The List Issue 766

FRONT

Nish

EAT

Mark

the horrible stuff out of the way first. As we move into the dark days of November, it’s appalling to think that the lights have gone out (maybe for good, but hopefully not) at the Filmhouses in both Edinburgh and Aberdeen, at tEdinburgh International Film Festival, and over at Scottish National Gallery Of Modern Art Two while Dance Base is being forced to take action in order to secure its long-term future. There are a lot of fingers being pointed at the moment and answers are rightly being demanded as to why all this cultural vandalism has occurred, but for now, we can only hope that energy and resources are being gathered up to get those vital operations back up and running in some form.

Thankfully, there’s still plenty of arts and culture going on as we race towards the end of a very dramatic 2022. Everyone needs a laugh right now, don’t they? With that in mind, we commissioned one of the nation’s finest stand-ups (and bread-roll magnet) Nish Kumar to interview his horror hero Garth Marenghi, the maestro of terror who won the Perrier Award back in 2001 and is back with a new novel that promises to be quite scary. We also took a trip to Dundee for an afternoon in the company of Andrew Wasylyk, the innovative composer and musician who told us why that city has had such a powerful impact on his work. And there’s our cover star Sudan Archives who reveals all about the Celtic fiddle music that set this self-taught violinist on the long road to R&B and electronica glory.

What else? Oh, just some interviews with Alex Kapranos, Sigourney Weaver, Melvin Burgess, Deborah Colker and Mark Cousins, while UK sax legend Courtney Pine takes on our back-page Q&A. We also cast our critical opinions upon not one but two Cormac McCarthy novels, the Matilda The Musical film, Edinburgh’s newest vegan restaurant, a small-screen version of DangerousLiaisons, Rona Munro’s latest instalment of herJames Plays, and new albums by Weyes Blood and Christine And The Queens. Among all the doom and gloom surrounding the wider arts community, it’s our responsibility to keep the positivity up and continue shouting about what’s great and important across the cultural terrain. There’s still a lot to be excited about.

Brian Donaldson EDITOR

CONTRIBUTORS

PUBLISHING CEO Sheri Friers Editor Brian Donaldson Art Director Seonaid Rafferty Designer Carys Tennant

Sub Editors Paul McLean Megan Merino

Writers

Alan Bett, Becca Inglis, Brian Donaldson, Claire Sawers, David Kirkwood, Donald Reid, Eddie Harrison, Emma Simmonds, Ewan Wood, Fiona Shepherd, Gemma Murphy, James Mottram, Jay Thundercliffe, Katherine McLaughlin, Kelly Apter, Kevin Fullerton, Leah Bauer, Lucy Ribchester, Megan Merino, Murray Robertson, Neil Cooper, Nish Kumar, Peter Ross, Rachel Ashenden, Sharon Black, Suzy Pope, Xuanlin Tham

Media and Content Editor Megan Merino

Business Development Manager Jayne Atkinson

Manager Kevin Fullerton

Sales Executive Ewan Wood

Executive Leah Bauer

MOUTHPIECE

Lamenting Edinburgh International Film Festival’s collapse and the Filmhouse closures, arts journalist Eddie Harrison calls for a rethink on how such ventures are funded

Few will have heard of the CMI aka Centre For The Moving Image. The CMI’s big splash was intended to be a flagship building in Edinburgh, which is now unlikely to be constructed. A registered charity, the CMI has received public funding via Creative Scotland amounting to over £6.5m since 2020 to run two cinemas (Filmhouse in Edinburgh and Belmont Filmhouse in Aberdeen) plus the Edinburgh International Film Festival. In September 2022, they filed for administration as an ‘unsustainable business’, blaming a ‘perfect storm’ of unfavourable conditions.

If £6.5m won’t pay for these ventures over a period where the halls were largely closed and the festival non-operational, then what sum could ever be enough? Money is only part of the issue; financing cinemas as charities essentially changes their function as businesses, putting them on public-funding life support.

If Scotland’s non-chain cinemas are dependent on public subsidy or in-kind support, then that backing constantly needs to increase as box-office takings dwindle. Maintaining a firm connection with paying punters rarely seems central to the ongoing financial strategy. Cinema is hurting globally right now, and Scotland’s current system is in grave danger when fiscal belts are tightened and the public money fountain is potentially shut off. As

always, there are precious few managerial talents with the business acumen to actually make a profit or sustain a bottom line. There’s scant accountability about the cash flung around in Scottish film generally, but over the last two decades the results show favoured companies existing on handouts then going bust when the funding dries up. That the EIFF copped an extra £270,000 to ‘contribute to building longer-term resilience’ just five months before going into administration created justified anger, as BFI CEO Ben Roberts found out when he recently tweeted about being unable to intervene in the EIFF collapse.

If the existing charity finance model hasn’t worked, we need a fresh perspective on locally run cinemas, managed by people who can attract audiences and meaningful commercial sponsorship. Taking cash from Netflix and others to run the streamers’ films in empty auditoriums may offer cinemas a temporary financial lifeline, but it’s yet more empty subsidy calories; fatal in the longterm. Cinema globally has been rocked on its heels by a one-two combo of covid and streaming: unless there’s an organised attempt to roll with the punches, Scottish cinema could be one of the first to take a knockout blow.

 Eddie Harrison blogs about cinema at film-authority. com and can be found on Twitter @BirrellStuart1

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

Made me cry: The Alex G gig at Liquid Rooms recently. Not through emotion, but sheer decibel level as the sound of jangly indie shook my eyeballs in their sockets.

Made me angry: I assumed Blonde would be your average, dull biopic of a woman whose life we know little about. Instead, I was met with a tasteless skewing of the ‘Marilyn Monroe story’ and a myopic pro-life segment that makes the Twilight baby seem like a CGI cherub.

Made me sad: PurpleMountains, the final project from David Berman, is a devastatingly witty yet miserable record. His suicide a month after the album was released makes his jibes about loneliness and desperation that much sadder.

Made me think: Jean-Daniel Broussé’s (Le) PAIN show at the Edinburgh Fringe. If he could make bread while regaling his life story and hurling himself across his floured countertop, then so could I. Admittedly, I have yet to actually put my sourdough abilities to the test.

Made me think twice: The 1980s BBC TV film Threads, a documentary-style account of the effects of nuclear war. A truly harrowing watch that requires a shower afterwards to scrub away the grime, desolation and complete lack of hope that such a situation leaves you with.

my new hobby

Poet Sharon Black

the

Cheek puffs, burlesque pom-poms, explosions of fluff, Yetis in Uggs: these are just some of my flock’s characteristics. I never imagined myself a chicken lady but when I moved to the countryside, they were one of the first things I put in place. At first it was your regular farm chooks. When they got eaten by a fox, I built a better pen, burying the fencing just like the book said, and bought myself some fancies. At the moment I have 18 laydees, each more hilarious-looking than the last. I get between three and ten eggs a day depending on the season. Blue eggs from my Araucanas, chocolate-coloured from my Marans, tiny ones from my Pekin. I chicken-sit whenever they’re out. I write poems about them. Some even have walk-on parts in my latest collection. I wear the moniker with pride: the city girl has become a crazy chicken lady.

 Sharon Black launches The Last Woman Born On The Island at The Alchemy Experiment, Glasgow, Tuesday 1 November; sharonblack.co.uk

PHYSICAL MEDIA

Google is like a disinterested farmer, rearing a new invention on its humble plot of land only to grow bored and watch while it perishes in a vat of ambivalence. Such is the fate of Stadia, the company’s newly defunct cloud gaming experiment. So if you’re one of the platform’s customers, you’ll never get to play the games you paid for on the ephemeral service. Proof if it were ever needed that physical media needs to reign supreme once again.

NETFLIX AND KILL

Netflix has become expert in exploitative true crime, its homepage resembling an enthusiastic roll call of murderers burning in hell. But the misery peddlers have exceeded themselves with Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story, which revels in the speccy cannibal’s crimes like a slavering gorehound in an abattoir. Between this and their regular output of Adam Sandler comedies, the streaming giant is clearly aiming for the lucrative sociopath market.

Bring It Back Get It Gone

leaving Glasgow for rural France where she started raising chickens

STRING

R&B, rap and electronica meet in a genre-bending blaze of glory when Sudan Archives gets her hands on them. Fiona Shepherd talks to this self-taught violinist who was inspired by an Irish fiddle band and ditched an obvious route to fame for the greater musical good

We’ve all seen Lizzo, whipping out her flute and trilling away, just in case we were in any doubt of her evident talent. Well, Brittney Denise Parks (known to listeners of taste as Sudan Archives) sees that flute and raises the stakes with her violin. Neither instrument is especially rare in the pop field (think pastoral soul or disco strings) but it’s what these righteous R&B divas do with those signature instruments that distinguishes their music.

Like her idiosyncratic mix of hip hop, soul and electronica, Parks’ path to picking up the violin was unusual yet instinctive. As a child growing up in the US Midwest, she attended a number of different schools, landing in one particularly musical establishment in Wyoming.

There, she was struck by a visiting string band playing Irish fiddle music, an old tradition which sounded brand new to this curious fourth-grade student, witnessing the violin as a party instrument for the first time. ‘They were stomping their feet and dancing while performing,’ says Parks, imitating the sound of a jig. ‘They looked so cool I wanted to be like them, so I started

playing the violin and haven’t put it down since. Those are the people that inspired me, but once I picked it up I thought, “hmm, I can make it sound different”.’

The rigours of formal violin tuition were never for Parks, who remains entirely self-taught. Unfettered experimentation through her teens took a more professional shape when she left school and moved to Los Angeles, studying music technology at Pasadena City College. Applying her self-production skills to early solo gigs at the Low End Theory club night in East LA, she would layer and loop eclectic ideas, with her violin at the heart of the mix.

‘I like taking it and making it my own,’ she says. ‘I think starting off as a DIY musician and having to rely so heavily on my loop station definitely influenced me a lot as a producer, and influenced my creative process in writing this new album. The process is different with each song. Sometimes I’ll start with violin, sometimes I’m beating on it for percussion and I curate the melody on the violin around the song I’m making. Once I’ve laid that track, I’ll lay some bass on the next track, and then I’ll lay a longer string on the next track, then I might lay pizzicato on the next track . . . ’

Such is Parks’ manipulation of the instrument that some listeners have suggested they can’t actually hear the violin on her new album Natural Brown Prom Queen. Yet she clearly unleashes some of those Celtic party sounds on the track ‘TDLY (Homegrown Land)’, while her use of African drones on the fidgety hip-hop title track (main lyric: ‘I’m not average’) showcases the key influence of Sudanese playing traditions which she rooted out online over the years. That led to the nickname she adopted as her moniker.

‘It was really cool seeing violinists that looked like me,’ she says. ‘What inspired me most looking at the Sudanese culture was that they were very outside the box when they were playing the violin. Sometimes they were playing it kinda crazy and

wild, and sometimes I like to play my violin crazy and wild too.’ Like many musicians, the opportunity to cut loose on her instrument has kept Parks sane over the last two years, as has her self-contained home studio set-up, which even accelerated the production of Natural Brown Prom Queen

‘The album would have definitely come into fruition but maybe not as quickly if it weren’t for covid because I was literally locked in my basement,’ she recalls. ‘I had nowhere else to go; in LA everything was locked down. Covid influenced it a lot because there was so much going on that it made me write more, kind of like a therapeutic way of releasing the emotions I was feeling. It was really just me and my music in the basement every day so I felt like I was my own boss.’

Parks is in her self-sufficient element now, but this was not always the case. Encouraged by her stepfather, who worked at Atlanta R&B label LaFace Records, she and her twin sister Cat formed a pop duo, N2. But Parks, a self-confessed loner rebel, was uncomfortable with the contrived nature of that project. ‘I felt like I didn’t want my creativity to be limited to one specific genre just to aim for commercial success. I wanted to be able to make whatever music I wanted, however I wanted, and I felt at the time we were pushing to make pop music with the hope of being successful and popular. But I don’t really care about being popular; I just wanted to make music that felt good.’

Now, popularity has come to her. As Sudan Archives, Parks has released two EPs and her 2019 debut album Athena, all vibrant calling cards for her mix of Nubian hip hop and neoclassical influences. Athena was a conceptual collection, not unlike Janelle Monáe’s audacious debut The ArchAndroid. But for its follow-up, Parks wanted to drop the persona and produce something earthier and more personal.

‘I wanted to show people more sides of my personality. A lot of people don’t realise this, but I’m actually really goofy and silly. I like to goof around a lot, and on this album I also wanted

to showcase my family so people can relate to me more. It talks a lot about being homesick. I put a lot of my family on the album in different ways.’

An undulating piano interlude titled ‘Do Your Thing (Refreshing Springs)’ features a lovely sample of her mother encouraging her to ad lib (‘get up there and do your thing’), while the bassy cheerleading single ‘Selfish Soul’ explores self-image through the many styling options for Black women’s hair. The album title, meanwhile, is Parks reclaiming the high-school prom night she never had. ‘I didn’t go to prom because I didn’t fit in, and I didn’t feel like I had a prom date. So on NaturalBrownPromQueen I’m saying even if you never went to prom, even if you were never what you wanted to be, you can still achieve that in your own unique way.’

Sudan Archives plays SWG3, Glasgow, Sunday 20 November; Natural Brown Prom Queen is out now on Stones Throw Records.

don’t care about being popular ” “

welcome to the

TERROR

In the early 2000s, Channel 4 aired Darkplace, a seminal supernatural hospital-based drama that was the brainchild of author Garth Marenghi, the novelist (and 2001 Perrier Award winner) behind such smash hits as Slicer, Smasher and Afterbirth After decades of absence, Marenghi has returned with a new literary masterwork called TerrorTome Due to Nish Kumar’s publicly documented status as a ‘superfan’ of Marenghi (and a lack of qualified journalists due to the collapse in funding for print media) [ED: Nish, you may be writing this introduction in the third person, but that’s not funny], The List magazine arranged a Zoom call interview between the comedian and the author. The following has been edited for clarity and the removal of burps committed by both interviewer and interviewee . . .

Nish: I’m very happy to be doing this chat Garth, I’m a huge fan of your work, so let me start by asking: how are you?

Garth: I’m thriving, thanks for asking. How are you? In fact, before I ask that, who are you?

Nish: I’m Nish Kumar, a stand-up comedian and a huge fan of your work, which is why I’m very excited to be having this chat with you. So, in the intervening years since Channel 4 screened six episodes of your television show, what have you been up to?

Garth: Well, trying to locate the rest of it, to be frank. And dealing with lawsuits. I’ve also been learning Viking chess

and basic swordsmanship. I got separated from family and friends in the late 2000s, first at a funfair, then permanently after an explosive wedding ceremony (literally explosive) between my youngest daughter and her badly chosen suitor. But other than that, I’ve devoted my precious remaining energies to all manifestations of the literary fantastique.

Do you have a favourite of the six episodes that you were able to recover and were aired?

No, all were perfect. The one episode that did transcend all others, alas, is melted. Easily the most dangerous thing I’ve ever written. Physically dangerous, you understand, Nish. All we have left is in the title sequence, and if you watch closely, part of the exploding ambulance, which was meant to flip upside down, shot off into the sky and in fact almost brained the main lady actor while she was having a wee in the woods. Because our onset chemical toilet, unfortunately, had been blocked by Todd. And I can prove that too, because we accidentally had one of the cameras rolling while he went. Anyway the lady actor, Madeleine, was nearly brained, and remained traumatised and terrified for the rest of the shoot. With good reason because the near fatal accidents didn’t stop there.

While we’re on the subject: where is Madeleine Wool?

Well, I don’t know, I believe pieces of her were discovered under a car park in Milan, of all places. But, unfortunately, at almost exactly the same time as she was found, pieces of Richard III were found beneath a car park in Leicester, which took some shine off the story sadly, and effectively nixed the exhumation.

Well, Garth, now you’re back with your new novel, . What can you tell us about the plot?

Nothing whatsoever. There’s an old writer’s adage, you won’t be aware of this Nish, which says: show, don’t tell. So I will show you the plot, but I won’t tell you the plot.

