Precious Cargo
The Guardian 11 August 2024 The accents on the voiceovers say it all. We hear southern English, Australian, American and Hebridean. One thing links them: these are the grownup voices…
Ian Rankin on Rebus: A Game Called Malice
The Scotsman 8 August 2024 Ian Rankin sells novels by the crateload and is riding the wave of television stardom thanks to Gregory Burke’s hard-hitting Rebus adaptation. The Edinburgh author,…
So Young
The Guardian 8 August 2024 Instead of Chekhov’s gun, we have Maxwell’s whisky. The bottle of Japanese spirits shows up early in Douglas Maxwell’s comedy of social awkwardness and at…
Yurts, a cruise ship, my flat
The Guardian 10 August 2024 Of all the extraordinary things about the Edinburgh fringe, the easiest to take for granted is that performances in the world’s biggest arts festival take…
June Carter Cash: The Woman, Her Music and Me
The Guardian 7 August 2024 The most powerful country songs are those written from the heart. In the words of Harlan Howard, it is about “three chords and the truth”.…
VL
The Guardian 6 August 2024 On the way out, I hear someone tell his friends he had been educated at Watson’s, the £17,000-a-year alma mater of Malcolm Rifkind and David…
A History of Paper
The Guardian 4 August 2024 When Oliver Emanuel was taken by brain cancer at 43, one friend observed that the playwright had “taught us how to die”. By all accounts,…
The Outrun
The Guardian 4 August 2024 Amy Liptrot’s memoir is having a moment. Nora Fingscheidt’s screen version starring Saoirse Ronan is about to open in the Edinburgh international film festival and,…
Michel Tremblay: Plays in Scots
Critical Stages 8 July 2024 It was not a phrase I dwelt over. Certainly, I did not expect it to have staying power. But when I wrote that Michel Tremblay…
Alan Cumming and Forbes Masson on Victor and Barry
The List 1 July 2024 Alan Cumming is sitting in his new Highlands home, a little poggled after a transatlantic flight. Boxes have still to be unpacked and the room…