By no means has she turned her back on the idea, “but it’s just hard [...] because I wanted to do like these big, full animations, but [I’d] need to have, like, a whole team.”

So instead she made a podcast, and the time she has saved has left her free to explore other projects. She says: “I’m doing a web series as well, that we’re going to start filming as soon as all this corona stuff wraps up. I’ll be writing it and acting in it.”

But with 12 episodes of ... Entered the Chat behind her, she has finally started animating some of the clips. “I like stuff like Dr. Katz, and [Aardman’s] Creature Comforts,” she says. “I love animating little uhmms and ahhhs and people mumbling shit. It really makes me laugh. You don’t really see a lot of Pixar or Disney characters umming and ahhing. [Imagine] a whole team of, like, 200 people trying to animate an uhmm.”

Has Hillstead’s trolling people improved her own troll detector perhaps?

“I suppose so. I’ve definitely had people being so weird with me that I’m just like, ‘oh they’re winding me up and I quite like it.’ At the start of the second series I had Rich Fulcher [of Mighty Boosh fame] play this guy that I met in a paranormal chatroom and to this day I have absolutely no idea if he was trying to wind me up.

He was telling me about this big, bald man that he kept seeing running through the woods and that he didn’t know if it was an alien or not. I was absolutely shitting it.”

But scarier than any of that, says Hillstead, are fandoms. “I did attempt to do a K-Pop episode but I’m too scared, d’you know what I mean? The K-pop fanbase, towards BTS and stuff, are so angry [that] I think I’d be in danger for the rest of my life. I can’t face that, I’ll get slaughtered.”

Above all else though, Hillstead’s main fear is that she may be getting numb to the smut of it all.

After having given a YouTuber she really admires (but won’t name) a script to read for the show, he had to admit to her that he didn’t think he could do it. “Mark Haines ended up doing it and I was like, ‘You okay saying clitoris?’ I think people should get more used to saying the word clit.”

Poppy Hillstead Has Entered the Chat Series 3 is out now. New episodes are available weekly via Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Follow her at @poppyhillstead on Twitter and Instagram and subscribe to her YouTube channel — 38 —

THE SKINNY

Music Now We take a look at some of the more under the radar musical offerings coming out of Scotland this month including Youth Team, Rachel Jack, Lou Mclean and OVER / AT

Photo: Steven Rennie Photography

Lou Mclean

Youth Team

Edinburgh’s unique Pianodrome venue and features songs from This Is the Kit's Kate Stables, and Amanda Palmer, while the latter is an allfemale/non-binary affair fundraising for the charity SWIM (Scottish Women Inventing Music). Brand new Edinburgh micro label New Teeth put out two more singles this month – User Error by Astroturf Inspector (5 Mar) and Be Gone With You by EARfATHER featuring Alex Auld Smith (26 Mar). On 12 March Stirlingshire’s Moth Traps releases his quirky debut album Truth Maps, Fife-based queer producer Ben Seal releases their brand new high energy single I Want, and Aberdeen singer-songwriter Katie Mackie releases the beautiful blissed-out Terricot Town, while on the following Friday (19 Mar) be prepared to fall down an early 00s pop-punk rabbit hole thanks to Glasgow band DETER’s new single Underneath. theskinny.co.uk/music

March 2021 – Feature

— 39 —

Rachel Jack Photo: Sarah Donely

Mclean sings: ‘We’re walking on the tightrope of a fucked up circus show, where the grand finale ends in a crashing fatal blow’, while she later asks: ‘Can I turn this crisis into a bangin’ song?’ and the answer is, well, yes.

Later, on the aptlynamed The World Is On Fire she sings: ‘The world is on fire and I just want to feel alive’.

It’s a neat collection of five guitar-led songs that really let Mclean’s relatable storytelling shine through.

Lovingly curated and produced by Rufus Isabel Elliot, we’re also really excited this month about the release of the FOLKS’ SONGS EP on 26 March. As part of the wider OVER / AT project – ‘a new concert series and trans musicmaking world’ – which launched a year ago this month at The Glad Cafe, FOLKS’ SONGS is a challenging but ultimately rewarding listen. With contributions from multi-instrumentalist, composer and pipe maker from the Highlands, Malin Lewis, visual and sound artist, freelance photographer and DJ Matthew Arthur Williams and writer and performer Harry Josephine Giles, amongst others, the EP was mixed and mastered by Kay Logan who also mixed Comfort’s 2020 SAY Award-shortlisted album Not Passing. Produced as part of Sound and Music’s Composer-Curator programme, and in partnership with Birmingham’s experimental Supersonic Festival, FOLKS’ SONGS has been made entirely by a team of trans, non-binary and gender-minority people, and shines a light on the different ways they use their voices to tell their stories.

