Do you know someone who has scribbled, underlined, highlighted, and put dozens of post-it notes in the battered, crumpled old copy of their favourite novel? Or someone who has never missed a book signing by their favourite author and always manages to get to the front of the queue for a personalised message in their copy of the latest release? Or maybe someone who was right there in the front row, on the edge of their seat, clutching an extra large bag of popcorn at the midnight screening of the film adaptation of their favourite book?
If the answer to any of these questions is yes, Literary Book Gifts is the perfect place to look for something special just for them.
The best and most memorable gifts are always the ones that you know had genuine thought and creativity put into them. And that’s where Melissa Chan comes in.
What is Literary Book Gifts?
I spoke to Melissa, owner and designer of Literary Book Gifts, a small company bringing books to life, about the inspiration behind her business.
‘I started Literary Book Gifts as a way to make unique and interesting shirts for teachers, librarians, and generally anyone who loves to read. Launched earlier this year, it carries t-shirts and tote bags in tons of designs ranging from gifts for Edgar Allan Poe fans to those who love the great classic Moby Dick.’
‘I run the business myself and launched in early 2018. Each and every design is inspired by the particular themes of the novel. I also draw much inspiration from art history and in particular, the art nouveau movement.’
Whether you’re looking for a gift for a Wuthering Heights or Dracula fan, Literary Book Gifts has something for everyone.
The designs are inspired by imagery from the novels from the ominous graveyard scene for Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein tote bag and matching t-shirt, to the classic raven on the Edgar Allan Poe clothing.
With the rise of literature-inspired design, Melissa has created a way of transferring the portable magic of books into fashion design with a range of high-quality tote bags, t-shirts, and hoodies; perfect for bookworms and literature students who want to wear something from their favourite novel, short story, or poem.
Use the code SOPHIEMCNAUGHTON20 at the checkout for 20% off any order from Literary Book Gifts.
What do you think of Literary Book Gifts? Let me know in the comment section below.
Made up of frontwoman Melisa Kelly, lead guitarist Luca Pisanu, pianist Dean Darkie, Luther Sean Hall on bass, and Micah Johnston on drums, their music is a patented blend of blues, classic old-school soul, and powerful Amy Winehouse jazz.
Lead vocalist Melisa Kelly exhibited a talent for singing from a young age and started gigging professionally around Glasgow and the West of Scotland in 2010. She has since played in some of Glasgow’s most renowned and beloved venues including The Gaiety Theatre, the O2 ABC, and the O2 Academy.
Melisa Kelly and the Smokin Crows formed when Melisa worked on various music ventures with pianist Dean and bassist Luther. The trio started collaborating with guitarist Luca and drummer Micah when they met through jam sessions held in Glasgow. And so Melisa Kelly and the Smokin Crows were born.
Since they formed, the band have supported huge acts including Alabama 3, The View, and Big Boy Bloater. Melisa’s rich, enunciated, raspy tones pack a real punch reminiscent of the awesome Etta James.
With every band member bringing their own unique influences and talents to the table, Melisa Kelly and the Smokin Crows are a force to be reckoned with.
Here is the band performing ‘Devil’s Luck’ on STV2’s Live @ Five:
‘Devil’s Luck’ Album Launch Party
Following the release of their critically acclaimed EP ‘Some Kind of Voodoo‘ in 2015, the band has just wrapped up recording their debut album ‘Devil’s Luck’. The album was recorded at Chamber Studios and mastered at the iconic Abbey Road Studios.
‘Devil’s Luck’ will be launched at a special event in Saint Luke’s in Glasgow’s East End (buy your tickets here!) on Thursday, August 2.
At the launch party, Melisa Kelly and the Smokin Crows will be accompanied by members of Jools Holland’s RnB orchestra who recorded the album with the band.
This event is guaranteed to be a night to remember. The intimate listening party will showcase the album which will be performed live in its entirety. There will also be support from local live acts with special guests yet to be confirmed.
For fans of Aretha Franklin and James Brown, this album launch is a party not to missed!
