A bitter wind howls in from the east blowing the rain horizontal. I could easily be on the Yorkshire moors of Wuthering Heights, and this would be a fitting backdrop for an interview with gothic novelist, Sandra Ireland. We meet in Carnoustie’s Costa Coffee to chat about her most recent novel The Unmaking of Ellie Read More
Critically acclaimed as ‘the queen of Scottish folklore-inspired domestic noir’, Sandra Ireland’s oeuvre boasts three successful thrillers that all open with haunting epitaphs and disturbing prologues. However, Ireland’s new novel, Sight Unseen, is lighter. Narrated in alternating chapters, Sarah Sutherland in first person and her elderly father, John, in third person, we are immersed in Read More
Like elderly actresses, performing until they drop, one boasts an errant streak […] (‘These roses you gave me’) Perhaps it’s unsurprising that these lines come from a poem with the central metaphor of flowers. Vicki Feaver, more than almost anyone, has seized that subject, daring to write it – as a woman – not in Read More
Rebecca Watts’ second poetry collection Red Gloves is a gathering of objects and their willingness to remain or disappear, along with our willingness, as humans, to stay or to leave; it is an embodiment of a decline transpiring right under our noses. The author uses a hobnob of narrative and lyrical techniques, creating arcane, uninterrupted Read More
The Aberdeen Artists Society’s (AAS) exhibition, Coming Home, was due to take place in June in the newly refurbished Aberdeen Art Gallery to celebrate the society’s return to the gallery for the first time since 2014. The AAS, one of the longest established artist-led organisations in Scotland was formed in 1827 and began holding annual Read More
Errant is a fascinating collection that delves into the poet’s past experiences, with influences from other writings and encounters with other creative minds. Gabriel Levin’s sixth collection doesn’t fail to uncover, intrigue and take the reader through a myriad of places journeying between the poet’s homelands in the West and the Middle East. Levin who Read More
A Midsummer Night’s Dream is one of Shakespeare’s best-known and most-performed plays. Nicholas Hytner’s adaptation is a spirited spectacle (pun intended). We see fairies swinging on silks, beds moving through space, and parts of the stage rise up from the floor and disappear. The staging is as immersive as it is impressive—giant disco balls bob Read More
This stage adaptation of Andrea Levy’s Orange Prize-winning novel of the same name, staged in 2019, is unusually prescient, given how relevant the themes are today. Coincidentally, as I write this review, the world marks Windrush Day, marking the 72nd anniversary on which Caribbean individuals and families boarded the HMT Empire Windrush to journey to Read More
Meaghan Delahunt, a small sunburst of a person, meets me on a cold mid-March morning in Edinburgh with a smile and a joke about elbow-bumping, softly deflecting the viral threat of a handshake or hug as only an avid reader of that day’s online news would know to do. On the train and in the Read More
Motherwell is a poignant family portrait, articulately painted by the late Deborah Orr of a life with ‘house-proud’ mother Win and ‘factory-worker’ father John. Orr achieved success as a journalist, becoming editor of the Guardian’s Weekend supplement by 31, and writing a weekly column for two decades thereafter. She was also a child of Scottish Read More