18 WHAT’S ON
CULTURE • LITERATURE • ART • EVENTS • MUSIC • MUSEUMS...
Young Fathers win the 2023 Scottish Album of the Year Award
Cinders is on her way to Porty Town Hall for Xmas
Films and foties
at Fruitmarket
By STAFF REPORTER
SCOTTISH GROUP Young Fathers have won
the prestigious Scottish Album of the Year
Award (SAY) with their album Heavy Heavy
victorious for the third time ahead of a very
strong shortlist.
The award comes with a financial prize of
£20,000, and this is the first time that any artist
has won the award more than twice. Young
Fathers won in 2014 and in 2018. This year the
eligible album list totalled 437 albums cut down
to the shortlist of just 10.
These Streets by Paolo Nutini was awarded
the Modern Scottish Classic Award celebrating
an album which still inspires. Sadly Paolo
himself is in the US and was unable to attend
the ceremony to pick up the award personally.
No Windows was named The Sound of
Young Scotland, winning a £10,000 funding
package including cash and in kind assistance
to create their debut album at The Old
Tollbooth recording studio in Stirling.
The prize also includes 500 vinyl pressings
from Seabass Vinyl.
The nine runners up received £1,000 as well
as the low carbon statuesque concrete totems
created by local artist Brutal Concrete
Workshop to a commission by the SAY Award,
and each winner received a unique concrete
and terrazzo bowl.
This award handed over at one of the biggest
events in the Scottish music calendar has now
distributed more than £350,000 to Scottishmusicians. Vic Galloway and Nicola Meighan
hosted the event at The Albert Halls in Stirling
where the ceremony was held for the second
year in a row.
Alloysious Massaquoi, Young Fathers
winners of The Scottish Album of the Year
Award 2023 said: “Thank you to the judges, and
all the nominees and everybody that’s turned
up - it’s a bit radge! The album is called ‘Heavy
Heavy’ for a reason, it’s the trials and
tribulations of everybody. It’s one of those
things where we sort of had to start from
scratch, it had been 4 or 5 years since we put
something out since Cocoa Sugar. For us to get
back together and get excited again with each
other, all the ideas that everybody else brings -
it’s great and this is topping off a great year.”Third time winners
THE FAIRY Godmother of all
Pantomimes is back in Porty
this Christmas.
A new professional pantomime
production of Cinderella takes
centre stage at the newly-
refurbished Portobello Town Hall.
Cinderella the Pantomime
promises to be an “unforgettable
theatrical event filled with much-
loved music, and hilarious comedy”.
Stage Door Entertainment, in
partnership with Portobello Town
Hall, will bring the enchanting
fairytale to life to captivate
audiences of all ages and peoplefrom all over Edinburgh and the
Lothians. It will be “a delightful
celebration of family-friendly
entertainment, and maybe even
create a new festive tradition”.
The professional production will
showcase some incredible talent
among local performers, creatives
and musicians. This collaboration
highlights this year’s reopening of
the Town Hall which is now in full
swing, and supports the delivery of
a high-quality arts programme to
delight audiences, involving both
the local and wider community.
Cinderella has been written anddirected by local creative Lewis
Baird. Lewis graduated from Queen
Margaret University with a BA
(Hons) in Drama and Performance
in 2021. During his time studying,
he was the Writer / Co-Director of
their production of ‘Cinderella’ at
North Edinburgh Arts Centre. Since
graduating, Lewis has worked with
Forth Children’s Theatre directing
their productions of ‘Oliver!’ and
their five star Fringe 2023
production of ‘The Addams Family’.
Last year, he also wrote, directed
and produced their pantomime,
‘Beauty & The Beast’.Lewis said: “I am thrilled to be
joining Stage Door Entertainment
as writer and director for ‘Cinderella’.
This is such an exciting time for the
company, and I feel honoured to be
a part of Tommie and Aidan’s
exciting plans for Stage Door.
Bringing Pantomime back to
Portobello is going to be a joyous
process, bringing a new, yet very
familiar, spin on the classic fairytale
about the girl with a heart as pure
as gold. We hope to bring hilarity,
joy and magic to audiences this
Christmas. Cinderella shall go to the
ball in tremendous style!”BRITISH ARTIST Zarina Bhimji makes
photographs, films and installations
which engage with themes such as
institutional power and subjectivity. Her
work grows from observation and felt
sense and is rooted in a careful use of
colour and light. Embracing slippages
and ambiguities, it is evocative rather
than descriptive or documentary in its
pace, setting and mood.
The exhibition spans Bhimji’s career. It
begins with She Loved to Breathe – Pure
Silence (1987), a photo-text installation
that explores politics, voice, beauty and
love as forms of resistance.
This is joined by her most recent work,
a new film, Blind Spot (2023). Shot in
London this summer, it engages with
ideas of home. Also included in the
exhibition is Bhimji’s first film, Out of Blue
(2002), an allusive exploration of the
extermination and erasure of particular
groups by a state; and Waiting (2007), an
atmospheric wander around a stilled
factory that processed sisal into twine.
A new book will accompany Bhimji’s
exhibition at Fruitmarket which is next to
Waverley Station on Market Street.
With an essay by Allison K Young and a
conversation between Zarina Bhimji and
novelist Kamila Shamsie, it extends the
reach and range of what is on display.
http://www.fruitmarket.co.ukZarina
BhimjiSome of those on the shortlist with
Alloysious on the right hand side