First published in Crime Scene #1 EVERY NIGHT I DREAM OF HELL by Malcolm Mackay Nate Colgan is “clever muscle” for hire; first to admit he’s “short-tempered, generally surly and lugging around a reputation” which makes him good at his job and “bad at everything else”. A consummate professional, he has no qualms about inflicting […]
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Edinburgh – The Festival City
Scotland’s capital is home to the world’s largest arts festival – and much more besides. Arts journalist Paul F Cockburn offers a personal guide to the city of his birth. No matter when you arrive, Edinburgh’s starkly beautiful vistas and historic cityscapes are bound to entrance – but it’s fair to say that the Scottish […]
Bonnie Prince Billy
Towards the end of May, a BBC Scotland afternoon news bulletin surprisingly turned its attention to a forthcoming production of “one of William Shakespeare’s best loved plays” – A Midsummer Night’s Dream. However, this particular production wasn’t considered newsworthy because it came from an amateur group based in Dumfries and Galloway; not even that the Crossmichael […]
Out in the Garden
“Touring is something that we have wanted to do for years, but was something that we could not afford to do without funding,” says Gordon Barr, Artistic Director of Scotland’s only professional outdoor Shakespeare festival, Bard in the Botanics. If there’s any irony attached to the company’s first major tour of Scotland, in early 2015, […]
Best Wheels Forward
The lure of the countryside can be as strong for disabled people as everyone else – and often the only barriers to enjoying it turn out to be man-made. “I have nearly always been disabled, with a disorder which has developed very slowly over many years,” explains Michael Bruton MBE, the founder and first Chairman […]
39 Steps Back in Time
It is a book that has never been out of print and has inspired numerous film and TV adaptations over the years. But while most people will have undoubtedly caught this gripping spy drama on their TV screens at some point in their lives, many might be unaware of its local roots. John Buchan’s The […]
A Sweet Success
For those of a certain age, the local sweet shop – with its walls lined with jars of sweets – retains a special place in our hearts. Debra Anderson has one particularly strong memory. “It was when I was allowed to go for the first time to the shop on my own,” she says. “I think […]