Elsewhere, two compilation albums – Pianodrome Mixtape Vol. 2 and Cover to Cover – come out in time for Bandcamp Friday on 5 March; the former is raising funds for

Photo: AG Wylie

A

s we write this month’s round-up, Glasgow’s Mogwai are in the running to score a number one album in the UK charts with their tenth record As the Love Continues, something the band themselves are struggling to come to terms with. “This is unreal!” Stuart Braithwaite tweeted midweek as tweets of encouragement continued to pour in from every corner of the globe, including from some rather famous celebs like The Cure’s Robert Smith and Lord of the Rings actor Elijah Wood. No, really. Scotland well and truly got itself on the musical map last month, and this month is likely to be no different as Arab Strap release As Days Get Dark on 5 March, their first album in over 15 years, via Mogwai’s Rock Action label. Read our interview with Aidan Moffat on page 36 and check out our review of the record online at theskinny.co.uk/music After making the news last month during the cold snap for recording a temperature of -23 degrees centigrade, Braemar actually has something happening this month that’s worth getting excited about. Thanks to the impeccable taste of Edinburgh label Gerry Loves Records, they’ve decided it’s about time that Braemar producer and musician Angus Upton – who performs under the moniker Youth Team – got a physical release, and so the gorgeous I Have Heard the Signal, I Am Waiting for the Call is coming out on 26 March. For the most part instrumental, I Have Heard the Signal... is a potent mix of ambient and hypnotic, pounding and futuristic, where fuzzy guitars collide with jaunty pianos, and squelchy wubs dance playfully with twinkling electronics.

Staying north, on 18 March Aberdeen’s Rachel Jack releases her Magazine Girls EP, the much more pop-centric follow-up to her debut, The Calgary Tapes. Working this time with Dunt (Stanley Odd, Solareye, SHEARS) who she met while completing a Paolo Nutini songwriting scholarship at the University of the West Scotland, on Magazine Girls Jack tackles the dark side of the music industry as she takes a closer look at its unrealistic beauty standards, squares up to bullying and harassment, and harnesses strength from past difficult situations, all with the most glorious of pop sheens.

Edinburgh singer-songwriter Lou Mclean is also releasing a new EP this month. Locked Down in Leith is set for release on 8 March, and in Mclean’s own words, it “charts my experiences through lockdown. Each song is personal but the emotion explored in them is universal.” As she bids farewell to the summer on opening track Goodbye,

Local Music

Words: Tallah Brash

Albums

THE SKINNY

Tune-Yards sketchy.

4AD, 26 Mar rrrrr

March 2021 — Review

isten to: homewrecker, under your L lip, hold yourself.

Noga Erez KIDS City Slang, 26 Mar rrrrr Listen to: NO news on TV, Fire Kites

In the opening track to Alanis Morissette’s Jagged Little Pill, she asks: ‘Why are you so petrified of silence? / Here can you handle this?’

With everything that’s going on in the world at the moment, can we?

Tune-Yards explore these dynamics in sketchy. as silence pt. 2 (who is “we?”) treats us to a minute of nothingness.

It’s unsettling, disruptive, and entirely what you’d expect from Tune-Yards. For over a decade now, the pair have been creating their polyphonic music – from the playful social commentary of 2014’s Nikki Nack to the electronic introspection of 2018’s I can feel you creep into my private life. sketchy., then, finds the band stepping away from the digital screens and reaching for live instruments instead.

As always with Tune-Yards though, it’s never just about handclaps and hopscotch basslines. hold yourself. oozes pop sophistication alongside the need to wake up and affect change. Similarly, be not afraid. urges us to look past our fears and embrace the here and now. Because, despite its name, there’s nothing ambiguous about Tune-Yards’ return.

They’re back with bombast and the permission to take a breather if it all gets too much. [Cheri Amour]

‘I’ve been deeply depressed.’

Those are the first lyrics we hear on Noga Erez’s second album, KIDS. It follows a ten-second long intro, KTD, and is a bold opening gambit for an album that sounds anything but depressed.

KIDS steers far away from the industrial production and heavily political lyrics heard on the Tel Aviv-hailing artist’s 2017 debut, Off the Radar, and instead into much grander territory. CIPI could almost be a show tune if it didn’t feature lyrics like ‘but most of the time you’re my bitch’, and NO news on TV has all the stylings of an early 2000s girlband chart hit.

If the album’s lead single End of the Road is the most similar sonically to Erez’s earlier work, then Fire Kites is perhaps the most similar lyrically.

In a similar fashion to her breakout single Dance While You Shoot, on Fire Kites Erez uses a simple, yet powerful image to highlight the normality of war for those living through it.

Erez’s songwriting is clever, nuanced and often packed with wit.

On KIDS she shows how far she’s come in crafting her sound in just a few short years. [Nadia Younes]

Hannah Peel Fir Wave My Own Pleasure, 26 Mar rrrrr isten to: Carbon Cycle, Patterned L Formation, Ecovocative

Xiu Xiu OH NO Polyvinyl, 26 Mar rrrrr isten to: A Bottle of Rum, Rumpus L Room, Sad Mezcalita

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There’s no question that the influence of electronic pioneer Delia Derbyshire hangs heavy over this sixth fulllength from Hannah Peel. It’s effectively a present-day reimagining of Kpm 1000 Series: Electrosonic, one of Derbyshire’s myriad collaborations with the BBC Radiophonic Workshop (the most famous of which was her theme for Doctor Who). In truth, though, Peel remains the central character throughout; Fir Wave is an album in her own image, constructed to her own ever-evolving blueprint.