OK, would you like to show me the plot now? [At this point Marenghi holds up the book to the laptop

That’s very much the cover and the inside of the book . . . so, you started as a novel writer and by some estimates you’ve written 436 of them. Then you moved into television: what do you consider to be the principal differences between writing a novel and writing for television?

Physical combat mainly. Writing is a lonely path and intentionally so. TV writing involves what people generally refer to as ‘discussion’ but which I prefer to call ‘unnecessary compromise’. I refuse to debate or dumb down the visceral potency of my visions with producers or channels, and I will resort to violence if remotely challenged. So that’s the main

Let’s talk about the specifics of your process because I know people will be curious. How do you write?

Conventionally, with either a pen or typewriter, but always hands. I would use a Dictaphone but I generally end up throwing those at people so I’ve learned to just cross that out and move straight to the pen or the typewriter.

Nish: And is there an optimum time of day to write?

Garth: When I get up. I do dream a lot, but it’s quite difficult to actually turn those dreams into fiction, unless you’re awake. So that’s the crucial moment: waking and becoming sentient as a human being, in order to function and do your appointed task.

Nish: So hopefully one day there’ll be a way for you to directly transcribe the dreams that you have.

Garth: Yes, and that is actually a constant quest of mine and often comes out in my fiction. But yes, that would be ideal if we could just plug directly into my brain. You’ll understand this when you read tome one of the books. It’s three tomes.

Nish: What would you say, in your opinion, is the scariest word?

Garth: Salamander.

Nish: Were there others you considered when you came to that conclusion?

Garth: Well, you wanted the scariest, and the scariest is salamander. My vision of what salamander represents may differ to yours.

Nish: I’m a conventionally minded individual Garth, so when you say salamander to me, all it conjures up is the animal: what does it mean to you?

Garth: Well, I would say I glimpsed the face of god at one point. I’ve spent a lot of time in the darkness in the last decade or two; not literally, I’m not a spelunker but I have been into the figurative darkness, and I have met the cosmic god that, I think, doesn’t really bind us but tears the universe asunder. And its face was partly mine, but mainly salamander. So that, for me, is the most frightening word.

Nish: Where in the darkness did you encounter the face of god?

Garth: The darkness goes within all of us Nish. I had to turn inward to find it. As I say, I’ve had quite a traumatic time, personally, privately. Not as a writer, I never have trouble as a writer. But certainly it’s been a difficult time. And I’ve had to learn to accept my daughter’s betrothed. Have I learned to accept it? I don’t know. But I have had to at least consider the possibility that he will be part of my family in years to come. And when you’re thinking things like that you’re faced with some pretty grim realities. And I turned inward. And I glimpsed the face of a very dark cosmic god: part me, part salamander.

Nish: And are you and your daughter currently on speaking terms?

Garth: I wouldn’t say speaking terms, we’re on signalling terms. Generally we communicate with flags.

Nish: Garth, how would you describe the genre in which you operate?

Garth: Hor-rotica. The Latin for which is Hor-rotica.

Nish: And this book is being published on November 3rd. It feels logical to have released a horror novel on Halloween. I understand that the delay was the result of an argument with your editor. Can you give me any of the specifics of this argument?

Garth: That’s pish Nish. There was no argument. I disagreed and prevailed.

Nish: And your editor has now caved into your demands.

Garth: If you want the sordid details, here they are: I called him an arsehole, then tore up his notes, which I had previously used to mop up human spillage, and sent him stooping into the night. Two days later, my preferred vision of the text was restored. There was never any argument.

Nish: And are you and your editor on speaking or indeed on signalling terms?

Garth: In all honesty, we’re not quite at flags yet. We’re probably on smoke signals. I will generally rage and storm, and I’ll get my PA to convey that via telephonic means or whatever. I don’t really use email that much, not that I don’t understand it; well, mainly because I don’t understand it. But I prefer to use telephones or smoke signals.

Nish: Do you own a mobile phone, Garth?

Garth: I own an old Nokia.

Nish: And that’s your main means of communication?

Garth: Yep. Or fax.

Nish: You’re still using fax?

Garth: Yep. This [gestures to computer] is my daughter’s. She’s not in the house today, but she’d rigged me up with this thing here, which I don’t really approve of. I don’t approve of Zoom. I don’t approve of letting anyone into where I write. That’s really why I’m here, because I don’t write here. This is my daughter’s house.

Nish: Is this the daughter you’re on flag terms with?

Garth: Oh god, no, I won’t talk to her. No, this is my other daughter.

Nish: So this is volume one of three, and something you’ve pulled from your archive, from a long-lost epic?

Garth: Yes, they’ve been written at various points over the last decade or two. Technically they were never lost to me, only to mankind.

If publishers had heeded my warnings and printed my visions when prompted, none of the issues in this world would exist. Mankind would have evolved and shamans like myself

publish this?

Garth: In all honesty, I met Ken Hodder at a horror writers convention curry, and he had agreed to read my latest manuscript in exchange for a bhuna. So that’s really what brought it about.

Nish: Can we expect the rest of them anytime soon?

Garth: Well, you can expect anything Nish, that’s your prerogative as a human being. Whether you receive what you expect, well that’s another matter, and largely dependent on financial remuneration. In which case, hopefully next year.

Nish: You’ve said that you saw a lot of the problems in the world coming. In which case, as a final question, what do you see coming for us and do you feel optimistic for us as a species?

Garth: TerrorTome is coming next for us, and so yes, I do feel optimistic for the species.

Nish: That’s a perfect place to round things off. Thank you for taking the time to speak to me.

Garth: And it’s Nish, is it?

Nish: Yes, Nish.

Garth: Well, thank me, mainly. But I guess thank you for doing this but mainly thank me. The onus is really on you to thank me.

Nish: And that’s an onus I fully accept.

Garth: You may have thanked me before I said that, in which case . . . well, I generally as a rule don’t apologise, so I won’t apologise for that. You may have said it, and I don’t really make mistakes but I may have inadvertently failed to heed your commentary upon this. Anyway, this is about done timewise, isn’t it? I’ve got a steak in the oven.

Nish: Yes, we’re done, thank you Garth.

Garth Marenghi’s TerrorTome is published by Hodder Studio on Thursday 3 November; Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace is available on All 4 (if you dare); Nish Kumar is a stand-up comedian and will be on a stage or on the telly soon no doubt.

TEN CLASSIC NIGHTS IN OR OUT UP FOR GRABS

To celebrate their 125th anniversary this year and their classic Speyside whisky, Glen Moray is offering 10 lucky readers the chance to win a bottle of their much-loved single malt and a £100 gift card to spend on a classic night in, or out, on them.

In this one-off giveaway, winners can choose between a £100 Dining Out gift card, which can be used in a multitude of UK pubs and restaurants, or a £100 Regency Hampers gift voucher to enjoy indoors with family and friends. Each winner will also receive a

bottle of Glen Moray Classic Scotch Whisky, the ideal spirit for both whisky fans and newcomers, which is aged for seven years in ex-bourbon casks.

Crafted since 1897 in Speyside, knowledge and craftsmanship has developed at Glen Moray through generations of distillers, resulting in today’s exceptional range of whiskies with a style to suit everyone.

For your chance to win, head to list.co.uk/offers.

As he prepares to release a new album and celebrates a SAY Award nomination for his last one, Andrew Wasylyk chats with fellow Dundonian Kevin Fullerton about nature, collaboration and the unique pull of their home city

Dundee is rarely associated with transcendental beauty, its post-industrial architecture and the many shuttered windows on its high street giving it a ragged edge. But the prodigious multi-instrumentalist Andrew Wasylyk, who’s lived in the city his entire life, has forged a solo career which mines a unique romanticism from its locations. In doing so, he joins artists like SHHE in attaching mercurial and mystical soundscapes to its parks, buildings and burghs.

When we meet at a small café ten minutes from Balgay, the trigger for his Scottish Album Of The Year Award-nominated Balgay Hill: Morning In Magnolia, he describes the inspiration he finds in Dundee. ‘It feels like a healthy place for me to come back and work. It just feels like a good place to look at the world. What can I say? It’s home.’

When lockdown hit, Balgay was more than a place to exercise for Wasylyk. It was a lifeline and a source of creative potential. This picturesque park in Dundee’s west end contains a graveyard, an observatory, several play areas, and vast stretches of parkland, proving itself amenable to the vast canvas of a concept album. From the noirish saxophones of ‘Western Necropolis Twilight’ to the melancholic calm of ‘Blossomlessness #2’ or the ethereal wooziness of ‘Observatory In Bloom’, the album’s constantly shifting vignettes address the complexity of a space which contains centuries of history.

‘The album started with “just get out of the house, get out of your own head and into that medicinal green space”. It seemed like the more time I spent there, the more things were surfacing, from the history of the observatory to the Windy Glack used by smugglers, to the actual layout of the park itself being inspired by Père Lachaise, the famous Parisian garden cemetery where so many incredible writers, artists and musicians are buried. I was drawn to that idea of a little pocket of Paris in Dundee.’

Beyond its historical and topographical interest, Balgay holds a personal resonance for Wasylyk. ‘I have family in Balgay’s Western Acropolis cemetery. There are great grandparents on my mother’s side, the Mitchells, and my grandfather and grandmother on the Wasylyk side. So, there’s a lot of personal history in there as well. I think it’s inevitable that memories permeate your perception.’

Although Dundee has provided a rich creative impetus for Wasylyk’s blend of ambient jazz, his latest album Hearing The Water Before Seeing The Falls draws on very different influences, stemming from a commissioned response to Thomas Joshua Cooper’s The World’s Edge exhibition at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery. After exploring the work further through conversations with Cooper himself, Wasylyk found his original concept evolving and new ideas emerging in folklore and floral symbols. This idea gained more traction after reading Derek Jarman’s Modern Nature, in which a natural world the director cultivated in his garden bristled against the

nuclear power plant located nearby. It’s an album which lives in the same enveloping sonic landscape of Balgay, revelling in the sheer poetic beauty of its compositions, and featuring contributions from Pete Harvey, Alabaster DePlume and Rachel Simpson.

Beyond his solo projects, Wasylyk has delved back into the rock world for the first time since he was frontman for mid-2000s cult indie rockers The Hazey Janes, becoming a touring member of Idlewild and watching as audiences revelled in the nostalgia and elation of ‘Love Steals Us From Loneliness’ or ‘American English’. ‘It’s such a deep privilege to be able to help share that with such an incredible fanbase. It feels like I’m a custodian in the role for the time being. We’ve been to Japan and America and created some memories that’ll never fade.’

Despite several SAY Award nominations, numerous collaborations, regular songwriting residencies and an association with one of Scotland’s most critically acclaimed indie bands, there’s an unassuming quality to Wasylyk that belies his incredible talent; his demeanour is one of complete gratitude that anyone might want to team up with him.

‘Collaborating’s got so many health benefits. If someone wants to work with me, it always comes as a bit of a shock. I’m not quite sure how to deal with it, other than being utterly humbled. I’m ensconced in my own world half the time just building ideas up from scratch in the studio alone; I think it’s important to put your head out the window and remember that there’s a world out there and that there are other folk doing really brilliant things. It’s important to feel that rippling effect.’

Hearing The Water Before Seeing The Falls is released on Clay Pipe Records, Friday 25 November; Andrew Wasylyk plays CCA, Glasgow, Friday 16 December.

Banding together: (from top) Andrew Wasylyk (always to the left) with The Hazey Janes and Idlewild

PICTURE: FRASER

SIMPSON

eat drink shop

SWEETDRAM WILD ABSINTHE

Edinburgh’s botanical spirit specialists Sweetdram have released the first absinthe to come out of the capital. With sustainability high on the agenda, the drink is produced using hyper-local botanicals grown in their distillery garden in collaboration with Edinburgh-based Radicle Gardens. Seasonal additions include sea wormwood, wild fennel, horseradish leaf, eucalyptus, lemon verbena, and purple sage. At 46% ABV, it’s a tad more approachable than the once widely banned spirit, which could be as high as an alarming 74%. It’s also clear, rather than the classic green hue, and doesn’t require the traditional spoon and fiery sugar cubes. Sweetdram’s recommended serve is to simply pour over ice and swirl for a 1:1 ratio of absinthe to melted water. (Jay Thundercliffe) n sweetdram.com

Anyone interested in what’s moving and shaking on the Scottish restaurant scene should be following Dean Banks. This summer, he launched a third venue to complement his fine-dining operations in St Andrews and Edinburgh. Donald Reid caught up with him to talk about an ever-expanding empire

Dean Banks is a man with ambition. ‘From day one of opening Haar in 2019, the plan was to come into Edinburgh and open a fine-dining restaurant,’ he states. ‘That’s what led to Dean Banks At The Pompadour, with the vision to start creating experience-led dining in the city, obviously using the best of local produce, sustainability, all these beautiful things we have. We’re surrounded by this beautiful coastline and I think Scotland has a niche there, because as a small country we have locality built in. So, at Haar, the lobster comes from the harbour 100 metres down the road. Where I see the experience in the restaurants going is in the storytelling.’

As well as the focus on local produce, foraging also plays a key role on Banks’ menus. ‘In the past couple of years, I’ve seen restaurants like Fhior and L’Escargot Bleu with their own plots of land growing veg, which wasn’t a thing before. When I first started three or four years ago, I was foraging myself, but when we were busy I didn’t have time to do it. Now we have three or four foragers. I get a WhatsApp message with a list of ingredients, and it’s like doing an order to a wholesaler; that’s how cool it’s got.’

At the age of 21, Banks first worked as a chef in Edinburgh at The Balmoral’s Number One restaurant, which was a Michelinstarred venue alongside the city’s long-established ‘top trumps’, Tom Kitchin and Martin Wishart. Ten years on and he’ll admit that such awards are still attractive, but with three venues, further developments in the pipeline, and now 70 staff, the priorities have shifted.

‘Before this growth in the business, my goals were awards (Michelin star, four or five Rosettes), but as a business, revenue is obviously the biggest player. Awards are for Dan Ashmore [the group’s executive head chef] and the teams to drive for, and I push them. But my targets are to create more jobs, to create more business.’

He says his role has changed massively in the last 12 months with the opening of his latest venture in Edinburgh. ‘When things come up and I feel they’re right, I just go for it. With Dulse, when I walked in I thought, it’s the perfect fit, let’s do it. I wanted to have somewhere more relatable in the city, somewhere you could just come and have a glass of wine and a plate of oysters and spend £15. Dulse is somewhere I want to go as a customer to relax, be myself, kick back, and get messy with food.’

Since Ashmore has come on board, Banks has become more of a creative director rather than head chef or executive chef. ‘I’m still very much present in one of the restaurants each night but I’m also a man of many hats depending on which day of the week it is. For example, last week we’re doing a photo shoot for The Pomp and I’m stopping at the side of the road and grabbing moss off walls because I want the food to look a certain way. One image on Facebook or Instagram can create a lot of revenue for you. I really enjoy being creative. Creating a plate of food and designing it is the same as designing a restaurant, thinking about the flow of service and the experience. At the end of the day, food is fashion; you’ve got to remember that.’

Dulse, 17 Queensferry Street, Edinburgh, dulse.co.uk; Dean Banks At The Pompadour, Waldorf Astoria, Princes Street, Edinburgh, deanbanks.co.uk; Haar, 1 Golf Place, St Andrews, haarrestaurant.com

street food

ELEANORE

There’s no denying the romance at this spot for wine and nibbles by Edinburgh’s award-winning chef Roberta Hall-McCarron. A menu of small plates is focused on locally sourced seafood and each dish delivered as culinary art.

THE WALNUT

The best thing about The Walnut may be its set lunch and dinner menus, featuring fabulous Scottish produce like crispy venison, wild mushrooms and flaky coley. But there’s the added bonus of BYOB if you want to keep things on budget: a rarity for a restaurant of this quality.

BODEGA

With pale pink and tropical green decor, this Mexican restaurant is certainly photogenic inside. Tasty twists on soft tacos dominate the menu. Think buffalo sesame chicken with a dollop of blue cheese sauce, or tempura tiger prawns with a sweet chilli and soy dressing. The house cocktails deserve their own Insta page too.

