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A R O U N D T O W N January may notoriously be a quiet month, but Glasgow and Edinburgh happily still have plenty to shout about. The National Library of Scotland has unveiled its Building the Bell Rock Lighthouse display, celebrating the 200th anniversary of the lighthouse. It showcases Stevenson’s ideas and original designs for the creation of the lighthouse, documentation outlining the dangers that the Bell Rock posed, an account of Sir Walter Scott’s experience of his visit during an inspection tour, and a film of an inspection of the lighthouse. It will be on show at the NLS’s public exhibition space on George IV Bridge, Edinburgh, until 28 Feb. Across in Glasgow, the city’s cabbies are doing their bit and lending support to the much- anticipated Riverside Museum. Glasgow Taxis Ltd has donated £5000 to the cause. Councillor Graham said the contribution was a ‘significant step’ towards the £5m target. DANCE They’re busy bees those kindly folks at Scottish Ballet and this fortnight they extend their skills a little further offering an array of ballet classes, for all ages, at their HQ at Tramway. See www.scottishballet.co.uk for more.
FILM List Towers was much heartened to learn that Rescue the Hitchcock 9, the BFI’s global fund- raising drive to restore Hitchcock’s nine surviving silent films, has received its largest single donation to date. The Film Foundation and the Hollywood Foreign Press Association have donated $275,000, which will go towards the restoration of The Lodger, The Ring, Blackmail and The Pleasure Garden. 8 THE LIST 20 Jan –3 Feb 2011
MUSIC The McCluskey Brothers are just one of a number of acts set to perform in a fundraiser for Motor Neurone Disease Scotland (MND Scotland) on 30 Jan. The evening will be compered by Bruce Morton, with tickets available from Tickets Scotland in Glasgow. Edinburgh night Born to be Wild is to host a music photographer seminar at Electric Circus on Thu 3 Feb. Guests include Kevin Cummins, who spent over 25 years at the NME, Brian Sweeney and Christina Kernohan who has worked for The Guardian and Dazed & Confused. See www.facebook.com/borntobewild. In some music news catch-up from the New Year, The List was extremely sad to hear of the passing of Paisley- born singer-songwriter Gerry Rafferty, who died age 63, on 4 Jan. Rafferty was best known for ‘Stuck in the Middle With You’ and ‘Baker Street’. Elsewhere, Annie Lennox has been awarded, not before time, an OBE for her charity work with Oxfam. THEATRE In the world of theatre, next month it’s curtain up on the Tron Theatre Company’s Tron Stripped production of Staircase, starring Benny Young and Andy Arnold as East End barbers. See it from Wed 23 Feb–Sat 5 Mar; and for more log on to www.tron.co.uk.
VISUAL ART And finally, look out for Communitas (pictured above), an exhibition of photography by the pupils, parents and carers of Sighthill Primary School with assistance from photographer Lisa Fleming. The free art show, based on the exploration of the idea of community, will run at WHALE Arts, in Edinburgh, from Thu 20 Jan–Fri 18 Feb.
Visit www.list.co.uk for daily arts & entertainment news
Channel Hopper
Dispatches from the sofa, with Brian Donaldson
■ A couple of years back, the Beeb aired The Fallen, a funereal documentary which marked the deaths of every British soldier killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. The screen was filled with names, ages and date of death, stopping every so often to focus on a particular victim’s story, through photos and words from their grieving loved ones. In tone and style, Scenes from a Teenage Killing (BBC4, Thu 27 Jan, 9pm) is almost identical, as it zeroes in on every teenager murdered in the UK during 2009. But the similarities are no coincidence given that both films were made by Morgan Matthews, the doc-maker also responsible for Quitters and My Crazy Parents. As the tears on and off-screen flow, we hear of those killed on the streets from knives and guns, or in their homes, incinerated by cruel arsonists. All strive for justice, some of them able to dance with joy or slump with relief at the life sentences handed out to their child’s killer, others left to stare in bewilderment as the police continue in their efforts even to make an arrest. The danger of such a two-hour onslaught is that the viewer can become inured to the suffering. But then a traumatised parent comes on screen, whether it’s the mum who wears her dead son’s clothes every day or the dad who blots out his agony by being perpetually drunk, heading down to his local karaoke bar and losing himself in Elvis.
The killing fields