It’s April 2017. Fletch and Billy are meeting up for their monthy bevy to catch up and reminisce on the good old days when their ex-best friend Fran bursts into their local – reviving old wounds and creating new ones.
In Don’t Blink, the reader is taken on a painted journey from the trio’s twenties back (2017) to their late teens (2012) and, finally, to the infamous last day of school (2008).
Along the way, you’ll discover the secrets these friends have kept from each other and from themselves.
These three linked stories, following three drunken bams through adolescence, can be read in their presented order or in reverse.
Don’t Blink started as a few incoherent scribbles around two years ago. When I started writing my creative writing dissertation for my honours year, I knew I wanted to revisit these stories and flesh out the characters I started creating months before.
My writing usually centres around two things – language and nostalgia. Writing in colloquial Scots can sometimes flow naturally and sometimes it can be a lot more challenging. Don’t Blink was a bit of both.
Once I had cemented my ideas for the plot, the stories flowed naturally. I originally wrote the stories from a third person perspective, but I quickly realised that it was too hard to create distinctive voices for each character when writing from this point of view.
Determined to create three separate narrators with their own unique idiosyncrasies, personalities, and turns of phrase, I re-wrote the series in first-person and found that I was much happier with the outcome. This perspective allows the reader to immerse themselves in each character to understand their behaviour and motivations.
Don’t Blink contains three linked coming-of-age short stories, each set several years apart, with a rotating narrative among three childhood friends. I hoped that the language and narrative structure would create a sense of realism to allow the reader to feel like they are getting to know these characters as they grow up.
Image credit: Abigail Wing.
When it comes to nostalgia, I’ve always enjoyed writing stories set in the past and I like to include references to music and events from that specific time. I hoped that these stories, especially the last day of school episode, would encourage readers to reminisce on their adolescence, the friends they had, the music they used to listen to, and the scraps they got into as teenagers.
The book also includes a critical commentary on my writing process and research which provides more detail on how these stories and characters were created.
Self-publishing
I have used Lulu self-publishing a few times to create little collections of stories I’ve written over the years.
It’s a great platform for creating and customising your own print-on-demand books. You can choose the size and style of the print copy (Don’t Blink is an A5 paperback) and create eBook versions of your work, too. You can design a cover or upload your own artwork.
I commissioned my friend Kyle Smith to create the cover art for Don’t Blink. He was able to perfectly capture the personalities of each character in the illustration and I am delighted with the final result.
The only issue with print-on-demand self-publishing is making sure the placement of your cover is accurate. I went through a lot of different edits to get the bleed even, but the nature of print-on-demand is that the alignment of your cover might not always be 100% perfect. It takes a lot of trial and error to get it just right.
How to get your own copy
If you’d like your own copy of Don’t Blink, you can buy the book here for £5. Or, if you know me personally, give me a shout and I’ll set a copy aside for you (it saves you paying for delivery).
If you’re a book reviewer and you’d like to review a copy for your blog or website, email me at sophieamcnaughton.com or fill in the contact form below. I’ll be happy to send one your way.
You can also leave a review of Don’t Blink in the comment section below if you’ve already got your copy!
Dead Men’s Trousers, Irvine Welsh’s highly anticipated new novel, is the final chapter in the Trainspotting saga. Until his publisher asks for another, he teases.
The synopsis for the final instalment chronicling the lives of a group of drug-taking misfits in Edinburgh says that Mark Renton is now an international jet-setter successfully managing DJs around the world. The formerly psychotic Francis Begbie is no longer seeking revenge and has reinvented himself as a renowned artist. Spud and Sick Boy are still wheeling and dealing in unsavoury money-making schemes. The blurb ends, however, with the daddy of all hooks: ‘One of these four will not survive to the end of this book.’
Audience members are sitting in their seats below dimmed lights in Tramway, a quirky postindustrial arts venue in Glasgow, waiting impatiently for the arrival of the man closing this year’s Aye Write! Book Festival.
