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OCTOBER 2026

ISSUE 805 LIST.CO.UK FREE

Wonder Fools Ghosts Arab Strap These Violent Delights Rio De Janeiro Editors Nosferacula Beverley Knight 1984 Richard Fearless

GAYLE RANKIN turns back the clock as Miss Jean Brodie

2 THE LIST October 2026

Mouthpiece How to diss guisers

The Insider Istanbul and Idles

FEATURES Horror special From Ghosts to games and Paranormal Activity to pods

Positive Stories For Negative Times

contents

FRONT

6 7

Established writers meet upcoming theatre-makers

EAT & DRINK Cathcart

The Southside zone that’s on the up

Meyhane

A slice of Turkish delights

TRAVEL & SHOP B51 Boutique

The cool jewellery spot with a warm welcome

On Your Doorstep

Poking around some pumpkin patches

GOING OUT Edinburgh Spanish Film Festival

The pain, pride and passion of sporting endeavour

Lullaby

Turning hospitals into choreographic palaces

Alan Davies

Stand-up’s Peter Pan hits the comeback trail

STAYING IN War

A parcel of very watchable legal rogues

The Hitler Diaries Scandal

Revisiting an 80s literary scam

Hot Shots Reflections, rebels and radical makeovers

PICTURE: REBECCA JONES

BACK

” 92 I cosy up in the crypt with a flayed corpse by my side NOSFERACULA ON HIS PERFECT SATURDAY NIGHT

COVER PICTURE: ANDREW ARTHUR

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welcome

I’m taking over the reins of our Welcome note this issue as we continue to process the sad news that The Skinny’s September issue was its last. I remember when The Skinny arrived in 2005. As a Torontonian, it reminded me of the street papers I used to pore over at university (Now Magazine and Eye, if you’re familiar). The List already had 20 years under its belt and it was great to see another publication championing arts and culture through a different lens. People often tried to pit us against each other as competitors, but we never saw it that way. We each had distinct audiences, with some crossover, sure, but for the most part we stayed in our own lanes. We were lucky to operate in cities where there was room for several brilliant platforms supporting the arts and culture scene. More voices, more coverage, more ways for people to discover what was going on. What’s not to like? The List has almost closed a few times in its 41-year history and it’s not fun. It’s gut-wrenchingly sad to watch something you love put at risk. The reality is that it’s tough out there and the arts can’t seem to catch a break. I often talk about the delicate ecosystem in which we operate and why it needs protecting. The fact that we’re still having to hammer that point home tells its own story. Since we relaunched in 2022, our team has worked incredibly hard to protect what we do and the wider arts environment we’re a part of. But keeping independent cultural publishing alive is a shared effort that cannot survive on goodwill alone. The relationship between publications like ours and the promoters, galleries, theatres, brands, venues, festivals and artists we champion is symbiotic. We need brilliant things to write about and those brilliant things need places where audiences can discover them. When one part of the ecosystem is weakened, we all feel it. So if you hold the budgets for promoting Scottish arts, we’re asking you to recognise that where you put your marketing spend matters. When you choose independent arts publications, you aren’t simply buying advertising; you’re investing in the infrastructure and helping artists reach audiences. Above all, you’re helping keep Scotland’s cultural community connected. The Skinny’s closure is a huge loss. Not only for its team, but for everyone who cares about cultural life in Scotland. We are grateful to still be here and don’t take any of it for granted. We’ve been helping people ‘get a life’ since 1985 and will keep supporting independent Scottish arts and culture for as long as we can.

Sheri Friers CEO

PUBLISHING CEO Sheri Friers Editor Brian Donaldson Art Director Seonaid Rafferty Lead Designer Bradley Southam Subeditor Paul McLean Eat & Drink Editor Jo Laidlaw Travel & Shop Editor Isy Santini Writers Afreka Thomson, Ailsa Sheldon, Allan Radcliffe, Ananya Patankar, Brian Donaldson, Claire Sawers, David Kirkwood, Donald Reid, Eddie Harrison, Emma Simmonds, Fiona Shepherd, Greg Thomas, Isy Santini, James Mottram, Jay Richardson, Jay Thundercliffe, Jo Laidlaw, Katherine McLaughlin, Kelly Apter, Kevin Fullerton, Lucy Mills, Lucy Ribchester, Marcas Mac an Tuairneir, Mark Fisher, Megan Merino, Murray Robertson, Paul Dale, Rachael Revesz, Rachel Morrell, Rob Adams, Sheri Friers, Suzy Pope, Vic Galloway Print & Digital Content Manager Murray Robertson

TRAADE

CONTRIBUTORS

OLGA KOCH

Head Of Commercial Jayne Atkinson Online News Editor Kevin Fullerton Head Of Marketing & Events Leah Bauer Business Development Manager Lachlan McMaster Marketing & Events Executive Eve Johnston

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Published by List Publishing Ltd 2 Roxburgh Place, Edinburgh EH8 9SU Tel: 0131 623 3040 list.co.uk editor@list.co.uk ISSN: 0959 - 1915

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© 2026 List Publishing Ltd. Reproduction in whole or in part is forbidden without the written permission of the publishers. The List does not accept responsibility for unsolicited material. The List provides this content in good faith but no guarantee or representation is given that the content is accurate, complete or up-to-date. Use of magazine content is at your own risk. Printed by Acorn Web Offset Ltd, W.Yorkshire.

Halloween is lurking around the corner, bringing with it a litany of unwanted social interactions. Our resident columnist Kevin Fullerton hatches a plan to ward off those pesky guisers

uring my first time guising, I popped out with my sister and her friends to chap on doors and beg for sweets while dressed as Dracula. Our final destination arrived earlier than planned. On the third floor of a rundown tenement, a red light slowly illuminated the transom and a deathly scream rang from the flat. A large adult hand reached through the letterbox, and I let out a prepubescent shriek before running for the exit. While I hyperventilated tears, my sister and her pals had to explain to me that Satan wasn’t living three blocks from our home. Maybe it was this trauma that made me allergic to making an effort during Halloween in later years. Case in point: the costume I’m proudest of was that of John Merrick, everyone’s favourite Victorian elephant man. I collected a potato sack from my local fruit and veg shop, a black sheet from Primark and a large stick from a local park. An indisputably effective ten-minute job. Others at the Halloween party had clearly laboured at their costumes for days, or else had spent hundreds of pounds on a black suit to resemble James Bond in a vain attempt at copping off (there were at least four 007s at the party). Mine was assembled like a rapid-fire foraging mission.

One Last Shot

is for... 6 THE LIST October 2026

I bring this up because my partner and I find ourselves, for the first time in our adult lives, living in a ground floor flat with a front door facing a main road, leaving us an inevitable target for trick or treaters; the etiquette has become a mystery to me. How fancy-dressed do these fancy dressers have to be? If a teenager shows up with a balaclava and an e-scooter claiming to be a dadaist reinterpretation of Darth Vader, do I believe them? What is an acceptable treat? Will a cashew from my Tesco bag of mixed nuts do? I may well copy the people who traumatised me when I was six, but obviously I’d have to put a more aggressive spin on it to avoid these chancers darkening my door again. When a guiser reaches our stoop and presses the doorbell, flames will erupt from the garden and a disembodied voice will yell: ‘You have reached the house of Satan. Shall you choose trick or treat?’ The children, presumably shaking in fear by now, will yelp their preference. For a trick, they will be forced to make a blood pledge to Beelzebub using a small picnic knife under the doormat. For a treat, they’ll do the same but will have to freeze the blood and suckle it like a delicious bonbon. As a result, I will inevitably be branded the ‘psychopath house’ by every kid in the local area. Think of it as paying forward my own Halloween hell.

Catherine Opie

PICTURE: STUART ARMITT

PICTURE: REBECCA JONES

front

mouthpiece

. . . an October that is, frankly, not quite as bountiful on O artistic endeavours as September was with S action. So, a bit of liberty has had to be taken. Bear with us. While many feverishly await the second TV batch of Department Q, a new book in the original Scandi series is just out: No Song For The Dead is penned by Jussi Adler-Olsen, with co-writing duties this time performed by two other writers whose names don’t start with an O. The Occidental Book Of The Dead by T Geronimo Johnson was dubbed one of Time’s most anticipated crime novels for 2026, so it might be worth giving that a read. At the Royal Scottish Academy, Catherine Opie’s To Be Seen photography

exhibition can still be viewed until 1 November, so get those art skates on. David Oyelowo co-stars with Viola Prettejohn in Sky’s upcoming The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo as Stieg Larsson’s Millennium franchise expands. It’s being produced by Left Bank Pictures who also made Department Q which, remember, is based on the books by Jussi Adler-Olsen. OK, what else? On the albums front before the year is done, Cliff Richard is releasing Only Number Ones (no sniggering at the back, now) and there are new collections from US rockers Oso Oso and Bath-born singersongwriter Odette while Gilbert O’Sullivan goes on the record with a record called On The Record . . . is that 250 words yet, boss?

FRONT

Pla yLi st Boo! We’re leaning into spooky season with this series of Halloween-inspired songs designed to get your palms sweating and spines tingling. Hear music by Japan, Death In Vegas, Tame Impala, Kate Bush, Talking Heads and Björk, plus a couple of classic horror theme tunes that may well keep you awake at night . . . Scan and listen as you read:

wholesome pic of the mont h Parents disappearing with barely a trace, leaving their offspring behind to fend for themselves is never anything other than a sad event. But in Michael Buckley’s book series of The Sisters Grimm, now about to launch a second animated season on Apple TV, the overarching theme that ‘you can help make your own story’ (welling up already, aren’t you?) keeps matters bubbling along. Ariel Winter and Leah Newman voice the abandoned siblings who navigate a town populated by fairytale characters such as Puck, Ichabod Crane and Snow White. You could argue that this might be an unwelcome distraction from the main goal of finding out exactly what happened to their mom and pop but, on the other hand, that narrative might be a bit (here it comes) grim all on its own.

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, Suzy Pope tells us which things . . . Made me cry: This year, I visited Istanbul for the fifth time. Standing by the Bosphorus as the call to prayer starts up, gulls swooping, sky turning pink, and that skyline in the background: goosebumps and tears in my eyes every time. Made me angry: Punk and nu metal always rile me, so I was angry at Idles and Deftones at Edinburgh Summer Sessions; as in, angry at the establishment while throwing devil horns in the air like I was 16 again. I didn’t go into the pit. I’m too old for the pit now. But I looked on in awe. Made me laugh: Sam Campbell’s Make That Movie had me in stitches. It reminded me of Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace for its glorious weirdness and straight-faced silliness. Made me think: A tour of Balcaskie Estate in Fife was enlightening. I learned a lot about regenerative farming but also had to (literally) face where my food came from, first visiting the herd of Lincolnshire Red cows in the field, then at the Bowhouse butchery, then on the plate. It didn’t put me off beef but did make me think about where to shop for meat. Regenerative farming on a smaller scale feels like it could be a solution to a very big problem. Made me think twice: Usually if a film’s runtime is longer than two hours, I’m out. But I went to see The Odyssey and it had me totally engaged for the entire three hours. The pacing was perfect and storytelling immaculate. Maybe I should watch more epic films rather than 21 Jump Street over and over again.

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PICTURE: RANKIN

“

GAYLE RANKIN

I always wanted to be a weird actor

The first Scot to enter New York’s legendary Juilliard School, Gayle Rankin has been on a steady track to stardom ever since. With an impressive selection of stage and screen credits behind her, Rankin is making a homecoming of sorts in National Theatre Of Scotland’s adaptation of The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie. This Tony Award nominee tells Claire Sawers that she can’t get enough of playing complicated women

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‘S

GAYLE RANKIN PICTURE: RANKIN

10 THE LIST October 2026

PICTURES: JULIE HOWDEN

he’s dangerous. She’s also brilliant and charismatic and inspiring. She’s an unmarried, childless kind of renegade. Renegade in her own way, even though she’s quite conservative.’ Paisley-born actor Gayle Rankin is at her home in New York, talking over Zoom, describing one of Scottish literature’s most enigmatic female characters: Miss Jean Brodie. Rankin is returning to her roots to play the lead role in National Theatre Of Scotland’s adaptation of Muriel Spark’s classic novel. ‘Jean is very mysterious. I play a lot of mysterious, complicated women, which I love, and I’m making it as personal as I can.’ You might recognise Rankin as the shy, feral wrestler Sheila in GLOW Or the eerie, mystical healer Alys Rivers in Netflix comedy GLOW. Dragon HBO Max’s prequel to Game Of Thrones. She House Of The Dragon, also popped up as Queen Victoria in Hollywood’s The Greatest Showman then played a devout Pentecostal mother in TV’s Perry Mason. And she received a Tony nomination for Best Actress In A Musical for her role on Broadway as Sally Bowles in Cabaret. Rankin is chatting a few days before her 37th birthday. Jean Brodie, who famously describes herself as being ‘in her prime’, was 39 at the start of the book, teaching her special group of tenyear-old girls in 1930s Edinburgh. ‘Jean is trying to figure out her place in the world, you know, carve a path and a future for herself that feels right, and I can relate to that in my own way. I’ve chosen a kind of untraditional life, being an actor. Your body and your mind and your soul are not always necessarily your own, or your own to offer up to other people, or to a child,’ Rankin ponders out loud, curling her feet underneath herself on the couch. ‘I have an amazing partner and a deep, rich personal life but, of course, we’re making decisions, thinking about family plans. As a woman, if you don’t decide to have a child, what is your purpose? Are you purposeless? Asking these questions for myself right now feels helpful in regards to how I’m attacking Jean.’ The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie was first published in The New Yorker magazine in 1961, taking up almost the entire issue with its tale of an unorthodox schoolteacher at Marcia Blaine School For Girls. Spark’s novel was published later that year, then a film adaptation starring Maggie Smith followed in 1969. Rankin played a nameless girl in the Lyceum Theatre’s 2003 stage version, starring Siobhan Redmond. She’s back at the Lyceum but this time in the title role. ‘It’s been a minute since I was in Scotland; I’m starved of Scottish chat,’ jokes Rankin who left almost 20 years ago to pursue an acting career in the US. She made the papers as the first Scottish student to win a place at New York’s renowned Juilliard School, aged 17. She returns home once or twice a year to visit family or for work. Our chat takes place right before Rankin’s threemonth stint back in the Motherland, starting with the premiere of The Incomer, which opened this year’s Edinburgh International Film Festival. Marking her EIFF debut, Rankin played an oddball islander named Isla. And now she’s all set for The Prime Of Jean Brodie which hits Glasgow, Aberdeen and Pitlochry after its Edinburgh outing. Rankin stars alongside Maureen Beattie as the disapproving headmistress Miss MacKay, Brian Ferguson and Dyfan Dwyfor as two sides of a love triangle (Jean’s lover Mr Lowther and her romantic obsession Mr Lloyd), plus Tallulah Greive and Bobby Rainsbury as pupils Monica Douglas and Sandy Stranger. ‘It seems fortuitous,’ states Rankin. ‘I just had the best time making The Incomer, and it feels like a really exciting introduction to me working back in Scotland again. I’ve been working in the UK more and more, but Scotland specifically. It feels like Scotland’s having a bit of a moment.’ The chance to return not just to Scotland but to the stage has huge appeal for Rankin, after working extensively in TV and film. ‘There’s such a freedom to it. You’re going through the

GAYLE RANKIN

Top Rankin: GLOW, House Of The Dragon and The Incomer; (below) in rehearsal for The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie

whole journey all at once; it’s a treat for an actor. You’re not stopping and starting and getting touched up by hair and make-up. I love to be free. It’s where I feel most comfortable.’ Rankin remembers having an incredible drive from an early age. ‘I just always wanted to be a weird actor. And now I am! I certainly wasn’t pushed by anybody so I only have myself to blame. I didn’t need a Jean Brodie. I was my own Jean Brodie in a way.’ Despite her focus and ambition, and a career that has seen her star opposite Elisabeth Moss and Eddie Redmayne, have portraits taken by photographer Rankin (no relation) and invited to party at the Met Gala, Rankin also admits to being very insecure. ‘I’ve definitely gone much farther than I imagined and I’m so grateful. But I’ve not been able to shirk that self-deprecating side. I think I am just very Scottish in that way. I’m insecure about so many things: the way I look or what I’d have to impart to younger people. It’s endless and really sad. But I think it’s good to share it; that’s a way to dispel it as well because they’re just thoughts.’ Rankin has been channeling those contradictions in preparation for the role of Jean, a process which began through lots of transatlantic video calls with director Vicky Featherstone and writer David Harrower. ‘I think that’s why I’m drawn to this part; there’s a duality inside of me. A really driven, strong part and a much more vulnerable, unsure side. But there’s also a lot of power in vulnerability. I share that with Jean and that’s something I want to bring to the role. There’s a way to expose her vulnerability without defending her or her bad decisions because I do think she’s vulnerable. I think she’s quite open, actually, for being as controlled as she is.’

As for Miss Brodie’s famous group of students, the girls that she calls ‘the crème de la crème’, Rankin looks forward to exploring these female relationships. ‘It’s about teasing that out a bit more, finding out who Jean is and why she has these specific, sometimes manipulative, controlling relationships with the girls.’ Rankin’s accent may slide gently between soft American and west of Scotland these days, but the rolled ‘r’ on ‘girls’ is pure Scottish and very Maggie Smith. ‘I think it’s really interesting for a female teacher to have an intense relationship with a much younger student in a non-romantic sense. It’s rich territory. In terms of gender, I don’t think we have made as much progress as I would hope. I think Jean is attempting progress in her own crazy way.’ After her NTS performance, Rankin will return to America where she has a home in the West Village and another in upstate New York. She recently finished Ashley Wright, an upcoming indie movie with Ed Harris, in which she plays the title role of a homeless mother fighting for custody of her two children. ‘I would like to do some gardening, actually, because I have a beautiful garden in the country. I want to really take some time to consider the child thing. And maybe try to get a job. I’m absolutely addicted to work. I am obsessed with it and love it and distracted by it; I’m clearly running from something. Actually, I don’t think I’m running from something. I think I’m running towards something.’ The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie, Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh, Friday 2– Sunday 18 October; Citizens Theatre, Glasgow, Wednesday 21–Saturday 24 October; His Majesty’s Theatre, Aberdeen, Thursday 29–Saturday 31 October; Pitlochry Festival Theatre, Wednesday 4–Saturday 7 November.

PICTURES: JULIE HOWDEN

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HIGH SPIRITS

Starting our horror special with a gentle tingle rather than a full-blown spine chill, James Mottram creeps up on Ghosts star Jim Howick and director Simon Hynd as this monster TV hit floats onto the big screen. Is the film purely for hardcore fans or can anyone join in the freaky fun? GHOSTS

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GHOSTS

ost TV shows don’t get to choose when they come to an end, but Ghosts was an exception. The team behind this BBC sitcom about a group of spirits from different eras always wanted to bring it to a close after its fifth outing. ‘I think five series of anything is probably enough,’ remarks co-writer Jim Howick who also plays Pat, the youth group leader shot through the neck by an arrow back in 1984. ‘When you’re confronted with more than five series on a streaming service, then the tendency is to not be arsed to watch it.’ That probably wouldn’t be the case with Ghosts, a show that grew in popularity with every season. The very final episode, broadcast on Christmas Day in 2023, pulled in 6.6 million viewers, while the show’s concept has been franchised in America, Australia and beyond. Were there any regrets on calling time on such a popular enterprise? ‘We all started to think that it was a mistake,’ admits director Simon Hynd who helmed every episode of the final two seasons. ‘The ghosts were, I think, starting to regret their decision.’ So when the idea of a movie was raised, everyone jumped at it. ‘What attracted us to making a film was exploring more cinematic ideas,’ says Howick. ‘We tended to avoid the supernatural in the sitcom, apart from the odd scene where we walked through doors or floated a little bit and threw ourselves out of windows; we wanted to humanise these characters. I think had we hammered the high-concept element of the sitcom it perhaps wouldn’t have been relatable and wouldn’t have been quite as successful. The film has given us licence to explore more grand ideas.’ Returning us to the show’s country pile setting, Ghosts: The Possession Of Button House is set shortly after the TV show’s finale when the occupants Alison (Charlotte Ritchie) and Mike (Kiell Smith-Bynoe), now with a baby, finally sold up. With Button House standing empty, ‘we wanted to create a haunted house story and incorporate kids within that mythology,’ says Howick. As such, a group of teens sneak into the grounds to snoop around, only for one to succumb to Simon Farnaby’s dead Tory MP, Julian Fawcett, who snatches his chance to inhabit a body and head back out into the real world. Happily, the entire Ghosts team is back: Mathew Baynton (as the Romantic poet Thomas Thorne), Martha Howe-Douglas (pompous Edwardian Fanny Button), Laurence Rickard (caveman Robin and 14 THE LIST October 2026

GHOSTS

headless Humphrey) and Ben Willbond (WWII officer The Captain) who all co-write with Howick and Farnaby, plus Lolly Adefope (as Georgianera noblewoman Kitty). Alison and Mike are also returning, so alongside the new teen characters that’s a lot of juggling. ‘There’s one scene that’s got 26 cast in it,’ recalls Hynd. ‘The scale of it, compared to the TV show, was really massive.’ A Scottish filmmaker based in Edinburgh, Hynd revelled in the challenge of bringing a beloved sitcom to the big screen. ‘The stakes are a lot higher. There are the stakes of Button House because that becomes under threat; but there’s also a life and death element to it as well that I daren’t say too much about. As with all sitcoms, you reset at the end of every episode. But with this, there is the opportunity for the ghosts and other characters who are back from the TV show to grow and for the stakes to be a lot higher.’ With the film shot once more at West Horsley Place (a Surrey manor house that has taken full advantage of the show’s success, even offering Ghosts tours), Howick admits it was ‘genuinely quite moving’ to slip on Pat’s uniform once more. ‘I think for all of us, it was weird and it was moving. But then it was like yesterday: nothing had changed. But also we didn’t have time to soak it in because we had to get to work and there was so much to do in such a short space of time. We didn’t have an awful lot of time to indulge ourselves in this kind of mad reunion.’ One question needs to be asked: is Ghosts: The Possession Of Button House just for the hardcore fans or can newbies come and enjoy this Halloween treat? ‘I think for someone who isn’t well versed with Ghosts, it would be an easy entry level film,’ claims Howick. ‘But there are definitely Easter eggs in there. There’s probably an Easter egg in every scene if you look hard enough.’ Hynd agrees but feels the balance is just right, with enough for new fans to sink their fangs into and hopefully inspire them to visit the sitcom. ‘Hopefully, if we can get them into the cinema, we’ll convert them to the cause.’ Ghosts: The Possession Of Button House is in cinemas from Friday 23 October.