GULP RAMEN

The noodles are handmade every day with flour sourced locally and from Japan, and you can taste it in every al dente bite. The signature tonkotsu ramen is rich and warming, perfect for a soggy Edinburgh day, and the veggie offering of silken tofu and shiitake broth doesn’t feel like an afterthought.

SPRY WINES

It’s a vision of minimalism inside, with pristine white walls, raw wood and a focus on the bottles upon bottles of naturally made wines. The small-plate menu won’t fill you up but hispi cabbage with a dusting of pistachio or cured mackerel with cherries and buttermilk are the perfect accompaniment to a crisp Chenin Blanc.

Not to be left out of the recent pizza flurry in Glasgow (see Farina review this issue and Nostrana in the previous mag), Edinburgh is set to welcome Homies Pizza, a new spot from the folks behind Butta Burger with their take on deep-dish US-style pizza. Also working the dough in the capital is the first non-London venue for Gordon Ramsay’s Street Pizza chain operation. The shouty Scotsman also made headlines recently with news of a joint Glasgow venture happening with Snoop Dogg (apparently he’s a big Celtic fan).

Other recent openings include Eve, an all-day diner within luxleaning operation Virgin Hotels Edinburgh. Diners can expect live entertainment amid original murals, and a menu of cocktails, burgers, bowls, and Scottish-inspired small and large plates. On the edge of town, Edinburgh Park is home to a new purpose-built setting for Patina, a restaurant, bakery and bar whose design plays on futuristic themes and influences from sci-fi movies such as Dune and Blade Runner

Signs that the economic crisis is biting can be seen in Glasgow with a number of closures in Dennistoun, including café Wild Flours East, who have shut up shop after only six months, citing growing costs that can’t be absorbed (the original Southside bakery remains open). Also closed nearby is Nico Simeone’s charitable set-up Beat 6, although there are unlaid plans for a new location. Dennistoun café Rawnchy also announced recently they are looking for a buyer for the six-yearold brunch and cake specialist.

dishes

Jay Thundercliffe reports on the latest news and openings as the pizza boom shows no sign of slowing down

We choose a street and tell you where to eat. Suzy Pope takes us on the second leg of her two-part exploration of Leith Walk, eating her way from Iona Street up to Elm Row

RESTAURANT FARINA

Within weeks of Baffo thanking its customers and calling time after six years in its Kelvingrove spot, Farina has taken its place, giving Glasgow yet another new Neapolitan pizza joint. But with the city’s pizza ranks swelling every single month, a wood-fired oven and saying ‘EVOO’ on the menu isn’t enough these days. At Farina, there are some lovely details and well-executed dishes that prop up the pizzas themselves.

First: they do pasta. And they do it really rather well. The carbonara, made with lean, smoky chunks of guanciale, and properly thick and chewy spaghetti, is a genuine standout dish. Then there are some nods towards Italian street food in starters like fritto misto or a deep-fried spaghetti cake which is either marvellously indulgent or entirely unnecessary, depending on your persuasion.

But the other real talking point is the margherita cornicione farcin, which the menu tells us is a first in Scotland. It’s a Neapolitan stuffed-crust pizza. You read correctly: through some sort of glorious gastronomical reverse osmosis, the American fast-food aberration has found occasional favour in Italy, where the crust is sliced opened and thin shreds of buffalo mozzarella and Parma ham are slid in. The result is kind of like a pizza with a piadina sandwich around the outside, and every bit as enjoyable as you’d expect with good quality ingredients. That and the deep-fried pasta are the playful elements, but the substance is ruling the style at Farina. It’s a happy addition to the West End. (David Kirkwood) n 1377 Argyle Street, Glasgow, farinaglasgow.com

RESTAURANT SEN VIET VEGAN RESTAURANT

The only branch apart from their London flagship, Sen Viet Vegan Restaurant in Tollcross shows that plant-based doesn’t have to lack depth or flavour. Hardwood floors, dark wood furniture and faux ivy frame the big windows, and the overall vibe is classy (bar the bright hot sauce and varying vegan condiments on each table).

To start, crispy Ha Long cakes are a vegan take on crab cakes from the Vietnamese bay city, and the texture of crab is replicated perfectly with a plant-based alternative. The peanut sauce is rich and moreish, while the zip and tingle of green papaya salad sings of beachside bars on the South China Sea.

There’s no chance of leaving hungry after mains. Hanoi caramelised banana and silken tofu come in stew form, slowcooked and served in a clay pot. Entire slices of ginger provide the kick, and the tofu, which can often risk blandness, is laden with flavour. But it’s the coconut curry that stands out, with sweet, nutty and sour layers, hearty potatoes and a delightful fruity snap to it.

The icing on the cake (or fresh coriander on the steaming bowl of pho) is the surprisingly eclectic wine list, where there’s a detour from Vietnam to Chile via Scotland for the Alba Santa Luz house red and white, plus a few Bulgarian options too.

Dessert of fried ice-cream (no, it’s not a Scottish invention) isn’t just a novelty: it’s crisp, creamy and sweet all in one. If it weren’t for the intimidating repetition of the term ‘wheat protein’ on the menu, carnivores probably wouldn’t even notice this place is fully vegan. (Suzy Pope)

n 23a Brougham Place, Edinburgh.

DRINK UP

In our regular drinks column, Kevin Fullerton tries a few tasty beverages and lets you know exactly what he thinks of them. This month we need to talk to Kevin about . . . pre-made cocktails

If you’re too lazy to put a couple of drinks in a glass and shake them about a bit, then pre-made cocktails will seem like alcoholic nirvana. And, like your red-faced uncle that the rest of the family are secretly concerned for, I’ve unearthed three of these A-grade cocktails for your consideration.

First stop on the Glug-Glug Express is Panther M*lk, an ethically sourced alcoholic mixture that gained fame when it appeared on Dragon’s Den. None of its ingredients come from an actual wild cat’s teat (a disappointment), but all are 100% vegan (a boon). It’s a smooth ride, yet hard to get over the feeling that it’s a wooze-inducing fad. If one were to compare it to other novelties, it’s better than a fidget spinner and only marginally worse than a Tamagotchi. At the age of six, I euthanised my Tamagotchi by smashing it repeatedly underneath a bedpost, listening as it slowly bleeped out of consciousness like the unhinged AI in 2001: A Space Odyssey. Decide accordingly if that makes you want to drink Panther M*lk more or less.

Beaming into my glass next is the Six Cylinder Cocktail from Mothership, a mixture of gins, liqueurs and martinis topped off with a ‘secret formula’. The marketing tagline on the bottle reads ‘super refined’, implying something both tasty and noxious enough to clean rusty pennies, but this 22.4% brown liquid isn’t forbidding. Its warming mixture is rich enough to fall into digestif territory, with a gorgeous syrupy consistency. I couldn’t think of a better tipple as the cold snap creeps in.

Finally, here’s Thornstar Of Bethlehem, a delightful offering from Buck & Birch as part of their Festive Selection Box. This one’s a combination of Amarosa rosehip liqueur, woodruff vodka, hawthorn blossom syrup, and sea buckthorn. There’s a nimbleness to this drink that’s simultaneously light and unafraid to pack a punch. Bethlehem? Mair like Bethleyum (sorry).

BAR FILES

The Sparkle Horse isn’t so much a pub as a mood. Tucked away just off Dumbarton Road, it’s home to Glasgow’s most miserable pub quiz, Glasgow’s goodest dogs, and many of Glasgow’s nicest people. It’s low-key with a lofi soundtrack; banter-bellowing stag dos, scarf-swinging football fans, and shots-chasing subway crawlers are politely but persuasively redirected to more appropriate establishments. The Sparkle is where I landed when I found myself lost and lonely in Glasgow after more than a decade away. It felt like a safe space when the world didn’t feel safe at all, and I love it dearly. It may not be a church, but it’s where I go to heal my hurts.

n Carrie Marshall’s Carrie Kills A Man is published by 404 Ink on Thursday 10 November.

We ask creative folks to reveal their favourite watering hole AUTHOR AND BROADCASTER CARRIE MARSHALL

Dapper Alice is a unique boutique focusing on bold and bright patterns that bring you into a design wonderland.

Artist and owner Megan Towndrow tells Gemma Murphy about her inspirational upbringing in a colourful home

PSYCHEDELIC SPURS

Megan Towndrow grew up in an eclectic and vibrant house with a mum whose deep love of psychedelic patterns was joyfully passed down. ‘My mum and dad were hippies, basically,’ Towndrow says while describing the whirl of wonderful art she was constantly surrounded by as a child. ‘I was born in the 70s and there was always this incredible, bright stuff around.’ Inspired by a lifelong love of pattern, Towndrow decided to finally follow her creative calling and study textile design at Glasgow Clyde College at the age of 42.

Initially selling pillowcases, bags and phone covers, she now has her own collection of patterns which sit hand in hand with a vintage set, and creates pieces of art that are not only beautiful but functional. ‘I’m not particularly interested in fashion,’ she insists. ‘I wanted to do something that would showcase the pattern and if I can provide a functional item with it then that’s great. Everything I make is about showcasing the fabric and the pattern.’

The inspiration for her work comes not only from her family but a William Morris quote: ‘have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.’ So, a square pillowcase becomes the perfect canvas to show off stunning geometric patterns. Instead

of hanging this art up on your wall, it sits on your sofa and provides comfort along with being aesthetically pleasing. Meanwhile, her bags function as many things: pencil cases or make-up carriers, for example.

The ethos of her shop, and the name itself, is inspired by her favourite book, Alice In Wonderland

Towndrow’s bright, fun and unique fabrics really do provide a sensory experience. Not only do her materials look smart and ‘dapper’, she also wanted to be clever with them. ‘The ethos is for colour and pattern to generate joy. But there’s also that recycled element as I don’t believe that anything should go in the bin.’ This is demonstrated in a popular range made entirely from the cut-offs and scraps of other pieces.

Her work reduces waste but also re-awakens vintage fabrics, and Towndrow’s favourite memory from running Dapper Alice highlights this. ‘I was contacted by a gentleman who told me that his mum was the designer of a fabric that I had. He asked if I would be able to make her a bag and a cushion out of the fabric for Christmas, and I also wrote her a letter explaining why I loved her design so much. Apparently she cried and was just so happy to see new life breathed into her fabric.’

dapperalice.co.uk

what’s in the bag?

YELLOW SKODA FELICIA FUN CAR KEYS

Because you never know when you need to make a swift getaway. Or living in London, when I want to drive to some greenery, it’s really helpful to be able to hop in my car and take myself for a nature break. I’m a brandnew driver (my insurance bill reflects that) and it’s very fun. I feel like a free spirit now.

BANG & OLUFSEN EARBUDS

Nominated for the Rising Star prize at this year’s Scottish Music Awards, singer-songwriter

Tamzene lets Kevin Fullerton sneak a peek inside her bag to reveal setlist-filled notebooks, trusty car keys, and a beloved vintage camera

Bang & Olufsen: it’s like audio is a craft for them. It’s art the way that they sound. I can be in my own world, especially with the noise-cancelling. In London, it’s very, very noisy. And these just instantly disconnect you from the outside world and I absolutely cannot live without them. I love them. I’m so grateful for them.

MOLESKINE NOTEBOOKS

This has loads of setlists in it. I write down the first letters of the names of the songs, so it’s kind of like my secret code setlist book. There are ones from Budapest, Boardmasters, Mannheim; it’s a really nice reminder of summer. But it also gets loud in my mind

sometimes, and writing stuff down is really helpful. Sometimes thoughts will come out when I’m writing and I’ll be like, ‘this is definitely the beginning of a song’. Although I tend to just write lyrics in my phone, which isn’t as poetic as a notebook.

OLYMPUS OM-1

I love it but I need to take better care of it, to be honest. I got it in lockdown because I needed something else creative to express myself with. I always like taking pictures but the iPhone wasn’t doing it for me anymore. I think it’s nice to snap moments of writing sessions or moments in the studio. By the time I finish a roll and take it to Snappy Snaps in London, it’s this lovely surprise when I get the pictures back and get to relive the last month or two on film. I try to take it everywhere. It’s quite heavy, but it’s worth it.

Tamzene plays SWG3 Poetry Club, Glasgow, Wednesday 2 November; her single ‘Old Love’ is out now.

Beira

HOOS

Stocking unique Nordic designs alongside handcrafted Scottish wears, Hoos’ carefully curated boutique emanates simplicity and timeless style. A trove of one-of-a-kind pieces and exclusive designs, Hoos is not one to overlook.

n 91–93 Great Western Road, Glasgow, hoosglasgow.co.uk

RHINESTONE COWBOYS

Making the move from virtual to physical, Rhinestone Cowboys are putting their mark on Leith Walk. From streetwear and trainers to pottery and art, you’re sure to make

a statement in their effortlessly cool and unique pieces while adding some sparkle to your style.

n 124 Leith Walk, Edinburgh, @the_ rhinestone_cowboys

BEIRA

Creating beauty from waste, Beira is on a mission to create chic and sustainable apparel designed to be cherished for a lifetime.

Fashioning their limited-edition pieces from the discarded materials of Italy’s textile industry, don’t miss their new collection which will be on shelves soon.

n 140 Bruntsfield Place, Edinburgh, beira.scot

Leah Bauer checks out a trio of recent openings in our retail column shop talk

PUSSY RIOT

Precisely ten years ago, the art-punk collective Pussy Riot first shone a spotlight onto a fact that no one denies now: Vladimir Putin is a tyrannical despot who hates his own people as much as he loathes his neighbours and the West. After causing mayhem at Moscow venues as diverse as Red Square, Cathedral Of Christ The Saviour, and Luzhniki Stadium during 2018’s World Cup Final, this ever-evolving gang return to Scotland for the first time since 2019 with a pair of shows. The protests are excellent, but what about the music? (Brian Donaldson) n Summerhall, Edinburgh, Tuesday 8 November; The Great Western, Glasgow, Saturday 12 November.

COUNTRY

To the prolific filmmaker Mark Cousins, art begins with an infection. What is the feeling of creating or experiencing art, after all, if not an embodied, visceral possession: a conversation between two entities made vulnerable to one another? Cousins’ upcoming Edinburgh Fruitmarket installation, Like A Huge Scotland, hopes to evoke one such moment of ‘infection’. Its genesis can be traced back to Cousins’ own infection by the work of Scottish cubist painter Wilhelmina Barns-Graham. For her part, Willie (as she liked to be called) was also infected by a lifechanging encounter. One fateful day in 1949, she climbed the Grindelwald glacier in Switzerland; the experience would forever alter her as an artist and a human being.

‘This is the story of a relationship between a brain and a glacier,’ says Cousins. It’s a quote from the film he’s making alongside Like A Huge Scotland, a four-screen installation that immerses visitors within Willie’s paintings of the glacier, still images and sound, from the music of cellos to brushes on canvas. ‘What I’ve tried to do is give people a sense of being in the Alps, but instead of being surrounded by mountains, they’re surrounded by paintings,’ he elaborates. ‘It’s trying to evoke one sublime experience with another.’

Willie’s moment of epiphany with the glacier (which to Cousins, crosses over from the natural realm and into that of the numinous and eternal) beckoned his own artistic response. ‘I sometimes feel half asleep, somnambulant,’ he reflects. ‘I think Willie was also searching for something, that she didn’t feel fully alive until that day.’ His encounter with her work triggered an analogous jolt, an awakening in dialogue with

In his debut exhibition, Mark Cousins shines a light on an overlooked artist while exploring some crucial issues of our day. Xuanlin Tham speaks to the filmmaker about covid, climate and cubism

Willie’s own. Emphatically, he says, ‘I cannot get her out of my head’. Like A Huge Scotland thus emerged as a tribute to infectious epiphanies past, present, and yet to come. ‘I knew it had to be bigger than life. It had to be luminous, it had to surround us; it had to feel like a plunge into cold water, a sensory shock,’ Cousins describes. ‘I’m very interested in the idea of a sublime experience taking you out of yourself.’ He invokes writer Joseph Campbell’s phrase, ‘the rapture of self-loss’, as one crucial way that art can reorient us, perhaps especially urgent in times of climate emergency. ‘There’s a political dimension to art taking us into more transcendental realms,’ he affirms. ‘A holistic view of not just the planet, but the broader field of existence.’