Welsh is welcomed on stage by a roaring crowd of cult fans and begins discussing his latest work which continues the story of four characters the nation fell in love with in Trainspotting.
The first thing Welsh indulges is how this new story came about. During his time in a Big Brother House, as he calls it, in Edinburgh with Trainspotting director Danny Boyle and screenwriter John Hodge as they planned the movie sequel T2: Trainspotting, he explains how he became curious and excited about these characters again. Knowing the Leith motley crew had one final hit in them, Welsh explains how he was compelled to write one last chapter.
Among many points of discussion from politics to literary fiction, Welsh discusses why he believes Trainspotting has exploded into a global success. He explains that Trainspotting consists of archetypal characters that everyone can recognise in someone they know. We all know the cynical intellectual (Mark Renton), the lovable loser (Spud), the violent psychopath (Francis Begbie), and the sexual-deviant master-manipulator (Sick Boy).
As readers can see themselves and people they know in these characters, we are instantly compelled to find out what happens to them. Welsh also believes the franchise maintains a cult following because at the heart of these stories is a deep existential crisis following the decline of industry in working-class Scotland in the 1980-90s in which many people turned to mind-expanding and mind-numbing drugs to fill the void.
Welsh discusses how this revolution affecting work and livelihood that happened to the working-class in the 90s is now bleeding into the middle and upper classes in 2018. With the advancement of technology and data robots which can replace countless jobs, this crisis of purpose and anxiety surrounding the world of work is still relevant today. While maintaining intense drama, humour, and entertainment throughout, the social issues addressed in Trainspotting (HIV infection, heroin addiction, loyalty, betrayal, and purpose) continue to transcend era and location.
After the on-stage interview, Welsh stands up to address the audience to read an extract from his new book. The reading, featuring a scene where Sick Boy discovers his son’s true sexual orientation, is surprising, insightful, and hilarious as expected and the traditional Welsh black comedy delights the crowd.
Next is the audience Q&A where following a question about his writing process, Welsh explains that he creates playlists for each character he writes (cheesy ballads for Bruce Robertson in Filth and Chinese Democracy by Guns n’ Roses for Francis Begbie). He also lets the audience in on how he listens to loud music and jumps around the room scribbling on scraps of paper, typing on his computer, and writing on boards when he is brainstorming before putting the pieces together to compose a story.
The acclaimed author even stays to meet fans, take selfies, and sign new copies of his book for well over an hour after the talk is over. He beams and is upbeat as he meets his fans, despite his hangover, and takes the time to have a chat with everyone who queues to meet him.
After getting their selfies and meeting the big man, fans are instantly opening their books and getting stuck in to find out where these characters are, what they’re doing now, and most important, who won’t survive?
Have you got your copy of DMT yet? Let me know what you think in the comment section below.
Friday 13th, unlucky for some, can be scary enough in Glasgow city centre at night with the odd alcohol-induced zombie roaming the streets, shoogly scaffolding to walk under, cracks on the pavement to dodge, and, bearing in mind it’s always raining, slippery surfaces to avoid.
It’s the month of Halloween and with glowing pumpkins and spooky skulls creeping up in the metropolis already, there’s a nervous excitement in the air as we make our way to Dread, a new live-action, walk-through scare attraction located on Renfield Street.
Deliberately being told very little about what exactly we were about to experience, we tiptoe into a dimly lit but glowing green reception area where we are asked to leave our jackets, bags, mobiles, and dignity at the door.
In a small group, we are led downstairs into a grim, dark basement where our tour guide introduces himself and we soon meet a mad scientist as we enter into his laboratory where he briefly discusses his disturbing, experimental research.
At the start, our eyes dart around the room, our palms sweat, and we giggle in an attempt to shake off the nerves as we are led deeper into the basement. Inevitably, something goes wrong and, before long, the group is jumping, screaming, and gripping each other for moral support as we duck, dive, hide, and run through the seemingly endless maze of rooms.