Scream test Big Baby

Pinocchio Unstrung

Here’s a batch of new scary movies that might be a little more icky than the Ghosts offshoot Need a film-based fright this month? Fear not, there’s plenty competition. Other Mommy stars Jessica Chastain as a mother who has to go to extreme lengths to protect her daughter from a supernatural entity that resembles her. There’s body horror business with Clayface, the DC Comics character otherwise known as Matt Hagen, a rising movie star who is horrifically disfigured and is eventually made of living clay. Sounds bad. Meanwhile, when an eccentric governess arrives at a remote gothic manor, it doesn’t take long for her secret to emerge: she’s a Victorian Psycho! A monster movie set in the Amazon rainforest, Beware Boiúna is all about a ‘colossal mythical serpent’. Needless to say, that will not be for everyone. Two of the brains behind The Blair Witch Project reunite for another found-footage chiller, The Influencer Project: real-life digital content creator Chiara King is shooting a documentary about online fame when a stalker enters the frame. Big Baby is a meta-slasher in which a writer is inspired by his nightmares about a mad killer in a toddler mask. But is it really just in his imagination after all? Fun fact: Cher is an executive producer on the film. The Twisted Childhood Universe (TCU) continues apace and after horror twists on Winnie-The-Pooh, Peter Pan and Bambi, here comes Pinocchio Unstrung in which Geppetto builds a boy so his grandson will never be lonely again. Unsurprisingly, it all goes horribly awry. Horror icon Robert ‘Freddy Krueger’ Englund does the voice of the devious Talking Cricket. Trashfest II comes to Glasgow’s Drygate on 25 October showing five films across a full day, including The Devil’s Rain, Event Horizon and a ‘diabolical mystery movie’. If you’d rather stay indoors for your horror fix, then Terror On Tubi is a devilsend, bringing you an anthology of short-form horror stories entitled Bite Size Terror as well as the classic Tales From The Crypt, with 93 individual episodes introduced by a wisecracking corpse.

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PICTURE: RANKIN

PARANORMAL ACTIVITY

STAGE FRIGHT Paranormal Activity is the latest in a nerve-shredding line of screen chillers to make the leap into live arenas in front of living, breathing and often very terrified audiences. Katherine McLaughlin looks back at other theatre productions that have resulted in either sweaty palms or damp squibs

PICTURES: JOHAN PERSSON

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PARANORMAL ACTIVITY

an a screen horror always make a successful transfer into theatres? In the resounding ‘no’ corner is 1988’s Carrie musical. A co-production between the Royal Shakespeare Company and written by the people behind Fame, it was based on Stephen King’s novel with elements dropped in from Brian De Palma’s 1976 film. In a world before the internet, miscommunication led to calamitous mistakes and it became one of Broadway’s biggest modern flops. Arguably the one upside is that its music was composed by the perfectly named Michael Gore. With horror, timing is everything, as is the execution of sound design. In 2019, following the #MeToo movement, a fascinating and deeply affecting adaptation of Peter Strickland’s Berberian Sound Studio played in the intimate surroundings of London’s Donmar Warehouse. Targeting patriarchal power structures in the film industry, it struck a powerfully relevant note in its depiction of a male foley artist who loses his moral compass while creating the sound for an Italian giallo flick. On stage you watch the messy behind-the-scenes process of chopping watermelons and crunching celery, while bearing witness to the terrifying experience of a voice actress who is pushed to unacceptable extremes. By blurring reality and fiction, Berberian Sound Studio confronted the responsibility of the artist with a searing and inescapable intensity. Likewise, Nadia Latif and Carmen Nasr’s recent Under The Shadow takes place in Tehran amid the late-80s Iran-Iraq conflict. While set in the same era as Babak Anvari’s supernatural horror film, it speaks to modern times and the enduring horrors of war. In 2013, Jack Thorne (creator of Adolescence) teamed up with John Tiffany to adapt the acclaimed Swedish vampire film Let The Right One In. In Tiffany’s production diary for The Guardian, he meticulously explained the weekly rehearsals in Glasgow and how they achieved the iconic finale. In Tomas Alfredson’s 2008 film, the budding romance between a bullied schoolboy and a vampire culminates in a gruesome swimming pool scene. How could they possibly pull this off in a live setting? Tiffany opted to include a large volume of water on stage for the young protagonist to be submerged in for three minutes. It was truly breathtaking theatre. Having opened in 1989, The Woman In Black holds the record for the longest running West End horror stage adaptation. The success of this chilling production is largely thanks to atmospheric storytelling that plunges the theatre into darkness and then plagues its audience with jump scares, thanks to actors popping up in the stalls at unexpected moments. Adapted by John Pielmeier from William Friedkin’s classic 1973 stomach-churner and head-turner, The Exorcist stage version used similar effects and yet proved that sometimes you simply can’t recreate the magic of film on stage. That exploitative affair didn’t understand the meaning of subtext when dealing with sensitive themes. Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton’s anthology horror series Inside No 9 made the transition from small screen to stage in order to commemorate their final set of TV episodes with a technically brilliant and darkly funny homage to horror that also poked fun at the audience. And now, the Paranormal Activity theatre show is currently frightening the bejesus out of UK audiences. Playwright Levi Holloway has teamed up with Punchdrunk’s Felix Barrett to craft a Blumhouse-approved reinterpretation of the 2007 found-footage phenomenon. The best of the above adaptations used a theatre’s darkness to cultivate a tense ambience. With Paranormal Activity being all about noises and movements at night, this could be a genuine nail-biter. Paranormal Activity, King’s Theatre, Edinburgh, Tuesday 2–Saturday 6 February.

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A Regular Music presentation by arrangement with Neil O’Brien Entertainment

Tyson Kelly Is

IMAGINE

LENNON In His Own Show

Thursday 22 October 2026

Edinburgh La Belle Angele imagine-lennon.com

Blairhill Media in association with Regular Music & No Half Measures present

FULL BAND SCOTTISH TOUR / OCTOBER 2026

26 October 2026

with special guest

with special guests

Saturday 24 October

Friday 30 October

EDINBURGH USHER HALL

GLASGOW PERTH ROYAL CONCERT HALL CONCERT HALL

Roachford

Johnny Hates Jazz Saturday 31 October

tickets available from ticketmaster.co.uk hueandcry.co.uk and all Venue Box Offices

Queen’s Hall EDINBURGH plus special guests TICKETMASTER.CO.UK THEQUEENSHALL.NET

NOV 12 GLASGOW COTTIERS THEATRE

STPAULANDTHEBROKENBONES.COM

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VIP Packages available for all shows

PAPER AIRPLANE REQUEST TOUR PLUS SPECIAL GUEST

Lindsey Kraft

SUNDAY 15 NOVEMBER

GLASGOW

Royal Concert Hall ticketmaster.co.uk glasgowlife.org.uk benfolds.com/tour REGULAR MUSIC BY ARRANGEMENT WITH WASSERMAN MUSIC PRESENTS

B 2 E N 0 F O 2 L D S 6

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HORROR GAMES

PLAY DEAD

In this season of spookiness, is there a more scary activity than holing up in a darkened room and throwing yourself into a terrifying video game? With his jangling nerves settled for a brief moment, Murray Robertson puts the console aside and gives us his thoughts on which new games may well keep you awake long into the night

With so many games embracing the horror genre, it’s no surprise to see a glut of them being released around Halloween. This year, we finally get the ultimate seasonal crossover with Halloween: The Game. It follows in the bloody footsteps of similar film-to-game adaptations such as The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Evil Dead and Friday The 13th. Those games are/ were all asymmetrical survival horrors in the vein of genre king Dead By Daylight. In each case (typically), one player assumes the role of a supernatural villain while the remaining participants must use their wits to hide and eventually escape. This winning format has unfortunately been burdened by a curse: while The Texas Chain Saw Massacre continues to attract moderate crowds, the other two games are no longer available to buy (in the case of Friday The 13th, the multiplayer is defunct due to licensing issues with the film’s creators). Dead By Daylight, meanwhile, continues to thrive. Hoping to dodge that fate, Halloween: The Game was smartly released ahead of time in order to build a sizeable player base before the hype inevitably fades after 31 October. In its multiplayer mode (always the focus of these games), one person takes on the role of Michael Myers while the others assume the identities of a group of teenagers (including Jamie Lee Curtis’ Laurie Strode). The game neatly adopts the dark, autumnal 1978 atmosphere of the fictional Illinois town of Haddonfield, using the film’s iconography and writer/director/composer John Carpenter’s unsettling synth score to make it feel like a proper homage. Another classic horror franchise comes to consoles in the guise of Clive Barker’s Hellraiser: Revival, a bloody first-person survival horror written in collaboration with the author and inspired by the first two films. Townfall is the latest entry in the long-running Silent Hill franchise, this time cutely set in a fictional Scottish town based on St Monans in Fife. Control Resonant is an action roleplaying sequel to 2019’s Control which, despite its brutalist sci-fi styling, is just as much an outand-out horror. And Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse is the 26th release in the colourful, stylised gothic horror series. Also hoping to carve out a piece of the Halloween action is End Of Abyss, an atmospheric third-person mystery set in an abandoned underground facility populated by ‘twisted horrors’, while Tenebris Somnia is a wonderfully odd combination of point-and-click pixel-art adventure and full-motion video. Its striking collision of styles from opposite ends of the graphical spectrum makes for one of the more intriguing propositions this Halloween. And it would be churlish not to mention one of this year’s greatest games, horror or otherwise. Released in February, Resident Evil Requiem is a graphically stunning, terrifying and atmospheric game featuring two playable protagonists: one focused on horror, the other on action. Its opening hours provide some of the most heart-racing moments in recent years. For full release details on these games, be a brave soldier and pop along to store.steampowered.com

Fear factory: (clockwise from top left) Halloween: The Game, Resident Evil Requiem, Tenebris Somnia, Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse 20 THE LIST October 2026

October 2026 THE LIST 21

SCARY PODCASTS

HEAR NO EVIL?

PICTURE: SASKIA MCCRACKEN

>> 22 THE LIST October 2026

SCARY PODCASTS

An avowed rationalist, Greg Thomas starts to question everything after spending too much time with his cans on, allowing spooky podcasts to enter his head. Having listened to everything from creepy Lynchian communities to demonic reiki spirits, our intrepid correspondent tentatively emerges from behind his sofa to report on audio things that go bump in the night

‘m on my fifth back-to-back episode of Danny Robins’ Uncanny podcast, in which the comedian turned ghost hunter (comedium?) interviews members of the British public about their encounters with the underworld. I’m lying in bed with the lights down (might as well get in the headspace) while Ken, a mildly spoken Irish scientist, recalls the time during his undergraduate years when a pitch-black figure appeared at the end of his bed, on the sixth floor of a post-war tower block. The figure was, he says, full of ‘pure, distilled evil’. Suddenly I realise I need to pee. That’s when I know this show has done its job. In truth, I haven’t heard anything my rational brain can’t swat away, but the stories have activated a more primal response, the kind that would doubtless have saved my ancestors from sabre-toothed tigers. I dart across the hall of my flat, noticing for the first time the black voids opened onto by my kitchen and living-room doors. I strain to get the job done as fast as possible and dash gingerly back, embarrassed at my fearfulness. I’ve been tasked with listening to supernatural-themed podcasts all day and night and reporting back on the results. As a victim, I’ve been chosen either well or badly, because it’s really important to me that ghosts don’t exist. I don’t find the idea of them especially entertaining or whimsical. Rather, if I was confident I had seen one, my whole sense of reality would come crumbling down around my ankles. Of course, this also reflects my sense of what reality is. I am, for all intents and purposes, an atheist (Pascal’s Wager aside), and while I hate sneering Richard Dawkins-style anti-theism, I do feel that collective investment in superstition is a bad thing, too often a means of enforcing stifling norms, disguising real-life harms or creating scapegoats. My auditory voyage begins in the morning with The Magnus Archives and Welcome To Night Vale, two fictional series which take what we might call the Big Creepy Almanac approach to horror storytelling. A central conceit (in the first case, recordings from an archive of esoteric research; in the second, community radio updates from a Lynchian desert town) allows stories to be spun off and muse on certain consistent themes. The Magnus Archives is smart, goosebump-raising stuff, the spirit of Robert Louis Stevenson alive and well in its fin de siècle folk-tale stylings which include a floating angler-fish-man that swallows up drunk revellers in an Edinburgh wynd. Welcome To Night Vale is a more comic caper featuring an ambient faux-spookiness, with the community in question falling prey to floating clouds dropping dead animals, and so forth. But the real-life stuff is the contraband, isn’t it? Sadly, or thankfully, my first two outings into this genre disappoint as fright-inducers. In LA-based series Otherworld, host Jack Wagner interviews guests about their interactions with various dead and evil matter. His credulity is tempered with Yankee hawkishness (‘if a demon appeared during my massage, I’d demand my money back’) and the stories I listen to come weighed down with too much North American cultural baggage to take seriously. Bonnie, who writes songs for Katy Perry, accidentally unleashes an evil spirit during her reiki session. She calls her mom for a second opinion and is told, ‘go get your crystals and send it light’. I’m not surprised that Bonnie believes in ghosts. Two Girls One Ghost, meanwhile, is a comedy horror podcast in which Corinne Vien and Sabrina DeanaRoga pore over listener stories and historic cases of haunted objects, demonic possessions and more. They take these anecdotes absolutely seriously while talking about them like diverting snippets of pop culture. I don’t get it. When they agree it’s a great thing that there are now over 100 exorcists practicing in the USA compared to the 1980s when there were only ten, I wonder why they don’t have a stronger angle on what Satanic Panics meant for women (on which note, see the brilliant series The Devil You Know With Sarah Marshall). Haunted UK and Eerie Edinburgh are in the ghostly tour-guide vein. They offer nuggets of folk history, with each episode introducing a different haunted location or ancestral tale. But they lack the punch that comes from lived experience when it’s done right. Back to my final podcast of the 24 hours, and by far the best, Robins’ Uncanny. A mixture of multiple encounters, the host’s quizzical yet empathetic style, and the marshalling of expert witnesses (including an Australian ‘building psychologist’, of all things) nudges you into a state of credulousness. By the time Robins utters ‘bloody hell, Ken’ after his guest recounts the story of a door banging off its hinges in an empty corridor, I’ve been got. It’s time to turn off. All podcasts available from wherever you get your spooky listening.

October 2026 THE LIST 23

ALL HALLOWS’ EVE

HALLOWEEN SCENE If you’re not donning a Scream mask or slipping into a scary clown outfit for a spot of fun-filled guisin’, here are a few other things (both chilling and not so much) to do and see on 31 October

HEN NIGHT HORROR

DUCK POND

If you’ve been stuck on a long train journey beside a team of hennies filled to the eyeballs with cans of mid-price Prosecco, you’ll probably agree with that show title. The blurb for this musical comedy-horror says you’ll be ‘screaming with laughter’ so we’ll count this as an ideal Halloween outing.  Pavilion Theatre, Glasgow.

Created by Yaron Lifschitz, this is an exuberant take on Swan Lake by the scarily good circus troupe Circa. Expect amazing aerials, awe-inducing acrobatics, fluffy feathers and an army of sequinned flipper-wearing ducks.  Festival Theatre, Edinburgh.

THE SHINING

Getting fully into the spirit, Dundead lays on a 50th anniversary party for the first cinematic outing of the dastardly and demonic Damien Thorn. In director Richard Donner’s The Omen, starring Gregory Peck and Lee Remick, he’s a wee six-year-old lad up to all sorts of devilish doings, but was played later in the franchise by the aforementioned icon Sam Neill.  DCA, Dundee.

POSSESSION

Worth noting that this festival kicks off on 16 October and features the likes of a Haunted Home street party, a book event about the Paisley Witch Trials, a Monster Mash silent disco, a visit from a huge inflatable puppet called Arachnobot, and a performance of Groupwork’s EIF hit, When Prophecy Fails, while on that allimportant final day of the month, the ante is upped with a musical entitled Witch Hunt.  Various venues, Inverclyde.

There was a Guardian article recently about old films that might make you unintentionally laugh, and the ubiquity of Kubrick’s 1980 version of Stephen King’s chiller could well make it qualify. Let’s face it, some of Jack Nicholson’s antics in portraying troubled author Jack Torrrance were always a bit chortle-worthy. Those twins will never not be terrifying though.  Filmhouse, Edinburgh.

A year after The Shining came this disturbing doppelganger drama starring the late Sam Neill and the great Isabelle Adjani who was probably still in recovery from having worked beside Klaus Kinski in Nosferatu The Vampyre. Despite the rather salacious publicity campaign behind the film, this psychological horror is worth the risk and is unlikely to escape your head for some time after.  GFT, Glasgow.

DUNDEAD HALLOWEEN

GALOSHANS FESTIVAL

PICTURE: STEVEN VAN ELK

24 THE LIST October 2026

‘the uk’s best christmas market’ Locals insider

14 Nov 2026 - 03 jan 2027 www.edinburgh-christmas.com IMAGE BY BEN WHITING

Days o ut, nights ou unforg t and ett experie able nces.

Planetarium Lates | 10 Oct October Week | 9–16 Oct Halloween Party | The Witch’s Lair Scotland’s best indoor family party | 30 Oct Add-on adventures:

IMAX Mini Blockbusters - A Beautiful Planet 3D • Deep Sky Animal Kingdom • Space The New Frontier Planetarium Shows - Autumn Astronomy • Space Explorers

Pitchblack Playback

Nirvana - Nevermind | 4 Oct • Steven Wilson - Requiem for a Village | 16 Oct

Planetarium Music

Led Zeppelin • Pink Floyd - Dark Side of the Moon | see website for dates

David Elder Lectures | 21 Oct • 25 Nov Starlight Screenings | Donnie Darko | 29 Oct • Alien | 31 Oct

Find out more and book at glasgowsciencecentre.org

October 2026 THE LIST 25

WONDER FOOLS PICTURES: RUARI BARBER FLEMING

Small wonders: Positive Stories For Negative Times productions; (opposite) founders Jack Nurse and Robbie Gordon

26 THE LIST October 2026

WONDER FOOLS

“

We keep it as punk as possible

PICTURE: JAY PATERSON

Since 2020, the duo behind Glasgow’s Wonder Fools have been bringing together top-class playwrights and aspiring young theatre-makers with an innovative and inspirational project. Mark Fisher hears more about Positive Stories For Negative Times, a theatrical balm in this unsettling era list of commissions to date reads like a who’s who of contemporary playwrights, having featured Travis Alabanza, Tim Crouch, Robert Softley Gale, Ella Hickson, Bryony Kimmings, Hannah Lavery, James Ley, Sabrina Mahfouz, Douglas Maxwell and Adura Onashile. The 2026 intake is no less impressive. It features Maryam Hamidi who has recently been writing for TV on Vigil and Lockerbie; Greg McHugh of Gary: Tank Commander fame; Johnny McKnight, everybody’s favourite panto dame; Ned Glasier, best known as a youth theatre director; and Alex Medland, a young writer selected through a national call-out. The list is completed by New York’s Xhloe And Natasha with Pirate Play. This year, these darlings of the Edinburgh Festival picked up their fourth consecutive Fringe First for Bigfoot Ripped My Dog In Half I Saw It, a sendup of conspiracy theories and small-town paranoia. Such is their physical presence, it is easy to forget that these two highprecision performers are excellent playwrights as well as superb clowns. Their satirical takes on American life in And Then The Rodeo Burned Down (2022), What If They Ate The Baby? (2023) and A Letter To Lyndon B Johnson Or God: Whoever Reads This First (2024) are tightly crafted pieces of writing. They are delighted to be recognised in this way. ‘We do appreciate being taken seriously,’ says Xhloe Rice when we meet during August at Summerhall. ‘One of our strongest sensibilities is the way we set up stories and build worlds.’

PICTURES: RUARI BARBER FLEMING

o sit and hear Robbie Gordon reel off figures is a mind-boggling thing. He is talking about Positive Stories For Negative Times, a project you might never have heard of even if you are familiar with Wonder Fools, the Glasgow theatre company he runs with Jack Nurse. The pair have been acclaimed for productions such as 549: Scots Of The Spanish Civil War, a revival of David Greig’s The Events, and Tether, a Fringe First-winning collaboration with South Korea’s Theatre San. But you have to look to Positive Stories For Negative Times to see the big numbers. Since launching in 2020, the scheme has engaged 11,583 young people from 817 groups in 23 countries; and that is only the participants they know about. It was a hit from the very first year, an online response to the pandemic. ‘We thought we’d say to the funders that we would reach 750, and if we managed to hit that figure we’d be laughing,’ says Gordon. ‘But the numbers kept ticking up. Two or three thousand young people did the project online in 15 countries.’ This is the deal: every year, Wonder Fools commissions a handful of playwrights to write a one-hour script that would be suitable for staging by children and young adults. Those scripts are then made available, royalty free, for 12 months. Anyone can put them on, be they groups of friends, drama clubs or schools. And each year, Methuen Drama publishes an anthology, giving the scripts an extra lease of life. The

>> October 2026 THE LIST 27

WONDER FOOLS

Fools’ gold: the youth board, writers and core team of Positive Stories For Negative Times; (right) the project’s 2026 writers’ roster: Alex Medland, Greg McHugh, Johnny McKnight, Maryam Hamidi, Ned Glasier, Xhloe And Natasha

>> So used to being a cast of two, Rice and stage partner Natasha Roland relished the chance to write for many voices and to leave the directorial decisions to someone else. ‘There was something really exciting about knowing we didn’t have to perform it,’ says Roland. ‘We were writing our Bigfoot show at the same time, which was the most stressful thing, and this one was so much fun, to lay into the stage directions and say they’re going to have to make the boat and how they do it is up to them. One of our favourite compliments is when people say, “I didn’t know theatre could be this”, so when we’re working with young people we want them to think outside the box.’ Pirate Play reminds them of being at high school together, getting involved in productions in which, somehow, a part would be found for everyone. ‘We did Into The Woods with 40 people,’ laughs Rice. ‘They were playing trees and all sorts of things. You were having to bring your own costumes and sometimes you’d have to direct and choreograph your own bits; it was like the start of what we do now. We liked the idea of writing something that was awesome if 100 people performed it, but it could also be performed by 12.’ ‘We have been itching to do pirates!’ says Roland, having ticked off cowboys, housewives and boy scouts in previous shows. ‘A pirate ship is the perfect piece where anyone can be on the boat. We have a captain and a first mate, but then we were like, “let’s put a witch on there!”’ To get to this stage, it was not Gordon and Nurse they had to impress. True to Wonder Fools’ ethos of participation for all, a youth board makes the key decisions about Positive Stories For Negative Times. A new board is in place, drawn from all over Scotland. ‘They essentially dramaturg the plays, working with the writers,’ says Nurse. ‘They were so honest,’ says Roland. ‘They just said, “this is what we like and this what we don’t like”. It was brilliant feedback and gave us a lot to go back to.’ ‘We had rats as a B-plot idea,’ says Rice. ‘Then in the meeting with the youth board, they loved the rats so much we ended up making them a central part of the show.’ Six weeks before the October release of the scripts, 450 young people had already signed up to perform Pirate Play. Wonder Fools expects the first productions will take place a month after that, although the timing is entirely down to the groups. It will not end there. Increasingly, graduates of the project are getting involved in Wonder Fools’ adult productions, a testament to the company’s commitment to accessibility. ‘We also say you can’t charge for tickets,’ says Gordon. ‘It means all the young people and their parents get to come and see it. We keep it as punk as possible to make sure there are no barriers to access.’ See more about the project at positivestories.scot

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ADVERTISING FEATURE

reFlecting on 20 yeArs oF the

scottish MentAl heAlth Arts FestivAl As we nAvigAte A rApidly chAnging world, the 20th scottish MentAl heAlth Arts FestivAl Asks A tiMely question: how do you slow down when the world Around you won’t stop Moving?

PICTURE: INGRID MUR

PICTURE: MAASJA OOMS

While confronting political, economic and technological upheaval, from the impact of AI to the reverberations of global conflict, this year’s programme also invites audiences across Scotland to pause, take stock and reflect on how creativity can shape our collective wellbeing. Celebrating its landmark 20th year, SMHAF, which is led by the Mental Health Foundation, will explore the theme of Reflections. Running from Monday 19 October to Sunday 8 November, there are more than 180 events happening across Scotland, from Dumfries to the Highlands, including headline commissions, intimate theatre and exciting film premieres. New for 2026, SMHAF will partner with Summerhall for a threeweek takeover featuring headline theatre, music and exhibitions. Highlights include the return of Beth Wants The D, winner of the 2025 Mental Health Foundation Fringe Award, a live show by acclaimed singer-songwriter Jo Mango, and a double bill of theatre exploring the relationship between young people, mental health and digital technology featuring Fringe First-winner Parasocial Activity and Milly Sweeney’s Almond. Group exhibition Reflect, Reclaim, Reimagine showcases commissioned artworks by Nat Ophelia Walpole, Kelly Zou, Mairi Timoney, Steven Jones, and Jasmine Esme, exploring bullying, identity, motherhood, trauma and recovery through a range of media, alongside the 14th Out Of Sight Out Of Mind, organised by and for people with experience of mental health issues. Film fans have plenty to look forward to, as

screenings at GFT, Filmhouse and DCA follow a full weekend of award-winners and competition selections at The Social Hub in Glasgow. Highlights include preview screenings of Clio Barnard’s I See Buildings Fall Like Lightning, the UK premiere of Edinburgh-based filmmaker Isaac Knights-Washbourn’s Thorntree, an intimate portrait of a pioneering local housing project, and reflections on mental health on screen with classic films Carrie and A Woman Under The Influence. Since launching in 2007, SMHAF has grown into one of the world’s largest mental health festivals, reaching tens of thousands of people annually, championing artists who experience mental health problems, and promoting the arts and mental health across Scotland. Gail Aldam, arts and events manager for the Mental Health Foundation, says: ‘SMHAF continues to provide a unique platform for challenging stigma, sharing experiences and creating meaningful opportunities for connection. ‘Through film, visual arts, performance, literature and community events, the festival celebrates diverse voices, amplifies lived experience and highlights why investment in creativity, culture and community remains essential to building a mentally healthier Scotland.’ The Scottish Mental Health Arts Festival runs from Monday 19 October–Sunday 8 November 2026 across Scotland. Explore the full programme and book tickets at mhfestival.com

From top left, clockwise: My Word Against Mind, Are You Sitting Comfortably?, Trine On Fire, Rewilding The Mind

PICTURE: SOPHIE VAN BREE

PICTURE: BIRK THOMASSEN

October 2026 THE LIST 29 October 2026 THE LIST 29

DISCOVER THE MONKEY OLD FASHIONED

30 THE LIST October 2026

eat & drink UNDERSTORY Bang on cue for cosying-up season, Sam Baxendale (ex-Bramble) has moved to Understory, a brand-new cocktail bar in Edinburgh underneath The Huxley. The décor leans into dark glamour with opulent wallpapers and comfy nooks, while hand-drawn placemats add a personal touch. It’s a fitting backdrop for a cocktail list that manages to be both playful and grown-up at the same time; the Sgroppino is a case in point, an Irn Bru float that’s sweet enough to pass as pudding without being sickly or silly. That said, it’s hard to look past their Martini which could be the smoothest in the city. (Jo Laidlaw) n 1a Rutland Place, Edinburgh; understorybar.co.uk PICTURE: ERNESTA NORVAISAITE

October 2026 THE LIST 31

Due south With our updated Eat & Drink 365 Glasgow food guide out later this month, David Kirkwood explores the new openings and revamps building a buzz in Cathcart

EAT & DRINK

he neighbourhoods come thick and fast as you travel through Glasgow’s Southside; if you don’t pay attention, you can fall behind. Where does Battlefield end and Langside begin? Does Strathbungo even exist? Flippant geography aside, Southsiders would probably agree that while Cathcart is a fully fledged and historical ‘hood, gastronomically it has had the slimmest of pickings, mainly focused around cafés and takeaways. Until now. Enter Bar Bosie, an accomplished newcomer run by Len Archbold and Danny Morrow, seasoned operators and alumni of Henry’s and Chinaski’s. It’s equal parts neighbourhood bar and laid-back foodie place where you can grab a Martini and a gilda, or pick and choose from a menu that feels utterly casual but deliberate; a bit Eastern Med and a bit New York. So why Cathcart and why now? ‘It was actually the space at first,’ laughs Archbold, referring to Bosie’s petite, three-level corner site, with its open wooden staircase and outdoor awnings. ‘But it was also the spot: we realised that as well as Danny, who lives on this street, we had about ten mates who lived within a five-minute walk, with nowhere to get a great cocktail.’ Archbold believes it can be harder to stand out and have a degree of separation in more established locales like Shawlands. Bar-hopping in a hot neighbourhood is fun, but most bar owners would ideally like you to stay just a little bit longer. Morrow has taken the lead here, with a stylish cocktail menu that gives Bosie a bit of a destination feel, including twists on the happy hour, with £2.50 oysters accompanying Bloody Marys on Sunday afternoons. The food is local bistro with a cosmopolitan feel. There’s bavette steak with chermoula and a pictureperfect burger that’s unashamedly thick and pink in the middle. Elsewhere, there’s creativity: surf clams were on when they opened and Kentucky-fried rabbit was a recent special. Sometimes one new place makes sense of an area. Bosie shares punters with the established Beechings Bar just down the road, while opposite is Caesar’s Social, doing some of the best pizza in the city with a tenement-flat quirkiness. Moving north there’s Ceylon Tea Bar, where you can get a flat white, a pekoe tea or a wattakka curry. Drifting up the hill towards Hampden, you’ll find Café Salmagundi serving brunchy delights like a roll and chorizo or kimchi and cheese toasties, while The Real Wan brings café-style cuisine from China’s Guiyang region. There’s a fresh energy among long-term favourites too; such as Clockwork, a much-loved beer spot that had lost its way a tad. Now under the same ownership as whisky bar The Pot Still, they’ve kept its familiar hallmarks while adding some much-needed oomph. That includes Tuesday whisky tastings with owner Frank Murphy, and a solid range of beers from Germany, Belgium and Scotland. Murphy’s ties to the area run deep. ‘I was at the Clockwork before I was at The Pot Still,’ he explains. He’s watched and waited patiently for an opportunity to bring it back to its former glories. ‘We’re slowly trying to bring back the vibrancy and range it had.’ There is a gigantic upstairs space with scope for more tastings and events on a larger scale and ‘being beside Hampden doesn’t do any harm either!’ says Murphy. ‘Although I can confirm Lana Del Rey fans don’t drink as much as Metallica fans.’ A lot of people live in Cathcart. It seems that, finally, they don’t need to roam around the Southside for good food and good times. Bar Bosie, 3 Clarkston Road; instagram.com/bar_bosie; Clockwork, 1153–1155 Cathcart Road; instagram.com/clockworkglasgow; the new edition of Eat & Drink 365 Glasgow is available from Monday 19 October wherever you get your copy of The List.

32 THE LIST October 2026

side dishes A big-name opening in Edinburgh and the end of an era over the sea in Skye. Ailsa Sheldon rounds up the latest culinary comings and goings

Langside Social

PICTURE: DIANA DUMI

October 2026 THE LIST 33

EAT & DRINK

ew late-night player Le Set has opened in Glasgow’s Princes Square. Si Ferry and Jordan Allan’s big idea is to cover the whole day, from lunch and dinner through cocktails, champagne, DJs and dancing until 1am. Nick Rietz, formerly of Two Fat Ladies and Bilson Eleven, is in the kitchen, with an indulgent menu including miso black cod, lobster French toast, wagyu tacos and millionaire fries with truffle and caviar. If your night doesn’t call for dinner and dancing on the tables, then head south to Langside Social which opened on Pollokshaws Road last month. This update of the traditional social club is built around snooker and pool, with digital darts, karaoke rooms and its own Langside Lager, alongside plant-based food from Antojitos. Edinburgh’s George Street gains a big new name this month as Ottolenghi makes its Scottish debut. Skye-born Neil John Campbell heads the kitchen after a decade working for the company. Expect the vegetable-heavy, Middle Eastern and Mediterranean-influenced cooking that made the Ottolenghi name, plus plenty of Scottish produce, in a bright, airy space. Pat’s Deli is set to add another independent option to Portobello’s increasingly busy food scene. Talking of Skye, it’s the end of an era on the island. Kinloch Lodge has left Macdonald family ownership after more than 50 years. The 18-bedroom hotel, established by Godfrey and Claire Macdonald in 1972, has been bought by the Wickman family, owners of the Cuillin Hills and Flodigarry hotels.

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TURKISH

MEYHANE

EAT & DRINK

It’s impossible to miss Meyhane’s massive murals that wrap around two floors on the corner of Hope and West Regent streets. One side depicts Efes beer-branded hot-air balloons over Cappadocia; the other is a tribute to Glasgow’s cone-topped duke alongside an oversized, slightly intimidating Scottie dog. This sister venue to Türkiye Efes in Merchant City is named after the taverns or ‘wine houses’ of Turkey (informal bars for raki and mezze). Meyhane mimics their casual informality, with thoughtful service and a smart café feel, dominated by blues and whites, and flashes of Islamic geometry in tiles and upholstery. Booths at the big windows are great for watching Glasgow’s goings-on while looking over a solid drinks menu, which includes a few varieties of aniseed-flavoured raki available by the glass, or halfbottle and bottle if you’re getting serious. A glass of Yeni Raki rather coolly comes with a water jug, (branded) ice bucket and tongs to prep the cloudy concoction yourself. Cocktails include classics, spritzes and frozen Daiquiris; not surprisingly, Efes is also on draught. There are several Turkish wines, too: a fast-improving region that warrants sampling. The hot and cold mezze take up a sizeable chunk of the expertly delivered, reasonably priced menu, covering everything from hummus and tabbouleh to sucuk and enjoyable Turkish börek: crispy-to-soft filo rolls filled with feta cheese and parsley. The specials include regional favourite manti: addictive wee lamb dumplings doused in yoghurt and chilli butter. While there are a few oven-baked pide, plus big salads, the charcoal grill is king, dishing out kebabs, shish, kofte, steaks and seafood. The lamb (kuzu) shish is delicious: chunks of tender marinated meat with a nicely chargrilled exterior, served with rice, an impressive salad, and bowls of mild chilli sauce and garlicky yoghurt. (Jay Thundercliffe) n 88 West Regent Street, Glasgow; meyhaneglasgow.co.uk; average price £20 for two courses.

BARS

THE KEELSON

PICTURE: ADAM JAMES BLAIR

Is it a pub? Is it a restaurant? Brought to you by the folk behind Dogstar and Nauticus, The Keelson already feels kind of like a supergroup of Leith hospitality. Chicken is the big deal, served as a half or whole rotisserie bird, tender and bursting with flavour. Peppery new potatoes doused in gravy are worth writing home about too. It’s the Sunday roast of dreams, served every day of the week; simple, warming and delicious, without a gloopy sauce in sight. Chicken aside, there are a few seafood options (we’re at The Shore after all): fried baby squid is soft, crisp and seasoned lightly, and there’s a seitan option for veggies or anyone averse to poultry. But to be honest, if you’re not a fan of chicken, you’re probably in the wrong place. There’s a bar space for walk-in drinks and snacks (you won’t be disappointed with the cocktails: the signature Negroni is particularly herby and it’s hard to stop at just one) plus a separate dining area with booths and dim lighting. The décor is traditional classy pub, with minimal beer paraphernalia and sepia photos on the walls. Complaints about noise levels in the bar section have been swiftly addressed with some subtle soundproofing, showing the team listen to customer feedback. The Keelson isn’t about pub grub: it’s about good food in a pub setting. Leith’s hospitality supergroup has turned out a hit, for sure. (Suzy Pope) n 58 Shore, Edinburgh; thekeelsonleith.com; £32 for half a chicken, potatoes and gravy for two.

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Ask EADith

Got a food dilemma? Need a killer rec to seal the deal? Or just want the inside track on Glasgow and Edinburgh’s eating and drinking scene? Then why not ask EADith, our Eat & Drink team’s helpful agony aunt. This month, she’s mixing drams with views for a bit of city show-offing

EAT & DRINK

Dear EADith I have some overseas business connections coming soon to Edinburgh. I suspect they may be quite high-flying so I’d like to show off the city a bit. Any suggestions? Lord Sucrose

PICTURES: PAUL MCLEAN

Dear Lord Sucrose, Oddly, your request brought my other half to mind. Mr EADith has always moved in unexpected ways. His prodigious whiskers and penchant for tweed mark him as a sure-fire whisky man, when in fact he’s deeply suspicious of the stuff. He’s not alone in that, which may make my suggestion of ushering your globetrotting visitor up to the 1820 Rooftop Bar at The Johnnie Walker Experience a bold one. But stay with me here. First, it’s a showstopping spot with compelling balcony views of the castle, Calton Hill, Old and New Towns, Arthur’s Seat and glimpses of the Forth. Inside, it’s a sophisticated, glamorous bar, however well-travelled or world-weary you might be. Despite expectations, it’s neither members-only nor whisky-only. Indeed, there’s a lively new cocktail menu charting different concoctions on a scale from Nae Whisky to Mostly Whisky: I suspect Mr E’s whiskers would twitch at the former. And while I myself delight in the exotic, I admit that purple ube, banana pisca, paragon vetiver and volcanic Amaretto had me reaching for my Oxford English. To complement the drinks, there’s some serious, high-quality food. The chap behind it is Scott Smith, of the lovely but now sadly former Fhior. His menu picks up on the global eclecticism of the cocktails, with darts of Asian, South American or Mediterranean flavour mixing with Scottish produce. There are tasty drinking snacks of Gordal olives or house pickles, as well as small plates of pork belly in koji glaze, smoky barbecued baby squid or grilled courgette. A more substantial whole lemon sole comes slathered in kombu butter sauce and chanterelles and they serve a few classy desserts too. I suggest booking your high-flying visitors in here tout de suite. (As told to Donald Reid)  1820 Rooftop Bar, The Johnnie Walker Experience, 145 Princes Street, Edinburgh; johnniewalker.com; average price £30 for two courses.

BAR FILES Creative folks reveal their top watering hole

SINGER CHRISTINE BOVILL

PICTURE: KRIS KESIAK

A traditional watering hole on Glasgow’s Woodlands Road for decades, Dram!’s refurbishment (and renaming from Uisge Beatha) managed to maintain its core appeal of vintage wooden interiors and warm, amber lighting. It’s well-stocked with whiskies and beers and has an updated menu (we held my dad’s 80th there recently). At the heart of its appeal are its live music sessions. Many years before my career properly took off, I would slip along to Sunday sessions here, guitar in hand, and sit among a group of musicians featuring every Glasgow character you could hope to meet. No PA. No microphones. The authentic atmosphere of traditional acoustic music invariably brought countless foreign students, revelling in a unique flavour of Glasgow life. I tried out my own songs week after week, before I recorded my first album: the sweetest memories. One night, a familiar face shouted: ‘Christine, gies a Cohen song.’ I replied: ‘Which one?’ ‘Leonard,’ came the response. Only in my beloved Glasgow!  Christine Bovill plays Òran Mór, Glasgow, Thursday 22 October; christinebovill.com

ADVERTISING FEATURE

Pairing music and drams with Fettercairn and the SAY Award

Fettercairn, the feted single malt whisky brand, has partnered with this year’s SAY Award to bring you another celebration of Scottish music. So, our intrepid drinks journalist Kevin Fullerton is asking: which SAY Award winners pair perfectly with the prestigious single malt? A glass of whisky should be savoured, preferably in a manor house while lounging in a high-backed chair next to a crackling log fire, the hiss of a record playing while the comforting clink of ice cubes drum out an unpredictable staccato rhythm. Alas, many of us don’t own manor houses or high-backed chairs, and placing a large stick on your radiator isn’t really comparable to a log fire (trust me, I’ve tried; my girlfriend was less than delighted). Music, then, is the key to true single malt enjoyment, and it seems Fettercairn agree. The distillery is this year’s headline partner of The Scottish Album of the Year Award, cementing whisky’s reputation as the ultimate long-player drink. And so it made me wonder: which previous SAY Award winners pair perfectly with the layered taste of Fettercairn? How about the first album to win the SAY Award in 2012, Bill Wells and Aidan Moffat’s Everything’s Getting Older? In this indie-jazz masterpiece, the smoky-voiced Moffat faces middle-age with a typically hardnosed flair, tackling the meaning of life via a series of workaday problems, from endless trips to the supermarket to dinnertime with his ageing mother. Charting a story of life’s sadness and beauty, Moffat’s distinct west coast baritone offers an alternative whisky pairing for those more used to associating single malts with tartan and shortbread. Perhaps the distinct maturity of Fettercairn’s 18 Year Old blend, which bears the first fruits of the distillery’s Scottish Oak Project, is perfect for an evening of rumination. It’s of a piece with Kathryn Joseph’s Bones You Have Thrown Me, And Blood I’ve Spilled, which picked up the award in 2015 for haunting, pained arrangements that use Joseph’s voice like a dagger through the heart. At times, her vocals channel the witchy energy rooted deep in Scottish history, summoning a very different kind of heritage. For a drink born from the grain of Scotland’s countryside in 1824, there’s something

in Bones that’s wholly complementary to Fettercairn as it is to the darker parts of the Celtic mentality. Try the Vanguard here, a rich taste with tropical notes and hidden depths of flavour. Onto happier pastures, Young Fathers’ Heavy Heavy was produced as a direct rebuttal to a world edging ever closer to doom and gloom. Its brash, afro-futuristic dance represented the vibrant, positive face emerging from lockdown when it won in 2023, as artists elevated the material they’d incubated during isolation onto the global stage. Pick a 12-year-old whisky for this one; youthful, sun-warmed and brimming with fresh, excitable textures. What of the most recent SAY Award winner, Kai Reesu’s KOMPROMAT vol i? For many, the group’s heady blend of LA rap and Scottish nu-jazz was the culmination of a fresh movement emerging from the central belt, turning American influences on their head with propulsive grooves and good humour. One for a 50-year-old Fettercairn, a distinctive single malt aged in American white oak ex-bourbon barrels. It’s hard to predict who SAY will champion next at this year’s 15th Anniversary Ceremony in Dundee this November, but there’s a diverse selection at play on the Longlist, including indie mainstays The Twilight Sad, women and non-binary collective Hen Hoose, Gaelic trio Sian, trip hop legends Boards of Canada, and much more, proving the lasting vitality of Scotland’s music scene. I’ll drink to that.

The SAY Award Ceremony, delivered in partnership with Fettercairn, returns to Dundee’s Caird Hall on Thursday 5 November to crown this year’s winner and celebrate 15 years of Scotland’s national music prize. Tickets via www.sayaward.com. Find out more about Fettercairn at www.fettercairnwhisky.com. Please enjoy Fettercairn Whisky responsibly.

