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Meet the team
Championing creativity in Scotland
This month we asked: How did you sustain or inflict your greatest sporting injury?
Senior
Rosamund West Editor-in-Chief
"I have a scar on my lip from falling off a bike at 4am in Copenhagen."
Commissioning Editors
Myrtle Boot Clubs Editor
"I've been nursing a mild finger strain for about six months. I promise climbing is a dangerous, sexy sport."
Laurie Presswood General Manager
"P7s vs teachers netball match. [cheating] headmaster spiked the ball onto my thumb, breaking it. Sat grade 3 violin that afternoon; lied to my violin teacher about where I’d been. Lost the match, aced the exam."
Sandy Park Commercial Director
"I ruptured something in my knee (that is still incredibly fragile to this day) attempting a Cruyff turn on astro turf when I was 12 or 13. I have also broken ribs and my nose being elbowed playing football at school. Sport's fun."
Peter Simpson Deputy Editor, Food & Drink Editor
"First game of 5-a-side in about ten years, run straight into someone within the first minute, nurse a weird muscle strain for the next six weeks, repeat."
Eilidh Akilade Intersections Editor
"Wondering if falling off the sofa and breaking my arm counts? I was kinda climbing it."
Dalila D'Amico Art Director, Production Manager
"A sumo wrestling match with my flatmate. No trophies or spectators, just a bruised ego and a body that made crackling noises for the next week."
Joanna Hare
Business Development Executive
"The blisters on my big toes after my half marathon were so big that they both developed a central nervous system, then personalities and then started a podcast together."
Anahit Behrooz Events Editor, Books Editor
"I tore my anterior cruciate ligament in the last mile of a marathon. I cracked my skull playing rugby for England. I got a javelin through my side while throwing discus at the first Olympics."
Rachel Ashenden Art Editor
"I don't have any major sporting injuries but I did once pull a muscle from opening my fridge."
Phoebe Willison Designer
"Niall Young elbowed me in the face on a bouncy castle on Fun Day in P1 and broke my nose."
Ema Smekalová Media Sales Executive
"My toenail fell off after it was stepped on during a football match against Stirling Uni. Doesn't compare to the psychological injury suffered by the Stirling team when we totally beat them tho."
Jamie Dunn Film Editor, Online Journalist
"I’m a coward. I jump out of the way of wild tackles, I ride my bike slowly, I’ve never climbed anything taller than myself, and I’ve never done any punchy sports. No regrets, and more importantly, no injuries."
Phoebe Crawford Comedy Editor
"My knees hurt when I walk, and I do get very out of breath at football, which can hurt to the point I feel like I'm dying a very slow, painful death."
Ellie Robertson Editorial Assistant "Swingball."
Brash Music Editor
"I still feel emotionally scarred from my former life as a competitive archer. If that doesn't count, I came off a bike when I was about 14chipped my tooth, fucked my knee, crushed the helmet. Not great."
Mika Morava Theatre Editor
"I read an article (watched a TikTok) once that said if you didn’t break a bone in sport as a child, your lot in life is psychic injury. Hope this helps someone :)"
Emilie Roberts Media Sales Executive
"Does falling down the stairs because I was running late and thus breaking two ribs count? I was running? Technically?"
Tallah
Editorial
Words: Rosamund West
We thought it’d be fun to try something a bit different this month, a little break from the arts. The Commonwealth Games are returning to Glasgow for some reason, everyone’s very excited about the football, tennis etc, why not turn our hands to sports journalism?
Speaking as someone whose most stressful work day was being left in charge of the SPL live blog for scotsman.com 17 years ago, this is not a skill that comes easily. However, when we threw the concept out to the writers they came back with a load of interesting ideas. It turns out writing about sport and writing about art are not mutually exclusive, and when you think about it in a broader context of culture and identity they’ve got even more in common.
We start with a thoughtful consideration of Glasgow framed by its twin Commonwealth Games experiences. How has the city changed since 2014? It’s been through a lot – indyref, Brexit, COVID, a litany of cruel Westminster policies and, in more local leadership, campervan embezzlement. We approach community groups including Radical Glasgow Tours for reflection.
On to personal experiences around sport – one writer shares their experience of learning to skateboard in their midthirties, and how it brought them back to their body and into a new sense of community. Another considers his love for gymnastics, and what the sport’s complex relationship with gender has revealed. We look at running and music, how the transition from high BPM motivation to a more ambient playlist reflects a growing confidence as a runner.
Clubs talks Chicago footwork, and looks at how the transatlantic genre has embedded itself in Scottish dancefloors.
The Design column talks to a graphic designer on the ground with the Tartan Army to discuss authenticity and cultural sensitivity in football design culture.
Departing from sport, Film meets Italian filmmaker Daniele Rugo to talk about Life Support, his devastating documentary drawing from medical professionals’ testimony and footage to reveal the humanitarian crisis of Gaza. We also talk to Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie’s Matt Johnson and Jay McCarrol about their origins in the wild west of mid-00s no budget online skit comedy.
Music meets actual Lucia from Lucia & The Best Boys to learn about the gestation of new album Picking Petals Tallah takes a trip out west (and north) to the Black Bay Studio and returns, forever changed. We talk to some of the Scottish artists who’ve retreated to the Highlands and Islands to develop their work, and learn how that natural environment influenced them.
Art rounds up the degree shows of 2026 with our writers’ picks of Duncan of Jordanstone, Edinburgh College of Art and Glasgow School of Art. We also take a tour of Richard Maguire’s Collective gallery exhibition, an investigation of the surveillance of sexualities under colonialism. Theatre heads to Pitlochry for their new production of King Lear, simply entitled Lear. Our poster spread is a work by Bugarin + Castle, whose Scotland + Venice show we covered in detail last month.
We finish with The Skinny On… Finnie, this year’s Commonwealth Games mascot, a unicorn developed in consultation with the city’s children. RIP Clyde, 2014’s personified thistle. Gone too soon.
Cover Artist
Martin Stubbington is an Oxfordshire-based neurodivergent illustrator creating colourful, concept-driven imagery for editorial and commercial clients. His work combines collage, printmaking techniques, gouache, marker pen and hand-drawn illustrations to create illustrations that are playful, striking and often dreamlike.
mstubbingtonart.com
IG: @mstubbingtonart
Love Bites: Blisters and Tent Face
This month’s columnist reflects on craving physical exhaustion
Words: Jasmine Owens
Last night was so cold I slept in a rain poncho. Already wearing every piece of clothing I’d brought for the month-long walk, the cheap yellow plastic beckoned from the rucksack. Covering my head and torso, the poncho fast became a wet bag of slightly less cold air. I registered the risks of sleeping with essentially a happier version of a bin bag covering my face, before drifting into a dream about finding a sports bag full of blankets.
Dawn arrived through the tent walls. I looked in a mirror and thought, “There you are.” It really looked like me. Puffy face, stiff limbs from a twi y floor sleep, clothes rumpled. My family call it ‘tent face’ – when you’ve finally got away to the Great Outdoors, and wake up feeling like you’ve been hit by a bus, in a good way.
A few days ago, in the hills, I complimented a Peruvian-Italian hiker’s keffiyeh. After hearing I live in Edinburgh, she grabbed my forearm and declared, “I’ve walked the Water of Leith.” Each week back home, a friend and I walk until the familiar foot ache arrives, often criss-crossing the Water of Leith, searching for free library bookboxes. He collects them like Pokémon. But life’s been so raw lately that I craved fuller exhaustion.
Days on this trip in northern Spain follow the same core recipe: walking on popped blisters; morning humid air and white clouds surrounding pine trees; invisible birds high up in chorus. Today, in my error of looking up, a rock pushes into my sole where a blister sits underneath barefoot shoes, three pairs of socks and a Compeed plaster. Trying hard sometimes leaves me sore, but I love when the physical matches the mental like this, and I sink into it like a bath.
Heads Up
Richard Maguire: There Is No Beginning, As There Is No End Collective Gallery, Edinburgh, 10 Jul-14 Sep
The first exhibition in Time + Space, Collective Gallery’s new early-career artist programme, Richard Maguire’s There Is No Beginning, As There Is No End interrogates relations of power in British and South Asian histories, exploring the legacy of colonialism as a tool for oppressing sexual freedom through drawings and sculptures that depict spectacles of homoeroticism and ‘degeneracy’.
Lughnasadh Festival
Forgan Arts Centre, Newport-on-Tay, 1 Aug
Taking place in the lush grounds of the Forgan Arts Centre, just across the water from Dundee in Newport-on-Tay, Lughnasadh Festival returns with a daylong programme of music sourced from across Scotland’s diverse music scene. Female and non-binary-led Hen Hoose Collective headline, and there are also performances by Isle of Ei icon Pictish Trail, Roller Disco Death Party, and Holy Snakes.
Empress - Opening Ritual
People’s Leisure Club, Edinburgh, 2 Jul, 11pm
The trans techno soirée you’ve been waiting for takes over People’s Leisure Club this month. Filling a much-needed gap in the club scene (straddling the intersection between techno, fashion, and being sexy and gay), their inaugural night features DJ sets from L( )CIDXXX, 3SBAT and NEONVITA and a live ritual from KOPI ROMANTIKO which will showcase several outfits from the upcoming ABYSS WITCH COUTURE collection.
Kelburn Garden Party
Kelburn Estate, Largs, 2-6 Jul
The sun is out! The events are on! Keep yourself busy in the lead up to the busiest month of the year with festivals, club nights and exhibitions galore.
Compiled by Anahit Behrooz
Blue Heron Cameo, Edinburgh, 1 Jul, 5:30pm
We absolutely adored CanadianHungarian director Sophy Romvari’s debut feature Blue Heron: it was crowned film of the month in our June issue, and got a rare unanimous five stars in our film podcast The Cineskinny. We’re so hyped for this screening of Romvari’s aching tale of coming-of-age and memory, followed by a Q&A with the director herself.
Adrián Balseca: In the Forest Ruins DCA: Dundee Contemporary Arts, Dundee, until 2 Aug
The first exhibition by Adrián Balseca held in Scotland, In the Forest Ruins continues the Ecuadorian artist’s career-long interest in examining the legacies of capitalist and colonial extraction in Latin America. Revolving around two giant sculptures – one made of salvaged material, the other from non-native plants – the exhibition spotlights the relationship between Scotland and the Amazon.
Cowgate Block Party
Various venues, Edinburgh, 18 Jul, 3pm
The third edition of Cowgate Block Party takes place between Sneaky Pete’s and The Mash House. Who knows what the Scottish weather will do but the party’s first summer edition might give us real block party vibes, and if it’s raining, well – there’s performances from the likes of Ask Alice, Hot Face, The Heart Shaped Aces, Both Hands and Faex Optim to keep you happy and busy indoors.
Jamie Fitzpatrick: Memorials to Sausage Politics
Edinburgh Printmakers, Edinburgh, 24 Jul-25 Oct
Photo: ReCompose
Image: courtesy of Edinburgh Jazz and Blues Festival
Photo: Alan Dimmick. Courtesy the artist and Vitrine London & Basel
Image: courtesy of artist
Image: courtesy of Sneaky Pete's
Photo: Ruth Clark
Photo: Si y Stansfield
Image: courtesy of artist and Collective Gallery
Jamie Fitzpatrick, Home Counties Psycho Infinity
Xhosa Cole
Kelburn Garden Party Pyramid Stage 2024 featuring BRENDA
Hen Hoose
Blue Heron
Empress Silverwingkiller at Cowgate Block Party
Adrián Balseca, In the Forest Ruins, Installation view
Richard Maguire, There is no beginning as there is no end
King Tut’s Summer Nights
King Tut’s, Glasgow, 9 Jul-29 Aug
Iconic music venue King Tut’s brings back its summer city festival King Tut’s Summer Nights, platforming and celebrating some of the best and most exciting names in the UK grassroots music scene. The festival takes place over eight weeks, with over 30 different gigs taking place, including appearances by Marigold, Öpaque, Modern Ruin, Limerence and Forfauna.
Alycia Pirmohamed: Shorelines
Portobello Bookshop, Edinburgh, 29 Jul, 7pm
Edinburgh-based poet and recipient of the Nan Shepherd Prize, Alycia Pirmohamed launches her debut non-fiction book Shorelines this month. Written in Pirmohamed’s introspective, delicate poetic voice, Shorelines explores the traces that migration and memory have left on her life, and the complex, mythmaking endeavour of constructing and belonging to a homeland.
A new collaboration between two Glasgow-based South Asian hip-hop artists, craftybrownkid is the self-titled album created by producer Crafty Brown and vocalist randombrownkid. Their launch event features performances from DJ aminabonthebeat, Maxosa and Glasgow veteran ACE V!S!ON for a completely unique look at the Scottish hip-hop scene.
Queer Theory x Bum Notes Pride
Mono, Glasgow, 18 Jul, 2pm
One of Glasgow’s most beloved cabaret and club nights throws a day-long Pride special. There’s live music from comedy food-themed punk band Amelia & the Snacks and Afrofuturist singer and rapper EYVE, cabaret from circus artist Sadiq Ali and Saffron Cherry’s Butch Cashidy, plus DJ sets from Dean Munch, Pink Pound and Groundskeeper Fanny.
Govanhill
International Festival and Carnival
Various venues, Glasgow, 1-16 Aug
It’s the tenth anniversary of the Govanhill International Festival and Carnival! Also marking 25 years since campaigners took over the Govanhill Baths building after the council closed the public space, this year’s festival is themed around resistance, neighbourhood and creativity. Highlights from the festival include kinetic performance Requiem by Kaleider, Jeremy Corbyn in conversation with Josie Long, and screenings of films celebrating local resistance.
No Strings On Me: Cinema’s Living Puppets
Glasgow Film Theatre, Glasgow, 4-26 Jul Curated by film critic and programmer Heather Bradshaw, this eclectic programme of films celebrates the alternately comic, uncanny and fantastic history of puppetry in cinema. There’s a great mix of wellloved classics and little known gems, including 40th anniversary screenings of Jim Henson’s Labyrinth, the director’s cut of Little Shop of Horrors, and Czech surrealist Jan Švankmajer’s 1988 adaptation of Alice in Wonderland
This Is Rambert Festival Theatre, Edinburgh, 2-4 Jul, various times
Image: courtesy of Govanhill International Festival and Carnival
Peach Crumb
Rambert, Gallery of Consequence
Sadiq Ali (appearing at Queer Theory) in The Chosen Haram
aminaonthebeat Labyrinth
Kaleider's Requiem
Alycia Pirmohamed
Limerence for King Tut's Summer Nights
Pelowska
What's
Music
Writing this on the hottest day of the year so far, it seems fitting to start by telling you about some of the lovely gigs and festivals taking place outside this July. The month is bookended by two gorgeous camping festivals –Kelburn Garden Party (2-6 Jul) at Kelburn Castle on the west coast near Largs and Belladrum Tartan Heart Festival (30 Jul-1 Aug) on the Belladrum Estate near Inverness. At the former you’ll find a whole stage curated by us with local artists like SOAPBOX, Kai Reesu and Indoor Foxes playing, while big hitters like Joshua Idenehen, Emma-Jane Thackray and Snapped Ankles can be found elsewhere. At Belladrum, expect The Human League, Rizzle Kicks, Brooke Combe, Getdown Services and loads more.
In Glasgow, there’s also loads going on in the great outdoors. At Bellahouston Park get yr bald caps polished off for Mr Worldwide, aka Pitbull, who rolls into the city on 1 July, while on the 4th, look out your emo militaria for My Chemical Romance. At Queen’s Park Arena, Black Country, New Road (16 Jul) and Gary Numan (17 Jul) are set to play, while The Flaming Lips (27 Jul) kick off this year’s Summer Nights at the Bandstand shows in Kelvingrove Park. SWG3 are in on the outdoor fun too, with Caribou (17 Jul) and the Lost Map Summer Party (31 Jul) featuring Pictish Trail, The Bug Club, Both Hands and Hot Chip DJs taking place in the Galvanizers Yard.
Heading indoors, festival season continues in Glasgow with the start of The Hug & Pint’s Endless Summer series on 2 July and King Tut’s Summer Nights on 9 July. On 18 July, the Crossbreaker all-dayer at Stereo is one for fans of metal and hardcore, while in Edinburgh, it’s time for round three of Edinburgh’s Cowgate Block Party, this time featuring Ask Alice, Both Hands, Nick Dow and PVC alongside more local and touring talent. The Edinburgh Jazz & Blues Festival (17-26 Jul) returns to the capital this month, too, where amongst a packed programme you’ll find loads of local talent. At the St Bride’s Centre in Dalry, check out GAÏA (17 Jul), Seonaid Aitken (21 Jul) and Fergus McCreadie Meets Xhosa Cole (24 Jul). At The Jazz Bar, check out TAO (18 Jul) and Laura Osa Quartet (25 Jul), while the George Square Spiegeltent will host Matt Carmichael Sextet (18 Jul) and Alice Faye (23 Jul) among many others. Festivals aside, following the release of The Lightswitch last month, Jo Mango plays Stirling’s Tolbooth (3 Jul), while later in the month two New Noise nights celebrate new Scottish talent (18 & 24 Jul). In Edinburgh, Martha May & The Mondays play Sneaky Pete’s (2 Jul), Frankie Morrow celebrates debut album Way Out West at Leith Depot (5 Jul), quirky avant-pop artist Gurry Wurry launches new album Glue at Sneaky Pete’s (10 Jul), and bedroom pop artist and former Edinburgh resident sarya plays People’s Leisure Club (16 Jul).
In Glasgow, Edinburgh-based singer-songwriter Carl Marah brings the retro vibes of his recent Me, Myself and I EP to McChuills (8 Jul), before Glasgow-based, British-Canadian synth whizz Soft Riot celebrates Crux at The Old Hairdresser’s (18 Jul). On 25 July, Edinburgh-based Irish singer-songwriter Étáin brings her debut album, The Well, to The Hug & Pint, while rounding out the month, Bill Wells, Norman Blake and Aby Vuillamy perform Dreams ‘24 / ‘25 at The Glad Cafe (31 Jul).
And finally, fitting into none of the above categories, The Maccabees play the Corn Exchange, Edinburgh (6 Jul), David Byrne plays three nights at the Edinburgh Playhouse (20-22 Jul) and Agnes Obel plays Stirling’s Albert Halls on the 24th. [Tallah Brash]
Photo: Laura Meek
Photo: Shervin Lainez
Photo: Lewis Vorn
David Byrne
Emma-Jean Thackray
Both Hands
Film
With the weather finally taking a turn for the better, it’s the perfect time for some alfresco cinema at Queen's Park Arena. To be honest, their programming could do with a refresh. Do we really need another screening of Mamma Mia (10 Jul), The Dark Knight Rises (7 Jul) or Frozen (22 Jul)? For a more adventurous family pick, we su est The Witches (7 Jul), Nic Roeg’s macabre take on Roald Dahl’s classic. The film bros should forget the Caped Crusader and opt for Kinji Fukasaku’s dystopian belter Battle Royale (15 Jul). And for a sing-along to top ABBA, try Jonathan Demme’s Talking Heads concert film Stop Making Sense (12 Jul).
David Byrne is clearly in the air. Not only is the Dumbarton-born musician coming to Edinburgh for three shows at the Playhouse, but he’s also on cinema screens with a mini-season at Filmhouse. Demme’s film is screening, obvs (17-20 Jul), alongside Spike Lee’s similarly great Byrne concert flick American Utopia (5 Aug) and Byrne’s skew-whiff directorial debut, True Stories (17-18 Jul).
Filmhouse are also marking what would have been the 100th birthday of the great character actor Harry Dean Stanton with a brace of films in which he landed rare lead roles: Paris, Texas (14 Jul) and Repo Man (16 Jul), both from 1984.
Have you heard of the Iceman, Anthony Irvine’s almost mythic altcomedy act from the 80s and 90s, which involved him attempting to melt a block of ice in various creative ways? You can learn more about this one-off comedian in the fantastic documentary Melt It! The Film of the Iceman, which features contributions from fans such as Stewart Lee, Jo Brand and Mark Thomas. Director Mark Cartwright will be at DCA on 12 July and GFT on 13 July to present the film and take part in Q&As.
DCA have some 50th-anniversary screenings up their sleeve, with1976 classics All the President’s Men (5 & 8 Jul), Network (11 & 16 Jul), Taxi Driver (25 & 28 Jul) and Assault on Precinct 13 (10 Aug). The latter is presented by DCA’s horror festival Dundead, who have more treats in store for Dundee film fans: they’re screening Paul W.S. Anderson’s inventive video game adaptation Mortal Kombat (10 Jul) and Reflection in a Dead Diamond (29 Jul), the latest from Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani.
Over at GFT, Clio Barnard gets the CineMasters treatment, with four of her films screening (The Arbor, 5 & 8 Jul; The Selfish Giant, 12 & 14 Jul; Dark River, 19&22 Jul; and Ali & Ava, 26 & 29 Jul). And look out for No Strings on Me: Cinema’s Living Puppets, a season celebrating puppetry in cinema. Think Jim Henson’s Labyrinth and Dark Crystal, Jan Švankmajer’s Alice and Frank Oz’s Little Shop of Horrors, which screens as part of Queer Cinema Sundays. Full details at glasgowfilm.com Oh, and there’s a wee film out called The Odyssey. Find it screening from film at GFT (70mm), Filmhouse (70mm), Cameo (35mm) and DCA (35mm) from 17 July. [Jamie Dunn]
Clubs
Midwestern techno icon DVS1 kicks off July’s proceedings, hypnotising The Bongo Club dancefloor all night long on Friday 3 July, for Pulse, Edinburgh. Three of the capital’s top promoters team up to bring Juicy Romance to Cabaret Voltaire, Edinburgh – expect flirty floor fillers and sultry pop vocals (3 Jul). On Saturday 4 July, Doof in the Park returns to Dundee from homegrown talent Hannah Laing, who's bringing Paul van Dyk, Eddie Halliwell and Maddix for a day of trance and techno at Camperdown Park. Ponyboy Pride returns to Stereo, Glasgow, on Friday 10 July – watch this space for a theme reveal. Over at The Berkeley Suite, Glasgow, Polka Dot Disco Club hosts a night of house and bounce until 4am (10 Jul). Kylie Wears Berghaus makes
Photo: Gav Hadden
Island Vibe
Paris, Texas
Little Shop of Horrors
Stop Making Sense
Hannah Laing
Photo: Cr Sullman
an Edinburgh debut at Sneaky Pete’s on Saturday 11 July – prepare yourself for nonstop Kylie edits.
CARIBOU plays out in the open at The Galvanizers Yard, Glasgow, on Friday 17 July – doors open at 6pm, don’t forget a jacket. The FUSE birthday celebrations just keep coming, this time with dubstep heavyweights Youngsta and J:Kenzo going back-to-back at Stereo, Glasgow (17 Jul). The Rum Shack, Glasgow, is set for a night of movers and groovers with Charlie Bones, doors open at 8pm (18 Jul). Yu Su comes to Edinburgh’s Sneaky Pete’s for a night of leftfield tunes spanning jazz, ambient and pop – not one to miss (18 Jul). Back to The Galvanizers Yard on Saturday 18 July, this time for STREETrave Summer All Dayer – Soul II Soul top the bill. Hometown Sound System bring their rig to the Isle of Arran for the sixth year running – a unique opportunity to listen to weighty selections in an idyllic setting (24–25 Jul).
A triple whammy of parties are scheduled for the August Bank Holiday. The Sub Club Southside Weekender returns to the Queen’s Park Arena, Glasgow, with Chaos in the CBD, Bradley Zero and Floorplan taking to the bandstand (1–2 Aug). At The Old Fruitmarket, Glasgow Techno Alliance come together for a night of all things four-on-the-floor – acts include Slam, Gary Beck and Posthuman (1 Aug). On the same day, acrosstheboard and Synthetic come together at Ayr Pavilion, staging Céleste and Dominique. alongside local Ayrshire talent. [Myrtle Boot]
Art
On the back of Glasgow International, several standout shows continue into the summer. At Street Level Photoworks, Aqsa Arif’s Beneath the Ivory is Molten Brown subverts Western misinterpretations of a first-century CE Indian ivory statuette. Arif has transformed the exhibition space into a golden theatre for the figure of Yakshi – a tree-dwelling nature spirit – to explore diasporic selfhood through moving image and photographic tapestries. The exhibition continues until 30 August.
Meanwhile, David Wojnarowicz: some day this will all be crumbling ruins reverberates with political pertinence. As Trump’s American regime cracks down on the multiplicity of gender and sexual expression, the late Wojnarowicz – a multidisciplinary artist and AIDS activist prominent in the East Village scene – shows us how history repeats itself. Set in a building that teeters on the edge of dilapidation, the exhibition is a fiery call to action as well as a tender memorial to Wojnarowicz and his loved ones, who lost their lives to AIDS. See it at The Modern Institute before it closes on 28 August.
In Dundee, Ecuadorian artist AdriánBalseca presents In the Forest Ruins at the DCA, an exhibition that encompasses print, sculpture and moving image. Balseca digs deep into the global impact of colonialism and the capitalist logic that fuels resource extraction in Latin America. Concurrently, Portrait of Dorothy Gale offers a reimagining of The Wizard of Oz by Francis Dosoo. Both exhibitions run until 2 August.
In the capital, the art scene is busy gearing up for Edinburgh Art Festival. From 3 July until 6 September, Esther Castle: Abundant Parts is at Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop, showcasing a new installation and ‘otherworldly garden.’ Then, at Collective Gallery, Richard Maguire explores power relations and archival representations of race and sexuality in No Beginning, As There Is No End. Maguire’s solo show runs from 10 July until 14 September. [Rachel Ashenden]
Theatre
Glasgow kicks things off with a dose of musical comedy as Mean Girls lands at The King’s Theatre (29 Jun-11 Jul). Tina Fey’s stage adaptation of the cult 2004 film brings the familiar cliques and chaos to the stage with all the trappings of an easy summer crowd-pleaser.
Photo: Aqsa Arif
Aqsa Arif, Beneath the Ivory is Molten Brown
Esther Castle, Taken Parts, 2025
David Wojnarowicz, Untitled (Face in Dirt) 1991, 2018
Bradley Zero
Photo: Daniel Adhami
Image: courtesy of the artist
David Wojnarowicz.
of the Estate of David Wojnarowicz, The Modern Institute, Toby Webster Ltd
Elsewhere in the city, the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland turns to Shakespeare’s darker side with two productions. TITUS (1-4 Jul) promises an uncompromising take on Titus Andronicus, before The Tragedie of Macbeth (14-17 Jul) revisits Scotland’s most infamous thane in another tale of ambition, violence and fate.
Dance takes centre stage in Edinburgh. At the Festival Theatre, This is Rambert (2-4 Jul) celebrates the company’s centenary with a triple bill of contemporary works, showcasing the breadth of one of Britain’s leading dance ensembles. Later in the month, the Edinburgh Playhouse welcomes Lord of the Dance: 30th Anniversary (16-19 Jul), marking three decades of Michael Flatley’s global Irish dance phenomenon with all the precision footwork and theatrical spectacle audiences have come to expect.
There are also a couple of welcome offerings for younger audiences. Dundee Rep hosts The Cat in the Hat (30 Jun-2 Jul), bringing Dr Seuss’s classic to life, before Ga le (14-15 Jul) combines physical theatre, circus and live music in a playful story about three lighthouse keepers. Created for young people with complex additional support needs and their families, Ga le aims to create a truly inclusive experience as a non-verbal performance with amplified sound and sensory props.
July may be quieter than usual, but it still offers plenty to enjoy before the capital’s stages see their annual explosion of local and international talent. [Mika Morava]
Comedy
Hello, your new Comedy Editor Phoebe here! Nice to meet you! As excited as we all are to be on the countdown to this year’s Edinburgh Fringe, let’s not forget our dear friend July and all it has lined up for WIP season (yay!)
Chosen as one of ‘The Stand 5’ to be sponsored for this year’s Fringe, local treasure Mathew Gallagher prepares for his first-ever Fringe run by trying out some quippy one-liners and ideas for size (The Stand, Glasgow, 18 Jul).
Susan Calman revisits the stage after almost a decade out of the spotlight, testing the waters with new jokes and fresh perspectives. We’re very excited to see her back on the stand-up scene. (The Stand, Glasgow, 25 Jul).