Cousins first encountered the transcendental power of Willie’s paintings in the late 80s. While cubism is often associated with a certain analytical frigidity, he saw in Willie’s paintings, and her diary entries about the glacier, a reminder that cubism is inevitably a euphoric desire to see something from every angle: an ecstatic fracturing of time and space.

‘She felt like she was above the glacier, below it, inside it and around it,’ he says, mapping the planes with his hands; the gestures mirror the installation’s multidimensionality. ‘That’s why the installation is the way it is. It’s this idea of

simultaneity: how can we feel it everywhere at once, not just looking straight?’ Asked what he hopes visitors will take away from Like A Huge Scotland, Cousins responds, ‘I hope people will fall in love with this artist, Willie BarnsGraham, who has not been given her proper due. And I hope people will realise her art brings to the fore many themes that we in the 21st century are interested in: feminism, neurodiversity and climate emergency.’

Perhaps most importantly, however, Cousins hopes that the installation captures and translates this experience of infection: one that’s particularly poignant today. ‘Covid has reminded us that we are a single species, that we’re all vulnerable to each other, that we’re tenderised by each other. And to respond to the world. Forget art,’ he interrupts himself, ‘even just to respond to the sunset here in Edinburgh today, is to be vulnerable, tender and therefore absorbent.’

Like A Huge Scotland promises to make us vulnerable to discovery, but what will we be infected by? Let us surrender, become open and absorbent: and find out what epiphanies lie in wait.

Mark Cousins: Like A Huge Scotland, Fruitmarket, Edinburgh, Saturday 5–Sunday 27 November.

I find it exciting that someone's mum might go out and buy it

As Franz Ferdinand celebrate 20 years in the business, frontman Alex Kapranos chats to Fiona Shepherd about the trauma of line-up changes, preparing for a huge homecoming gig, and his enduring love for The List

Congratulations on Franz Ferdinand’s 20th birthday. How does it feel to reach that milestone? You mean how does it feel to be that ancient? It’s strange because I was in so many bands before this one. I guess I had in my head that bands were quite transient; you did it for a couple of years, you met another bunch of people, and you moved on and tried something else for a wee while and had a bit of fun with it. With this one, I feel that all of my ideas that I had been scrambling in the dark to collect in my twenties came together and it seemed almost unquestionable that it would continue. I guess I would only stop if it felt wrong or if I felt like I was standing on stage and something wasn’t ringing true.

You’re celebrating by releasing the compilation Hits To The Head; what is the appeal of a greatest hits collection? There is something very levelling and inclusive about a greatest hits record. Most people don’t want to get into the minutiae of a band and every little album track and b-side that was ever released, but that double LP of the bangers is just what they need. Growing up, those greatest hits records were my introduction to so much good music. My mum and dad had an ABBA greatest hits record that they always had on the record player, and I was obsessed with the Bowie record, Changes. I remember distinctly as a five-year-old dancing to ‘John, I’m Only Dancing’ and it made me want to go out and find more of his music. I find it exciting that someone’s mum might go out and buy it and the kids might go on and discover something that excites them themselves.

Last year original drummer Paul Thomson left the band. How did that affect the group dynamic? It’s always quite traumatic when something like that happens in a band but it’s natural as well. Paul basically wasn’t into it anymore, going away and being on tour and that being his life. I think lockdown had a lot to do with that for him. It was the first time in a long time he’d been able to be with his family continuously without going away or recording or being committed to this other huge presence in his life. Over lockdown, he got really into speed metal drumming. He was getting his bpm up faster and faster every week. We had a few rehearsals and the first day he came down with his double kickdrum pedal. Of course, it was an indicator of where he was. But ‘Curious’ [one of two new tracks recorded for Hits To The Head] is 115 bpm; that’s a good 60 bpm slower than what he wanted to play. He was frustrated, but once I talked to him I understood where his head was at.

You lost Paul but you gained Audrey Tait [Hector Bizerk/ Broken Chanter] . . . We felt we should get somebody from Glasgow, and Audrey’s name came up straight away; she’s so good. ‘Curious’ was the first song we played together. There is just something very magical when you play with someone for the first time and it just works. So it was a very bittersweet moment:

we’d had all that drama and emotion with Paul and literally within hours we were playing with Audrey and it felt very exciting. We recorded the next week and that’s what you hear on the record.

Are you looking forward to Franz Ferdinand’s Hydro debut? I’ve never been in the Hydro. People tell me that the acoustics are amazing compared to the SEC so that’s got to be a good thing. I do love Barrowlands and I did love playing downstairs in the basement of the old 13th Note in Glassford Street; they are just different experiences. It’s the difference between going to the IMAX and GFT; they are both good experiences, just a little different from each other. This one’s going to feel different because it’s Glasgow, it’s a home crowd and the guest list is probably going to have about 500 people on it (and that’s just Audrey’s guest list).

Thanks for speaking to The List The List was such a massive part of my life in those formative years of the 13th Note scene in the 90s so I have a great fondness for it. In fact, my mum and dad still have a poster on their wall of the first time we were on the cover of The List, so I’m happy it’s survived. I’ll let my mum know.

Franz Ferdinand play OVO Hydro, Glasgow, Thursday 10 November; Hits To The Head is out now on Domino Records.

All That Jazz

SHINE ON

There’s no denying winter is coming. Darkness has set in and the nights have begun to elongate, in their slow march towards the shortest day of the year (21 December if you’re counting). It’s little wonder then, that given the scarcity of natural light at this time of year, humans have always found ways to create and celebrate the human-made kind, either through fireworks, bonfires or, more recently, electric light shows. This year, the botanic gardens in both Edinburgh and Glasgow are lit up, as will be Dalkeith Country Park and Beecraigs Country Park near Linlithgow, where the annual Festive Forest trail houses the longest light tunnel in Scotland.

And for the third year running, Edinburgh Castle will become a beacon of colour and projections thanks to the combined efforts of a co-producing team of lumieres, led by creative director Andy McGregor.

‘Castle Of Light is an extremely colourful show,’ McGregor says. ‘It’s bright. It hopefully dazzles your eyes.’ For this year’s theme, McGregor began thinking about colours in ‘a lateral way’, which gave him the idea of dividing the castle into various zones. ‘There’ll be a green zone, blue zone, red zone. Other zones will be less specific, tying into a more general summation of notions of colour.’ Just like last year, when ‘hidden treasures’ was the theme, history has provided

From Glasgow’s Botanics to Edinburgh's castle, light installations are bringing a welcome glow to Scotland this festive season. Lucy Ribchester talks to Castle Of Light creative director Andy McGregor about the pleasures and trials of illuminating one of our most historic landmarks

a rich source of inspiration for this year’s installation. ‘I’m lucky enough to work with the people at Historic Environment Scotland,’ McGregor says, ‘so I’ve got this luxury of being able to ask historians about the history of this particular space, and then get a couple of pages of information about it.’

One of McGregor’s discoveries was that light shows have long been associated with Edinburgh Castle. The first firework displays in Scotland were lit on what is now King’s Stables Road (just beneath the castle) in 1507 as part of a pageant King James IV put on, known as the ‘Tournament of the Wild Knight and the Black Lady’ (and currently explored in Rona Munro’s James IV: Queen Of The Fight play).

Later ledgers from the castle show that in 1537, copious quantities of saltpetre, petrol, oil, mercury, and turpentine were ordered by royal ‘fire masters’, alongside thread and wheel-rims, leading historians to believe that the first catherine wheel fireworks were in the process of being developed. The same records have, intriguingly, also listed an entry for ‘usquabae’ (water of life, or, as we more commonly call it, whisky). ‘It’s kind of unclear,’ McGregor says, ‘whether that was an actual component that they thought they could explode, or whether it was just to keep them happy as they were developing these explosives.’

One thing that hasn’t changed from the fire masters of the 16th century to the lighting teams of today is a notion of trial and error; or in today’s case, the various challenges that arise when dealing with a historic royal building. ‘We’re in as listed a building that you can get,’ says McGregor. ‘We can’t fix to anything. We can’t change the colour of the shutters if we want to.’ One of the ways in which the team work around this is to build small sheds to house the projectors, and paint them in sympathetic colours. ‘Hopefully it just disappears during the day. So far so good. We’ve never had any complaints.’

And, of course, the trials are more than balanced by the opportunity to share some of the city’s history with new audiences. While researching the red zone, for instance, McGregor stumbled upon the story of Charles Piazzi Smyth, an astronomer who invented a ‘time ball’ which led to that great (or maddening, depending on your view) Edinburgh institution: the One O’Clock Gun. ‘The show is not a history lesson. But it comes from history, it’s inspired by history, and my hope is that people can take that little bit from it.’

Elsewhere, Dalkeith Country Park’s Spectacle Of Light is also embracing Scotland’s heritage by celebrating Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic Treasure Island in a swashbuckling family adventure. Meanwhile, GlasGLOW’s Botanics installation goes even further back in time, promising dinosaurs, volcanoes and ‘the greatest adventure of your life’.

Given that the concept is gaining traction, is there anywhere on McGregor’s wishlist that he would really love to light up? ‘I’d quite like to do projection on some really modern buildings,’ he says. ‘That building on George Square, a really tall building that on one side says “People Make Glasgow”. On the side facing Queen Street Station: I thought that would make a terrific projection surface.’ It has, after all, something that McGregor, used to working with the idiosyncrasies of historic architecture and ancient rock, would class as something of a luxury: ‘It’s all beautifully flat.’

Castle Of Light: A Kingdom Of Colours, Edinburgh Castle, Friday 18 November–Friday 30 December, castleoflight.scot

GlasGLOW, Glasgow Botanic Gardens, until Sunday 13 November, itison.com/glasglow

Christmas At The Botanics, Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, Thursday 17 November–Friday 30 December, rbge.org.uk

Spectacle Of Light, Dalkeith Country Park, Friday 2–Saturday 31 December, dalkeithcountrypark.co.uk

Festive Forest, Beecraigs Country Park, near Linlithgow, Friday 2–Friday 23 December, beecraigsfestiveforest.com

Lighten up: (previous page) Castle Of Light; (above) GlasGLOW; (below) Spectacle Of Light

BODY POLITICS

Sigourney Weaver had barely heard of America’s Call Jane collective when she took on a lead role in Phyllis Nagy’s movie about the abortion counselling service. As the overturning of Roe v Wade takes hold, both star and director tell James Mottram that their film has arrived at the perfect moment

The story of a real-life underground organisation in 1960s America designed to provide women with safe abortions back when they were illegal, Call Jane couldn’t be more timely. Starring Elizabeth Banks and Sigourney Weaver, it hits cinemas just months after the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade, a landmark decision from 1973 that conferred the right to have an abortion. Suddenly, director Phyllis Nagy and her cast have found themselves as spokespeople

on reproduction rights. ‘I’m very weary of that,’ she sighs. ‘It’s a film. I’m not a politician. I don’t know what’s going to happen but I did know this was on the cards in America. It’s interesting that people have a perception of Roe v Wade as some sort of sacrosanct thing and what a surprise that it was overturned; but it’s been attacked for some 40-odd years.’

In the film, Banks plays Joy, a Chicago housewife who falls pregnant. Out of desperation she turns to Call Jane, a collective run by Weaver’s no-nonsense Virginia. ‘I shamefully had not ever really heard of the Janes, except as a distant memory somewhere in feminist history,’ says Weaver. ‘What really appealed to me about the script was that I saw an opportunity to create a film that was not just going to preach to people who already believed its viewpoint.’

Weaver, famed for her roles in Alien, Ghostbusters and Working Girl, wanted Call Jane to be ‘part of a national dialogue’ about this very divisive issue. Certainly, as Joy joins the Janes to help others in need, it underlines just what’s possible collectively. ‘I find it very inspiring and true,’ says Weaver. ‘And I think that Phyllis directed with just the perfect balance of showing you the intensity of this experience, and showing you the warmth and love that these women had for each other.’

Despite playing at several major film festivals, including Sundance and Berlin, Nagy’s film has been criticised online for being too ‘conventional’, the director reveals. ‘I think there’s a culture where nothing that is light can be serious. I wouldn’t call this a comedy. But it allows for an ease of viewing and I think sometimes people confuse that with conventional or by the book. It’s interesting to me, but entirely unfair.’

Perhaps a better way to look at the film is that it’s part of a growing series of movies looking at the subject, including Never Rarely Sometimes Always (2020) and Happening (2021), both female-directed films about young women struggling to get abortions. Whatever happens next (Nagy feels President Biden’s hands are tied, given the balance of the Supreme Court), films like this are a stark reminder of how fragile these rights are.

‘None of us want politicians and lawyers telling us how to make these very intimate decisions in our lives, decisions about family and health,’ says Weaver firmly. ‘Having had a British mother, I can tell you she certainly wouldn’t want the government telling us what to do during these very, very difficult moments.’

Call Jane is in cinemas from Friday 4 November.

Books at the Botanics

The ideal Christmas presents for people who love plants

Visit us at the Botanics Shop Arboretum Place Edinburgh EH3 5NZ or rbgeshop.org

creature comforts

Scotland’s newest and coolest poetry festival Push The Boat Out is back for a second year. Among its many enticing events at Edinburgh’s Summerhall is a verse-shaped exploration of this nation’s many mythical beasts. Seven poets pick a legendary being and explain how their choice relates to the modern world

KELPIE: Dave Hook

‘The Kelpie’ is a rap that asks what would happen if a nuclear submarine on the west coast of Scotland became sentient and decided to be something else. An old Scottish myth becoming a new myth. A creature, born of war and violence choosing to be something different, interweaving Scottish past, present and future.

When I first met the Kelpie

This is what he said:

I used to be a harbinger of death

And swim in these black waters with a bell around my neck And take men from the land on which they stepped …

SHELLYCOAT: Julie Rea

The Shellycoat is a strange, misunderstood creature, very rarely sighted, haunting rivers and streams. A type of bogeyman who people fear or ignore. He reminded me, instantly, of my brother James. We grew up on a council estate where everything was ugly, playing in a dank sewer drain or beside the canal. A kid nearly drowned one year, and my brother got the blame for it. Of course he did. Blame the shellycoat, with his skinhead and his sovvy rings and his oxblood Doc Martens. From the age of 17, my brother was in and out of jail. Does the shellycoat have a voice? Because James didn’t. There are many shellycoats, misunderstood, hidden, forced to live on the periphery of a society that doesn’t understand them. Doesn’t want to. I’m going to bring their story (and my brother’s) to life.

SELKIE: Anita Mackenzie

The Selkie’s skin drives the narrative, causing her abduction and eventual separation from her children. She cannot own her skin until to do so has a terrible cost. This resonates with my mixed-race experience of otherness, growing up in a small community. When faced with racism at a formative age, what journey do you take to own and love your skin? I am fascinated by the inherent tensions in the tale, and what belonging means after a profound sense of alienation.

The Selkie speaks through song, where field recordings and fiddle with loops build a soundscape around the spoken word. The sea, in a thread of words and sound pulls the listeners towards the Selkie’s inevitable return to the ocean, and a reflection on how they can truly be in their skin.

SÌTHICHEAN: Ceitidh Campbell

I am a bilingual (Scottish Gaelic and English) poet; all my work is produced in both languages. Gaelic is an essential part of Scotland’s past, present and future and I believe it is important that this project include all of Scotland’s languages. I’m showcasing the stories of the sìthichean from a lesser-known island (Raasay).

The notion of a changeling, when a child has been exchanged for a fairy child, is a common one in Gaelic folklore. Recently there has been research which connects this traditional tale to autism and autistic traits in children. This would not have been understood at the time and was a way of explaining why children were exhibiting behaviour that was different to the norm. I am approaching the topic sensitively and with compassion, bringing this traditional story into the modern era with new understanding.

BEAN NIGHE: Katie Ailes

The bean nighe (Gaelic for ‘washerwoman’), Scotland’s wailing harbinger of death, is feared for what her presence portends. She haunts the banks of streams and pools, singing and washing the clothing of people who are soon to die. Laundry is traditionally considered ‘women’s work’, quotidian and mundane. The bean nighe, however, performs priest-like blessings through this most ‘female’ chore; she is also the ghost of a woman who died in childbirth and as a consequence is cursed to her grim task for what would have been the remainder of her natural life.

In today’s political context where women’s reproductive rights are being threatened globally, this narrative of cosmic punishment for the ‘failure’ to be a mother is deeply resonant and deserves re-imagining. In a performance incorporating spoken word poetry, dance, music and textile work, I’m (re-) embodying the bean nighe as the spirit of a contemporary woman who dies after being refused abortion care.

LINTON WORM: Calum Rodger

According to myth, ‘the Linton Worm would roam the land and take its share of local livestock and anything else that fell into its path. The area became a virtual wasteland.’ I found a contemporary echo of this worm in the all-consuming appetite of corporate technology and the surveillance capitalism of social media, encapsulated in technologist Marc Andreessen’s soundbite, ‘software is eating the world’.

Like the Linton Worm, these technologies chew up and spit out the human-driven cultures they pretend to support; a ‘virtual wasteland’ indeed (and ‘worm’ in computing parlance refers to a self-replicating and destructive virus). I’m creating a dual poem, in part from the point of view of a computer role-playing game group tasked with defeating the worm, and in part an AI-generated ‘voice of the worm’.

NESSIE: Hollie McNish

The most silent I ever was as a child was looking out for Nessie with my grandma on the shores of Loch Ness, once she’d assured me I just needed to watch the water as carefully as I could, in silence, because ‘blink and you’ll miss it’. I realise now it was maybe a good way to make me shut up for a minute, but no bother. Watching out for every ripple or change of patterns on the surface of a loch in which I imagined a huge and friendly tartan-hatted monster to appear from sums up the wonder of childhood to me.

As an adult, I thought feelings like these would dissipate completely as I stopped believing so easily in childhood stories: Tooth Fairy, Father Christmas, Nessie. But each time I look up and every star is a sun of another whole solar system, I still cling to the belief that anything we can imagine might just, possibly, be. It is still the patch of water I stare out over most excitedly. I know it’s probably not true, I know photographs have been disproved, but shhh. Just in case.

A Poetry Feast Of Mythical Beasts, Summerhall, Edinburgh, Saturday 5 November; imagery by Púca Printhouse.

MUSIC 3 TO SEE . . .

EDINBURGH PLAYHOUSE MUSICALS

Although nobody will ever wear a white suit and point their finger in the air quite like John Travolta, the stage show of Saturday Night Fever (Tuesday 1–Saturday 5 November) still has much to offer. Not least that stupendous Bee Gees soundtrack (‘Stayin’ Alive’, ‘How Deep Is Your Love’, ‘Night Fever’ etc) performed live by singers who know their way around a great harmony. And what’s not to love about a musical that ‘contains adult themes and strong language’?

At the other end of the scale, Bugsy Malone (Tuesday 15–Sunday 20 November) is cuteness personified. They may have guns in their hands and bad deeds on their minds, but there’s only so much harm a cast entirely made up of children can do, even in Prohibition-era New York. Prepare to be blown away; not with a ‘splurge’ gun but by a troupe of talented teens bringing Alan Parker’s film to life.

Also based on a classic by the late director and featuring some rollicking good tunes, The Commitments (Monday 28 November–Saturday 3 December) started life as a Roddy Doyle novel, and the man himself has adapted it here for the stage. Let 20 superb soul songs fill your ears as this band of hopeful Dubliners occupy your hearts. (Kelly Apter)

EVENTS FAIR SATURDAY

Grassroots arts and cultural enterprises are alive and well across Scotland, but it might not always seem that way. Even the worthiest volunteer-led undertakings slip under the radar or, worse, wither without promotion and the chance to germinate alongside similar projects. Founded in Bilbao in 2015, Fair Saturday is a global attempt to remedy this, highlighting arts ventures, social projects, venues, and makers on the day after Black Friday as a deliberate counterpoint to capitalism.

It’s a day showcasing some of the best social and arts projects across the country, and last year it welcomed 100 events involving 7200 artists both in-person and online. Riding off the back of last year’s success, the 2022 edition of Fair Saturday will be a boon to many smaller projects nationwide, as well as providing an ideal forum for creative networking.

The programme for this year is already teeming with events designed to appeal to both creators and the public. At Edinburgh’s Queen’s Hall, The Soundhouse Organisation will curate a unique line-up of Scotland's best musicians for one night only, featuring the critically acclaimed Soundhouse Choir, Scottish music stalwart Inge Thomson, and a host of jazz musicians delivering a piece in collaboration with poet, playwright and Edinburgh Makar Hannah Lavery.

Also on the day, the Hippodrome Cinema (pictured) in Bo’ness will screen the #MeToo-inspired film She Said, an open day will take place at Edinburgh’s Streetreads Library, Glasgow’s Gaelic Books Council will play host to a storytelling session, National Library Of Scotland will hold a family event, and Spring Feathers will get crafty with a lampshade workshop. The full programme is yet to be firmed up but expect more socially conscious events to be confirmed before the big day. (Kevin Fullerton) n Fair Saturday, various locations across Scotland, Saturday 26 November.

Saturday Night Fever

•ydemoc comedy•

ART ELIZABETH PRICE

When Elizabeth Price undertook a Research Fellowship with the University Of Glasgow Library in 2020, the Turner Prize-winning artist found a kaleidoscopic world beneath her feet. The vivid swirls that pattern the carpets of the city’s Mitchell Library, in particular, led to two new commissions about to go on show at the University’s Hunterian Art Gallery.

‘UNDERFOOT’ (2022) is a moving-image work drawing from the photographic and pattern book archives of carpet manufacturers Stoddard International and James Templeton & Co. A complementary textile piece, ‘SAD CARREL’ (2022), sees Price embark on her first non-video work in five years.

Commissioned by The Hunterian and developed with curatorial organisation Panel, alongside Fiona Jardine of Glasgow School Of Art, and Dovecot Studios in Edinburgh, Price’s new constructions mine the sort of social histories that won her the 2012 Turner Prize for her video, The Woolworths Choir Of 1979

Vinyl records form a recurring motif in ‘SAD CARREL’, and as a former member of 1980s indie band Talulah Gosh, Price perhaps understands more than most how the production line of pop can open up new worlds. Price also points to the patterns on the Mitchell’s carpets as having an ‘unexpected psychedelic effect. If carpets imagine another space, what space was/is imagined here?’ (Neil Cooper)

n The Hunterian, Glasgow, Friday 11 November–Sunday 16 April.

COMEDY MY COMEDY HERO

Eleanor Morton on Maria Bamford

Like the vast majority of comics, I have multiple comedy heroes, and it’s almost impossible to pick just one person. Maybe it’s The Goons, the very first proper ‘comedy’ I ever experienced, when I was seven. Maybe Josie Long, who as well as being very funny was also incredibly kind and encouraging when I started. Or Seymour Mace, whose bit ‘eating a banana to “Carmina Burana”’ needs no explanation, but absolutely should be witnessed.

But I think if I had to choose one person to talk about, it would have to be Maria Bamford. Before I saw her when I was 19, I didn’t know women stand-ups were allowed to be weird. My only previous exposure to female stand-ups had been a roster of very funny, but very glamorous and sexually confident women. I couldn’t relate to any of that. I wasn’t glamorous, I wasn’t confident, and I absolutely hate talking about sex on stage. There are vicars with more explicit services than my stand-up routines. I craved the same freedom male stand-ups are afforded to simply muck about.

Maria Bamford’s comedy was everything I was always led to believe women shouldn’t try. Don’t be weird, don’t do stupid faces, don’t do silly voices, definitely don’t suggest that you’re a bit of a fuck-up in a very non-glamorous, nonromcom way. Watching Bamford’s stand-up made me feel like I had permission to be all the things I really was on stage. Her mishmash of sketch/stand-up/character/mimicry opened a whole new world of alternative comedy to me, and for that I’ll always be incredibly grateful.

n The Stand, Edinburgh, Saturday 12 November; The Stand, Glasgow, Sunday 13 November.

He’s like Ziggy Stardust passing from the past to the future

“

Federico García Lorca’s life and untimely death are the stuff of legend. Kelly Apter caught up with Deborah Colker, director-choreographer of the UK premiere of Ainadamar, an opera aiming to capture the essence of this Spanish literary hero’s complex story

'The opera world is trying to kidnap me,’ says Deborah Colker, with a broad smile and bright eyes. ‘They said, “enough of this dance stuff, we need someone for opera”!’ If she has been abducted, Colker is clearly a willing victim. A formidable force in dance and theatre for over 30 years, as well as sojourns into circus and ceremony (Cirque du Soleil and the Olympics have known her creative hand), the Brazilian is now branching out into new terrain for Scottish Opera. Working as directorchoreographer, Colker will deliver the UK premiere of Ainadamar, Osvaldo Golijov’s Grammy Award-winner.

A passionate retelling of the life (and death) of Spanish poet, playwright and activist Federico García Lorca, the opera is told through the memories and imagination of his muse, actress Margarita Xirgu. Already a huge fan of both Golijov and Lorca, Colker was easily kidnapped for the job. ‘Lorca is someone born in the 19th century, killed in the 20th century, and here we are in the 21st century still talking about him, and he only lived until he was 38,’ she says. ‘The power of his poetry, of his life, his intelligence, his intuition, his feelings, his artistry, the things he represents, his fight for human rights; they’re all part of the reason I decided to work on this opera.’

A coming together of contemporary opera and traditional flamenco song and dance, Ainadamar translates from Arabic as ‘The Fountain Of Tears’. Written by Argentinean Golijov and American playwright David Henry Hwang, the story

PICTURES: JULIE HOWDEN

moves back and forth in time as Xirgu relates Lorca’s story to her young student, Nuria. But as far as Colker is concerned, capturing the ambience is more important than delivering a date-perfect chronology.

‘I love Golijov,’ says Colker, ‘so I talked to him about this and said, “listen, I’m not going to be precise with all these flashbacks, memories and history”, saying this is real, this is not real etc. And Golijov said, “perfect! The audience doesn’t need to know this happened last week or that happened on that night”. No, this is about creating a passionate Spanish atmosphere.’ Talking with Golijov also settled another concern in Colker’s head: the fact that in the opera, Lorca is portrayed by a woman. ‘I asked Golijov, did you decide to make Lorca a woman because he was gay? And he said no, it was because he wanted three female voices to make the last trio special.’

As a result, the main roles of Lorca, Xirgu and Nuria are played by a mezzo soprano and two sopranos, with Samantha Hankey taking on the role of Lorca. ‘I’ve been working with Samantha on how she needs to be a man, but a very shy, delicate and fragile one,’ explains Colker. ‘Lorca represents the resistance against fascism but he always used to say, “no, my focus is love”, and that’s our basis here. Lorca reminds me of David Bowie; he’s like Ziggy Stardust passing from the past to the future. He’s androgynous and wants to experience everything; for me, Lorca was that kind of rebel.’

Ainadamar, Theatre Royal, Glasgow, Wednesday 2, Saturday 5 November; Festival Theatre, Edinburgh, Tuesday 8, Thursday 10, Saturday 12 November.

There is a weird and wonderful background to Heverlee’s beer. Once lost and forgotten, it was found in a corner of Leuven, Belgium and brought to the UK. A hidden gem, revitalised for today.

Made from a blend of subtly sweet malt and maize mash cut through with the distinctly bitter tasting Saaz hop, Heverlee is best served ice cold; poured and skimmed to perfection. The beautiful balance of bitter head and sweet

accompaniment to good times, from a casual evening with friends or a night out on the town.

: A STORY IN THE MAKING underneath is the perfect

Look out for Heverlee in the corners of the world where good times happen and in the hands of those who seek them out. Use the four simple words ‘pint of Heverlee please’ and all that’s left is to discover what follows… Follow Heverlee on Instagram @HeverleeBeer

UNCOVERING AN OLD RECIPE AND

FOR

DISCOVER THE GREAT TASTE OF HEVERLEE’S

PILSNER

the month

of

With James IV: Queen Of The Fight, Rona Munro continues her majestic chronicle of Scotland’s royal history. Lucy Ribchester experiences this timely and unflinching look at racism and power in a so-called golden age

While watching a three-day production of Shakespeare’s histories, Scottish playwright Rona Munro realised no one had attempted a similar chronicle for Scottish kings. In 2014 she set out to change this with her trilogy of James Plays, which focus on Scotland’s growth and turbulence from the 14th to the 16th century. Now she continues this trajectory with a standalone piece, homing in on a little-known period during the reign of James IV when two Black ladies-in-waiting came to live and work at his court.

Though their story has gained more attention in recent years, details about the lives of these two ‘Moorish lasses’ are sparse (it’s known, for example, they were bestowed handsome clothes, denoting their status). This allows space for Munro to speculate on their roles and reception; here, she places them at the heart of a nation that prides itself on egalitarian welcomes, but shames itself with hypocrisy, expansionism and racism. It’s a complicated, unflinching and blistering analysis of our national character, in which Munro mixes the skill of an ancient textile weaver with the passionate verve of a storyteller, overlapping (as Shakespeare did) threads and themes that hold timeless truths about human nature, as opposed to recording history.

REVIEWS

The two women (Ellen and Lady Anne) have travelled from the Iberian courts, escaping Bilbao’s plague to find themselves at the mercy of James IV. While Anne is taken into the fold as a courtier to the petulant, 17-yearold Queen Margaret, Ellen struggles to find her place. That is, until a chance encounter with the king lands her the role of Queen Of The Fight, a symbolic part in a gladiatorial pageant that the king has arranged, to play out his ‘wild man’ fantasies before the nobility of Europe.

No one is entirely happy with their position in this court, including the Makar William Dunbar, forced to pander to regal vanity, and Donald, Lord Of The Isles, kept as a ‘guest’ (hostage) while James unifies the country. Everyone knows the precariousness and constraints in which they live. This is borne out in Laurie Sansom’s staging, where we witness the actors transform from modern-day clothes to period costume, setting up a careful social contract (not unlike a court) that we all have to sign up to, in order for it to work.

Each character, too, wears various metaphorical masks, either within their courtly roles, or in the plays within plays (another parallel with Shakespeare). When the king takes off his ‘wild man’ costume before Ellen, he is revealed to be wearing a chain next to his skin: a metaphor for the imprisonment of kingship. But even this is exposed as theatre when Makar Dunbar tells her he shows it to all his women. Ellen and Anne also have their own ways of holding onto whatever power they can grab. Anne (played with regal poise and sharp wisdom by Laura Lovemore) may act the role of an uncomplaining helper to Queen Margaret (invoking the literary trope of the Black woman tirelessly performing emotional labour for spoilt white women), but when alone with Ellen we see that it is her steely pragmatism that’s driving her. Similarly, Ellen, the more poetic and idealistic of the two (with these traits beautifully drawn out by Danielle Jam) has an ability to turn acidic when clinging to her own hard-won closeness to the king.

Only the royal couple can truly pull rank. In James’ case this comes in terrifying flashes of temper (in a superb, nuanced performance of masculine privilege and volatility by Daniel Cahill) when he isn’t getting his way. In Queen Margaret’s case, this is through a debilitating postnatal depression combined with unchecked power that curdles into the most toxic and violent of brews. Munro, however, appreciates that bad behaviour does not necessarily denote a bad soul, but instead trickles down from the brutal actions of others. There are no heroes and villains in James IV, and as the plot flits from thread to thread, we alternately feel for and condemn almost all of its players.

The climax, juxtaposing senseless violence of gladiatorial battle with the similar brutality of racist language, is a reminder of how ugly ambition and self-preservation can be, even in ages that have been painted golden by the national narrative. Perhaps this is what Rona Munro wants us to take away: without staring critically at our past, how can we change our future?

James IV: Queen Of The Fight, Macrobert, Stirling, Wednesday

12 November; reviewed at Festival Theatre, Edinburgh.

ART HANNAH LIM

Ornamental Mythologies lllll

You must exercise great self-restraint at Edinburgh Printmakers. The impulse to lift the lids of Hannah Lim’s intricate snuff bottles is almost unbearable. Lim, an artist of mixed Singaporean and British heritage, presents a body of research-informed work which is brimming with intrigue. For such a small exhibition space, there is so much to learn. In particular, the artist examines the rise of ‘Chinoiserie’: the European imitation of Chinese design across objects and architecture.