October 2026 THE LIST 3737 October 2026 THE LIST

TipList

Our TipLists suggest the places worth knowing about in different themes, categories and locations. This time round, we’re seeking out the best sangers in the cities, for those days when a meal deal simply won’t cut the mustard

SANDWICHES

EAT & DRINK

PICTURE: KEVIN THOMSON

If you fancy a stroll to the pub after your lunchtime fuel-up, Hendrick’s Brand Ambassador Calum Fraser shares his favourite places to catch the last of the fading autumn sun

CAFÉ CALTON

Sister Midnight

Alby’s

Glasgow BOCA

Suite 4, The Cooperage, 674 Pollokshaws Road; instagram.com/bocaglasgow Some of the most loaded sandwiches in town. Beef shin is packed with slow-cooked juiciness, alongside sweet peppers and onions, provolone, garlic mayo and gremolata. Rocket and pesto spill out from a doorstop stuffed with a chicken cutlet and parma ham. Sit in the lovely courtyard out front if it’s nice.

FOCACCIA

47 Bank Street; instagram.com/focaccia.gla This bright corner spot is ideal for getting away from your desk. Even if you takeaway, classy details are upheld: parmesan is shaved onto a Parma rucola number before it’s boxed. The aged cheese hits the roof of your mouth, the drizzled olive oil lingers on your lips and the prosciutto just tastes better.

KEEK’S

Fordneuk Street; instagram.com/keeks.eastend It’s in an industrial no-man’s land, but boy does it serve the locals well. Big tastes clamber over each other, like pastrami, gherkins, sauerkraut and paprika mayo launching a lunchtime panzer on your palate, or harissa cauliflower, cheesesteaks and banh mi. Add a soup or chips. You know what to choose.

SISTER MIDNIGHT

61 King Street; instagram.com/sister_midnight_glasgow Bubbly focaccia is the vessel at Sister Midnight. A chicken caesar sarnie is elevated with a zesty dressing and crisp onions, while hot honey does the same to a mortadella and mozzarella situation. The space is sleek, with a trendy magazine shop at the back and outside seats that catch some nice rays.

SUB 126

126 West Regent Street; instagram.com/sub126glasgow There are other meatball marinara subs, and then there’s these meatball marinara subs. Imposingly large, coarse balls of beef, with drawn-out flavour and a kick of black pepper, give way to chewy, doughy sub rolls from local bakery Patisserie Francoise. Other standouts include porchetta and salsa verde, and multiple cold cuts. (David Kirkwood)

38 THE LIST October October 2026 2026

Edinburgh ALBY’S

8 Portland Place & 94 Buccleuch Street; albysleith.co.uk If you think chicken caesar is the light option, you haven’t been to Alby’s. Thick breaded chicken with crisp lettuce and plenty of parmesan between two mattresses of bubbly focaccia will set you up for the day. The furthest you can get from a limp supermarket sandwich, although the sides (shout out to prawn toast) almost steal the show.

BANH MI BROTHERS

141 West Port; instagram.com/banh_mi_brothers Crusty French baguettes filled with the signature crunch, tang and spice that define Vietnamese food are always a delight, if you don’t mind waiting. Classic slow-cooked pork is always on the menu, alongside plenty of veggie and vegan options, while the daily special shows off sandwich-making flair.

CROCCANTE & CO

2 Lynedoch Place; croccanteandco.co.uk This relatively new schiacciata specialist’s insistence on making sandwiches to order can mean a 10-minute wait, but they get it spot on: breads toasted to crisp rather than crunchy, fillings warm but not hot-hot, meats freshly sliced, plus a well-judged list of ingredients.

38a Calton Hill, Edinburgh; cafecalton.com You get more than views as a reward for getting to the top of Calton Hill. Set among the monuments and open from early until late, Café Calton’s wonderful food and beautiful drinks will encourage you to climb all the way back up again the next day. Get the timing right and watch one of the best sunsets in Edinburgh, with 360-degree views of the city.

COLD TOWN HOUSE

4 Grassmarket, Edinburgh; coldtownhouse.co.uk You’ll struggle to find anywhere more central than Cold Town House. Head up the stairs to the top floor for one of the finest rooftop terraces in Scotland: it’s particularly well-heated for these shorter days. There’s excellent dining options inside or nearby, and it’s also got its own built-in microbrewery to explore.

THE FINNIESTON

1125 Argyle Street, Glasgow; thefinniestonbar.com This long-standing cornerstone of Argyle Street’s bars is an ideal place to spend an early autumn afternoon in Glasgow. If the sun is out, it has a wonderful outside space; if the rain is coming down, sit in one of the window booths and enjoy watching the world go by with a fish finger sandwich and excellent cocktails.

ITALIAN ON THE MOUND

15 Bank Street; italianonthemound.co.uk Long before social media was awash with side-byside sandwich snaps, this Italian deli was serving up substantial subs. The legendary number 9, packed with jalapeños and spicy chicken, is a little dated now, but New York pastrami on a fluffy ciabatta and aubergine parmigiana in flatbread is exactly what the crowd wants.

MOOTZ GENERAL STORE

62 Raeburn Place; instagram.com/mootzgeneralstore There’s nearly always a queue but it moves fast: you’ll be rewarded with Italian-style schiacciata sandwiches that don’t skimp on the fillings. The Mootz pairs garlicky mortadella and oozing burrata with a bang-on-trend hit of hot honey sauce. (Donald Reid & Suzy Pope)

Café Calton

IN PARTNERSHIP WITH

Best Day Of All Time

Welcome back to the noughties: a decade of flip phones, iPods, the rise of the internet and most importantly, some seriously good music. Curated by Lush Co-Founder and devoted music enthusiast Mark Constantine, he introduces his fifth installment of his musical autobiographies, Best Day Of All Time.

THE CEREMONY THU 5 NOVEMBER CAIRD HALL . DUNDEE

This stunning album features songs originally released between 2001 and 2011, freshly reimagined by a breathtaking mix of established and rising stars including Teddy Thompson, Eliza Carthy, Sacred Paws, Beans on Toast, Alice Faye, Essy Sparrow and Essence Martins, to name but a few.

FEATURING PERFORMANCES FROM:

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From pop anthems and indie favourites to folk, rock and everything in between, this collection brings a fresh twist to the iconic sounds of the millennium.

Out 9th October 2026 On all main streaming platforms & vinyl on lush.com

FAIR SATURDAY 2026 Saturday 28th November 2026

Edinburgh & Scotland A day. Culture. Change.

Fair Saturday is a global cultural movement creating a social and empathetic response to Black Friday. All kinds of cultural events, each supporting a social project, charity or the community. Music, dance, storytelling, singing, songwriting, fine art, printmaking, craft, workshops, wellbeing, nature, family activities, and community events. Will you join us? For more information and the full events programme, visit standrews.fairsaturday.org Kindly supported by

Media partners

October 2026 THE LIST 39

2 for 1 tickets at Royal Yacht Britannia

SAVE ON FULL-ON FUN FOR EH POSTCODE HOLDERS ONLY!

Your EH postcode is the key to enjoying discounts at some of Edinburgh’s best businesses.* Enjoy money off entry to some top attractions, leisure and hospitality venues right across your city, all thanks for being a local legend.

Explore legendary offers from local businesses including: • Mercat Tours • Maid of the Forth • The Royal Yacht Britannia • Edinburgh Nuclear Bunker Tour and so much more!

EXPLORE YOUR LEGENDARY OFFERS

edinburgh.org/residentrewards *All offers are valid for residents with an EH postcode. Contact and address details will be required when booking and on arrival (photo ID or utility bill with an EH postcode) 40 THE LIST October 2026

Scotland’s first welded jewellery bar has an unusual origin story. Initially selling deadstock jewellery in Glasgow’s Barras Market, founder Lauren Grant began creating forever pieces by crafting her chains to the wearer. Offering a variety of vintage and contemporary custom jewellery, B51 Boutique now has a glorious home in the middle of Merchant City. Alongside their sterling silver and gold-filled bracelets, anklets and necklaces, the boutique has expanded to suit eclectic tastes. You can even bring along your four-legged friends or your favourite tipple (it’s BYOB). And with a build-your-own charm bar and engraving service, it’s a great place to find a unique adornment. (Rachel Morrell)  19 Parnie Street, Glasgow; b51boutique.co.uk; instagram.com/b51boutique

travel & shop

B51 BOUTIQUE

October 2026 THE LIST 41

TRAVEL & SHOP

WanderList: Rio De Janeiro Rachael Revesz takes a literary journey through Rio De Janeiro, following in the footsteps of a beloved Brazilian author

io De Janeiro is the city of Clarice Lispector. A Ukrainian, Jewish refugee turned one of Brazil’s most loved writers, she was also divorced, a chain-smoker and monosyllabic in television interviews. But then, even Lispector did not always know how to interpret her own brilliant and sometimes opaque short stories. From an Airbnb in Copacabana, I walk east along the beach to Leme, a tiny pocket of Rio where the streets are shaded by magnificent tree canopies. Lispector lived here for 28 years with her two sons and her loyal but unfriendly dog, Ulisses. It was here that she wrote her most famous novel,1977’s The Hour Of The Star, and suffered a lifelong injury when she tried to retrieve her work from a house fire. A now decade-old bronze statue of Lispector and Ulisses can be found along the promenade, sat in the blazing sunshine. Lispector did not like the heat. I don’t know if she swam either, but the waves in Rio can knock you off balance. I hop on a bus to the Botanic Gardens, where Lispector wrote about the famous avenue of palm trees. Here, I get shade and glimpses of Christ The Redeemer. I only notice the signs on the railings on my way out: sponsored by oil giant Shell. I stave off any guilt with white wine and sourdough at the nearby Ella Pizzeria. Lispector also walked in Tijuca National Park, about an hour away by car. I climb until early afternoon and make my way down to a small, peaceful pool called the Well Of Solitude. I can imagine the introspective nature-lover here. Macaws are being released in the park and I keep looking to the sky, hoping to see a flash of blue and yellow. Back in the city that evening, I walk a few blocks to Bip Bip, a tiny bar where you can drink beer on the street, scratching your mosquito bites as you listen to musicians play samba and bossa nova. Lispector wandered aimlessly, and so did her characters. The next day, I hurry up the Selarón Steps, avoiding the Instagram posers, and explore the cobbled neighbourhood of Santa Teresa. I descend via a maze of scruffy alleyways and stumble across the Gregora Arte Café, where I eat homemade quiche and thick chocolate torte. To round off my trip, I board a catamaran with a large group of 23-year-olds. ‘Do you like Bad Bunny?’ one asks me, a little loudly. We sail by one of the shortest airport runways in the world and a former political prison, marooned on its own island. Looking back at the iconic Sugarloaf Mountain skyline of Rio, I see the city Lispector knew until her death in 1977 and I see the city as it is now. Both are magical. visitbrasil.com/en

42 THE LIST October 2026

on your doorstep With Halloween looming into view, Isy Santini tramps the countryside to bring you her pumpkin patch picks ARNPRIOR FARM Step into autumn at Arnprior Farm near Stirling, home to Scotland’s original pumpkin festival. Bring the whole family and pick from over 20,000 pumpkins, then try your hand at quad pod racing and pumpkin cannon shooting. You can even make a true holiday of it and book a stay in their glamping pods, where you can enjoy everything from swimming to sauna sessions. n arnpriorfarm.com

PUMPKINS AFTER DARK

CRAIGIES FARM Craigies Farm in South Queensferry promises an extra spook-tacular pumpkin festival this year. Keep an eye out for roaming characters as you search the patch for your perfect pumpkin. Some have scary surprises in store, while others might offer an impromptu storytelling session. For serious eerie vibes, try Pumpkin Festival After Dark, where you can enjoy live music with food and drink, and explore the glowing bale maze (if you’re feeling brave). n craigies.co.uk

Scottish-Indian singer, songwriter and harpist Chloe Matharu looks back at a globetrotting adventure on the high seas

Arnprior Farm

PICTURE: MACK PHOTO

n early life decision I made was to find work that paid me to travel, so holidays for me are mostly spent at home, galloping the length of a Hebridean beach on my Irish ex-racehorse, camping on the machair or watching the night sky from the back of my croft. But one voyage I vividly remember was my first trip as a newly qualified third mate. I was to join the bridge team onboard a passenger ship in Fremantle in Western Australia, navigating around the Pacific. Some highlights for me were whale watching in Alaska against a backdrop of glaciers; witnessing electrical storms off the coast of Beijing; diving for black pearls in Bora Bora; experiencing Japanese onsen; snorkelling on the tropical island of Lifou, where the air is as full of bright butterflies as the sea is full of coloured fish; and watching volcanoes glow in the dark in Papua New Guinea. Something I’m really enjoying as a musician is finding ways to revisit places I travelled as a seafarer and getting longer than a day to explore them, so I’m looking forward to my sixth tour of Australia this December with a stop in Asia en route. Chloe Matharu plays The Wee Red Bar, Edinburgh, Tuesday 6 October.

October 2026 THE LIST 43

TRAVEL & SHOP

PICTURE: IRH PHOTOGRAPHY

my favourite holiday

It may not be a pumpkin patch in the traditional sense, but Pumpkins After Dark is sure to satisfy any squash savant. For three weeks, the Royal Highland Centre in Edinburgh will be transformed into an immersive Halloween experience, with illuminated displays and themed trails made from over 10,000 hand-carved pumpkins. Visitors will be able to take part in live pumpkin carving demonstrations and enjoy delicious seasonal treats. n pumpkinsafterdark.com/edinburgh

Life’s a beach Afreka Thomson pops into Traade, a venture bringing creativity and caffeine to Edinburgh’s seaside citizens while giving a vital platform to other burgeoning businesses

TRAVEL & SHOP

ortobello just keeps on getting cooler (if occasionally smellier). The houses are beautiful; the dogs and beards are neatly trimmed; artsy people waft around the high street in Dryrobes, fresh from their wild swim. And now you can pick up a delicious speciality coffee while browsing neighbourhood concept store Traade. The idea is simple: a community hub championing local creatives through its products, pop-ups, workshops and events. Owners Erin Waugh and Ross Gregor are both creatives in their own right, with interests spanning food, ceramics and fashion. Waugh handmakes the cups you drink your coffee from, while Gregor spends hours curating a selection of vintage menswear. Come in for a flat white and you could leave with a vintage Snoopy T-shirt and a bar of upcycled soap, or perhaps a brownie made by one of their mates down the road and a wintery Luna candle. It’s cheering to walk in and be greeted by so much colour and art. Terracotta walls and a minimal-but-cosy design keep things feeling intentional without being intimidating. Lo-fi hip hop competes with the buzz of conversation, alongside the occasional woof. ‘It just feels like an extension of somebody’s living room,’ says head barista Jonny Mullen. That informality is deliberate. ‘We just want to make people feel as comfortable as possible. We want them to be able to come in here, see a friendly face and spend some time without any pressure.’ The shop’s community-minded approach extends to its events, too. There have been EP and book launches, sip-and-paint nights, private dining and pop-ups ranging from South American cowboy boots to tooth gems. ‘The pop-ups are so eclectic,’ says Mullen. ‘I think it’s just pure excitement. Ross and Erin love giving people a platform.’ Good Time Running Club has become another part of the Traade ecosystem, meeting here on Sundays before heading out for a run. This is a place where strangers become regulars, and regulars become friends.

188 Portobello High Street, Edinburgh; instagram.com/traade_space

Wee Ghost Beauty

shop talk NANA KAT’S APOTHECARY The award-winning Nana Kat’s Apothecary promises truly gentle skincare products with all-natural ingredients: no sulphates, parabens or phthalates. Inspired by folk herbalism, this family-run business handmakes all their products and even includes an ingredients almanac on their website, so you know exactly what you’re putting on your skin. n nana-kats-apothecary.co.uk; instagram. com/nana_kats_apothecary

WEE GHOST BEAUTY Wee Ghost Beauty has the distinction of being Scotland’s first Korean skincare boutique. You can pop in any time or book a private shopping appointment to try expertly curated Korean products and receive 44 THE LIST October 2026

Keep your skin glowing with Isy Santini’s selection of local cosmetics companies personalised advice and recommendations, all completely free of charge. n 79 West Regent Street, Glasgow; weeghostbeauty.com; instagram.com/weeghostbeauty

HARMLESS APOTHECARY Originally specialising in sustainable doggie waste bags, the Edinburgh-based Project Harmless have been taking on greenwashing one industry at a time. Last year saw the launch of their skincare collection, Harmless Apothecary. Their small-batch products are handmade from botanical ingredients native to Argyll and Bute and are completely free of palm oil and EDTA, so you can nourish your skin without taking a toll on the environment. n projectharmless.com; instagram.com/ projectharmless

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download the soul club app then join + verify your student status to become an official member of the soul club student society. you’ll unlock loads more exclusive perks like this one *t+cs apply. valid sunday - thursday only. see website for details October 2026 THE LIST 45

T I C K E T S

A V A I L A B L E

F R O M

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October Concerts

FRIDAY 27 NOVEMBER

SWG3 WAREHOUSE, GLASGOW

JOSIE LONG & ROBIN INCE STAND UP ● POETRY ● CONVERSATION

Max Richter+ with David Brophy and Mari Samuelsen

22-23 Oct, 7.30pm

SUNDAY 22 NOVEMBER

New Dimensions

GLASGOW ST LUKEʼS

20 YEARS OF SHAMBLES

A CROSSTOWN CONCERTS PRESENTATION

Edinburgh | Glasgow

The Queen Is Dead

Barber’s Adagio & Violin Concerto

AN EVENING WITH

MIKE JOYCE

STEPHEN STREET

THE SMITHS

The Queen Is Dead

DRUMMER OF

with Ryan Bancroft and Clara-Jumi Kang

CO PRODUCER OF

INCLUDING STORIES, MEMORIES, BEHIND-THE-SCENES INSIGHTS, AUDIENCE Q& A, VIDEO ARCHIVE FOOTAGE AND MEMORABILIA

THURSDAY 26TH NOVEMBER

29-30 Oct, 7.30pm

EDINBURGH QUEENS HALLS

Edinburgh | Glasgow

A C R O S S T O W N C O N C E R T S P R E S E N TAT I O N I N A S S O C I AT I O N W I T H F-10

40 TH ANNIVERSARY

CELEBRATING 40 YEARS OF THE SMITHS’ MASTERPIECE

£6 FOR STUDENTS LOW TICKETS

26 November

2026

46 THE LIST October 2026

27 November

GLASGOW THE GARAGE

Company Registration Number: SC075079. A charity registered in Scotland No. SC015039.

Photo of Mari Samuelsen ©Jonathan Vivaas Kise

EDINBURGH LA BELLE ANGELE

plus special guests

Stairway To Newport

crosstown concerts presents

2026

Explore our concerts sco.org.uk

The fourth wall gets a right royal booting for this revamp of the comedy/circus/cabaret melange that helped boost Emma Rice’s reputation as a fearless theatremaker when it first crash-landed on audiences in 2003. King Mark and Yseult are set to wed but her lover Tristan waits patiently for his big moment. With an eclectic soundtrack featuring Roy Orbison and Richard Wagner, this medieval Cornish tale keeps coming up trumps. (Brian Donaldson)  Citizens Theatre, Glasgow, until Saturday 3 October; Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh, Tuesday 20–Saturday 24 October.

going out

TRISTAN & YSEULT

PICTURE: STEVE TANNER

October 2026 THE LIST 47

‘I

PREVIEWS

GOING OUT

look like Chris Evans and Aidan looks a bit like Tony Slattery.’ It’s early September 1996 and with no email or WhatsApp at my disposal, I have a big clunky late 20th-century telephone in my fist in order to arrange a face-to-face interview with Malcolm Middleton (apparently a doppelganger of the redhead DJ and broadcaster) and his pal Aidan Moffat (seemingly a dead ringer for the Whose Line Is It Anyway? improv king). Together they comprise a new indie duo from Falkirk called Arab Strap. Good things are being predicted (John Peel has been making positive noises about their debut song ‘The First Big Weekend’) but they are yet to have anything remotely close to a PR machine behind them. There are no publicity photos of the pair (more of that later) hence why Malcolm is giving me tips on their appearance. And while Peely may have been drifting off to sleep listening to lyrics such as: ‘Later that evening Malcolm introduced me to the power of Merrydown/£1.79 a litre, 8.2% . . . mmmmmm’, no one has been able to get a cassette (remember, it’s 1996) of their signature tune to me. Someone somewhere has been able to send over a fax (again, 1996) of a handwritten sheet of A4 which is being passed off as a press release. One line suggests that ‘The First Big Weekend’ is Trainspotting put to music. When they greet me (slightly worse for the previous night’s imbibing) at Falkirk bus station, I sort-of understand what Malcolm was getting at. But no one would be stopping the lads in the street, mistaking them for those aforementioned ‘stars’. On that windy Saturday in ’96, a lack of press pictures mean they are reluctantly subjected to my less-than-skilled abilities with a cheapo polaroid camera. When Philophobia, their second album, comes out in 1998, one of my ‘pictures’ appears in a national newspaper, having been pilfered from The List’s image archive (a cabinet even clunkier than the office telephone I used

CENTRAL B Thirty years ago, Arab Strap were about to play King Tut’s for their very first live gig. Ten years later they called it a day. Now three albums into a very welcome reunion, Aidan Moffat and Malcolm Middleton are digging out the party hats for an anniversary tour. Brian Donaldson recalls interviewing them right at the beginning and considers their place in the British music pantheon

PICTURE: LUKE BOVILL

48 THE LIST October 2026

c•

usi

c•

Arab Strap play Liquid Room, Edinburgh, Sunday 11 October; Barrowlands, Glasgow, Saturday 17 October; Half-Told Tales is out now on Rock Action.

