Glasgow
6th January 2022
Our recent review of the new book on The Arches by Bratchpiece and Innes noted the great achievement of the work in showing how that institution was at the heart of a grassroots creativity in Glasgow. But before the internationally famed club came the prelude -the Theatre company that kept the Arches open and made it all possible. Raymond Burke has set the record right on this, collecting and introducing the story of the Arches Theatre through the words of the actors themselves. We publish in two parts: here is PART 1- the story goes on.
6th November 2021
Was the Second City of Empire the First City of the carbon economy? Ewan Gibbs takes a tour through history and across civic space to show us the special sites of interest in 'Glasgow's role in the making of a fossil burning world'
26th October 2021
The loss of The Arches as a site for the eruption of anarchic creative collaborations of a generation through all forms imaginable was a shock. Did the forces of conservatism conspire to finish it off in 2015... or maybe its work was done there, and the spirit needed to move on anyway? Neil Cooper's review of Innes and Bratchpiece's history of the venue is epic and elegaic: it deserves all that and even more ...
11th May 2021
On 17th May the British Film Institute (BFI) released a 3 Disc Blu-ray box set to celebrate fifty years since the first transmission of the BBC's 'Play for Today'. David Archibald has written an accompanying essay for the two Peter McDougall plays which appear in volume 2 of the set. Archibald's piece is a retrospective on a way of life and the art it produced -in special arrangement with the BFI we bring the essay to The Drouth readers' attention.
7th June 2020
Having quietly endured almost twenty years of managed decline, writes Hailey Maxwell, it is crucial that we consider the possibility that the Peoples’ Palace on Glasgow Green – a valuable civic asset and monument to Scottish history and working-class life may presently be at real risk of being neutralised, misappropriated and entirely co-opted into a neoliberal agenda. Spaces and places which were once public are being repurposed and reimagined not for the benefit of the citizen but for the property developer, the multi-national corporation and the tourist.
17th May 2020
42 Carlton Place has become known for its regular contributions to Glasgow International, its frequently historical-leaning painting shows implicitly questioning what it means to be ‘contemporary’ art. ‘Fieldwork’, the space’s GI 2020 presentation, has been rendered inaccessible due to recent events, but remains up and running remotely. Jamie Limond responds.
10th May 2020
On what would’ve been the last day of Glasgow International 2020, and in lieu of Teneu Radio, a radio play originally commissioned for and reflecting on the festival, Adrien Lester and Elizabeth Murphy reflect on the experience of absence, and the gaps left in the city as it’s in the process of reimagining itself.
21st March 2020
The tragic slowness of our reaction to the coronavirus and the putting of systematic safety measures in place has contrasted with the relatively swift and mature reaction of the French (and other nations) to this emergency. But is it a sign of a wider conservative and sclerotic inability to act that has taken hold of our society? How could we measure these things? Clarisse Godard Desmarest sets the ball rolling with a description of the terrible fires at both Notre Dame in Paris and Glasgow School of Art, and the reaction of the authorities in each case.
Repointing the Brickwork:
The birth of the Arches PART II
intro by Raymond Burke