Restless Skye
The Chariot, the Flag and the Empty, Empty Houses by Daniel Cullen. Reviewed by Catherine MacPhee.
Reviews
Fringe Shows to See
Some potential gems from the listings for this year's festival.
Black, Bold and Beautiful
Ballet Black, Pioneers, reviewed by Cormac Rae.
Keep Walking: the Johnnie Walker Experience in Edinburgh
The whisky industry is marketed with its history, but Macon St Hilaire finds its technicolour ‘archive tour’ is haunted by ghosts of the communities it left behind. The Johnnie Walker Experience opened in Edinburgh in 2021, to a media fanfare and a flurry of Instagram influencers posting picturesque views from the rooftop bar. I knew […]
Not So Much a National Care Service
When Scottish Parliament Committees dissected the principles of the National Care Service Scotland Bill, they found a dangerous agenda for marketisation and institutionalised insecurity. Stephen Low reviews their reports. What Nye Bevan didn’t do when constructing the NHS was base it on the idea that markets were the way to improve services, or the belief […]
Documentary Review
Steve Sprung, writer/director, The Plan That Came From The Bottom Up, 2018 Reviewed by Jackie Bergson The need for the human race to counteract, mitigate and reverse catastrophic impacts of climate change on an industrial scale is currently undeniable. In particular scientific, corporate and political quarters, it was no less so, forty years ago. This […]
Review of Prose Anthology
Jim Aitken (ed.) Ghosts of the Early Morning Shift: An anthology of Radical Prose from Contemporary Scotland, Culture Matters, 2021, 9781912710409, £12, pp195 Reviewed by David McKinstry Ghosts of the Early Morning Shift is an anthology of radical writing which explores historical and contemporary Scotland, combining memoirs of grassroots activists and contemporary fiction. The book […]
Book Review
Sally Rooney Beautiful World, Where Are You? Faber & Faber, 2021 Reviewed by John Wood Rooney’s Beautiful World, Where Are You? was hotly anticipated by critics and by her broad fanbase after the acclaim and mainstream commercial success – aided by the popular and captivating BBC3 adaptation of her second novel, Normal People – of […]
Short Story Review
Colin Burnett A Working Class State of Mind, Pierpoint Press, £9.84, 9781914090158 Reviewed by Sean Sheehan The title of the first short story in this set of twelve, ‘A Working Class State of Mind’, gives its name to the collection as a whole. The story transforms Robert the Bruce into a depressed young man contemplating […]
Book Review
Jim Sillars A Difference of Opinion: My political journey, Birlinn, 2021, 97817802706830, £14.99, pp303 Reviewed by Will Podmore Jim Sillars is a talented man. This intriguing book covers many different topics, on all of which he has something interesting to say. Sillars opposed the SNP’s Hate Crime Bill, calling it ‘one of the most pernicious […]