Noticeboard NewsGossipOpinion
Forest conservation The collapse of the Edinburgh University Settlement charity has forced the closure of the Roxy Art House and put the Forest Café in jeopardy. Locals must fight for The Forest to stay open, argues long-term venue organiser Ryan Van Winkle
I t’s important not to be fatalistic about these things, because nothing ever really ends; yet, the potential loss of the Forest Café and the Roxy could be a big setback for the vibrant underground music and arts scene scene in the capital. In terms of music, in the last two or three years people had stopped seeing Edinburgh as a second rate scene to Glasgow, and I’m proud that The Forest – and places like it – helped that shift.
space So, we’re fighting to keep our building: which means raising half a million pounds and buying it. We’ve done a lot of crazy things over the years already – even just creating a free space where friends, performers, writers and musicians could play and dream, without ever thinking about money, was pretty crazy in the first place. I feel a community is everybody’s responsibility and a lot of people have agreed. We’ve been very lucky over the last ten years to work with thousands amazing volunteers, artists and activists who have donated the only thing we’ve ever asked for – time. Unfortunately, now we need to take that further. If 5000 people give us £100 each, we’d have enough money to buy the building outright and to stay fiercely independent, open to all and could continue the work we
of
love doing.
Our ethos at the Forest is has always been to try and say ‘yes’ as much as possible. We have tried to facilitate all the projects that we can – we’ve helped people make books, records, an award-winning theatre Fringe, we’ve hosted hundreds of free workshops, events, parties, art openings and given away loads of personal grants for random art and community projects. It has been a joy for us and, hopefully, for a lot of others as well.
Ryan Van Winkle It’s difficult to say what the future holds – again, things have happened before us and things will happen after us. People do stuff, even in Edinburgh – a pretty expensive and difficult place to make action happen. Edinburgh has a rich history of places like Cafe Graffiti, The Bongo Club, Susie’s Diner and many, many more. Roxy and The Forest will be part of that history, whether we manage to survive or not. I hope we will. I hope people will see our space as valuable and will understand how amazing it would be for The Forest to be where it is, doing what it is doing, for future generations in perpetuity. This is crazy. But not impossible. Please give what you can so others can take what they need.
For more go to forestcafe.tumblr.com
5 Things. . . NOT IN POTTER Brit actors not in any Harry Potter films. There are some . . .
1 Judi Dench Walters, Staunton,
Smith, Thompson and Bonham Carter all make
appearances. But where’s Dench, eh? And Mirren for that matter?
2 Ian Holm / McKellan Sorry Iads, but once you’ve pledged your allegiance to Lord of
the Rings you’ll have a hard time cracking the Potter franchise. You too Christopher Lee, TTYN.
3 Colin Firth Many thought he
would be a shoe-in for Sirius Black, but with Oldman nabbing
that part Firth stays curiously absent from the castlist.
4 Stephen Fry Our nation’s leader-elect has been too busy reading the Potter
audio-books and pushing the envelope of female sexual theory to take part.
5 Lindsay Duncan
Wouldn’t she have been good though? Currently performing
in Dublin with Potter mainstays Alan Rickman and Fiona Shaw. WWW.LIST.CO.UK Visit us daily for arts & entertainment news
GLASGOW MUSIC & FILM FESTIVAL RETURNS The Glasgow Music & Film Festival programme has been announced. The brainchild of self-confessed ‘film buffs and music geeks’ from the GFT and the Arches, the 2011event will welcome the return of Zombie Zombie (pictured), who will providing a live score to Battleship Potemkin. Elsewhere Duglas T Stewart of BMX Bandits and 65daysofstatic will be helping celebrate an array of seminal directors and composers. See www.thearches.co.uk/music for more and look out for the full GFF line-up announcement in January.
18 Nov–2 Dec 2010 THE LIST 7