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PREVIEWS

to set up the initial interview). Word gets back that the pair are livid and are blaming me. As Daniel Day-Lewis put it five years earlier during In The Name Of The Father, ‘I’m an innocent man’, and on interviewing Malcolm in 1999 for album three, Elephant Shoe, we smooth things over. Seven more years pass, and the band announce that they’re splitting up. There’s no drama, no spite, no recriminations. Their race has simply been run. Some fine solo projects and collaborations ensue across the following decade but when they announce that they’re getting the band back together, the glee from fans is palpable. When that eventual reunion album, As Days Get Dark, turns out to be a stone-cold classic, the joy is unbridled. Two albums further on, and the Strap are fully in the groove. Aidan’s lyrical concerns have, understandably, matured. Whereas pre-2006, the songs were largely about love (requited or otherwise), sex and partying, Strap 2.0 has been dominated by fretting over the ageing process, trying not to be hamstrung by the past, and surviving in the social-media era as both a perplexed individual and a concerned parent. Have Arab Strap ever been given the full credit their discography deserves? They’ve been adored by credible parts of Scotland’s music press, are lauded by their indie peers, and generally receive positive reviews from the likes of Pitchfork. But overall, probably not. It took Mogwai 25 years to finally be honoured with a Mercury Prize nomination but Arab Strap have never had a sniff. Their music has appeared just once on Desert Island Discs when actor Adeel Akhtar picked ‘The First Big Weekend’ earlier this year. Lauren Laverne, the show’s host and Malcolm’s former squeeze, made little comment (and best not tell them that on their sandy retreats, Ian Rankin and Jimmy Carr both chose to take Belle And Sebastian’s ‘The Boy With The Arab Strap’, a song which caused a rift between the two bands). However history will look back upon Arab Strap when they call it a day for a second and probably final time, the lyrical honesty and humour, the melodic majesty and evocative soundscapes, and the overall integrity of their music will override everything. Would a bit more fame have changed them? Probably. Would it have been fun to see Aidan on something like Celebrity Traitors? Aye, course it would. But if it was a choice between that and being spoiled by songs such as ‘The Turning Of Our Bones’, ‘Molehills’, ‘Hello Daylight’, ‘I Would’ve Liked Me A Lot Last Night’ and ‘Don’t Ask Me To Dance’, it’s no contest.

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Soul queen Beverley Knight’s powerhouse vocals have been topping charts and selling out venues for more than three decades. But she’s also achieved tandem success as a star of the musical stage, with acclaimed turns in The Bodyguard, Memphis and Sister Act. As her latest musical hit Sylvia heads northwards, she tells Kelly Apter about being a history freak, using empathy in her vocals, and why we need to stand up and be counted

Sylvia is currently touring the UK after a successful London run in 2023, but you’ve been involved since an early work-inprogress held by director/choreographer Kate Prince back in 2018. What first attracted you to the project? Kate asked me if I

would play Emmeline Pankhurst and that was all I needed to hear. I didn’t know too much about Sylvia or Christabel Pankhurst, but I knew exactly who Emmeline was and about the Women’s Social And Political Union. And of course, I knew about women’s suffrage. I’m an absolute freak when it comes to history; I love history more than I can ever explain.

I got the script, the first thing I did was think, ‘right, I’m going in deep, like subterranean’. I read books and watched videos. There was a BBC series from the 1970s about the suffragettes that wasn’t on iPlayer but someone had converted it from VHS to DVD and I bought it on eBay. I watched the film Suffragette again, which I’d already watched a couple of times. My poor husband was like, ‘she’s gone!’. Being in a musical, performing seven shows a week, is a different proposition to playing gigs and recording albums, as you had mainly done during the first 20 years of your career. Your first professional musical theatre experience was in The Bodyguard in 2013, then you went on to star in Memphis and Sister Act, and now Sylvia. How did you find that transition? I

didn’t go to stage school or anything like that, so there was a whole new world I had to get my head around very quickly. My first role in The Bodyguard was in my wheelhouse vocally, and I’ve always looked after my voice so I had that to my advantage. But singing those songs night after night, I very quickly learned how to pace myself, because you’ve just got to. I actually loved it because I knew inside that I was capable of it; I just needed to hone it and never stop learning. How did other performers respond to you joining the world of musical theatre? I have to say, the theatre community really

welcomed me in. They were so kind and willing to accommodate me when they used terms like ‘upstage left’, and I’d be like, ‘what’s that?’. Or dancing terms I’d never heard of like plié; all those little things which, if you go to stage school, you don’t even think about. But they were so lovely to me and I’ll be forever grateful.

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Christabel and Sylvia Pankhurst are less well-known than their mother Emmeline. Given that love of history, did you enjoy doing a deep dive into their lives and the politics of the time? When

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You’ve released nine albums and, apart from the covers of Soul UK, written pretty much all the songs. Does it feel different singing something that came from your own heart versus singing somebody else’s words as you do in Sylvia? When it comes

to vocals, I think the best of the best are people who have great empathy. Because when you’re singing somebody else’s song, you have to stand in their shoes. So there’s the technical aspect of singing and then there’s you as a messenger. And as a messenger, you need to draw on the same depth of feeling and the same communication skills, whether you’ve written the words yourself or somebody else has. Otherwise, you’re just giving something that might sound technically fabulous but will leave audiences feeling quite cold.

The action in Sylvia took place over 100 years ago. What do you hope audiences today will take from it in terms of galvanising them to ‘Be The Change’, to quote one of your songs in the show? Because the songs are sung with modern phrasing, using

hip hop, R&B, soul, funk (things that are completely familiar to all our ears), I hope people will understand that although they’re watching something that happened many years ago, it’s actually social commentary of today. With songs like ‘March Women March’, we’re singing about standing up and making some noise. These are sentiments that we have to employ right now. Some groups in America are trying to take the vote away from women and saying it should be one vote per household, that the man is more than capable of speaking for everybody. That’s what Churchill and Asquith were saying a hundred-odd years ago. It was ludicrous then and it’s ludicrous now. So I really hope that despite the Edwardian costumes on stage, people recognise that these calls to action are about what’s going on right now. And although women are front and centre in this show, that message isn’t just for women: it’s for everyone who has the right to protest. How hard do you fight when your rights are under attack? What are you prepared to do?

Sylvia, Festival Theatre, Edinburgh, Tuesday 13–Saturday 17 October.

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ROYAL NATIONAL MÒD For its 134th year, the Royal National Mòd returns to Glasgow, bringing with it a diversity of Gaelic arts. Outside the main competitions, the festival offers a vibrant fringe programme, which includes An Drochaid (Royal Concert Hall, Tuesday 13 October). ‘My first experience of a “home” Glasgow Mòd was in 1988 when I won my gold medal,’ recalls Mary Ann Kennedy, who has co-curated the concert. ‘It was the first one in the city in a long time, so folk were very excited.’ An Drochaid features musicians belonging to Glasgow’s various island associations, celebrating communities ‘that grew up in Glasgow in the late 1800s and which are still part of the Gaelic community today,’ says Kennedy. ‘They made the connection with “home” and supported new arrivals in the big city. They were and are a vital part of our Gaelic world, singing so many of the favourite songs that are at the heart of every great ceilidh.’ There’s been a fringe at the Mòd for many years where audiences can enjoy a pub session with favourite musicians or attend one of the big all-star events. ‘Everything adds to the feeling of being part of a very special festival,’ notes Kennedy. The fringe also includes trad music sessions from Fèis Ghàidhlig Ghlaschu and the recurrent Ar Cànan’s Ar Ceòl concert, which this year will foreground four decades of Gaelic-medium education in the city. (Marcas Mac an Tuairneir)  Various venues, Glasgow, Friday 9–Saturday 17 October.

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EDINBURGH SPANISH FILM FESTIVAL

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The 13th edition of the Edinburgh Spanish Film Festival features 16 releases hailing from Spain and Latin America, with this year’s movies celebrating community and bringing people together. Under the curation and direction of Marian A Aréchaga, the festival is centred on Edinburgh but also has screenings in Glasgow, Manchester, Tranent, Ayr and Stirling. The 2026 programme offers two opening features: Band Together takes place in the aftermath of a maritime disaster which devastates a Galician coastal village and depicts how the locals heal their loss by reviving the musical tradition of the ‘rondalla’ while director El Langui’s Lust For Life is an inspiring documentary about paralympic athlete Desirée Vila, a gymnast who lost a leg yet became a national athletics champion. This year’s Basque Window sidebar includes gnarly folk-horror fantasy Gaua by director Paul Urkijo. Set in the 17th century, a woman flees from her husband into a dark forest where she encounters a coven of witches (Neil Jordan’s The Company Of Wolves is a useful reference point). A further sporting highlight arrives in Another League, based on a true story set in 1970s Franco-led Spain. Marta Díaz de Lope Díaz’s film celebrates the groundbreaking spirit of those who played in the country’s first ever women’s football match. Sport, like cinema, remains a constant which brings a community together and heightens the feelgood factor. It’s almost as though Spain recently won some big football competition . . . (Eddie Harrison)  Various venues, nationwide, Thursday 1 October–Thursday 5 November.

VIC’S S PICKS Broadcaster, author, actor, musician, DJ and columnist, Mr Galloway flicks through some music listings to choose a trio of top October gigs in variously sized rooms and across different genres

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PICTURE: GARETH GOODLAD

he zeitgeist ebbs and flows in music culture, but some groups skilfully sidestep the trends and last the test of time. With a solid back catalogue behind them already, Admiral Fallow are gently approaching their 20th anniversary but continue to inspire. Their no-nonsense aesthetic isn’t showy but their musical abilities certainly are, as demonstrated on their recent fifth album, First Of The Birds,, released in 2025. Acoustic folk, indie pop, prog rock and even flashes of jazz entwine themselves within their evolving sound, never losing sight of the song in the centre of it all. Watch Louis Abbott and the gang perform at PJ Molloy’s in Dunfermline (Saturday 10 October) and witness their unforced onstage alchemy. Nostalgia ain’t what it used to be, huh? Men and women of a certain age must thrill at the sheer amount of heritage acts treading the boards and celebrating anniversaries these days. It’s now 40 years since Miles Hunt and his prickly, post-punk perspicacity first ear-wormed its way into our contemporary consciousness via the addictive, gnarly pop of The Wonder Stuff.. The Stourbridge upstarts stormed the charts and won the hearts of grebos and indie kids across the land, making an indelible mark at the time. Despite sniffy reviews from a jaded music press over the years, The Stuffies are well loved by many to this day and bring along the great Inspiral Carpets for support. Join this ruby anniversary celebration at Glasgow’s legendary Barrowlands (Wednesday 14 October). I can also guarantee you a sweaty, high-octane night of communal joy in the company of Ibibio Sound Machine at Edinburgh’s Liquid Room (Friday 23 October). Shaking up afrobeat, electronica, post punk and hyper funk with a Nigerian/London twist, the band always brings the party with the glamorous and glittery Eno Williams up front. She has star quality and a voice to match, which she uses to raise the roof with songs delivered in English and her native Ibibio tongue. Some bands dial it in every night, but not this lot. With six albums of bangers to choose from, let them start your weekend as you mean to go on. Are you dancing? I’m asking!  Listen to Vic Galloway every Monday night on BBC Radio Scotland or Admiral Fallow anytime on BBC Sounds.

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I was able to channel that grief and despair

PICTURE: ZAK WATSON

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here does Richard Fearless begin and Death In Vegas end? That’s the dilemma that Fearless, who has operated under both monikers since the early 90s, finds himself in as the creatively fertile latter half of his career solidifies him as a distinct presence in electronica. The Fearless alias emerged when he began DJing in small nightclubs, but soon he was experimenting with music in collaboration with sound engineer Steve Hellier, adopting the name Death In Vegas, and being signed to a major label within a year. ‘I did a lot of stuff I wish I hadn’t,’ he laments. ‘With hindsight, I wish I hadn’t made music for a long time.’ These were the days when Death In Vegas (alongside DJ Shadow, Unkle and Chemical Brothers) represented a nexus point between Britpop and dance, leading to the parka-hoods-up swagger of ‘Scorpio Rising’ with Liam Gallagher or the curious cover of Gene Clark’s ‘So You Say You Lost Your Baby’ featuring Paul Weller on vocals. ‘I don’t listen to those old records now,’ he insists. ‘There was a turning point for me when I made Satan’s Circus. I remember sitting down at my desk and, for the first time, putting down the mix myself. I was like, “oh, this is what I want to do”. It took four albums to get to that point and then I chose a completely different path.’ That journey has led him towards periods of restless experimentation from his studio, a storage container in London overlooking the sprawling tributary of the Thames. From there he could observe how the high living of Canary Wharf contrasts with Tower Hamlets, one of the poorest boroughs in London. ‘It was a very Ballardian landscape and that was definitely inspiring.’ Then there are the contrasts hidden within

PREVIEWS

Across three decades, Richard Fearless has travelled from nightclubs to the pop charts and back again. Kevin Fullerton speaks to the DJ and artist about his circuitous musical path and intensely autobiographical new work the Thames itself, both its natural beauty and its associations with smuggling and the rampant colonialism of the East India Company. ‘It’s got all sorts of dodgy history. Especially for my last solo work [Future Rave Memory], I tried to tap into that as much as I could.’ His recent output as Richard Fearless has continued to dovetail with his creative vision for Death In Vegas, which has long transformed into a solo project. ‘There were two separate worlds and it’s taken quite a long time for them to morph into one.’ Fearless’ music, which once bore the hallmarks of a talented but emotionally distant vinyl junkie, has matured to incorporate an intense autobiographical edge as evidenced on Death In Vegas’ latest album. ‘I lost my father when I wrote Death Mask. I was able to channel that grief and despair, and the joy about the people I love in my life. To throw all of that into the recording process was really cathartic.’ Gone are guest vocalists and lyrics (which he feared might ‘overcrowd’ his new compositions), replaced with a focus indicative of someone who, although surrounded by instruments in his compact recording studio, has maintained a relatively spartan analogue palate since the 1990s, consciously avoiding the lure of Ableton and its ilk. ‘You can get a bit overwhelmed with technology but it doesn’t mean I’m averse to it. It’s just not the avenue I want to go down myself.’ He now cuts a singular figure in electronica, which might help explain why the once disjointed personalities of Richard Fearless (nightclub innovator, tastemaker) and Death In Vegas (mainstream-courter, hitmaker, survivor of a cutthroat music industry) have merged so elegantly. Death In Vegas, QMU, Glasgow, Friday 16 October.

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PICTURE: ANDREW KIMBER

My name is Olga Koch and my comedy hero is Julia LouisDreyfus. From the day I was born, I have never lived in a world where a groundbreaking and era-defining comedy television show starring Louis-Dreyfus wasn’t on TV. From marathoning the entirety of Seinfeld when I was at university, to absorbing old Saturday Night Live clips on YouTube, to being aware of and respecting the existence of The New Adventures Of Old Christine, Julia Louis-Dreyfus has been the comedy soundtrack to my life. Once I even dressed up as Elaine for Halloween, loudly judging whether the superheroes and pirates around me on the dancefloor were or were not, in fact, ‘sponge-worthy’. Despite my clear adoration, I don’t think I truly appreciated her generational impact until I saw Veep. Selina Meyer is so masterfully written, so astoundingly styled and so freaking impeccably performed. She’s all of my favourite things: hot, mature, evil and horny. Louis-Dreyfus brought Selina to life with such colossal precision that a mere look or arch of the eyebrow could send me into a shrieking cackle (and, oftentimes, a not unpleasant full-body cringe). As a comedian, what I admire most about Julia Louis-Dreyfus is that she has been every kind of funny. She’s been goofy and relatable, she’s been sharp and political, she’s been fragile and grounded. She does it all, she does it with ease, and she makes it look like so much fun. I don’t want to speak about her legacy just yet because I simply cannot wait to see what she does next.  Olga Koch: Fat Tom Cruise, The Stand, Glasgow, Monday 12 October; Monkey Barrel, Edinburgh, Friday 16 October.

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For photographer B, Glasgow is a city of details: alleyways, buildings, signs, landmarks and corners that can easily be passed without a second glance. His new permanent exhibitions at Emmaus Glasgow’s charity shops in Partick and Hamiltonhill bring these observations together, offering a portrait of the city as he encounters it. B’s experience of homelessness has shaped that way of looking. ‘When you’ve been homeless on the streets, you have to pay close attention to your surroundings,’ he says. That awareness remains in his photography, whether he’s noticing shortcuts or using familiar landmarks, such as the Smartie Tube bridge, to place himself within the city. His photographs are also about time. B returns to places to see how light and colour alter throughout the day, while other images are caught almost immediately. He photographs St Enoch subway station at 5am when Argyle Street is empty, while the Finnieston Crane takes on a different character at 10pm, its blue tones standing out against the night and recalling Glasgow’s industrial past. There is an instinct to preserve these moments, too. ‘Sometimes, I visit a place two or three times,’ B notes. ‘Something might get graffitied or painted over and I want to capture that moment.’ The Star Bar photograph carries a more personal memory, recalling the period before Emmaus when B was homeless and looking for food. Now, proceeds from the photographs help support that charity. The galleries are not intended to remain static as B is already planning black-and-white and winter photographs around Glasgow, so the displays will continue to evolve alongside the city itself. For B, photographing Glasgow is less about presenting a fixed picture of the place than noticing what is there while it is still intact. (Ananya Patankar)  Emmaus, Glasgow.

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future sound

Our column celebrating new music to watch continues with Edinburgh eightpiece Oedipus And The Mama’s Boys. Proving bigger can be better, they chat to Fiona Shepherd about embracing eclecticism and having no constraints

n these straitened times for musicians, it’s a blast to encounter the power of a big band, where musicianship, camaraderie and sheer sonic firepower trump any desire to hog a bigger cut of the rider. Edinburghbased octet Oedipus And The Mama’s Boys are one such beast, having grown arms and legs under the benevolent dictatorship of founding singer/ guitarist Charlie. Having previously toiled in bands over the years, he lost the spark, took a break, then rekindled his enthusiasm through the trial and error of ‘terrible’ early gigs. ‘This has been a labour of love for me,’ he says. ‘The stabilisers came off about a year ago and I ended up with eight people and quite a lot of emails to answer. In terms of the music, everyone writes their own bits. I just tell people when we’re practicing.’ Hailing from Haddington, he describes himself as ‘circumstantially Scottish’ while he has gathered bandmates from Falkirk, Glasgow and London. The arrival of guitarist Cammy and singer/bassist Gemima boosted the songwriting and vocal capabilities of the line-up, while trumpet/flugelhorn player Hannah brought a level of artistic perspicacity which allowed the group to head off into brave new worlds of exotic time signatures and jazz influences. Add the classical and folk background of violinist/mandolin player/vocalist Alex, who describes the band as ‘mental and experimental’, plus Matty on drums, Nye on sax and Scott on keys and synth, and it’s not surprising that they have attracted comparisons to willfully eclectic Cambridge outfit Black Country, New Road. ‘We don’t impose gated genre boxes on ourselves,’ says Charlie. ‘It was important to start it wide open, to have a platform for it to become something beyond what I could come up with myself. As people joined

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and left and rejoined, it became a stable line-up with an expansive sound. We’re all good friends first and foremost and not afraid to tell each other if something is crap. We don’t constrain ourselves.’ This might explain the trio of lengthy tracks they’ve released to date: ‘Bleed’, ‘Stretched/Kitchens’ and ‘A Daisy For You, John’, the latter inspired by Charlie’s music-loving grandad and his garden. By comparison, their cacophonous new single ‘Blood On The Sand’ comes in at a trim five minutes. Alternating from a whisper to a scream, it’s a key portal to understanding the Oedipal impulse. ‘It was the first song I wrote with this bigger band in mind,’ says Charlie. ‘I wrote this stripped-back guitar part which was all about laying down a platform for something a little bigger.’ ‘It’s a big punch in the face,’ reckons Cammy. ‘It’s a good one to start when we play gigs because people are watching so many people setting up; you play this song and it’s a wake-up call.’ To date, Oedipus And The Mama’s Boys have bossed the Kelburn Garden Party and House Guest festivals, with Tenement Trail and Sneaky Pete’s all dayers to come as well as more music on the horizon. Though there’ll probably be no more new band members in the foreseeable future. ‘Each time a new person comes in, it’s a breath of fresh air,’ says Cammy. ‘But a ten-person band may be too far.’ Oedipus And The Mama’s Boys play Tenement Trail, Glasgow, Saturday 10 October; General Meeting All Dayer, Sneaky Pete’s, Edinburgh, Sunday 11 October; Nice N Sleazy, Glasgow, Saturday 31 October.

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Scottish Ensemble have joined forces with piping sensation Brìghde Chaimbeul (Dundee Rep, Friday 16 October) for a cross-genre show which highlights the folklore and history of Skye. An earthy, rich and haunting experience can be expected. Larry Dean (Whitehall Theatre, Friday 2 October) may have recently got married but he is determined to never grow up. The Saturday Night Live UK star explains exactly how he aims to achieve this in amusing detail with his touring show Hellbent. In the world of visual art, Glasgow-born France-Lise McGurn (DCA, until Sunday 15 November) exhibits The Charm Offensive. Effectively a site-specific installation created in the space, a series of paintings is accompanied by drawings, furniture, and various objects and ephemera gathered together from her own studio. And sometime during October, Irish pub chain Malones will open up a new branch in the city and they’re putting the feelers out for Dundee bands and solo musicians to perform there. Live entertainment is at the heart of this major renovation on Panmure Street and ample opportunities will be made for local talent to make their mark. (Brian Donaldson) Busted Banjo in Edinburgh’s Malones

THEATRE

Three might be the proverbial magic number, but according to physical theatre-maker Al Seed, when multiplied by itself it takes on even more otherworldly significance. ‘The number nine is associated with a host of groups of supernatural and mythological women,’ says Seed, whose new piece, Thrice, is based on Macbeth. ‘The nine Muses and the Scottish Nine Maidens myth, for example; and then the three Norse Norns, and the Greek Fates and Graeae. Nine is also the ideal number for creating a Greek tragic chorus.’ With this in mind, Seed chose to multiply the famous three witches from the Scottish play, resulting in a piece delivered by nine women and nonbinary performers that combines, text, movement, sound design and ritual. For Seed, who has form in reinventing folklore and classical texts (from the myth of cannibal Sawney Bean to Milton’s Paradise Lost), the parallels between Macbeth and today’s current social order make it relevant for revival. ‘The play revolves around themes of corruption, tyranny and the upending of social order. More specifically, through the theme of magic in the text, there is a playing with inversions; things being grotesquely presented as their opposites. I think we see this sort of tumult and absurdity almost everywhere just now.’ To tackle his interpretation, Seed harnessed together an international team of creatives, from Australian choreographer Lina Limosani to Glasgow-based sound designer Guy Veale, and long-term collaborator and co-director Judith Milligan. Seed also thinks it’s time we re-evaluated a specific word. ‘Reading or watching Macbeth, one has the sense that these so-called “witches” have had their voices stolen, distorted and grotesquely repurposed for political ends. By allowing our “witches” an opportunity to repurpose text and imagery from across the play, we hope to reflect and address this act while still being entertaining.’ (Lucy Ribchester)  Tramway, Glasgow, Friday 16 & Saturday 17 October; Anatomy Rooms, Aberdeen, Monday 19 October; Dundee Rep, Wednesday 21 October; Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, Friday 23 & Saturday 24 October.