In the runup to Halloween, Dread is the ideal way to kick off a night out. The Friday 13th event, a 15-minute tour, is filled with jumpy scares, creepy noises, spooky set, and a creative storyline. Think Terminator crossed with I Am Legend and you won’t be far off.
While the tour could have been more terrifying if were actually chased through the attraction, the lights flashed on and off more, and if there were more zombie characters with graphic, gory make up and costume, Dread is great fun and definitely makes shriek, breathe faster than normal, and grip the arm of the person next to you, whether it’s a friend or even a stranger.
If you’re planning a Halloween night out in Glasgow’s city centre at the end of the month, creep down to Dread 2: Mutation tour to experience the new threat in a zombie outbreak.
To find out more about Dread, find them on Facebook.
As Vladimir Nabokov once said: ‘Genius is finding the invisible link between things.’
With the DVD of T2 Trainspotting being released this month, allowing hardcore fans and phenomenon newbies alike to relish in 30+ minutes of unseen footage and cast interviews, the ending to the long-awaited sequel is a hot topic of conversation.
Loosely based on Porno, Irvine Welsh’s sequel to his 1993 novel Trainspotting, director Danny Boyle and original screenwriter John Hodge worked their magic again by fine-combing the novel to cherry-pick scenes for T2 Trainspotting; one such scene being Renton and Simon’s already iconic 1690 scam in an Orange Hall. Mixing choice scenes from Welsh’s sequel with a brand-new plot focussing on nostalgia, masculinity and getting older, Hodge wrote an inventive script which was an instant hit with Boyle and the original cast, Ewan McGregor, Ewen Bremner, Robert Carlyle and Jonny Lee Miller.
Although McGregor’s character, Mark Renton, is the lead protagonist of Welsh’s novel and the articulate antihero narrator of Boyle’s hugely successful 1996 film adaptation, the character focalisation shifts slightly in T2 Trainspotting to Bremner’s character, Danny ‘Spud’ Murphy.
A baby-faced old man in a serious long-term relationship with heroin, the initial worry for Spud is that he won’t survive a sequel and those fears are almost realised when the audience sees Spud preparing to take his own life – the first scene in the franchise to be narrated by a character other than Renton. And while Renton has his resourcefulness and a new life in Amsterdam, Simon has a network of scams and a (failing) pub to run, and Begbie has burglaries to commit and unfinished business to take care of, Spud has nothing – nothing except his stories.
Being by no means perfect, Spud has, nevertheless, always been the moral compass of the franchise; the only friend who Renton loved and felt obliged to compensate after his devastating betrayal at the end of Trainspotting because Spud had ‘never hurt anybody’. As the sequel continually poses the question of what will happen to this lovable goof, Hodge’s ingenious twist gives Spud a new lease of (or should I say, ‘lust for’?) life. After spending his time between sauna refurbishments scribbling down stories from his early-twenties, Spud eventually combines them to create makeshift novel to be read by his new friend Veronica and the love of his life and mother of his son, Gail.
The ending of T2 Trainspotting does well to make the audience emotional by revisiting each character and the note they end on, but there is something particularly emotive and special about Gail, portrayed by the brilliant Shirley Henderson, rearranging Spud’s papers after reading and saying, ‘I thought of a title’ – a moment that made even Ewan McGregor get tear up. Combined with the numerous self-reflexive moments alluding to the first film and Welsh’s novels, the lightbulb suddenly clicks on when the audience realises the reason behind Hodge’s ingenious meta references throughout as he implies that Spud represents Irvine Welsh himself.
Talking to The Telegraph in 2015, Welsh said: ‘The game changer was getting seriously addicted to heroin in my early 20s. I didn’t have any money to lose, so for about a year I got into the dark world of scams and multiple giro claims, petty shoplifting and theft. I was constantly borrowing from people and running up debts, and that changes people’s perceptions of you.’
Just as Welsh took heroin, committed benefit fraud and theft, Spud, too, is a heroin addict who forges signatures and was even imprisoned for shoplifting. And as Renton and Simon joke about who in their right mind is going to read Spud’s stories, we smile to ourselves knowing that the whole world will.
