Essays

25th October 2019

James Kelman Margarined : Class, Language and the Avoidance of Butter – By Simon Kövesi

Ian Rankin is a rare novelist in admitting that his decision over what sort of fiction he would write was predicated upon a desire for paternal approval...
25th October 2019

‘James Kelman, the Public and Pubic Wigs: By Simon Kövesi

Kelman’s reading was lively, entrancing at times, and the writer was pretty much at his performing best. In questions he was voluble, but as awkward as ever, maintaining his line over language, class and marginalisation, even in this, one of the most crassly populist, conservative of events on the literary calendar…
16th October 2019

Collage Before Cubism Exhibition

Now entering its final weeks (ending 27th October) the Cut and Paste Exhibition at Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art is a must-see. Its generous, inclusive take on collage extends […]
10th October 2019

‘We’re just big bullies…’ Gregory Burke’s Black Watch By David Archibald

A typical definition of the concept ‘Artistic License’ would outline the notion that the artist may be perceived as having freedom to distort some aspect of their subject in order to bring attention to, criticise, or satirize it...
9th October 2019

CONTEMPORARY GRAPHIC – Panels from a Museum of Narrative

A typical definition of the concept ‘Artistic License’ would outline the notion that the artist may be perceived as having freedom to distort some aspect of their subject in order to bring attention to, criticise, or satirize it...
31st July 2019

The Favourite

Marketed as a burlesque comedy, Yorgos Lanthimos‘ The Favourite is in truth, far more textured and melancholic than its trailer might suggest. With echoes of Bill Douglas’ Comrades and Kubrick’s […]
23rd July 2019

FROTH (IN DEFENCE/DEFIANCE OF…)

The woman with the pink velvet poppies twined around the assisted gold of her hair traversed the crowded room at an interesting gait combining a skip with a sidle, and […]
19th July 2019

‘ENGLAND, YOUR ENGLAND’: GEORGE ORWELL A​ND BREXIT

The comparison of the British status in the EU to one of slaves was a vile insult, mean, low and just wrong. But all the bleating and booing will avail […]
16th November 2016

Kamala Khan, the Pakistani-American – a new direction for the typical main-stream American superhero?

In a timely piece, Nyla Ahmed writes in praise of Ms Marvel, the first major Muslim-American superhero. From The Drouth issue 56: