Arts diary: Living room theatre shows and emergency pipers
The Glasgow Film Festival programme is to be launched tomorrow
Years ago, I covered a story about an apparently growing trend for living room concerts - where artists asked for people to host them in their homes to play to an intimate audience. I went along to one such concert in the living room of a tenement flat in Edinburgh, where Canadian singer Bree Sharp performed her cult hit, David Duchovny, Why Won't You Love Me?
It was fun. I'm not sure Ms Sharp made a lot of money out of it, or even close to covered the cost of her plane fare from Toronto to Edinburgh, which is probably why the concept hasn't massively taken off, but it was definitely a unique way of experiencing a performance close up.
Now the Royal Lyceum Theatre Edinburgh, is following a similar trend with the launch of Lyceum at Home.
Four new 30-minute monologues have been penned by Edinburgh playwrights - one by the inimitable Alexander McCall Smith - and will be performed in living rooms, gardens and other kinds of homes, from care homes to prisons, across Edinburgh.
The Lyceum tells me it has already had a flurry of interest in the scheme. Sign up here now.
Rare piper found
It was a tricky situation for harp player Karen Marshalsay when a key musician due to play in her concert at Celtic Connections was forced to drop out due to a diary mix up.
Due to accompany harp player Karen Marshalsay in a full rendition of her latest album, Eadarainn a’ Chruit, Allan MacDonald's skill in singing while accompanying himself on the small pipes is rare.
Fortunately, Ms Marshalsay remembered a young piper, Fionnlagh Mac A’ Phiocair, who she had come across while teaching at the annual Ceolas music learning festival in North Uist.
Now Mac A'Phiocair, 24, who is also a pipemaker and teaches at the National Piping Centre in Glasgow, is to take to the stage alongside Ms Marshalsay at the major Glasgow music festival on 31 January.
“Allan MacDonald is an absolute legend in the piping world,” says Mac A’ Phiocair, who is a native Gaelic speaker and was brought up in the North Uist piping tradition. “So, no pressure there, then.
“It’s quite a thought to be taking Allan MacDonald’s place but I’m really looking forward to the concert. It’s an unexpected bonus so early in the year.”
Sell out for key festival films
Glasgow Film Festival's programme is to be launched tomorrow. The festival, now the biggest in Scotland, has already announced its opening and closing films - James McAvoy's directorial debut California Schemin' and documentary Everyone to Kenmure Street respectively, but I can tell you that the full line up looks fun.
Tickets for the opening and closing films, all three screenings of each, went on sale yesterday morning at 10am - and sold out within literally minutes. It bodes well for the rest of the programme.
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