The Stand presents Stand Up for Palestine, a fundraiser supported by an incredible bill of renowned comics. There’s also a raffle with prizes from local Palestinian businesses – what’s not to love! Head on over to show solidarity through laughter (The Stand, Glasgow, 6 Jul).
Trailblazing cabaret night Queer Theory impresses with a raucous lineup for its Pride-month special. Combining comics, drag artists and circus acts alongside musicians and DJs, clearly this is not one to be missed! (Mono, Glasgow, 18 Jul).
Over in Edinburgh, there’s much to look forward to. At the Monkey Barrel, Marc Jennings (2 Jul), Eva Peroni (17 Jul) and Kate Hammer (18 Jul) all gear up for the Fringe with WIPs detailing a range of personal journeys – from self-discovery trips to Costa Rica through to questionable interactions on Vinted. Shelf present their new kids' show (Monkey Barrel, Edinburgh, 11 Jul), no doubt a big ol’ delight for the entire family. [Phoebe Crawford]
Photo: Hugo Glendinning
Photo: Daryll Buchanan
Photo: Eoin Carey
Kate Hammer Ga le
This is Rambert
Frans Gender at Queer Theory
Photo: Diana Dumi
Features
22 As the Commonwealth Games return to Glasgow, we examine the city’s changing identity from 2014 to 2026.
25 What skateboarding can teach us about individual and collective connection.
26 One writer reflects on a love for gymnastics, and the sport’s complex relationship with gender.
29 Running and ambient music – why one writer ditched the high BPMs.
33 Jana Rush, Big Dope P and Chicago Footwork Scotland on the transatlantic genre finding a foothold in Scottish club culture.
35 Matt Johnson and Jay McCarrol on Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie.
38 Degree Shows 2026 – our team’s thoughts on Dundee, Edinburgh and Glasgow.
41 Lucia & the Best Boys’ Lucia Fairfull on the close-knit community that nurtured new album Picking Petals
45 Hen Hoose, Lomond Campbell, AMULET and Misty-Jo on escaping to the Highlands & Islands for recording residencies and retreats.
46 Daniele Rugo on Life Support, the devastating documentary using medical professionals’ footage of Gaza’s humanitarian.
47 Director Finn den Hertog discusses a new take on King Lear at Pitlochry Festival Theatre.
48 Currently exhibiting in Collective, Richard Maguire explores queer histories and colonial control.
On the website...
A look back on the legacy of indie publishers 404 Ink ; a recap of TRNSMT and gig reviews from tour stops by Arooj Aftab, Robyn and others; The Cineskinny podcast every other Thursday.
Image Credits: (Left to right, top to bottom) Martin Stubbington; Vaso Michailidou; Fiorella Quaranta; Andrea Bojkovska; Fraser Siu; courtesy of NEON; Fay Cardigan; Ronan Park; Rutger Emmelkamp; Life Support; Tommy Ga-Ken Wan; Richard Maguire
Shot of the month
BIIRD @ TRNSMT, Glasgow, 21 June by
Kate Johnston
Across
1. Agave liquor (6)
5. Bling for your schnozzle (4, 4)
8. The witching hour (8)
9. Optical illusion (6)
11. Res publica, successor of the British Empire (12)
13. Famous Irish actor’s first name, pairs well with 1 across (4)
14. A bean lad (anag) (4, 4)
17. Zone of ambiguity (4, 4)
18. Peak (4)
20. Under the spotlight, on a warm sofa perhaps? (2, 3, 3, 4)
23. Sci-fi author of Foundation and I, Robot (6)
24. Close of play (3, 2, 3)
25. In addition to (2, 4, 2)
26. Surface mould, usually white in colour (6)
Down
2. Cool; big poem (4)
3. Skeptically (9)
4. Pulse or bean (6)
5. Countries’ songs (8, 7)
6. To an extent (8)
7. Bedtime scaries (10)
10. Genetic messenger (3)
12. Condescends (10)
15. Gorgeous (9)
16. From the collections; related to record-keeping (8)
19. Infrequently (6)
21. Buddy, pal, friend (5)
22. Football, together with 15 down (4)
Compiled
by
Ema Smekalová
Feedback? Email crossword@theskinny.co.uk
Turn to page 7 for the solutions
GOT A QUESTION?
In this month’s advice column, one reader has fallen in love with a friend – and they’re not happy about it
I am in love with one of my friends and I know they don’t like me back. I want nothing more than to put it aside and stop overthinking our friendship but it’s killing me and it just won’t go away! I’m worried that they can tell and it’s affecting our relationship... what do I do!?
Falling in love with your friends is, I would say, one of the top three most inconvenient things that can happen to a person, falling only behind cancelled flights and not being able to find your keys. It is an enormous bummer, because it isn’t something you intended and it jeopardises a relationship you already have and that you actually like, and there is also very little you can do to make it go away. The friends-to-lovers industrial complex has a lot to answer for in peddling this scenario as the romantic pinnacle of relationships. Yeah, you’re known, yeah, you’re seen, but at what cost?
The simultaneously good and bad news is that the relationship is already fucked. I know this maybe doesn’t sound what you might call ‘good’ or ‘desirable’ or ‘positive in any way’ but hear me out. In such scenarios, what we are scared of is change and specifically our own agency within change, in having the power to make a choice and the choice being the wrong one. Here though, there’s no choice to be made really. The relationship has already changed. Say something, don’t say something. The dynamic between you already exists within this new context.
Because of this, I think you should say something. For full transparency, I personally would not say anything and would let the relationship fester in this weird liminal space until it became intolerable and exploded, but I have hopes and dreams that you can be different from me. Once something is out in the open it can be dealt with. There can be boundaries that respond to reality put in place, kindnesses offered, new dynamics and possibilities negotiated. Don’t say anything and it will become impossible to separate that friendship out from the shame and frustration you feel, and no relationship – friendship or otherwise – can really exist in that space of shame. Be brave, suck it up, and spill your heart.
At the Modern Institute, David Wojnarowicz: some day this will all be crumbling ruins prompts one writer to reflect on the power of photographic portraits to memoralise those who passed during the AIDS epidemic
Words: Nicole Matte
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s a lesbian living in New York’s East Village in the early-ish 21st century, it was an inevitability that I lived shoulder to shoulder with the ghosts of the AIDS epidemic. I read, watched, and saw a lot created by those who lived and, far too often, died during the ’80s and ’90s. People who walked those same streets, created and loved in those same buildings during a veritable plague. The public at large, the medical establishment, and surely their own government ignored them for a deadly long time. I wanted to know their names.
One such name, David Wojnarowicz, popped up a lot. An obviously prolific, impactful artist in the New York scene and then in activist circles, his name was, for me, on the periphery, often mentioned by other artists and his beautiful, strong face glimpsed in exhibits and books now and again. But I hadn’t really met him.
That changed last weekend in Glasgow. some day this will all be crumbling ruins (showing at The Modern Institute until 28 Aug) features photography, sculpture, prints, moving image, and paintings by Wojnarowicz. Walking through the space, reminiscent of the warehouses of his life, it was on loop in my brain that he died of AIDS at 37. I’ll be 37 in September. In a span of time that feels like a blink to me, he fought battles I have trouble fathoming. His work is diverse, sometimes startling, painfully beautiful, and so very brave.
On the top floor of the exhibition is a trio of images Wojnarowicz took of his dear friend and one-time lover Peter Hujar on his deathbed. It was difficult to look, but he intended for people to look. So, I looked, and I remembered.
David Wojnarowicz was a gift to the world, and I’m glad I finally met him.
David Wojnarowicz: some day this will all be crumbling ruins, Modern Institute, Glasgow, until 28 Aug
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If it’s July it must be the… Sports Issue?? Yes, we know it’s a bit out of character but bear with us. As the Commonwealth Games descend on Glasgow we thought this was the perfect opportunity to explore an area of the culture that we don’t usually cover. People can be into music and also running. An artist can be constructing a disco ball tardigrade one day and learning to skateboard the next. They could even do both on the same day – we contain multitudes, etc. Welcome to an off-kilter exploration of sports, covering physical learning and identity, ambient running music, Chicago footwork and football design. We’ve even got an interview with Finnie, the Games’ community-designed unicorn mascot.
Poster by Bugarin and Castle (p36-37)
Bugarin + Castle is a creative partnership between Glasgow-based artists Davide Bugarin and Angel Cohn Castle. Their most recent work for Scotland + Venice at the 61st International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, Shame Parade, explores space, shame and sound.
Curated by Mount Stuart Trust, Bugarin + Castle’s commission is a multi-layered new project that uses the concept of the parade as a lens to explore complex emotional legacies.
Shame Parade will come home to Mount Stuart on Bute, exhibiting in summer 2027.
Game On, Glasgow
It’s been a long 12 years. We take a look at the legacy of the 2014 Commonwealth Games and consider what the 2026 Games may offer Glasgow and its communities, amid trying times
The 2014 Commonwealth Games logo is well-stamped into collective Glaswegian memory: blue, yellow and red lines circled around an optimistically crisp green G. An anthropomorphic thistle appeared in its proud stance often – a hand on each hip and a wide smile. Cash wasn’t essentially obsolete and so the commemorative 50p – a cyclist and runner on one side, Queen Elizabeth II on the other – was a nice bit of marketing. For 2026, many of us expected at least a little déjà vu, most likely in the form of a friendly thistle or two. But, as we edge closer to the forthcoming Commonwealth Games, it’s clear that Glasgow is a different city than it was in 2014.
In 2024, it was announced that Glasgow would again host the Commonwealth Games, after the Australian state of Victoria suddenly withdrew as hosts in 2023. The city, however, was very clear: with financial limitations, 2026 would be a scaledback iteration of the Games. While the 2014 Games featured 17 sports, the 2026 Games features only 10. A lot has happened in those 12 years: the Scottish Independence Referendum, Brexit, an ill-fated austerity programme headed by the Tories, a pandemic, and the rise of the farright, all amid the UK’s complicity in genocide and international conflict. Such events shape and re-shape a city (and a nation).
The 2014 Games are largely considered a success. More tourism, more sports, more housing (see Athletes’ Village in Dalmarnock). Significantly, the 2014 Games cemented Glasgow as an international events host. Events such as COP 26 in 2021 and the UCI Cycling World Championships in 2023 continue to fill the city’s calendar, regardless of the countless travel disruptions and jaw clenching they may bring.
It was most certainly difficult to ignore the 2014 Games, with spectacle-like opening and closing ceremonies, and countless events around the city. Much to the misery of then-school pupils (myself included), the Games had an all too firm footing in the school curriculum of that summer term, with Commonwealth-inspired PE tournaments and sport-themed French lessons. Unlike the Independence Referendum, the Commonwealth Games had a political neutrality which was likely somewhat easier to work into lesson plans. It was undeniably easier to stomach than the mass propaganda of the 2012 London Olympics.
This year, the Glasgow 2026 Festival Fund has given £1.25 million in funding to community
groups across the city, to mark the Commonwealth Games. Recipients include Rumpus Room, Sunny Cycles, and Garnethill Multicultural Centre, amongst many others. Radical Glasgow Tours –also a recipient of the Festival Fund – are offering a number of tours which explore Glasgow’s relationship with the Commonwealth and the role of sport in shaping the city over the years. “At its inception the British Empire Games, as the name su ests, was an explicit imperial project, started in the waning days of the Empire,” say Radical Glasgow Tours. “We think it’s important to highlight how the violence of British Imperialism shaped and continues to shape the world and to speak honestly about the ways in which the Commonwealth Games have their history rooted in that Empire but also present an opportunity to learn from internationalist and anti-imperialists of the past.” From Black British Communist Boxer Len Johnson fighting at Ibrox in the 1920s, to the planned anti-fascist Olympiad in Barcelona in 1936, to the present day sporting boycott of Israel, Radical Glasgow Tours hope to offer both Glaswegian locals and tourists the opportunity to learn about how sport can play a part in wider socio-political movements.
“The Commonwealth Games have their history rooted in that Empire but also present an opportunity to learn from internationalist and anti-imperialists of the past.”
Radical Glasgow Tours
“Glasgow has always been a hotbed of community organising and the last ten years has seen lots of brilliant new organisations contributing to the movement in our city, from Mothers Against Genocide, to the Housing Stru le Archive, Living Rent to Rumpus Room,” say Radical
Words: Eilidh Akilade Illustration: Martin Stubbington
Glasgow Tours. In Glasgow, ‘radical’ culture is far from relegated to the margins – we’re a city built on it (as well as mass colonial wealth). In the mainstream, Glasgow’s radical past and present received international attention with Kenmure Street: first, with the protest in 2021; then, again, with Felipe Bustos Sierra’s Everybody to Kenmure Street in 2026. The city’s radical tendencies are rightfully under the global spotlight.
But Glasgow’s Games are no stranger to such efforts. SNP Councillor Graham Campbell is a political campaigner and community activist, who led Flag Up Scotland Jamaica, a twinning exchange project formed during the 2014 Commonwealth Games; such projects sought to acknowledge and reckon with Scotland’s colonial history. “The 2014 Commonwealth Games, the run up to it – especially the two years before – was all about whether Glasgow would have a cultural celebration which would actually reflect the Commonwealth, the world that was coming to us,” he says. As the Second City of the Empire, Glasgow’s relationship with the Commonwealth is particularly pertinent, directly profiting from colonial endeavours. With Scottish exceptionalism – the notion that Scotland is less racist than the rest of the UK – in the mix, the Games demanded a truthful confrontation with our history. Throughout the 2014 Games, gatherings in the Bri ait, the Glasgow Chambers of Commerce, and the African & Caribbean Centre sought to create space for critical engagement with the city’s past.
“We’ve become a much more diverse and multicultural society, more than we were back in 2014, because more people from more countries have come to live here that never had a connection with Scotland,” says Councillor Campbell. Our approach to the 2026 Games – and beyond –ought to honour such diversity. Looking ahead to this summer, Councillor Campbell recognises that we must continue to take responsibility for both our past and present. “I’d like to see Glasgow and Scotland play its role in the Commonwealth, speaking up for human rights, speaking up for democracy... speaking up for loss and damage, as we’ve done before at COP.”
Only months after the 2014 Games, the nation voted against Scottish Independence. In memory, the events sit somewhat disparately, as if years apart; a combination of puberty and political disillusionment likely has that effect. That summer was bright and busy; that autumn was grey,
disappointing. As Stuart Whigham argues in Scottish Affairs, back in 2014, it was assumed that the success of the Games could bolster the Yes vote; in hindsight, it was largely agreed that the Games had little impact on the outcome of the Referendum.
The Yes campaign prided itself on a Scotland which welcomed the world; separate from the UK, Scotland could adopt a more open immigration policy. At the time, it was difficult to conceive just how much immigration would become an utter obsession for British politics; at the time, it was difficult to conceive that racist riots would become an almost-annual event each summer. While Councillor Campbell notes his pride at the thousands who attended June’s anti-racist rally in Glasgow, the riots continue to loom large, particularly for communities of colour.
A quadrennial multi-sport event won’t save us from the rise of the far right, nor will it bring about a socialist revolution. “A capitalist packaging of sport as the celebration of the individual rather than an expression of the collective has stripped us of the ability to use sport to foster collaborative work and to build community through it,” say Radical Glasgow Tours. “But these games and the infrastructure for them, as well as the festival around them can be an opportunity to bring sport into our collective lives.” Whether it’s exchanging a panting ‘hello’ to another half-hearted jo er or catching up with teammates at a weekly five-a-side game, incorporating sport into our daily lives can offer small – but meaningful – moments of connection.
Community, however, relies on public spaces which do not merely permit but nurture these everyday connections. Glasgow, for all its brilliance, is currently lacking in that department. In the Southside, the Queen’s Park Glasshouse is under threat. In the East End, the People’s Palace remains closed, with no clarity on its reopening or long-term funding. In the city centre, the CCA’s doors remain padlocked. Increasingly, Glasgow is looking a little less tourist-friendly, with both Glasgow Central and the Mackintosh Building badly damaged by fires. No city is immune from budget cuts, particularly after a pandemic and a decade of austerity-led policies. But Glasgow seems to continue to sell itself – both at home and away – on the basis of the culture and community it is putting up for sale. It is an undeniably grim state of affairs for those of us who live here.
It is easy, then, to question why Glasgow is hosting this year’s Commonwealth Games in the first place. Admittedly, appearances can be deceiving. “There’s been no public money spent by Glasgow taxpayers towards the cost of these Commonwealth Games,” says Councillor Campbell. With funding from the Commonwealth Games Federation, as well as government support, this year’s Games are allegedly operating on a highly cost-effective model. “And because we’ve already got the venues, we’ve already got the
routes, we’ve already got everything in place, it will not cost us any money. It will bring, of course, some economic benefit.” Here’s hoping that the communities who make Glasgow so great see some of that good return.
For better or for worse, we’re not in 2014 anymore. 2026, HWFG. At the very least, Glasgow deserves a good time – maybe, just maybe, the Commonwealth Games can offer us that.
Glasgow 2026 Commonwealth Games, 23 Jul-2 Aug
Staying On Board
Helmet on, balance off – the skatepark’s ready to catch you. One writer explores how skateboarding can bring us closer to ourselves and others
Two years ago, in my mid-30s (let’s agree I’m still in my mid-30s and move on), I started skateboarding, which was not a sensible decision. By that point in life, I had developed a (fairly) functional understanding of risk. I knew that concrete is hard. I knew that falling hurts. I knew that learning a new physical skill as an adult is (often, almost always) humiliating. Yet despite all of the available evidence, I began repeatedly throwing myself at the ground. But it turns out that this was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.
Learning something completely unfamiliar as an adult can be a truly transformational experience. By my age, life can begin to settle into humdrum routines. We become (semi) competent. We know what we’re good at. We often stop putting ourselves in situations where we’re visibly terrible at something. Skateboarding demands the opposite. It asks you to embrace failure very publicly and repeatedly, to spend weeks trying to learn something that a fearless 12-year-old can do in moments without thinking. And yet, that’s absolutely where the magic of it all is.
Every bruise on my knees, every graze on my elbows, every ache in my mid-30s hips feels less like an injury and more like evidence that I had a really good time. Skateboarding has reintroduced fear, excitement, vulnerability and play into my life. It has reminded me what it feels like to be a beginner. As someone assigned female at birth (AFAB), I don’t think we’re often encouraged to have that relationship with our bodies in adulthood. Many of
us become disconnected from our bodies over time: through work and care responsibilities, through ageing and existing in a culture that constantly asks us to think about how our bodies look rather than what they can do. Bodies often become projects and things to improve. For me, skateboarding has shifted that entirely.
For an hour or two, my body is no longer
‘The thing connecting everyone is simple: we’re all trying to have a good time on a skateboard’
something being observed; it’s something being experienced. It’s not about how my body appears; it’s about whether it can stay over the board for another second. Whether I can commit to a dropin. Whether I can get back up after falling. Whether I time turning my hips correctly to finally get that half-cab rock to fakie (my ambition this month). For so much of adult life, we’re encouraged to think about our bodies as individual projects to improve, but skateboarding reminds me that bodies are relational. We learn through and with each other.
But while skateboarding has transformed
Words: Rosie Priest
Illustration: Vaso Michailidou
my relationship with my body, the thing that has surprised me most is the community. I have spent years working in arts and cultural organisations, previously as a community development officer for a national arts organisation, currently (among many other things) as a researcher for community engagement projects with another national cultural organisation. We (in arts and culture) talk endlessly about community. We build projects around community engagement. We run consultations, outreach programmes and participatory events. Yet on reflection, community is often treated as something external. The community is always somewhere else. It is something organisations reach out to, invite in, work with for six months or a year, and that we return from to our own sacred art bubbles. Community in this sense is a demarcated and commodified and extractable Other.
I started attending Cat’s Friday Skate Club in Edinburgh and like many AFAB folk, I found the idea of walking into a skatepark alone completely intimidating. I didn’t know anyone and I wasn’t good. But instead, I found one of the most welcoming groups of people I’ve ever met.
Six months after joining, I started volunteering with the club. I’ve watched Cat (the organiser) and a group of volunteers work tirelessly to create spaces where people can learn, feel safe and have fun. Sessions move between skateparks and DIY spots across Edinburgh, held together largely through determination, care and a shared love of skateboarding. The encouragement people offer each other is extraordinary. There’s no expectation that you need to be good. People celebrate effort. They celebrate trying. They celebrate you for just showing up.
The skateboarding community is genuinely intergenerational and wonderfully messy. People come from different backgrounds, different ages, different identities and different experiences. The thing connecting everyone is simple: we’re all trying to have a good time on a skateboard. It’s amazing what becomes possible when people gather around joy.
Skateboarders check in on each other too. Between ridiculous attempts and tricks, conversations drift towards relationships and family, work and mental health. The spaces between skating become places where deep friendships emerge. I jokingly refer to one of my closest skate friends, Katie, as my ‘skate wife.’ We skate together at least once a week. There’s something profoundly intimate about helping another person do something they’re scared of. Holding someone’s hand while they try something new. Standing beside them as they fail. Celebrating wildly when they finally get it.
Two years after stepping onto a skateboard for the first time, I can honestly say that skateboarding has changed how I understand community, how I understand other people, and how I understand my own body.
Taking to the Mat
Reflecting on a love for gymnastics, one writer unpacks the sport’s complex relationship with gender and his newfound joy of backflipping through such binaries
Gymnastics is a girl’s sport. At least, that’s what I thought as a closeted pre-teen trying not to give people any further reason to harbour suspicions about my sexuality. Football, of course, was the masculine choice. So, I joined a team and got called gay anyway. Still, to my mind that was preferable. I’d rather play football and be suspected than do gymnastics and be confirmed. Eventually I quit football and never bothered replacing it. I came out, moved away and shelved my dreams of sporting glory.
Throughout my 20s, a spotty attendance at the gym was my primary method of keeping fit. Then, in a predictably millennial crisis of mortality, I turned 30 and thought: “Everyone knows you’re gay now, Ross. Do the backflip!”
Dougie Graham, a pole vault coach and ex-stuntman, opened the doors of Primal Fitness in 2017. Based in a former industrial unit in Leith, it offers gymnastics, flexibility and calisthenics classes as well as more contemporary hybrid fitness training. While travelling around the UK as a management consultant, Graham had joined various gyms in a bid to keep up with his training.
“You could see there were a lot of adults wanting to do gymnastics but there was very little mechanism for them to actually do it,” he tells me.
“Classes were always at the arse-end of a Sunday night when the hall wasn’t being used... So, I really wanted to have something that could be an adult gymnastics place – not a kid’s gymnastics club with adult classes tacked on the end.”
My first class at Primal was taught by Jena Bishop, an American vet student who moonlights as a blonde bombshell gymnastics coach. She’s short, strong and startlingly adept at spotting men twice her size as they attempt a back handspring.
The number of men in the class was surprising. Not just men but straight men. Big, rugbyplaying, 6-foot-something boys who appeared entirely unconcerned with whether people thought gymnastics was gay or not. It appeared the only lingering worries about such things were my own.
Male anxiety about the perception of gymnastics as a feminine sport is nothing new. In fact, it continues to spark debate even at the elite level. If you watch male gymnasts’ floor routines from previous decades, you’ll notice that they tend to place more emphasis on grace and fluidity than most professional male gymnasts today. While the calibre of tumbling is now much higher, it has come, some say, at the expense of artistry.
Last year, the International Gymnastics Federation changed the rules to reward men for
Words: Ross Hunter
Illustration: Fiorella Quaranta
‘The fact that we associate gender or sexuality with such a plainly created sport says far more about humans and their prejudices than it does about gymnastics’
performing a leap in their floor routines following pressure from prominent gay gymnast Heath Thorpe. Previously, such elements could be included but would not be scored – even as leaps were rewarded in women’s routines. In Bishop’s classes, however, skills are not gendered.
I end up spending my Wednesday nights watching a cadre of straight men try their hand at leaping through the air while in a split. It’s rarely the most graceful spectacle. While many of the girls are ex-gymnasts or cheerleaders, the straight boys tend to come from sports where posture and grace are seldom considered. It’s why I love them. We’re all new to this, to moving our bodies in a way that can feel unfamiliar and occasionally scary.
And yet we stru le with different things. The straight boys are fearless. They’ll try skills in an instant that take me weeks to gear up for. Yet ask them to do a straddle jump and they’re suddenly like toddlers newly acquainted with their limbs. When I’d go to football training as a kid, I’d spend hours performing the masculinity that came easy to everyone else. What was natural to them – casual high fives, roughhousing, platonic pats on the bottom – was alien to me. Now, though, the straight boys enter a world that celebrates a pointed toe. Suddenly, I’m the one for whom all this feels natural.
On the surface, gymnastics is surely one of the world’s more bizarre sports. While it’s easy to understand the innate human desire to run as fast as possible or throw a heavy object the farthest, it’s more challenging to trace any primal imperative to launching yourself off a vault or flaring your legs atop a leather-clad, Dada-esque approximation of a horse. The fact that we associate gender or sexuality with such a plainly created sport says far more about humans and their prejudices than it does about gymnastics.
When I’m in that warehouse in Leith, gymnastics isn’t masculine or feminine. It’s not concerned with other people’s thoughts or judgments. So, I try my best. I train harder and leap higher and do all the things I wish I had the bravery to do as a child. And when it goes well? The straight boys clap and I smile. Because I’m no longer performing for anyone.
VARIOUS DATES BONGO’S BINGO
VARIOUS DATES BELFAST BRUNCH CO
VARIOUS DATES FEAST TO FLING
SATURDAY 27 JUNE DROPKICK MURPHYS
SUNDAY 28 JUNE NATIONAL BRICK EVENTS: EDINBURGH
FRIDAY 3 JULY ANTARCTIC MONKEYS
MONDAY 6 JULY THE MACCABEES
TUESDAY 28 JULY LENNY PEARCE
SATURDAY 1 AUGUST AN EVENING WITH CHICANE
SATURDAY 15 AUGUST
ICW:THE INSANITY SHOW
SATURDAY 15 AUGUST DEFINITELY OASIS
96 REVISITED CELEBRATING 30 YEARS SINCE KNEBWORTH, LOCH LOMOND & MAINE ROAD
TUESDAY 25 AUGUST
WEDNESDAY 26 AUGUST KINGFISHR
THURSDAY 27 AUGUST OCT (ON COMPANY TIME) UK TOUR
FRIDAY 4 SEPTEMBER PROGRESS WRESTLING THE ODYSSEY TOUR
SATURDAY 5 SEPTEMBER ARMAND VAN HELDEN
SUNDAY 20 SEPTEMBER DEATH CAB FOR CUTIE
THURSDAY 1 OCTOBER DON BROCO
FRIDAY 2 OCTOBER AGNIESZKA CHYLINSKA
SATURDAY 3 OCTOBER THE UNDERTONES 50TH ANNIVERSARY SHOW
TUESDAY 13 OCTOBER THE MARY WALLOPERS
FRIDAY 16 OCTOBER HEAVEN 17
SATURDAY 17 OCTOBER THE REYTONS
WEDNESDAY 28 OCTOBER
JAY PARK FT. LNGSHOT
SERENADES AND BODY ROLLS
SATURDAY 7 NOVEMBER ELVANA
ELVIS FRONTED NIRVANA
SUNDAY 8 NOVEMBER A NIGHT AT THE DARTS
MONDAY 9 NOVEMBER SKYE NEWMAN
FRIDAY 13 NOVEMBER PICTURE THIS
FRIDAY 27 NOVEMBER BBC RADIO 2 DANCE SOUNDS OF THE 90S WITH VERNON KAY
SUNDAY 29 NOVEMBER AVATAR
Run the Song
One writer let’s us in on what he’s running to, explaining why he ditched high tempos and BPMs in favour of ambient, drone and experimental cuts
When I started running, I expected it to be a stru le. In fact, I intended it to be. I wasn’t aiming to win marathons, but I wanted to feel its impact: the sweat streaming down skin, the increasingly laboured gasps for breath, the ache of muscles as the distances increased.
