This article appears as part of the Herald Arts newsletter.

Following July’s news that playwright-turned-theatre chief David Greig was to leave his position as Artistic Director of Edinburgh’s Royal Lyceum, thoughts turned to the identity of his likely replacement.

With Pitlochry Festival Theatre unveiling Alan Cumming as its Artistic Director from January 2025, you might have thought the sky was the limit for Scotland’s largest producing theatre. Some did. Would there be another A-Lister appointment to follow that one? Young Jack Lowden doesn’t have much on at the moment, could he do it?

The new man – and it is a man – has now been announced. He is James Brining, currently Artistic Director at highly-regarded Leeds Playhouse, formerly the West Yorkshire Playhouse. Not a household name, perhaps, but an accomplished administrator and a more than capable director.

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In his 12 years in Leeds, Mr Brining commissioned and produced 65 new plays and oversaw a £16.8 million refurbishment and re-branding programme. His predecessor at the Playhouse, for the record, was Ian Brown, who ran Glasgow’s TAG Theatre Company in the mid-1980s then spent over a decade helming Edinburgh’s Traverse Theatre.

“The man is exceedingly normal,” wrote the Yorkshire Post’s Nick Ahad of Mr Brining in 2012, the year he was appointed to the Playhouse job. “An hour-and-a-half interview felt like a gentle chat over a pint.”

Mr Brining is actually from Leeds, but he knows Scotland and, importantly, Scotland knows him. He has also served time at TAG – he joined as Artistic Director in 1997 – and later ran Dundee Rep between 2003 and 2012.

It was he who commissioned the first production of Sunshine On Leith, later filmed, and now a template for the sort of smart, savvy, populist theatre which wins awards but also puts bums on seats. So Mr Brining is well-liked here and well respected. He is, I am told by those who know him, a good choice. And bums on seats are not something to be sniffed at. There’s probably a more delicate way of putting that, but you get the point.

“I am ready for a new challenge, and I’m thrilled to be returning to a place I love,” Mr Brining said when his appointment was announced. “Anyone who knows me is well aware of how much Scotland means to me and my family and we’re excited about coming home. I’ve seen some incredible work at The Lyceum over the last 30 years and it’s a privilege to have the opportunity to lead such an important Scottish and UK theatre in its next chapter.”

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And what of that next chapter? In his statement Mr Brining also cited Leeds Playhouse’s international reputation for “insightful and impactful” productions and its several innovations, including pioneering relaxed and dementia-friendly productions and becoming the world’s first Theatre of Sanctuary in 2014. This honour is bestowed on venues offering support for asylum seekers and refugees. There are now dozens of these, though none currently in Scotland. Join the dots and a picture forms of an energetic and forward-thinking theatre-maker eager to make his mark.

The energy will be much needed. Leeds Playhouse is adorned with a huge neon sculpture spelling out the chorus from Tubthumping, a song by local anarcho-punk legends Chumbawamba. It reads: “I get knocked down, but I get up again.” Mr 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. That lyric should become his mantra.

You can read more on the appointment here.

Fangs for everything

One of the strange by-products of being allowed to review movies for a living is that occasionally a line from your scribbles is pulled out and stuck on a poster by a distributor or film production company. And so it proved for yours truly in regard to The Radleys, an adaptation of Matt Haig’s novel about a family of vampires trying to abstain from the old Rhesus negative.

I saw the film in the Edinburgh International Film Festival and quite enjoyed it. So could we use a quote from the review, asked Sky Cinema? Of course, I said. The bit where I describe Kelly Macdonald as “mumsy” or the bit where I write about the film running out of steam in the final third? Neither, they said. The bit which goes: “Kelly Macdonald shines”. Which is the headline. Which I didn’t write. No problem, I said. Knock yourselves out.


In fact the film is good. “Kelly Macdonald is excellent as the mumsy Helen” is what I actually wrote, and she’s joined in the cast by Damian Lewis (in a barnstorming performance as vampiric twin brothers) alongside Harry Baxendale and Bo Bragason, who stars as Roxy in Sally Wainwright's Disney+ hit Renegade Nell, and also played bratty Amy in BBC crime drama The Jetty. The director is Doctor Who and Sherlock veteran Euros Lyn.

Ahead of the film’s streaming debut on Sky Cinema on October 18 (just in time for Halloween, wouldn’t you know?), The Herald’s Brian Beacom sat down for a glitch-affected Zoom chat with Kelly Macdonald in which she talked vampires, living in Glasgow and why she still can’t quite believe she was cast in Trainspotting.

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In other news

Celtic Connections has announced the line-up for its 2025 festival and the eye is immediately drawn to the inclusion of country legend Lyle Lovett, who as well as having a voice made for winning Grammy Awards (four to date and counting) has a face made for film. The great American auteur Robert Altman certainly thought so, and cast Lovett in four of his features, including Short Cuts and The Player.


Elsewhere there are performances by KT Tunstall, fast on the way to National Treasure status IMO, Mercury Music Prize nominees corto.alto (when did a jazz band last play Barrowland?), ex-Suede guitarist Bernard Butler, Femi Kuti (son of Afrobeat legend Fela), Hamish Hawk, The Bluebells, The Staves and more. And if you want a few under-the-radar tips, check out queer soul-jazz powerhouse Lady Blackbird (the so-called Grace Jones of jazz), singer-songwriter Yola (appearing in Roddy Hart’s Roaming Roots Revue), indie duo Sacred Paws and all-female vocal trio Little Acres.

Celtic Connections opens on January 16 and runs until February 2.