Drouth Weekly

30th April 2026
Published by TheDrouth

A DOUBLE ACT, A CLASS ACT: Housing and Film as things in a Kingdom by Johnny Rodger

The story of British housing as seen through film is one of ubiquitous and enduring class apartheid. Yet have the filmmakers themselves been immune from that social ill? Johnny Rodger gives an intersectional reading of housing and film with lots to watch as well as read.
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19th April 2026
Published by TheDrouth

ALL THE COPPER IN PERU by Michael Washburn

A story about contracts and commodities - all too resonant of the contemporary realities of geopolitics and the multinational corporate interests - New York prize-winning novelist and short story-writer, Michael Washburn, details the momentum of a dirty business.
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19th April 2026
Published by TheDrouth

From a stage set to setting the stage : the sources and the evolution of motifs in Dali’s early surrealist oeuvre, by Dmitriy Soliterman

A sustained, penetrating and profound study of the forms in Dali's early work and informed deduction and speculation on their provenance by art critic Dmitriy Soliterman.
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The Drouth Review

11th May 2025
Published by TheDrouth

ANALOGUES OF McEWAN by Johnny Rodger

The recent opening of the exhibition of drawings 'Tracing Rossi' at the Stallan Brand studio gallery in Glasgow offered an opportunity to examine author Cameron McEwan's in-depth published study of the influential architect Aldo Rossi. Via discussion of a relatively obscure and neglected project by Rossi, the book 'Analogical City' makes weighty claims for architecture as a poetic, political and above all, critical practice. Johnny Rodger reviews.
13th December 2024
Published by TheDrouth

MAUD SULTER’S ‘You are my Kindred Spirit’ by Federica Giardino

Scottish artist Maud Sulter (1960-2008) worked in multi-media as a photographer, filmmaker, poet, playwright and visual artist. Born of Scottish and Ghanaian parentage, she was raised in the Gorbals in Glasgow by her Scottish mother, and much of her work - including that now on show at the Tramway - is an exploration of of her sexuality, gender and identity as a black woman. Federica Giardino reviews the show and ponders on the cultural richness and the 'poignant questions' her work highlights.
13th December 2024
Published by TheDrouth

DELIGHTFUL FUN – A Cedric Price Thinkbelt for Our Times reviewed by Bruce Peter

Conceptual and provocative, but always with social conscience, the massive influence of Cedric Price as an architect and visionary of the new from his heydey in the 60s and 70s is seen not only in the host of unfinished and unbuilt ideas he left behind, but also in the massive pieces of fun civic kit others built under that influence, including the Pompidou Centre in Paris and the London Eye. Bruce Peter reviews an exhibition where you can catch up with the ideas and personality of the great maverick Price, and declares it '...elegantly curated by Ana Bonet Miro, Martin Brown and Maria Martinez Sanchez with design by Luca Brunelli.'
29th October 2024
Published by TheDrouth

JONAS STAAL’S: ‘CLIMATE PROPAGANDAS’ by Johnny Rodger

Dutch artist Jonas Staal's new book on the pending Climate Catastrophe continues his concerns about propaganda - the good and the bad of it; reveals who are the culprits planning to exploit and profit from it and what the rest of us can do about it. Johnny Rodger reviews and puts it in the context of Staal's broad politically-committed artistic oeuvre.
29th October 2024
Published by TheDrouth

NEW ALBUM: reviewed by NORRY WILSON

Since their first gig two years ago, Glasgow band The Tenementals have played solidly round the city and elsewhere to full houses and released several singles. With a line up of eight musicians, and sometimes more, they sing the history of Glasgow into being and conjure up the glories and the disasters, and the pride and the shame of it before the citizens. Norry Wilson of Lost Glasgow will introduce them on stage at the launch of the first album in Oran Mor on Wednesday 27th November. Here he tells us why he is delighted to present them on the occasion of the release of their first major recording. (plus free track!)
1st September 2024
Published by TheDrouth

HE is Paul and she IS Orlando:
review of Paul Preciado’s ‘Orlando’
by Johnny Rodger

The film Orlando: My Political Biography only went into cinemas in general release here this summer, so, although it was first shown at the EIFF in August 2023, it seems to be up for discussion again. The gender issue(s) is/are, indeed, still way up on the social agenda - as Johnny Rodger puts it, 'We are all on our social stages ... all in our social cages'. Preciado's openly self-constructed cage is a particularly intricate one, and he inhabits it with his own peculiar and provocative panache.
9th July 2023
Published by TheDrouth

HOWSON’S INFERNO
by
GREG THOMAS

What cast of work is this, we might say of Peter Howson's new show at Edinburgh City Art Centre. He gives us a lot of matter to grapple with and a lot of things to ponder over. This is the first major retrospective of Howson's work with over 100 paintings over four floors. Arresting and compelling says Greg Thomas in review, and also grim and dark. Get along and make your own mind up is best.
19th November 2022
Published by TheDrouth

Scotland Rising: The Case for Independence by Gerry Hassan reviewed by RICHARD FINLAY

'Sometimes it feels like all the possible takes on the independence debate have already been 'well rehearsed'. Can the debate be refreshed and also gain some new subtlety and complexity? Richard Finlay assesses Gerry Hassan's new book-length contribution and is optimistic about its possible influence.
3rd June 2022
Published by TheDrouth

The ARCHES THEATRE:
The Unauthorised Autobiography
edited and introduced by Raymond Burke
reviewed by FOLOSA MELVILLE

The first book published in our 'Lost Institutions' series, it focuses on the early years of the legendary Glasgow theatre in the words of the actors who made it happen, collected and introduced by Raymond Burke. It was part of a thrilling scene says Folosa Melville in review.