NATIONAL COLLECTIVE PRESENTS…
Scottish Storytelling Centre, Netherbow, Royal Mile, Edinburgh. 9 – 10pm. Thu 7 – Sat 9/ Thu 14 – Sat 16/ Thu 21 – Sat 23 August : £6.50/ 5.50 concs
The Yestival tour may be coming to a close, but the Summer of Independence continues as National Collective announce their Fringe show!
National Collective is the cultural movement for Scottish independence. Since 2011, they have been campaigning and advocating for political change through encouraging people to imagine a better Scotland. From artists to activists, theatre-makers to trouble-makers, poets to performers, musicians to dancers, here is the positive case for independence. With an ever-changing line-up of well-known and up-and-coming acts, whether you are decided or undecided, National Collective will engage and entertain in equal measure.
Thu 7th Aug – Liz Lochhead, Marit & Rona, Robert Somynne, Kieran Hurley
Fri 8th Aug – Peter Arnott, Gerry Campbell, Janice Galloway
Sat 9th Aug – Sophia Walker, Josephine Sillars, Jo Clifford
Thu 14th Aug – Alan Bissett, Lake Montgomery, Harry Giles
Fri 15th Aug – David Greig, Ruth Mills & Jack Webb,Rachel McCrum.
Sat 16th Aug – Ross Colquhoun, Julia Taudevin, Declan Welsh, Iqbal Mohamed
Thu 21st Aug – Lesley Riddoch, Loud Poets, Karine Polwart
Fri 22nd Aug – Tam Dean Burn, Rachel Amey, Adam Sutherland & Innes Watson, Theresa Munoz
Sat 23rd Aug – Billy Bragg, Jenny Lindsay, Stephen Greenhorn
Week 1
Thursday 7th August
Liz Lochhead
Appointed Scots Makar – the National Poet for Scotland – in 2011, Liz Lochhead is both transgressive and popular; as Anne Varty wrote, ‘her work is that of one woman speaking to many, and one person speaking for many.’
Marit and Rona
Marit and Rona’s live performances are uplifting, daring and harmonious, probing the similarities between Scandinavian and Scottish Highland tunes. In 2012 they won the coveted Danny Kyle Award at Glasgow’s Celtic Connections Festival and Rona was named BBC Scotland Young Traditional Musician of the Year.
Robert Somynne
Robert Somynne (Nathanael Williams) is a poet and playwright from South London with a background in history and politics. He graduated from York University in 2010 and has spent several years travelling Scotland, England, Italy and Hong Kong. His writing explores the complexities of nationhood, ethnicity and childhood memory.
Kieran Hurley
Glaswegian writer, performer and theatre-maker, Kieran Hurley has been described as “a superb theatrical storyteller… with a subtlety and humanity that sometimes takes the breath away… sheer theatrical skill.” – Joyce McMillan, The Scotsman
Friday 8th August
Peter Arnott
Peter Arnott is one of Scotland’s most cherished playwrights, with countless accolades to his name. He is also one of the producers of the 2014 Fringe Show “All Back To Bowie’s”, alongside David Greig, and a regular contributor to the National Collective website.
Gerry Campbell
Gerry Campbell is a Glasgow-based musician and former singer in the band Babygod. He works as a subtitler for deaf and hard-of-hearing TV viewers. He’s currently writing a song, Staying With David, in which someone takes Bowie’s “Stay with us, Scotland” remark literally, turning up on the Thin White Duke’s doorstep with some belongings in a bin bag.
Janice Galloway
Janice Galloway is one of Scotland’s most versatile and gifted writers, author of novels, short stories, non-fiction, collaborative works with visual artists and musicians, opera libretti and prose-poetry. Her latest book, All Made Up, was published by Granta Books in September 2011 and won the SMIT Book of the Year and a Creative Scotland Award in 2012. The Trick is to Keep Breathing was recently voted among the top ten of Scottish Books over the past 50 years. This year, she is the first Literature Fellow at New Zealand’s Otago University.
Saturday 9th August
Sophia Walker
Sophia Walker is a touring performance poet, who regularly performs all over Britain, Europe and the USA with her high-octane, powerful verse. Winner of the 2013 Best Show on the Free Fringe (for Around The World In Eight Mistakes), and winner of the 2013 BBC Slam, Walker’s 2014 show Can’t Care, Won’t Care is already hotly-tipped to be one of the must-see shows on the Fringe.
Josephine Sillars
Playing original music since the age of fifteen, Josephine burst onto the Highland scene after playing a support set for Carol Laula on her 2010 tour. Since then, she has played esteemed festivals and venues throughout Scotland including, Les Fest, Belladrum, The Oran Mor, Nice’N’Sleazy’s, Broadcast and The Market Bar as well as Hootananny’s, London. She regularly performs in Glasgow and the Central belt and is currently working on her debut EP.