Defying Sick Boy’s unifying theory of life which dictates that everyone who has ‘it’ ultimately loses it, the cast and crew of T2 Trainspotting definitely still have it. The conclusion makes the franchise’s down-and-out underdog a star by giving him a creative outlet that could transform his life, refuses to reward Renton for his controversial and arguably amoral behaviour despite the device of first-person narrative largely focussing on him, and brings these characters and relationships full circle.
Whether this analogy, this ‘invisible link’ between Welsh and Spud, was intended by Welsh when writing Spud or completely invented by Hodge when writing the screenplay, T2 Trainspotting’s conclusion is nevertheless a beautiful and truly satisfying ending; the ending that the fans deserved and one that pays tribute to the man who started it all.
What did you think of the T2 Trainspotting ending? Let me know in the comment section below.
This week, I was inspired by Eventbrite – a platform that allows event organisers to plan, promote, and sell tickets to events and publish them on social media – to come up with my dream panel of authors, dead or alive, to hear talk about their particular genre and bestselling books.
I have used Eventbrite myself to organise the print launch for a literary magazine where I worked as an assistant editor and various other events. The site makes every area of event management simple, quick and easy and I can’t recommend it enough to anyone planning a party, club meet-up, cultural event, or conference.
For me, the headliners of my dream authors panel would have to be…
Mary Shelley
If there’s one story in the world I wish I had come up with, it’s Frankenstein. One of the first successful works of science fiction/gothic horror, Frankenstein was considered blasphemous and scandalous upon publication in 1818. Telling the story of an eccentric, obsessive scientist – desperate to discover the secret of reversing death and prolonging life – Victor Frankenstein finally succeeds in assembling a creature from dead body parts.
After bringing his monster to life, Victor is horrified by what he has done and rejects his creature, causing the monster to turn from innocent and caring to hateful and vengeful. In an ideal world, it would be great to hear Mary Shelley talk about the inspiration behind her legendary story and – since there are so many films and sequels to her book – what she believes the monster would have done next after the novel’s ambiguous, cliffhanger ending.
“Hope, glory, love, and blameless ambition are my guides, and my soul knows no dread.”
– Mary Shelley pic.twitter.com/9q1085hxRS
Frankenstein was my favourite book until I readTrainspotting. Featuring a rotating narrative following a group of delinquents in Leith who turn to drugs, crime, and violence in an age of unemployment and bleak prospects during the Thatcherite era, Mark Renton, Simon ‘Sick Boy’ Williamson, Danny ‘Spud’ Murphy, and Francis ‘Franco’ Begbie and their mates get involved in everything from comical scrapes to harrowing tragedies. Written in Scots, the book might be a challenge for those who aren’t native speakers, but it is definitely worth a read no matter how familiar you are with dialectal speech.
The author of bestselling novels including Trainspotting, Porno, Filth and Glue, it would be great to hear Irvine Welsh speak about the Trainspotting franchise, what he thinks of the new film adaptation of his sequel to Trainspotting, and if he ever plans on revisiting Mark Renton, Sick Boy, Spud, and Begbie for one last chapter.
Author of one of the most notorious banned books ever, Vladimir Nabokov wrote Lolita, a novel following unreliable narrator Humbert Humbert who is obsessively ‘in love’ with 12-year-old Dolores Haze. Seducing Lolita’s mother, Humbert becomes her stepfather and then her sole guardian when she is orphaned. Considered a classic of 20th-century literature, but controversial nonetheless, the book continues to bewilder and fascinate readers today with Stanley Kubrick adapting the story into film in 1962 and Adrian Lyne adapting the novel into film again in 1997.
I would love to be able to ask Nabokov about the process of writing such an unconventional novel and how he felt about the backlash it received. I also would have liked to hear him discuss his other works including dystopian novel Bend Sinister.
