Casting Robert the Bruce! Our Branch Economy

Today they are casting in Glasgow for a big Netflix movie on Robert the Bruce. An English casting director is coming up here to Glasgow, who will get 20%, and who has never worked in Scotland.

Scottish casting agents have been told they cannot participate – a new software was introduced and they were not informed of it – these are agents who have done the casting for big productions such as Trainspotting and Outlander.

The Scottish agents have worked with the Scottish actors for many years and know their strengths and weaknesses. When Brat Pitt filmed here in Glasgow for his movie World War Z a few years ago, it is not always successful to bring in outsiders who don’t know the place, culture, stories or the people.

In both Ireland and Wales they have separate Tv and film agencies and they protect using local crew for TV and film productions – but not here in Scotland. 

The problem in Scotland is that Creative Scotland is too big an umbrella organizing that covers all the creative arts – art, books, music and film and tv. When TV and film are money-making industries that bring in a lot of money and they are not poetry! 

Scotland is treated as a branch economy, where decisions that are often best made in Scotland are being made in London. Being London-centred is not always in everyone’s best interests. Also a branch economy, is always the first to suffer in any downturn.

After the Lyceum theatre lost its photographer a few years back they thought they needed to go to London to get a good photographer. Award-winning photographer Douglas McBride contacted them and said, ‘I am here in Scotland and can do good images for you! ‘

These casting Scottish agents claim this is the first time in 30 years they have not even been allowed to compete. Scottish government money may be involved in the funding for this Netflix production – growth funding.

Yet Scotland will loose out financially. Changes need to be urgently made here for a separate Scottish TV and film agency. There will be a new film studio built south of Edinburgh. 

We in Scotland now have to choose, do we want to continue being a branch economy or run our own businesses?

(PS Casting for men with beards!)

First TRNSMT festival

Great times at TRNSMT festival Glasgow this weekend! Great crowds, weather was kind, (apart from rain Sunday which did little to dampen the crowds enthusiasm!) and the setting top class. As well as the main stage, there was the King Tuts, and the Jock Rock stages.

Highlights – the unforgettable Radiohead headline Friday night, Belle & Sebastian, Blossom, The Strypes, The 1975, Rag n’ Bone Man (I’m only Human), Twin Atlantic, Charlotte and more.

The headline band final night were the Awesome Biffy Clyro.

Radiohead pleased with a mix of crowd pleasers to sing to along with and their more experimental music, wonderful escapist, and mind blowing stuff. Their music makes me escape to new horizons.... Karma Police, Fake Plastic Trees, 

Stop for a while – ‘No Surprises’ – set you free, escapes, …..

The Stages were set up to be lit up with the magic of energetic bass and drums and those wonderful melodies the crowds love to sing.  This year was the first for TRNSMT festival, replacing T in the Park which had problems with its site last year.

Has tribalism in music disappeared? With our ease of access to thousands of sounds online – many artists now mix the genres and rarely are about one. A young scots singer songwriter (Rose Code Blue for example) may be bluesy folk or a singer 'rocky soul’. In fact crossing boundaries often gives an artist that edge and something unique to say.

I happened to read of the first major Scottish festival at Loch Lomond back in 1979 – when the bands included the Jam,  Boomtown Rats and Annie Lennox. The strange thing was the audience was mixed into tribes – the mods, rockers, skinheads and punks! Each tribe had their own bands and while the bands played some tribes would stand on the mounds and throw things at the other tribes! How weird! Thank goodness there are no tribes today – that I could see! This gig was for all ages and all walks of life...Some things improve clearly.

Bringing hope to the moment. Music lifts spirits often, and certainly makes more sense than todays stupid politics!!

Edinburgh book festival 2017: Brave new words

Journalist Ian Bell

“Brave New Words’
In times of turmoil words are a safety net, help us to shared understandings.

Edinburgh International Book festival 2017, 12th - 28th August - https://www.edbookfest.co.uk
The festival, begun in 1983 and is one of the world's biggest, will have 1000 authors from 50 countries and will host Illustrators, musicians, scientists, politicians, scientists, children authors and more.

Some famous authors this year will include - Zadie Smith, Judy Murray, Chris Hoy Jeremy Paxman, Patrick Ness, Chinnamanda Ngozi Adiccline.

**MUSIC – this year - Fiddler Aidan O’Rourke; Scott Hutchison, The Frightened Rabbit frontman; composer Sally Beamish. Music previously has included Alfred Brendel, Nile Rogers and more.

Lesley Riddoch

Liz Lochend

Iain MacWhirter

Words and stories are our passports to a better fairer world. Imagination is Free! Whether the words are carried in song, in poetry, in political ideas, in images, fairy tales, history, theories, journalism, truth or in stories.

Recently, In Grenfell Tower block Kensington, we all witnessed the most horrific fire, where probably hundreds must have died! (yet the first reports claimed only 6 – was this all a cover up?)

Ben Okria

Writer Ben Okria visited the site and wrote his poem – Grenfell Tower

How this tall burnt out blackened shell is a metaphor for our failings – our failings to recognise the CLADDING on our very discourse. He says - We need to tear down this cladding and open our eyes to what is around us. 

There are signs of hope – more people are reaching for investigative journalism where they can find it!

The young especially are now disregarding traditional news media and searching for answers elsewhere. Macron started a new political party only one year ago – and won the vote. Things are changing fast in our fast interconnected world. 

Enlightened discourse is always about diversity! And the book festival encourages open questioning and debate. Robert Burns ran his own Debating clubs at Tarbolton.

We must question opposite viewpoints. We live in complex times but there are gate keepers out here. We must question opposite viewpoints. Its worrying Theresa May actively dislikes 'division!' It is our very diversity that makes us stronger.

Words and ideas. TICKETS NOW ON SALE - https://www.edbookfest.co.uk

**Bohemians and Renaissance

In Edinburgh old town, the grand, the ordinary, the eccentric – all rubbed shoulders. It was this inconvenient bumping against each other that helped to make the Scottish Enlightenment happen.

Another factor that brought in fresh air, was after the union of the crowns, the royal court left for London! Which meant a breath of fresh air – as all he hangers on left too.

Poet Robert Burns experienced the flourishing Edinburgh in its last days (1786 – 1787)

They built the Georgian Edinburgh new town in the 1780s – finishing with the elegant Charlottes Square. The largest and most impressive Georgian development in the world. In Glasgow the marble staircased Town hall is vastly impressive – built over this period, when the tobacco and slave trade brought great benefit. There was also great expectations. 
The well to do no longer mixed …. and the Enlightenment withered.