It’s a record preoccupied primarily with environmental issues, both musical and global.

In the former regard, on the likes of the softly spiralling synth odyssey Patterned Formation and the atmospheric, nervy thrum of closer Reaction Diffusion, she allows her Derbyshire samples room to breathe as she airily constructs her own ideas around them. In the latter sense, the quiet unease of Ecovocative and Carbon Cycle hint at the world’s ongoing lack of urgency when it comes to the climate crisis. Fir Wave should represent a clash of styles – between Peel’s 21st-century toolkit and Derbyshire’s early-70s equivalent – but instead, there’s a deep sense that the two women, generations apart, are in tandem. [Joe Goggins]

For a band that has rocked the boat of what can be accessible throughout its existence, an album of duets is an almost quaint idea for Xiu Xiu. And yet, perhaps something this painfully traditional could be counted as just the next twisted subversion in a long line of them. It definitely is when you consider OH NO was made in the wake of, as project mainstay Jamie Stewart puts it, “long-standing friendships and musical partnerships [being] abruptly and unilaterally severed after surprising acts of betrayal and disrespect.”

These duets are, of course, not standards. The production is exceptionally murky – mostly collaborators move through the dark, uncertain world Stewart manifests with his Scott Walker-like crooning of glossolalia. Sharon Van Etten trades lines with Stewart in the song that is most recognisably a duet, both their voices often submerged in a cacophony.

Liars’ Angus Andrew injects some mischief, and Liz Harris excavates the best moment, in a song closer to the dreampop of her work in Helen than the noisy drone of her previous work with Xiu Xiu as Grouper. Fallen out with your friends? There’s no more potent ‘fuck you’ than making an album with a whole load of new ones. [Tony Inglis]

THE SKINNY

At Home Eye of the Storm Director: Anthony Baxter

Starring: James Morrison

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Released 5 Mar by Cosmic Cat

Iorram Director: Alastair Cole

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Forget TikTok sea shanties. A rather more thoughtful reflection on Scotland’s relationship with the sea is found in Iorram, an expressive doc blending oral history, folk song and seascape to celebrate the vibrant but endangered culture of the various communities scattered across the Outer Hebrides.

Director Alastair Cole’s starting point was a rich cache of mid-20th century field recordings featuring ordinary Hebrideans telling stories (some prosaic, some heartbreaking, some pure hokum), which he’s paired with striking footage of these islands today. We see ruddy-faced fisherman and industrious fish-packers on the daily grind, roly-poly seals scrambling across golden sands, and gannets plunging haphazardly into the drink to feed, while voices from

the past act as ghostly narrators.

There’s no onscreen text to help get your bearings; Cole trusts that we’ll attune to the wash of disconnected sound and vision. Sometimes audio and image will wryly align, though, like when the story of a blind fisherman with a knack for finding the most abundant fishing grounds is paired with a confused-looking seaman hunched over a blinking 21st century sonar map.

But even when there’s no literal connection, a rhythm slowly emerges.

Music and song bind this community and it’s mortar for the film too.

Aidan O’Rourke provides a protean score that’s expertly calibrated, knowing when to throw in some romantic folk strings or ramp up a story’s tension with atonal plucking.

But he also knows when to rein it in too, and let the Gaelic language create its own melody. [Jamie Dunn]

At Home

James Morrison’s artistic method might be boiled down to this: go somewhere and try to paint exactly what you see.

Whether that meant painting a sublime Arctic horizon or a crooked Glasgow alleyway, the task was the same. He rejected any attempt to have political, social or spiritual meanings attached to his work – it simply was what it was, an attempt to render his own perception of the world into tangible form.

Anthony Baxter’s Eye of the Storm takes a similarly unobtrusive approach, largely relying on Morrison’s own words and footage of the stunning Scottish scenery that he painted to tell his story. Both are hugely effective.

Morrison is a gifted speaker, talking

with the same unfussy precision as he paints, and the cinematography does justice to the turbulent countrysides which he is most known for.

But what makes the film so compelling is the same thing that elevated Morrison’s work. Something human creeps into even our best attempts to be objective, the creator’s thumbprint peeking out from beneath the paint. As the film begins, Morrison’s eyesight is fading to the point that he struggles to paint. His beloved wife has passed on; the Arctic he saw has melted from existence; the Glasgow he knew has been built over, re-made almost beyond recognition.

What the film becomes then is something much like his paintings – a snapshot of the world as it was briefly held in one person’s eye.