If I could have another few guest panellists, having Samuel Beckett, Herta Muller, Bram Stoker, R.L. Stevenson, Stephen King, Edgar Allan Poe, the Grimms Brothers, Angela Carter, Susanna Kaysen, and Margaret Atwood would be ideal.
Who would you have on your dream panel of authors? Let me know in the comment section below.
They are the forgotten heroes of the Great War, thousands of dedicated individuals who more than played their part on the front line.
But now a crowdfunding campaign is under way to provide a permanent memorial to the Airedale Terriers near the Scottish base where their training began, at East Haven in Angus.
During the First World War, the dogs were used by the British Red Cross and by the Army to locate injured soldiers on the battlefields, for sentry work, to carry messages through the trenches, and to carry first aid supplies and carrier pigeons on crates on their backs.
Wendy Turner, secretary of the Airedale Terrier Club of Scotland Breed Rescue, is leading the crowdfunding to raise £50,000 for a monument, ideally to be unveiled to coincide with the centenary of the end of the war in 2018.
Wendy says: ‘The crowdfunding campaign only started in April and it’s up to over £2000 already. Angus Council said they would match the figure when it reached £1,250 which helps give us a boost. In the meantime, I’m trying to get grants from here, there and everywhere.’
The story behind the campaign began in the early 1900s when Lieutenant Colonel Edwin Hautenville Richardson and his wife, Blanche Bannon, bought Panbride House, a manor house between Carnoustie and East Haven. Both were avid dog trainers.
Wendy says: ‘They looked at small terriers and collies and other breeds but they settled on the Airedale Terriers because of the temperament and the sheer tenacity of the breed.’
Originally, the couple trained four Airedales who were given to the Glasgow Police, two stationed at Maryhill and two at Queen’s Park. These Airedales become the first official police dogs in Scotland and the UK.
At the beginning of the First World War, when word began to spread about the Airedales’ intelligence, obedience and energetic nature, the British Red Cross approached Edwin and Blanche to ask if they could train dogs to locate wounded soldiers and to carry their medical supplies on the battlefield.
Wendy says: ‘Once they were trained for that, the British Army obviously had their eye on them, thinking that they could use these dogs, too. So they asked Lieutenant Richardson and his wife to start training Airedales to carry messages through the trenches, do sentry work, and to carry the carrier pigeons in cages on their backs because the pigeons were used to send messages back and forth during the war.’
The British Army were so pleased with the Airedales’ resourcefulness, aptitude and bravery in war zones that they opened a purpose-built war dog school in Shoeburyness in Essex. Edwin and Blanche then moved into the training school to continue their work.
Wendy says: ‘Our aim is to have a monument built where it all started in Angus because I think it’s a piece of history that’s kind of been forgotten about. When I started researching, I found some contacts in historical societies who I thought would know all about Airedales, but I couldn’t find anyone who knew much about it at all.’
When she began to dig into the history of the Airedales as war dogs, Wendy eventually sourced contact details for someone who pointed her in the direction of Panbride House and this piece of information set her on the right track.
Discovering the history of the Airedales and the sacrifices they made alongside soldiers, in the line of duty, Wendy was inspired to start the campaign to honour these tremendously loyal and intelligent dogs.
Wendy says: ‘I’ve applied for several grants. Our aim is £50,000 as it costs £40,000 alone just for the sculptor and the granite. And the rest of it goes to getting the 30 tonnes of granite moved, pathways put in, getting a plinth and other expenses. I feel like I’m spending my life on a computer at the moment trying to organise it all!’
‘We’re hoping to have sculptor Bruce Walker from Kirriemuir create the monument. It’s his artist’s impression on our website. He’s the only sculptor in Scotland who specialises in granite sculpture. And we really wanted Scottish granite from Aberdeen. We felt that was important because it’s a story that starts here in Scotland.’
You can find out more and donate to the Airedale Monument Fund, here.
What do you think of this story? Let me know in the comment section below.