She reimagines this culturally appropriative trend to create several snuff boxes in a rainbow of pastel colours and embellished with imagery from Medieval and Chinese bestiaries and mythology. Accentuating the self-declared ‘flamboyance’ of her work which serves to transgress rigid notions of race and identity, Lim has placed these items on specially crafted shelves shaped like flames.

Two striking large-scale installations (one suspended) take centre stage, though the more engrossing artworks are on the edges of this exhibition. Ornamental Mythologies demonstrates Lim’s resourcefulness and dexterity in an array of techniques and media. From her confident vantage point, the leap between her research and physical art is not lost on the viewer, as sometimes is the case with heavily researched art-making. (Rachel Ashenden) n Edinburgh Printmakers, until Sunday 20 November.

FILM MATILDA THE MUSICAL (Directed by Matthew Warchus) lllll

Kaleidoscopic choreography and musical numbers performed by a fantastic ensemble cast of eminent British actors and young newcomers makes this film adaptation of the Matilda stage musical a hugely entertaining affair. Directed by the Old Vic’s artistic director Matthew Warchus with original songs written by Tim Minchin and a screenplay by Dennis Kelly, the deliciously macabre flavour of Roald Dahl’s book remains intact while also ensuring a familyfriendly good time. The same team who worked on the multi-award winning West End and Broadway musical have added new songs and tweaked a few things for a modern audience.

The story of young, neglected genius Matilda Wormwood (Alisha Weir) who discovers she has telekinetic powers, her selfish parents (played with real relish by Stephen Graham and Andrea Riseborough), bully headmistress Miss Trunchbull (Emma Thompson) and kindly schoolteacher Miss Honey (Lashana Lynch) was previously adapted for the big screen in 1996 by Danny DeVito. This time around, the big songs add an extra layer of emotion for the actors to dig into as they belt out tear-jerking and jubilant tunes. Lynch in particular, with her dewy-eyed delivery, really sells the poignant depth of her affinity with Weir’s Matilda, and the pair have great chemistry.

Thompson is clearly having a ball as Trunchbull, playing the role as a mix of Gunnery Sergeant Hartman from Full Metal Jacket and a prison warden, as she intimidatingly barks orders from her surveillance-filled lair and terrorises the ‘maggot’ children she despises. When the kids eventually lead their rebellion against an entitled and bitter educator, their revolution is depicted through CGI wizardry and even the toppling of a statue. It’s a rousing and heartfelt display, in a film that also nails the novel’s mischievous humour with the infectiously giddy enthusiasm of a child stuffing chocolate cake in their gob. (Katherine McLaughlin) n In cinemas from Friday 25 November.

of

Opening on the bare bones of a film set before enthralling us completely in its atmosphere-drenched, 19th-century tale, The Wonder is testament to the transportive power of cinema. ‘We are nothing without stories,’ suggests the film’s narrator (Niamh Algar, who also takes on the role of farmhand Kitty), before assuring us of the complete conviction of those actors we’re about to see. It’s a disarming and daring introduction.

Holding you in its palm from start to finish, this fiercely intriguing and charmingly playful drama from Sebastián Lelio unfolds in the rain-swept, still-traumatised Irish Midlands of 1862, 13 years after the Great Famine.

It’s based on the 2016 novel from Irish-Canadian writer Emma Donoghue (the Room author who co-wrote this screenplay with Alice Birch and Lelio) and sees the Chilean director of Gloria, Disobedience and A Fantastic Woman foreground the fairer sex once again.

The Wonder follows English nurse Lib Wright (an outstanding Florence Pugh), an accomplished and forthright woman of science who, despite her youth, has seen much of life, having endured personal tragedy and tended to soldiers during the Crimean War. Lib has been summoned to an Irish village by a committee of elders, including Toby Jones’ Doctor McBrearty and Ciarán Hinds’ Father Thaddeus. She’s been hired to investigate a local phenomenon: an 11-year-old girl who has stopped eating and yet remains in the rudest of health.

Along with a nun, Sister Michael (Josie Walker), Lib will take on what the committee describe as ‘The Watch’: eight-hour observational shifts over a period of two weeks to determine what’s really going on. On the 14th day, the pair will offer their testimonies separately. After being told of her duties, Lib is incredulous. ‘What kind of backwards village employs a professional nurse for something like this?’ she complains to David Wilmot’s publican Seán. ‘Prove it’s nonsense, then fuck off home,’ is his curt response.

The child at the centre of it all is Anna, played quite strikingly by newcomer Kíla Lord Cassidy (daughter of Elaine Cassidy, who appears as Anna’s religiously devout mother Rosaleen). On examination, Anna appears fine; when questioned, she tells Lib that she does not need to eat, surviving instead on ‘manna from heaven’. Despite her suspicions, Lib bonds quickly and eventually all-consumingly with Anna, finding an ally in fellow sceptic William (Tom Burke), a successful journalist originally from the area who has been sent to report on this case.

The Wonder is a remarkably engrossing piece of cinema, with a complicated, fiercely protective woman at its heart and a darkly humorous streak that adds character while offering respite from the intensity. Oscarnominated cinematographer Ari Wegner (who brought her brilliant eye to The Power Of The Dog, Zola and Lady Macbeth) imbues the rugged landscapes and sparse interiors with a rich, peaty quality and yet still manages to convey the chill of it all. Pitting maternal instinct against religious dogma, and English against Irish, The Wonder is powerfully infused with its era’s tensions.

The Wonder is in cinemas from Wednesday 2 November and on Netflix from Wednesday 16 November.

Sebastián Lelio’s superbly atmospheric drama focuses on a curious incident in 1860s rural Ireland.

Emma Simmonds revels in yet another hypnotic performance by the peerless Florence Pugh

FILM LIVING (Directed by Oliver Hermanus) lllll

As its title subtly suggests, Living is all about seizing the day. This adaptation of Akira Kurosawa’s much-admired 1952 film Ikiru was itself inspired by Leo Tolstoy’s The Death Of Ivan Ilyich. Working from a screenplay by Nobel Prize-winner Kazuo Ishiguro, South African director Oliver Hermanus (Moffie) puts his own distinctive mark on the material with a tonally sedate, devastatingly sad film that could hardly be more visually dynamic.

Set in the 1950s, Living follows veteran London County Council bureaucrat Mr Williams (Bill Nighy), a mere shadow of a man whose air of melancholy has an unfortunate effect on those around him. He sucks the joy from his workplace and the home he shares with his son Michael (Barney Fishwick) and dreadful daughter-in-law Fiona (Patsy Ferran). When he finds out he is dying, with just months left on this planet, Williams decides to live a little; the only problem is he doesn’t know how. In his quest, this forlorn figure is assisted by his sparky young colleague Margaret (Sex Education’s Aimee Lou Wood) and, during a seaside jaunt, Tom Burke’s hedonistic writer Sutherland.

With its inspired take on the daily commute, Living cleverly relays the rituals, routines and oppressive expectations of that era, and shines a compassionate spotlight on the humdrum existence of a man whose happiness has, over time, simply been chipped away. Hermanus’ attention to detail is admirable, spectacular even, but the structure of Living’s concluding scenes seems contrived and a tad clunky, with some estimable nuance getting lost in its efforts to deliver an emotional sucker punch of an ending. Nighy, nevertheless, is transfixing throughout, turning in an extraordinarily poignant performance that will resonate far and wide in a film whose ultimate message feels very important indeed. (Emma Simmonds)

n In cinemas from Friday 4 November.

MUSIC

ANGEL OLSEN lllll

After nearly a decade of fusing folk with art pop and indie rock, Angel Olsen’s sixth album unapologetically embraces American country music. Full of bottleneck slides and gut-wrenching, hopelessly romantic lyrics delivered by her signature warble, the melodic simplicity of Big Time is elevated by layers of instruments and meaty production.

When bringing this to life on tour, Olsen and her band (complete with two string players) beautifully reimagine the record’s rich musical scope. But whether it was second-last-night-of-tour fatigue or the audience’s clear enthusiasm for older material, any climactic moments were softly subdued. ‘Just a few more and we’ll get out of here,’ she says after the first song, before diffusing the tension with, ‘I’m just joking around with ya.’

‘Dream Thing’, a slow and steady ballad with a lethargic quality, was the opener that inadvertently set the evening’s tone. Spikes in energy came in the breakdown of ‘All The Good Times’, ‘Go Home’ and 2016 hit ‘Shut Up Kiss Me’, which was set up with an elaborate game of silly buggers (the band pretended they were about to share a brand-new song written in Edinburgh that day). It was in these moments that Olsen’s impeccable vocals and candid charm shone. (Megan Merino) n Reviewed at Usher Hall, Edinburgh.

THEATRE SISTER RADIO (Written by Sara Shaarawi) lllll

The recent lockdown provides the setting for writer Sara Shaarawi’s sharp Sister Radio. Two sisters find themselves isolated in their Edinburgh flat, and enforced intimacy causes the past and present to intermingle, eventually unpicking a secret that’s been buried for over four decades. Under Caitlin Skinner’s direction, Lanna Joffrey and Nalân Burgess play, respectively, Fatemeh and Shirin, Iranian siblings who look back with mixed feelings about their Tehran home, and towards an uncertain future.

This Stellar Quines production lives up to its title by using a radio as a narrative device, flipping back and forward in time to past news stories, retro music and allowing us insight into the development of the sisters’ relationship. It’s clear from the outset that the duo look out for each other; they read tea-leaves together, and there’s an early suggestion that Fatemeh might be a corrupting influence as she offers her younger sister an illicit cigarette. But Shirin’s arrival in Scotland creates a wedge between the women in an unforeseen way; both seem inexperienced with men and that proves to be a problem when Fatemeh has a long-term relationship.

Perhaps our current heightened awareness of what’s happening in Iran, specifically in terms of women’s rights, gives Sister Radio a hard political edge with Shaarawi’s play homing in on a bitter-sweet dynamic created by displacement. Shirin accuses Fatemeh of consorting ‘with the enemy’ by having a Scottish boyfriend, but this play adeptly looks at how such culture clashes can lead to personal antagonism and eventual forgiveness. Both Joffrey and Burgess convey both a strong sisterly bond and how the weight of history can dictate the present. There’s more that draws us together than sets us apart, and Sister Radio’s acerbic feel for changing family dynamics makes it well worth tuning into. (Eddie Harrison)

n Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, Thursday 10–Saturday 12 November; reviewed at Tron Theatre, Glasgow.

FILM ARMAGEDDON TIME (Directed by James Gray) lllll

Playing a twinkle-eyed and adoring grandad, Anthony Hopkins has never been more loveable than in this otherwise unsentimental look at life in 1980s Queens. Writer-director James Gray considers the experiences that shaped him in an autobiographical film which follows Paul Graff (Banks Repeta), an unacademic, artistically inclined dreamer from a comfortable yet dysfunctional Jewish family.

Through his struggles at school, Paul finds a friend in a fellow stigmatised student Johnny (Jaylin Webb), a Black kid from a poor neighbourhood who has much further to fall. Jeremy Strong plays Paul’s dangerously bad-tempered father, with Anne Hathaway as his more sympathetic mother. Moments of humour feel a little too fleeting amid all the adolescent turmoil and, for a film about kids, it lacks their energy.

However, Gray unflinchingly captures the cruelty children are capable of, alongside the friction and chaos of multi-generational broods, while there’s fun in some withering verdicts on Reagan and in the enjoyable awfulness of Paul’s teacher Mr Turkeltaub (Andrew Polk). Told with real sincerity and a sense of infuriating injustice, Armageddon Time is a thoughtful reflection on some brutal life lessons, which the director recalls with a discernibly heavy heart. (Emma Simmonds)

n In cinemas from Friday 18 November.

OTHER THINGS WORTH GOING OUT FOR

If you fancy getting out and about this month, there’s plenty culture to sample such as a live-art jazz show, a reformed pop trio, two diverse film festivals and a well-cheeky northerner

ART LUMINESCENCE

While Tommy Smith plays his sax, artist Maria Rud produces a live painting on the east wall of St Giles. A unique way to experience jazz and art within an evocative building.

n St Giles’ Cathedral, Edinburgh, Friday Wednesday 18 November.

COMEDY

JASON MANFORD

With Like Me, the cheeky observational chappy gets back on the road with a no doubt on-point show about lockdown, ageing and relationships.

n OVO Hydro, Glasgow, Saturday 12 November.

FILM

FRENCH FILM FESTIVAL

The 30th anniversary of this festival careers around the country, with films starring the likes of Charlotte Gainsbourg, Tahar Rahim, Daniel Auteuil and the

increasingly controversial Gérard Depardieu.

n Various venues, Scotland, Wednesday 2 November–Thursday 15 December.

CENTRAL SCOTLAND DOCUMENTARY FESTIVAL

Stirling plays host to this highly engaging festival which features big documentary hits such as Moonage Daydream (about David Bowie) and My Old School (featuring Alan Cumming) alongside lesser-known films on subjects as diverse as the Canadian fur trade, an amateur filmmaking club in Bradford, and a paralysed mother determined to attend her daughter’s wedding.

n Macrobert, Stirling, Thursday 3–Monday 7 November.

AISHA

Released simultaneously in movie houses as well as on Sky Cinema, Letitia Wright and Josh O’Connor star in this tale of a young Nigerian woman seeking asylum in Ireland and being met with a blizzard of bureaucracy.

n In cinemas from Thursday 17 November.

KIDS ELFINGROVE

Time to get your skates on or hail your pals while they slide around the ice as Elfingrove returns bigger,

better and slippier than ever.

n Kelvingrove Art Gallery & Museum, Glasgow, Thursday 24 November–Saturday 24 December.

MUSIC SUGABABES

The original trio of Mutya, Keisha and Siobhán deliver their hits and a rush of early 2000s nostalgia for those who were there or now sampling it for the very first time

n Usher Hall, Edinburgh, Saturday 5 November; O2 Academy Glasgow, Monday 7 November.

THE GREAT WESTERN

A truly top-flight line-up, including Los Bitchos, Martha Ffion, LVRA, Anna B Savage, Dutch Wine, and Bee Asha Singh, takes to a number of Glasgow locales.

n Various venues, Glasgow, Saturday 12 November.

THEATRE

THE WONDERFUL WIZARD OF OZ

Johnny McKnight’s winter show this year is a recomposed version of the classic tale about a young girl, her dog and some odd fellows she meets on her colourful travels.

n Tron Theatre, Glasgow, Wednesday 23 November–Sunday 8 January.

Aisha (and bottom from left), Jason Manford, Elfingrove, Sugababes

in

SELENA GOMEZ: MY MIND & ME

Beirut-born, New Hampshire-raised Alek Keshishian made headlines for himself in 1991 when he directed Madonna’s Truth Or Dare tour documentary, a controversial box-office smash. Since then, his films have been released at a Kubrickian pace of roughly one a decade. This particular circle feels near closure with the airing of his latest documentary, tracking a sixyear period of Selena Gomez’s life and career. Connections will inevitably be made with his breakthrough work, though this film follows a global celebrity’s fight against anxiety and depression, terms that were rarely used in the early 90s.

from Friday 4 November.

(Brian Donaldson)

n

BOOKS MELVIN BURGESS

Having built a career on penning award-winning YA fiction, Melvin Burgess turns his laser focus onto a debut novel for adults. Becca Inglis speaks to him about myth-busting and dubious characters

Loki has always got a bad rap, but now comes a new novel to set the record straight. In Melvin Burgess’ Loki, he’s not the villain, but a harmless trickster. He’s also pansexual and, as the origin story of Odin’s eight-legged horse Sleipnir demonstrates, may be genderqueer. It’s the other gods who are repressive tyrants, while the maligned Loki, adopting a Prometheus persona, gifts fire to humankind.

