Edinburgh International Festival is the jewel in Scotland’s cultural crown... while BBC Scotland is stuck commissioning and producing through London via branch offices.
Saying ‘I love you’ to a parent or sibling is another matter entirely, particularly for men. Award-winning Scottish documentary maker Duncan Cowles is no exception, and it was his inability to make his feelings known to his immediate family which has driven the making of his debut feature and provided its title – Silent Men.
Dominating the end wall of the first room of Dürer To Van Dyck, a new exhibition at the Royal Scottish Academy in Edinburgh, is a photograph, blown up so it reaches from floor to ceiling. Taken around 1890, it shows the South Sketch Gallery at Chatsworth House in Derbyshire, seat since 1549 of the aristocratic Cavendish family whose scions include the current 12th Duke of Devonshire, Peregrine Cavendish.
At the same time the number of adults in Scotland using all BBC content has dropped from 87% to 84% over a year, and specific BBC Scotland content, which includes radio and online, is ‘consumed’ by just 57% of us.
There should be a word for that special kind of disappointment when a thing you’ve been looking forward to turns out to be a dud. Whatever the word is (or will be) I was feeling the need of it well before the end of The Day Of The Jackal.
Someone is bound to lay The Beatles down early. It’s one of those great pub argument prompts isn’t it – which is the most influential band ever?
Opening this weekend at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery (SNPG), Celebrating 40 Years Of Scotland’s Photography Collection dips into that treasure trove to pick out 100 or so representative images from the 55,000 available.
Do you remember photo booths? They still exist, of course. But do you remember the ones where you didn’t have to pay with a smartphone then download the images from a website using a code and an app and an unholy confection of algorithms?
For £7 you’ll get a strip of four, crisp black and white images - and can relive the past.
James Brining’s inheritance is one of Scotland’s, and therefore the UK’s, finest theatres, but in common with most other venues it’s one which does not have its troubles to seek at the moment.
