their critically acclaimed adaptation of Jim Crace’s The Devil’s Larder, an impish look at transgressive pleasures. Hard to categorise, their work fuses multimedia, text and music to startling effect. (GKV)
60 MAN OF MOON PATH FINDERS
With their psychedelic groove- infused blues, Edinburgh two-piece Man of Moon are welcome new-ish kids on the block. They may have been around for a while, but their 2015 debut single ‘The Road / This World’ cemented them as a much- needed exciting new east coast band. (KS)
59 EDINBURGH INTERNATIONAL SCIENCE FESTIVAL
FESTIVAL MATTERS With The Ideas Factory, EISF produced its most impressive and diverse programme to date with innovative events across a wealth of genres, for everyone from kids to foodies and science ai cionados, as well as serious debates on key issues including climate change and fracking. (RoM)
58 KIRSTY LOGAN GRACE FULL
57 FREIGHT BOOKS LITERATURE CARRIERS
A big year for Glasgow’s Freight Books as it acquired Cargo Publishing and brought out everything from Janice Galloway’s new short stories to a biography of Hungarian football legend Ferenc Puskás, and The Art of Internet Dating to Pub Dogs of Manchester. (BD)
56 LUCY RIBCHESTER TIMELY AUTHOR
The Edinburgh-based author and journalist started the year with her debut novel, The Hourglass Factory, which took in the suffragettes, Jack the Ripper, the Titanic and a missing trapeze artist. It led her on to tread the book festival path appearing at Aye Write!, the Edinburgh International Book Festival and Bloody Scotland. (BD)
55 DJANGO DJANGO RING MASTERS
Art rockers Django Django expanded their range and widened their palette with second record, Born Under Saturn. They added surf rock, Caribbean beats and cosmic electro-pop for a complex, eccentric and eclectic album that took their sound global. (HN)
The Glasgow-based writer won the Polari First Book Prize for The Rental Heart & Other Fairytales and released two more
54 STEF SMITH GULP FICTION
books: the bewitching The Gracekeepers, and A Portable Shelter, featuring 13 stories. (BD)
Smith’s Traverse Fringe production was a tough, emotional triumph: Swallow revealed a playwright skilled at capturing both nuanced character development and raw dramatic power. She may still be maturing, but her writing is driven by youthful energy and a piercing intelligence. (GKV)
53 SHARON ROONEY MAD LOVE
This year’s i nal series of E4’s My Mad Fat Diary meant the end of the show which made Rooney a star, but she is moving on to plenty other things including a role in Reece Shearsmith’s Stag and more Mountain Goats, the Highlands-based sitcom about mountain rescue volunteers. (BD)
52 ROBERT CARLYLE FILM FARE
A big year for Bobby as he opened the Edinburgh Film Festival with his directorial debut, The Legend of Barney Thomson. He also stepped from behind his own camera to take on the lead role with Emma Thompson playing his mum. If the rumours are to be believed, next up for him is Trainspotting 2 . . . (BD)
51 JASPER JAMES SPIN DOCTOR
The son of Subculture’s Harri, Jasper James is set to be Scotland’s next big DJ success. This year he was proi led in The Guardian, released the ‘ZTRK1’ EP on Matt Tolfrey’s Leftroom, installed as resident at London’s Phonox and toured with Annie Mac. (DP)
P H O T O © A L A N M C C R E D E
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TOP THEATRE OF THE YEAR Chalk circles and happy days
Edinburgh’s Lyceum reminded
Scotland of its potential. Beginning the year with a barnstorming Caucasian
Chalk Circle (), departing artistic
director Mark Thomson revealed a l air for popular, intellectual theatre drawing on cabaret and live music, in the spirit of Brecht himself. A well- received Waiting for Godot coni rmed that the Lyceum fuli lls its remit as a production house that reimagines
classic, even over-familiar texts. At the Edinburgh International Festival, the revival of Paul Bright’s Confessions was a consolation to those disappointed by the lack of
funding awarded to Untitled Projects,
while the Citizens’ Lanark did a solid job of staging Alasdair Gray’s
postmodern novel.
In Glasgow, Andy Arnold directed his i rst Beckett for the Tron: a superb performance from Karen Dunbar in Happy Days (ably assisted by Arnold in a minor role) proved that not only Arnold has the skills that made his reputation at the Arches but also that Beckett’s pessimism remains pertinent today. The incisive script
was embellished with a visceral poetry through Dunbar’s Scottish accent, and
the metaphysical terror was given a new layer of domestic frustration.
Although any mention of the Arches is tinged with sadness at its closure,
the i nal Behaviour Festival needs to be remembered as an example of how important the venue has been for theatre. Roving across Glasgow – events happened at the CCA, the
Citizens as well as its home theatre – Behaviour gave a platform to veterans and emerging artists alike. Gob Squad nailed the vacuous self-obsession of the internet age in Western Society,
neither entirely condemning nor accepting the shaping of identity
through ideals of celebrity, bling and social media. Ishbel McFarlane’s O is for Hoolet was an example of the distinctively Scottish work that the Arches has promoted: delicate and sensitive, it weaved a wry humour through a serious meditation on how language dei nes us. (Gareth K Vile)
T H E SUPPORTED BY
5 Nov 2015–4 Feb 2016 THE LIST 33