Dotted around Edinburgh are more than half-a-dozen unique neighbourhoods built primarily during the latter half of the 19th century. Instantly recognisable thanks to their parallel lines of distinctive two-story buildings, usually with external staircases leading to the ‘Upper’ flats, these ‘Colony’ homes were originally built to provide affordable, quality housing for the city’s artisan working […]
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Solar Bear break new ground with a production of Caryl Churchill’s ‘Love and Information’
A new touring production of Caryl Churchill’s Love and Information is an excellent showcase for its young cast from the UK’s only performance degree for D/deaf actors at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, in collaboration with leading Scottish company Solar Bear. Review by Paul F […]
Living History from Underwater
Most people’s idea of an archaeologist is unlikely to have them wearing diving gear, but Dr Nicholas “Nick” Dixon OBE would beg to disagree. “Scotland has an immensely rich underwater heritage,” he insists. “It is often with regret that I have concentrated my efforts in […]
Lavender Menace: Queen of Bookshops
With a new play celebrating Scotland’s first Gay Bookshop, Lavedner Menace, due to open at Edinburgh’s Lyceum Theatre, co-owner Bob Orr looks back to the start of the story, in 1982. Your involvement in selling books started long before you opened Lavender Menace. I’d come to Edinburgh in 1976. By 1979 I was part of […]
Putting Family History on the Map
Historic maps can help you better understand the lives of your ancestors, and can even clear up some mysteries, explains Paul F Cockburn. Some 14,000 years ago, in what is now Abauntz in the Navarra region of northern Spain, an unknown man or woman picked up a stone tablet and began to carve onto its […]
A Rollicking Adventure
It may be hindsight, but some writers appear destined to write particular books. Take, for example, Robert J Harris and his new novel The Thirty-One Kings, which brings together several of Scottish author John Buchan’s most popular characters—including Richard Hannay of The Thirty-Nine Steps—in a new adventure set during the early part of […]
Irvine Welsh: Classic Tales and New Directions
For a writer who had three shows running during this year’s 70th anniversary Edinburgh Festival Fringe, theatre didn’t feature that much in his life when Leith-born Irvine Welsh was growing up. “Apart from panto at the King’s Theatre—Stanley Baxter, Ronnie Corbett and all that—it was never a big thing for me,” he says. […]