It’s a crisp, slightly chilly Monday night in Glasgow’s city centre and Northern Irish singer-songwriter Leah McFall, runner-up on The Voice UK 2013, is set to play Glasgow for the first time at Stereo Café as part of her debut ‘INK’ tour. After breaking away from her label and independently releasing her mini-album of the same name, Leah is now embarking on her first tour, visiting cities including Birmingham, London, and Bristol.
During my interview with Leah back in February, she told us it was important to her to find local, unsigned artists to support her in each city throughout the tour. After scouting for a local act in Scotland, Leah picked homegrown talent, Deni Smith.
Originally hailing from Dunfermline but now living in Glasgow, Deni warms up the crowd with her acoustic guitar and sweet, trickling voice. Promoting her new single ‘Bring Back the Sun’, the baby-faced songstress will be gigging all over Scotland this summer. Blending an eclectic mix of folk and pop with a delicate but powerful voice, Deni Smith is definitely one to watch this festival season.
After Deni’s set, it’s time for Leah and her band to take the stage. Following the release of her first mini-album ‘INK’, Leah is now touring the UK with Glasgow being the second date after a homecoming gig in Belfast. The crowd is rowdy and lively as Leah steps on stage in a white Nike t-shirt and long pink coat with matching shorts, signifying the artist’s unique, quirky style. Performing songs from her EP including ‘Happy Human’, ‘Wolf Den’, ‘Bottle It’, ‘Language’, and the moving ballad ‘Colours at a Funeral’, Leah regularly intersperses tracks with chats to the audience as she dishes the dirt. Throughout the set, Leah takes the crowd on a painted journey of life as a writing, recording, gigging artist working independently and getting her music out there.
The EP, sounding like a mix of 1990s R&B and contemporary pop with an electronic edge, is a refined collection of stories about breaking free from creative shackles and refusing to fit the cookie cutter mould for the standard chart musician. Leah has retained her madcap fashion sense, her ridiculous, gravity defying voice, and her spirit to remain true to herself and her music.
Giving the crowd an exclusive listen to some unreleased tracks including ‘Solid Gold’ and a currently unnamed ballad preliminary titled ‘The Emo Song’, Leah gives the Glasgow crowd an intimate insight into her professional life, heartbreak, finding love, and going against the grain. Covering fan favourites including ‘Loving You’ and ‘I Will Survive’, massive cheers follow every impossibly high note as Leah’s vocals blow the roof off.
While the gig is filled with expressive tracks and emotional moments, it’s virtually impossible to have a nice, quiet gig in Glasgow. From an admirer in the crowd buying Leah several cans of Red Stripe to fangirls in the front row gushing over every single lyric and riff, the audience is in love with the quirky, pint-sized star.
Hoping to go on to release more music, play festivals this summer, and perform to bigger and bigger crowds, Leah’s wonderfully weird voice is set to take the UK, and beyond, by storm.
Leah McFall’s new EP ‘INK’ is available to buy from iTunes.
What do you think of Leah McFall? Let me know in the comment section below.
Trainspotting is the film of the 1990s, the film of a generation. A phenomenon that perfectly captured a decade in time, making the world laugh, cry, cringe, and recoil in horror, disgust, and delight. Mark Renton, Simon ‘Sick Boy’ Williamson, Danny ‘Spud’ Murphy, and Francis ‘Franco’ Begbie are characters almost every Scot can name and describe in what is undoubtedly the biggest and most loved film ever to come out of Scotland. The tale of prolonged adolescence, friendship, heroin addiction, and ‘life’ itself has resonance around the globe. With masses of devoted fans, new and old, still standing 20 years later, T2 Trainspotting is probably one of, if not the, most highly-anticipated British film sequels of this lifetime. And the film event of the year is finally here.
Sick Boy’s ‘Unifying Theory of Life’ is certainly proven true in T2 Trainspotting. Our favourite Leith scamps had it – whatever ‘it’ was – and they’ve lost it. Now that the magic and indestructability of youth has dissipated, Renton, Simon, Spud, and Begbie, now middle-aged, have little to show for the last 20 years. Caught in a bleak cycle of regret, misplacement, bad choices, a search for something to replace addiction, and fruitless efforts to ‘choose life’, they search for fond nostalgia – reduced to being, as Simon remarks, ‘tourists in their own youth’.