‘Forget runner’s high – come back to me when you’ve ran for an hour to the drone of a pipe organ’
I do very little in my life without music on, so to me it seemed totally normal that music would be on while I was running. Naïvely, the thought of running without music appeared to be like a kind of torture – a combination of doing something physically painful and intellectually unstimulating in service of… offsetting ingesting copious amounts of olive oil and butter? When I put my headphones on, I figured it was only natural that the songs match the energy of my activity. High tempos and BPMs were important; they would make sure that even when I wanted to fall over there was momentum to keep me going. Memorable lines and shouted vocals acted as a partner that I could tune in and out. I turned to the melodic hardcore of Turnstile, the bright and gleaming pop of Dua Lipa and Charli xcx, the a ression of rage rap.
But as I grew to actually like running, to become (gulps) ‘someone who runs’, I started to rethink all this. In his book Run the Song, writer and music critic Ben Ratliff writes: “I run with music to help me merge with the external world, but I am sometimes using it to help me define myself against it… to run is to be out in the world, but also to be alone.” Nothing summed this up more than ambient music, a genre that can be both all-encompassing and have a cocooning effect. When I ran, contrary to the popular belief that exercise can have a calming influence, thoughts took the speed as an opportunity to race through my brain. By relying on music that turned my mind off, music that melded with the movement of my body, everything else filled the gap.
Since the pandemic lockdown, ambient music has proliferated in an insidious way, spawning countless
anonymous ‘artists’ on streaming services spamming ‘curated’ playlists, and an emphasis on ambient as little more than Chill Beats to Live Your Life To. While there’s always been utility in ambient music as background soundscapes – from Brian Eno’s Music For… series to Hiroshi Yoshimura and Kankyō Ongaku – intentionality and personality are what separates the worthwhile from the exploitative. It was this intentionality that I sought to solve my problems; I wanted to fill my runs with interesting and conceptual sounds, not just Bird Song and Ocean Waves For Running To, freeing me from the shackles of setting a pace or reaching the next kilometre marker on Strava. This experiment transformed sessions, allowing me to burrow deeper into the music and climb away from what I was going to make for dinner, how I was going to do that thing at work, when I was going to text back that friend I’d left hanging. Listening to Grouper’s Dra ing a Dead Deer Up a Hill (otherwise now known as: me at the end of a 10k trying to get up Gardner Street in Partick) helped me pry new meaning out of Liz Harris's drowned and reverbed words; the silence and space inAna Roxanne’s Because of a Flower allowed the hustle and bustle of the streets and parks and bridges and riverfronts I ran past to leak in and “help me merge with the external world”; the sustained and patient notes of Kali Malone’s The Sacrificial Code had borderline psychedelic outcomes when matched with the fatigue of an extended run. Forget runner’s high – come back to me when you’ve ran for an hour to the drone of a pipe organ.
Words: Tony Inglis
Illustration: Andrea Bojkovska
Five ambient songs to run to
Belong – AM/PM
Ambient running music for beginners. If you need BPM to keep you going, this track will mirror the thud of your trainers hitting the tarmac.
Dettinger – Oasis 3
The presence of a beat tricks you into thinking this is familiar workout music at first, but its uncertain rhythms and hazy loops should begin to break through your comfort zone.
Cole Pulice – City in a City
Few things make running better than when the sun’s out, there’s a light, cool breeze, and there’s music that could soundtrack the opening credits of an underrated 90s indie gem.
Claire M Singer – Forrig
Music that melodically ascends and feels as if it might go on forever. If only there was such a thing as a never-ending hill sprint.
Earth – Seven Angels
Extra hard mode: 15 minutes of mean drone metal. Good motivation though – it sounds like running away from the devil himself.
The Beautiful Game
We talk badges and banners with graphic designer and lifelong Scotland supporter Martin Duff
Martin Duff appears on screen kitted out in a Scotland top, obviously. Our transatlantic call finds him in Massachusetts, where he’s participating in the Tartan Army’s takeover of Boston’s streets, bars and hearts. Now, Duff is no part-time cadet, he’s been to over 100 Scotland matches in the last twenty or so years, mostly with his dad. At the time of our conversation, he had watched Scotland beat Haiti 1-0, with Morocco and Brazil still to come.
While in Boston, Duff has found himself staying in his old university halls, where he lived during an exchange year from Edinburgh College of Art. “When I was here last time, I was 21, the furthest away I’d been from home, and I could not have felt further away from Scotland. This time I’m here and there are 10,000 Scotland fans standing outside the art school in kilts, with bagpipes.”
After graduating in Edinburgh, Duff completed a few stints in local agencies before founding Faith Studio in 2019, an independent graphic design consultancy in Glasgow. Specialising in brand identity, packaging and print design, his personal and professional love of the game has also drawn him increasingly into the space where sport and design meet.
“Football is perfectly imperfect, and the design reflects that.”
“Why do I love football? Whoa, that’s existential,” he says, looking out the window to the tartan filled streets below. “I think what’s so beautiful about it is that you don’t need loads of equipment or facilities to play it. Jumpers for goalposts is the common phrase. You just throw your jackets down, you’ve got two sets of goals, and you can play.
“It’s interesting to contrast that with what’s happening at the World Cup now. You need a $100 train, a $16 beer, a $30 hot dog and a $500 seat.”
He su ests that football is – usually – one of the world’s least gatekept sports, at least to play, with its accessible simplicity spanning languages, cultures and politics. In fact, the variety in style is what makes it interesting, and some argue that those who’ve cut their teeth on concrete develop skills that perfect pitches can’t replicate. For example in 2022, Palmeiras’ youth academy in São Paulo deliberately introduced a dirt training pitch to recreate the uneven and unpredictable conditions of Brazilian street football. The stated aim was to encourage improvisation, autonomy, agility and creativity, qualities coaches feared were being lost as young players trained increasingly on perfect surfaces.
This authenticity can be seen in football’s design styles too, evident in the banners, signs and flags currently being carried from Boston to Miami. “There’re people who probably don’t even know what graphic design is, but they’re laying out flags and thinking: where does the name go, where does ‘Tartan Army’ go, and what do we do with it?” explains Duff. “They’re not produced by the club or the national team. They’re made by the fans, handmade.”
As a designer, Duff doesn’t mind the ‘bad’ design, uneven lines or poor typesetting. “If it was perfectly kerned and beautifully printed with foil embossing, it would ruin it. It wouldn’t be the same thing,” he shares. “It almost takes the soul out of it. Football is perfectly imperfect, and the design reflects that.”
This need for authenticity causes a dilemma for the
professional designer, something Duff is acutely aware of when he is designing for the game. “Fans absolutely hate when their club rebrands. These people have ancestral ties to football clubs going back generations, so there is real meaning there.”
Recently, Duff found himself creating speculative designs for Greenland’s national team, in response to their attempt to join CONCACAF, the regional confederation governing football in North and Central America and the Caribbean. Careful not to pretend he could define their culture from the outside, his approach was to research and develop from what already exists. “You don’t want to place meaning or culture on someone, because that’s not your responsibility.”
Using the Greenlandic flag as his starting point, Duff carried its simple divided-circle form into the crest and typography for the team. Greenland’s landscape creates a unique league schedule, as travelling between regions, often not connected by road, can be expensive and weather dependent. In 2025, the national championship finals were played across 20 matches in 6 days in Nuuk. Duff framed the team’s identity around this sense of community and perseverance, with the line ‘Onward as One’.
Duff describes the real test of successful football design as a bucket list moment, and dreams of the day he sees a crest tattoo of his own design. “That’s a proper seal of approval: you’ve done such a good job that someone is literally going to put it on their skin.”
As for good examples, Duff praises Tottenham’s 2024 rebrand by Studio Nomad. He describes it as a strong example of walking the line between heritage and contemporary design. However, that didn’t stop them from finishing one place above the Premier League’s relegation zone that year. “You can have the best football design in the world, but if the team is complete and utter shit, you can get humbled very quickly.”
faith.studio
Words: Phoebe Willison
The Tartan Army in Boston
Image: courtesy of Martin Duff
Photo: Martin Duff
Greenland Team Spec Designs
Following Footsteps
With battling workshops and frenetic club nights, Chicago footwork has found a foothold in Scotland’s party culture. We speak to Jana Rush, Big Dope P and Chicago Footwork Scotland about the genre’s transatlantic journey
Northern Soul and Motown, voguing and house, jumpen and jumpstyle – dance styles and music genres have a symbiotic relationship. Dancers respond to the experimentation of producers; producers create music for dancers to interpret through movement. At the close of the 1990s in the South and West Sides of Chicago, ghetto house was being incrementally sped up to make way for dance crews to trial new routines. What ensued was a genre characterised by a torrent of chopped-up vocals, syncopated drum patterns and a blistering 160 BPM, known as Chicago footwork.
Jana Rush, a Chicago native and host of Rush Hour on NTS Radio, witnessed the dance style’s emergence firsthand: “Footwork started out as the type of moves dancers would employ when bangin’ ass beats were played at parties [and] parades. If you played the right techno, ghetto house, or gutta track, peeps would form a circle and start battling.”
Competition pushed the dance style further, with rival groups embellishing with split-second creativity and technical skill in the centre of the ring. Rush, who began DJing as a ten-year-old, remembers these developments predating the music: “This was well before footwork tracks were being made, back then the tracks were very experimental and gritty.” The sound would soon catch up, evolving into an underground club staple.
“Footwork is what the industry needed,” Rush says about the scene, “we keep it fresh and creative.”
From London label Planet Mu circulating compilations in the 2010s to footworkers in Tokyo battling to the splinter genre Japan juke, Chicago footwork has found pockets of adopters around
Words: Myrtle Boot
“Footwork is what the industry needed – we keep it fresh and creative”
Jana Rush
the world. Transported from one windy city to another, Edinburgh resident Jez Dunn first encountered Chicago footwork in 2011: “Machinedrum released his album, Room(s), which [was] his first footwork-influenced music, and I heard a Mary Anne Hobbs Breezeblock mix which had a couple of Chicago footwork tracks in there. That was the sort of thing that totally blew my mind.” Today, Dunn runs Chicago Footwork Scotland, an Instagram page dedicated to promoting footwork events, organising dance workshops and amplifying the genre’s engagement across Scotland. It was in October 2025, in the midst of Storm Amy, that Dunn’s vision was crystallised. Braving the weather warnings, Dunn headed to Edinburgh’s The Bongo Club to see Taso, a footwork DJ and member of Teklife, the legendary crew formed by the late DJ Rashad. “I only found out about it a couple of days before it was on,” says Dunn, “it felt like with a bit more promotion, it might have been a busier night.” In its formative state, Dunn described the page as “a focal point for people to come together… so that if you type in Chicago footwork and Scotland into Google, you have somewhere to find out what’s happening.” Since then, Chicago Footwork Scotland has worked alongside Glasgow club Stereo to hold professionally-led dance workshops. “They were organising Teklife’s fifteenyear anniversary, so it was great timing,” Dunn says
about reaching out to Stereo just prior to the event, “I messaged footwork teachers in the UK and one of them was free to come up… We had 30 spaces and they all got taken.”
Amongst those playing for the Teklife anniversary was Big Dope P. Like Jana Rush, the London-based, Parisian native found footwork in his youth: “I grew up making rap instrumentals as a kid, [but] waiting on rappers to record on those beats could take time,” he says, “I was intrigued by house music and enjoyed the fact you could do whole tracks without waiting after anyone. I started making club tracks way faster [and] incorporating my funk and rap influences.” By 16, Big Dope P had established Moveltraxx with friends, a label releasing footwork from Waxmaster, Traxman and DJ Rashad, alongside his own. “People got into it via different doors at different times,” he says about the spates of interest the genre has seen, “Planet Mu and Hyperdub got dubstep fans into it. We got the rap and club music people into it… It’s waves of generations now uniting.” He reflects on his interactions with the Scottish scene: “The LuckyMe crew were early on this music [and] educated the audience through their radio shows and DJ sets, people were ready for it when I came,” he says, “Scotland has always been ahead musically anyway.”
While footwork has been circulated by DJs in Scottish clubs for over a decade, Dunn hopes to see a similar uptake on the dancefloor. “We’re trying to reconnect the dance with the music,” he explains, “the dance style never really took off [in the UK] until the last couple of years, and really only in London where they actively reconnect the music and dance through specific nights.” One such night, 160 Unity, heads to Stereo at the end of the month – DJ Spinn, Jana Rush and Big Dope P are all joining the party, alongside a workshop from Chicago Footwork Scotland.
Dunn is hoping this swell of activity establishes a longer connection between Scotland and Chicago footwork: “I would love to see a dedicated group of footworkers who are coming together, training together, creating their own battles and club nights.” While Scotland’s clubland is yet to see battle circles and localised crews, with the likes of Chicago Footwork Scotland and Stereo championing the Chicago sound, Scottish footwork is finding its feet.
160 Unity, Stereo, Glasgow, 31 Jul
Headset: DJ Spinn, Sneaky Pete’s, Edinburgh, 17 Jul
Photo: Fraser Siu
Photo: Fraser Siu
Start from the Level
An exhibition at Edinburgh’s City Art Centre charts the practice of social documentary photographer Sandra George, revealing her contributions to feminist art history and Black British visual culture
The largest ever exhibition staged of the work of Sandra George (1957–2013), Sandra George: Start from the Level offers a longoverdue opportunity to encounter the breadth of an artist who spent more than three decades documenting the lives, stru les and celebrations of Edinburgh’s diverse communities.
Staged in the city where George lived and worked, the exhibition is both a retrospective and an alternative social history of Edinburgh, told from the ground up. As artist and exhibition co-curator Christian Noelle Charles notes, George captures moments that reveal “the true essence of what Edinburgh looks like. It’s not a touristy destination that everyone takes photos of constantly, but actually a place where people gather, build community, and support each other.” In her own practice, Charles celebrates Black joy and community through immersive, multimedia storytelling, making her ideally placed to explore George’s work through a contemporary lens.
Produced in collaboration with Craigmillar Now Arts and Heritage Centre, which holds George’s archive, the exhibition takes its title from a note scribbled in an address book: ‘Stop making assumptions about people. Start from the level people are based.’ The phrase serves as a
manifesto for a life spent looking closely, listening carefully and refusing easy narratives imposed on communities from the outside.
George’s approach was shaped by her dual experience as an artist and community worker. She studied photography at Napier University and later Drawing and Painting at Edinburgh College of Art, while continuing community work across the city. These intertwined roles shaped an artist whose photographs are both visually striking and deeply humane.
Focusing mainly on Wester Hailes, Craigmillar and Niddrie, George captured moments of celebration, protest, family life and everyday resilience: children in playgrounds, women protesting against male violence, workers at the Blindcraft factory, shopkeepers cleaning racist graffiti, and elderly women gathered around bingo tables. Unlike much documentary photography of the period, her work resists reducing people to symbols of deprivation or stru le. Instead, it asks viewers to meet people where they are, recognising their complexity with dignity and compassion.
Working within a field historically dominated by white male photographers, George brought a distinct perspective to social documentary practice. Her photographs are empathetic rather than anthropological, attentive to forms of care, kinship and community that are often excluded from official histories. They reveal how broader social forces are experienced through everyday life. In George’s words, photographs “are not statements of the world, they are pieces of it.”
The exhibition is rich with images that challenge assumptions about what community photography can be. Alongside photographs documenting housing campaigns, youth projects and political activism are scenes of friendship, humour and celebration. George was attentive to hardship, but equally committed to recording joy. Her photographs of children playing, learning and performing for the camera are particularly powerful. Again and again, her work finds tenderness amid adversity, revealing lives that are full, complicated and irreducible.
George’s intimate domestic photographs are as compelling as her community work. Her self-portraits are quietly radical in the way they assert her identity as an artist: a stylish young Black woman confidently wielding a camera and claiming her place behind the lens. Equally remarkable are the photographs charting her experience of
Words: Lottie Whalen
‘In an era marked by deepening inequality, social division and the resurgence of the far-right, her photographs remind us of the value of solidarity, empathy and generosity’
motherhood. These images follow the growth of her son Tyler, from a tiny, floppy newborn into a self-possessed young man, creating a moving record of care that positions motherhood as a subject worthy of sustained artistic attention. Noelle Charles points out: “When we document our own lives, we are doing so much more than just capturing a memory; we are actively taking ownership of our narrative. This is incredibly essential, especially for Black and POC, whose stories have historically been marginalised.”
By bringing together community documentation, self-portraiture and artistic experimentation, the exhibition reveals the breadth and ambition of George’s practice. It positions her not only as an important social documentary photographer, but also as a significant figure within feminist art history and Black British visual culture. For Craigmillar Now director Rachael Cloughton, the exhibition marks the culmination of years of work to preserve and promote George’s legacy: “Seeing Sandra’s photographs and objects from her collection, which the team have worked tirelessly to care for over the last five years, now take centre stage at the City Art Centre is an important step towards remedying a huge oversight of recognition in Scottish art history – both for Sandra’s work and the communities she documented.”
George’s insistence on seeing people in their full humanity feels especially urgent today. In an era marked by deepening inequality, social division and the resurgence of the far-right, her photographs remind us of the value of solidarity, empathy and generosity. They challenge us to look beyond assumptions and stereotypes. More than a retrospective, Sandra George: Start from the Level offers a lens through which to view our own times, urging us, as George did, to start from the level people are based.
Sandra George: Start from the Level, City Art Centre, Edinburgh, until 27 Sep
cultureedinburgh.com
Dalgety
Back to the 00s
Hidden cameras, smu led pliers and time travel; in Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie, Matt Johnson and Jay McCarrol have spliced together what’s likely the funniest – and definitely the most interesting – comedy film of 2026
Words: Ellie Robertson
In the mid 2000s, nobody had seen any proof that internet virality could make you rich and famous, yet there was a thriving online ecosystem of no-budget skit comedy and reaction videos, uploaded purely for the love of the game. “It was the wild west,” says Matt Johnson. Inspired by pioneers like Pure Pwnage and Mega 64, Johnson and his childhood best friend Jay McCarrol started uploading Nirvanna the Band the Show in 2007. “We were just throwing ourselves in front of the camera,” recalls McCarrol, the pair treating the project as an extension of their film school studies and an attempt to make their friends laugh, in a way that Johnson describes as “audience agnostic.”
Their web series, and the TV adaptation commissioned ten years later, followed Matt and Jay, lightly fictionalised versions of Johnson and McCarrol, who are chronically stoned and constantly concocting hare-brained schemes to trick local Toronto bar The Rivoli into booking their band. Their obsession with the 80s and 90s media of their childhood informs their ill-conceived heists. It also gives each episode a familiar plot to parody; over the years, the duo have taken on Star Wars, Jumanji,Indiana Jones, Mrs Doubtfire and more.
Matt and Jay never got a show at the Rivoli, but in real life, Johnson premiered his found-footage thriller Operation Avalanche at Sundance in 2016, going on to direct more conventional, non-improvised comedies like BlackBerry, with McCarrol as co-writer and composer. “It was the perfect training ground for how to tell long-form, 90-minute movies because they all abide by the same rules,” Johnson says of Nirvanna the Band the
Show, “the way that all stories are constructed.”
Now the pair are bringing their couch potato personas to the big screen in Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie. Two decades on, Matt is still dra ing Jay into doomed plans to secure a gig, which have escalated to the point of parachuting from Toronto’s CN Tower into a sports stadium. A botched attempt to recreate the DeLorean from Back to the Future warps the boys back to 2008, where the billboards advertise Grand Theft Auto IV, not VI, and Matt only notices things are amiss when a packed cinema cracks up at Bradley Cooper’s use of the f-slur in The Hangover.
Reckoning with the imperfections of the recent past is an apt direction for two film bros already stuck down memory lane. In real life, their work has put more distance between them and the classics they reference. “Making movies has completely dispelled a lot of the magic,” says McCarrol. “You study it like it’s a textbook of filmmaking. Does that diminish your nostalgia? I dunno. If I didn’t know anything about filmmaking, would the nostalgia be more potent?”
“I’m lucky in that I still don’t know anything about filmmaking,” Johnson jokes. “When you watch a great movie, the magic takes over and you cannot see the scenes.” Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie must be a great movie; trying to pick apart its fiction from reality is an uphill battle. Cinematographer Jared Raab has been shooting in this hidden camera format since the web series, capturing reactions from the unsuspecting public. Perhaps Matt and Jay didn’t really cut through safety harnesses to leap off the CN Tower – but they really did convince a security checkpoint to
let them through with the pliers. “We believe the ends justify the means,” says Johnson.
“Sometimes!” McCarrol adds.
This prank show style harkens back to Jackass and Borat, though a crucial difference has set Nirvanna the Band... apart since the beginning. “We’re never trying to embarrass somebody,” Johnson explains. Their characters are screwballs, but earnest, often winning the assistance of passers-by.
“We are really, sincerely, in the moment with them.” McCarrol agrees, “even though we’re making a comedy, we’re not trying to be funny.”
A little public disorder isn’t the only line they toe. With all the references to popular culture, even cutting in frames from Back to the Future to steal Doc Brown’s special effects, the pair consistently stretch fair use laws. “Our intention is to make the world a better place, to give people the confidence to go out and take risks,” Johnson says.
Nirvanna the Band the Movie brings the foundational principles of the early internet – the recontextualising of media, the right to react, the wild westness of it all – into cinemas. Most of today’s internet sits on a handful of billion-dollar platforms, curated by algorithms and loaded with ads, self-censored by the copyright-conscious to avoid demonetisation. This sci-fi romp of mid-00s nostalgia merges film with video from a historical, more radical cyberspace.
“I’m lucky in that I still don’t know anything about filmmaking” Matt Johnson
Nostalgia can be a bias that blinds us, but also a force for social good; something that feeds our creativity and friendship. Archival footage brings together the modern Matt Johnson with his best friend from two decades ago, and you can almost feel the real-life relationship bleeding through, in the line “if you’ve got a best friend, you won’t even notice getting older.”
Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie is released 3 Jul by Vertigo Releasing
GFT hosts a preview of Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie on 1 Jul in celebration of Canada Day
Bugarin
Castle, Set Upon 2026, Digital Image Image: courtesy
Artists and Scotland
Bugarin
Castle
Degree Shows 2026: The Reviews
Across May and June, DJCAD, ECA and GSA students showcased work shaped by personal experience and political urgency, often created against a backdrop of mounting educational precarity. Here’s our verdict on the emerging artists to look out for
Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design
DJCAD students showcase a multifaceted investigation of materiality and multi-modal forms, which are grounded in a sense of place. Works span themes of fragility, selfhood and the documentary.
Matthew Tilbrook’s clay spherical sculptures resemble planets and are displayed in dialogue with his photographic experiments. His figurative photographs depict giant rubber exercise balls suspended mid-air, which were themselves used to mould the cardboard papier mâché spheres that hang from the opposite wall and sit on the gallery floor. Tilbrook explores the relationship between sculpture, deep time, finitude and his own experience of chronic illness across material processes.
Luke Kelman’s process is also directed by a multitude of mediums for his installation of Pass, over / under which focuses on the motorway overpass. The central floor-sculpture consists of sheets of aluminium and steel at a series of angular planes which echo the architectural form of the highway. Road salt oxidises aluminium sheets and white thermoplastic road marking paint is melted onto steel rivets which resemble crash barriers. Photographs of the overpass are etched onto the sculpture’s surface to provide an indexical trace of the site itself. The wall pieces also
incorporate photography for which Kelman used a specialised colour film process which takes a positive print onsite. Kelman’s use of photographic film dovetails with his use of cassette tape, onto which a site-recording is transcribed and loops around the floor-sculpture, continuously deteriorating as it gathers dust over time.
Approaching analogue processes from a different perspective, Kirsty Scott’s film and installation To the Moon draws from Jonathan Crary’s book 24/7: Late Capitalism and the Ends of Sleep (2013) to explore sleep as a rebellious act against its inevitable commodification. Scott’s black and white film features a woman who is in the middle of an endless dream, with a piano soundtrack written by her collaborator Gillian Walker. To narrate the story, Scott films a typewriter as it transcribes the script’s text, its mechanical levers faltering periodically as the type hammer becomes stuck. Scott explores the physicality of early silent cinema whose imperfections are reminders of the human and rebel against the ever-increasing presence of AI in filmmaking and photography.
Ambivalent feelings on the changing landscape of Dundee are foregrounded in Abbie Fordyce’s social documentary works. Her architectural photographic portraits map decaying and abandoned buildings across the city. These neglected sites show signs of their past lives; one photograph shows peeling paint above a boarded-up door front which reads, ‘Welcome to the Westies.’ Once a bar by the Overgate shopping centre, Westies also happens to be the place where Fordyce’s parents first met. Fordyce foregrounds the way in which remnants of the past can be swiftly overwritten by photographing the contemporary graffiti tags which adorn the stone walls of buildings across Dundee.
Nina B’s work similarly researches the deterioration of Scottish postwar new towns, and the failed ambitions of social housing and brutalist architecture in the UK. Her work translates the photographic to the sculptural, printing images of neglected buildings onto fragile and transparent materials, as well as robust construction material to, as she describes, ‘highlight the landscapes’ perceived solidity with its tenuous reality.’
Domesticity and the elevation of the everyday are key threads explored
Words: Lucy Howie, Jj Fadaka, and Lucy Mills
by a number of painters in this year’s show. Fay Cardigan translates chintzy ceramic figurines found in the home to a monumental scale in her large-scale paintings. Cardigan carefully mimics the sheen of the painted ceramic surface, against which she incorporates plasticine as a tampering and contrasting material which covers some of the figures. In one painting, two figurines kiss but the hardness of the clay means their lips do not touch, coalescing between play and disturbance, femininity and fragility.
For painter and print-maker Kate McIntosh, the home is a space to investigate her relationship with her mother as the domestic becomes a space of both ‘comfort and confinement.’ Mirrors, windows and doors feature as thresholds and frames through which she paints quiet portraits of her mother. In a small-scale work, her mother’s presence is legible only by her unmade bed, reflected in a portal-like circular mirror.
DJCAD’s class of 2026 are guided by experimental processes to find new possibilities for a range of materials and forms. What is striking is a commitment to the present amidst uncertainty for young artists working in Scotland today; intimate observations of the everyday and atmospheric landscapes in flux offer quiet sites for navigation and resistance. [Lucy Howie]
Edinburgh College of Art
As ECA members of the University and College Union participate in a Marking and Assessment Boycott in response to potential job cuts, notions of precarity and instability permeate the ECA Graduate Show.
Many students choose to put a statement of support with their striking faculty alongside descriptions of their work. izi Coonagh’s ‘Stop the Cuts’ banner couldn’t be any clearer in its political position. Her installation, Blackthorn Boundary, a coven of branches and dried wildlife in the centre of the big white room, offered a space for rest and unravelling during a stressful period for students and staff alike. Natasha Faulkner’s sculptures also offer a space for reflection, in this case on the materiality of gender and the bind gendered bodies are under to be both desirable and productive. In the same room, Emily Carrell analyses man-made environmental degradation through eco-feminism, cyanotypes and photographs made with plant-based film developer.
Elsewhere, some artists are preoccupied with the body as a canvas. Scarlett Tooze’s You are Red and Blue, a series of jump-off-the-page collages, shows the body as a co-conspirator in escape.
Fay Cardigan, Kisst 2026
Image: courtesy of the artist
Ellie Maxwell has printed close-up photos of the body on stone to contrast the pressure we exert on our delicate skin. While Rumeng Chen considers the post-human form in her sculpture installation featuring human figures from our evolutionary past, present and possible transformative future.
After protest comes rest, and then fun. Two invigilators tell me Selenay Tektunali’s Baddie with a Bad Passport satirises the rigidity of how you must present yourself to have the Right to Remain or UK citizenship. Tektunali’s photobooth provides fun instructions on the difference between what you should say about yourself in a Home Office application vs a Hinge profile; unsurprisingly, no mention of the success rate on either of the two platforms. Neve Healy, meanwhile, satires the female experience at university. The Loser’s Guide to Being Cool zine made me feel at home within its glossy pages, with the main character fluctuating between confidence and self-doubt.
Yiran Chen’s disco installation takes me back to school parties two decades ago – pink lights, reflective CDs on the wall and all! FLEHM COLLECTIVE offer an episode of a hilarious puppet game show. Each castmate has pride of place on a podium, worked on and puppeteered by a combination of the collective – Melena Orleans, Toni Lay, Ellie Gilbert and Levi Andrew.
