Yesterday I loved and was occasionally baffled by Merlin‘s show at the CCA. It’s an absolute must. So clever, still warm.

I was working out how to best shorten a film, then I saw Chantal Akerman’s No Home Movie and have started to think better of it. Kicked off by an excellent introduction by an academic whose name I didn’t catch & whom I can’t find mentioned elsewhere (sorry), Akerman’s last film really does make you…

Once I decided that this wasn’t metaphorical and that the characters were actually living at the end of the world, the fear became almost unbearable for this idiot. I remember laughing at times, but now I’m not sure why. I’m no suds aficionado, but this pair are clearly wasted on Corrie. CO-PRODUCTION BETWEEN CITIZENS THEATRE…

Rachel Lowther Reid Gallery 16 Jan-20 Mar 2016 Preview: Friday 15 Jan, 6-8pm For her specially commissioned exhibition artist Rachel Lowther draws on contemporary conflicts and research she was invited to undertake into the GSA Archives and Collections’ World War I holdings. How can (or even should) art respond to bodies torn apart, flesh and…

Small but perfectly formed, Bang! was a Neil Bickerton and Owen Piper production. Neil’s poem about rats was there – I’d been waiting for its debut. 

Sighed and yearned in equal measure, at Mikio Naruse’s Late Chrysanthemums yesterday. It’s research because there’s a film I’m trying to make, and so far failing to make, which involves the impossibility of the Western mind ever really getting to grips with what the fuck a Geisha is. This film isn’t really about that culture. It’s…

Winner announced at the Tramway tonight. Difficult to love it this year.

Does Lorna Macintyre ever sleep?