RECENTLY we have had a great gallery of excellent biopics, several up for Oscars: The Theory of Everything, The Imitation Game, and Mr Turner, while in recent times we have enjoyed productions like Lincoln, The Iron Lady and the King's Speech that have all garnered success.
Now, with another celebration of the birthday of our national bard Robert Burns, once again we have to ask: When will we see a major film on the life of Burns'?
Yes, there have been attempts of late but now surely we need to do more than talk. Creative Scotland could bring together a number of interested parties while opening the creative discourse to new voices. But there needs to be a concerted effort to have a major movie on Robert Burns: a short but vital life packed with personal and political drama.
Meanwhile British television has been turning out some distinguished costume dramas, with Wolf Hall being the most recent. Is it not time that a major six-part drama series on Burns is commissioned?
Apart from the fact that Scotland has currently a great team of male actors available to play the man, any production would offer a number of excellent roles for our women actors who desperately need good parts to play.
Hollywood just might be interested: but then we might get Johnny Depp as our Rabbie?
Thom Cross,
18 Needle Green, Carluke.
HAVING just returned from the outstanding opus that is King Creosote's From Scotland with Love at the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall, I feel the need to write about issue of incessant talking by some members of the audience.
Four women in the row in front of my party chatted and giggled throughout the performance despite heavy hints to quieten down (one was a Scottish actress who should have known better). The performance was about music and archive film and carried strong emotions of how this country was built in the last 100 years. It concerned the forging of steel, building of great ships, the simple pleasures of eating ice cream in Largs and the sacrifice many people had to make to scramble out of poverty.
I despair at the shallow-minded, vacuous individuals who seem unable to concentrate even for just two hours without staring at a phone or sharing a vital piece of information that cannot wait till after the concert.
The message of the film is about the loss of community and selflessness, but sadly we now appear to be living in a culture the opposite is now accepted.
D Bennett,
23 Strathyre Street,
Shawlands, Glasgow.
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