[Ross McIndoe]

Released 5 Mar by Modern Films

Credit: Estate of James Morrison Eye of the Storm

Poly Styrene: I Am a Cliché Director: Celeste Bell, Paul Sng

Starring: Poly Styrene, Ruth Negga “It’s plastic, disposable. That’s what pop stars are all meant to be,” Marianne Joan Elliott-Said – aka Poly Styrene – says shyly. It’s the mid-1970s and her punk band X-Ray Spex is just taking off, her adopted moniker splashed all over the music world. Her words are oddly prescient in our post-Perez Hilton world, yet Poly Styrene: I Am A Cliché – co-directed by the singer’s daughter Celeste Bell and released ten years after her death – is a gorgeous act of protest against this systemic disposability, a determined effort to chronicle the remarkable achievements of a sadly too-short life.

Bringing together archival footage, extracts from Poly Styrene’s own diaries and voiceover interviews – Vivienne Westwood and Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore among them

– Poly Styrene: I Am A Cliché does not so much tread the line between the personal and the political as collapse its boundaries. Staying true to punk’s anti-establishment roots, the documentary weaves through the singer’s life, spotlighting the politics of being mixed race and Somali during the birth of the National Front, and unpicking her fraught, dystopian relationship with consumerism.

“I had an innate desire to be free,” Poly Styrene explains, and the film not only explores the shackles of capitalism, fame, and gender that bound her, but lovingly depicts the ways in which she at times escaped them through lyrics and joyful performance set against abortion marches and psychological illness. A collective act of grief and celebration, Poly Styrene: I Am a Cliché is a moving portrait of an extraordinary artist. [Anahit Behrooz] Released in the UK 5 Mar by Modern Films

Iorram

Poly Styrene: I Am a Cliché

Creation Stories Director: Nick Moran

Starring: Ewen Bremner, Suki Waterhouse, Rebecca Root

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Nick Moran’s biopic of Alan McGee, the infamous head of Creation Records, takes a fairly conventional narrative approach to this highly unconventional man. It’s a rags-to-riches tale, tracing his journey from a drab and dreamless life in Glasgow all the way to the very centre of the UK music industry.

The film takes most of its stylistic cues from the holy text of narcoticinfused Scottish stories, Trainspotting (perhaps not surprisingly so: Irvine Welsh is on script duty). McGee’s drug-addled adventures are brought to life with the same bag of distorted lens, haphazard angles and scenes of weird hallucination. In an attempt to match the frenetic pace of his life and mind, it moves at a rapid clip, letting

— 41 —

the audio spill from one scene to another, stitching the whole thing together with a lot of oddly matched shots and strange transitions. The resulting effect is often disorientating and not always in a particularly effective or purposeful way.

The quest to cram in as many needle drops, smash cuts and cute voiceover gags makes the whole thing feel a little manic, and its frantic energy often means that the big emotional beats get lost in the noise. Still, even if it’s playing a lot of other people’s songs and relying more on volume than skill, Creation Stories is anchored by a magnetic lead performance from Ewen Bremner and an overriding love for its subject, making for a hugely enjoyable jam even if it likely won’t become a classic.

[Ross McIndoe]

Released 20 Mar by Sky Cinema

March 2021 — Review

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Creation Stories

THE SKINNY

Stories of Salvation We meet Allison Galbraith, one of the storytellers engaging communities in the Our Green Futures strand of Glasgow Science Centre’s Our World, Our Impact programme Books

Interview: George Sully

March 2021 — Review

about how it links with current environmental practice and things you can do to help.”

Far from being frivolous entertainment, “there’s wisdom out there.

And if we listen to those narratives, it will help us change our narratives and the legacy that we’re leaving for the future generations. We really hit it home in this story that it’s a child that can help.”

She is therefore especially keen to connect with younger audiences, and has swotted up on the science behind her work. “Children learn better through stories. We relate to metaphors for learning extremely well, because that’s what the brain is wired to do. That’s how we communicate.

65% of the day is spent telling stories to each other – or to ourselves.”

Crucially, storytelling evokes empathy. “Everybody hears a story differently,” she elaborates. “When I tell the story to a group of 30 children, people take away different personal experiences. How does that group of children and all those little individuals then impact the world and make a difference? Because they’re going home and they say, ‘no, mummy, I don’t want anything with palm oil in it. The gorilla in that story’s forest was gone!’ and they start to connect that way on a small level.”

Of course, in these isolated times, Galbraith’s typically in-person discipline must be rehomed in the digital sphere. Reciting to camera, instead of a live audience, brings its own challenges (particularly around calibrating her language: “you can’t laugh and say it a different way, the way you would when a child looks at you in a confused manner”), but ones made more manageable thanks to resources and support from institutions like the Scottish Storytelling Centre. As we’ve seen elsewhere in this pandemic, communities are rallying and working together.