Jo Clifford
Jo Clifford is a writer, performer and teacher who lives in Edinburgh, and is one of Scotland’s most respected playwrights. Her show “The Gospel According To Jesus Queen of Heaven,” can be seen on the Fringe this year.
Week Two
Thursday 14th August
Alan Bissett
Playwright, performer and award-winning novelist, Alan Bissett is also a tireless campaigner for Scottish independence. With awards and nominations too numerous to mention, Bissett’s work, including his live performances, make him one of the busiest people on the live literature scene. His newest play, written for the 2014 Fringe, The Pure, The Dead and The Brilliant features an all-star cast and explores what would happen if the bogles, banshees, demons and selkies of Scots folklore were involved in the independence referendum.
Lake Montgomery
In Lake’s own words: “My name is Lake. I sing, play guitar, and write songs. I was born and raised in Paris Texas. When I explain my music, however, I must honestly reveal my roots. I am a child of Paris Texas. So is my mother. So is my grandmother and hers. And so on to the slave times. My music and I grew up in old shanty negro church-house gospel; my mother’s folk/soul collection, my grandmother’s work songs, and the desolation of a hopeless town. When I came to Amsterdam, I was quickly invited and accepted into this singer-songwriter scene, playing cafes all over Holland, playing the Noorderslag and other festivals and appearing on radio shows as that girl from New Orleans. After 7 years in the place, I’ll say that New Orleans does flavor my songwriting style. So do all of my travels. But in the end, I’m a child of Paris Texas. Simple, really.” Lake is a must-see act. She writes songs that “hurt your heart happy,” and has been a regular feature at National Collective’s live events.
Harry Giles
As a performance-maker, Harry has been programmed by festivals and venues including the Soho Theatre, the Ovalhouse, Forest Fringe and Sprint. His performance lecture This is not a riot toured to Italy in 2012, and his one-to-one show What We Owe toured the European Imagine 2020 venues in 2013. What We Owe was listed in the Guardian’s “Best of the Edinburgh Fringe” round-up in the “But is it art section”. As a poet, Harry is widely recognised as an innovative, passionate writer whose poetry exploring Scottish culture and politics is both engaging and challenging. He has been short-listed for the 2014 inaugural Edwin Morgan Poetry Prize, which will be announced in August 2014.
Friday 15th August
David Greig
David Greig is a multi-award winning Scottish playwright and theatre-director. His works have been performed at all major UK theatres. Greig has also increasingly emerged as a significant political commentator in contemporary Scotland, intervening importantly in the debates over Creative Scotland in 2012 and proving an effective advocate of Scottish independence in the run-up to the referendum in 2014.
Ruth Mills and Jack Webb
Ruth Mills is one of Scotland’s leading dancers, choreographers and movement directors with over twenty years professional experience in contemporary dance. She has toured extensively as a dancer both nationally and internationally. Her work is provocative, intelligent and compelling. Jack Webb is a dancer, choreographer and teacher with extensive credits to his name, whose work is challenging and captivating in equal measure.
Rachel McCrum
Rachel McCrum is originally from a small seaside town called Donaghadee in Northern Ireland. Now living and working in Edinburgh, Rachel is one half of literary-cabaret duo Rally & Broad, and an award-winning poet. Her debut pamphlet The Glassblower Dances won the Callum Macdonald Memorial Prize in 2013 from the National Library of Scotland, and she was part of the Commonwealth Poets United project from the Scottish Poetry Library/ British Council.
Saturday 16th August
Ross Colquhoun
Ross Colquhoun is a graphic designer, artist, activist, and founding member of National Collective. Alongside being a tireless campaigner for Scottish independence, Colquhoun also co-edited and designed the recent publication Inspired by Independence (Wordpower, 2014)
Julia Taudevin
Julia Taudevin is an award-winning actor and playwright, as well as an active campaigner for social change. Her most recent work Chalk Farm featured in the Brits Off Broadway season in New York.
“Taudevin is fast emerging as one of the most exciting forces in Scottish Theatre”
Joyce McMillan, The Scotsman
Iqbal Mohamed
Iqbal is a young beatboxer living in Edinburgh. He is a regular performer at both literary and music events around the city and has featured at the National Collective Edinburgh Sessions and as part of Yestival.
Declan Welsh
Declan is a 20 year old singer/songwriter from East Kilbride. His catchy, witty, lyrical songs about going out, getting out, politics, love, life and everything are rapidly gaining him notice across the live music scene in Scotland.
Week Three
Thursday 21st August
Lesley Riddoch
Lesley Riddoch is a broadcaster, writer and journalist whose most recent book Blossom has been lauded as confirming her “reputation as one of our top campaigning journalists.” (Paul Hutcheson, The Herald) She writes weekly columns for The Scotsman and The Sunday Post, is a regular contributor to The Guardian, Newsnight Scotland, Scotland Tonight and Any Questions? She is also the founder and Director of Nordic Horizons, a policy group that brings Nordic experts to the Scottish Parliament.