The Illustration students brought levity to the high stakes of a Graduate Show. Xiang Li has created a game, which I have to stop myself from jumping in front of a child to play. In Unbound Paths, players move wooden blocks to find their way home in a dreamland, underscoring Li’s desire to show “there is no single fixed order or direction.” This sense of directionlessness and reimagining also emerges in Li’s fabric collage depicting Dunbar, in which the location names are replaced by the artist’s personal memories of each area.
Poppy Morgan’s work lures me into the textile and design exhibition space. Her use of pop culture motifs, such as the Heinz Ketchup bottle contrasted with delicate lace, bring together design and humour perfectly. She isn't afraid of the hard questions, either. “Custard or Ice cream?” asks a lace collar, in reference to what you have on top of your apple crumble. Meanwhile, Honey Hughes prints farm life scenes on a handmade, speckled barkcloth, creating a tapestry depicting the origins of the clothes we wear and simpler times before the hyper-consuming modern textile industry we know now.
There is a treasure trove of talent within the Edinburgh College of Art, with artistic voices and practices that deserve the Scottish art scene’s attention. [JJ Fadaka]
Glasgow School of Art
GSA students explore themes ranging from geopolitics to communal experience to personal diary, altogether exhibiting an impressive display of technical skill paired with creative ambition.
In the school of Sculpture & Environmental Art, Scarlett Darnell uses humour to execute her sculpture and film display. She uses disposed aeroplane seats and mock-windows to frame the film, mimicking an absurdist flying experience. The installation simulates takeoff, not across skies but through familiar scenes, including Kelvingrove Park and St. Enoch Subway station. I sat engulfed by the modern-day irony of appearing well-travelled without turning from a screen.
Remaining in the Glasgow landscape, sculpture artist Genevieve Dawson inspects colonial histories through the Glaswegian home. This clever installation, titled Home Sweet Home, uses sugar glass to reflect on how a violent imperial past remains embedded within our everyday lives and domestic spaces. The familiar is morphed and uncomfortably disrupted through her art.
Meanwhile, other students turn their gaze towards contemporary global conflicts. The Venezuelan artist Valeria Guaimare presents I Didn’t Cry For the Petrol. Her suspended, mixed-material sculpture is wrapped in an iridescent surface, yet it’s broodingly dark, glossy, reminiscent of oil. The fixture is striking, with its fluid details appearing almost extraterrestrial and alive.
A look inside the sculpture reveals a warm glow from within, accompanied by audio clips of the voices of a hurting population. The piece honours the Venezuelan people, their heart, their stories, and a country historically reduced to its material goods. Similarly, Amr Alsirawan pays tribute to his Syrian birthplace using worn, aged and scarred material, to symbolise the culture’s perseverance through relentless civil war.
Across painting, print and photography, artists explored personal narratives, such as identity, memory, heritage and sexuality. Others take to social critique, analysing the feminine experience and clear proclamations of technonihilism. Gen Z creatives hold a contradictory relationship with technology, wrapped up in both affectionate nostalgia and bitter resentment. The former is prevalent in the work of Emma Irving, whose Nintendo DS photo display evokes a feeling of childlike play. Techno-nihilism can be found in the paintings of Claire Mackenzie, whose Technophobia series homes in on tech infrastructure, its assertive presence in communities, and the paranoia it breeds from its obscured production and opaque intentions of private owners.
In a vivid expression of familial love, Evie Robinson presents a series of bright oil and pastel paintings, portraying scenes of Nigerian life, family and folklore. Accompanied by a blended soundscape of Nigerian streets and quotidian conversation, I am immersed in her mind, where memory and imagination merge. Through colourful, psychedelic imagery, she celebrates heritage and joins in the practice of storytelling that inspires her work.
Similarly, Malak Naseem explores familial connection. Her work is layered and documentary, despite its first appearance as plain paper sheets. Informed by the artist’s Maldivian and Sri Lankan background, her prints beautifully archive family histories, leaving room for those faded and forgotten. A material of migration makes up this symbolic fabric; she uses packaging paper from her travels between homes and stitches them together with, as you will notice upon closer inspection, strands of her own hair.
Several painters share a through-line of femininity, imperfection and a pleasant element of strangeness. Allegra Lavinia Fleur finds her muse in sleepers and dreamers. Each subject is indulgently comfortable across their duvet, while voyeurs share in the intimacy of their sleep. Amy Blackbourne balances messy lines and raw seams with an eye for composition and pleasing colour pallets. Her dreamlike landscapes are playful yet severe, like the midnight etchings of a whimsical madman. Anna De Souza plays with space and dimension through their distorted etchings and paintings. Each scene feels as if you walked into a storyline with hazy plot points and mythical, charming details.
The 2026 Degree Show is a reminder of Glasgow’s fertile abundance of artistic ambition. Across each discipline, students portray distinct perspectives with creative fervour. [Lucy Mills]
Selenay Tektunali, Baddie With A Bad Passport 2026
Genevieve Dawson, Home Sweet Home 2026
Image: courtesy of the artist
Image: courtesy of the artist
In Bloom
Lucia & The Best Boys’ new album, Picking Petals, took root in Scotland’s landscapes, but as Lucia Fairfull tells us, it was a close-knit community of friends and collaborators that helped it blossom
The lineage of iconic Scottish frontwomen is strong, from flame-haired force Shirley Manson of grunge giants Garbage to Aberdeenshire-born global sensation Annie Lennox. And Lucia Fairfull is no exception. In fact, if anything, she’s aware of the baton passing from the greats before her. “We played Bearded Theory at the weekend, and Shirley messaged me saying, ‘What day are you playing?’ I said, “Fucking Wednesday and you’re on the Sunday!”
Despite the lack of crossover time with an artist who took Lucia & The Best Boys out during the European and UK leg of Garbage’s summer tour a few years ago, Fairfull is thrilled to be back on stage again. “I’ve been craving that human connection from playing live shows,” she admits, tucked onto the sofa in her Glasgow flat. “When you’re recording an album, you romanticise the idea of putting it out, but forget that it’s a long process!”
Lucia & The Best Boys have indeed been teasing us with new material since the beginning
of the year, slowly unfurling again in the warmer spring climes. In February, Fairfull shared Lonely Girl, the first single from second album, Picking Petals, a fist-pumping singalong tracing her journey alongside someone who’s trodden a very similar path. Guest vocalist Lauren Mayberry moved from the villages of Stirlingshire to global stages with CHVRCHES and delivers the sentiment profoundly as she soothes, ‘They say you’ll need to move away to live your dreams / Where I thrive is where I am / Yeah, I don’t need to leave.’
Picking Petals is the embodiment of that deep rooting. Written partly during retreats to Highland bothies and shaped by the landscapes that surround them, the record finds Fairfull looking closer to home than ever before. That spirit runs not only through the songs themselves, but through the people she chose to make them with. Among them is photographer Ronan Park, whose work with artists including Caroline Polachek and Rita Ora sits alongside a decadelong creative relationship with Fairfull. His creative vision shines through the album artwork, though Fairfull is quick to point out that the image was a collective effort.
“The day before, I borrowed a lighting kit from my friend. My two pals that I always have on shoots, Ponyboy’s MV Brown and Reece Spencer, did my hair and makeup. My florist friend (behind Neptune Studios in Glasgow) sourced a giant lily. Reece was blowing a leaf blower at my face. I was singing Cher into the flower in my living room,” she says, laughing. “But Ronan captured it, and it’s like magic.” It’s an anecdote that neatly sums up the spirit of Fairfull’s latest project: songs that began life in isolation but came into bloom through a community of friends and collaborators.
Another longstanding friendship informs recent single Big Romance, a slice of baroque pop featuring
Words: Cheri Amour
“When you’re recording an album, you romanticise the idea of putting it out, but forget that it’s a long process!”
Lucia Fairfull
The Last Dinner Party frontwoman Abigail Morris. Filmed in Woodside Hall in Glasgow’s Maryhill, the video finds the two facing one another, stark in black lace against billowing white curtains as they desperately try to reach for one another. One fan compared it to “Gaga and Beyoncé’s Telephone, but for the whimsical.” Fairfull laughs, before reflecting. “There’s an art in making something minimally beautiful on camera. Simple, but epic at the same time.”
Having written the record during retreats to Highland bothies, Lucia & The Best Boys will now return to those landscapes to perform the album in its most stripped-back form as part of a Highlands & Islands tour. The natural setting comes through instrumentally with a lot of raw and organic sounds: bagpipes, the fiddle, and the harp, core Celtic components that they’re hoping to bring to their reimagined set. “We’re playing the bones of the songs for the first time in the place where they were made. Honing in on those folk, slightly trad elements that are threaded throughout. It’s the only time that we’ll ever play these songs in this way!”
The tour takes in the Isle of Barra, Glenuig, Aviemore, and Fairfull’s beloved Isle of Skye (“I go two or three times a year if I can”), alongside a specially curated one-day festival, The Garden @ SEA in Brechin. “These communities in Scotland deserve to have these moments of music and human connection, just as much as the cities do. I’ve drawn so much inspiration from that land and that place, and I want to give back to it. It’s going to be one of the most memorable tours that I’ve ever gotten to do.”
For some people, Picking Petals will be a coming-of-age album. For Lucia & The Best Boys, it’s just coming home.
Picking Petals is released on 31 Jul via Communion Records; Lucia & The Best Boys play Castlebay Hotel, Isle of Barra, 6 Aug; Glenuig Hall, Glenuig, 7 Aug; Kilmuir Hall (Talla Chille Mhoire), Isle of Skye, 11 Aug; Old Bridge Inn, Aviemore, 12 Aug; The Garden @ SEA, Brechin, 16 Aug; Barrowland Ballroom, Glasgow, 23 Oct
luciaandthebestboys.co.uk
Photo: Ronan Park
Ready to Play
Celebrating their tenth anniversary, we meet Pete Fletcher, Cal Roden and Cosmo from Black Bay Studio, a residential recording facility on the Isle of Lewis
Words: Tallah Brash
Image: courtesy of Black Bay
“Ialways wanted to have a residential studio by the sea – it’s the dream.”
When Pete Fletcher told his friends in Nottingham of his plans to open a residential recording studio at the edge of the world, aka the Isle of Lewis, they thought he was mad. It also caused some mild confusion amongst some locals on the island in the Outer Hebrides. “I remember speaking to someone about the studio, they said, ‘Oh, another one! I heard that Paul McCartney is building a studio... I’m pretty sure that I was Paul, and the story had gotten a little out of hand on the grapevine,” Pete tells us.
As well as causing a bit of excitement for others on the island, it was a bit of a sticky subject at first. “While everyone we met when we moved up was friendly and welcoming, there was some resistance,” Pete explains, talking about his plans to convert a former crab sorting facility into Black Bay Studio, which has now been operating on the island for a decade. “It was completely understandable, having an outsider setting up shop in a place that really belongs to people that have lived and worked here for many generations.
“I think a lot of people moving up have big plans and little respect for the island way of life. Really, I just wanted to make records, and keep out of anyone else’s business,” he tells us. “I hope we’ve been good for the island, creating new life and opportunities. I hope that people locally are glad we’re here now. It’s an incredible place to live and work and we owe so much to the island and the people here.”
Having spent a very privileged long weekend at Black Bay myself, I can confirm that it is an incredible place. But so too was the journey there, watching the landscape slowly change the further away from Edinburgh and closer to the studio you got, the thrill as the digital radio signal started to twitch as the landscape became more ru ed and unpredictable. Once off the ferry and on the island, the drive from Stornoway to the studio on Great Bernera offers up occasional signs of human life – the odd solitary house nestled in the picturesque landscape, the famous Callanish stone circle, the Forage at Croft 22 honesty box shed packed with treats, the countless psychedelic sheep, marked by human hands for future plans.
“I think the journey’s part of it as well,” Pete agrees. “I do think it’s like a pilgrimage of leaving everything behind, you know, losing your phone signal and then arriving... A pilgrimage makes it feel like it’s something you might want to do,” he laughs across a plentiful dining table spread – deep pots of beautifully spiced homemade curry, homemade flatbreads, chutneys and free-flowing rice.
“When Pete was interviewing me, he asked, ‘you can cook, right?’ And I was like, ‘yeah!’, even though I definitely couldn’t cook,” laughs in-house engineer Cal Roden, whose dad, it turns out, is a
professional chef. “As soon as I got the job, I was like, ‘Eh Dad, I need you to help sort me out with some recipes cause I’m gubbed.’”
Pete admits that he hadn’t anticipated cooking being such a big part of the job. “We’re kind of running a hotel, really, as much as a studio,” he notes. Over the course of a week alongside curry night, artists can also expect evening meals themed around burgers, sausage and mash, pasta, risotto – “the classics,” Pete says. Or there’ll be nights that centre around ‘granny soup’, a recipe Pete learned on the island. After our meal tonight we’re treated to chilled affogatos – Kahlua coffee liqueur with ice cream, lads!
Watching Pete and Cal prepare dinner offers a little insight into what a band can expect during a stay. They’ve not long finished tidying the studio, wrapping cables and turning over bedrooms following the departure of a band earlier that day, and the two buzz around each other in the kitchen, I note, like a married couple. “I did think that when I was telling you, ‘Oh yeah, mind when we were really into those ice creams,’” laughs Cal.
The very nature of the residential studio means that in the four years since Cal joined Pete, the pair have become very close. On arrival there’s a friendliness and familiarity from them (and Pete’s family dog Cosmo, aka the studio’s official artist liaison) that feels like catching up with old pals, when prior to our arrival, we’d only spoken very briefly over email.
“That’s a really big part of it,” says Pete, “that people feel comfortable and can relax, enjoy the time, and have all the things they need, which they definitely didn’t when we first opened; I didn’t
“While everyone we met when we moved up was friendly and welcoming, there was some resistance”
Pete Fletcher
have beds or lampshades or curtains. It was like an airbed and bring a sleeping bag, because we were completely and utterly broke by the time the studio opened.”
Pete continues: “When we bought the building, I thought, ‘I can move my gear in, then I’ll get a band in and then bit by bit I can build, get some money and then start doing it up, but then quickly discovered that I couldn’t have anyone sleep here legally unless it was heated, and then if it was heated, I had to meet building regs, it was basically impossible. So I had to scale up our plans massively. We got some European funding, and some HIE (Highlands & Islands Enterprise) funding. I sold the previous studio we were at, our house and, you know, everything else.”
Black Bay Studio is the very definition of a risk that paid off. The residential studio can now comfortably sleep up to ten people, with the bedrooms bordering the creative heart of the operation – the control room and their exceptional live room. While no recording takes place during our visit, it’s hard to put into words how calm the
Image: courtesy of Black Bay
live room feels, as all outside noise dissipates like a huge sigh of relief. A mismatch of rugs break up its wooden floorboards, an upright lamp with a tasselled shade stands tall in one corner of the room, while the opposite corner boasts a huge window framing the bay outside where fishermen dive daily for scallops while others empty baskets of crabs and lobster. Enter at the right time of day and you’re met with the most gorgeous light, stretching its warmth along the ceiling’s wooden beams and out across an impressive array of instruments and amps collected over a decade.
“I think it’s quite different here to a lot of studios. I like to have lots of stuff ready to play, and that’s what the space is for,” Pete says. “I hate going to a studio and everything’s in cupboards and you have to work out what you’re going to bring out, put it on a trolley and, you know, get it wired up.” At Black Bay, you could arrive and be playing a gorgeous guitar, grand piano, analogue organ, congas, glockenspiel and more mere moments into your stay.
Since starting out ten years ago, Black Bay Studio has welcomed countless artists through its doors, from the first artist to record here, Jessica Danz, to more recently Teenage Fanclub, Brògeal, Silver Moth, Hen Hoose, Scott C. Park, Kathryn Joseph, Lucia & The Best Boys and Penelope Isles. It’s a space for those looking to write and work on new material away from everyday distractions; a place to create an entire album from scratch; somewhere to transform demos into an artist’s next magnum opus.
“I think of it as a time to harvest fruit,” Pete says of the recording process, and alongside Cal, the pair are there to help artists get the best from their crop. “Making a record is quite an indulgence for a musician,” Pete says. “It should be the time that you’re able to actually just really be an artist and properly engage with your music, with your bandmates or peers and, you know, do the very best work you can, because that record is going to be the record you made at that moment for the rest of forever... I think it’s important to have that focus and that’s what we try to offer, a place to just indulge in the art. And it’s a nice place to be. It’s different from everywhere (unless you live on a remote Scottish Island), and so it puts you in a different head space. It’s an experience.”
Celebrating their tenth year, Pete has grand plans for the studio to release their own album, created by a supergroup of artists who have recorded at Black Bay over the years. They’re gearing up to release their own digital plugin too,
“As soon as I got the job, I was like, ‘Eh Dad, I need you to help sort me out with some recipes cause I’m gubbed’”
Cal Roden
meaning that soon the sound of their impressive live room can be harnessed from anywhere. But what about the next ten years?
“It’s a funny situation for me personally. I had this thing I wanted to do with my life and now I’ve been doing it for ten years,” Pete says. “I guess I’m always striving to make a better record, you know, like a bi er, better record – it’s just an obsession that seems not to die... If we’re still here in another ten years, that would be a great achievement.”
In its ten-year existence, from Stornoway to the USA, Black Bay Studio has welcomed bands, musicians, producers and engineers from all over the world to lay down their next great idea. You
could put it all down to the draw of the location, the island’s breathtaking landscapes, the journey to get there, or the studio’s unreal live room, but what truly makes Black Bay special is Pete and Cal (and Cosmo, of course) who go above and beyond every step of the way. Listening to them talk about their work, they ooze passion and ambition; they’ve been the calm in many a recording storm and it’s what makes them tick. And of course, as we discovered first-hand, they can also cook a mean spread. Sir Paul McCartney could never.
blackbaystudio.com
Photo: Tallah Brash
Retreat Connection
Hen Hoose, Lomond Campbell, AMULET and Misty-Jo tell us about the appeal of retreating to the Highlands & Islands to hone in on their musical creativity away from life’s everyday distractions
Words: Zara Grew
From KNOCKvologan to Moniack Mhor to Black Bay Studio, we are seeing an alternative to the traditional writing and recording experience. Popping up on Instagram posts, shouted out in the middle of sets and printed teeny-tiny on the back of records are these Highlands & Islands studio spaces and retreats. While hunkering down in a studio in some remote, picturesque part of the world is absolutely not a new phenomenon, the idea of a retreat has often felt quite nomadic or elite, and not entirely practical or accessible to emerging artists or communities underrepresented in the arts.
Recently, though, it feels like there’s been a shift. In this busy, noisy, unrelenting world, it’s no wonder the distance is so appealing. Singersongwriter Misty-Jo was part of a songwriting and recording retreat called First Stages run by Moniack Mhor in Kiltarlity in the Highlands. The programme is dedicated to supporting emerging artists to take their first steps into the music industry. The fully funded retreat, supported by the Scottish Government through the Youth Music Initiative, brought together 12 young people from across Scotland who might have previously stru led to have their work heard.
For Misty-Jo, the experience allowed her to reconnect with the idea of music as a career and a vocation. “I studied music but you get sucked in by day-to-day life, having to pay rent, having to work on the side,” she says. “What was magical about the retreat is that it was really a time to disconnect from everyday life, it really pushed me towards music in a way I didn’t know I needed.”
Glasgow-based folk duo Amulet took part in a more specialised residency at KNOCKvologan Studios on the Ross of Mull. The distinctive pink granite from the region formed the focus of the project where they made music in tandem with the landscape and locals. Bandmember Joseph Flower found that the residency not only gave them dedicated time to create, but an opportunity to speak to people in the area, which made a big impact on the music they created.
“Miek and Rutger, who run KNOCKvologan, are good at making sure that the residencies are very connected to the community,” Flower says. “We spent a lot of time with people who work and live there, like people in the pub who would sing us songs… and stonemasons, people who were working with the rock.” These interactions became part of the creative process, with field recordings and music shared by locals used in their live performances that formed part of the residency.
Knowing the community was part of it and being invited to shows helped ground them in their work: “It’s something about the pressure,” Flower says. “Not pressure in a bad way, but like pressure because you tell everyone what you’re going to do and then you’re committed to doing it.”
Inverness-based Lomond Campbell recorded Kathryn Joseph’s SAY Award-nominated WE WERE MADE PREY. album at Black Bay Studio on the Isle of Lewis. Describing it as “otherworldly,” recording at the residential studio one November, he was fortunate enough to experience the thrill of the Northern Lights while there. “You do really feel like you’re right at the edge of something and you’re
“You do really feel like you’re right at the edge of something and you’re about to fall off the map”
Lomond Campbell
about to fall off the map,” he says. “It does have an impact on you, it feels like you can make as much noise as you want.” One of his key takeaways was how productive the experience became. “I don’t think I’ve worked as quickly on a record before,” he states. “So completely getting away from everything and just throwing yourself into your work can be really fruitful.”
Hen Hoose founder Tamara Schlesinger had a similar experience at Black Bay where 12 members of the collective wrote and recorded The Twelve together in just one week. “The reason we did a residency rather than a traditional studio experience is that idea of ‘return to home,’” she says. “I think the return to home to decide what you’re eating for dinner, and you know, if you have kids, for example, doing bedtime, and all these kinds of distractions, that was all removed.”
Fellow hen Jill O’Sullivan found inspiration in being removed from her usual surroundings. “Usually I write while looking out my tenement window, so the opportunity to go somewhere else and look out a window to see sheep, various seabirds, seals, the sound of waves hitting rocks and the sea in general was a unique, visceral experience for me.” She continues: “It was more or less unique for all of us; we were unified in that new experience and drawing from it while we wrote. I personally think that helped us make a cohesive-sounding album despite the diversity of musical genre amongst the hens.”
Across all of these experiences, it seems the retreat is less about solitude and more about connection – with the self, other artists, communities and our relationship with space and place. Dedicated time free from distraction and responsibility, and the opportunity to connect more deeply with people and place allows creativity to be prioritised, nurtured and given the care it needs to flourish.
Follow Misty-Jo, Amulet, Lomond Campbell and Hen Hoose on Instagram at @mistyjoofficial @amulet.scroll @lomond_ campbell @hen_hoose
Find out more about the residential studio spaces and retreats at moniackmhor.org.uk / knockvologan.net / blackbaystudio.com
Amulet performing on residency at KNOCKvologan Studio
Photo: Rutger
Emmelkamp
Breaching the Blockade
Daniele Rugo’s devastating documentary Life Support follows international medical professionals who are bringing out images and first-person testimonies of the humanitarian crisis unfolding in Gaza
In early 2024, Italian filmmaker Daniele Rugo already knew that his next documentary would be about the sustained onslaught on Gaza by Israeli military – the International Court of Justice having already determined it plausible that Israel had committed genocide in Gaza. The exact angle Rugo would take with the eventual film, Life Support, presented itself during an encounter with producer William Parry at a screening of Rugo’s 2023 doc The Soil and the Sea, about atrocities of the Lebanese Civil War. Parry mentioned that there was a group of doctors meeting in Oxford, some of whom had been able to enter Gaza on emergency medical missions to support Palestinian healthcare workers.
“We attended one of the small gatherings,” Rugo tells me, “and Professor Nick Maynard [a leading gastrointestinal surgeon] was giving evidence to a group of colleagues after having just returned from his second trip to Gaza. I think their first mission was at al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir al-Balah, which had been hit while they were there, and he showed pictures of damage to one of the hospital’s external walls. This was key evidence. We knew this was happening because Israel has been doing this for the best part of 40 to 50 years – has done it in Lebanon, in the West Bank and so on.
“In spring 2024, it was clear that Israel was not going to allow international journalists to go in and report from the ground, and already it was very evident that Israel was going to go after Palestinian journalists speaking via various outlets to the rest of the world. But when the evidence comes from a doctor who’s there on a humanitarian mission, who’s completely independent [with] no relation to any of the groups on the ground, that hits in a different way.”
Rugo and Parry pitched their documentary on the crisis in Gaza to Maynard as one that would be told via the testimonials and personally recorded footage of international healthcare workers, and they found a keen participant. Maynard helped establish a network of other doctors willing to help. Additionally, the NGO that had sent Maynard to Gaza, Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP), was also happy to collaborate and grant access to footage the doctors were taking. “It was already clear in MAP’s view,” Rugo says, “that [while] the doctors were [helping] clinically, really they were there to bear witness and to try, then, to relay to more sympathetic media what was going on; to counter talking points that the Israelis were communicating and the propaganda emerging.”
Some of the participants had been going to Gaza since 2009 to help and grow the healthcare system there, and many of them, particularly the junior doctors, frequently faced professional
Words: Josh Slater-Williams
consequences for their advocacy upon returning home. “They’ve really stru led, but they’ve never stopped,” Rugo says. An issue, though, especially since late 2023, is their entry into Gaza. “The World Health Organisation supports the mission, but Israel ultimately decides who [enters] and when. It’s completely arbitrary; you don’t find out you’re not on the list until you’re in Jordan and about to board a bus, or in Egypt before they destroyed Rafah.”
The participants had already been filming their trips before coming on board, though Rugo notes that after committing, there was a noticeable increase in the detail they were capturing, including talking to Palestinian colleagues on video and getting their experiences documented. “Some started recording more of daily life outside of the hospitals, because we weren’t really getting reports of how people were living amid a forced starvation,” explains Rugo. “The famine had been denied many, many times. And then you see the material the doctors bring back, and it’s so very evident that there’s no food, absolutely no aid coming in.”
In terms of other collaborators from the West, Life Support includes Susan Sarandon, Paul Weller, Melissa Barrera and Asif Kapadia among its executive producers, while Robert Del Naja (aka 3D from Massive Attack) and Euan Dickinson are on co-scoring duties. “We worked with Habib Shehada Hanna, this wonderful Palestinian
composer who composed the oud-based material,” long-time Massive Attack fan Rugo says. “I love their music and it really helps the film, but I thought we needed [additional material] because [it’s] ultimately a story of Western doctors going to Gaza. We need to bring another musical element speaking to [both] that and the ominous nature of the threat; the intensity of the violence.”
Life Support also has two credited Gazan cinematographers, Mahmoud Abou Hamda and Suleiman Hejjy, one of whom nearly lost his leg living through the famine. “They brought really stunning images out, from both before and [during] the genocide,” Rugo says. “The doctors are limited to the hospitals’ surroundings. They can’t go around as they want. [The two cinematographers] are professional image-makers who know how to frame and think of lensing differently. My goal was to have an aesthetic that would balance the urgent, first-person material of the doctors with a compositional beauty to a certain extent, which could give back some dignity to the Palestinian people – who ultimately continued to live and, as much as possible, build life amid absolute annihilation.”
Life Support is released 10 Jul by Dartmouth Films. A new album curated by Massive Attack’s Robert Del Naja will be released alongside the theatrical run, with proceeds going towards NGOs supporting Palestinian healthcare workers
An Intimate Lear
Director Finn den Hertog discusses a new King Lear at Pitlochry Festival Theatre which places dementia, family and feminine leadership at the heart of Shakespeare’s great tragedy
Words: Jake Kendall
We can assume that the palace of the ageing King has been filled with speculation, private hopes and expectations. It is plain that his time is almost up, as it will be for several nobles of his generation, and that the established balance of power will soon shift. Still, the court is shocked to see the King volunteering to give away his lands and power prematurely, exchanging portions of his kingdom for acclamations of love and loyalty from his three daughters. It is an act of vainglorious folly, a repulsive charade of fawning and flattery that sets the sharks circling, and the one daughter with the integrity to abstain from it is banished from this kingdom of fools, just as it begins to tear itself apart.
Thus begins King Lear, one of Shakespeare’s great tragedies, which comes to the Pitlochry Festival Theatre for the first time in its 75-year history from 4 July-1 August. This production stars stage icon Maureen Beattie in the title role –just Lear – while Forbes Masson heads up a stellar supporting cast of Scottish acting talent. The return to Shakespeare is a key focus of Alan Cumming’s inaugural season as Artistic Director of Pitlochry Festival Theatre, with both lead actor and director Finn den Hertog signing up immediately for a Scottish and female vision of this timeless tale.