“Somebody told me they get their friend to come and sit behind the camera,” she says. “I don’t have that luxury. My other half, he won’t listen to another story I tell, he’s had 14-plus years of it!” We suggest talking to a stuffed animal, but — 42 —

Photo: Finlay Stevenson

F

rom Samhain to Beltane, Beira rules the winter months. Sometimes known as the Cailleach (‘old woman’ or ‘divine hag’), this icy goddess freezes the land before squaring off against Brìghde (or St. Brigid), the goddess of spring, to herald the passage into warmer days. They both appear in various Celtic myths and folktales throughout the ages, sometimes as two sides of the same deity, but always in opposition. In one tale, Beira grows frustrated with Brìghde’s greater popularity (who doesn’t prefer the summer?), and decides to burn down the Caledonian Forest.

This tale of the Cailleach and her fit of jealous arson might not seem immediately relevant to the ongoing climate crisis. Indeed, myths and legends are not typically the first port of call when the language of the crisis is one of sobering statistics, slow-moving governments and increasingly urgent calls for action. But for Allison Galbraith, whose work frequently uses folklore as a means to inspire environmental action, this story is more than mere fable.

“People have been storytelling since there have been people,” says Galbraith, a prolific storyteller with a masters in Scottish Folklore from the University of Glasgow. “It’s the oldest art form in the world.”

This story, as she tells it, is called Saving the Forest, taken from a 2017 collection (Dancing with Trees: Eco-Tales from the British Isles) written with Dr. Alette J. Willis. Without spoiling too much, the forest’s salvation comes in a plan from a bright young girl – a sort of Greta Thunberg-esque character representing the hope and ingenuity of youth.

Under the Green Futures strand of the Glasgow Science Centre’s Our World, Our Impact programme, Galbraith is one of a handful of storytellers recruited to engage communities via this age-old medium. But how does an eco-raconteur avoid the sometimes overwhelming doom and gloom conjured by the mounting crisis?

“Alette and I, when we made [Dancing with Trees], were really aware of this, that it can become a hysteria of ‘we’ve gone too far, it’s too late, too many species have died’,” she says. “So we very consciously stayed totally away from that narrative, and used the stories as not just a way to understand nature, or to look at the mistakes our ancestors had made, but to find really positive pearls of wisdom about good stewardship of our environment. And then we would put a footnote in

she’d tried that with a Christmas elf. “That didn’t help. It grinned at me the whole way through!”

Virtual or otherwise, stories do carry the power to change hearts. “A good story is one that connects you to your courage. It’s personal,” says Galbraith.

She concludes our chat by recalling a quote, attributed to Albert Einstein, that goes some way in defending folklore’s place in discussions of science: “If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairytales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairytales.”

Our Green Futures launches on 22 Mar, part of Glasgow Science Centre’s Our World, Our Impact programme The Folklore Futures videos will be released online on 13, 14, 20 & 21 March – find out more on the Glasgow Science Centre socials @gsc1 glasgowsciencecentre.org/discover/our-world-our-impact

THE SKINNY

Crystal Bowls Food & Drink

Twelve months into the pandemic, it’s time to start looking forward at what the future may hold in store for Scotland’s food and drink scene Interview: Peter Simpson Illustration: AJ Higgins

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from small businesses, resulting from desperation to survive, to continue as I feel some really great concepts have emerged from this pandemic. It’s a good reminder for all businesses to keep egos in check and realise how success can flail at the flip of a coin.”

Jamila and Natasha Ishaq, The Good Store The Good Store is an independent, organic, packaging-free grocery store in Edinburgh.

“The future of food and drink is looking promising. People in Scotland are more aware of environmental factors, what they are eating and ultimately what is in their food, and so we think we will see a spike in the organic, locally grown and seasonal food market. Also, being able to have a wider variety online will give people the option of healthy food at their fingertips!

“Once the pandemic has shifted and we have a little more freedom, it would be wonderful to see people continuing to shop local, this has kept local high streets going throughout and it would be encouraging to see that loyalty continue.

“The future of The Good Store has always been the same, world domination... On a serious note, we would like to see more people shop sustainably and connecting with their food. In order for them to do that it has to be convenient, which means... more Good Stores!!!”

Gregor Forrest, Rafa’s Diner Rafa’s is an Arizonastyle Mexican diner in the Hidden Lane in Finnieston, Glasgow. It opened its doors in mid-2020.

“We started in the middle of the pandemic but we are very fortunate to be able to operate as a takeaway during these different times. With restrictions in place we have had to reduce the menu but we are very grateful that our client base in Glasgow has continued to support us.

“I think the future is bright for Rafa’s. With the vaccine rolling out and the hopeful return to normality in sight, we can expect big things for Mexican food in Glasgow this summer. We’re in the final motions to secure a permanent pitch for our food truck which will host a smaller menu... we are also going to be doing pop-ups throughout the summer nights at friends of Rafa’s, The Cheesy Toast Shack’s location on the beach in St Andrews!

“It’s been a rough start for Rafa’s this year but if we can endure COVID-19 then I’m sure there are only better things to come.”

Robi Lambie, Cairngorm Coffee Cairngorm operates a pair of cafes in Edinburgh, as well as roasting coffee beans for retail and wholesale.

