Is it the critics who are cancelling Douglas Is Cancelled?

Other definitions are available, as the BBC is fond of saying.

The cancelled Douglas in question is fictitious news presenter Douglas Bellowes and, appropriately, the four-part series is called Douglas Is Cancelled. In the title role we have Hugh Bonneville, whose genial-but-bemused middle-aged man shtick saw him sail through six series of Downton Abbey, two Paddington films and – more relevant here given the satirical intent of this dialogue heavy comedy-drama – the mockumentary Twenty Twelve and its follow-up, W1A.

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And Douglas’s perceived wrongdoing? Telling a sexist joke at a wedding and being outed on social media. Key to what happens next are Douglas’s preposterously glamorous co-presenter Madeleine Crow (Karen Gillan), his conscience-light tabloid editor wife Sheila (Alex Kingston), and Toby (Ben Miles), his boss on the widely-watched Live At 6 show.

The series is a Hartswood Films production for ITV and has been written by Paisley-born TV behemoth Steven Moffat. For context, he is now 62 and married to producer Sue Vertue, daughter of uber-producer (and Hartswood Films founder) Beryl Vertue. “I just sat down and wrote this,” he has said. “Didn’t even tell anyone what I was doing.”

Given the reception so far, that was probably a good idea. Opinion is split on social media which, let’s face it, is the only media that counts these days, and it’s certainly true that when middle-aged blokes take aim at wokery and other modern shibboleths (protected characteristics, young people etc.) there is a risk of coming over a bit, well, Clarkson. I’m sure you know what I mean. That said, there are belly laughs aplenty and one or two critical feints in unexpected directions.

Promotional image for Douglas Is Cancelled (Image: ITV)
Here you can read Herald TV critic Alison Rowat’s take on the show as well as columnist Robert McNeil’s musings on Bonneville’s scene-stealing Scottish co-star.

Splash landing

There’s really only a handful of science-fiction films which are genuine game-changers in terms of the themes they explore, the visuals they employ and the types of worlds they create. There’s Star Wars, obviously. There’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. There’s Blade Runner and The Matrix. And there’s Aliens, Ridley Scott’s mash-up of horror and sci-fi. Forty-five years on and half a dozen (at least) sequels, prequels and spin-offs later, his creation is now a massive movie franchise.

What you might not know is that the original film had its UK premiere at the 1979 Edinburgh International Film Festival (EIFF) and will return to the EIFF mother-ship next month when the latest instalment is given a special late-night screening ahead of its cinema release.

Promotional image from Alien: Romulus (Image: 20th Century Studios)
Titled Alien: Romulus, it’s directed by Uruguayan film-maker Fede Álvarez and in chronological terms is intended to slot between the events of Alien and Aliens, the 1986 sequel directed by James Cameron (a better film in your correspondent’s opinion, but let’s not re-open that can of worms).

Leading the line is fast-rising American actress Cailee Spaeny, seen most recently in Alex Garland’s Civil War and as the titular Priscilla in Sofia Coppola’s biopic of Mrs Presley. But there’s a wealth of young British acting alongside her, such as Rye Lane’s David Jonsson, Archie Renaux and Spike Fearn, who appeared in local hero Charlotte Wells’s 2022 EIFF smash Aftersun.

Alien: Romulus screens on August 15 and tickets go on sale at noon on July 11 following the full EIFF programme launch the previous day.

Hats off to the Glasgow Girls

Belfast-born Glasgow Boy Sir John Lavery is the subject of an upcoming exhibition of paintings at Edinburgh’s National gallery on the Mound. You’ll find him in the Royal Scottish Academy building from July 20 and you’ll also find a preview of the show and an interview with its curator soon in The Herald Saturday Magazine.

But ahead of that exhibition there’s a chance to view a rare new acquisition by Bessie MacNicol who, along with Margaret and Frances Macdonald, Jessie Keppie and Katharine Cameron, was a member of the group of trailblazing female artists who came to be known as the Glasgow Girls.

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Painted in 1899 The Lilac Sunbonnet is probably a nod to a novel of that title published five years earlier by Scottish writer Samuel Rutherford Crocket, and shows a young blonde woman eyeballing the viewer from under the lilac hat of the title. “Like a dose of Vitamin D on a dreich day,” coos Dr Patricia Allerston, Deputy Director and Chief Curator of European and Scottish Art at the National Galleries of Scotland. It’s hard to argue with that.

The Lilac Sunbonnet was described as 'like a dose of Vitamin D on a dreich day'
MacNicol’s is a sad tale, though. A genuine star in the making, she graduated from Glasgow School of Art in 1893, hung out in the Kirkcudbright artist colony which grew up around Glasgow Boy Edward Hornel, exhibited at London’s Royal Academy as well as further afield in Ghent, Munich, Vienna and the US, but then died tragically young in 1904 aged just 34.

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In the intervening century her works have scattered to the winds or been lost, which makes the purchase of The Lilac Sunbonnet for the national collection all the more significant. It’s now on display in the National’s new Scottish galleries, well worth a visit in their own right.

And finally

The Herald’s chief theatre critic Neil Cooper has visited the Kibble Palace in Glasgow’s Botanic Gardens to take in a production of Henrik Ibsen’s classic play Hedda Gabler, mounted as part of the much-loved Bard In The Botanics season and here given a bit of oomph in a new version by playwright Kathy McKean.

Elsewhere Ann Fotheringham helps lift the lid on a fascinating side of Glasgow music subculture in an interview with author Chris Brickley, whose photo-book Heartlands is a loving tribute to a much-maligned style tribe – the Goths. “You could be a target,” he admits. “But I had never enjoyed general clubs or disco-type venues, so this appealed more… Anyone could buy skinny black jeans, pointy boots, crimpers and start back-combing their hair.”