Director den Hertog likens the opening scene and the central premise of Lear to “the making of a will prior to death,” with the horrified testator finding themselves in the awkward situation of witnessing acrimonious repercussions as they unfold; watching on as self-interest turns children against their parents and sets brother against brother.
Yet, there is a great necessity to the making of this living will. Our Lear is an ageing woman experiencing the onset of dementia. Immediately this shift recalibrates her desire to hold onto the trappings of power while relinquishing the responsibility of rule from a decision rooted in a rapacious ego, and more like a confused admission of a growing vulnerability. Her belief that she will be permitted to both have her cake and eat it is pure delusion, and her stru le stems from the fact that her
kingdom does not share it. As den Hertog says: “She believes that she will be seen and treated like a queen, because she remains a queen in her own eyes. She cannot see that she has made herself the queen’s mother.”
Power, rank, and even names are all stripped away and reconfigured throughout this play. In the opening scene, the regal Lear is venerated, protected onstage by an invisible forcefield of respect. Within just a few scenes, that protection is annihilated; her former subjects dare to stand closer, to touch her, mock her and revile her to her face. This trauma combines with her cognitive decline, causing a profound spiral in which the sand of established certainties shifts all around her and identities begin to mutate. This reframing of Lear as a person experiencing a cognitive decline is a clever decision – one that will fundamentally change how we hear lines such as “Who is it that can tell me who I am?” Presented less as a puffed-up rhetorical from a wounded blowhard and more as a sincere reflection, the question will almost certainly feel more poignant.
This empathetic reading of characters extends to the villains of the tale. Shakespeare tends to muddy the moral waters of his writing, and Edmund, the primary antagonist of King Lear, is a great example. Edmund is the bastard son of the Duke of Gloucester; his introduction to the story is replete with insults and humiliations from a noble father who mocks him to his face. The soliloquy that follows considers the unfairness of those slighted by society and urges the marginalised to challenge their status. Yet, den Hertog is especially keen for the audience to understand the injustice of his station and treatment. Likewise, he also wants his audience to feel the frustrations of Lear’s duplicitous daughters Goneril and Regan, who find that they cannot tolerate their mother’s excesses or her intention to hold onto the glory of her title and divest herself of the work.
Mistreatment and bad parenting appear to be a feature of both noble families, insinuated strongly on Lear’s behalf and shown obliquely through Gloucester. The three ungrateful and violent children are not psychopaths looking to hurt their supposed loved ones to make cruel sport. Instead, they represent the subtle tragedies of self-interest, entitlement and generational trauma. After all, human monsters are thankfully rare, but each day we will meet flawed, ambitious and desperate people who can be compelled towards evildoing, and in the wrong circumstances, these more banal evils can be just as dangerous. With its raging thunderstorms, mutilations and civil strife, the story of King Lear is simultaneously personal and epic. It is a narrative in which history and mythic comingle. However, by focusing on its intimate aspects and the familial relationships that form its core, den Hertog’s Lear promises a very humanistic interpretation, veined with the eternal anxieties of status, decline and the fragility of order.
Lear, Pitlochry Festival Theatre, 4 Jul-1 Aug
The cast of Lear
Photo: Tommy Ga-Ken Wan
Queer Histories and Colonial Control
At Edinburgh’s Collective Gallery, artist Richard Maguire investigates the surveillance of sexualities under colonialism through drawings and sculpture
Imeet Richard Maguire as he is prepping for his solo show, There Is No Beginning, As There Is No End. This show features new work made and presented as part of Time + Space, Collective Gallery’s open programme for early-career artists. Maguire has been using Collective Gallery’s Hillside Gallery as a studio space; I sit with him at a table spread with a little gallery of sculptures – dormant until he gently picks them up to tell me more about the work. We have a wee gi le about the Mariah Carey reference in the show’s title, and our shared experience of growing up in the North East of Scotland. Soft-spoken and thoughtful, Maguire is generous with his time and explanations.
Maguire’s drawings and sculptures negotiate different historical aspects of sexuality and surveillance. He looks at how homosexuality has been weaponised by British colonial powers in South Asia, how this is bound to labour and production, and in the same breath, how we cannot divorce this past from our present. Within this, moments of tenderness emerge in his work. Clasped hands and vulnerable bodies are recurring motifs, sometimes foregrounded, sometimes only flashing peripherally as your eyes move across the space.
The location of the Hillside Gallery – its closeness to neoclassical monuments to David Hume and Dugald Stewart, along with the old site of Calton Jail – is not lost on Maguire. He says “I like the idea of having work that sat either in or underneath this site of the Scottish
Enlightenment.” This is an apt spot for an exhibition that foregrounds colonial histories that the mythology of the Enlightenment simultaneously obscures and depends on. Working with Collective Gallery to deliberately enhance how cold and stark the concrete gallery feels, Maguire creates a jail-like setting to explore colonial penalism and the surveillance of sexualities and bodies.
Multiple drawings – The Premises of Stricture (2025) and Pleasure Garden (2026) – feature chain-link fences. He tells me that “part of the idea of referencing them was to talk about juridical changes of forms of slavery, how indigenous systems or Islamicate systems were abolished to make people vagrant under the law and moved people either to plantations or then off to the East Indies or the Caribbean. And that was under the doctrine of [Enlightenment] humanity in some sense.” These exploitative systems were never erased. They were only transformed, transferred to different geographies, and still recur in the present.
Across his drawings and sculptures, we can see Maguire’s mimetic approach, as he replicates archival images and aspects of material culture. Maguire says that when he is finding references “I’m always looking for people, for figures, and how they exist in relation to the context of the image.”
There Is No Beginning, As There Is No End draws on the work of Sri Lankan photographer Lionel Wendt, Hindu statuary, and Islamic miniatures. Pleasure Garden (2026) explicitly links the production of European sexual pleasure and identity to the colonial exploitation of labour through imposing a latex condom onto a rubber plantation, the condom partially obscuring the palm trees. Stone carvings of unnamed tea and latex plantation workers solidify Wendt’s ephemeral, erotically-charged photographs. Pewtercast clasped hands draw out Islamicate conceptions of samesex desire through oblique reference to Mir Baqi and the Babri Masjid, destroyed in 1992. Maguire’s work has a shifting, speculative edge. This was something he previously explored in his work for Edinburgh Art
Words: Eleanor Affleck
‘[Maguire] looks at how homosexuality has been weaponised by British colonial powers in South Asia, how this is bound to labour and production’
Festival’s Platform 2023, recreating destroyed jewellery and textiles to explore how enslavement impacts familial bonds.
Maguire’s initial background was in printmaking, a practice focused on replication and multiples. He then began exploring this replication through drawing. He says of his drawings: “often in person they’re quite hard to decipher – whether they’re printed, whether they’re photographs, or whether it’s a drawing itself but not by me.” His exploration of replication has now expanded into 3D space through sculpture across different media at different scales – stone carving, cast pewter, and silver leaf.
We discuss how being a working artist often comes with material constraints – you’re producing work you know will sell commercially at the cost of being more experimental, often restricted by the space you’re working out of. Time + Space has given Maguire the opportunity to revisit making works at scale, and the scope to be experimental with his materials. He tells me that “being able to move through different media has been nice” – we talk about being able to play with materials like latex and silver leaf. The latex isn’t making the final show (apart from in the aforementioned condom), though silver leafing is looking like it will. Maguire chose silver leaf because “I wanted something that tied different materials together but also that warped in space, and things like graphite... have that kind of reflective quality. I like the idea of this thing that shifts between being lighter and darker than the wall as you move in space.”
Light does shift as you move around There Is No Beginning, As There Is No End. Graphite, pewter and silver leaf catch the corner of your eye before flattening again. There’s a queerness to his works which, while captured, evade capture.
Richard Maguire, There Is No Beginning, As There Is No End, Collective Gallery, Edinburgh, until 14 Sep
collective-edinburgh.art/event/richard-maguire/
Richard Maguire, The Premises of Stricture, 2026
Sounds Good
July Highlights
17th Edinburgh Jazz & Blues Festival: Tuba Skinny
18th Edinburgh Jazz & Blues Festival: Davina & The Vagabonds
23rd Edinburgh Jazz & Blues Festival: Brian Kellock: A Life in Music
24th Edinburgh Jazz & Blues Festival: Classic Jazz Orchestra
24th Edinburgh Jazz & Blues Festival: Jerron Paxton
25th Edinburgh Jazz & Blues Festival: Afrobeat Party: London Afrobeat Collective | Samson Sounds | Samedia Shebeen
30th The Songs of Joni Mitchell with Jesca Hoop, Lail Arad & more
1st Eric Johnson
2nd Lloyd Cole 9th Ladysmith Black Mambazo
16th Le Vent Du Nord
17th21st Daniel Kitson: Thrum
25thThe Sound of Scotland: Shooglenifty, FARA & Heron Valley
26th28th Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Rumours’ with the Transatlantic Ensemble
Album of the Month
Lucia & The Best Boys — Picking Petals
Glasgow indie pop stalwarts Lucia & The Best Boys are one of the country’s most do edly determined bands. Their leader, Lucia Fairfull, has been unafraid to shapeshift over the last nine years as a songwriter and high-end fashion model, working with the likes of Alexander McQueen. Equal measures of self-reckoning, vulnerability and fearlessness have been the catalyst to her artistic growth, while her trademark visceral live performances have also seen her and her Best Boys (Ally Scott, Adam Campbell and Christopher Ballantyne) transcend from their hometown’s smallest venues to its arguable pinnacle – the iconic Barrowland Ballroom – later this year on Friday 23 October.
The band’s second album Picking Petals stands as a testament to this rise. The neatly crafted baroque-pop of Big Romance, featuring their close friend Abigail Morris of The Last Dinner Party, sets the record’s bold tone. Its accompanying video may show the pair dressed all in black, embodying the song’s longing lyrics, but with such bright intertwining melodies, it’s no surprise they’re dancing in tandem towards its conclusion.
Pairing this with the fist-bumping album opener Back Inside My Heart and the compellingly
catchy lead single Lonely Girl featuring CHVRCHES’ Lauren Mayberry, you get the sense that Picking Petals is unified by the band’s resilient ethos. Not only that, the latter track also encapsulates Fairfull and Mayberry’s uncompromising stance on being seen as Scottish women in music: ‘They say you’ll need to move away to live your dreams / Beside the stars and you’ll go far, or so it seems / But I’ll dip my toes in water when I need that clarity / Where I thrive is where I am, yeah, I don’t need to leave.’
With such lyrics in mind, a spirit of home also permeates across Picking Petals. The band found solace writing in bothies in the north of Scotland while making the album, resulting in trad flavoured moments like You Look Like Somebody In Love and the title track’s lyrical imagery using a wilting thistle as a metaphor for growth and transformation. Other highlights such as the lilting Ephemeral channel essences of The Cranberries, while Forgot the Arrow’s tenderly minimal arrangement gives space for Fairfull’s vocals to come to the fore in their full-bodied grace.
Stepping up from their debut by fusing their vibrant live energy with ample room for introspection, Picking Petals sees Lucia & The Best Boys flourish. [Jamie Wilde]
Listen to: Big Romance (feat. Abigail Morris), Lonely Girl (feat. Lauren Mayberry)
Mary In the Junkyard Role Model Hermit Out 3 Jul via AMF Records
Chuck Strangers Glory of the King’s Hand Out 10 Jul via Lex
Suki Waterhouse Loveland Out 10 Jul via Island Records
The Rolling Stones Foreign Tongues Out 10 Jul via Polydor/ Universal Music
Eartheater
Heavenly Body: If I’m the Bottle You’re the Message Chemical X, 14 Jul rrrrr
Listen to: Crown Jewel, Practical Amnesia, Paradise Rains
Eartheater has long been focused on bodily and spiritual transformation, as well as sex. This meant that the possibility of a record detailing her pregnancy oddly felt like treading water, but isn’t the case. Her everchanging sound, which has mutated over a decade from murky electronics into runway-ready experimental pop seems to coalesce here, magpieing from across her discography.
There’s still that Amex ad sheen that coloured 2023’s Powders, but when married to the intensity of feeling, it colours the songs with this entranced sense of distance. It’s particularly apparent on the mesmeric duo of Practical Amnesia and Crown Jewel, the latter of which makes her feel like the centre figure in a snow globe, steadfastly watching the uncontrollable twirl around her.
It’s a shame then that the album doesn’t quite keep up this steam, and it’s in its back half where it falls away a little, production becoming unusually characterless. The visceral nature of new life is still channeled in the lyrics, but the dead chug of Favorite is evocative of nothing in particular, while the Oklouguesting Fast Asleep feels like a ghost of the album’s earlier, better moments. [Joe Creely]
XCERTS i think i want to go home now. FLG Records, 10 Jul rrrrr
Listen to: do it to myself, sinking feeling, losing it
Formed in 2001, Aberdeen’s The XCERTS never reached the heights of their fast/slow DNA brothers Biffy Clyro and Twin Atlantic, but they should have. Their new album, i think i want to go home now., shows exactly why. A punchy, euphoric blend of anger and melodic softness, it sees Murray Macleod attempting to make sense of the world after his father’s cancer diagnosis. Following the opening title track, do it to myself offers an incendiary pop-punk blast full of barbed-wire guitars and brain-rattling bass with the allimportant quieter breakdown as Macleod repeatedly questions: ‘Will it always be like this?’, while another highlight comes in the form of the driving Smashing Pumpkins-style love song, sinking feeling.
There’s also the screamo of pretty ugly, but the album isn’t all about decibels designed to melt your brain. A more tender side is shown in songs like dream you in, rinse repeat and in your eyes, which comes close to Snow Patrol in its earnest yearning. losing it is the high point of the softer side of The XCERTS, a big melodic beating heart questioning everything as Macleod asks, ‘Do I still make my parents proud?’ [Rick Fulton]
Listen to: outta time (feat. A. K. Paul), crystalize, retaliation lullaby
The sub-two minute linknb represents a flex and a moment of vulnerable self-reflection. ‘All I know is that I paved the way’, she sings with an air of defiance, followed with: ‘Where do I go, when it’s me on my own?’ It can be lonely and uncertain at the top; Kelela is one of the most unpredictable and experimental pop stars we have. This one-two punch is a sharp encapsulation of how assuredness in yourself can still bump up against a block. On new avatar, she finds a path through as most great artists do.
Kelela’s discography has managed to be cerebral, exploring identity, movement, bodies and queerness through the lens of transformation, remaining wildly visceral and exciting. That word – avatar, with its connotations of both deity and digital – releases her to be, once again, ‘a raven reborn’ through surprising stylistic shifts. Compared to the ambient sprawl of Raven, this is a streamlined record of slinking processed guitars influenced by alt-metal, shoegaze and industrial, worked like putty into pop structures. It’s music for driving at night, for cityscapes degraded by digital grain and, as ever for Kelela, bathed in blue light. [Tony Inglis]
Listen to: Talky Talky People, Empty Pledges
The sonic palette on You’re Gonna Need a Little Music is more textured and abrasive than previously heard from Yard Act, gliding deftly from stark, industrial rock to psychedelic Britpop to sleek funk-rock to honkytonk. These work well to varying degrees (especially the eerie grandeur of opener, Empty Pledges), but it’s the more straightforward rompers where they’re at their best, like the rollicking Cherophobe Rock or the catchy consideration on the pros and cons of loquaciousness, Talky Talky People.
James Smith continues to command the room as he yelps, talks himself out of breath and occasionally croons, and you’re never far from a memorable line or two. Janey Said has A Grand Don’t Come for Free energy as Smith reflects on love and the future with his ex, though despite the sincere clarity he does break the fourth wall with an Alan Bennett wink at the end: ‘I’ll probably get a good song out of this’.
Yard Act prove themselves to be far more malleable than you might expect as they continue to push the sonic envelope, while grounding their songs in relatable kitchen sink wit. Where they’ll go next is anyone’s guess. [Lewis Wade]
Kelela new avatar Warp, 10 Jul rrrrr
Yard Act You’re Gonna Need a Little Music Island Records, 17 Jul rrrrr
The
New York-based percussionist and sound artist Lesley Mok describes her music as “a passage through affective zones.” A phrase that carries a cinematic charge, the soundworld she’s created is not unlike the Zone in Andrei Tarkovsky’s 1979 film Stalker: oppressive, mysterious, and existing outside the confines of conventional spatiotemporality. Navigating the friction between digital electronics and analogue percussion, each track plays like a scene from a film unfurling in darkness. berserk opens with a rain of metallic chimes, its rhythm unstable, seemingly sentient. midland unsettles further: an industrial hum yields to irradiated clicks, conjuring a landscape both dangerous and alluring.
Throughout, Mok largely abandons the 4/4 pulse; her beats cluster and dissolve, as if calibrating to the circadian rhythm of an alien ecosystem. williams landing recalls the iconic five-note sequence from Close Encounters, as if stumbling upon an alien language waiting to be decoded. Meanwhile, the soft, swirling textures of caught by the tides feel like being carried home by the currents of time. Despite its cinematic qualities, Transient resists narrative. There’s no clear progression, only a succession of atmospheres. The effect is disquieting, yet difficult to shake. [Patrick Gamble]
Listen to: A Waking Dream, Anima, Dawning Dusk
Pascal Bideau’s second album as Akusmi is infused with feelings of wonder and delight, and dashed with fleeting touches of humour and charm. The record is at the same time energetic but pensive, exciting but foreboding, taking the listener through a narrative arc of marvel and adventure.
Opening track A Waking Dream starts with ethereal and dream-like piano, harp and sax passages, reminiscent of a flowing river; aquatic and sparkly, with some slightly murky elements in the lower ends. Once the rhythmical percussion and wind instruments kick in, however, the listener is transported with a sense of forward movement, making it the perfect opener for what appears to be a riveting musical journey. This leads into subsequent track Anima, an invigorating number with a good few exhilarating and breathtaking sax solos.
Closing with Dawning Dusk, a few bars of uplifting and airy percussion are followed by some breathy sax, quickly culminating in a vigorous ensemble of rhythm, wind instruments and vocal chants. Expansive and open, it’s a fitting closer for the journey of the record in which Akusmi sustains a coherent sonic world without sacrificing the dynamisms that keep each track distinct and alive. [Rhea Hagiwara]
Since their 2008 debut, Luluc have been immersed in the beauties of the everyday, spellbound by the delicate majesty of nature: the view from a “small window” as 2014’s Passerby framed it. On their latest record Sweet Thief, a river addresses a mountain, two ravens ponder where to go and an oak’s roots become a symbol of hope. Recorded after moving back to Australia from the US, Zoë Randell and Steve Hassett’s follow-up to 2023’s Diamonds is hushed and intimate, as if welcoming you into the pair’s living room, lit with the inviting glow of 60s-inspired melodies and carpeted in soft, resonant harmonies.
The humble record tiptoes in with fingerpicked guitar and brushed percussion and a fleeting poetic lyric. The aptly named lead single Rewarding Melody is classic Luluc with its stirring Beach Boys melody, clouded in misty reverb, while No One Else’s Pen is a silvery ribbon of a love song. But the album’s grandest moments are when the duo loosen the arrangements. Saxophones flail haphazardly through the sombre, soulful chords of Dopamine Slot Machine, and closer Homesick in L.A. is masterfully cinematic, guitar spiralling out through the steady meditative melody into spiritual reverie. [Zoë White]
Listen to: Boys In Blue, Around Tha Bend, Get Me Down (feat. Jorja Smith)
“To be an Emotional Junglist is to feel everything and nothing all at once,” says Nia Archives. “It’s to be calm yet chaotic, sane yet manic – up, down and sideways.” Her second fulllength album is a post-rave emotional exploration of a turbulent 2025, as she fell in and then dramatically out of love. It builds on an alt-jungle and indie-pop fusion fans first heard on her debut, 2024’s Silence Is Loud, with new influence from Arctic Monkeys’ producer James Ford. At its best, this sound is absolutely electric. Standout tracks Boys In Blue and Around Tha Bend show the potential, combining Archives’ sharp writing with classic breakbeats and thumping guitar. But there’s too much filler on the 15-track release, with only a Jorja Smith feature to hold up the middle. The bedroom pop sound can become a little repetitive, and it would have been nice to hear her delve into different genres as she has in the past. All said, Emotional Junglist feels like music Nia Archives wants to make. And when you’re talking about one of the most talented artists the UK has to offer, that’s no bad thing. [Calum Skuodas]
Luluc Sweet Thief Community Music, 10 Jul rrrrr
Nia Archives Emotional Junglist Island Records, 17 Jul rrrrr
Lesley Mok Transient American Dreams, 17 Jul rrrrr
Akusmi Terra Incognita Tonal Union, 3 Jul rrrrr
Listen to: Rewarding Melody, Dopamine Slot Machine, Homesick in L.A.
Listen to: beserk, williams landing
Music Now
July brings vast and atmospheric releases across the board – eyecatching percussive moments from Doom Scroller, dark folk from Wild Gods, burbling electronic productions from digital omnivore Nick Dow, plus loads more…
Words: Laurie Presswood
It wouldn’t be a Music Now column without us holding our hands up and admitting we missed some great releases last month – there’s simply too much good music in Scotland to keep a handle on all of it, even for us professionals. Some choice selections include the euphoric album we’re all in love (19 Jun) from Edinburgh-raised, London-based indie-pop duo Quiet Houses, singles from corto.alto (GO), Nani Porenta (Some Body) and GAÏA (Big Girls), CH UNSPOKEN’s KILLA EP in collaboration with producer Supermann On Da Beat and Frankie Morrow’s moody, country-tinged album Way Out West Out this month on Leith’s New Teeth label is Sold the Family Train (3 Jul), an intense, frenetic mini-album from Doom Scroller. Its sound and influences are so broad-spanning that at times you’re astonished to find it’s still the work of the same artist – but the sonic themes tying it all inarguably together are evocative harmonies and an ear-catching rhythmic performance that has an elongating, almost telescopic feel. The percussive sounds, both traditional and non-traditional, are the star here, with echoey drums that seem to fill some unseen, organic space, what sounds like a splash cymbal and, wait – is that the ring of a shop till?
Later in the month brings the debut album from Wild Gods, a dark folk/drone project led by Jamie Livingstone, whom you might know from some co-writing credits on the latest Barry Can’t Swim record. It might not seem like an obvious jump, but there’s a clearly shared sense of unease, deeply resonant basslines and spacious sonic landscapes that reveal a deeper connection between the two projects. The Glorious Abysmal (24 Jul) is drone-drenched, both cyclical and dramatically staged in a way that is sure to appeal to fans of Lankum, the Bad Seeds and gathering Highland storms. Listen out especially for the ‘brooding, serpentine doom-folk’ of Carlene’s Pin and the archival samples and ‘barreling folk punk’ of Rest & Be Thankful.
Well, July’s certainly a big one for the moody, the electronic, and the atmospheric. Nick Dow returns at the end of the month with Struck (30 Jul), his first album in six years. The Edinburgh-based electronic producer is known for his omnivorous approach to discovering sound, taking sounds from across the acoustic world and digitising them, “reshuffling reams of
paper until it sounds like an approaching storm cloud.” Struck, he says, is the purest distillation of that approach yet – the record is in turns yearning and transportive, both ambient and volatilely dynamic. That doesn’t mean Dow can’t still bust a move though – check out middle track Earthed for a fun, laidback groove at the heart of the record.
Some releases to look out for in the world of guitars include the new album Bute by Glaswegian lo-fi slacker Sulka (17 Jul) and Bonnie Kemplay’s upcoming EP someone, somewhere (31 Jul). Bute marks a return to Sulka’s love for DIY recording, with songs evoking solitude, memories and the passage of time steeped in a dark, swampy quality on record that recalls the isle of Bute, where much of the record was written. Meanwhile, someone, somewhere marks a return for Kemplay after three years of injury-induced hiatus from making music. Her voice floats over indie-folk-imbued arpe ios like clouds drifting over an obstructing mountainside – opener Big Machine is a mustlisten for fans of Phoebe Bridgers and Soccer Mommy.
Stay alert for more little treats in the form of single releases dotted across the month. We’re particularly excited about Almosts And Re-Dos/Wagtails (1 Jul), the double single from BIRDVOX (Sarah Hayes, Inge Thomson, Jenny Sturgeon and Charlotte Printer). Together, the two tracks provide a sneakpeak into the breadth and character of the band’s upcoming album – sounds like we can expect pleasing feathery textures, field recordings and moments of fun, organic trad-fusion. We’re also eagerly anticipating the return of Edinburgh darling Khalid Al Khajah with After the Rain (3 Jul), a jazzy acoustic number that shows off just a little glimpse of what he’s capable of.
Other exciting releases abound from Selkie, Majesty Palm and Other People’s Leisure (all 3 Jul), Community Swimming Pool, Flame and Mason (all 10 Jul), Dara Dubh (24 Jul), Puppy Teeth (29 Jul) – plus whatever other delights we’re sure to have missed...
Scan the QR code to follow and like our Music Now: New Scottish Music playlist on Spotify, updated on Fridays
Wild Gods
Bonnie Kemplay
Photo: Odhran
Photo: Jono White
Film of the Month — Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie
Director: Matt Johnson
Starring: Jay McCarrol, Matt Johnson
3
Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie (let’s call it
NtBtStM for ease) is the perfect film for anyone feeling a little down about the world. Not just because it’s a daffy, high-concept, low-stakes buddy comedy with a winning pair of stars, but because it’s built on a vision of the world as a place where wonderful things can happen if you dream big, keep your heart open and occasionally sneak a pair of wirecutters into a highly secure area.
A feature-length follow-up to Matt Johnson and Jay McCarrol’s 2007 web series (titled Nirvanna the Band the Show), NtBtStM finds the fictionalised versions of Matt and Jay pretty much where they were 19 years ago. They still dream of a gig at Toronto’s Rivoli bar and they’re still launching one insane scheme after another to try and land one – like the movie’s audacious opening setpiece where they attempt to skydive off the CN Tower into the middle of an in-progress baseball match.
Part of NtBtStM’s unique charm comes from its overwhelming Canadian-ness, not just in the way the plot ropes in Toronto landmarks but in how unfailingly friendly Matt and Jay’s interactions with random bystanders are. Everyone our heroes encounter is willing to lend a hand – whether that means telling them the time or keeping an eye on the electrical box they’ve commandeered – and Matt is never too busy to ask a stranger where they’re from, even when he’s literally running for
his life. Matt and Jay’s out-in-the-world antics are shot with handheld cameras and without permits, so the politely baffled reactions they receive from the general public are mostly genuine.
The scenes of Matt and Jay just sitting around together are every bit as entertaining as the guerrilla filmmaking shenanigans. As childhood friends who’ve been playing these characters for nearly two decades, the duo have an easy comic rhythm that can send any conversation spinning off into some funny new direction. They’re a perfect double act, with Matt as an irrepressibly optimistic force of nature and Jay as the quiet guy who probably knows better but is just too much in awe of his friend to point out that maybe there are easier ways to book a gig in a bar than staging an incident that bears a disturbing resemblance to a terrorist attack.
NtBtStM could get by on vibes alone, but it shoots for something far more ambitious, taking advantage of 19-year-old footage from the web series to craft an elaborate time travel plot. It’s a fun conceit that allows them to riff on genre tropes and to make about the most perfect ‘wow, 2008 was a different time’ gag of all time. And as the story takes Matt and Jay back and forth in time, up and down the CN Tower and all around Toronto, the movie just keeps finding new, ridiculous ways to surprise and delight. [Ross McIndoe]
Scotland on Screen: Ryan Pollock
With the second cohort from NFTS Scotland’s Sean Connery Lab due to premiere their short films at next month’s Edinburgh International Film Festival, we look back to one of the most impressive works from the scheme’s inaugural year: Ryan Pollock’s Gowk
Words: Jamie Dunn
Filmography: Gowk (2025), Exile on Stanhope Place (2024), Bluebird (2023), Who’s That Riding? (2022)
The second slate of films made on the Sean Connery Talent Lab will have their world premiere at EIFF 2026. Details at edfilmfest.org
Filmmaking tends to be dominated by rich kids, and no wonder, given the expense of film school, the safety net required to enter such a precarious profession, and the scarcity of talent development funds available. It’s fair to say, though, that Ryan Pollock, one of the most promising young writer-directors to emerge on the Scottish scene in the last few years, doesn’t fall into this camp. “I grew up in Wishaw,” he tells me over video call, “so not a huge film scene there, know what I mean? It’s something I’ve always wanted to do, but in Wishy, there’s nae route to it. You’ve never heard of anyone making films; naebuddy’s got a camera.”