“Food and drink in Scotland is absolutely going to see a culture shift as far as I’m concerned. In the near-future operators are going to have to increase their pricing to work within a model that is based on lower traffic due to distancing rules, which in turn could make nipping out for coffee more of a luxury for most people. I feel it’s very important because of this that cafes and restaurants work towards a renewed goal of their destinations being more of an experience.

“I would love for the ingenuity that has come

Shaun McCarron, The Little Chartroom The Little Chartroom is a critically-acclaimed bistro in Leith; during the pandemic, the Chartroom opened a takeaway mini-restaurant on Portobello Promenade and offered finish-at-home delivery meals.

“Come summer, hopefully more people will be vaccinated, the weather will be better, and fingers crossed we can open indoors (with restrictions). I think people are gonna be itching to get back out there into social environments.

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“We’re going to continue the at-home meals; we’ve delivered to so many young parents who can’t get babysitters, so it’s a good option for them as opposed to a usual takeout. People being outside is a big one; two years ago you would not have seen Portobello prom as busy as it is now… it’s quite nice being in outdoor spaces [and] I wonder if that will be a thing that people continue to do, getting good food on the go, and using outdoor spaces more generally.

“Drawing positives from the past 12 months, quite a few chefs broke out on their own out of boredom, almost, and because there were opportunities out there, and people have absolutely gone for it. There’s gonna be sites coming up for a bargain, and I can’t wait to see younger chefs and bartenders open up some new concepts and put a new spin on those spaces. This whole thing is crap, but there are so many good things to draw from it.” thegoodstore.scot cairngorm.coffee rafasdiner.com thelittlechartroom.com Some answers edited for space and clarity; read an extended version of this article at theskinny.co.uk/food

March 2021 — Review

fter multiple lockdowns, numerous interior redesigns and at least one enormous snowstorm, your favourite food and drink places finally have a date for the diary. At the time of writing, the plan is for Scotland’s pubs, cafes and restaurants to re-open some time after 26 April. Possibly.

That’s the short-term, but what does the longer-term hold? We asked a host of folk from across the Scottish food and drink spectrum for their take on what the future of food in Scotland might look like.

THE SKINNY

Books

Book Reviews

The Office of Historical Corrections

Acts of Desperation

The Manningtree Witches

Kitchenly 434

By Danielle Evans

By Megan Nolan

By AK Blakemore

By Alan Warner

The Office of Historical Corrections is a brilliant, witty collection of six short stories and novella in which Danielle Evans provides insights into human relationships through an exploration of issues of race, culture, identity and American history.

Offering a blisteringly honest perspective on the human condition, her prose is complex and accomplished – each story, no matter how short, overflows with a rich plot, well-developed characters and at least one gut-punching moment that catches the reader off-guard. Honing in on particular moments in her characters’ lives, she asks her readers to reflect upon larger issues that affect Black and multiracial people, and asks her readers to consider how history influences us both personally and collectively.

With each new narrator comes a distinctly unique voice, each story working together to explore themes of love, friendship, romance and grief in a way that is both haunting and, at times, hilariously relatable. From the eye-opening title novella, exploring the cost of setting the record straight, to the incredibly timely Boys Go to Jupiter in which a white college student is embroiled in scandal after a photo of her posing in a Confederate flag bikini appears online, each story is as autonomous as it is an integral cog in Evans’ colourful narrative machine. If you are not already a lover of short stories, this could very well be the book to change your mind.

[Kerri Logan]

When Acts of Desperation’s unnamed narrator meets the cool, enigmatic Ciaran at an art gallery, she is immediately, irrevocably enamoured, her overwhelming desire given a forensic, studied attention that sits at odds with its sweeping tenderness. Yet this latent tension, between stinging introspection and mundane meet-cute, sets the scene for a profoundly unromantic romance, a study of a relationship that calls into question the inescapably fraught politics of love between men and women.

Nolan observes the unspoken power dynamics that characterise such relationships with a precision that is almost brutal. Yet what makes Acts of Desperation so remarkable is the emphasis Nolan maintains on her protagonist’s rich and considered interiority, transforming what could easily be a voyeuristic examination of emotional abuse into a stunning mediation on the ways in which society moulds female desire into a desperate, self-destructive animal. As the unnamed narrator looks back on Ciaran’s increasingly controlling behaviour with a detached, bewildered shame, Nolan eschews a focus on his chilling behaviour for a sustained exploration of what drove her protagonist’s need to stay.

The result is a heart-wrenching indictment of the gendered conditions that enable such relationships, an unforgettable theorisation of female heterosexual desire and its inextricability from male violence. Lyrical and raw, Acts of Desperation is a vital intervention into the genre.

[Anahit Behrooz]

Think of witch trials and Salem will come to mind; perhaps Pendle too.

Many, though, will be unfamiliar with Manningtree, part of the East Anglian Witch Trials, where in 1643 it’s believed 300 women were accused of witchcraft. With her first novel, AK Blakemore writes these women back into history, fleshing them out with skill and empathy.

