Scotland
Adam Sweeting
Before the Vikings came to Britain there was no whaling, though coastal-dwellers would avail themselves of any beached strays by chopping them up for their meat and oil. It was the bellicose Norsemen who imported the notion of actively pursuing the creatures, which is how the pilot whale hunt became a tradition in Stornoway in the Outer Hebrides. A line of boats would drive the whales into the shallows, where they were slaughtered by the islanders.It was the shape of all manner of hideous things to come, and it wasn't easy to sit through this first part of Adam Nicolson's history of whaling Read more ...
Andy Plaice
Crime drama at its best not only offers a satisfying mystery and characters with whom we want to spend time, but a strong sense of place, a location that captures our imagination and makes us want to know more. Little wonder then that the BBC snapped up the rights to Ann Cleeves’s Shetland Quartet of novels featuring Detective Inspector Jimmy Perez, the Scottish cop with the Spanish ancestor. With its authentic Shetland locations, Raven Black (the first of three two-part stories) was beautiful to look at.It's the middle of summer and nobody can sleep. It's making the locals crazyFrom the Read more ...
Thembi Mutch
“Would we be able to prosecute the Vikings today, should we? I mean are there parallels between what the Nazis did by plundering art and gold, or what the German soldiers did who raped Norwegian women when they occupied Norway?” Silke Roeploeg might perhaps fit the Viking caricature: tall, blonde, physically fit, ruddy weathered cheeks, and smart. She is however German, and a lecturer on the Highland and Islands Nordic studies, which includes a component on Vikings. Now living on Shetland, Silke is philosophical about the controversy that the Vikings are still managing to cause, some Read more ...
David Nice
This is more an excuse for celebration than a review. Six years after the Scottish Chamber Orchestra was founded in 1974 – the birth year we were marking last night – I rolled up in a foggy Edinburgh one February day and chose it as my alma mater on the strength especially of one concert which showed what musical life in the city might be like: trumpeter John Wilbraham playing Bach and Handel with the SCO under Roderick Brydon. I fell in love with the venue, the Queen’s Hall, as much as the orchestra. In 1982 I proudly took on the role of the SCO’s student publicity officer. It’s a Read more ...
David Nice
Baleful prophecies were rife before the concert. Was Vladimir Jurowski right to let Mahler’s only total tragedy among his symphonies, the Sixth, share the programme with anything else, least of all a new viola concerto in which the solo instrument’s naturally pale cast of thought seemed likely to be indulged by James MacMillan – another composer not afraid of rhetorical angst?As it turned out, the concerto had as much of the healthily extrovert about it as MacMillan’s immediate predecessors in the form for oboe and violin, while Jurowski’s Mahler wasn’t, it seemed, out to blitz us after all. Read more ...
Tim Cumming
Chisholm was born and raised in Inverness in the Scottish Highlands, and was tutored by great fiddler player, composer and instrument maker Donald Riddell. He's a regular player with Julie Fowlis and with his own band Wolfstone, and this is a live recording of his epic Strathglass Trilogy. Originally released on the Copperfish label, the trilogy was six years in the making, and features the award-winning Farrar (2008), Canaich (2010) and Affric (2012). The trilogy - and this live set - is a musical representation of the ancient Chisholm Clan lands north-west of Loch Ness. It’s one of the Read more ...
Veronica Lee
When Andrew Maxwell premiered Banana Kingdom at the Edinburgh Fringe earlier this year, its title made a lot more sense. The show was a coruscating examination of what Scotland might be if the independence vote next September goes Alex Salmond's way; a tiny nation trying to go it alone at a time when the rest of Europe wants to be an even bigger - and of course happier - family.At the start of his run at the Soho Theatre, however, the Irishman tells us he has reworked the show, jettisoning much of the Scottish content because he felt it wasn't relevant to London audiences. I rather think he's Read more ...
Lisa-Marie Ferla
The debates that come with music awards tend to be more interesting than the institutions themselves, which is why it was so novel to see this year’s SAY Award - the Creative Scotland-backed equivalent of the Mercury Prize - go to a work that was not only innovative but genuinely loved. Though it must have been tempting for RM Hubbert to take some time out and blow the prize money on a Porsche, the Glasgow guitarist - a 20-year veteran of the local music scene - announced his next album two weeks later.Breaks & Bone is the final part of what Hubbert has termed “the ampersand trilogy”, a Read more ...
Tom Birchenough
Not long ago James McAvoy finished a brutal run as Macbeth, and he’s back in Filth as another manic Scotsman hurtling towards self-destruction. The setting is Nineties Edinburgh, and his character, dodgy policeman Bruce Robertson, has a Machiavellian genius for getting one over on his copper colleagues, until his addiction-fuelled luck runs out, and he comes crashing down. He’s the first-person narrator for most of the story, and though repulsively believable, his grip on the narrative starts separating from reality.It’s a compelling performance that pulls out all the stops, and then some, Read more ...
Karen Krizanovich
Created in a time when we could be shocked, The Wicker Man shows its power by being shocking still. Conceived by its director Robin Hardy, writer Anthony Shaffer and star Christopher Lee as a reaction to New Age-ism, The Wicker Man delights, thrills and horrifies in this latest version, restored to the American theatrical cut.Bad luck struck The Wicker Man back in 1973, when director Hardy’s debut was caught up, like many films continue to be, in a corporate wrangle. Its release temporarily delayed, the original cut of 102 minutes was edited down to 88, along with a reduction of its marketing Read more ...
Serena Kutchinsky
When the best thing you can say about a band’s comeback album is that it sounds vaguely like their era-defining punk funk debut, you can either wonder why they bothered or admire their dogged devotion to a single sound. The music world has moved on from the dance rock sound popularised by the Glasgow foursome’s foot-stomping first single "Take Me Out" (a title now more synonymous with TV dating hell), but Franz Ferdinand have not moved with it. A decade of success has seen flashes of experimentation but after a failed attempt at producing a more dancefloor-friendly album (2009’s Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
It's a lottery. There are writers who’d see something in the return, after five years away, of this multi-million-selling Scottish four-piece. These writers, however, didn’t step in so Travis have been thrown to the dogs, a non-starter for both of us. Sooooo… there’s a song here called “New Shoes” that I wouldn’t turn off on the radio, a loping, pleasant groove, and another jangly thing called “Boxes”… no, this isn’t working, that last one is just mawkish, reminds me of early Sting. No, no, no, not bloody Travis.At the close of the last century Travis opened the door for Coldplay, Keane and Read more ...