Can a play about an historic tragedy entertain? Hearing great praise for Tay Bridge, I was intrigued to find out, and take pleasure in reporting that Dundee Repertory Theatre has managed to deliver. Despite being the first ‘in-house’ production I’ve seen at the Rep, previous shows had already set a high bar– and this play Read More
Raymond Antrobus has chosen the epigraph for his first collection wisely: ‘There is no telling what language is inside the body’ (Robin Coste Lewis). Antrobus explores his experiences with late-diagnosed Deafness, mixed heritage experience (Antrobus is Jamacian British), and an alcoholic parent; but beneath these concerns is ultimately his passion for communication. There’s something that Read More
On April 15th,1989, 96 lives were lost in the infamous Hillsborough Stadium Disaster, when two pens filled with fans became fatally overcrowded during a match. Although the cause of the tragedy was originally attributed to drunkenness and football hooliganism, a second inquiry in 2016 painted a picture of negligence, incompetence and corruption. 30 years on Read More
Not rivers, towers of blood. (‘Sentence’) In 1981, Glasgow School of Art’s Ceramics Department and its famous dances, were housed in the Haldane building, the city’s shambolic former police horse stables. This may have been a long way from New Cross Road, the tragedy, the official and media indifference in its aftermath and the lasting Read More
From the first moment we set foot onto ‘Yoshi’s Island’ in Stephen Sexton’s If All the World And Love Were Young, we are whisked along. There is no time to situate ourselves before we are riding on Yoshi’s back through the long-distant lands of Sexton’s childhood where he joins Mario in battling against the bosses Read More
At its simplest, established writer Frank Woods’ debut novel Where the Bridge Lies is a melodramatic detective story. It features revelatory deathbed confessions, long-lost relatives, a femme fatale, a mysterious commune and even an investigative journalist for a protagonist. But beneath this sensationalist exterior lies a deeper rumination on time, trauma and the ties that Read More
Bullet Point Are all repeated acts what make me who I am? It seems so, with the changes I make just being added to the list. Even if I scratch one off, there are always more to add. The clothes I won’t throw away The perfume I rarely use The overused baking tray and my Read More
Tourists visit St Andrews for three main reasons; it’s the home of golf, the grounds of the renowned University where Prince Harry met Kate, and the StAnza international poetry festival in March, which bring poetry paramours to St Andrews’ historical streets. I reviewed Mary Jean Chan’s debut pamphlet, a hurry of english, some time ago Read More
With this moving and poetic novel, full of the rhythms of Gaelic and Doric, Donald Murray has created both a memorial and a song of love, grief and lament, reflected in the windswept landscapes of the Isle of Lewis. Narrated by Alasdair Cruikshank, retired Glasgow art teacher, grandson of Tormod Morrison, a fictional survivor of Read More
In a recent interview for The Guardian Valeria Luiselli complained that we demand too little of the novel as readers or as students of the form. In upholding “relatability” and “empathy” as praiseworthy qualities, we mistake what are entry level virtues for the high bar. It goes without saying then that this is an ambitious Read More