Pollock clearly found a route through. He’s currently talking to me from London, having received a scholarship to do an MFA on the Directing Fiction course at the National Film and Television School. But his hometown remains key to his filmmaking. He’s made several self-funded, no-budget shorts there, including the bruising Bluebird, which was set in Gowkthrapple, a down-at-heel neighbourhood in the Lanarkshire town. “Wishy, it’s such a fascinating place to me,” he explains. “It’s really unanalysed territory, full of fascinating characters and fascinating lives of people who have never had the chance to even really leave the place.”
These early shorts fit neatly into Scotland’s long tradition of social realist filmmaking. “I think it was just natural that my films [are in that style],” Pollock tells me. “When you’re telling real stories about people you’ve grown up with, or people in your family, naturally it falls under that sort of lens.”
After Bluebird, Pollock then got a small bit of funding to make the documentary Exile on Stanhope Place, which focused on Nick Wisniewski, the last holdout on a council estate in Gowkthrapple that’s earmarked for demolition as part of a
redevelopment. And last year, he was part of the first cohort to complete the Sean Connery Talent Lab, a new training initiative at the National Film and Television School in Scotland that brings together emerging writers, directors, producers, cinematographers and editors to collaborate on new short films.
From that year-long programme came Gowk. It’s a tender study of a young boy (played by extraordinary newcomer Jack Mavin) who comes to the realisation that something is broken at the heart of his family. The film is so vivid that it feels like we’re watching Pollock’s own memories. It turns out the story is based on childhood recollections, but they belong to his father. “[This] happened to my dad when he was about 11,” Pollock explains. “Basically, his mum – my gran – tried to commit suicide and she was sectioned. What happened was kept from my dad, but one day he overheard the name of [the psychiatric hospital] she was in. So he snuck out to go see her and took this wee girl from his class with him on a sort of first date.”
Bluebird and Exile on Stanhope Place su ested Pollock was already a gifted director, but Gowk takes his filmmaking to the next level. The Sean Connery Lab teamed him with producers Kitty McMurdo-Schad and Katriona Tweedie, editor Fraser Ballantyne and cinematographer Vasileios Kapnis, and they were given a £25,000 production budget. Pollock and his team were also advised along the way by mentors and industry professionals. He singles out Ian Sellar, the co-head of fiction at NFTS, for his particularly sage advice. “He would always tell me, ‘Never pick your shots before you know what’s happening in the moment of the scene.’ What’s the core of a scene? What will the character remember? Find the emotional journey. That was quite revolutionary, because I think when you’re starting oot, you’ve got this tendency to pick flashy shots, or what you think might sort of impress, rather than actually telling a story with economy.”
Pollock clearly heeded Sellar’s counsel. Gowk’s dialogue is minimal, with its narrative conveyed through the actors’ faces and close-up details. It’s a film grammar that chimes with the taciturn emotions of working-class Scotland. “In places like Wishaw, there’s very little said directly when it comes to something like mental health,” says Pollock, “everything is spoken around. So we’ve tried to sort of translate that into the image as well.”
Gowk is still social realism, but file it along with the great British filmmakers who’ve done something more poetic within that space – think Lynne Ramsay, Bill Douglas and Terence Davies. “I was definitely more careful than I’ve previously been to not make Gowk this kind of handheld camera, scrappy, run-and-gun looking thing,” says Pollock. Gowk’s more composed style was also informed by its content. “The core idea is that everything is being seen through this boy’s eyes, and he doesn’t quite grasp what’s happening in his family. So everything in the film had to be slightly shrouded and hidden – even a lot of the adults’ faces are cut off or obscured.”
Expect more shorts from Pollock in the near future as he works through his MFA, but he’s itching to make something more ambitious. “After a couple of years at this film school, I’ll definitely be looking to come back to Scotland and do features,” he says. “That’s always on the back burner, feature scripts. I don’t want to be sitting aboot.”
Jack Mavin and Ryan Pollock on the set of Gowk
Ish
Director: Imran Perretta
Starring: Farhan Hasnat, Yahya Kitana rrrrr
Imran Perretta’s 2019 installation The Destructors staged young Muslim men as objects of a state gaze, unable to distinguish between protection and persecution. Ish, the London-based artist’s first narrative feature, translates that inquiry into something more intimate and, in the current climate of rising Islamophobia, considerably more urgent.
The film follows friends Ish (Farhan Hasnat) and Maram (Yahya Kitana), two teenagers of BritishSouth Asian and British-Palestinian descent living in Luton. Suspended between adolescence and adulthood, their friendship is an anchor in an otherwise unstable world. Ish recently lost his mother and lives with his father (Avin Shah), grandmother (Sudha Bhuchar), and protective older sister (singer-songwriter Joy Crookes). Maram, meanwhile, is
On the Sea
Director: Helen Walsh
Starring: Barry Ward, Lorne MacFadyen, Henry Lawfull, Liz White rrrrr
On the Sea is a film of quiet tumult, filmed in a world seemingly without sunlight or laughter. The north Wales fishing town that the characters cling to is on its last legs, the seas gutted by the dredgers that have left Jack (Barry Ward)’s family fishing business hanging by a thread. His son (Henry Lawfull) is acting up, and there is tension with his brother over business. Into this situation steps Daniel (Lorne MacFadyen), who threatens to unleash decades of repression that could upend Jack’s existence.
If you’re thinking, ‘I’ve seen that before’, you have, and probably a few times: we are in tragic queer romance by numbers territory. This is not necessarily a problem; this narrative has become a staple because it’s open to different filmmakers’
confronted by footage of the genocide in Gaza flooding his social media feed. The pair are inseparable until a racially profiled stop-andsearch fractures their bond.
Perretta’s formal choices are precise and mutually reinforcing. The film’s black-and-white palette echoes the CCTV footage spliced throughout, collapsing the distance between aesthetic and subject until being watched and being filmed become structurally indistinguishable. The film ends with the boys at a crossroad: Ish is surrounded by family; Maram’s destination is less certain. It’s a subtle, yet quietly devastating final sequence that depicts what Perretta has always understood: that a single moment of state suspicion can be decisive enough to determine which way a life turns. [Patrick Gamble]
Released 31 Jul by BFI; certificate 15
interpretations and stylistic directions. The issue with On the Sea is that it doesn’t really commit to the one it chooses.
The film swings for solemn and understated, all beautifully filmed sea-speckled stone and forlorn glances, but it doesn’t seem to trust its audience enough to actually leave anything unsaid, too often making painfully clear things a better film would allow to sit. This means On the Sea plods on largely devoid of tension or mystery, unimaginatively hitting a list of clichés as it drags towards its conclusion. You’re left with a well-acted film that sticks too close to a tired playbook to ever become anything of its own, just glowering away in its own self-seriousness, coasting on the implied severity of its dour aesthetic.
[Joe Creely]
The Invite
Director: Olivia Wilde
Starring: Olivia Wilde, Seth Rogen, Penélope Cruz, Edward Norton rrrrr
Director Olivia Wilde gives two fingers, as well as a deep understanding, to human relationships in The Invite, her vivacious comedy centred on two couples and the disastrous dinner that brings them together.
The film opens with a wry, anti-marriage quote by the other Wilde and ends with a dedication to Diane Keaton, an actor with a nervous, hyper-relatable disposition when channelling matters of the heart. Clearly influenced by Keaton’s most beloved performances, Wilde’s Angela is the neurotic, eager hostess of an awkward soirée you’ll wish you scored an invitation to. Resentments bubble harder than the flat champagne that’s been served as Angela’s husband, Joe (Seth Rogen), makes it clear he’s not thrilled to welcome their loud, sex-positive upstairs neighbours, Pína
Rosebush Pruning
Director: Karim Aïnouz
Starring: Callum Turner, Jamie Bell rrrrr
The wealthy are kinda perverted – we know this – but Rosebush Pruning, an unfocused satirical thriller, goes to overwrought lengths to reassert this consensus. Stylistically, Karim Aïnouz’s film centres on the rudderless failsons and daughter of an ultra-rich New York family as they self-destruct in their hot ex-pat locale of Spain. With an outsize inheritance from their dead mother, they are both stunted and set for life, disturbed dilettantes ready to make their ennui everyone else’s problem, propelled, crucially, by some animating trauma from papa.
(Penélope Cruz) and Hawk (Edward Norton). This courtesy get-together turns conflictual the second the new couple walks into Angela and Joe’s painstakingly renovated (by her) apartment as their respective secrets scream to come to the surface.
The American remake of the 2020 Spanish film The People Upstairs, in turn based on a stage play, The Invite thrives in the tension, sexual and otherwise, maintaining the electrifying chemistry between the four stars at an all-time high throughout. Wilde brilliantly directs a chamber piece that’s intimate and uproariously witty, with the quartet bouncing off each other with a comedic timing so impeccable you’ll forgive some easy clichés about ethical non-monogamy. Like most dinner parties, The Invite saves the best for last, but by the time dessert is served, the climax feels frustratingly too little, too late.
[Stefania Sarrubba]
Released 3 Jul by Black Bear; certificate 15
24 Jul by Verve; certificate
The film’s richly saturated visual palette has a painter’s vitality, but the viscera and carnal exploits are less resonant. In the maxi-prison of superficial transgressors, Emerald Fennell now has a cellmate in Aïnouz (Sam Levinson is in solitary confinement).
These are the contrivances of a sick jester; obscene, yes; meaningful, no. Rosebush Pruning’s try-hard psychosexual provocations, with its masochistic development and indulgent narration, is a blunt composite of superior influences: it’s Successioncum-Salò, with the incestuous sybarite siblings of Cruel Intentions and The Dreamers. Its depravity amounts to something somewhat annoying, but mostly boring. The sequences in which wolves descend (Twilight’s goofy renderings seem more compelling) land as just one more self-insisting variable to desperately telegraph that we are watching is, indeed, wild A textbook style-over-substance misfire, Rosebush Pruning continually taps us on the shoulder to get our attention but has nothing to say when we finally turn around. This film is a feral dog dry humping your leg. Naturally, you can’t wait for it to be over. [Lucy Fitzgerald]
Release 10 Jul by MUBI; certificate 18
On the Sea Ish Rosebush Pruning
The Invite
1915 LANZ NOODLE, EDINBURGH
Northern China meets the Edinburgh coastline as 1915 Lanz Noodle bring some incredibly impressive noodles to Portobello
12 Seafield Road East, Edinburgh, EH15 1EB
Mon-Thu 12-3pm & 4.308.30pm; Fri-Sun 12-8.30pm
1915lanznoodle.co.uk
There’s been an explosion of great East Asian food in Scotland in the past few years, and it’s become easier than ever to get your arms around a very big bowl of noodles. At the Seafield end of Portobello, 1915 Lanz Noodle joins the party with a real focus on Lanzhou beef noodles. It’s a style of noodle soup from northwest China that’s been around for centuries, but its modern iteration was developed by Ma Baozi, a Hui Muslim chef in Lanzhou, in… yep, 1915. It’s a dish that is defined by its clear meaty broth, bright red chilis and, crucially, hand-pulled fresh noodles.
It takes a certain level of confidence and commitment to name your restaurant after one dish on the menu, and those are both evident as soon as you walk into 1915; it’s a bright, light space with its goldedged noodle-making station front and centre. There’s something wonderful about seeing this kind of skill close up, looking over your shoulder to see the very beginnings of someone’s dinner, then looking back and seeing a fistful of noodles
appear seemingly out of nowhere. It’s a reminder that real people make your food, bringing their abilities and knowledge to every dish. We mention this partly because it’s cool, and partly to contrast an ordering system where we used a giant tablet computer to browse the menu, which then printed out a blank receipt because the paper was upside-down.
As for the menu itself, it’s very beef-forward and extremely meaty, but that’s not to say that ve ies are completely overlooked. Our vegetable pan-fried dumplings (£6.80) are excellent, with a crispy skirt connecting them all together, and the ideal balance of steamed bite and fried snap. They’re also an early chance to try the delicious homemade Gansu chilli oil from an impressively large serving bowl in the corner.
The roujiamo or ‘Chinese hamburger’ is another northern Chinese staple that’s made its way onto the menu. It’s a flaky white bun, like a cross between a fluffy bao bun and the crust from a roti or paratha, stuffed with shredded meat. We opt for the duck (£7.80) and it’s delicious
Words:
– it’s absolutely loaded with braised meat, and every bite has a bit of that crusty exterior, soft bready middle and fatty, sweet core.
Now for the main event, the Lanzhou noodles. Firstly, they are absolutely enormous; our bowl with braised brisket (£11.80) is a real sight to behold, with each of its component parts shining out, but we’re slightly afraid to take a photo in case we drop our phone in the soup and can’t get it back out. This is a dish that has been fine-tuned over decades, and by the time it’s made its way from northwest China to Portobello in 2026, the balance of flavours and textures is extremely well-established. And they’re all here: the clear, meaty broth is subtly spiced and surprisingly light, and the chilli oil from earlier brings loads of colour and aroma with just the right amount of spice. The beef is melt-inthe-mouth good while those handpulled noodles put up just the right amount of chewy resistance. It’s a lot of food, but it doesn’t feel heavy; it’s fatty and meaty but without ever becoming overbearing. The handpulled noodles also fare well when stir-fried; a black pepper and chicken (£10.80) dish has those fresherthan-fresh noodles bouncing around the plate and literally tying themselves in knots. Another impressive portion, another dish that balances all its elements really, really well.
It’s a Monday night, and this place is packed. There’s a group of eight in the back corner, while the table next to us are telling the staff that this is their second visit in a week. The noodle chef is out from behind the counter, asking diners about their meals, sharing the story of these particular dishes from this particular part of China – and sharing their thoughts on some of their favourite restaurants in the city. It’s that enthusiasm that really shines through here, and a desire to make the dishes they want to make. It’s a one-room space on Seafield Road (hit the bus depot and you’ve gone too far), but 1915 Lanz Noodle is punching well above its weight. Their signature noodles are one of the best dishes we’ve tasted all year – hop on your bike and head for the seaside, you won’t regret it.
Peter Simpson
Barbie®: The Exhibition @ Kelvingrove , Glasgow
As irksome as the 2023 blockbuster, Barbie®: The Exhibition sells the Mattel brand through nostalgia thinly veiled as art
The pink walls look red through my phone camera, pointed towards a film from 1958 wherein Japanese factory workers file peach plastic heads then re-scalp them with synthetic hair which is permed by tiny screws and hard-boiled in place. If this was a contemporary art show, the film would be soundtracked by harmonic violins. Instead, it plays silently in front of a Barbie timeline that tracks, amongst other life-defining moments, the 2014 launch of @BarbieStyle on Instagram (which has since, the caption humbly tells us, “inspired a following of 2.9 million”).
Barbie®: The Exhibition is currently on show at Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum until 18 October 2026. For four months, visitors can wander through an archive of America’s most marketed doll, with tickets priced from £8-16. The curatorial vision aims to show how Barbie reflects the “real world – at least as it relates to mainstream western consumer culture”. Given the exhibition is presented by Glasgow Life in partnership with the London Design Museum and Mattel Inc., the reflection on display is unsurprisingly blurry.
That this exit-through-the-giftshop exhibition is ostensibly one big advert for Mattel is glaringly obvious. It makes no bones about the fact that Barbie is a brand sustained by some of the most effective marketing of the last 60 years. The first exhibit is not the first Barbie doll, but the 1959 TV advert to promote it. Each exhibit thereafter is accompanied by captions that relentlessly cite the commercial success of the brand and explain the techniques behind it with such sterile clarity they could collectively pass for a crash course in marketing and consumer psychology.
The enduring appeal of Barbie owes much to her convenient flexibility to bend far enough ahead of the times to seem progressive, yet not so far as to be radical. In a room that charts the changing architecture of Barbie’s dreamhouse, we see how she moved with wider social trends through 1970s van life in a countercultural campervan, to a 1990s tradwife in a neo-classical mansion. As the caption for the former tells us, by the time Barbie came to these trends, they were “sufficiently mainstream to influence the design of a children’s toy.”
Just as it would be misdirected to critique Barbie for not being a more radical children’s toy, it would be naïve to expect a more radically honest reflection of American capitalism from a nostalgic exhibition co-presented by Mattel. Like Greta Gerwig’s 2023 movie, the exhibition is self-consciously careful to acknowledge the brand’s many controversies. While it makes righteous amends for some, such as Barbie’s one-size-fits-all femininity, it tiptoes around others, like the unsustainability of mass-produced plastic toys.
‘It would be naïve to expect a more radically honest reflection of American capitalism from a nostalgic exhibition co-presented by Mattel’
It is a testament to Mattel’s marketing that they can present this exhibition as a celebration of Barbie’s ‘design innovation, craftmanship and creative processes’ without attracting ire for ignoring accusations from China Labour Watch in 2024 of exploitative labour conditions in their factories. This despite the unsettling 1958 factory film that one man watching behind me described as: “Mr Ford’s heyday. Same thing day after day. It was soul-destroying.”
Barbie®: The Exhibition is not entirely uninteresting – in the same way Disney adults are an absurdly fascinating sign of the times – though its interest is more in the power of nostalgia to obfuscate the present rather than anything Mattel has to say about 60 years of western consumer culture (namely, ‘it’s been good to us’).
Because nostalgia sells, the exhibition will no doubt be a smash hit. If this year’s spate of venue closures across the city signals a strained culture
budget, can we really blame Glasgow Life for Barbie-fying the ground floor of Kelvingrove for four months?
Well… a bit. Showcases like this profit by quick-money tourism that might be enough to sustain Glasgow’s museums until the next immersive experience; though they seem to belie a cultural policy that dazzles to distract from a lack of longer-term stability for local artists and independent venues, and a disinterest in everyday histories like that which the indefinitely shuttered People’s Palace sought to preserve.
That the exhibition may bring more visitors to the museum is a moot point if few of them venture upstairs. We can only hope that some choose to spend their money in the art gallery gift shop rather than pay £29.99 for an empty Barbie branded box.*
Barbie®: The Exhibition, Kelvingrove Art Gallery & Museum, Glasgow, until 18 Oct
*Doll not included
glasgowlife.org.uk
Words: Evie Glen
By Paige Lewis rrrrr
Adventure, religion, war, and heroism are reimagined in Lewis’s stunning debut novel Canon. In this remarkably creative book, the ordinary meets the extraordinary in hilarious and unexpected ways, and Lewis seamlessly blends mythological references, witty humour, and stark social commentary. It is impossible to pin down the tone or genre of this book, and that is what makes it so uniquely brilliant in its refusal to conform.
The narrative follows the separate yet intertwined adventures of unlikely hero Yara, a germaphobe grappling with being kicked out of her childhood home, and Adrena, God’s chosen prophet who recently seems to have been ‘unchosen’. Both strive in their divine quest to kill Dominic, leader of ‘The Bad Guys’, all while questioning their identities, purposes, and beliefs.
God is an active player throughout this story and is hilariously humanised by the witty omniscient narrative voice that guides the novel in a cleverly meta fashion, balancing light-hearted jokes with deeper, more moving social commentary. Through God’s starkly human portrayal, Lewis forces the reader to confront the morality behind the ‘divine quest’ and what this means for a character’s autonomy.
Canon is a unique and brilliantly clever book that subverts and challenges expectations at every step of the way, and Lewis’s poetic voice continually shines through. It’s undeniable that this novel’s exploration of queer identity, relationships, power, and heroism will leave a profound impact on any reader.
[Lilia
Harris]
The Past Pursues Us Like Detectives, Debt Collectors, Thieves
By Juan Pablo Villalobos, trans. Daniel Hahn rrrrr
The Past Pursues Us Like Detectives, Debt Collectors, Thieves is a black comedy that reckons with migration and belonging in the guise of a potential murder. Juan Pablo Villalobos, in a translation by Daniel Hahn, demonstrates his classic wit and penchant for the absurd, blurring the lines of genre and protagonist with its author.
At the heart of Villalobos’ novel is the existential conundrum of who gets to belong to a place, and at what cost. After years abroad, JP has returned to Lagos to help take care of his ailing parents only to find himself at the centre of an investigation into the death of his childhood nemesis. One too many beers, and decades worth of grievances, lead him to punch Everado in the middle of a busy bar after a reunion gone sour. The next morning Everardo is found dead and quickly the gossip mill puts the blame on hapless JP.
As JP tries to clear his name, he is left to reconcile a country which he has mostly kept up to date with via social media and news reports with the memories of his childhood. He is constantly reminded as an expatriate that he will never comprehend the cartel’s stronghold and Mexico’s mounting corruption.
Ultimately, JP’s path towards innocence becomes a metaphor of migration: if you leave then proving you belong to a changeable landscape will become nothing more than an absurdist odyssey.
[Andrés Ordorica]
No God But Us
By Bobuq Sayed rrrrr
Diaspora politics are tricky, but that does not stop No God But Us’s delicate journey through the reality of what it means to be a queer on the outside. Written by Bobuq Sayed, No God But Us is told from two points of view during the mid 2010s. AfghanAmerican Delmar leaves the United States for Turkey after being outed. There, at an NGO, Delmar meets another queer Afghan called Mansur whose family fled to Iran, but due to his own queerness, is forced to seek refuge in Istanbul. Despite their similarities in queer and ethnic identities, their difference in passport access becomes too difficult to ignore. Sayed seamlessly writes the characters with two clear voices, distinguishing the leads from each other by contrasting the naïvety and youth of one with the pessimism and assuredness of the other. This book imagines a queer experience so rooted in cultural and immigrant identity, whether drag culture in Istanbul or cruising in Tehran, that the book rejects the queer freedom myths of the west from the outset. At times the novel’s themes are explicitly repeated so often it can make you wonder if the author expected the reader to have forgotten the themes after every chapter, yet there is a real beauty in the novel’s embracing of queerness in all of its complexity. A debut worth reading.
[Chelsea Daniel]
Ash By Louise Wallace rrrrr
Thea lives at the foot of a volcano in Aotearoa New Zealand, enduring the demands of rural motherhood. Her children scream while her husband must be prompted to remember his own mother’s birthday. At her veterinary workplace, misogyny rules despite Thea’s rageful objections. The bleak setting is not merely a dark aesthetic backdrop, but an allegory of a woman ‘boiling over’, an Earth under too much demand – both ‘ready to fly apart and splinter if pushed.’ Ash is split into four sections: before, after, after, and later, as Thea attempts to make sense of her life. Sections of visual poetry intersperse the propulsive narrative of work and family troubles; one section even has a parable running through the footnotes. These more experimental parts offer a closer representation of how motherhood really feels and sounds. The overwhelming repetition of phrases, but also misogynist attitudes in general, create a sense of attrition, reflective of how Thea is continually beaten down and has no escape, like the moths who ‘are beating themselves continually against the bulb.’
A dismal exhaustion pervades – ‘I can hear the mountain sighing. The mountain is tired too’ – although perhaps the brisk ending could be improved by resisting neat conclusion and sitting more with that uncomfortable despair. Through Thea’s individual condition we see a greater crisis of misogyny, one that is both a personal story and a political parable. [Laura Baliman]
Canon
So… You Don’t Like Stand-Up Comedy?
An article by our new Comedy editor on why we should all like stand-up comedy – even if we don’t really like it
Words: Phoebe Crawford
As Fringe season approaches with the might of ten thousand hungry bears, we prepare ourselves for a new dawn of fresh comedy shows. From up-and-coming talent to established voices on the scene, from straight-up stand-up, improv and clowning to a guy singing the same song over and over again for an entire hour (yes, that is listed as an official act to look out for), there’s surely something for everyone, right? Right?
Wrong. To this day, despite its best efforts, stand-up still doesn’t seem to be everyone’s cup of tea. Arguably more so than other art forms, there remains a strange dislike, and dare I say, lack of respect, for laughing in a room with other people who are also laughing. As your new Comedy editor at the Skinny, I’d like to embark on this role by asking why this is, and what is currently being done on the scene in Scotland to challenge the stigma of stand-up.
Arguably, one of the main reasons people tend to avert their eyes from live comedy is because of a fear of the discomfort of being observed and perceived. Indeed, watching stand-up CAN be uncomfortable, and, at times, excruciating. It forces us to confront those parts of ourselves we try so desperately to hide, but for some reason, comedians can sniff out from a mile off.
scene, which has been slowly growing over the last few years. Humour is creeping more and more into art discourse to reflect an increasingly ridiculous world. With that, people are finally turning to comedy for answers, with those operating on the fringes experimenting with new ideas and pushing the boundaries of what comedy can be – not all of them necessarily identifying as comedians either.
Here’s an example. Very recently, I marvelled at Glasgow’s effortless flair for comedy, having unexpectedly revelled in its full spectrum on a Saturday evening out. I began with Jamie Crewe’s performance at the Southside’s Tramway to watch a live performance of an ongoing artwork Defiling Rain. Though this wasn’t a comedy event per-se, humour certainly held an invaluable presence in the room. References to fantastical fables and deranged headless creatures suspended reality, quickly dissolved by the artist’s quick-witted one-liners. The audience collectively delighted in these punctuated moments of the set where time seemingly stood still, a *chef’s kiss* blend of surrealism and sincerity.
“There remains a strange dislike, and dare I say, lack of respect, for laughing in a room with other people who are also laughing”
Those who are adept at their craft, though, can alleviate the pressures and challenges of our daily lives by revealing the humour that lies within. The world we live in is tough, but by relating to audiences through a shared commonality – be it failure, embarrassment, delusion, and so on – comedians hold the rare ability to place our lived experiences in a completely different light, and to remind us to not take ourselves and the world around us quite so seriously.
Another reason some people unwittingly roll their eyes at the mention of stand-up is that it is inherently unpredictable, and therefore, frightening. You can see why it is a widely misunderstood genre. Stand-up is disruptive and moving, so is it Art? Yet it engages with television and media, so is it Entertainment? But it happens on a stage, is often performed, and produces catharsis, so, then, is it Theatre?
Perhaps, in a society that loves to categorise, we don’t like stand-up comedy because we simply don’t know where to place it. And what do we do with things we don’t understand and can’t place? Say it with me, we dislike them! (sigh).
Scotland has always been at the forefront of the comedy world, particularly when we think of observational humour, dark wit and inventive, self-deprecating storytelling. The contributions of trailblazers like Billy Connolly, Frankie Boyle and Susie McCabe to the Scottish comedy scene are undeniable, establishing a strong voice and character which is recognised internationally. But there’s also a real shift occurring in the comedy
Immediately afterwards, I was whisked away to the Clutha Bar in the city centre. Instantly, I was thrust into the absurdist madness of Glasgow band Hugh Reed and the Velvet Underpants, in which no prop was too ridiculous, nay, too much of a health and safety risk, to use. It’s quite hard to get your head around being in a room full of philosophising artists one minute, and then being in a room of expectant football fans chanting ‘BARRS, BARRS, BARRS IRN BRU!!!’ while the lead singer swings a toy monkey on a string around his head.
Neither of those events were categorised as comedy, yet here we all were, laughing away. It seems obvious that stand-up played a part in both of these performances, with quippy oneliners, self-referential humour, world-making and anecdotes all vital to the material. I had enjoyed many aspects of stand-up without going to a stand-up gig! Who’d have thought it!
Once you start to see its influence, you’ll see it everywhere. So many genres borrow from the stand-up framework without even realising it, whether it’s the onstage chatter in between songs at a music gig, or the offhand, conversational comic relief at an otherwise earnest exhibition opening. When you think of it like this, can you honestly still say something as flippant as you “don’t like” stand-up? Instead, maybe we can ask, what do we owe to stand-up? (And… who do I need to apologise to?)
Man Sings the Same Song Over and Over Again for an Hour, Summerhall (Red Lecture Theatre), 6-31 Aug (not 17, 24), 7.45pm, £16-18.50
@jamiecrewe @hughreedandthevelvetunderpants
Glasgow Music
Mon 29 Jun
EMMA MILLER + JACK CALUM RICHARDSON + JAMES SIMCOX + SUSANNAH CLEGG
KING TUT'S Eclectic lineup.