A poet by trade, it most certainly shows in all the right ways. When we meet the townsfolk in Essex, we see their teeth stained from tobaccochewing, sporting necks like ‘fat hog’s wattles, baggy and discoloured and appalling’. We breathe in the air, filled with fear and the ‘foul blasts from chimneys’, ‘sour with the smack of horse dung’.

The filth and reality of Manningtree are captured through the eyes of Rebecca. She’s the pox-scarred daughter of infamous local Bedlam West, living in everyday drudgery. By all respects Rebecca is an innocent; yet to be innocent of witchcraft is all but impossible if you are a woman. Under the suspicious eye of Matthew Hopkins, the selftitled Witchfinder General, all women, especially those on the margins of society, are subject to his unchecked power. After a child falls ill, whispers of covens and pacts are weaponised against them. Blakemore does a service in telling a story not widely known, giving voice to the women who were silenced and slaughtered. A bold and poetic debut [Julie Vuong]

Every morning, in a sprawling Tudorbethan mansion – a 20thcentury style that, as its name suggests, combines Tudor and Elizabethan architectural features – Crofton Park wakes up to a Mickey Mouse alarm clock. Crofton is not the owner of Kitchenly Mill Race, this monstrosity of a house; rather he is its butler, a revered position that is, to him anyway, not the same as being the help. Crofton’s boss and Kitchenly’s owner is Marko Morrell, guitarist in the biggest rock band on the planet. On tour or else crashing at one of his numerous pads around the country, Morrell is mostly absent from Kitchenly, leaving Crofton the man of the house.

Buoyed by insufferable self-importance, Crofton maintains Kitchenly, a place so remote that ‘70s England barely gets through its padlocked gates, moat and acres of sparse Sussex land. Life is as Crofton likes it – stagnant, comfortable, organised – until one night, two local teenage girls clutching Morrell’s records come calling to the house.

Kitchenly 434 is narrated by Crofton, a lonely man who hides his northern roots with snobbery by proxy. Through the butler’s narration, Alan Warner displays his unique talent for voice, simultaneously relishing in – and satirising – the subgenre of the English country house novel. Kitchenly 434 is a biting, relentless and subtle deconstruction of a particularly English sensibility and a particularly masculine delusion.

As funny as it is disturbing, this is Warner on top form. [Katie Goh]

Picador, 4 Mar, £14.99

Jonathan Cape, 4 Mar, £14.99

Granta, 4 Mar, £12.99

White Rabbit Books, 18 Mar, £18.99

panmacmillan.com

penguin.co.uk

granta.com

whiterabbitbooks.co.uk

March 2021 — Review

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THE SKINNY

ICYMI

Former Scottish Comedian of the Year Rosco McClelland takes on Back of the Y, New Zealand’s absurd and raucous answer to Jackass Illustration: Jonny Mowat

Comedy

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embarked on a nationwide tour and had two albums get top 30 spots in the New Zealand charts.

We cut to check in on the Back of the Y main event of the evening. New Zealand’s greatest stuntman, Randy Campbell, and his crew are getting ready for an incredible finale in which Randy is going to jump a car and an angry monkey on a BMX. Before you can digest that scenario, we’re thrown straight into a pastiche of the show COPS where an Auckland police officer is attempting to crack down on drink-driving by stealing a guy’s beer for himself. It ends badly!

The first few minutes of the show sets a marker for everything else to come. This isn’t highbrow entertainment, but it doesn’t care. It’s young people with a contempt for authority sticking a middle finger up to every other lame duck show on TV. But if you think it’s just violence, explosions and toilet humour you’d be doing the creators a massive disservice.

There’s subtlety under the surface in the showpiece sketches, none more-so than Vaseline Warriors IV. It’s set in a dystopian future where all females no longer exist, leaving men to battle over the last precious resources of porn mags and Vaseline. It could just be a five-minute-long masturbation joke, but I see a deep dive about loneliness and desperation in the psyche of a young single male.

Back of the Y was a forerunner of punk TV. With advancements in technology, anybody can create and edit videos from their smartphone, but these pioneers were doing it with VHS cameras, cardboard props and no experience. Nobody cared about that fresco of Jesus until an elderly parishioner attempted to fix it. It’s not perfect or pretty, it’s the chaos in the art which makes it so great!

Follow Rosco on Twitter @rossisacoolguy on Twitter Watch his nightly Twitch show 12.30am-2am on twitch.tv/rosco Watch Back of the Y at youtube.com/backoftheytv

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March 2021 — Review

et me preface this review by firstly saying that I am not a great writer. I’m always in awe of comedians who can write a beautifully crafted joke. It’s a skill I just don’t have, and I’m happy to admit that. So I knew I was watching something made for me when I heard the host of this show, Danny Parker, proclaim: “This will be our first-ever clean show, because this weekend I found God. I found him on the toilet having a wank.”

