Royal Lyceum Edinburgh/Pitlochry Festival Theatre
A NEW play by John Byrne, author of the Slab Boys trilogy and BBC Scotland’s Tutti Frutti, is an event in itself and in these times of woe he has achieved the impossible with his comedy Tennis Elbow, an audio play produced by Royal Lyceum and Pitlochry Festival Theatre.
Deploying his trademark narcissism, Byrne thinly disguises his own myth in that of Pamela Crichton Capers, who breezes through life, dashing off doggerel and pornographic novels before digesting “the skinny worm of Celtic art” and becoming a painter.
She turns to eccentric religious iconography, whose success in London is achieved when she passes it off as the devoted work of an ancient Mother Superior.
Culture Club - Paddy Murray
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This week s Culture Club inductee is journalist and author Paddy Murray.
He has been a regular contributor to The Last Word in recent times on the subject of his health challenges with Stage 4 COPD, and has now written a memoir of his life in journalism,
And Finally.: A Journalist s Life in 250 Stories.
He spoke to Matt about his favourite music, TV shows, podcasts, books, movies and musicals.
Favourite Album: The Beatles - Revolver
First Single Ever Bought: The Yardbirds - For Your Love
Favourite Bands: The Beatles, Horslips, U2, Liam Geddes, Mick Flannery, Niall Connolly, Aoife Nessa Francis, Republic of Loose
Last modified on Sun 18 Apr 2021 12.31 EDT
David Boston, who has died aged 89 of cancer, had an outstanding career in museums including 28 years as director at the Horniman Museum, whose future he helped secure when it was threatened by the abolition in 1985 of its funder, the Greater London council, by the Conservative government.
Instead of it being consigned to a local authority that he knew could not afford to maintain it, Boston won the argument to gain the Horniman direct government funding, in effect giving it national museum status.
The Horniman, which is in Forest Hill, south-east London, boasts world-class collections, including ethnographic, natural history and musical instruments, all set in glorious public gardens. It began in the drawing-room of a millionaire tea importer, Frederick Horniman, who wanted “to bring the world to Forest Hill”, then a genteel leafy Victorian suburb of large villas.
Here you’ll find him rummaging through the skip and finding ‘The Folk songs of Morley’, or, maybe not…
I learned about this geezer, Mik, from my new mate, gas-engineer supremo, Zaal. He told me:
“…this guy’s like Frank Zappa…a people’s poet…Iggy Pop raved about him at Glastonbury.”
In fact, Iggy Pop chose the song ‘Sweet Leaf of the North’ as his number one song of the last decade on American radio station NPR, and played tracks from Mik on a BBC Radio 6 program he hosted.
Essentially, Mik is a raconteur, a story-teller, artist – another fine British Griot… To find out what he and the Ego Trip are up to during and after the Covid restrictions, check out: https://www.mikartistik.com/news