“She can rattle and enrage, but she gets to the heart of the matter.” (Ron Ferguson, Press & Journal)
Karine Polwart
Karine Polwart draws from folk music’s long tradition while keeping pace with the ceaselessly changing times. Her talent for crafting unique, enduring melodies, her gift for saying just enough without overstating her case, the range and dynamism of her arrangements, all come together in songs of powerful contemporary relevance. She also has the purest and most approachable of singing voices, drawing the listener towards her in the same way one might lean towards a late night tale by the fireside.
“A passionate, perceptive songwriter.” (Uncut)
Loud Poets
Loud Poets is a new poetry collective, based in Edinburgh, who are rapidly gaining notice for their quick-fire delivery, wit, and exuberant performances. Founded by Miko Berry (Scottish Slam Champion 2014), Kevin McLean and Doug Garry (pictured), Loud Poets are “about more than volume: this is poetry for the masses.” Here, they present their take on the indyref debate – in verse!
Friday 22nd August
Tam Dean Burn
Tam Dean Burn was born in 1958 in Leith, Edinburgh, Scotland. He is an actor, who has played a wide range of roles for both stage and screen, and is known for Longford (2006), War Horse (2011) and Perfect Sense (2011). Tam is also a well-known cultural activist and is widely respected as a political actor.
Adam Sutherland and Innes Watson
Fiddler and composer Adam Sutherland and multi-instrumentalist Innes Watson are two highly accomplished artists working at the forefront of contemporary trad music. Adam comes from Errogie on the south shores of Loch Ness in the Highlands of Scotland and is one of Scotland’s most exciting performers of his generation. Innes hails from the Scottish Borders is another rising star of the thriving Scottish music scene, named MG Alba Scots Trad Music Awards Instrumentalist of the Year 2011. Both play as part of the innovative Treacherous Orchestra, and un-definable collective force fusing people, concepts, styles and influences, as well as contributing to a range of creative individual and collaborative projects. This duo will offer some unpredictable, hi-octane, inventive and beautiful music.
“The gorgeous tone he produces certainly compliments melodies that explore the full range of both Adams fiddle, and his musical creativity.” – Bright Young Folk
Rachel Amey
Rachel Amey is a poet, writer, cultural activist and theatre-maker, based in Portobello. Rachel is a multiple poetry slam winner, with the 2013 Rally & Broad Bongo Club Slam, the 2013 Luminate Slam and the 2013 National Library of Scotland Burn’s Night Slam under her belt, plus competing as a finalist in the 2013 BBC Edinburgh Fringe Festival Slam. Her poetry is witty, accessible, political and poignant, with her NHS: South of The Border much-admired throughout the Scottish performance poetry scene.
Theresa Muñoz
Theresa Muñoz is a poet and critic born in Vancouver, Canada, now living in Edinburgh. She was an Overseas Research Scholar at the University of Glasgow where she wrote the first thesis on the poet Tom Leonard. She works as a tutor/researcher and is also the online editor for the Scottish Review of Books. Her pamphlet Closer was published by HappenStance Press in 2012.
Saturday 23rd August
Billy Bragg
Billy Bragg is an English singer-songwriter and a left-wing activist. His music blends elements of folk music, punk rock and protest songs, and his lyrics mostly deal with political or romantic themes. We’re delighted to have Billy’s support for National Collective and the wider yes movement.
Jenny Lindsay
Jenny Lindsay is a poet, writer and live-literature promoter; the ‘Rally’ half of much-vaunted lyrical cabaret ‘Rally & Broad.’ She has curated events for the Festival of Politics and the Edinburgh International Book Festival, amongst others, and has written commissioned work for the EIBF, The Scotsman, BBC World Service and BBC Radio Scotland. She regularly performs all over Scotland and beyond with a blend of dry humour, social-commentary and story-telling. She has been variously described as “a distinctive voice, full of fire and passion,” (Scottish Review of Books), as writing “poems of confidence and substance,” (Poetry Scotland) and as “full of hope, humanity and humour…She writes defiantly, eloquently and inspiringly.” (The Scotsman)
Stephen Greenhorn
Stephen Greenhorn is a screenwriter and playwright whose plays have been produced by a wide variety of theatre companies across the UK as well as on BBC Radio, with several having been published. In 2007 he created Sunshine on Leith for Dundee Rep – a musical featuring the songs of The Proclaimers.The show won the TMA Award for Best Musical that year and has toured several times since, before being adapted for the screen in 2013.
Tickets for each event are available from the Scottish Storytelling Centre.
