MUSIC
Jessie Ware, Barrowland Ballroom, Glasgow, Monday & Tuesday
Former Herald Magazine cover star, podcast queen and the face of sophistidisco – yes, we are very pleased with ourselves for that – Jessie Ware, above right, is back in Glasgow this coming week with a show that promises to be glitzier than an episode of Strictly. So here’s your chance to turn the Barrowland into Studio 54 circa 1979. Time to dress up and get down.
Julie Byrne, Mono, Glasgow, Friday
Meanwhile, at the other end of the week, one of America’s new greats. Singer-songwriter Julie Byrne’s latest album The Greater Wings should turn up in a few “best of the year” lists next month (if it doesn’t, we will be having words). It’s an album of songs full of love and loss and it’s quite possible that the title track is the most powerful thing we’ve heard this year.
COMEDY
Current contestant in Taskmaster and Meet the Richardsons star (alongside her other half, Jon Richardson), Lucy Beaumont, above, is back in Scotland to remind us that she’s a very good stand-up. As the title suggests, her husband may be the butt of the odd joke as part of the show.
LITERATURE
Cafe Royal Books, Stills Gallery, Edinburgh, until February 10, 2024
Since 2012 the independent publisher Cafe Royal Books has been publishing weekly zines dedicated to postwar photography in Britain and Ireland. Photographers who have featured over the years include the late, great Chris Killip, Martin Parr, Douglas Corrance, Shirley Baker, Jo Spence and Sophie Gerrard. There are now more than 600 issues available and this exhibition, as well as highlighting some of the work in their pages, allows visitors to browse through all of them.
June, Julie Hamill, Saron Publishers, £9.99, available via Amazon
David Keenan may have already laid claim to writing the great Airdrie novel with This Is Memorial Device, but Julie Hamill is giving him a run for his money with her Life and Soul trilogy which concludes with June, now out. Ian Rankin has already outed himself as a fan: “Nobody is doing what Julie Hamill is doing right now: writing understated, working-class gems,” he has said. Now that’s a recommendation.
FILM
French Film Festival, various venues, November and December
Already in full swing, this year’s French Film Festival brings une valise of new and classic French films to cinemas around the country. Today the Phoenix Theatre in Oban is showing Frederic Tellier’s environmental thriller Goliath. Anatomy of a Fall continues at the Glasgow Film Theatre all week, along with a number of other FFF screenings and the Institut Francais also has a busy week of FFF screenings, including, on Wednesday, Rise, director Cedric Klapisch’s collaboration with choreographer Hofesh Shechter, which charts the recovery of an injured dancer played by Marion Barbeau in what has already been called a star-making performance.
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