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GOING OUT Eden Court which hosts Confluence (and bottom from left), Tweed River Festival, Alan Carr, An Accident/A Life, Rollers Forever

GOING OUT FURTHER AFIELD Get yourself away from the central belt and out into various parts of Scotland where the cultural landscape is just as rich and varied. Among the upcoming highlights this month are an innovative music festival, a theatrical homage to an American disruptor, two bespectacled comics at the top of their game, and a fitting aural and visual tribute to a horror film classic ABERDEEN

INVERNESS

PERTH

CONFLUENCE

ALAN CARR

When two friends meet at an old haunt, they wind up reliving their teenage years in the 70s with every adventure soundtracked by a hit from tartan troupe the Bay City Rollers. n His Majesty’s Theatre, Wednesday 21–Saturday 24 October.

‘Celebrating connection, empathy and community’, this immersive theatre experience helps mark 50 years of Eden Court, featuring Gaelic music mixed with the rhythms of India and Pakistan, and an exploration of early motherhood. n Eden Court, Friday 30 October–Sunday 8 November.

Ahead of his 2027 UK tour, the recently crowned national treasure is in a jolly work-in-progress mood which will no doubt be more cackle-worthy than most comics’ end products. n Perth Theatre, Friday 23 October.

KIRKCALDY

With a live score written and performed by Andrew Wasylyk and Tommy Perman, the Byre lays on this screening of a classic century-old horror masterpiece. n Byre Theatre, Friday 16 October.

ABERDEENSHIRE

SOUND FESTIVAL

Ten days of new and experimental music across Aberdeenshire features climate-themed workshops with Danish ensemble Lydenskab while New European Ensemble join author Ali Smith for works inspired by her Seasonal Quartet novels. n Various venues, Thursday 22–Saturday 31 October.

GREENOCK

CHRISTOPHER MACARTHUR BOYD Howling At The Moon is not only a nicely timed seasonal activity but also the name of this Glasgow wag’s touring show which takes a searing look at love, grief and nostalgia. n Adam Smith Theatre, Friday 16 October.

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DO NOT PASS GO

TWEED RIVER FESTIVAL

Jordan & Skinner bring us a theatrical celebration of Lizzie Magie, the feminist, economist, disruptor and games designer who wanted to show the world there was an alternative to capitalist greed. n Beacon Arts Centre, Friday 30 October.

This year’s festival includes a twinning of the Tweed with the Conwy in Wales in order to share river basin knowledge while the whole shebang culminates in a river parade. n Various venues, Friday 30 & Saturday 31 October.

ST ANDREWS

THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA

STIRLING

AN ACCIDENT/A LIFE A sad tale which has hope in its heart, this is choreographer Marc Brew’s story of the road accident which resulted in him spending his life in a wheelchair. But it hasn’t stopped him from making profound and wonderful dance theatre. n Macrobert Arts Centre, Thursday 29 & Friday 30 October.

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Scottish Ballet have seriously upped their cinema game with These Violent Delights, a giddy take on Shakespeare’s timeless tragedy of star-crossed lovers. Kelly Apter is blown away by the seamless choreography, feverdream visuals and wonderful performances

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nyone fooled by the notion that ballet is a dying art form with no future should take a seat in front of These Violent Delights, a dance film born out of a centuries-old story, but firmly rooted in the present day. Scottish Ballet has built an impressive repertoire of short filmic works in recent years, but nothing could have prepared us for this 70-minute, octane-fuelled ride. Although inspired by Shakespeare’s tragic protagonists, Romeo and Juliet, this is very much Juliet’s story. We see the world through their eyes, via a fever dream that takes Juliet back from the brink of death, as they struggle to remember and reconfigure the previous few days. In the starring role, Kayla-Maree Tarantolo is embedded in the 21st century, through surroundings, costume and attitude, imbuing the role with youthful confusion, curiosity, hot desire and a sense of fun. Indeed all the characters, from the buttoned-up Lady Capulet to wide-boy Tybalt, and lovesick Romeo to the boisterous Mercutio and Benvolio, are finely drawn and danced. Nobody feels two-dimensional, regardless of how brief their screen time. And surprisingly, given that no less than six choreographers are credited with the movement, it blends together seamlessly. Whether the dancers are performing a contemplative solo, silently arguing at breakfast, killing each other outside a nightclub, or falling in love, each step feels like a natural progression. So kudos to Scottish Ballet’s artistic director Christopher Hampson for cherrypicking the film’s choreographers with wisdom and insight, apportioning each to a different set of characters. Julia Cheng (whose new work Entress was recently

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added to the Scottish Ballet repertoire) wraps Juliet up in movement that echoes their emotional state perfectly: spiky and troubled one minute, softened by love and friendship the next. Myles Thatcher (a dancer with San Francisco Ballet when he’s not busy choreographing) whips the nightclub scene into a blaze of queer, drag-queen, drug-induced beauty. In Thatcher’s capable hands, Harvey Littlefield as the re-imagined Sister Laurence rules The Apothecary, aided by the equally sensational Rishan Benjamin as new character Sister Giovanna. Morgann Runacre-Temple (who co-created the company’s superb Coppélia) climbs brilliantly beneath the skin of the entire Capulet family, from the brash socialite parents to needy nephew Tybalt. Scottish Ballet’s resident choreographers, Sophie Laplane and Nicholas Shoesmith, do an exquisite job with the Nurse/Juliet friendship and Montague family, respectively. In particular, Shoesmith’s work with lead dancer Ishan Mahabir-Stokes results in a richly layered performance that takes Romeo straight to our broken hearts. Dancer Andrea Azzari not only delivers a feisty, colourful Mercutio but choreographs a spooky ensemble of ‘shadows’, operating as a form of Greek chorus depicting Juliet’s subconscious. With the movement and characterisation built on such strong foundations, the set design wasn’t required to do much heavy lifting, but does it anyway. The stunningly opulent worlds of the Montagues and Capulets created by

REVIEWS

e month production designer Sami Fendall are gifts that keep on giving. Until they don’t, but for all the right reasons. When we head out into clubland, at the wonderfully scuzzy warehouse home of cabaret artiste Violent Delight, all the rich trimmings fall away. Here, the costumes are ramped up instead, as the high-heeled Sister Laurence, supplier of catwalk sass and hallucinatory drugs, leaves Shakespeare far behind. The film may take place inside Juliet’s fever dream, but at times it feels as if co-directors Christopher Hampson and Oscar Sansom found their wondrous vision during a similar state. Working with a story so universally known liberates the duo from heavy-handed, expositional storytelling. They inhabit that freedom with vibrant imagination and it quickly becomes clear that whatever you assume is going to happen next almost certainly isn’t. An opened door never leads where you think it will, fast edits regularly transport us between imagination and reality, and quirky lenses evoke a dream-like quality. And at the end, there’s just enough ambiguity to keep us guessing as we leave the cinema. A triumphant adventure that secures Scottish Ballet’s place at the very cutting edge of exciting, innovative, yet wholly accessible dance and film. These Violent Delights is in cinemas from Wednesday 21 October. October 2026 THE LIST 65

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PICTURE: MIHAELA BODLOVIC

There have been various retellings of Sophocles’ tragedy, from Jean Anouilh’s 1944 allegory of Vichy France to 2024’s The Other Place by Alexander Zeldin. The latter relocated this story of the Theban princess who buries her brother against the wishes of her uncle, Creon, to contemporary English suburbia. Unlike those earlier works, Lulu Raczka’s Antigone (written for Scottish-based theatre company Groupwork) doesn’t so much map the action of Sophocles’ play onto new settings as develop an offstage version that shifts focus away from a conflict between the title character and the king to the relationship between Antigone (Eilidh Loan) and her sister Ismene (Holly Howden Gilchrist). It is a bold premise that opens up aspects of both women’s characters while providing a resonant take on the play’s central dilemma, namely the question of whether to act when confronted by tyranny. In its opening scene, both siblings are depicted as cosseted princesses, enjoying a spot of roleplay as they order drinks and pick up men in a bar while the Theban civil war rages beyond their city gates. It’s only when the war ends, and the body of their brother Polyneices (deemed a traitor by Creon) is left to rot on the battlefield, that differences between them begin to show. While Ismene flinches at the very idea of civil defiance, Antigone feels she has no option but to oppose her uncle: ‘It feels good to do something that feels right,’ as she puts it. There is a risk that the two-hander, played out against Milla Clarke’s backdrop of floral wallpaper, dazzling furniture and cloudy shagpile carpet, could become stifling. As this is Groupwork, led by director Finn den Hertog, the debate between these sisters is punctuated and disrupted by passages of movement choreographed by Vicki Manderson and video footage created by Lewis den Hertog, adding a visceral theatricality to lively performances and Raczka’s smart script. (Allan Radcliffe) n Tron Theatre, Glasgow, until Saturday 10 October.

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66 THE LIST October 2026

PICTURE: ELLIS BAIRSTOW

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A dazzling regular for years at queer club nights and festivals across Europe in her fabulous, saucer-eyed, drag alter ego, Glasgow-based Irish artist/model Sgàire Wood presents an exhibition exploring heritage, identity and violence. Her debut solo show Ongaku Tiffany (2023) at the sorely missed CCA marked her move from performance into visual art, although she’s always blurred the two, weaving costume design and make-up artistry into a practice where Wood is often the canvas (she studied fashion and textiles at GSA). For In Pride, In Piety, In Vigilance, her body is absent, playing with medieval heraldic symbolism instead: the proud peacock, pious pelican and vigilant crane appear in a collection that nods to her Northern Irish childhood. A circular work blurs lettering that spells out ‘fake blood’, ‘dial 999’ and ‘dancing’. Coats of arms are covered in thorns, haberdashery kit and glow-in-the-dark witchy fingers. With white walls and a loaded motif of the colour orange throughout, there is a more sober tone to her usual aesthetic, but a literal twinkle in the eye is always there. A giant swan pedalo outside takes on a sinister twist, with its Battenburg markings reminding viewers of the British police presence and oppression in Northern Ireland. Metallic grids over one artwork are a throwback to the security cages over Belfast pubs while the threat of violence has added charge given that Wood transitioned as a teenager. Fake eyelashes and a plastic peacock toy put playful frills onto traumatic material, reframing fascist horror and misery with pleasing patterns and sensual textures. (Claire Sawers) n Jupiter Artland, Wilkieston, until Sunday 18 October.

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A story that depressingly maintains its relevance as one miserable year follows another, an all-new 1984 preaches a warped story of love across Scottish stages this autumn. Greg Thomas hails the production and wonders whether a little bit more groupthink might actually be the thing that saves us

1984, Dundee Rep, until Saturday 10 October; His Majesty’s Theatre, Aberdeen, Tuesday 13–Saturday 17 October; Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh, Tuesday 27 October–Saturday 7 November; reviewed at Citizens Theatre, Glasgow.

68 THE LIST October 2026

PICTURES: MIHAELA BODLOVIC

REVIEWS

n eccentric, occasionally flawed, yet ultimately deeply powerful adaptation of George Orwell’s 1984, this new stage play from writer Chris Hannan and director Dominic Hill takes the unusual step of placing the drab tragedy of Winston Smith inside a frame narrative. Thus the first scene sees the author himself (real name Eric Blair, played as perhaps a little too cuddly a crank by Jack Tarlton) arriving for treatment at a tuberculosis hospital outside Glasgow, having travelled down from his island fastness in Jura. There, as in real life, he is treated by a doctor (Robert Jack) who fought on the opposing, fascist side in the Spanish Civil War, a conflict which profoundly shaped the writer’s sense of the dangers of totalitarianism, no matter the stripe. The effect of this is, on the one hand, to present the events that follow as an extended fever dream of sorts, a hallucination populated by figures and scenes from his recent past and the environs of the sick bay. Most obviously, a woman to whom Orwell impulsively proposes en route to his treatment reappears as the forceful, red-haired Julia (Jessica Hardwick), the Junior Anti-Sex League stalwart who turns out to be a rebel in disguise, and in love, for some reason, with the damaged and mousy Winston. It’s an interesting exercise in speculative literary biography, although it arguably mutes the fearfulness of the world dreamt up. On the other hand, this writerly sleight of hand allows the tyranny of Big Brother’s regime to be presented via a kind of real-time analytical filter. Discussions between Orwell and his sometime Franco-loving lung specialist touch on the need to resolve seemingly irreconcilable differences in a deeper mutual trust and investment in material reality. Is it a bit heavy-handed? Perhaps, but who can deny the force of their arguments at a time when huge swathes of our society feel the most virtuous decision they can take is (paraphrasing Winston at his sad demise) to surround themselves exclusively with people who agree with them, facts be damned? Then again, in so many ways, Orwell’s Stalinist dystopia is not the horror story for our times. We do not live in an era of state-infiltrated emotional lives but of rampant and gleeful individualism quickened by corporate interests. Indeed, the spectre of Big Brother is seemingly invoked as a nervous tick by the right to fend off even the most cursory gestures towards ideas of collective responsibility. The major challenges to our civilisation (the climate crisis above all) are arguably not to be solved by less group-think but more. All of this seems moot, however, as the play rattles towards its horrendously lucid climax. A series of short, fragmentary scenes separated by blackouts and peals of harsh electronic noise show Winston and his sometime block-mates being relieved of their spirits in ministry cells. A single word, ‘love’, appears behind wire fencing around the upper level of the set, which has a kind of doomy modernist sanitorium vibe to it (think Finland in winter). Here Tarlton comes into his own, dredging up pitiful shrieks and howls that leave us in pieces too. Dr Dick and Eric have one last conversation which frankly deadens the shock of what has come before, but it stays with us, nonetheless. We understand something of the horror and evil of state-sanctioned violence and fear, and we thank our lucky stars that this dystopia is different from our own.

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FATHERLAND 

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Bagging him Best Director at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, Fatherland brings Paweł Pawlikowski’s historical trilogy to a magnificent and moving close, following 2013’s Ida and 2018’s Cold War. Captured in gloriously smoky monochrome by the director’s regular cinematographer Łukasz Żal, the film takes its characters on a poignant, desperately painful journey as it joins Nobel Prize-winning novelist Thomas Mann (Hanns Zischler) and his daughter Erika (Sandra Hüller) on their return to Germany several years after World War II. Thomas fled Germany in 1933, following Hitler’s ascent to power, and we see him head back in 1949 as something of a national hero. He’s there to receive a Goethe Prize, yet is accused by others of deserting his country during a time of incomparable crisis, and finds himself rubbing shoulders with some truly repellent characters. Thomas is accompanied by the no-nonsense Erika, who is eagerly awaiting the arrival of her beloved brother Klaus (August Diehl), before learning of his suicide. This exquisitely realised film deals deftly with questions of identity, loyalty and nationality, as well as the extreme complexity of post-war Germany, where those who had reluctantly or enthusiastically embraced nazism are thrown back together with some who resisted; a later party scene presents a number of compelling confrontations. Fatherland is a contemplative and considered, sometimes very quiet film, with beautiful writing throughout from Pawlikowski and screenwriting partner Hendrik Handloegten. An inscrutable Zischler (best known internationally for Munich and his work with Wim Wenders) delivers a masterclass in repressed emotion, and there’s lovely, all-too-brief work from Diehl as Klaus, while Hüller is as affecting as ever, particularly in moments of furious release. This is all desperately sad and, at a mere 82 minutes, far too fleeting. Yet not a second is wasted. (Emma Simmonds)  In cinemas from Friday 23 October.

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Dance, with its ability to probe the vulnerabilities, beauty and power of the body, makes a fitting form with which to explore the strange atmosphere of hospitals. UK-based choreographer Jasmin Vardimon’s Lullaby is set in an A&E ward and turns 23 this year. It’s been updated with a new cast and fresh scenarios (there’s even a nod towards AI’s use in modern medicine) but the piece’s surrealism and the way it captures those discombobulating emotions which hospitals can stir up, make it feel timeless. Small vignettes unfold inside Guy Bar-Amotz’s set of shifting cubicle curtains. A cluster of people in a waiting room make a frantic but strangely harmonious ensemble as they synchronise gestures of waiting (both patiently and impatiently). A man and a woman vie for control of a plastic-coated mattress sandwiched between them, unable to connect with one another through its sticky, shiny surface. Two almost identical stories of devastation and resilience unfold in side-by-side beds. The acrobatic demands of Vardimon’s choreography are more than met by the dancers, who fire into leaps, throws and punch-ups, and breathe nuance into the unsettling blend of humans and machines, such as in a passage where an automaton doll invites patients to rate their pain from one to ten. The music choices also lean toward uncanny, teasing us with familiar tunes in unfamiliar renditions: a soft-voiced cover of Abba’s ‘The Winner Takes It All’ or a whistled version of Beethoven’s ‘Für Elise’. Like the best short stories, Lullaby demonstrates how surrealism can illuminate the complexity of truth. Towards the end, a child’s voiceover describes her mother’s affair, with the ‘lover’ who ignites the father’s jealousy turning out to be cancer. It’s heartbreaking and beautifully conceived. Occupying the liminal spaces between narrative and surrealism, dance and theatre, life and death, Jasmin Vardimon has created a modern classic. (Lucy Ribchester)  Reviewed at King’s Theatre, Edinburgh.

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COMEDY

ALAN DAVIES: THINK AHEAD 

PICTURE: STEVE ULLATHORNE

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Alan Davies’ first stand-up tour in more than a decade carries considerable baggage, with the comic having written a memoir in the interim about coping with the death of his mother when he was just six and the sexual abuse he suffered shortly afterwards at the hands of his father. Deeply personal subject matter that until recently he’d kept to himself and never contemplated sharing on stage, it’s great credit to him that he weaves his PTSD through broader material about getting older, and it never feels especially jarring. At a scarcely credible 60, the still boyish straight white male standup is something of an anachronism amid the modern diversity of panel shows, clinging onto QI with a quip of ‘blue whale!’ for its loyal following. And he marvels at supposedly venerable sitcom actors such as Clive Dunn and Richard Wilson, much younger than him when they landed their most famous roles. A father of three (his youngest just ten), there’s a cosy, mainstream flavour of ‘kids say the funniest things’ to his introduction. And approaching the end, in almost every sense, he alights on that most over-ploughed field of male comics of his vintage: the prostate examination. However, while he’s prone to recreating his most irate, splenetic outbursts at his children and the baffling modern world, he’s generally thoughtful, resistant to becoming one of those angry old men intimidating the rest of society through their fury. With tenderness and grace, he gently encourages other abuse survivors to seek help. Still, the show’s highlight is Davies railing against the dying of his libido, his misadventures with Viagra inspiring bedroom farce and awkward gymnastic act-outs. Effortlessly marrying attuned social commentary with droll soul baring, Think Ahead is a welcome return to the live arena for stand-up’s tousle-haired Peter Pan. (Jay Richardson)  Music Hall, Aberdeen, Wednesday 21 October; King’s Theatre, Edinburgh, Thursday 22 October; reviewed at King’s Theatre, Glasgow.

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‘People get funny around gold,’ muses mine boss Taggert (Alec Newman). ‘They’ll lie, cheat. They’ll kill you for it.’ And so it goes in period thriller The Weight, a high-concept tale from debut director Padraic McKinley, that has Ethan Hawke struggling with a mental and physical load as he traverses the Oregon wilderness in 1933. Hawke plays single dad and former soldier Samuel Murphy who, after being evicted from his home, is ripped from the arms of his adorable daughter Penny (Avy Berry) following an altercation with police officers and then dumped into a labour camp. Once there, his level head and ability to fix things attracts the attention of Russell Crowe’s Warden Clancy, who offers him the chance to be released in time to prevent his daughter from being put up for adoption. With the area’s mines about to be closed down, Samuel is tasked with leading a group of men on a gold-smuggling mission through local woodland, apparently to save it from being stolen. The men include fellow prisoners Rankin (Austin Amelio) and Singh (Avi Nash), as well as mine employees Amis (Sam Hazeldine) and looming brute Letender (former rugby league player George Burgess), while they are later joined by Indigenous runaway Anna (Julia Jones). The Weight is an enjoyably old-fashioned survival thriller that’s stripped back and laser-focused, with glorious cinematography from Matteo Cocco and typically terrific work from Hawke. Although the contrivances are many and some of the political commentary is clunky, the particulars of its story are gripping: all the gold must survive, these men are not to be trusted and people will come after them. Samuel’s desire to be with his daughter and the context of the Great Depression piles on the jeopardy, with desperate men willing to do anything. Nail-biting stuff. (Emma Simmonds)  In cinemas from Friday 2 October.

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I Love Boosters and (opposite) Turandot (plus bottom from left), Tamsyn Kelly, Boy Blue, Composed Of Nows, Samizdat Film Festival, PlayAway, Melanie C, East Is East, The Littlest Yak

OTHER THINGS WORTH GOING OUT FOR ART

HIGHLIGHTS

TIME + SPACE This is the first group exhibition in a new earlycareer artists’ development programme and features immersive and site-specific installations as well as film, sculpture and 2D animation. n Collective Gallery, Edinburgh, Friday 9 October– Sunday 20 December.

COMPOSED OF NOWS Taking its title from an Emily Dickinson poem, Miriam Morris’ photographic exhibition acts as a longing for a time that can no longer be returned to even if it ever existed. n Hox Gallery, Edinburgh, Friday 9 October–Monday 4 January.