Perfection.

Back of the Y first aired on TVNZ 2 in 2001, but had been quietly gaining an underground following on Auckland public access TV long before that. Each episode is a low-budget, action-packed 30-minute thrill ride based around stunts and toilet humour. It shares a lot of DNA with its well-known American counterpart Jackass, but in my opinion Back of the Y is so much more. Make no mistake about it, this show is crap.

But that’s exactly what creators Matt Heath, Chris Stapp and Phillip Bruff were going for.

It used to be that only big studios could afford to make TV shows because they were the ones with the equipment, but this show exists at the dawn of a new era. Cameras and editing software became available to the wider public – now any idiot group of friends with a little technological know-how could make their version of what they wanted to see, and the world is richer for it.

Episode 1 begins with the sound of crunching, distorted guitar overdubbed with the following: “In 1974 Phillip Bruff had a dream, an idea that was daring and unprecedented in New Zealand television history. His dream? To make a New Zealand television series that wasn’t complete shit... He failed miserably.” It’s the sort of intro that lets you know that this is going to be anything but boring.

Studio host Parker enters to the rapturous applause of old Jerry Springer audience cutaway footage and introduces fictional house rock band Deja Voodoo. Such is the nature of a cult show like this, Deja Voodoo (despite being a fictional band who would mime for ten seconds at the start of each episode)

THE SKINNY

The Skinny On...

The Skinny On...

Adura Onashile As Adura Onashile’s short film Expensive Shit arrives in film festival programmes this month, we quiz her about dream dinner guests and memories of the before times

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dura Onashile’s short film Expensive Shit gets quite the airing in March. The project started life as a theatre production at Edinburgh’s Fringe in 2016, where it won a Fringe First award, and takes us inside a Glasgow nightclub to tell the story of a Nigerian toilet attendant who has an extremely tough decision to make. Onashile adapted the play for the screen, and the resulting short film is playing as part of Glasgow Film Festival’s Welcome To strand, which shines a light on Black Scottish stories past and present. Later in the

month, the film will be found in the Glasgow Short Film Festival programme, where it’ll be fighting it out with other fresh homegrown work in the festival’s annual Scottish Short Film Competition.

Ahead of these screenings, Onashile lets us in on some of the burning questions of the day in The Skinny’s Q&A. What’s your favourite place to visit and why?

Lagos. Every time I visit the city feels transformed, endlessly evolving. It’s

huge, sprawling and mad and extreme, teeming with life, possibility and danger. There is definitely a sense of being on the edge when I’m there and that feels so rich in terms of creativity, possibility and just sheer aliveness.

Favourite colour and why?

Blue/Indigo. I feel like the colour was around me a lot growing up, in batiks and artworks. It can feel really rich and full of depth but also there is a sensuality to it.

Photo: Murdo Macleod

Who was your hero growing up?

My uncle. He passed recently from COVID-19. But he embodied everything I hold dear – integrity, passion, style, humour, risk-taking. He made me care about the world and about trying to make it better. He was a sociologist and for most of his life had this unwavering faith in humanity.

March 2021 — Chat

Whose work inspires you now?

Right now – Arthur Jafa, Christina Sharpe, Lorna Simpson.

What’s your favourite food to cook?

To cook – anything with chorizo. But to eat – pounded yam and egusi stew.

What three people would you invite to your dinner party and what are you cooking?

Gary Younge, Zadie Smith and Steve McQueen. And I’m cooking anything with chorizo and lots of wine.

Butler, having never read her and feeling major fomo.

Who’s the worst?

Toddlers. So self-obsessed!

When did you last cry?

A couple of days ago, in the middle of the night; missed something or someone, couldn’t really put my finger on it.

What are you most scared of?

Insanity.

When did you last vomit and why?

Food poisoning, a while back now.

Tell us a secret?

I find goodbyes awkward. Any goodbyes: phone calls, at the grocers, close friends, all of it. We should just be able to walk away silently.

Which celebrity could you take in a fight?

Drake.

If you could be reincarnated as an animal, which animal would it be?

An eagle.

What do you miss most from the before times (i.e. pre-COVID)?

Beer gardens. Summer.

What song can’t you wait to hear played loud on a club’s soundsystem in the after times?

Gold Dust by DJ Fresh.

What’s your all-time favourite album?

Kind of Blue by Miles Davis.

What’s the worst film you’ve ever seen?

Oceans 13. What a wasted opportunity.

Expensive Shit plays online as part of Glasgow Film Festival’s Welcome To programme, screening 5-8 Mar; for more details and tickets, head to glasgowfilm.org/ glasgow-film-festival/shows/expensive-shit

What book would you take to a protracted period of governmentenforced isolation?

The complete works of Octavia

Expensive Shit also screens in the Scottish Competition at Glasgow Short Film Festival; screening dates announced 10 Mar; for details, head to glasgowshort.org

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THE SKINNY

October 2020

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March 2021 — Chat

The Skinny On...

THE SKINNY

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