A Kick Up The Arts with Nicola Meighan

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In this live episode - thanks to Waterstones and the Bookmonger Bearsden - I’m joined by the award-winning, best-selling, heart-lifting, heart-stopping, writer and broadcaster Damian Barr. We recorded this on a lovely, lively Friday night at Glasgow’s 1599 at the Royal College - you’ll hear the echo in our glorious, gilded, high-ceilinged room - thank you so much if you joined us… 
Over the years, Damian’s work has included his memoir Maggie and Me, which was a Stonewall and Sunday Times book of the year - and which was adapted into a stunning National Theatre of Scotland play at the Tron Theatre, just down the road from here - while his debut novel, You Will Be Safe Here, was a book at bedtime on BBC Radio 4, and a book of the year in the Guardian and the Observer…
His latest novel, which has just been published in paperback, is the beautiful, blind-siding The Two Roberts, which explores and celebrates the extraordinary lives, and extraordinary art of two working class boys from 1930s Ayrshire who both possessed wild and vital talent, who roved around Europe and Soho, who partied with Lucian Freud and Francis Bacon, and who - before all of that, and above and beyond all that - fell in love with each other…  
Our evening marked the launch event for the paperback of The Two Roberts in Scotland, and coincided with the opening of a new exhibition celebrating the work, and art, of those two men - Colquhoun and MacBryde - in a homecoming of sorts, at the Dick Institute in Kilmarnock, curated by Damian and titled Artists, Lovers, Outsiders. It runs until January, and it’s a must-see…
Damian will be back at the Institute, in conversation with Ayrshire artist, writer and fellow Two Roberts aficionado Davy Brown, on November 26th. For now though - to Glasgow on a rainy Friday night, and our paperback launch chat… come on in…

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I'm joined by a band that I've loved for decades this time around. When I used to build radios as a kid, I once tuned in to their huge hit, Labour of Love, via crystal radio earpiece on Radio Luxembourg, which felt like - and was - a kind of magic back in the day, and we've had loads of adventures on the wireless, and telly, since...
Hue and Cry are back with a terrific album, Everybody, which explores their new-found, but deep-rooted, love of electronic music, via post-punk, soul, and synth-fired lust for life... they're on tour as we speak, so we talked about performance too, along with diversions into Pat's book of jokes, a clash between Violently and Labour of Love, Michael Bolton, the Pet Shop Boys, and my confession about Dr Robert Moog...
You can listen to another recent chat we had for The Saturday Social on Central FM - where Pat reminisces about the band playing with Madonna at Wembley, snubbing George Michael - AND he makes his brother Greg cry live on-air - right here...
If you've enjoyed this chat and fancy listening to conversations with other Scottish music favourites, there are episodes of A Kick Up The Arts with Deacon Blue, Del Amitri's Justin Currie, Teenage Fanclub's Norman Blake, Emma Pollock, Horse, and loads more - including Kathryn Joseph and Lomond Campbell, which also has its fair share of synth chat... as does the episode with King Creosote...
I've got lots of live event updates too, which I'll tell you all about soon, but it's best to keep an eye on my Facebook and Instagram posts for those, or sign up for the newsletter...
Thanks as ever for listening, for sharing, for getting in touch - for all of that...

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Here’s a quick-fire episode, recorded in a rowdy Green Room at the Golden Lion, to celebrate the brilliant winner of two of Scotland’s most prestigious book awards at this year’s Bloody Scotland crime writing festival in Stirling. 
In what was a historic first, Glasgow author Frances Crawford won both the Debut Prize, and the McIlvanney Prize, for her exceptional novel, A Bad, Bad Place, which takes us back to Possilpark in 1979, via family, community, secrets, punk rock, murder - and a dog called Sid Vicious.
I was a judge for the McIlvanney Prize this year, with Sally Magnusson and Gordon McGhie - which is both a blessing and a curse, on account of the thrilling quality of the books on offer and the difficulty of choosing between them - but Frances’ tale of twelve-year-old Janey, and her Nana, Maggie - bowled us over; and it clearly did the same for the debut prize judges. Guest programmer Denise Mina also seemed thrilled.
It also won the McDermid Debut Prize at this year’s Theakston Old Peculier Crime Awards, and her short story, The Dummy Railway - which gave rise to A Bad, Bad Place - won the Glencairn Glass Short Story competition at Bloody Scotland in 2022.
Frances is a warm, bold, wry, moving and vital new voice in Scottish literature, this is a deeply human, and affecting, book - and it was a pleasure to sit down with her after the awards announcement for a blether…
We’ll reflect more on the book’s content, and characters, in time, but - for now, here’s Frances, surrounded by very lively chatter, reflecting on how A Bad, Bad Place came to life…

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I’m revisiting a legendary old place of work in this episode, as I go back to Glasgow’s Tron Theatre to hear about a bold, fresh, and contemporary take on Sophocles’ epic Greek tragedy, Antigone…
Lulu Raczka’s fired-up reimagining of the classic text is directed by Finn den Hertog, whose credits include Pitlochry Festival Theatre’s Lear, Dundee Rep and the Royal Lyceum’s Sunset Song, and the Fifth Step with the National Theatre of Scotland…
Finn’s first production for The Tron promises to be a thrilling two-hander - as two wild sisters fight for justice - thanks to actor, writer and director Eilidh Loan, who plays Antigone - you might have seen her in roles from Murder on the Heath and Doctor Who to A Castle for Christmas and Macbeth - or you might have caught her second play, Cathy, starring Elaine C Smith, at the Traverse during the Edinburgh Festival - it was wonderful…
Holly Howden Gilchrist, who stars as her sister, Ismene, last bowled over Tron audiences in A Giant from the Bridge, and has also been terrific in Twelfth Night, Small Acts of Love, and more…
Antigone, in association with Groupwork, opens on September 18 and runs till October 10, so move fast if you fancy getting along… I caught up with Holly, Eilidh and Finn in rehearsals last week, and we chatted more about what to expect - from sibling love - and sacrifice - to sticks of rock and maybe even conga lines… Then again - probably not..

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I’m hearing from two brilliant women, and minds, who’ve joined forces to explore a wild - and under-documented, and misunderstood - chapter in Scottish history… 
In their superb new novella, This Door of the Seas, best-selling writer Val McDermid has teamed up with Geographer Royal for Scotland Jo Sharp - they’re partners in crime, and partners in life - as they trace the journey and tale of the Darien venture… 
It saw more than 2000 Scots sail into the unknown at the end of the seventeenth century, toward a horizon of hope and prosperity - but the challenges of Darien’s jungle-coastline, at the junction of North and South America, transpired to offer anything but that. 
It would eventually upturn the future of Scotland, bankrupting an already impoverished nation, and propelling it towards political union with England… 
This Door of the Seas is the latest in Birlinn’s excellent Darkland Tales, in which some of Scotland’s best-loved writers re-imagine stories from Scottish history, myth and legend through a contemporary lens - Val and I chatted about her Queen Macbeth Darkland Tale on a previous episode of A Kick Up The Arts…
Val and Jo’s book is written as a series of letters home from expedition scientist Dr James Wallace - as addressed to his wife Eliza and to Sir Robert Sibbald, the very first Geographer Royal - and as uncovered by his ancestor, Beth Wallace, in the Spring of 2026...
Val and Jo came through to Bridge of Allan to tell me all about it...