Alan Bissett

Moira's five ways to ensure you survive the festival

'Falkirk's hardest woman' hands out tips on surviving the Fringe

10 Aug 2010

Being on tour can be a stressful business, what with staying away from home, forgetting your lines onstage and, erm, setting off the fire alarm in the venue. Scotland’s newest stage superstar, Moira, shares her tips on how to survive a fortnight at the…

Are you dunroamin’?

22 Jan 2009

The last time I heard Dougie McLean’s whisky-tinged ‘Caledonia’ was on the banks of the River Thames, an impromptu, late-night rendition by McLean himself, leading a ragged band of Scots exiles like the Pied Piper. My eyes were as moist as everyone…

Eye to the future at the end of the line for Edinburgh Festival 2008

Alan Bissett's festival blog

27 Aug 2008

Ah, the end of the Fringe. Goodbye rain. Goodbye bright-eyed young hopefuls thrusting flyers. Goodbye posh accents. How was it for you? Depending on who you talk to, plays this year have been too bleak/political/teenage. Given the gloomy political…

Telling stories while we can at The Edinburgh Book Festival

Alan Bissett's festival blog

26 Aug 2008

Today's theme is stories! The ones we tell about ourselves, our past, our bodies. What prompted this was The Fooligan at the Pleasance, a one-man show from the Arches' artist in residence, Al Seed. Al waddles onto the stage, an obese, grotesque medieval…

Medium of the masses joins debate at Edinburgh Book Festival

Alan Bissett's Festival Blog

20 Aug 2008

17th August This morning I went to see Stella Duffy, Rodge Glass and Will Sutcliffe at the Edinburgh International Book Festival, promoting their new novels. Each reading was an assured affair, Duffy's in particular. Author discussion afterwards was…

Speaking in tongues at the Edinburgh International Book Festival

Alan Bissett's festival blog

18 Aug 2008

Thurs 14th Aug This morning I was on at the Edinburgh International Book Festival with Des Dillon and Anne Donovan, two of Scotland’s ace-est writers and who, like me, have a name mainly for writing in Scots urban dialect. We met in the Author’s Yurt…

The horror, the horror… of the Edinburgh International Book Festival

Alan Bissett's festival blog

15 Aug 2008

Ah the Edinburgh International Book Festival! My home from home! My August social life! The Author's Yurt! The free tea/coffee/wine/beer/finger food! The celebs! The horror. The horror. Man, I love the Book Festival. As its director, Catherine…

Near-silent office ambience proves highlight of day one proper

Alan Bissett's Festival Blog

5 Aug 2008

My first play proper is Stoning Mary at the Underbelly, from the pen of debbie tucker green. This contains three separate stories, the links between which are gradually revelead, but when the first words you see onstage are ‘AIDS Genocide’ you know the…

Life's a riot with Man versus Art

Alan Bissett's festival blog

4 Aug 2008

Hello, groovers. And so begins my blog for Scotland’s Cultural Bible from the beating, garish heart of the Edinburgh festival. I’ll be updating, with semi-regularity, on what I’ve seen, heard, touched, tasted, felt and drank. After, all, something had…

Samurai swordsmanship cuts the mustard

Alan Bissett's Festival Blog

4 Aug 2008

Swords. Japanese people with swords. Japanese people with swords who choreographed the fight scenes in Kill Bill. I’m there. Samurai Spirit (at Zoo) is just that: a group of warriors performing with samurai swords. There isn’t much to be said about this…

Beyond a Joke - Dark Knight

17 Jul 2008

As the latest Batman adaptation arrives on the silver screen, Alan Bissett explores the colourful history and enduring appeal of the caped crusader’s arch nemesis, the Joker

James Kelman - A Disaffection (1989)

100 Best Scottish Books of all Time

1 Jan 2005

How Late it Was, How Late may have grabbed the headlines, The Busconductor Hines may have been more seminal, but it is A Disaffection, quietly, which is James Kelman’s best book. Its ‘hero’ (a problematic term; it’s James Kelman we’re talking about) is…

Des Dillon - Me and Ma Gal (1995)

100 Best Scottish Books of all Time

1 Jan 2005

Me and Ma Gal is a novel which continues to defy the odds. Published by a small Scottish press in the mid-90s, re-published by a large London firm in 2001, Me and Ma Gal twice failed to make Des Dillon as trendy as Irvine Welsh or as fêted by critics as…

Jackie Kay - Trumpet (1998)

100 Best Scottish Books of all Time

1 Jan 2005

Scotland’s writers are a cheeky lot when it comes to sampling. Irvine Welsh and Alan Warner couldn’t move for E’d-up Face scribes wielding references to acid house. The lilting tones of folk balladry drape the narrative voice of Sunset Song. My own…