25TH BIRTHDAY
TIMES THEY ARE A CHANGIN’ A lot has happened in 25 years of Scottish culture. Niki Boyle gives a blow-by-blow account of the major events
I n 1 9 8 5, while Reagan and Gorbachev squared up for the last round of the Cold War, a fresh new arts and culture magazine – similar to the one you hold in your very hands – was born. In its first months, The List commented on, among other things, the completion of the brand new SECC, saying it could be a worthwhile venue once someone ‘more interesting than UB40’ (backed up by Simply Red, no less) played there.
1986 introduced Tilda Swinton to our screens, when she appeared in Derek Jarman’s Caravaggio. Our 15th issue had a wonderful two-page spread on the film, though tragically we did refer to the
actress as Tilda Swanton.
1987 was the year John Byrne’s Tutti Frutti graced our screens, making household names of Robbie Coltrane and Emma Thompson, while the big excitement in 1988 was caused by Peter Brook’s transformation of a transport museum into the Tramway for his nine-hour epic, Mahabharata. At the time, we commented that ‘it would be wonderful to think that Brook’s production will leave behind it a permanent exciting new space – something entirely lacking in Scotland – that could become a centre for this sort of brave, experimental work.’ Weren’t we sharp? In 1989 Scotland was deemed an appropriate test-drive vehicle for the Poll Tax, which absolutely nobody had any sort of problem with, while in 1990 The List happily noted that Nirvana would be appearing at grungy rock hole Calton Studios (now grungy rock hole Studio 24); the slacker-tastic line-up would be completed by Shonen Knife, L7 and Cobain’s Scottish favourites The Vaselines.
In 1991, Glasgow once again stepped into the cultural breach as The Arches opened its doors for the first time as a Mayfest venue. The List noted with mildly surprised pleasure that ‘The Arches survives beyond 1990 and Mayfest, which is good news.’ We did get all excitable in 1992 about the new custom-built premises for The Traverse, though – it was ‘Britain’s theatre first
specifically designed for new writing for several centuries.’ That said, the debut performance (Michael Celeste’s Columbus: Blooding The Ocean) did err ‘heavily on the dull side’. We were very hard to please.
1993 and Brit-pop begins to overtake baggy, as Oasis are discovered by Alan McGee at King Tut’s: while we didn’t even list that particular gem, we did draw attention to ‘distinctive rising guitar band’ Radiohead, although we expressed doubt that they’d ‘ever top Creep’. Meanwhile, Irvine Welsh completed Trainspotting while studying for his MBA at Heriot-Watt Uni; his path would soon cross with those of Danny Boyle and Ewan McGregor, who placed themselves on the map in 1994 with Shallow Grave, which we praised for its twin virtues of being good and being from Scotland: ‘Here was proof that it was indeed possible to make a film that was recognisably Scottish without blatantly tying it down with tartan ribbons.’ 1995 was a year that laid the foundation for many a Scottish star: Arab Strap, Mogwai and Idlewild all formed in this year; Frankie Boyle started telling jokes at student unions; Alan Warner unleashed Morvern Callar on the world (‘one of the most original, disturbing and compulsive pieces of fiction in recent years,’ said we); and Peter Capaldi won himself an Oscar for Franz Kafka’s It’s A Wonderful Life – we missed that one too. Even non-Scots wanted in on the deal: Irishman Liam Neeson starred in Rob Roy, while Aussie Mel Gibson made Braveheart, which, despite having ‘the odd cliché, a touch of sentimentality and “dramatic” historical inaccuracy,’ we deemed to be pretty good.
1996 unleashed Danny Boyle’s film version of Trainspotting (‘its scenes will be enthusiastically dissected, its characters discussed and its script quoted with the regularity of Withnail & I or Tarantino’). Our small country reserved its big guns for the following year, though: both the
Harry Potter and Grand Theft Auto franchises, launched in 1997, would be among Scotland’s biggest exports for the next 13 years (Rowling actually appeared at the Edinburgh Book Festival’s smallest venue that year, reading an excerpt to 30 youngsters).
Fast forward to 1999 when we gained our very own parliament. The event was commemorated with a gig by Garbage, whose leading lady, Shirley Manson, said to The List: ‘I certainly don’t think [that Scottish parliament] is going to be the answer to our prayers overnight. I would, however, like to be positive about it . . . God forbid anything like the Poll Tax should happen again.’ See? Told you we weren’t bitter about it. 2000 was a bit of an anticlimax – there was relief mixed with a bit of disappointment when the much-feared Y2K bug failed to show, and then just plain old disappointment when Bush Jr emerged triumphant from a dodgy election. Scotland tried to hang back a bit, but our small nation just couldn’t help itself, and from 2 0 0 4 we were in the news again: the Miralles-designed Parliament building, completed that year, was viewed by many to be the biggest white elephant since the Millennium Dome; the 2005 Make Poverty rally, History provoked by the G8 summit meeting in Gleneagles, was the focal point for similar protests around the world; and in 2006, Gregory Burke’s Black Watch (‘a splendid, rambunctiously humorous, moving and insightful affair’) was seen as one of the most incisive views of the War on Terror. From then on, we excelled in the cult of personality: 2007 belonged to John Smeaton, the have-a-go hero of Glasgow Airport; 2008 was Chris Hoy, Britain’s best Olympian for 100 years; and as for the favoured Scot of 2009, you can take your pick: Carol Ann Duffy (named Poet Laureate that year) or SuBo (who garnered more YouTube hits than Obama’s inauguration).
And now, in the year 2010? Hot talking points include volcanoes, vuvuzelas and drunken Scots shouting ‘I hate Iceland’ on TV, while The List is pushing forward by covering brave new cultural forces, such as . . . um, The Vaselines, Tramway, and Tilda Swan– sorry, Swinton. We promise it won’t happen again.
23 Sep–7 Oct 2010 THE LIST 13