A crossroads for each character sees them all returning home to Edinburgh with debts to pay, unfinished business to take care of, and a lot of baggage. With new and old faces popping up, Renton (Ewan McGregor) is home, escaping from a life in Amsterdam that has crumbled around him. 46-years-old and lost like a lone child in a supermarket, he goes back to the only place that resembles home in the hope of righting wrongs and starting again. He chose life, but it turns out life is harder than he thought it would be.
Another lost soul is Simon (Jonny Lee Miller). Desperately clinging on to his playboy charm, youth, and looks, and trying to convince himself that he’s still cool and business savvy, he, too, is struggling with what to do with his life. As much as Renton and Simon could kill each other at times, they also can’t live without each other. And together they resort to their old life of seedy, money-making scams and dodgy dealings that could see them getting into more trouble than they ever expected.
Spud (Ewen Bremner), resembling a baby-faced old man now more than ever, is utterly adorable and hilarious in his heart-warming fondness for his long-lost friends, his childlike sentimentality and sensitivity, and his inherent goodness. Arguably the only character out of the four who is truly good at the core, Spud’s story takes a heart-breaking and seemingly hopeless turn. Still a Leith junkie – popping pills, sniffing powder, and injecting heroin – Spud is still very much stuck in a cycle of behaviour, dreaming of the days when youth offered a vessel through which he could plunge into oblivious and forget about the real world. For fans of Irvine Welsh’s Porno (2002), which T2 Trainspotting is very loosely based on, you can expect to see the same new literary side of Spud that features in the novel, but with a dramatic and very clever twist towards the end.
As for the man, the myth, the legend, Francis Begbie (Robert Carlyle), he’s out of prison. But when I say ‘out’, I mean he’s escaped. As terrifying as ever, Begbie is on a rampage to track down the man he’s been plotting his revenge against for the last two, cold decades in an Edinburgh prison. And his opportunity has finally come.
The showdown between Rents and Franco, the ultimate square-go 20 years in the making, is everything we could’ve hoped for. With Spud and Simon on hand to intervene, an adrenaline-fuelled dual takes place, filled with fist-clenching, literal mouth-gaping moments. It is at this point, too, that we see the film’s tense, most shocking moment as a life quite literally hangs in the balance.
With a soundtrack – dare I say it – better than the last, a greater depth of emotion and sentiment, T2 Trainspotting is not Trainspotting. As Diane (Kelly Macdonald) predicted, the world has changed, music has changed, even drugs have changed. T2 Trainspotting is a whole other film, a whole new animal. The film stands alone as a reflection and a fitting tribute to its predecessor that grows old but doesn’t quite grow up with its legion of adoring fans. Dealing with issues of masculinity, adulthood, parenthood, and getting old, T2 Trainspotting offers audiences a detailed background of this dysfunctional family dynamic that is steeped in history, loyalty, betrayal, and, somewhere underneath it all, love. With moments of memorial for lost friends and a look back at darker times, T2 Trainspotting contains several flashbacks and parallels to the original in a film that is somewhat self-aware of the incomparable legacy it is part of.
The performances delivered by the original cast are superb, with Ewen Bremner, in particular, serving up an exceptional portrayal of everyone’s favourite catboy. In a story of bitterness, ghosts of the past, and new hope in a new plot with tears, surprises, and massive laughs, filmgoers and diehard Trainspotting fans alike are in for a treat. Director Danny Boyle hasn’t tried to create a cheap, copycat version of the original – something everyone will be thankful for. He’s done something completely different. T2 Trainspotting is truly original, unmissable, and deserving of following in the footsteps of Danny Boyle’s original phenomenon that is rightly adored the world over.
★★★★★
What did you think of T2 Trainspotting? Let me know in the comment section below.
sophie. 