INTELLIGENCES FROM THE UNDERGROUND
THE OLD HAIRDRESSERS
Experimental lineup.
Tue 30 Jun
GOLIATH
THE HUG AND PINT
Singer-songwriter from Scotland.
Wed 1 Jul
RUNNNER THE HUG AND PINT Indie rock from the US.
BRENNEN LEIGH
NICE 'N' SLEAZY Country from North Dakota.
LIP CRITIC
THE GLAD CAFE Punk from New York.
Thu 2 Jul
SOUTHPAW (THE MISSPRINT + THE CITRINES + THE PROVANS)
KING TUT'S Pop-punk from Edinburgh.
JOAN JETT & THE BLACKHEARTS
O2 ACADEMY Rock from LA. FILMSTAR (ELLIJAI + S4SHA)
THE HUG AND PINT Alt rock from Scotland.
FATALE
SWG3 Alt rock from Wales.
MEEKZ SWG3 Rap from the UK.
RADIOPHRENIA PRESENTS: L + THE RADIOPHRENIC WORKSHOP
THE GLAD CAFE
Experimental.
Fri 3 Jul
SUMO CYCO
THE GARAGE Rock from Canada.
FIONNLAGH MAC A’PHIOCAIR + SARAH HANNIFFY
THE OLD HAIRDRESSERS Folk.
Listings
Looking for something to do? Well you’re in the right place! Find listings below for the month ahead across Music, Clubs, Theatre, Comedy and Art in Glasgow, Edinburgh and Dundee. To find out how to submit listings, head to theskinny.co.uk/listings
GUERRILLA LISTENING PARTY NICE 'N' SLEAZY Alt rock from Glasgow.
THE MARCH VIOLETS THE HUG AND PINT Post-punk from Leeds. NORMAN BLAKE (ADAM ROSS) THE OLD HAIRDRESSERS Singer-songwriter from Teenage Fanclub. STATIC SKY (NAMEGAME + SIGNPOST) SWG3 Rock from Ayrshire. FEW THOUGHTS (REASON TO LEAVE, THE FRAGZ) NICE 'N' SLEAZY Punk from Kent. KNOX HILL (VIKTUS) NICE 'N' SLEAZY Hip-hop from the US. Sun 5 Jul
ALANA SPRINGSTEEN ORAN MOR Country from Nashville. THE DIRTY NIL KING TUT'S Rock from Canada. JOSH ROUSE THE HUG AND PINT Folk from the US.
Mon 6 Jul
JON B. SWG3 R'n'B from the US. Tue 7 Jul FREE THROW THE GARAGE Emo from the US. PANSY DIVISION THE HUG AND PINT Pop punk from the US. PHANTOGRAM SWG3 Pop from the US. VIRGIN ORCHESTRA (GICHARD)
NICE 'N' SLEAZY Post-punk from Reykjavík. LEILA BORDREUIL (PRINCESSA MANGIONE III & MATT ROBIN + CLASSIFIEDS) THE GLAD CAFE Experimental from New York.
Wed 8 Jul
HAVE MERCY (FOOTBALLHEAD + ANIMALCULES)
THE HUG AND PINT Indie rock from Baltimore. MAYA'S RADIO ORCHESTRA (LE FAUX CHAT + MICHAEL STEELE)
THE OLD HAIRDRESSERS Folk from Scotland. MARLON DUBOIS (ELCAMMGGOUD) THE GLAD CAFE Rap from New York.
Thu 9 Jul
MARIGOLD (JUST SOMEONE WHO CARED + WANDERER + CORA MANCHESTER)
KING TUT'S Indie from Glasgow. LOW LIGHT LISTENING LOUNGE (WOEFUL IDLE + SEASON OF THE SHARK)
THE HUG AND PINT Indie from Glasgow. THE SUMMER OF LOVE (D-CNTR + CHAINBLADE + HOSHYOMI)
THE OLD HAIRDRESSERS Eclectic lineup. JEFF DARKO SWG3 Indie from the UK. FIRST STAGES ALBUM LAUNCH THE GLAD CAFE Folk.
Fri 10 Jul
CLOSE CONTROL (BRITTLE + BITE THE BULLET + CORRINE)
KING TUT'S Rock from Scotland. SADIE! (MAGPIE BLUE + MERROWFOLK)
THE HUG AND PINT Singer-songwriter from Scotland. THE SPOOKY MEN’S CHORALE ST LUKE'S Rock from Australia. THE LONG SHOTS (DJ SKA FITZ) ROOM 2 Ska from Glasgow. RILEY
SWG3
Country pop from Glasgow. SLAY OFF NICE 'N' SLEAZY Drag from Glasgow.
STEATOPYGOUS (CLEAN SLATE + SPRING)
THE GLAD CAFE
Riot grrrl from Bristol.
Sat 11 Jul
PAPERHOUSE (EVYN + ROGER BACON)
KING TUT'S
Indie rock from Glasgow. BREAKING BENJAMIN (CHEVELLE + RETURN TO DUST)
O2 ACADEMY Rock from the US. BATHED IN SIN (NO KNOWN WEAKNESS + LIGHTS OUT + THE MENACE)
THE HUG AND PINT Hardcore from Glasgow. CRAFTYBROWNKID (AMINABONTHEBEAT + MAXOSA + ACE V!S!ON)
THE OLD HAIRDRESSERS Rap from Glasgow. JP O'GRADY SWG3 Alt pop from Scotland. SHINEFEST
NICE 'N' SLEAZY Punk from Glasgow. THE NEW LEAVES (MARTHA FFION) THE GLAD CAFE Folk from Ireland. PLEBFEST
STEREO Garage and rock.
Sun 12 Jul
MODERN RUIN (ZEBRA LANE + SURFACE DETAIL)
KING TUT'S Alternative from Glasgow. J'CUUZI
THE HUG AND PINT Punk from Texas.
GIRLS ROCK
GLASGOW SHOWCASE
2026 ST LUKE'S Rock lineup.
Mon 13 Jul
LEONARD POWELL
THE HUG AND PINT
Comic folk from New Zealand.
Tue 14 Jul
ALEXANDRA SAVIOR
ORAN MOR Rock from Portland. T-A (THE DRIVE) THE HUG AND PINT Post-punk from Dunfermline.
KATIE LINDSAY: SCRAPBOOK SONGS THE GLAD CAFE Singer-songwriter from Scotland.
Wed 15 Jul
ANTHONY GOMES
ORAN MOR Rock from Toronto. BOYS LIKE GIRLS O2 ACADEMY Rock from the US. COUNT THE DAYS (FATE HAS FAVOURITES)
THE HUG AND PINT Indie from Scotland. THE SLEEVES (KIRK BARLEY)
THE GLAD CAFE Folk from London.
Thu 16 Jul
ÖPAQUE (HOYDEN + SINÉAD MIREN + DOUBLE VISION)
KING TUT'S Gypsy rock from Peterborough. ACID REFLUX, TELEOST, IO, BYONICHORD NICE 'N' SLEAZY Metal from Glasgow. CUCKOO SPIT (SEXY VERNA + SWEXTSHOPS) THE GLAD CAFE Dream pop from London. Fri 17 Jul
FLAIR (UGLY OZO + SHIFTER. + SUBMARINE)
KING TUT'S Post-rock from Glasgow. THE TV CASUALTIES (GLOOM COOKIE + WRETCH + DEAD DAMA)
THE HUG AND PINT Horror rock from Scotland. GEORGIA HALL ROOM 2 Alt rock from Scotland. CARIBOU (AHADADREAM) SWG3
Electronica from Canada. NATIVE JAMES NICE 'N' SLEAZY Grime from London. SLOSH POPPY MIDSUMMER SOIRÉE THE GLAD CAFE Eclectic lineup. FARAQUET STEREO Math rock from the US.
Sat 18 Jul
DK HARRELL ORAN MOR Blues from the US. PROBABLY STELLA (THE LINES + LETTERS FROM LOLA + THE GOODTRIPS)
KING TUT'S Indie rock from Scotland. GOO THE HUG AND PINT Alt rock from the UK. SOFT RIOT (DER BÜROKRAT + INVISIBLE LOGIC)
THE OLD HAIRDRESSERS Rock from Glasgow. CROSSBREAKER ALLDAYER STEREO Metal and hardcore.
Sun 19 Jul
BRAID (HEY MERCEDES)
THE GARAGE Indie rock from the US. LIMERENCE (BED + LATE NIGHT GETAWAY DRIVERS + SO BORING.)
KING TUT'S Indie from Glasgow. SULKA THE OLD HAIRDRESSERS Alt pop from Glasgow.
Mon 20 Jul
VERB T SWG3 Hip-hop from London. JAZZ AT THE GLAD PRESENTS: MICHELLE WILLIS - DUETS THE GLAD CAFE Jazz from Canada.
Tue 21 Jul
WE ARE DELTA (POMMES FRITES + THE COWARDS) THE HUG AND PINT Rock from Fife. SOLEDAD BROTHERS STEREO Garage rock from the US.
Wed 22 Jul
FIELD COMMANDER ALI (JORDAN IRELAND + JEUX D'EAU)
THE OLD HAIRDRESSERS Folk from Australia. Thu 23 Jul
FORFAUNA (WYTCHWOUND + THE SUITS + RUFUS CASE STONE)
KING TUT'S Rock from Glasgow.
MATT WHITE & THE EMULSIONS (WHITE HONEY + VIDEOTRASH) THE HUG AND PINT Indie from Scotland. MARCIA BASSETT + VICTORIA KEDDIE THE GLAD CAFE Experimental electronica.
Fri 24 Jul
SIX60 ORAN MOR Pop rock from New Zealand. SLOWDANCE (SPIN CYCLE + THE HAWFCUTS + THE FRETAS)
KING TUT'S Indie rock from Glasgow. KYLE FALCONER SWG3 Rock from Dundee. MACABRE DOLL NICE 'N' SLEAZY Metal from Glasgow. ORKAWAVE NICE 'N' SLEAZY Indie from Glasgow.
Sat 25 Jul
SIX60
ORAN MOR Pop rock from New Zealand.
HEAVY HEADS (PANHEAD SHARPS + DENARA + REAL LIFE FEAR)
KING TUT'S Indie rock from Ayrshire. ÉTÁIN THE HUG AND PINT Indie from Ireland.
Sun 26 Jul
ROSIE ALICE (MADDIE NISBET + BEN LAUDER + NATASHA OLDCORN) KING TUT'S Pop from Fife.
ANDSOFIA (LONELY DAZE) THE HUG AND PINT Indie folk from Glasgow. HEN HOOSE AND FRIENDS THE OLD FRUITMARKET Eclectic lineup.
Mon 27 Jul
GLU THE GARAGE Rock from the US. BEAR MCCREARY
ST LUKE'S Composition from the US. Tue 28 Jul
HOT 8 BRASS BAND THE GARAGE Brass from New Orleans.
JANICE BURNS + JON DORAN THE GLAD CAFE Trad from the UK. Wed 29 Jul
ORLA NOBLE (ELEANOR HICKEY) THE HUG AND PINT Folk from Glasgow. VANESSA CARLTON ST LUKE'S Indie from the US. Thu 30 Jul
CAYLEE HAMMACK THE GARAGE Country from the US. LEMON DRINK (MAZ & THE PHANTASMS + NEEDLE GREEN + OSMARA)
KING TUT'S Indie pop from Glasgow. JOSHUA RAY WALKER THE HUG AND PINT Singer-songwriter from Texas.
FÈIS PHÀISLIG + FÈIS ROIS CEILIDH TRAILS THE GLAD CAFE Trad from Scotland.
Fri 31 Jul
QUALITY CONTROL (THE URBAN + TOURIST TRAP + BRNOUTBBY)
KING TUT'S Indie from Glasgow. ALMA + ADAM THOM THE OLD HAIRDRESSERS Folk and Americana. LOST MAP SUMMER PARTY (HOT CHIP DJS + PICTISH TRAIL + THE BUG CLUB + BOTH HANDS) SWG3 Eclectic lineup. SAMA: VLURE + CHIEDU ORAKA + DIRTY FACES + JENN GUNN THE OLD FRUITMARKET Eclectic lineup. HARRY MILESWATSON AND THE UNION NICE 'N' SLEAZY Punk from Edinburgh. BILL WELLS, NORMAN BLAKE + ABY VULLIAMY THE GLAD CAFE Experimental from Scotland.
Sat 1 Aug
TWIN SKELETONS THE GARAGE Metal from the UK.
Regular Edinburgh club nights
Cabaret
Voltaire
TUESDAYS
MIDNIGHT BASS, 23:00
Big basslines and small prices form the ethos behind this weekly Tuesday night, with drum’n’bass, jungle, bassline, grime and garage aplenty.
FRIDAYS
FLY CLUB, 23:00
Edinburgh and Glasgowstraddling night, with a powerhouse of local residents joined by a selection of guest talent.
SATURDAYS
PLEASURE, 23:00
Regular Saturday night at Cab Vol, with residents and occasional special guests.
Sneaky Pete’s
MONDAYS
RIDE N BOUNCE, 23:00
R‘n’B, pop, rap and hip-hop bangers every Monday.
TUESDAYS
RARE, 23:00
House, UKG and occasional techno from special guest DJs and rising locals.
FRIDAYS (FIRST OF THE MONTH)
HOT MESS, 23:00
A night for queer people and their friends.
SATURDAYS (LAST OF THE MONTH)
SOUL JAM, 23:00
Monthly no-holds-barred, down-and-dirty disco.
SUNDAYS
POSTAL, 23:00
Bass, breaks, grime and more from a selection of Cowgate all stars.
The Bongo Club
FRIDAYS (SECOND OF THE MONTH)
ELECTRIKAL, 23.00
Sound system and crew,
part of a music and art collective specialising in BASS music.
FRIDAYS (MONTHLY, WEEK CHANGES)
SOUND SYSTEM LEGACIES,23:00
Exploring the legacy of dub, reggae and roots music and sound system culture in the contemporary club landscape.
FRIDAYS (EVERY OTHER MONTH)
DISCO MAKOSSA, 23:00
Disco Makossa takes the dancefloor on a funk-filled trip through the sounds of African disco, boogie and house – strictly for the dancers.
FRIDAYS (EVERY OTHER MONTH)
OVERGROUND, 23:00
A safe space to appreciate all things rave, jungle, breakbeat and techno.
SATURDAYS (FIRST OR SECOND OF THE MONTH)
MESSENGER, 23:00
Roots reggae rocking since 1987 – foundation tune, fresh dubs, vibes alive, rockers, steppers, rub-a-dub.
SATURDAYS (MONTHLY)
CHROMATIC, 23:00
Championing all things UKG, grime, dubstep, bass and more, with disco, funk and soul from Mumbo Jumbo upstairs.
SATURDAYS (EVERY OTHER MONTH)
PULSE, 23:00
Techno night started in 2009 hosting regular special guests from the international scene.
SATURDAYS (MONTHLY)
HOBBES MUSIC X CLUB
NACHT, 23:00
A collaboration between
longrunning club night and Edinburgh record label ft. house, techno, electro, UKG and bass.
The Liquid Room
SATURDAYS (FIRST OF THE MONTH)
REWIND, 22:30
Monthly party night celebrating the best in soul, disco, rock and pop with music from the 70s, 80s, 90s and current bangers.
The Hive
MONDAYS POPTASTIC, 22:00
Pop, requests and throwbacks to get your week off to an energetic start.
TUESDAYS TRASH TUESDAY, 22:00
Alternative Tuesday anthems cherry picked from genres of rock, indie, punk, retro and more.
WEDNESDAYS
COOKIE WEDNESDAY, 22:00 90s and 00s cheesy pop and modern chart anthems.
THURSDAYS HI-SOCIETY THURSDAY, 22:00 Student anthems and bangerz.
FRIDAYS FLIP FRIDAY, 22:00 Yer all-new Friday at Hive. Cheap entry, inevitably danceable, and noveltystuffed. Perrrfect.
SATURDAYS BUBBLEGUM, 22:00
Saturday mix of chart and dance, with retro 80s classics thrown in for good measure.
SUNDAYS SECRET SUNDAY, 22:00
Two rooms of all the chart, cheese and indie-pop you can think of/handle on a Sunday.
Subway Cowgate
MONDAYS TRACKS, 21:00
Blow the cobwebs off the week with a weekly Monday night party with some of Scotland’s biggest and best drag queens.
TUESDAYS TAMAGOTCHI, 22:00
Throwback Tuesdays with non-stop 80s, 90s, 00s tunes.
WEDNESDAYS TWISTA, 22:00 Banger after banger all night long.
THURSDAYS FLIRTY, 22:00 Pop, cheese and chart.
FRIDAYS
FIT FRIDAYS, 22:00
Chart-topping tunes perfect for an irresistible sing and dance-along.
SATURDAYS
SLICE SATURDAY, 22:00
The drinks are easy and the pop is heavy.
SUNDAYS
SUNDAY SERVICE, 22:00
Atone for the week before and the week ahead with non-stop dancing.
The Mash House
MONDAYS
MASH MONDAYS, 23:00
Edinburgh’s new Monday night.
SATURDAYS (FIRST OF THE MONTH)
SAMEDIA SHEBEEN, 23:00
Joyous global club sounds: think Afrobeat, Latin and Arabic dancehall on repeat.
SATURDAYS (LAST OF THE MONTH)
PULSE, 23:00
The best techno DJs sit alongside The Mash House resident Darrell Pulse.
Sat 18 Jul
COWGATE BLOCK
PARTY
SNEAKY PETE'S AND THE MASH HOUSE Eclectic lineup. EDINBURGH JAZZ & BLUES FESTIVAL: DAVINA & THE VAGABONDS THE QUEEN'S HALL Jazz from the US.
Sun 19 Jul
THE DICKIES LA BELLE ANGELE Punk rock from LA.
Tue 21 Jul
CHARLIE PUTH USHER HALL
Singer-songwriter from the US. VERB T
SNEAKY PETE'S Hip-hop from London.
Wed 22 Jul
JOOLS HOLLAND AND HIS RHYTHM & BLUES
ORCHESTRA USHER HALL Jazz from the UK.
Thu 23 Jul
EDINBURGH JAZZ & BLUES FESTIVAL: BRIAN KELLOCK: A LIFE IN MUSIC
THE QUEEN'S HALL Jazz and blues from the UK.
BLOODSPORT (SCARSDALE + FAKING PRETTY)
THE WEE RED BAR Indie and rock.
Fri 24 Jul
EDINBURGH JAZZ & BLUES FESTIVAL: CLASSIC JAZZ
ORCHESTRA
THE QUEEN'S HALL Jazz from Scotland.
EDINBURGH JAZZ & BLUES FESTIVAL: JERRON PAXTON
THE QUEEN'S HALL Jazz from the US.
MARTIAL ARTS THE MASH HOUSE Pop from Glasgow.
TEN LA BELLE ANGELE Hard rock from Manchester.
Sat 25 Jul
Regular Glasgow comedy nights
The Stand
Glasgow FIRST MONDAY OF THE MONTH
MONDAY NIGHT IMPROV, 20:30
Host Billy Kirkwood & guests act entirely on your suggestions.
TUESDAYS RED RAW, 20:30 Legendary new material night with up to eight acts.
FRIDAYS THE FRIDAY SHOW, 20:30
The big weekend show with four comedians.
SATURDAYS THE SATURDAY SHOW, 20:30
Regular
Regular Glasgow club nights
The Rum Shack
SATURDAYS (LAST OF EVERY OTHER MONTH)
VOCAL OR VERSION, 21:00
Vintage Jamaican music on original vinyl by resident DJs and guests.
BISTANGO (THE JOSHUA HOTEL + WILD BLUE + FOOL CIRCLE)
KING TUT'S Indie from Glasgow. SLOW MASS (OUTLANDER)
THE HUG AND PINT Rock from the US.
CAPERCAILLIE (RURA & FARA)
SWG3 Trad from Scotland.
Sun 2 Aug
JOE GOODALL (QUIET YEARS + BLAIR GILMOUR + SIDEWALK)
KING TUT'S Indie pop from Scotland.
Edinburgh
Music
Wed 1 Jul
ROB.GREEN + MIKE MCKENZIE THE VOODOO ROOMS Folk, Americana and soul.
Sub Club
FRIDAYS (SECOND OF THE MONTH)
RETURN TO MONO SLAM’s monthly Subbie residency sees them joined by some of the biggest names in international techno.
WALT DISCO SNEAKY PETE'S Art-pop and new wave from Glasgow. CHRISTONE KINGFISH INGRAM THE QUEEN'S HALL Jazz from the US.
Thu 2 Jul
MARTHA MAY AND THE MONDAYS
SNEAKY PETE'S Punk from Glasgow
Fri 3 Jul
BUBBLES (QUAD 90) THE WEE RED BAR Post-punk.
Sat 4 Jul
THE SCOUSENESS
SNEAKY PETE'S Rock.
OH ROMANCE THE MASH HOUSE Alt rock from Edinburgh.
SATURDAYS
SUBCULTURE, 23:00 Long-running house night with residents Harri & Domenic, oft’ joined by a carousel of super fresh guests.
Mon 6 Jul THE MACCABEES (HAMISH HAWK + CHARTREUSE)
EDINBURGH CORN EXCHANGE Indie rock from London. FRAGILE ANIMALS SNEAKY PETE'S Indie rock from Australia.
Tue 7 Jul
THRUM (RADHIKA) THE WEE RED BAR Indie and rock.
Thu 9 Jul THE DOGS D'AMOUR THE VOODOO ROOMS Hard rock from London. BELOW THE NECK (CATALYSIS) THE MASH HOUSE Hardcore from Scotland.
Fri 10 Jul
DECEMBER 10
ASSEMBLY ROOMS Pop from the UK.
GURRY WURRY (EYES OF OTHERS + CARL MARAH)
SNEAKY PETE'S Avant pop from Edinburgh.
Sat 11 Jul
LYDIA LUNCH + MARC HURTADO THE VOODOO ROOMS Rock. PELOWSKA
SNEAKY PETE'S Synth pop from Edinburgh.
Sun 12 Jul
MILITARIE GUN THE CAVES Rock from LA.
PLAY NICE PRESENTS DOVETAILED (FAITH ELIOTT + QUITTER)
HOME BAR Lo-fi indie from Scotland.
Tue 14 Jul
DAVID LEON
SNEAKY PETE'S Pop funk.
Fri 17 Jul
EXDESTRIER (UNDERVOLT + OCEANEVRA)
BANNERMANS Sludge rock from Edinburgh. ALCATRAZ (BECCA HUNTER + FOG BANDITS + THE SANKARAS)
SNEAKY PETE'S Queer rock.
EDINBURGH JAZZ & BLUES FESTIVAL: TUBA SKINNY THE QUEEN'S HALL Jazz from the US.
THE ZIPHEADS (BUZZBOMB) BANNERMANS Punk rock from the UK.
THE VOODOO ROOMS Punk rock from the UK. FRAUD$ (TRUMPTON RIOT + THE TOLERATED)
BANNERMANS Punk from Scotland.
The big weekend show with four comedians. The Glee Club
FRIDAYS FRIDAY NIGHT COMEDY, 19:00
The perfect way to end the working week, with four superb stand-up comedians.
SATURDAYS SATURDAY NIGHT COMEDY, 19:00
An evening of awardwinning comedy, with four superb stand-up comedians that will keep you laughing until Monday.
Edinburgh comedy nights
The Stand
Edinburgh
MONDAYS RED RAW, 20:30
Legendary new material night with up to eight acts.
TUESDAYS (FIRST OF THE MONTH)
STU & GARRY’S IMPROV SHOW, 20:30
The Stand’s very own Stu & Garry’s make comedy cold from suggestions.
THURSDAYS THE THURSDAY SHOW, 20:00
Simply the best comics on the contemporary Scottish circuit.
FRIDAYS THE FRIDAY SHOW, 21:00
The big weekend show with four comedians.
SATURDAYS THE SATURDAY SHOW (THE EARLY SHOW), 17:00
A slightly earlier performance of the big weekend show with four comedians.
SATURDAYS THE SATURDAY SHOW, 20:30
The big weekend show with four comedians.
HARRY MILESWATSON & THE UNION SNEAKY PETE'S Folk rock from Edinburgh. ERIC JOHNSON THE QUEEN'S HALL Jazz from the US. KULA SHAKER LA BELLE ANGELE Psychedelic rock from London.
Sun 2 Aug
LLOYD COLE
THE QUEEN'S HALL Rock from the UK.
Glasgow Clubs
Thu 2 Jul
INDIE SLEAZY NICE 'N' SLEAZY Indie.
Fri 3 Jul
THROUGH THE ROOF SUB CLUB House and minimal. I LOVE ACID
THE BERKELEY SUITE Techno and acid.
SMART CASUAL WITH ET AL LA CHEETAH CLUB Techno and garage. RED LIGHT DISCO THE BUFF CLUB House and disco. HOUSE OF HEAVY NICE 'N' SLEAZY Nu-metal.
Sat 4 Jul
THE HAMMER HITS
THE BERKELEY SUITE House and italo disco.
Monkey Barrel Comedy Club
SECOND AND THIRD TUESDAY OF EVERY MONTH
THE EDINBURGH REVUE, 19:00
The University of Edinburgh’s Comedy Society, who put on sketch and stand-up comedy shows every two weeks.
WEDNESDAYS TOP BANANA, 19:00
Catch the stars of tomorrow today in Monkey Barrel’s new act night every Wednesday.
THURSDAYS
BEST OF THE FRINGE, 19:00 + 21:00
Four acts every Thursday take to the stage to try out new material.
FRIDAYS MONKEY BARREL COMEDY’S BIG FRIDAY SHOW, 19:00/21:00
Monkey Barrel’s flagship night of premier stand-up comedy.
SATURDAYS MONKEY BARREL COMEDY’S BIG SATURDAY SHOW, 17:00/19:00/21:00 Monkey Barrel’s flagship night of premier stand-up comedy.
REED STARK NICE 'N' SLEAZY Hip-hop. SCATTER 002BABYCCINO (KNEAVE + BLEEN) STEREO House and electro.
Thu 9 Jul
BOUNCE: NOISE MAFIA THE BERKELEY SUITE Trance and techno. NIGHTSHIFT: SURPLUS + JOHNNY GREIG LA CHEETAH CLUB House and techno.
Fri 10 Jul
POLKA DOT DISCO CLUB THE BERKELEY SUITE Disco. DOMINO DANCING NICE 'N' SLEAZY Synth-pop. PONYBOY PRESENTS
PONYSHORE W/ CHIPPY NONSTOP AND DJ G2G STEREO Techno.
Sat 11 Jul
I LOVE YOUR ENERGY WITH AUSTIN ATO THE BERKELEY SUITE House and italo disco. DUURTY TECHNO NICE 'N' SLEAZY Techno.
SUNDAYS MONKEY BARREL COMEDY’S BIG SUNDAY SHOW, 19:00/21:00 Monkey Barrel’s flagship night of premier stand-up comedy. The Gilded Saloon FRIDAYS (EXCEPT LAST) THE COMEDY SHOW, 20:00 Mixed bill comedy lineup. LAST FRIDAY OF THE MONTH STORY PLATFORM, 19:30 + 21:00 Comedy sketch show with local comedians.
SECOND THURSDAY OF THE MONTH ROBIN GRAINGER'S SPECIALIST SUBJECT, 20:00 Mixed-bill of stand-up comedy and live podcast. LAST THURSDAY OF THE MONTH GARETH MUTCH, 20:00 Mixed bill comedy lineup.
ADERAYO X STEREO: ECSTASY W/ EVISSIMAX (LUCKYBABE B2B SAPARILLA + LAMAYA + SUNNYLICIOUS) STEREO Club and bass.
Thu 16 Jul
GLOBAL NIGHTS NICE 'N' SLEAZY Hollywood and Bollywood. Fri 17 Jul
SHOOT YOUR SHOT - PRIDE // MELANIE HAVENS THE BERKELEY SUITE Techno. CHARLIE BONES THE RUM SHACK Disco and funk. THROUGH THE ROOF // ELLIS GARNER LA CHEETAH CLUB House and minimal.
STREETRAVE SUMMER ALL DAYER 2026 SWG3 House and disco. WRONG PARTY! AT MCCHUILLS MCCHUILLS Acid. WATERSHED NICE 'N' SLEAZY House and disco.