Or so he would have us believe. Burgess hasn’t quite decided. ‘There are two ways of looking at it,’ he says. ‘One is that Loki feels as though we live in a more liberal age and his principles are going to have a sympathetic hearing. On the other hand, he might be a lying bastard.’ This slipperiness of truth, according to Burgess, is very much inspired by modern politics. ‘Trump, Johnson, Liz Truss, Brexit, Putin: where does the list end? Loki is everyone’s favourite god, particularly within an age where people are really fond of liars and populists. I think Loki feels as though his time has come.’

Many will recognise Burgess from his gritty YA novels such as Junk, which won the Carnegie Medal in 1997. Loki is his debut book for adults, though not his first foray into Norse myth. Bloodtide and Bloodsong place Asgard in a post-apocalyptic London, and even Lily in Junk, Burgess proposes, has Lokilike characteristics. ‘This quality of being completely nefarious but also really attractive: I’ve always enjoyed dubious characters.’

Loki joins a growing body of myth adaptations, including Madeline Miller’s Circe, Pat Barker’s The Silence Of The Girls, and Jennifer Saint’s Ariadne Burgess credits this trend partly to Marvel’s success. ‘Norse gods in many ways are the original superheroes, but it’s also that people are getting interested in interpreting things in different ways.’ Part of the fun for Burgess lies in interpreting legends literally and then probing for emotion. Why do epic characters behave the way they do? What are they thinking?

‘How would you feel if you were confronted by a dragon?’ he poses as an example. ‘When I was doing Bloodsong, I decided that the Tiananmen Square massacre, the film of that guy standing in front of the tank, must be what it feels like in a modern context. All you’ve got is sheer front.’ Which leaves us with Burgess’ Loki who, to hear him tell it, lies for love, kills by mistake and pranks tyrants. He’s a rebel, not evil. Or is he . . . ? n Loki is published by Coronet on Thursday 17 November.

Our alphabetical column on viewing marathons reaches K

It was the show that started a TV revolution and helped make a particular piece of knitwear the must-have winter clobber. In The Killing (BBC iPlayer), Sofie Gråbøl’s Sarah Lund was the ultimate ice queen as she unemotionally went about solving dastardly crimes across three seasons and made the normally reluctant UK viewer find merit in subtitled drama. There was the inevitable US remake which ultimately produced more episodes but never reached the heights of the Scandi original.

After deftly hamming it up as the initially irritating then endearingly loveable Alexis on Schitt’s Creek, Annie Murphy showed a darker hue to her actorly skills in the bleakly satirical Kevin Can Fuck Himself (Prime Video). Half studio sitcom, half morose drama, but fully about a woman who is desperate to escape her domestic drudgery and marriage to a repugnant manchild. Kind of like WandaVision without the eyewatering pyrotechnics or multi-layered backstory. (Brian Donaldson) n Other K binges: The Knick (NOW TV), Killing Eve (BBC iPlayer), Karaoke (All 4).

LIZZY JOHNSTON

“

A lot of times feminism gets boiled down to a checklist of rules ”

A podcast that both celebrates and challenges contemporary feminism? Consider us all ears. Lucy Ribchester chats to Unladylike founder and presenter Cristen Conger

What do foot fetishes, maiden names, the Illuminati, squirting, and nose jobs all have in common? No, they’re not categories on the new season of Pointless (arguably, a shame). Instead they have all featured as subjects on cult feminist podcast, Unladylike, hosted by Cristen Conger since 2018 and running into its 163rd episode at time of writing. Conger’s choices of subjects for each hour-long cultural dissection are varied to say the least, but what unites them all, along with their accompanying on-air deep dives, is their relevance to the lives of women.

Conger became drawn to the medium of podcasting shortly after graduating college, while working for the website How Stuff Works. ‘At that time, I was in my early 20s and in my first job that I cared about,’ she recalls.

‘Because of that, I was having my first overall awakenings to the realities of sexism, especially in the workplace.’

The feminist blogosphere was at the time ‘still pretty robust’ which gave her the idea to try creating a podcast in a similar vein. ‘Can we make a podcast looking at the world through the lens of gender and women, asking the questions: what does this mean for women? How do women contribute?’

Conger’s first podcast, Stuff Mom Never Told You, ran until 2016 and set the tone for Unladylike’s unabashed, rigorous discussion of cultural touchstones. But still being under the How Stuff Works umbrella, Conger didn’t own her intellectual property for the show, something she became increasingly aware of the more she discussed feminism on air.

‘I realised I was sitting here in a podcasting booth talking to women about knowing their worth and betting on themselves.

And I needed to walk that talk.’ With preternatural timing, she left to begin developing Unladylike shortly before Trump’s election.

One of the greatest assets of podcasting, as opposed to blogging or essay writing, Conger says, is the intimacy it offers between presenter and listener, ‘that one-on-one time you’re spending with each individual’. As anyone who suffers from insomnia will know, podcasts can keep you company in the darkest of the wee hours, or, in Conger’s case, as she is going about dull household tasks. ‘It’s the kind of in-depth relationship that you don’t otherwise get. It’s powerful to hear only the voice. It forces you to do the thing that I think a lot of us, especially these days, have a difficult time with, which is simply listening.’

Often listeners will get in touch with Conger, surprising her with the candour of their personal stories, such as the grandfather who wrote to tell her he’d built a relationship with his granddaughter around listening to Unladylike. ‘It just created a way for them to talk about things that normally grandfathers and granddaughters probably wouldn’t talk about, and gave him insight as well into things that she might be going through.’

Other times Conger has found her own feminist views challenged, as was the case with an episode centred around maiden names. Conger had hitherto been familiar with the core feminist argument about keeping your name. But after the episode aired, she heard all kinds of stories as to why listeners had changed or not changed theirs, ranging from escaping an abusive upbringing to keeping connection with ethnic heritage. ‘That reminded me that a lot of times feminism gets boiled down to, and misrepresented as, a checklist of rules. And life is nuanced and complex, and that kind of purity test approach is also not intersectional whatsoever. So it’s hopefully showing the importance of taking feminism beyond the slogans and a set of actions that are supposedly right or wrong, good or bad.’

New episodes available every Tuesday at unladylike.co

FIRST WRITES

In this Q&A, we throw some questions about ‘firsts’ at debut authors. For November, we feature Olivia Wenzel, author of 1000 Coils Of Fear, a tale that encompasses race, politics, feminism, nationality, and enduring love

What was the book you read that made you decide to be a writer?

As a child I loved to read The Neverending Story and Momo by Michael Ende, and Ronja, The Robber’s Daughter by Astrid Lindgren. No book made me decide to be a writer though. I was always writing little stories, immediately after I had learned to write in elementary school (and I don’t think that’s something special at all). The decision to be a writer came much later when I won a prize for a play, after I had finished studying. Only through this award did I start to take my writing so seriously that I began to believe it could actually be my job.

What’s your favourite first line in a book? I forget all of them. But if I look something up, I enjoy the first sentence of Junot Díaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life Of Oscar Wao very much: ‘They say it came first from Africa, carried in the screams of the enslaved; that it was the death bane of the Tainos, uttered just as one world perished and another began; that it was a demon drawn into Creation through the nightmare door that was cracked open in the Antilles.’

Which debut publication had the most profound effect on you? In recent times, I really enjoyed reading Jia Tolentino’s Trick Mirror, a collection of essays.

What’s the first thing you do when you wake up on a writing day?

When I’m really lucky and don’t have to start the day with draining office stuff, I love to stay in my pyjamas and just scribble down some notes.

What’s the first thing you do when you’ve stopped writing for the day? Mostly draining office stuff. Occasionally some yoga.

In a parallel universe where you’re the tyrant leader of a dystopian civilisation, what’s the first book you’d burn? The Bible: just kidding. I wouldn’t burn any books; don’t you guys know I’m German? I might be tempted to ban all smartphones for a while though, just to see how people would interact without them. To go and burn all of them might be a bit too toxic, I imagine.

What’s the first piece of advice you’d offer to an aspiring novelist? Take your time.

1000 Coils Of Fear is published by Dialogue Books on Thursday 10 November.

GAMES THE DARK PICTURES ANTHOLOGY: THE DEVIL IN ME

For each of the past three years, Supermassive Games has released an episode of The Dark Pictures Anthology, a portmanteau of interactive horror stories united by a mysterious host known as The Curator. It all started in 2019 with Man Of Medan, set mostly on a ghostly WWII warship. The following year’s Little Hope segued between the present day and the Salem witch trials, then last year’s House Of Ashes ambitiously combined the 2003 Iraq War with the discovery of an ancient alien civilisation, to brilliant effect.

The final part of this ‘first season’ of stories (another four are planned for season two) is The Devil In Me. A group of filmmakers are summoned to a replica of the home of a serial killer: what could possibly go wrong? Starring Jessie Buckley, it features five playable characters and (just like the previous instalments) players will be forced to make life-or-death decisions, often under excruciating pressure.

The Dark Pictures games thrive on consequence, and their branching storylines and multiple endings encourage repeat play as gamers try to keep everyone alive (or kill the lot). This episode will introduce a number of new features but hopefully won’t stray too far from its already winning formula. (Murray Robertson) n Released on PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S on Friday 18 November.

Our column celebrating music to watch continues with Edinburgh dream-pop duo No Windows. As their debut EP looms on the horizon, Fiona Shepherd speaks to them about musical chemistry, grungy reverie and weird songs about dogs

FUTURE SOUND

Despite their relatively tender years, 18-yearold Verity Slangen and 16-year-old Morgan Morris are already veterans of a number of bands. First there was Five One: ‘everyone in the band was super-short,’ says Morris, ‘and that was the average height.’ Then there was Renton: no prizes for guessing which film Morris had just watched.

‘Some of them were good, some of them were bad . . . actually, they were all pretty bad,’ he says, reflecting on those early endeavours. ‘I think it’s handy for us now having those years because we’ve been able to build up a musical chemistry just naturally.’

Now Slangen and Morris are poised to release their debut EP as dream-pop duo No Windows, the first band they’ve formed with no school connections. The pair met at Edinburgh’s Trinity Academy where Morris is still a student. Slangen, a year ahead, is now studying social sciences at college.

While Morris is an Edinburgh native, Slangen was born in Manchester, and lived in Norwich and London before her family moved to Scotland. Morris hails from a musical background, receiving piano lessons from a young age, while Slangen made her own way via school choirs before picking up guitar at secondary. ‘When I was younger, I would randomly sing these weird songs about my dog,’ she says.

‘When I hit 12, 13 (that really angstridden period), I decided it would be best to write my own music.’

Morris, meanwhile, was not getting on well with formal instrumental tuition (‘I could never read sheet music; I still struggle with it’) but made a breakthrough when he was taught production and began writing his own songs on keyboards. Of his own volition, he took up guitar, bass and drums: sounds like the makings of a band . . .

Slangen and Morris are now making their way as a live concern, picking up support slots across the central belt, and festival appearances at Connect and Tenement Trail but, appropriately, given the claustrophobic name, No Windows was birthed from their separate home endeavours during the pandemic.

Even now, the duo never write together: Morris will start with a chord progression, Slangen adds melody and lyrics, and Morris layers on the effects which lend their music a grungy reverie. ‘I always think the lo-fi thing is unintentional,’ says Morris. ‘My best efforts in making something pristine usually ends up sounding super rough; in a good way.’ Mazzy Star often crops up as an influence on Slangen while, collectively, they can agree on Alex G.

‘There are artists we share an interest in and some we will never agree on liking,’ says Morris. ‘But I think the stuff that influences the band sonically is quite down the middle. There’s loads of stuff we listen to that doesn’t influence the music whatsoever: I listen to a lot of rap, Verity is a drum’n’bass garage head. I doubt you’d hear that in any of our stuff.’

No Windows’ EP The Fishboy is released on Something, Friday 25 November.

tv of the month

When you encounter somebody unpleasant, it’s always interesting to wonder, ‘what made you like that?’ When it comes to the characters in Pierre Choderlos de Laclos’ late 18th-century novel,

Les Liaisons Dangereuses, we need wonder no more.

Adapted for the stage in 1985 by Christopher Hampton, who then reimagined it for the big screen with an all-star cast in 1988, Dangerous Liaisons is a tale of manipulation and cruelty in pre-revolution Paris. At its core sits the beautiful Marquise de Merteuil and handsome Vicomte de Valmont, two former lovers who set their sights on breaking hearts more brittle than their own.

But these two schemers were young once, before disappointment stole their compassion. Which is where TV writer Harriet Warner comes in, gifting us an intriguing prelude that’s as high on periwigs, breeches and cleavage as the original but with a touch more humanity. Here, Merteuil is a twentysomething beauty thrust into poverty in mysterious circumstances, and Valmont is an in-demand gigolo who’s forced to part with his shirt more times than even he finds comfortable. In theory, they’re in love, but Merteuil (played with subtlety and just the right amount of edge by Alice

Englert) is too bitter to really let anyone in. And we quickly suspect that Valmont (a suitably slimy Nicholas Denton) is incapable of truly loving anyone but himself.

And so the scene is set for an enjoyable and often compelling eight-episode romp through the French capital, shortly before the upper crust got their comeuppance. The stories may hail from slightly different eras, and on alternate sides of the Channel, but there’s a vague whiff of Bridgerton about this. Although, to its credit, Dangerous Liaisons does at least acknowledge that obscene wealth always comes at the cost of extreme poverty elsewhere. As origin stories go, this is a clever one and it will be interesting to see where the prelude and Choderlos de Laclos’ novel start to merge as the series plays out.

Cast-wise, aside from our leads, it’s fun to watch Lesley Manville in the role of the former Marquise de Merteuil, having played one of the scheming duo’s young victim’s in Hampton’s 1985 play. A stellar ensemble surrounds them, including Paloma Faith as one of Valmont’s many paying customers, while it seems unlikely anyone will walk away unscathed from this exercise in power, seduction, secrets, and lies.

Starts on Starz, Sunday 6 November.

Dangerous Liaisons has had multiple incarnations: book, play, film and now an adaptation for the small screen.

Apter enjoys this often-compelling tale of power, seduction, secrets and lies

Ghost Music (Harvill Secker) 

After being hothoused to be a dazzling concert pianist like her father, Song Yan drops out of uni, much to her parents’ disappointment. Her plan B is getting married, having kids, and teaching piano instead, but her husband’s talent for avoiding her means she hasn’t got pregnant yet, so now her mother-in-law is disappointed in her too.

An Yu’s description of a 29-year-old’s gradual grappling with what it means to be herself in the world is often stunning. Her turns of phrase are simple yet wonderful, whether describing a piano melody that is like ‘watching a white feather fall from the sky’ or an unknowable man ‘sealed like an envelope that wasn’t addressed to me’.

Based in Hong Kong after studying in New York, native Beijinger Yu casually conjures up sympathetic insights into the mind of her frustrated heroine. Polite Song Yan envies, for example, ‘those women who could allow their emotions to blow up freely’. Watching Song Yan slowly unravel is compelling, as she stumbles into a maze of self-discovery while uncovering some complicated skeletons in a few people’s closets.

As with her debut novel, Braised Pork, Yu mixes the real and the surreal, blurring dreamworlds and the everyday. Mushrooms take on a mystical role, guiding her in increasingly trippy sequences. They appear in dreams and mysterious deliveries at her door, pushing her to bare her soul or leave some kind of artistic legacy while she worries that she has nothing interesting inside her to show. Yu has no fear of elevating a very delicately told domestic drama into a much bigger mythical tale. She leaves space for life’s big perplexities to be considered with bold, magic-realist scenes, then returns to the banal: Song Yan gulping down the Chinese spirit baijiu to unwind, or online shopping on website Taobao. Transporting, searching and poetic, Yu’s weird, mutated storytelling wonderfully marries mundane and deep existential dilemmas. (Claire Sawers)

on Thursday 3 November.

BLOOD

In The

do you follow a masterpiece? In 2019, as Weyes Blood, Natalie Mering released Titanic Rising, an album immersed in the sound world of American popular song at its most highly crafted. Think The Carpenters, Harry Nilsson, The Beach Boys. Think, in particular, of Judee Sill: Mering’s music hits the same sweet spot between consolation and sorrow, and has a kindred shiver of profundity that makes it feel quasi-sacred. Titanic Rising was at least the equal of its influences, a 21st-century classic. And In The Darkness, Hearts Aglow is a sequel, conceived as the middle album in a ‘dystopian romance’ trilogy. Mostly co-produced, as before, with Jonathan Rado, the sound and feel are familiar: lush and orchestral, a warm bath that makes you unaccountably sad. Mering’s singing is immaculate throughout. There is rarely any sign of effort (and never strain) in her voice, creating a sense of detachment that, counterintuitively, makes these songs more powerfully moving. The effect is that of a friend insisting they are fine when you know that they are really not.

Mering’s writing appears concerned with the experience of the individual in a highly advanced society unable to prevent its own collapse. You know, pop music. There are many wonderful moments: the fingerclicks on ‘Children Of The Empire’; the breezy pessimism of ‘The Worst Is Done’; the yearning coda of ‘God Turn Me Into A Flower’. Every now and then an aphoristic lyric jumps out: ‘Mercy,’ she sings, ‘is the only cure for being so lonely.’

Though lacking the two or three transcendentally magnificent numbers that anchored Titanic Rising in the sublime, this is a very strong record which, on its own terms, further establishes Mering among America’s best young songwriters. She has all the potential to be one of the greats. (Peter Ross)

on Friday 18 November.

PODCASTS

4AD FORAGES

One of the most influential labels in alternative music since its 1980 founding, 4AD has crafted a legacy that ranges from the provocative rock of The Birthday Party to Aldous Harding’s surrealist folk. But how can a label maintain its relevance in a modern landscape where independent artists are more likely to be discovered on Bandcamp than by a savvy talent scout?

4AD Forages, a new monthly podcast delving into the history of bands related to that label, may answer this question. The premiere episode featured HTRK songwriter Jonnine Standish and These Immortal Souls’ member Genevieve McGuckin discussing the life and times of late songwriter Rowland S Howard, who was McGuckin’s domestic partner and Standish’s musical collaborator. On the margins of this affectionate conversation are asides about the Australian post-rock music scene, being a woman in male-dominated songwriting spaces, and the devastation of losing a spouse.

It’s a warm, emotionally generous conversation, almost at odds with the hard rock that the pair are associated with, and one that never descends into a neat PR trick from 4AD. This is carefully curated material, tastefully executed, and perfect for anyone with a stack of music memoirs on their bedside table. (Kevin Fullerton)

episodes available on the first Monday of each month.

there ever been a TV series that is so uncertain of exactly what it wants to be? Ostensibly, this is a Western about a deep-seated connection between an aristocratic Englishwoman (Emily Blunt’s Lady Cornelia) and an ex-cavalry scout and member of the Pawnee Nation (Chaske Spencer’s Eli Whipp) in the 1890s Wild West. Without giving too much away, those that you’d assume would be major characters are bumped off rather early, albeit to be replaced by others equally as key. It’s tempting to think that the actors concerned demanded that they be released from their duties before lunch after seeing what lay ahead for this drama.

But is it even a drama? Emily Blunt delivers lines as though she’s involuntarily landed into an episode of TheInbetweeners, spouting unrealistic and wholly anachronistic levels of sass. Still, her character does hit one thing on the nose, wondering out loud whether the country she finds herself in is populated solely by thieves and killers. A garroting or scalping or beheading or hanging or regular old beating feels like it’s constantly around the next tree, but while the threat of ultra-violence is always stirring in the viewer’s mind, the show (possibly mercifully) constantly bottles out of being the next Game Of Thrones or Gangs Of London.

Across the opening two episodes, the only full-on moment of visceral violence is an assault upon Lady Cornelia which leaves a decidedly sour taste. Meanwhile, an overly invasive musical accompaniment (which swells ‘movingly’ in a WestWing style whenever characters get broody with one another) is joined by some clunky dialogue that deserves to be led straight to the gallows. (Brian Donaldson)

Friday 11 November.

After a 16year absence, Cormac McCarthy returns with not one, but two new works. While Alan Bett finds that the author’s prose remains superb, his payoffs may not wholly satisfy

Sin. Some original, some more contemporary. As with many of Cormac McCarthy’s past works, sin informs the narrative of his long-awaited new books. We’ll leave the bus analogies to others, but after an extended pause following The Road in 2006, two novels from the legendary author have turned up at once. Well, one full novel (The Passenger) and a shorter follow-up (Stella Maris), described as a coda, but feeling very much a key to the former.

The Passenger is packaged as a standard thriller. Bobby Western is a salvage diver operating around the Gulf Of Mexico. His most recent job has a troubling mystery at its core: a sunken jet full of belted-in bodies. The numbers don’t add up. A passenger is missing, along with the flight bag and black box. As a result, Western is pursued by nameless agents of the state. But this chase story evolves into something quite different and difficult to define; it moves from tangible to existential threats, ghosts from the past and family trauma. The narrative slows and spreads, becomes a philosophical musing that is not always coherent.

McCarthy’s prose is, as ever, first rate. The playful deceit of The Passenger’s initial genre framing is occasionally given away by moments of sparse and staccato poetry. And while the majority of the main narrative is told in a clean, standard beat, it’s interspersed by chapters that are more freeform such as the conversations between Western’s institutionalised sister,

books of the month

Alicia, and an imagined retinue of characters. They are the result of an extreme personality disorder, a condition dealt with in a creative but not always sensitive fashion. In addition, Alicia’s beauty and genius are incessantly referenced, in a way that leaves her as a slightly totemic presence. Yet she finds a stronger, perhaps not always reliable, narrative voice in Stella Maris, a series of mathematics and philosophy-focused conversations between her and a psychologist.

Both books are dialogue heavy, Stella Maris being entirely that and the majority of The Passenger made up of bar-room and restaurant parleys between Western and a cast of hard-boiled characters. Some are built organically into the narrative while others feel parachuted in as sounding boards for Bobby’s ruminations on life’s big questions. The laconic wisdom and sharp turns of phrase from previous books are, however, often matched in these sharp tête-à-têtes.

There is a challenge in comparing such a distinctive writer to any other; easier instead to loop back and compare them to earlier versions of themselves. So, as with No Country For Old Men, the stain of past violence seeps into the present here, in this case with the incomparably violent energy from splitting the atom. Western’s father was part of the team that developed the atomic bomb alongside Oppenheimer, that destroyer of worlds. Of course, it’s a seismic historical moment, and this book exists in its aftershock. It acts as metaphor. A big bang, spawning a troubled new era that the author regularly references across both books: Vietnam, the space race, JFK.

McCarthy once more attempts to interrogate the soul of his country, or at the very least offer melancholy reflections. He works the reader hard, with payoffs that will satisfy some but not all. However, at 89 years of age, the author has the perspective to inform a singular voice.

The Passenger is out now with Stella Maris out on Tuesday 22 November; both are published by Picador.

A mix of sports movie, family saga and refugee drama, TheSwimmers tells the inspirational true story of teenage sisters Yusra and Sara Mardini. Living in Syria with their parents and younger sibling, Yusra (Nathalie Issa) and Sara (Manal Issa) both love swimming, especially Yusra who dreams of competing in the Olympics. But the war in Syria seemingly puts paid to her desires, as friends die in bombing raids or flee the country. Finally, they convince their reluctant father (Ali Suliman) to let them leave and head to Germany, where they can claim refugee status and eventually bring the rest of the family over.

Departing with their cousin Nizar (Ahmed Malek), who has ambitions to be a DJ, they fly to Istanbul where they make contacts with a smuggler who can provide them with a crossing to Lesbos. That turns out to be an unsafe dinghy with an unreliable engine, and crammed full of other hopefuls. The sequence is harrowing to watch, as it should be, although it won’t be the last obstacle Yusra and Sara face. Captured brilliantly by cinematographer Christopher Ross, this moment bleeds into one of the film’s most telling images: a mountain of orange lifejackets abandoned on the beach by hundreds of refugees who have gone before them.

Written and directed by Sally El Hosaini (who debuted in 2012 with My Brother The Devil), the film strives hard to move away from being just another story about those who come to Europe from a conflict zone. Powered by two terrific performances from the Issa sisters, there are scenes of sheer joy, such as the triumphant arrival into Berlin or when they meet Sven (Matthias Schweighöfer), a swimming coach who agrees to train them. As crowd-pleasing as it is, The Swimmers never sacrifices honesty or integrity while it tugs on your heart. (James Mottram)

from Wednesday 23 November.

ALBUMS CHRISTINE AND THE QUEENS Redcar Les Adorables Étoiles (Because Music)

Guardian readers’ favourite art-pop propagator Christine And The Queens is back with Redcar Les Adorables Étoiles, an album which trades emotional and melodic immediacy for slinky grooves, hypnotic repetition and insistent drum beats. Credited to his alter ego Redcar, this third outing for the Gallic star is delivered primarily in French with occasional slivers of English, language another shifting sand in this dense exploration of genderqueer identity.

These are knotty tunes combining ice-cold synths with baroque drama, Chris’ limitless vocal range evoking a race against time before the gothic nightclub that these songs inevitably play in closes. Gothic is an apt description, as the haunting sounds here are more akin to Boy Harsher or Fever Ray than the obvious comparisons to Charli XCX and Caroline Polachek on 2018’s Chris

At times, his dogged dedication to good taste can lead to ponderousness, as in ‘My Birdman’, a trip-hop inspired daunder seemingly designed to fade into the background of a Caffè Nero playlist. But any minor missteps can be forgiven, as a vast chunk of the bold experiments in Redcar pay off. Hopefully this isn’t the last time we encounter Chris’ dynamic new persona. (Kevin Fullerton)

on Friday 11 November.

OTHER THINGS WORTH STAYING IN FOR

A packed month of things to do indoors or consume on your travels including a new album by a British rap icon, a non-fiction guide from a Japanese legend, and a crime drama series starring an American beefcake

ALBUMS

CALEB LANDRY JONES

The actor/musician brings us a new album, Gadzooks Vol 2 (the follow-up to a record whose title you could probably hazard a guess at), which has been dubbed a ‘soothing and sublime collection’. n Sacred Bones, Friday 4 November.

STORMZY

This Is What I Mean is the hugely anticipated third album from the grime supremo, and was largely written during a retreat on Osea Island, the Essex location where they made that spooky telly drama, The Third Day, with Jude Law and Naomie Harris. n 0207 Def Jam/Interscope, Friday 25 November.

BOOKS

HARUKI MURAKAMI

Where do they get their ideas from? Not a question you’d ask an author straight to their face but one

which is answered freely by the beloved Japanese writer in Novelist As A Vocation n Harvill Secker, Tuesday 8 November.

LYNN STEGER STRONG

The author of the acclaimed Want returns with Flight, a story about a family of siblings gathering together for Christmas in upstate New York. Tensions soon boil over. n Simon & Schuster, Thursday 10 November.

PODCASTS

I HEAR FEAR

Introduced each week by Carey Mulligan, this is an anthology series of horror tales, so far featuring the story of a mother tracking her daughter down to an illegal rave that gets seriously weird, and a painter who has lost his sight moving to a spooky country house. n Amazon Music, new episodes weekly.

TV THE CROWN

There will be plenty folk getting teary-eyed over this first series of Peter Morgan’s sort-of factual drama about the Royals since the new monarch’s mum died. Many others will simply wonder how the likes of Imelda Staunton (HRH RIP), Dominic West (Charles) and Jonny Lee Miller (John Major) handle their parts.

n Netflix, Wednesday 9 November.

TULSA KING

The era of prestige TV finally welcomes Sylvester Stallone into its ranks as he plays a Mafia capo just out of jail after a 25-year stint and opting to pick up precisely where he left off. Co-creator Terence Winter earned his stripes on The Sopranos, making this series a far more promising prospect than it might first sound.

n Paramount+, Monday 14 November.

The Crown (and bottom from left), Tulsa King, Caleb Landry Jones, Stormzy

Who would you like to see playing you in the movie about your life? Denzel Washington.

What’s the punchline to your favourite joke? They both contain seamen.

If you were to return in a future life as an animal, what would it be? Black panther.

If you were playing in an escape room, name two other people (well-known or otherwise) you’d recruit to help you get out? The greatest mind in sport and also the smartest mouth ever who would be able to talk me out of any room: Muhammad Ali. Plus the greatest lawyer of all time, Johnnie Cochran.

When was the last time you were mistaken for someone else and what were the circumstances? In the Caribbean at the airport; apparently I looked like a family member of theirs called Peter.

What’s the best cover version ever? Children In Need’s version of ‘Perfect Day’.

Whose speaking voice soothes your ears? Angela Bassett.

Tell us something you wish you had discovered sooner in life? Practice, research and diligence equals results.

If you were a ghost, who would you haunt? Hitler.

Jazz legend Courtney Pine is back on the road ahead of his first album in five years. In our Q&A, the groundbreaking musician talks black panthers, Postman Pat and unfulfilled goalkeeping ambitions

Describe your perfect Saturday evening? West Indian food on the beach watching the sun come down with my significant other.

If you could relive any day of your life, which one would it be? My first day at William Wilberforce Primary School on Beethoven Street in London.

What’s your earliest recollection of winning something? Shock, bemusement and the realisation that I had to work harder now.

Did you have a nickname at school that you were ok with? And can you tell us a nickname you hated? No nicknames. I was an average student.

If you were to start a tribute act to a band or singer, who would it be in tribute to and what would it be called? Black Impossible: a tribute to all the NHS, soldiers, doctors, scientists, musicians, and innovators from the African diaspora that still don’t get recognised for their contributions to making this a better world. And the postpersons (Postman Pat and his friends).

When were you most recently astonished by something? The third lockdown and how people didn’t take it seriously.

What tune do you find it impossible not to get up and dance to, whether in public or private? Chic’s ‘Le Freak’.

Which famous person would be your ideal holiday companion? Elon (Money) Musk.

As an adult, what has a child said to you that made a powerful impact? Run Pine, run!

Tell us one thing about yourself that would surprise people? I used to have an ambition to be a goalkeeper. I played in goal all throughout my school years as well as after I was thrown out of school because the music teacher didn’t want to teach me. Totally selftrained as a keeper, I got to play for Kingsbury but then the gigs up and down the country came in so I never got to represent England. But my daughter ended up playing as a striker for her mother’s nation, Saint Kitts And Nevis: proud dad!

When did you last cry? My gran’s funeral in Jamaica.

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

What’s a skill you’d love to have learned but never quite got round to? Drone flying.

By decree of your local council, you’ve been ordered to destroy one room in your house and all of its contents. Which room do you choose? Garage.

If you were selected as the next 007, where would you pick as your first luxury destination for espionage? Ethiopia would be my choice, having been there and met the people, experienced the culture and driven around Addis Ababa; so many layers to the nation. Shashamane is a city that fascinates many and is well worthy of espionage.

Courtney Pine, Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh, Wednesday 16 November; Spirituality is released on Destin-E Records, Friday 18 November.

As we approach the tail end of 2022, it’s time to cast an eye back on the Scots who have been making cultural waves both at home and further afield. Our Hot 100 reveals the nation’s top musicians, actors, directors, comedians, artists, novelists and podcasters: but who is set to scoop the number one spot? We’ll also be looking forward to the happenings of 2023 with a snapshot of what’s going to be great next year including a new album and tour from Young Fathers, while the longest running play in the world finally escapes from London’s West End and heads to Scotland. Yep folks, it’s time to work out what the heck The Mousetrap is all about.

n Next copy of The List will be out on Thursday 1 December.

hot shots

Painter, author and broadcaster, Lachlan Goudie has long stepped out of his dad Alexander’s shadow to forge a fab career, and he has a new exhibition at The Scottish Gallery entitled Painting Paradise (Thursday 3–Saturday 26 November).

At Dundee Rep, Scottish Dance Theatre deliver a double bill (Thursday 3–Saturday 5 November) of Ritualia by Colette Sadler which reimagines a 1923 work, and The Circle from Emanuel Gat, featuring a score by Squarepusher.

Just launched is the new Call Of Duty game ‘Modern Warfare II’, a sequel to the rebooted 2019 version. Are you tough enough to last the pace with Task Force 141 as they take on various cartels and terror cells?