COMEDY

PAUL FOOT In The Future, the anarchic comic explores what might be round the corner for humanity and wonders what our equivalent dreams might be to previous generations’ hopes for jetpacks, friendly robots and solar-powered bidets. n Monkey Barrel, Edinburgh, Thursday 29 October; Òran Mór, Glasgow, Friday 30 October.

DANCE

Named after the practice of clandestine dissemination of censored texts in communist states, this film fest has retrospectives, short films, animation and brand new releases. n GFT & The Pyramid, Glasgow, Tuesday 6–Sunday 11 October; Filmhouse, Edinburgh, Thursday 22– Sunday 25 October.

THICK & TIGHT

SQIFF

Natural Behaviour is a satirical dance show bordering on subversive cabaret, with a pantomime horse lampooning a specific world leader and a section which laments the decline of the nightingale population. n Festival Theatre, Edinburgh, Friday 2 October.

This year’s Scottish Queer International Film Festival focuses on euphoria, experimentation and rebellion, comprised of short films and longer features as well as a craft fair and an exhibition about the SQIFF story so far. n GFT & The Art School, Glasgow, Monday 19– Saturday 24 October.

THE BIG COMEDY ROADSHOW

SHUFFLE DANCE FESTIVAL

The good people of Gilded Balloon unleash more comics around Scotland, with Alison Spittle, Jack Skipper, Raymond Mearns, Tamsyn Kelly and Gareth Mutch among the wags doing their funny thing. n Tron Theatre, Glasgow, Sunday 18 October.

Hip hop and street dance are celebrated with this two-day event presented by Glasgow-based Three60 and featuring London’s highly acclaimed Boy Blue and local collectives such as The Dimestop Crew and Brothers On Lock. n Platform, Glasgow, Friday 9 & Saturday 10 October.

74 THE LIST October 2026

FILM

SAMIZDAT FILM FESTIVAL

I LOVE BOOSTERS Boots Riley’s crime comedy features a bunch of shoplifters (The Velvet Gang) who target high-end retailers and stars Keke Palmer, Naomi Ackie, Demi Moore, Poppy Liu and Will Poulter. n In cinemas from Friday 30 October.

If you fancy getting out and about this month, there’s plenty culture to sample such as an exhibition inspired by Emily Dickinson, a musical showcase for southern Scotland artists, and a beloved late 90s movie making its way onto the stage

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MUSIC

SOUTH OF SCOTLAND SHOWCASE The excellently named Up Yer Airts present this platform for artists from the Dumfries & Galloway area putting them in front of fresh audiences and helping to build new connections. n Drygate, Glasgow, Saturday 17 October.

A CERTAIN RATIO Emerging from the late 70s punk scene, ACR were never much bothered about sticking to genre lanes and dabbled in everything from experimental electronica to vintage funk. Help them celebrate their longevity. n Voodoo Rooms, Edinburgh, Wednesday 14 October; Òran Mór, Glasgow, Thursday 15 October.

THEATRE

THE ARCHERS: LIVE AT 75 Hosted by comedian and Archers superfan Angela Barnes, this live experience is set within a re-imagined Ambridge Flower & Produce Show. n King’s Theatre, Glasgow, Sunday 4 October; Edinburgh Playhouse, Monday 5 October.

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Premiered a century ago in Milan, Puccini’s epic opera is given the co-production treatment of both Scotland and Ireland’s national opera companies to ask tough questions about desire, suffering and abuse of power. n Theatre Royal, Glasgow, Thursday 22, Sunday 25, Wednesday 28, Saturday 31 October.

Jonny Donahoe’s tragicomedy for A Play, A Pie And A Pint stars Blythe Duff and Mark Barrett as a mother and son whose relationship appears to have irrevocably broken down. n Òran Mór, Glasgow, Monday 5–Saturday 10 October; Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, Tuesday 13–Saturday 17 October; Paisley Town Hall, Tuesday 20–Friday 23 October.

TALKS

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EAST IS EAST

This one-day conference and exhibition arranged by Tinderbox Collective explores the intersections between creative technology and game design with arts, education and community work. n Out Of The Blue, Edinburgh, Saturday 24 October.

Making the move from screen to stage, at the heart of this 1970s-set tale of a large Salford family trying to simply live their best lives are identity, generational divides and rebellion. n Citizens Theatre, Glasgow, Wednesday 7–Saturday 17 October.

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HIGHLIGHTS

This musical adaptation of the award-winning children’s book is all about Gertie, a yak who has ideas above and beyond her station as a wee beast who wants to be all grown up. n Studio Theatre, Edinburgh, Saturday 17 & Sunday 18 October.

MELANIE C The former sporty Spice Girl started her honeymoon in July by DJing in Ibiza and is now touring on the back of her dancefloor-filling Sweat album, a sonic love letter to her own clubbing days. n SWG3, Glasgow, Tuesday 20 October.

19th-24th October Glasgow sqiff.org

Scottish Queer International Film Festival 2026 Registered in Sc otlandNo. SC022 513 and is a Scottish Charity No. SC0013 37

Balancing in Freedom BY IDDO OBERSKI CO-DIRECTOR MARK KYDD

“Iddo Oberski offers insights into what it means to be human, and what it means to be free..” -The Skinny

★★★★

“a form of art therapy made flesh” -The Herald

★★★★

Cumbernauld Theatre at Lanternhouse Sunday 11 Oct, t 2:00pm (BSL) t, Scottish Story Storytelling ryt ry ytelling Centre, e e, Edinburg Edinburgh gh Friday 20 Nov, v 7:30pm (BSL) v, 76 THE LIST October 2026

Keeping this issue’s horror vibe going, this new series has some serious comedy pedigree behind it. A 1982 book from none other than Eric Morecambe has been adapted for the small screen by Alan Partridge writers Rob and Neil Gibbons, and features Ross Noble and Bill Bailey as gargoyles. Lenny Rush plays the titular neck-biter who realises he doesn’t quite possess the same abilities as the rest of his undead family. The stakes are high as he tries to navigate all this vampirism while being an actual human. (Brian Donaldson) n Starts on BBC One, Sunday 4 October.

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STAYING IN

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SHORT CIRCUIT

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Scottish filmmaker Steven Fraser has his eyes on the Iris Prize, a celebration of LGBTQ+ storytelling. Isy Santini finds out about the personal story behind his short film Keith and why it captured the selection panel’s votes

he Iris Prize LGBTQ+ Film Festival has been championing homegrown queer cinema for 20 years with their Best British Short programme, which sees each film in the category broadcast on Film4 before becoming available on Channel 4. The festival relies on partner venues across the UK to shape the line-up, with each nominating the best queer film from their own region. This year the Iris Prize joined forces with Edinburgh’s Filmhouse, whose inaugural Queer Film Prize determined which short would earn a coveted spot in the Best British Short programme. The selection panel was composed of Filmhouse staff as well as members of its queer community programming group, who curate the venue’s Lavender Lens strand. ‘We wanted the selection process to reflect the opinions of our local queer community in Edinburgh,’ explains Maili Fraser, the Filmhouse’s learning and engagement officer. ‘We also knew this was something our group of queer film enthusiasts would really enjoy.’ The Queer Film Prize was awarded to the animated documentary, Keith. Set in Glasgow, it chronicles one man’s efforts to put a name to the dead body discovered outside his building. Through the world of his painstakingly animated phone screen, we are offered glimpses into his life and relationships as a picture of loneliness begins to emerge. Keith’s director, Steven Fraser, is no stranger to the Iris Prize, having been nominated before with his 2019 short, Dix Pix. ‘That was before there was the relationship with Channel 4,’ he says. ‘I never thought I’d get it again because it’s quite a difficult festival to get into, so when I saw the Filmhouse prize, I thought I might as well give it a shot.’ The selection panel’s decision was practically unanimous, earmarking Keith as a potential winner upon first viewing. ‘The selection group loved its originality, the incredible visual style, and the complex and personal story,’ recalls Maili. The story is certainly personal, based on Steven’s own discovery of a nameless body, and Keith’s visual style is also rooted in its personal nature. ‘It’s animated because it’s really about memory and the piecing together and exploring of different elements of communication,’ says Steven. Keith’s protagonist is implied to be both queer and autistic, something which impacts how he interacts with the world around him. ‘It’s somebody who is struggling to communicate but trying to find the right language.’  Online from Tuesday 13–Saturday 31 October, irisprize.org/2026-programme

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LISTEN BACK Time to bathe in the sonic vibrations of the letter V, in the latest of our alphabet-themed series of album recommendations

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Breakneck-speed contemporary jazz is Alfa Mist’s forte on Variables (2023), as well as lengthy compositions that feel like winding (though never languorous) journeys. The London-based favourite of the jazz world is no purist with R&B, hip hop, lounge, grime and even hard rock creeping into view, but they’re all serving knotted compositions which, though delivered with kinetic sparkiness, have a delicate touch. If Brian Eno is the godfather of ambient, then Fennesz is its curious and experimental uncle. On Venice (2004), the Austrian producer made perhaps some of his most loved compositions, transforming the television-snow flicker of electronics into a gentle shifting of waves. Though an undeniably meditative and relaxing collection, scrungy elements (as on the sudden rising of terror on ‘Chateau Rouge’ or David Sylvian’s doomy vocals on ‘Transit’) add a sense of grit and tension to Venice that’s sorely lacking from his sound bath-courting, whale song-loving peers. (Kevin Fullerton)  Other V albums: Viscera by Jenny Hval (2011), The Velvet Underground & Nico by The Velvet Underground & Nico (1967), Viagr Aboys by Viagra Boys (2025).

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A spooktacular season of classic horror only at GFT. Screening from 23 October to 4 November.

The Others 4K (12) | Pan’s Labyrinth 4K (15) | Donnie Darko 4K (15) Possession (18) | All Day Horror Madness (18)

TICKETS ON SALE NOW AT GLASGOWFILM.ORG

CEÒL IS CRAIC / GUIR! / MÒD 2026

GUTH A’ BHAILE / 15. 10. 26 VOICE OF THE CITY JOSIE DUNCAN • MÀIRI MACMILLAN agus caraidean / and friends

Cuirm-chiùil shònraichte a’ rannsachadh beatha agus eòlas nan Gàidheal ann an Glaschu tro cheòl ùr. A special concert exploring the lives and experiences of Gaels in Glasgow through new music. GLASGOW ROYAL CONCERT HALL – STRATHCLYDE SUITE 8f / 8pm, £18.30 / £12.70 / Students £6.50 (Includes booking fees)

TIOGAIDEAN & FIOSRACHADH

FILM IS CRAIC AIG A’ MHÒD / FILM IS CRAIC AT THE MÒD at Glasgow Film Theatre AS AN EILEAN (FROM THE ISLAND) SUN 11 OCT., 7.10f. £12.25 / £9.50 SAILM NAN DAOINE (PSALMS OF THE PEOPLE)

TICKETS & INFO

TUE 13 OCT.5.40f. £12.25 / £9.50 TEÀRNADH (SURVIVOR), THA THU AIR AIGEANN M’ INNTINN WED 14 OCT, 5.45f. £7.90

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We feel like a gang in control of our own destiny

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Editors are taking fans on another stylistic detour with their latest album. The indie rock band’s figurehead Tom Smith chats to Fiona Shepherd about anxieties, finding the right home for his songs and the beauty of music

PICTURE: RAHI REZVANI

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’m always writing about being scared of something,’ insists Editors frontman Tom Smith. He’s attempting to pick at the thread which runs through his band’s forthcoming eighth album, the evocatively titled Surface, Echo & Sound, which he says refers to ‘that noise of the modern world. In the songs I’m finding ways to get through that or get some kind of connection to make those anxieties go away.’ The album as a whole is a slightly different noise for the veteran Brummie indie rockers, or at least a return to a more classic rock sound following a succession of electronica-facing albums, the most recent a post-covid studio odyssey touched by the hand of their friend and collaborator Benjamin John Power aka Blanck Mass. ‘EBM was quite a daring brutal electronic thing and I don’t know how we could have gone any further with that,’ says Smith. ‘Throughout our career we’ve made records that have pushed, ebbed and flowed stylistically. We’ve taken our audience on a bit of a journey and this is another sidestep in some ways. It feels nice to reconnect with that more traditional way of doing things.’ With Power unable to join them this time and Smith’s acoustic debut solo album (There Is Nothing In The Dark That Isn’t There In The Light) fresh in the mind, the direction of travel was towards a more organic come-all-ye songwriting circle. ‘I’m always writing, putting songs and ideas in little boxes for later. Sometimes it takes a while for them to find a home,’ says Smith, who worked with Snow Patrol’s Iain Archer on his solo record and has also released two albums as Smith & Burrows with Razorlight drummer Andy Burrows. In the end, Surface, Echo & Sound was a fully self-sufficient undertaking, with Editors’ guitarist Justin Lockey taking on production duties. ‘It’s nice to be in a situation where the five of us are steering the ship,’ says Smith. ‘We feel like a gang in control of our own destiny. We’re in our mid-40s now, and it’s not about being older and wiser, but there’s a certain comfort in your own skin. It felt appropriate and right for us to be sat around making a more adult record. It’s a good reflection of who we are.’ There is even something of the philosophical tone and earthiness of country music on a couple of tracks, though that might just be the rasp of Smith’s voice and the mandolin talking. He describes recent single ‘The Rush’ as ‘this conversation between two people, drinking late at night, thinking about life. Ultimately, it’s the idea that anything rewarding leaves its mark. There’s a hangover from the good times; you don’t get the ups without the downs.’ That gentle yet trenchant reflection spills over into Smith’s conversation. ‘We’re selfish as musicians. I don’t think too much consideration for your audience is a good thing. You make the music that you really need to and I’m thankful to still be doing what we do. Music’s beautiful, right?’ Surface, Echo & Sound is released by Play It Again Sam on Friday 30 October.

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By rights, there should be many more flying games around. That dearth was hardly helped by Microsoft’s bizarre decision in 2009 to close Aces Game Studio, responsible at the time for the Microsoft Flight Simulator series (which launched in 1982). It was a particularly baffling move due to its huge success and was one of the few things Microsoft published that produced genuine goodwill for the company (which, at the time, was facing intense backlash for its despised Vista operating system). Combat flight simulators are even more thin on the ground (air?). Microsoft released three such games from 1998–2002, all sensibly set during WWII, thus avoiding the controversy of contemporaneous conflicts altogether. But Bandai Namco got there first in 1995 with Ace Combat, launching a popular arcade/simulation series with numerous spin-offs across multiple formats. Ace Combat 8: Wings Of Theve is a sequel to the last release in 2019 and follows the fictional universe format, combining aerial dogfighting and ground attacks, wrapped up in impressive, photorealistic environments, with easy-to-master arcade-style controls and a distinctive Japanese anime-influenced presentation. In recent years, Microsoft has re-entered the airspace with its massively revamped Flight Simulator, a game/platform that has pushed real-world technical flight simulation about as far as it can go right now. But Ace Combat still occupies its own niche, offering spectacular, fantastical aerial combat without the awkwardness that inevitably comes with trying to turn modern warfare into entertainment. (Murray Robertson)  Released on Friday 2 October on PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S.

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Est.2014

WINTER MARKETS

The Burrell Collection | 7th & 8th Nov | | Sat 10 - 5 | Sun 11 - 5 |

Aberdeen Art Gallery | 14th & 15th Nov | | Sat 10 - 5 | Sun 11 - 4 |

ScreenList ScreenList recommends must-see screenings at Filmhouse throughout October. In a very spooky special edition, programme manager Raymah Tariq recommends a bundle of horror, from vaunted classics to hidden gems

National Galleries Scotland: Portrait | 1 Queen Street

Raymah Tariq has worked within film exhibition since 2013 and is currently in post as Programme Manager for Filmhouse, where she especially loves programming noir and anything with a synth soundtrack

Kelvingrove Art Gallery & Museum | 5th & 6th Dec | | Sat 10 - 5 | Sun 11 - 5 |

Bowhouse | St Monans | 10-11 Oct | | 14-15 Nov | 11-13 Dec | | 10 - 4 | All dates | Join Tea Green for an unrivalled line up of events & discover, celebrate & support an inspiring showcase of independent creative businesses based in Scotland!

| DISCOVER | SUPPORT | CELEBRATE |

www.TeaGreen.co.uk

@teagreenevents

Anguish (35mm)

Our story begins with a seemingly mild-mannered ophthalmologist and his overbearing mother who is revealed to be hypnotising him to murder people and collect their eyes. Apart from this, DO NOT READ ANYTHING ABOUT THIS FILM, but know that this is the film to watch in a cinema and you will be squirming in your seat. n Sunday 25 October, 8.30pm.

Targets

Boris Karloff plays an iconic horror star (meta!) who agrees to one last public outing at the request of a director, played by Peter Bogdanvich (in his own directorial debut – very meta!). Meanwhile, a young man goes on a shooting spree and causes a mass panic through the streets of the San Fernando Valley. Gripping and astute in its social commentary, Targets will stay with you long after the credits roll and features one of Karloff’s most perfectly delivered lines. n Saturday 17 October, 6pm & Tuesday 27 October, 4pm. Other spooky treats in our Halloween programme include a tribute to Roger Corman with the delightful social satire A Bucket of Blood (Tuesday 20 October) and the stunning The Masque Of The Red Death (Sunday 4 October), to commemorate his centenary (he also produced Targets); a Hitchcock serial killer double bill of Psycho (Saturday 10 October) and Frenzy (Sunday 11 October); a celebration of Tim Curry’s memory with another screening of The Rocky Horror Picture Show (Wednesday 28 October), and this time we encourage you to dress up; and, of course, Jack Nicholson will deliver more than a few iconic lines in The Shining (Friday 30 & Saturday 31 October). The Shining

In partnership with

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In this column, we ask a pod person about the ’casts that mean a lot to them. This month, it’s Laura Whitmore who, alongside husband Iain Stirling, presents hit true crime podcast Murder They Wrote which continues with new weekly episodes and a special Halloween run

With actual wars being waged in several parts of the world, the title of this divorce drama could feel a little indelicate. But you only need to observe the opposing legal teams trying to thrash out a deal, looking every inch like a war cabinet in action, to know that battlegrounds come in many forms. A decade earlier, when loved-up couple Morgan (Dominic West) and Carla (Sienna Miller) signed a prenup, it was to protect her Hollywood earnings, not his meagre tech salary. But now, her acting career is on the slide and he’s a social media mogul worth millions. Add to that Morgan’s inability to keep his boxers on when pretty young things come calling, and the gloves are well and truly off. The end of any marriage comes at a price, but writer George Kay seems disinterested in the emotional cost. Instead, War puts money front and centre, as both parties plough huge quantities of cash into legal fees to improve their chances of walking away victorious. With heartbreak taking a back seat, there’s plenty of screen time for the double-crossing, conniving London law firms to exhibit full-scale skullduggery. It also frees viewers up from the usual ‘whose side are you on?’ debate, so we can devote all our attention to figuring out which pair of eyes will have wool pulled over them next. A stellar cast stands behind West and Miller (Nina Sosanya, Celia Imrie and Pip Torrens among them, all playing lawyers) as complex webs are woven. And while finding anyone to truly root for might prove tricky, staying engaged is no problem at all. (Kelly Apter)  Available on Sky Atlantic and Now from Friday 2 October.

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Which podcast educates you? Jessie Ware’s Is It Normal? educated me hugely during

pregnancy. It tackled the questions you’re often too scared or embarrassed to ask about birth. Informative, reassuring and funny, it felt like having a brilliantly knowledgeable friend alongside you, which was useful as I spent most of my pregnancy convinced every new symptom meant I was either dying or about to give birth immediately.

Which podcast makes you laugh? Off Menu. I love the premise: asking people to reveal

PREVIEWS

their dream meal sounds deceptively simple, but somehow it becomes a brilliant insight into personality, nostalgia and chaos. Plus, James [Acaster] and Ed [Gamble] are a perfect double act. It does make me hungry so I usually have a snack as I listen.

Which podcast makes you sad or angry? The News Agents can regularly do both. There

are days when I come away feeling informed and engaged, and others when I feel the world is a dark unjust space. I think that’s probably the sign of good journalism; it makes you feel something rather than simply scroll on.

Which podcast is your guilty pleasure? Anything involving celebrity gossip or a really

niche pop-culture deep dive. I won’t name names because then I’d have to admit how much time I’ve spent listening to people dissecting celebrity feuds that have absolutely no impact on my actual life.

Tell us someone who currently doesn’t have a podcast but totally should. And why do you think their one would be amazing? My mother. Her podcast would essentially

be a weekly round-up of people who have died that I have absolutely no connection to whatsoever. She is obsessed with RIP.ie and regularly rings me with updates on the passing of people from villages I’ve never visited or people I vaguely knew in 1997. ‘You remember Mary’s brother-in-law’s cousin?’ No, mum. I don’t.

