Scotland

13th January 2022

Repointing the Brickwork:
The birth of the Arches PART II
intro by Raymond Burke

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: this is PART 2
6th January 2022

Repointing the Brickwork: The birth of the Arches Theatre
intro by Raymond Burke

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

Glasgow, Clydeside’s Carbon Capital
by Ewan Gibbs

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'
3rd November 2021

‘Survival Tools of the Anthropocene’: Islandness and Resilience in Saoirse Higgins’ Pap-ØY-cene
by Antonia Thomas

How is the Anthropocene at sea/local level? And how can climate change be be felt, and dealt with through the time worn understandings and handlings of material in the oceanic zones? Reviewing Saoirse Higgins' show PapØycene at the Pier in Stromness, Antonia Thomas suggests that art and artists can open us to new perspectives - and that Higgins, in particular, sets a 'benchmark' here.
29th October 2021

Looking for Scottish Modern
by Dominic Hinde

Are some places more obviously adaptable and amenable to new environmental measures and regimes, and what are the economics and politics of some of the new necessities? Guest Editor for our Climate theme, Dominic Hinde, surfs the local modern to sample the global drift.
2nd June 2021

Mining the Moral Economy:
Ewan Gibbs on Coal and Deindustrialisation
by Johnny Rodger

Ewan Gibbs' book 'Coal Country' claims to be the first full length study of deindustrialisation in the Scottish coalfields. But its scope is actually much broader and much more ambitious in its treatment of an age of massive social upheaval. Johnny Rodger reviews and appreciates that ambition.
2nd June 2021

Election 2021 and its Legacy
by Owen Dudley Edwards

The analysis of the political landscape of Scotland post-election 2021 that it's been worth waiting for. Owen Dudley Edwards looks at the results and the likely legacies, and puts them in the context of such a deep time and broad space as you won't be able to read elsewhere. It's a reading which is considered and generous in its appreciations, even if forthright in its partisanship.
11th May 2021

The Greenock Industrial and the Greenock Pastoral in ‘Just A Boys’ Game’ and ‘The Elephants’ Graveyard’
by David Archibald

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.
24th April 2021

Borders in Borderland:
Scottish frontiers as makers and markers of national and urban identity
by Giovanna Guidicini

What would the introduction of control on the border between Scotland and England mean for those two jurisdictions? What would a politically independent Scotland's controlled borders mean for its relations with the rest of Europe? Giovanna Guidicini looks at the history of the frontier which set Scotland apart and marked out its national territorial integrity. How and why did it come about, and what were the Scots' and outsiders' reaction to it.