100 Dep Downie
music peddler
Mono is a dangerous place. Hidden away among the art spaces and tattoo parlours of Glasgow's heart is a bar with good booze. good food — and a record shop. The danger is you may never leave. In his own little way in. opening his record shop. Monorail Records, in the back of this excellent bar, Downie has contributed to the Scottish arts. Not only has he created a welcoming. sophisticated outlet for the work of the city's — nay the nation's — bedroom boffins. basement rockers and fanzine fanatics who keep our underground music scene thriving. but he also has created a safe haven for open-minded music fans among the racks of thoughtfully selected CDs and vinyl. Opting out of the stack ‘em and sell ‘em cheap music flogging methodology. here it's very much a case of revelling in that unfashionable maxim of quality over quantity. (MR)
99 Henry Adam
playwright
His first full length effort after 2000's well received Among Unbroken Hearts was this year's Traverse hit The Peeple Next Door. a very timely farce about our current international political climate and set in the mean streets of a council estate. In between. Adam spent a period writing for television. The versatility of this writer can be seen in his latest work. a theatrical history of Aberdeen football club. showing at the Theatre Royal. Aberdeen. From drug addicts escaping to die in the country to young half Asian men terrorised by policemen, via Willy Miller. Adam seems to find authentic voices in all of his characters. Unless he is once again tempted away by bigger money. the warmth which so characterises this sharp witted and engaging man's writing will be seen again, and soon. on Scottish stages. (SC)
architect Buildings are never the result of one person‘s work. and Karen Nugent. this year's
Scottish Design Awards Young Architect of the Year. is Just one member of the perennially strong team at Page and Park Architects. Together with David Page and David MacRitchie. Nugent was a key player in designing the Maggie's Centre in Glasgow. which helped place Scotland at the forefront of cancer care this year. Nugent's particular strength lies in her emphasis on a building's users and their needs. rather than a flashy design. Alongside that. and in the same spirit of Openness. she's iust launched her own straight-talking architecture magazine. Manmade Memories. INBI
97 Jim Lambie
artist
Like most of his Modern Institute confreres. Jim Lambie has had a good year. His precise Vinyl tape floor works took a iiioii(x:liroiiie turn at Inverleith House in Edinburgh and ion a dizzyineg large scalel at the Museum of Modern Art. Oxford. seeming to gain new depth in the switch from the multi-coloured not of past installations. Sculpture—Wise. Lambie returned to Jtllik shop mirrors and turned to belts for works that. typically. made elegant investigations Of form out of old tat and globs of dripping paint. The high point of 2003 for Lambie was. of course. his place in the first Scottish paVilion at the Venice Biennale. lJMi
96 Kelly MacDonald
actress
Having disappeared from our screens for almost two years after the period excesses of Gosford Park. Macdonald came back With a vengeance this year with the superb political television series State of Play in which she played young news hound Della Smith. Kelly also appeared as Deidre in the surprisingly good inferA/lission, an Irish comedy drama starring Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson (among many others). The film is a sort of Guiness and peat malt take on the classic La Ronde storyline. Also look out for her next year as Peter Pan in JM Barrie's Never/and. starring Johnny Depp. lPDl
95 Colin Steele
jazz musician Colin Steele continues to work across a wide variety of iax/ styles and different contexts. but the trumpeter seemed to have found his most personal artistic voice With the formation of the guintet which produced his debut album in 2002. He confirmed that impression in triumphant style with the disc's successor this summer. The Jet/rney Home signalled Steele's maturation not only as a great instrumentalist ilong since established in any casel. but also as a significant jazz composer. and the album's fusion of Jazz with Scottish folk suggests a fruitful vein for future development. Kenny Mathieson (KMI
94 Douqray Scott
actor
The man who could be Bond had to be on this list. Why? Because he's great. You might have caught his performance as Jonathan Trevanney in Ripley's Game this year. or as General Thomas Fairfax in the troubled CIVII war film To Kill a King. Or if you are really lucky (ie yOur German language skills are up to scratchl then yOu may have seen him in an interesting little movie called The Poet.
If all that's not enough. Scott appears in One Last Chance as Frankie the Face and he is Currently filming a low budget rom com called You Don't Have to Say You Love Me. You have to admire the man's commitment to low budget filmmaking. perhaps the result of his experiences on the set of Mission Impossible 2. (PD)
93 Ian Rankin
author
Now one of those well-kent media faces who. along with Messrs Paulin and Morley. will seemingly be there at the opening of any aesthetic envelope. 2003 saw the UK's biggest- selling crime author returning to the breadand-butter business of producing damn fine fiction. Rankin's latest Rebus mystery. A Question of Blood. is set in the aftermath of a massacre at a South Queensferry high school. As well as the usual adept plotting. gritty. realistic dialogue and viVid Edinburgh cityscape. the tale is notable for its main suspect. a kerb- crawling MSP. Some measure of the disdain in which Rankin holds our fabulous new politics. perhaps? (BD)
' ' [)(it‘, .’00;i 2i Jail 200-3 THE LISY 13