Pitch us a new podcast idea in exactly 27 words Laura Whitmore Has Got Good News: five brilliant, bizarre and uplifting stories from the week, because doomscrolling is exhausting and surely someone, somewhere, has rescued a duck. New episodes of Murder They Wrote are available weekly on BBC Sounds. October 2026 THE LIST 83

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With a second release under the Ex:Re handle, Elena Tonra’s poetic flair establishes the Daughter frontwoman as one of the best songwriters of her generation, says Kevin Fullerton

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here’s no one here’ is one of the more common sentiments in Elena Tonra’s lyrical toolbox. As the lead in Daughter, and in her solo project Ex:Re, she cuts a figure of perpetual solitude, sometimes one of quiet reflection, but more often of dejection, anxiety and isolation. She seems to exist in two states: confident and dynamic musically (with an almost surgical control of her breathy vocals) versus trapped in an emotional stupor, examining her psyche with the blow-by-blow immediacy of rolling news. Save As, her second album under the Ex:Re moniker, arrives in a similar cloud of gloom, staring inward and finding only a hyper-critical inner monologue for comfort. Its textures exude a more brittle and immediate sensibility than the swooning gloom of Daughter, aided by producer Fabian Prynn’s barren sound design and Tonra’s fraught poetry, which delights in turning everyday moments into spiralling screeds of self-doubt and verbal flagellation. It may well be the fear of sounding too much like Daughter that propels the album’s thematically consistent but vibrant shift in tones: trip-hop rhythms on ‘Sleep’ open themselves to a lingering anti-dance while the anaesthetised drums of ‘Two Chords’ place ambivalent lyrics into a dour clatter of pianos and downtrodden cellos. Elsewhere, the same kind of mordant humour you’d find in Malcolm Middleton or Frightened Rabbit is shot through Tonra’s stories of distress. A prime example is ‘Frozen Aisle’, a woozy, authentically beautiful conflagration of slow-motion synths and mounting drums. It opens with a declaration: ‘I’ll make a fool of myself in the middle of the frozen aisle’, before the explanation: ‘I’m looking for ice-cream’. The drama of her thoughts may be unable to keep pace with this everyday banality but it could well be the best song of her career to date. These small touches are brought into stark focus on the stripped-back, hurriedly strummed ‘Wasp’ or the murky, synth-driven ‘Language Of Love’, which foregoes melody for a slow teasing-out of disarray. Metonymy is Tonra’s neatest trick: a radio station comes to represent disassociation (‘I am a changing radio station/I’m suddenly another,’ she declares on ‘Radio Station’) while a wasp trapped under a glass becomes an extension of Tonra’s own character flaws. Poetic flair, which overwhelmed Daughter’s early work with melodrama, makes the push and pull of her stories coolly confronting. Though billed as a solo project, the collaborative effort here is palpable. Respected synth experimentalist Hinako Omori lends her talents (do yourself a favour and listen to her gorgeous album Stillness, Softness), adding to the icy exterior with sustained notes, while cello from regular collaborator Josephine Stephenson provides a stately bassline of anguish. Yet Tonra’s ongoing internal warfare is the most fascinating element of her work. She remains one of the more compelling voices in indie, both hauntingly detached and caught in a visceral unravelling. With every new release, she has unassumingly become one of the finest songwriters of her generation. Save As is released by 4AD on Friday 30 October.

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CHLOE QISHA

Fantasize (Columbia Records)  Mainstream pop is no longer bolstered by genericism or mass appeal (that was left behind in the 2010s). Instead, we’ve allowed for authenticity to lead and uniqueness to be celebrated. This is the fertile ground on which young up and comers now stand, and Malaysia-born, London-based Chloe Qisha is one such artist. Her breakthrough single ‘21st Century Cool Girl’ is a scannable tale of a Gen Z femme fatale. From speaking in hyperbole to feeling sexually promiscuous yet tragically insecure, she packages relatable notions of womanhood in a glossy, high-production banger. Qisha follows this creative route in her debut collection Fantasize, the central thesis of which is red-hot yearning. With its opening track ‘YDH’ (young, dumb and horny), she introduces the album like an erotic fairytale (‘once there was a girl who had a very sexy dream/The kind that’s rated R’). Track two, ‘Question Of The Day’, repackages this even more directly, with lines such as ‘are we gonna (uh) or not?’ and ‘do me on the countertop’ not leaving much to the imagination; sonically the tune is expertly produced (this can be said for all of Fantasize), seamlessly blending electronic, psychedelic and disco influences into one unctuous pop soundscape, not unlike that of Dua Lipa’s Radical Optimism. ‘He Likes Boys’ reveals a more vulnerable side to Qisha, as she laments an unrequited love over Abba-like synths and hammering piano. ‘So Sad So Hot’ is a classic ‘crying on the dancefloor’ bop and the title track features a Roanesque ‘Hot To Go’ spelling-out of the album’s title. While the record is well written and performed, in the pursuit of packing in so many influences and ideas, Qisha’s point of view occasionally gets lost in the sauce. If individuality is king in mainstream music today, this pop princess is still figuring out her future reign. (Megan Merino)  Released on Friday 30 October.

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Long before influencers, the manosphere, conspiracy pundits and the madness of social media, there was one hoodwink to beat them all. In 1983, West German magazine Stern announced it had discovered Adolf Hitler’s long-lost diaries. Authenticated by a leading historian and set to be serialised in both Stern and The Sunday Times, this was lined up as the scoop of the century. Not born at the time, podcaster, comedian and author Andrew Hunter Murray arrives at this irresistible tale of greed, Nazis, forgery and frenzy with wide eyes and a slack jaw. He assembles a bizarre cast: first up is ‘The Bloodhound’, journalist Gerd Heidemann, a Nazi memorabilia collector embedded so deeply with wealthy resettled fascists that it would be difficult to imagine a less reliable messenger. We also meet bon viveur, conman, master forger and negotiator Konrad Kujau who pocketed a cool £2.3 million from the 62 volumes he created. Then there are the tragic heroes, hoisted by their own petards, such as historian Hugh Trevor-Roper who authenticated the diaries for mass publication while Sunday Times editor Frank Giles and his deputy Brian MacArthur are hung out to dry by Rupert Murdoch’s lust for an exclusive. This is a dizzying, curious tale of deception told over 11 deliciously short episodes, easily digestible in half a morning. Murray is a funny and intriguing guide into this analogue world of tape recordings and printing presses. He finds parallels with our current battle for media truth and the less-than-trustworthy figureheads of any number of social platforms. Also becoming evident among the comedy and the chaos is just what Kujau tapped into: what philosopher Hannah Arendt termed the ‘banality of evil’ while covering the trial of Adolf Eichmann, a man more obsessed with organisational structures and paperwork than the atrocities in his name. The Hitler Diaries are dull, petty and bureaucratic, hardly riveting. This podcast is the exact opposite. (Paul Dale)  All episodes available now.

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We’ve slid past the equinox into autumn and the warm glow of the telly beckons. There, Claire Sawers finds real-life stars becoming onscreen brothers, murder-mystery mash-ups, messy midlife romcoms and a wargaming reality show that absolutely no one had on their bingo card

In love and war (clockwise from above): The Wargame, Youth, Forever Home, Brothers

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rothers (Apple TV) doesn’t hit the same heights as 2014’s True Detective opening season (can anything?) but reuniting Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConaughey was just too tempting an idea to pass up. Based on their real-life friendship spanning three decades and internet rumours that the Texan actors might be biological brothers, this breezy comedy series follows gentle, weed-loving Harrelson, rocking up to handsome McConaughey’s ranch with his family. As with Rob Brydon and Steve Coogan, who have also fictionalised their real camaraderie, we glimpse this pair’s true selves among scripted hijinks and laddie scrapes. A heated punch-up at the rodeo is based on genuine fistfights while McConaughey’s mum really did know Harrelson’s dad once upon a time, apparently. Their combo of whistly toothed and goofy charisma is irresistible, even if some jokes wear thin. Masculinity gets a playful interrogation too, as the sensitive, therapyembracing young team rubs up against the gun-toting old school. From Texas to north-east England, Graham Norton’s fourth novel Forever Home (Channel 5) is adapted for TV in a mash-up of gossipy soap opera, murder-mystery farce and domestic drama. Dougie Henshall plays Robert Barrie, living with early onset dementia and a rapidly defrosting corpse in the basement. Henshall plays it straight while his doting partner Carol (Amy Nuttall) and her mum (Denise Welch) get sucked into a daft caper. After their mum’s suspicious disappearance, son Kaden (Lewis Cope) fills the void by getting in debt and falling out with his unborn baby’s surrogate mother, while his wannabe tradwife sister is shagging a married man in the changing rooms at work. Definitely light entertainment rather than dark drama, it takes a fun poke at complex family issues along the way. In Youth (HBO Max), Sharon Horgan plays a straight, fiftysomething divorced parent, permanently chasing her tail as she tries to impress the boss, sculpt her buttocks, find a serious life partner and show up for her teenage son, all at once. Aran Murphy (son of Cillian) is glorious as the sweetly gauche son, gradually voting with his feet as his absent dad ignores his phone calls while his mum knows when to come to the rescue. Actor/creator Horgan nails her character’s chaotic, contradictory mix of desires to be a good daughter and career dynamo, while bedhopping with HRT patches on. Even in all this turmoil, things look aspirationally glossy, with high heels and Ibiza trips replacing the school-run drudgery of the excellent Motherland, which Horgan co-wrote. It’s not as funny as that series, but it’s still a very bingeable, messy, romcom look at midlife anxiety and emancipation. The theatre of armed conflict gets a small-screen adaptation in The Wargame (Now), a truly bizarre, yet utterly gripping reality show where ten politicians, military leaders and intelligence chiefs gather to respond to a fake security emergency. Michael Gove looks pumped at his chance to play prime minister while Nicola Sturgeon, his shrewd, pretend deputy, cautions against alpha-male escalation. Following real life plans from the UK government to raise annual defence funding from £54 billion to £80 billion by 2029, the show seems an unsubtle ploy to justify that, and sure enough, 15 minutes in, a Navy commander reports huge shortages of warships and submarines. Still, it does a compelling job of touching on the complexities of cyber attacks, disinformation, spin and false flags, all with rolling social media. Should we take note of all this for the upcoming apocalypse or consider it as scaremongering to boost warmongering?

SAWERS ALSO SAW . . . SNL UK on Now: ‘Jeff Goldblum and CMAT guest on season two of the surreal, satire sketch show’ Colin From Accounts on BBC iPlayer: ‘A charming return with a third and final season of the funny Aussie romcom with a big heart’ Rùrachd on BBC iPlayer: ‘Wholesome foraging and natureappreciating with Mary Ann Kennedy and Lucy Cooke’

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Join the world’s largest celebration of storytelling, anchored in Scotland, a nation of storytellers.

21 – 31 October 2026

sisf.org.uk

@scotstoryfest Illustration by Marie-Alice Harel

Travelling with Luggage? Store your bags in the luggage racks onboard the trams and glide to the city. No excess fees apply!

Buy your tickets at edinburghticket.com, or simply Tap On and Tap Off at the Tram Stop. 88 THE LIST October 2026

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BOOKS

RAY FILAR

Choke (Cipher Press)  For Leila, the flashy lifestyle of sex work outweighs its more grotesque and demeaning downsides. As an optimistic newbie, she insists that being a hooker isn’t as anti-feminist as some theorists suggest. It’s this youthful spirit that attracts Silvia, whose decade in the business has left her jaded and bitter. As their affair deepens, so does a desire to reclaim control from the men who violate them, eventually embarking on a brutal murder spree and falling deeper in love through their shared, twisted fantasy. Vulnerable, action-packed and unabashedly filthy, Ray Filar’s debut novel is a playful queer romance. However, the book as a whole struggles to escape overdone romantic tropes between a fresh-faced rookie and a brooding veteran, making for a disappointingly predictable story whose twists could have fitted into the blurb. The promise of a radical edge, bolstered by references to feminist theory and infamous court cases, falls flat when put in the hands of underdeveloped characters, whose background and motivations remain frustratingly obscure. Their unimaginative murder plot seems to serve more as foreplay than a liberating escapade. Instead, Choke appears to conflate feminism with man-hating and fails to fully interrogate the power structures it seeks to challenge, reducing the feminist movement to a risqué personal revenge plot. While the premise of a sexy, political queer novel is promising, this execution leaves something to be desired. (Lucy Mills)  Published on Thursday 22 October.

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One of jazz’s leading acoustic and electric bassists, Christian McBride is said to have entered an Art Blakey phase with his latest band, Ursa Major. Blakey was renowned as much for talent spotting as for his authoritative and directional drumming, and the comparison fits for McBride as his four colleagues here could hardly give the music more colour, personality, subtlety, suppleness or attack. McBride and Ursa Major have been working live for four years now and Points Of Light captures them very much with a live-in-the-studio quality. It opens with ‘Sakura’, a lovely tone poem that might be a homage to bass hero Jaco Pastorius and Weather Report co-pilot Joe Zawinul (it has something of the latter’s ‘His Last Journey’ about it) and closes with the album’s one cover: George Duke’s ‘No Rhyme, No Reason’, both elegiac and celebrational in its adherence to the late keyboard genius’ melodicism. In between sit six pieces that showcase the boundless capabilities of the band (saxophonist Nicole Glover, guitarist Ely Perlman, pianist-keyboardist Mike King, drummer Savannah Harris) and in other circumstances might be big band or hard-bop quintet material. Perlman’s ‘Cows’, with its admirably squelchy intro, greasy organ, boss bass groove, crisp drumming and tight-as-siblings sax and guitar, is reminiscent of filthy groovers Dr Strut. King’s ‘Orquieda’ has the most subtly appealing Latin rhythm and a Havana-esque piano twist. ‘A Morning Story’ brings the energy levels down beautifully with its guitar and sax melody, shadowed superbly by King’s mysterious keyboards. The players all have ample opportunity to display their often joyous individual improvisation skills. Between those and the album’s melodic strengths, Points Of Light is emphatically persuasive. (Rob Adams)  Released on Friday 30 October.

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Walt Disco (and bottom from left), Fontaines DC, Peter Irvine, Gears Of War, East Of Eden

OTHER THINGS WORTH STAYING IN FOR A packed month of things to do indoors or consume on your travels include an Irish band’s fifth album featuring an intriguing collaboration, a third-person shooter prequel, and the TV version of a classic 1950s American novel and film ALBUMS

PODCASTS

PETER IRVINE

LIGHT BOX

Smashing Pumpkins, Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Cocteau Twins are all namechecked as inspirations for the numbers on this heavilyanticipated eponymous release from the Glasgow five-piece. n EMI North, Friday 2 October.

The man who made a name for himself with all those travel guides and organising many an official Edinburgh Hogmanay now publishes a novel, Crossing The Sound, which has received stamps of approval from Michael Pedersen and Kirsty Wark. n Luath Press, out now.

Mark Henry Phillips spent decades making music for a living then discovered that AI could do what he did in mere seconds. And maybe better. This is his investigation into the world of machines slowly proving that humans are dispensable. n New episodes available on Tuesdays.

JAMES YORKSTON

EAST OF EDEN

A ‘fragmentary’ novel, Callum, Reine, Sylvie And Sparrow features nine interwoven tales which tackle a whole bunch of subjects such as Scotland, sex workers, love and lochs. n Oldcastle Books, Tuesday 27 October.

Zoe Kazan has adapted the Steinbeck classic about intertwined lives of two families, starring Florence Pugh. A personal project for Kazan given her granddad Elia directed the movie. n Netflix, Thursday 1 October.

STARSAILOR The Cheshire band (comprising two James’, a Ben and a Barry) celebrate the 25th anniversary of their debut collection, Love Is Here, with a two-disc affair featuring a whole new set of BBC recordings. n Parlophone, Friday 2 October.

FONTAINES DC HIGHLIGHTS

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WALT DISCO

Dopamine Chamber is the Irish band’s fifth album and features a collaboration with Rosalía entitled ‘Where Is Gone?’. Fun fact: Grian Chatten delivered his vocals for the record in a makeshift booth built from mattresses and cushions. n XL Recordings, Friday 16 October.

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GAMES

GEARS OF WAR E-Day is a third-person shooter and the sixth game in the Gears Of War series. A prequel to the 2006 original, it focuses on the Locust Horde launching a devastating surprise attack against humanity. n Xbox Game Studios, Tuesday 6 October.

PIERRE British legal dramas are seemingly back in vogue (see Sky’s War for further evidence, m’lud) and here David Harewood stars as a solicitor investigating institutional corruption after the death of a young black man. n Channel 4, Monday 5 October.

PITLOCHRY FESTIVAL THEATRE IN ASSOCIATION WITH SONIA FRIEDMAN PRODUCTIONS PRESENTS

THE CRITICALLY ACCLAIMED ABSURDIST MASTERPIECE BY

SAMUEL BECKETT Supported by

21 NOV-31 DEC 18 SEP10 OCT BOOK BOOK

NOW NOW Scottish Charity no.SC013055

PITLOCHRYFESTIVALTHEATRE.COM PITLOCHRYFESTIVALTHEATRE.COM

Adapted from George Bernard Shaw's Play and Gabriel Pascal's Motion Picture "PYGMALION" Original Production Directed and Staged by Moss Hart. Performed by arrangement with Music Theatre International. October 2026 THE LIST 91

Photo: Tommy Ga-K

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PICTURE: REBECCA JONES

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WITH NOSFERACULA

Nosferacula has been a staple of Romanian nightlife since the 15th century, slaughtering the local population and regularly hosting feeding parties in his baroque castle. As he launches his latest reign of carnage on All Hallows’ Eve, this ravenous creature of the night tackles our Q&A to tell us about folk troupes, favourite goat herders and that time he gorged on an Olympic gold medallist

Who would you like to see playing you in the movie about your life? Who do you think the casting people would choose? I’m a little behind the times (I last visited a cinema in 1924), but I suppose I’d choose Rudolph Valentino if he’s still going strong. Although I imagine those cheeky scamps on the nickelodeon lots would prefer a strapping swashbuckler like Douglas Fairbanks.

Describe your perfect Saturday night? Like

anyone, I enjoy the simple things: a quiet night roaming the castle, hunting local ramblers in the surrounding area, communing with the wolves. To top things off, I cosy up in the crypt with a flayed corpse by my side. The voluminous thrum of flesh soothes me.

If you could relive any day of your life, which one would it be? The day I was turned.

What’s the punchline to your favourite joke? ‘And then we sliced his neck, opening a

flood of arterial spray across the banquet hall.’ It gets me every time!

The sun on my skin, Sarafin the local gypsy healer reading my fortune, us both slaughtering a chicken for its insight into the demonic realm. Good times.

If you were to return in a future life as an animal, what would it be? The only animal I

What’s your earliest recollection of winning something? I fed from an Olympic gold

can’t transmogrify into is a lemur (can never get the eyes right), so that would be interesting.

medallist in 1976, though I forget his name. I often wear his medal while prowling my castle.

If you were playing in an escape room name two other people (well-known or otherwise) you’d recruit to help you get out? Probably Davyd, an escapologist I

Did you have a nickname at school that you were ok with? And can you tell us a nickname you hated? ‘Vlad The Peasant

When was the last time you were mistaken for someone else and what were the circumstances? I’m often mistaken for a lone

waft of mist before I lure my next meal into a back alley. The confusion, I’m sure, makes the victim feel very foolish.

What’s the best cover version ever? ‘Leliță

Săftiță’ by The Wallachs, a Romanian folk troupe I discovered in 1773. I loved them so much that they became the resident band in my castle for the next century, before meeting the sharp end of a stick from a group of local peasant farmers who accused them of possessing the local wildlife. Their deaths made me sad for a while, but I soon discovered that bobbing their severed heads to and fro while I hummed ‘Leliță Săftiță’ provided much the same effect.

only ten. I have my whole life ahead of me.’ This made me pause for thought. Adult males have significantly greater blood flow than puny children. So I chained him in my basement until he was 20 before I dispatched him. It taught me a valuable lesson and I now only feed from children on special occasions.

Tell us one thing about yourself that would surprise people? I’m actually a really

approachable guy!

When did you last cry? Unfortunately, my

tear ducts dried up in 1650. If water touches my eyes, they will perish and I will become blind. Though perhaps it was when I was forced to feed on Sarafin the local gypsy woman after she refused to accept my new demonic form. It was a sad day.

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? I will CRUSH and DECIMATE

I would pay tribute to Sarafin the local gypsy woman, whose frantic throat singing would attract quite the crowd while we hung local peasants for sport.

any council that dares cross me. The Great Fire Of London (which I started by the way) will look like a delightful day out as I torch their homes with all their families inside, before turning their children into demonic entities who will serve loyally by my side amongst the armies of the apocalypse. These governmental lackeys will watch their puny existences disintegrate into the pits of hell before a building regulation can pass from their lips. Failing that, probably the utility closet.

What tune do you find it impossible not to get up and dance to, whether in public or private? ‘Dancing Queen’ by Abba.

If you were selected as the next 007, where would you pick as your first luxury destination for espionage? What is 007? A

If you were to start a tribute act to a band or singer, who would it be in tribute to?

What famous person would be your ideal holiday companion? Hirschovolach, the

famed goat herder of the village I grew up in. His passion for goats crosses the line for some, and is illegal in most countries, but it gives him an edge that few other herders can match.

blood type?

Nosferacula: The Feeding, Bran Castle, Romania, every night when the sun has fallen; a wider East European tour is expected to be announced later in the year.

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murdered in 1887, and his assistant Mildred, now a succubus I keep shackled in my basement. I suppose she’d be a bad pick as she hasn’t been able to escape my castle for more than a century! Oh, I do make myself laugh.

Kicker’ was always a popular name at school, though I felt it was unfair. I’d only kicked 40 or 50 peasants, while Vlodovich the goatsman had maimed at least ten. Slelovan the herb polisher, meanwhile, had quite a few peasants chained up in his barn. Yet it is I who was viewed as a peasant kicker! I’m sure we can all relate.

As an adult, what has a child said to you that made a powerful impact? ‘Please, I’m

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hot shots The 20th Scottish Mental Health Arts Festival (19 October–8 November) brings us more thought-provoking work with its theme this year of Reflections. Among many highlights are Skye Loneragan’s Kitchen Dancer (pictured), 50th anniversary screenings of Carrie, Jo Mango’s EP launch and a Butoh-inspired dance piece. Under the African Soul Rebels banner, Les Amazones d’Afrique (pictured), Gasper Nali and N’famady Kouyaté will charm Edinburgh’s Usher Hall (11 October) with vocal expertise and intriguing instruments. Nali plays a one-stringed bass guitar while Kouyaté wields a wooden xylophone that’s considered sacred in West Africa. Knee deep in an era of actors looking unrecognisable for parts (Ethan Hawke as Lorenz Hart, Colin Farrell as The Penguin for two), we now have Tom Cruise swamped in heavy-duty prosthetics for Digger (2 October). He plays a billionaire oil tycoon whose actions result in an eco-catastrophe while he paints himself as nature’s saviour.

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October 2026 THE LIST 95

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96 THE LIST October 2026