18 ALAN CUMMING 15 NEU! REEKIE!
GOLDEN BOY His EIF residency would have been enough to warrant a high spot in the 100, but Aberfeldy’s i nest also published You Gotta Get Bigger Dreams while waving goodbye to cunning crisis manager Eli Gold as The Good Wife wound up after seven seasons. (BD)
17 DAVID MACKENZIE TO HELL
AND BACK The Starred Up and Perfect Sense director went
stateside with his latest movie, the excellent neo-Western Hell or High Water. Never one to rest on his laurels, his next project is the ‘unofi cial Braveheart sequel’ Lion Rampant, starring Tom Hiddleston as Robert the Bruce. (NB)
16 JENNY LINDSAY & RACHEL MCCRUM PIONEERING POETS The artists no longer known as Rally & Broad (sob) may have retired their trend- setting literary cabaret show, but they’re still very much forging ahead with an array of new and exciting projects, including Lindsay with live showcase Flint & Pitch, and McCrum on Glasgow-Montreal i lm project cinepoems. (NB)
GOLD STARS Jackie Kay, James Robertson, Hollie McNish: just three of the names featured in Neu! Reekie!’s second poetry anthology #UntitledTwo: Going Fur Gold. Neu! also programmed a night at the National Museum of Scotland which was headlined by Charlotte Church, and maintained their regular stock of innovative multi-arts nights in Edinburgh. (RM)
14 EMMA POLLOCK THE SEARCHER The former Delgado has been touring extensively this year with appearances at Doune the Rabbit Hole, Eastern Promise, True North and Electric Fields. These came on the back of her wonderful third solo album In Search of Harperi eld. (RM)
13 DAVID GREIG LYCEUM LEADER David Greig’s new post as artistic director of the Royal Lyceum Theatre has him
showcasing work which delights, challenges and provokes. Following a recent triumphant adaptation of The Suppliant Women, the new 2017 season will feature work from Shakespeare, Caryl Churchill and Peter Handke. (LI)
18
É R T
: O T O H P
THE NOT 100 As demonstrated elsewhere in these pages, our Hot 100 honours those who contributed great things to Scottish culture in the past 12 months. Niki Boyle notes that the following people, well . . . they assuredly did not
P H O T O
I .
: F L C K R C O M M A L 3 K /
DONALD TRUMP Flew in on the same day that Brexit was announced with this tweet: ‘Just arrived in Scotland. Place is going wild over the vote. They took their country back.’ Honestly, can you just . . . honestly!
BALGONIE CASTLE The historic Fife property and popular wedding venue embraced notoriety in April after a Facebook post telling critics to ‘get fucked’. Then again in September when it called the SNP ‘a poor political joke’ and their supporters ‘sheep’. Oh, and then again in October when it greeted a social media user with this gem: ‘Looking at your proi le picture son, your mother threw away the baby and kept the afterbirth.’ Stay classy, Balgonie. DONALD TRUMP Forgot to mention above that Trump’s golf courses in Aberdeenshire and Ayrshire have reportedly netted him a £26m loss on these shores. Which means he gets to skip out on corporation tax here. He may or may not argue that this makes him ‘smart’.
JAMES MACMILLAN The, erm, ‘provocative’ composer wrote a scathing Spectator column in August, describing the Scottish cultural scene as ‘vile, venal and parochial’. The piece was illustrated by an image of the Edinburgh International Festival, the middle word of which rather undermines MacMillan’s perspective. DONALD TRUMP Oh, come on, let’s have all of it: the mocking of a disabled journalist, the Islamophobic rhetoric, the threats to jail Hillary Clinton, the accusations of her drug-taking, the avalanche of sexual abuse allegations. Please, America: just say no.
3 Nov 2016–31 Jan 2017 THE LIST 35