Scotland
London Film Festival 2025 - from paranoia in Brazil and Iran, to light relief in New York and TuscanyWednesday, 15 October 2025
Film festivals are a bran tub: what you find in them may be unexpected, and not always in a good way. Here are six I pulled out in my first week (minus one of my favourites, The Mastermind, which I will review when it goes on general release next... Read more... |
I Swear review - taking stock of Tourette'sFriday, 10 October 2025
People sometimes go to the movies for the violence and maybe even for the sex. Until recently they didn’t particularly buy a ticket for the bad language, but lately, British cinema has been making this a selling point. In Wicked Little Letters (2023... Read more... |
Coldwater, ITV1 review - horror and black comedy in the HighlandsTuesday, 23 September 2025
Scripted by Belfast-born playwright David Ireland, Coldwater is a smart and addictive thriller, which manages to squeeze some fresh twists out of its murderous narrative. It also benefits hugely from an excellent cast firing on all cylinders, while... Read more... |
Brìghde Chaimbeul, Round Chapel review - enchantment in East LondonThursday, 18 September 2025
Hackney’s Round Chapel is an appropriate venue. Scottish smallpipes player Brìghde Chaimbeul opens her set with “Dùsgadh/Waking.” It has the spirit of a call to prayer: the directness, the insistence, the magnetic quality. All of which draws in... Read more... |
Lammermuir Festival 2025, Part 2 review - from the soaringly sublime to the zoologically ridiculousTuesday, 16 September 2025
My colleague Boyd Tonkin visited the Lammermuir Festival for the first time this year. His eyes and ears have been opened to its treasures, but some of us have been in on the secret for years. Importantly, that includes the East Lothian audiences,... Read more... |
Frances Wilson: Electric Spark - The Enigma of Muriel Spark review - the matter of factTuesday, 16 September 2025
How do you tell the story of a person’s mind? In the preface to Electric Spark: The Enigma of Muriel Spark, published this year by Bloomsbury, Frances Wilson points out that biography was one of her subject’s own fixations.Spark’s first full-length... Read more... |
Lammermuir Festival 2025 review - music with soul from the heart of East LothianWednesday, 10 September 2025
One piece that you’re unlikely to hear at the Lammermuir Festival is Lucia di Lammermoor. As co-director James Waters explained during a drive to the absurdly picturesque church and castle at Crichton (fit setting for a Netflix epic, let alone a... Read more... |
Blondshell, Queen Margaret Union, Glasgow review - woozy rock with an air of nonchalanceMonday, 08 September 2025
There is such nonchalance with Sabrina Teitelbaum that even her appeals to the crowd appeared laid-back. At points during her set the Los Angeles singer would slowly raise an arm, in the time-honoured tradition of a musician demanding noise, but in... Read more... |
The Maccabees, Barrowland, Glasgow review - indie band return with both emotion and qualitySaturday, 23 August 2025
You wait years for a guitar group with brothers to reunite and then two come along at once. The Maccabees return might have attracted far less attention compared to the Gallaghers hitting the road again as Oasis, but as they strolled onstage on a... Read more... |
Edinburgh Fringe 2025 reviews: Refuse / Terry's / SugarSaturday, 23 August 2025
Refuse, Assembly George Square Studios ★★★★Maks works as a bin man in a small Ukrainian town. His little son might get picked on at school and told he’s smelly because of his dad’s occupation, but Maks is content with his lot, his soulmate of a wife... Read more... |
Edinburgh Fringe 2025 reviews: Imprints / CourierThursday, 21 August 2025
Imprints, Summerhall ★★★★Keep your wits about you for this appropriately tricksy, sometimes elusive but beautifully put together show from young company the Palimpsest Project. For a work that’s ultimately about memory, Imprints is just as... Read more... |
Works and Days, Edinburgh International Festival 2025 review - jaw-dropping theatrical ambitionSunday, 10 August 2025
With the sheer density of theatrical creations jostling for attention across Edinburgh’s festivals, there’s no shortage of arresting stagings, innovative visuals and powerful, memorable design. (Just take Cena Brasil Internacional’s shocking Tom at... Read more... |
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