SCANDAL.GLA X STEREO: ARMANA
KHAN STEREO Jersey club.
Sun 19 Jul
SHOOT YOUR SHOTPRIDE // JOSH CAFFÉ THE BERKELEY SUITE House and techno.
Thu 23 Jul
CATEGORY D
NICE 'N' SLEAZY Techno.
Fri 24 Jul
INTO SOLA LAUNCH NIGHT: DANCING WITH STANLEY + DAVID
SCOTT
LA CHEETAH CLUB House. STRANGE NEIGHBOURS
NICE 'N' SLEAZY Hip-hop.
H4LW4 X STEREO: NANOOS
STEREO Footwork and bass.
Sat 25 Jul
A NIGHT OF ITALO DISCO THE BERKELEY SUITE Italo disco.
PEDESTRIANISM PRESENTS: DRINKS ON ME
LA CHEETAH CLUB Garage. OPTIKA
SWG3 House and electronica.
909 SOCIETY
NICE 'N' SLEAZY House.
DANSE MACABRE
STEREO Italo and goth.
Thu 30 Jul
FINESSE
NICE 'N' SLEAZY Techno.
Fri 31 Jul
FRAZI.ER OPEN TO CLOSE RETURNS SUB CLUB Techno and house.
U-PHORIA
NICE 'N' SLEAZY Techno.
160 UNITY X STEREO: DJ SPINN, JANA RUSH, BIG DOPE P, SEB STEREO Footwork and Chicago house.
Sat 1 Aug
PHIL KIERAN PRESENTS: LEATHERETTE MCCHUILLS Techno.
DRIP STEREO Techno.
GLASGOW TECHNO ALLIANCE THE OLD FRUITMARKET Techno.
Edinburgh Clubs
Wed 1 Jul
RENDEZVOUS: MACKA + BRODY JAMES + TOSHER
SNEAKY PETE'S House.
Thu 2 Jul
EMPRESS - OPENING
RITUAL PEOPLE'S LEISURE CLUB Techno.
MILE HIGH CLUB: TRUCHA + ZAKDS SNEAKY PETE'S House.
Fri 3 Jul
TONI MCVEY
PARADISE PALMS Disco.
BORLEY ROOM X UNTITLED X C-RIGHT THROUGH: JUICY ROMANCE CABARET VOLTAIRE Techno.
Sat 4 Jul VOLENS CHOURS DRUMAGEDDON: DRUMHELLER
SNEAKY PETE'S Bass. AN AFTERNOON OF INDIE LA BELLE ANGELE Indie.
Wed 8 Jul
MIDNIGHT BASS SNEAKY PETE'S Bass.
Thu 9 Jul
REFRACTA & FRIENDS SNEAKY PETE'S Bass.
Fri 10 Jul
MYRTLE PARADISE PALMS House.
PALIDRONE: MELBA SNEAKY PETE'S Bass. THAT 70S CLUB LA BELLE ANGELE 70s pop.
Sat 11 Jul
SWEENEY AND ROWAN PARADISE PALMS House.
EPIKA: ALNA THE BONGO CLUB Techno and electro.
POPULAR MUSIC: KYLIE WEARS BERGHAUS SNEAKY PETE'S Pop. DRAKE NIGHT LA BELLE ANGELE Hip-hop. FRNZY X HVY PRESENT: NVNS THE MASH HOUSE Hard techno. ASCENSION THE WEE RED BAR Goth and industrial.
Mon 13 Jul KONVERSION SNEAKY PETE'S Club.
Wed 15 Jul
BORLEY ROOM: JORDAN GEORGE SNEAKY PETE'S House.
Thu 16 Jul
MEMBRANE: DAKSH ALL NIGHT LONG SNEAKY PETE'S Dub.
Fri 17 Jul
DISCJOCELYNE PARADISE PALMS Pop and punk. EZSTREET / THE CREW NIGHT CABARET VOLTAIRE House.
DISORDER: BONGO CLOSING PARTY THE BONGO CLUB Jungle.
HEADSET: DJ SPINN SNEAKY PETE'S Footwork. LIMEWIRED LA BELLE ANGELE 2000s pop.
VOLTAGE PRESENTS: SVRGN + KEZZO THE MASH HOUSE Hard techno.
Sat 18 Jul
WE COME TO DANCE WITH DAVE ELDERS AND GUESTS PARADISE PALMS Disco.
BONGO CLOSING PARTY: HAMMER THE BONGO CLUB House and disco. THE MIRROR DANCE X FIELD NOTES: YU SU SNEAKY PETE'S House.
DECADE: EMO BEACH PARTY LA BELLE ANGELE Pop punk. TWIN FLAME THE WEE RED BAR Hardcore.
Wed 22 Jul
CLUB SPIT: JODIE MOONEY + MIXFITS
+ TY SNEAKY PETE'S House.
Thu 23 Jul
POTPOURRI SNEAKY PETE'S Club.
Fri 24 Jul
CAKIEBISCUITS
PARADISE PALMS House. LIONOIL SNEAKY PETE'S House. JUST LIKE HEAVEN
LA BELLE ANGELE 80s pop.
Sat 25 Jul
JACUZZI GENERAL PARADISE PALMS House.
MOOVN SUMMER PARTY PEOPLE'S LEISURE CLUB House.
RHINESTONE RODEO
LA BELLE ANGELE Country. THE BORDELLO CLASSIC ROCK DAY CLUB THE MASH HOUSE Classic rock. COMPRESSION THE WEE RED BAR Trance and techno.
Sun 26 Jul
FREE TIME: DAVE CLARKE
SNEAKY PETE'S Techno.
Wed 29 Jul
MIDNIGHT BASS
SNEAKY PETE'S Bass.
Thu 30 Jul
YBZ
SNEAKY PETE'S Bass.
Fri 31 Jul
ZOE FROM FINACNE PARDISE PALMS House.
NO FATE
PEOPLE'S LEISURE CLUB EBM.
CAROUSE RECORDS
SNEAKY PETE'S Techno.
ALIEN DISKO THE MASH HOUSE House.
REGGAETON PARTY LA BELLE ANGELE Reggaeton.
Sat 1 Aug
EHFM
SNEAKY PETE'S Club. OFF CAMPUS CLUB LA BELLE ANGELE Pop.
Dundee Clubs
Fri 3 Jul
SURU MUSIC PRESENTS: TIMO MAAS CANVAS House.
Fri 17 Jul
BLACKNESS BLOCK PARTY WEEKENDER
CANVAS House and disco.
Sat 25 Jul DAY MOVES WITH STEVIE COX CANVAS Techno and house.
Glasgow Comedy
The King's
Theatre
STEWART LEE VS THE MAN-WULF
MON 13 JUL-TUE 14 JUL
A brand new show in which the veteran comedian shares the stage with a werewolf comedian pulled from his subconscious.
RICHARD AYOADE: AFTERTHOUGHTS
WED 15 JUL
Thoughts, ruminations and ponderings from star of The IT Crowd and director of Submarine.
The Old Hairdresser's
HAROLD NIGHT
TUE 7 JUL
Two Glasgow Improv Theatre house teams performing The Harold. Feat. Saved By The Beep and With Bits.
HAMISH NIGHT
TUE 7 JUL
Two Glasgow Improv Theatre house teams performing The Harold. Featuring tubducky and Smoking Cat.
SPREAD: UNDER THE COVERS
TUE 14 JUL
Improvised comedy inspired by print media.
BOUNCE HOUSE: SOLVES EVERYTHING
TUE 14 JUL
Solving all of the petty squabbles they come across with improv comedy.
PERFECT IMPROVGUEST MONOLOGIST
TUE 21 JUL
Our flagship improv show with a special guest monologist and an all-star improv cast.
COUCH SURFS THE
WEB
TUE 28 JUL
A night of improv comedy where Couch looks up bad reviews of places the audience have been to.
GIT IMPROV CAGE MATCH
TUE 28 JUL
Two improv teams battle to be crowned champions of the Glasgow Improv Theatre this month. Audience decide who wins!
Edinburgh
Comedy
Monkey Barrel Comedy Club
MARC JENNINGS: IF AND WHEN (WIP)
THU 2 JUL
Glaswegian comedian and Some Laugh podcast host
Marc Jennings previews his new Fringe show, with his trademark sharp observations on current events, politics and relationships.
TOM BALLARD: BE FUNNY CHALLENGE (IMPOSSIBLE) (WIP)
SAT 4 JUL
Australia’s Special Envoy For Comedy Tom Ballard returns in 2026 with a new show packed with jokes about war and being naughty and being kind and just how extremely normal everything is right now.
ADAM FLOOD: WORK IN PROGRESS
SAT 4 JUL
A death-defying genre mashup: standup and rave.
A show about Adam's vanishing nightlife, performed over beats.
MC HAMMERSMITH AND FRIENDS
SUN 5 JUL
Multi-award winning freestyle rap comedian MC Hammersmith presents an evening of improvised comedy raps based entirely on audience suggestions.
BIG GRANDE: LIVE IN EDINBURGH!
FRI 10 JUL
Hit LA Improv team Big Grande bring their brand of rapid, absurd, honest, and wild live shows to Edinburgh.
RACHEL FAIRBURN: WORK IN PROGRESS
FRI 10 JUL
Join Rachel (Live At The Apollo, All Killa No Filla) as she tries brand new characters for her 2026 tour.
SHELF: THE KIDS' SHOW 2
SAT 11 JUL Fresh from their award winning debut family friendly sketch show, Rachel and Ruby are back.
MARJOLEIN
ROBERTSON: CLOUDS (WIP)
SUN 12 JUL
Shetland comedian Marjolein Robertson has been mixing folklore and standup for years and she's not going to stop. Come along and join for stories, jokes and fiddle tunes.
EVA PERONI: WORK IN PROGRESS
FRI 17 JUL
A fast, brutally funny debut preview about how you can take the girl out of Livingston, but maybe Costa Rica is too far.
LAKE & HAMMER SHOW
FRI 17 JUL
Kate Hammer and Sam Lake welcome you to HAMMER LAKE, the place where this duo present stand-up, sketch and general hilarity.
DAN TIERNAN: WORK IN PROGRESS
SAT 18 JUL
Dan Tiernan is back at it again: and this time he’s got magic rocks in his pocket.
As seen on Live at the Apollo, 8 Out of Ten Cats Does Countdown, The Last Leg, and QI.
KATE HAMMER: WORK IN PROGRESS
SAT 18 JUL
A work in progress for Kate’s debut show at the Fringe this year. This Canadian needs to make you laugh, otherwise she will be deported.
MC HAMMERSMITH:
ICE ICE NEPO BABY (PREVIEW)
SUN 26 JUL
A preview of MC Hammersmith's new show: lightning-fast hip-hop comedy, explosively funny rhymes, and utterly captivating genealogical investigation.
SARA PASCOE: JAZZ (WIP)
WED 29 JUL
Sara’s dad has made an 18 CD Jazz interpretation of James Joyce’s Ulysses, and she would like to make some jokes about that.
SARA PASCOE: JAZZ (WIP)
THU 30 JUL
Sara’s dad has made an 18 CD Jazz interpretation of James Joyce’s Ulysses, and she would like to make some jokes about that.
STUART GOLDSMITH: CANARY (WIP)
FRI 31 JUL
Stuart Goldsmith (Live At
The Edinburgh Playhouse
STEWART LEE VS THE MAN-WULF
WED 15 JUL
A brand new show in which the veteran comedian shares the stage with a werewolf comedian pulled from his subconscious.
The Gilded Saloon
THE LAUGHTERNOON SHOW WITH SOPHIE
SAT 11 JUL
Saturday afternoon of laughter where newer comics hone their skills and experienced comedians try out new stuff.
THE GILDED KABARET WITH MYSTIKA GLAMOOR
SUN 12 JUL
Mystika Glamoor presents a brand new show to platform local queer artists, invite special guests from across the UK, and offer you the best Sunday evening of entertainment in town.
HOT COMEDY
SUN 19 JUL
Hot Comedy is a bold, inclusive comedy compilation show in Edinburgh, hosted by Nicholas Elliott and Eva Peroni.
Glasgow
Theatre Royal Conservatoire of Scotland
TITUS
WED 1 JUL -SAT 4 JUL
One of Shakespeare's bloodiest plays gets the full horor treatment.
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
TUE 14 JUL -FRI 17 JUL
More Shakespearean blood, gore and tragedy.
The King's Theatre
MEAN GIRLS
MON 29 JUN -SAT 11 JUL
Get in loser, it's a Mean Girls musical adaptation.
THE ENORMOUS CROCODILE THE MUSICAL
FRI 24 JUL -SUN 26 JUL
A new toe-tapping and jaw-snapping musical adaptation of Roald Dahl's iconic story.
Theatre Royal NIKITA KUZMIN: SUPERNOVA FRI 10 JUL
Strictly Come Dancing finalist takes centre stage in an electric new dance piece.
ATG INSPIRE
PRESENTS SHREK THE MUSICAL JR.
FRI 17 JUL -SAT 18 JUL
A whole new generation takes on the grumpy green ogre.
Edinburgh Theatre
Festival
Theatre
THIS IS RAMBERT
THU 2 JUL -SAT 4 JUL
Dance company Rambert’s centenary brings together three urgent, contemporary works.
NIKITA KUZMIN: SUPERNOVA
SUN 12 JUL
LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS
FRI 24 JUL -SAT 25 JUL
A sinister plant changes a florist's life in this classic zany musical.
The Edinburgh Playhouse
LORD OF THE DANCE:
30TH ANNIVERSARY
THU 16 JUL -SUN 19 JUL
The global Irish dance phenomenon celebrates three decades of fast-moving limbs.
Traverse Theatre
CATHY
FRI 31 JUL -SUN 30 AUG
A new play by young playwrite Eilidh Loan, whose first play Moorcraft opened to critical acclaim at the Tron.
SUPPOSING:
FRI 31 JUL -SUN 30 AUG
The world premiere of Zinnie Harris' new play, in which a young woman navigates a terrifying curse.
BOG WITCH
SUN 2 AUG -SUN 30 AUG
Bryony Kimmings' new autobiographical play follows a mother and son who retreat to nature in a last ditch attempt at happiness.
Dundee Theatre
Dundee Rep THE CAT IN THE HAT
TUE 30 JUN -THU 2 JUL
The titular cat in the titular hat sets two siblings' lives in chaos in this joyous Dr Seuss adaptation.
GAGGLE
TUE 14 JUL -WED 15 JUL
Physical comedy, circus and music come together in this play about three lighthouse keepers, made for audiences of young people with complex additional support needs and their families.
Glasgow
Art
Artpistol
BREAKOUTS
UNTIL SUN 30 AUG
Artpistol's annual look at the top talent to graduate from the Scottish Art Schools.
Compass Gallery
THE SUMMER SHOW 2026
TUE 7 JUL-SAT 29 AUG
Mixed exhibition of paintings, drawings, prints, sculpture and ceramics showcasing work by the gallery's artists.
David Dale
Gallery
IRIS TOULIATOU: NO ONE IS READY
UNTIL SAT 11 JUL
Conceptual exhibition interrogating the concept of the international.
Glasgow Print
Studio
ANDREW CRANSTON + LORNA ROBERTSON: PAINTING, OUR MUTUAL FRIEND
UNTIL SAT 1 AUG
Exploring the dynamic relationship between printmaking and painting through the longterm collaboration between the two artists.
Glasgow School of Art
AFTERLIVES: THE WEAVER, A SCORE, AN ARCHIPELAGO
FRI 10 JUL-SAT 8 AUG
A group exhibition exploring Southeast Asian legacies of the Commonwealth through moving image and installation.
COMMONWEALTH
GAMES MEDALS AT THE GLASGOW
SCHOOL OF ART
FRI 10 JUL-SAT 8 AUG
An immersive exhibition following the journey behind the making of the 2014 and 2026 Glasgow Commonwealth medals.
Glasgow Women's Library
WE MAKE MUSEUMS: SUSTAINING AND CHANGING WORLDS
UNTIL SAT 26 SEP
Showcasing three new commissions by Sohaila Baluch, Ruth Ewan, and Alixandra Prybyla highlghting their creative approaches to activism, feminist protest and antiracism.
GoMA JASMINE TOGOBRISBY: LIQUID LAND
UNTIL SUN 6 SEP
Spanning sculpture, photography, installation, and video, this exhibition looks at colonial legacies of kidnap and exploitation within Pacific Islander communties.
Street Level Photoworks
AQSA ARIF: BENEATH THE IVORY IS MOLTEN
BROWN
UNTIL SUN 30 AUG
Moving image and textile photo prints crafting a narrative of the Lakshmi/ Yakshi/Nymph, oscillating between South Asian ancestral memory and western assimilation.
AYESHA JONES: THE BACKBONE
UNTIL SUN 30 AUG
Photograph drawing on the artist's experience with scoliosis to examine narratives around female health.
The Hunterian
NAEEM MOHAIEMEN:
THROUGH A MIRROR, DARKLY
UNTIL SUN 11 OCT
Film work pinpointing the turbulent moments of transition and rebellion in the 1970s, through the the legacy of students killed during Vietnam War protests.
The Mitchell Library
ALICE BROOKE: WOUND DUTY
UNTIL SUN 19 JUL
Photos created through experimental darkroom processes examining the smartphone as both wound and portal.
The Modern Institute
CATHY WILKES
UNTIL WED 19 AUG
New sculptures and exhibitions drawing on the artist's experience growing up in a working class area of East Belfast.
VICTORIA MORTON
UNTIL SAT 5 SEP
Tramway
RAE-YEN SONG
UNTIL MON 24 AUG
Glasgow artist transforms Tramway’s vast gallery space into a sub-aquatic world, which serves simultaneously as a spectacle, a memorial and a refuge.
JERICHO MARS: MY HEART IS DRENCHED IN BLOOD! MY HEART IS DRENCHED IN BLOOD!
UNTIL SUN 9 AUG
Objects and words removed from their context consider the construction of image, language and meaning.
Edinburgh Art
&Gallery
SHARED MATERIAL
UNTIL WED 1 JUL
Sculptural ceramic works by eleven artists using the medium as a point of departure.
City Art Centre
JEAN F. WATSON: AN ARTISTIC LEGACY
UNTIL SUN 4 OCT
Works acquired through the Jean F. Watson Bequest Fund, including pieces by Arthur Melville, Joan Eardley and Eduardo Paolozzi.
SANDRA GEORGE:
START FROM THE LEVEL
SAT 27 JUN-SUN 27 SEP
Themes of community and activism are explored in this archival exhibition from seminal Craigmillar photographer.
RACHEL MCBRINN + JONATHAN WEBB: STUDY FOR NORTH BRIDGE
SAT 18 JUL-SUN 13 SEP Moving image piece responding to the evolving architecture of the city.
Collective Gallery
KATIE PATERSON: AFTERLIFE
UNTIL SUN 6 SEP 200 amulets inspired by cultures around the world consider ideas of protection, ecological fragility and care.
RICHARD MAGUIRE: THERE IS NO
BEGINNING, AS THERE IS NO END
UNTIL SUN 6 SEP
The first edition of Time + Space, Collective's new early-career artist programme, this exhibition explores British and South Asian histories and representations of race and sexuality.
Dovecot
Studios
ELIZABETH
BLACKADDER: A LIFE IN COLOUR
UNTIL TUE 14 JUL
Looking at 50 years of the artist's collaboration with Dovecot Studios, through textile works produced in the space and beyond.
COSTUME COUTURE: SIXTY YEARS OF COSPROP
SAT 18 JUL-SAT 16 JAN
Six decades of awardwinning film and television costume studio Cosprop is celebrated through iconic pieces.
Edinburgh Printmakers
JAMIE FITZPATRICK:
MEMORIALS TO SAUSAGE POLITICS
SAT 18 JUL-SUN 25 OCT
Sourced from elements of statues and monuments found in Edinburgh, this exhibition explores sculpture as a tool of civic statecraft.
ETCHINGROOM1: UNEXPECTED TRIP
SAT 18 JUL-SUN 25 OCT
New works by Ukrainian printmaking duo exploring stories of our shared daily lives.
Embassy
Gallery
EDU GIL ALSINA: LOW LIFE
UNTIL SUN 5 JUL
Responding to the street scenes, dances, workshops and markets depicted in 18th-century Scottish genre painting, this exhibition rearticulates images from history.
Fruitmarket
EVA ROTHSCHILD: THE VOID PRESSES THE WALL
FRI 10 JUL-SUN 11 OCT
Sculptures born out of the urban landscape examine sculpture's capacity to create bodily encounters in space.
Ingleby Gallery
SONGS OF INNOCENCE & EXPERIENCE PART II
UNTIL SUN 6 SEP
Celebrating the centenary of Caribbean artist Frank Walter.
Jupiter Artland
TAI SHANI: THE SPELL OR THE DREAM
UNTIL TUE 1 SEP
A new sculpture by Turner-prize winning artist, in which a luminous giant figures lies and breathes gently in Jupiter Artland's orchard space.
EXTRACTION
UNTIL SUN 26 JUL
An examination of how energy systems shape culture, land and belief, through work by artists Carol Rhodes, john gerrard, Marguerite Humeau, Siobhan McLaughlin and John Latham, informed by the gallery's own landscape.
National Gallery of Modern Art
GWEN JOHN: STRANGE BEAUTIES
UNTIL SUN 25 OCT
The first major retrospective of seminal 20th-century Welsh artist.
National Portrait Gallery
WENDY MCMURDO: THE DIGITAL MIRROR
SAT 30 MAY-SUN 25 OCT
Reflections on childhood, the digital world and imagination by pioneering photographer.
Out of the Blue
Drill Hall
THE ART OF BECOMING
MON 6 JUL-FRI 10 JUL
New collection of artworks created by Art Psychotherapy students from Queen Margaret University.
RSA: Royal Scottish Academy
CHAOS AND CONTROL: PRINTMAKING IN SCOTLAND NOW SAT 27 JUN-SUN 26 JUL
A snapshot of contempory printmaking in Scotland, curated by acclaimed printmaker Ade Adesina RSA and Head of Programme Flora La Thangue.
JOYCE W. CAIRNS: A PERSONAL ODYSSEY SAT 1 AUG-WED 2 SEP
A retrospective of paintings and other work by the first woman to be elected President of the RSA.
Stills
JILLIAN EDELSTEIN: AMONG PEOPLE FRI 31 JUL-SAT 24 OCT
The first major survey exhibition of internationally renowned photographer who has spent the past forty years documenting people, communities and defining moments of contemporary history.
Studies in
Photography
HILL & ADAMSON'S FISHERWOMEN AND MEN OF THE FIRTH OF FORTH
UNTIL SAT 25 JUL
Exploring the lives of the fisherwomen through the eyes of Scotland's pioneers in social documentary.
Summerhall
GRACE MARAN: EROH WED 8 JUL-SUN 12 JUL
Animals are observed and recorded, creating a resultant recurring mythological creature that exists between the real and the imagined.
Talbot Rice
Gallery
ANNE HARDY SAT 27 JUN-SUN 27 SEP
An examination of the technology of exhibition making, transforming the gallery into an immersive space.
Dundee
Art
DCA: Dundee
Contemporary
Arts
FRANCIS DOSOO: PORTRAIT OF DOROTHY GALE UNTIL SUN 2 AUG
Installation inspired by the 1978 film The Wiz, a reimagining of The Wizard of Oz, as a way to explore the way we look at historic moving images.
ADRIÁN BALSECA: IN THE FOREST RUINS UNTIL SUN 2 AUG
Newly commissioned work by Ecuadorian artist exploring the global impacts of colonialism and the capitalist logic of resource extraction in Latin America.
Generator
Projects
THEY HAD 4 YEARS '26 UNTIL SUN 12 JUL
Annual group show featuring newly commisioned work from five recent art graduates from Scottish art schools.
V&A Dundee
DESIGN AND DISABILITY
UNTIL THU 31 DEC
Showcasing the radical contributions of Disabled, Deaf, and neurodivergent people to contemporary design and culture.
The Apollo, Netflix is a Joke, Conan) applies his standup to the apparent collapse of absolutely everything in this work-in-progress hour.
Strictly Come Dancing finalist takes centre stage in an electric new dance piece.
Work spanning the artist's interest in pushing the bounds of both painting and music.
CATWALK: THE ART OF THE FASHION SHOW UNTIL SUN 17 JAN
Charting the evolution of catwalk art and culture, from 19th-century salons to contemporary immersive runways.
The Skinny On... Finnie the Unicorn
The Glasgow 2026 Commonwealth Games mascot brings an overwhelming belt of positivity and a hearty slice of hometown hype to this month’s Q&A
What’s your favourite place to visit? I love Glasgow, it’s the best city in the world and full of places that make me who I am. From looking up at the stars painted on the Barrowland Ballroom or spotting the Hydro glow at nighttime, there’s always something to do. With world-class sport and entertainment at its heart, the city’s buzzing energy really feels like home. The atmosphere is going to be incredible, and I’ll be there hyping everyone up!
Favourite food?
When I’m running around all over Glasgow, it’s important to stay healthy and energised. I eat plenty of fresh fruit, but I’ve definitely got a sweet tooth! A wee piece of traditional Scottish tablet always hits the spot and gives me a boost for my next adventure.
Who is your hero?
It’s important to have someone who inspires you to be your best. For me, that’s Eilish McColgan – Scottish queen of the track! Her determination to never give up and always do her best are qualities I really admire. She always gives her all, and that’s something I try to do too.
Favourite colour?
That’s a tricky one! I love pink, purple and blue, just like my hair and tail. But if I had to pick one favourite, it would have to be orange, just like my traffic cone horn. It’s bright, bold and impossible to miss, which feels very me!
Whose work inspires you?
The young people of Scotland inspire me every day. Whether I’m visiting schools, sports clubs or community events, I’m always amazed by their creativity, enthusiasm and teamwork. Whether it’s through sport, art or community projects, they remind me how powerful it is when people come together and give something a go.
What three people would you invite to your party, and why? First, I’d invite my old friend Clyde. He knows Glasgow inside out and never says no to a good celebration. I’d have to invite one of my amazing Mascot Makers who brought me to life and made me who I am today! And finally, I would love to have my hero, Eilish McColgan, be part of the celebrations. She helped announce me to the world and holds a special place in my heart.
What’s your all-time favourite album?
I love anything that gets people singing and dancing together. A greatest hits album
packed with crowd favourites. There’s nothing better than hearing a whole arena join in together.
What’s the worst film you’ve ever seen?
I’m a pretty positive unicorn, so I always try to find the joy. But I once watched a film that was so slow, even I stru led to sit still; if there’s no action, no excitement and no big finish, I’m probably off practising my dance moves instead.
What item would you take to a desert island?
I’d definitely take my swimming cap! If I’m on a desert island and there’s time to swim, I’ll be diving into that water!
When did you last cry?
Even unicorns get emotional sometimes. Hearing Flower of Scotland before a big sporting moment always gives me goosebumps. Seeing athletes and fans come together fills me with pride and sometimes brings a happy tear to my eye.
What are you most scared of?
Someone feeling left out. I’m all about bringing people together and making sure everyone feels part of the action. Whether it’s on the court, in the crowd or out in the community, there’s a place for everyone.
Which athlete could you win against in a Commonwealth Games sport of your choice? Honestly, these athletes are the very best in the world! My best chance would be as part of a team. Put me alongside some netball stars or bowls legends and I’d give it my all. I’m not sure I’d win, but I’d definitely bring the energy!
Which is your favourite sport?
I don’t think I can pick just one! As the official mascot, I set myself the challenge of trying out every single sport; from the pool to the track and beyond. What I love most isn’t one particular sport, it’s the feeling of taking part. Whether you’re competing for a medal, trying something new or cheering from the sidelines, every sport has something special.
Tell us a secret…?
I’ve got a confession… whenever I visit a venue, I like to imagine what it’ll be like when it’s full of cheering fans this summer. Sometimes I even practise my victory celebrations when nobody’s looking. Don’t tell anyone!
The Glasgow 2026 Commonwealth Games take place from 23 Jul-2 Aug at venues across Glasgow. Final tickets are on sale now at glasgow2026.com/tickets
Photo: Craig Watson
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