Latest news with #NoMeanCity
The Herald Scotland
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Herald Scotland
Glasgow gig set up to counter far-right returns to city
All money raised at the gig is donated directly to Refuweegee, a community charity supporting new arrivals in the city. No A Mean City III: Kindness as an Act of Resistance will take place at Stereo on Renfield Lane on September 6, featuring the Noughty Mean City All Star Band, The Dunts, Tanzana, Majesty Palm, The Noise Club, Psweatpants, Salt and more. Read More: Founder Mackenzie Burns tells The Herald: "The first event was held on Saturday September 7 last year, essentially in direct response to the clashes happening in [[George Square]] between the far-right protest groups and people who thought that maybe wasn't an acceptable thing to be bringing to Glasgow in the wake of all the Southport stuff, which was incredibly tragic. "It was a kind of antidote to that, which put a real dampener on what I would consider to be the spirit of my city. "I clubbed together, very hastily, a venue and a lineup of bands which I like to think had a real inclusive and well-meaning community-based spirit to them. "The turnaround was about two weeks, we put on the event in the Rum Shack, who gave us the venue for free. "We raised £1,500 for Refuweegee on the first one and we decided to keep doing it as a sort of series, all in aid of Refuweegee. "I needed a good name and I used to love Taggart, and they always used to say the Maggie Bell theme was 'No Mean City' then of course there's the book about the Gorbals. "So I decided to flip that into 'No A Mean City', I like the idea that Glasgow has everything, warts and all, but fundamentally there's a real spirit to the place and the people. "The third one, which is happening in September, is our biggest one yet. A performance at No A Mean City (Image: Nicole MacAulay) "We've upscaled it to Stereo, which is nearly double the cap, to make more money for refugees at a time when it's needed more than ever but we have real aspirations to take this as far as we possibly can." The event doesn't just feature music, but various contributors from Glasgow's cultural scene and beyond. Mr Burns says: "I loved the first one because it was full of peers and friends and well-meaning people in the industry, but the second one, I expanded it to include Declan Welsh, or example, who's someone I've known a long time and is a great collaborator on this and someone who can fill the Barrowlands and has done the main stage at TRNSMT. "He's involved in the third event and we've got Roscoe McLellan, the comedian who recently won the Billy Connolly award, Andy Guitar who is a really prominent YouTuber. "It's got a really interesting, eclectic, lineup, which we like to think reflects the sort of diversity, the inclusivity, and just the talent that is brought here. "We've got Salt, who's an artist from Sweden, who's moved over to Glasgow. We've got Psweatpants, who moved up from London to be a part of the Glasgow music scene, and then at the same time we've got The Dunts, who are a really prominent Glasgow band "So we're trying to tie everything together in terms of what is brought to Glasgow and that can all coalesce and be just everything that's great about the city. "I never thought of myself as a promoter, however, it turns out if you've got enough well-meaning pals, then you can look like one, because they're willing to play, and obviously no one takes any money. A performance at No A Mean City (Image: Andrew Adams) "I try and budget for expenses. For the first event I really needed it to be insured because of the climate on that day and Brian Reynolds of 432 Presents was really helpful and took time paid out of his own pocket for insuring our event but he said something which has really stuck with me: 'it's for a great cause but the people doing it still have very real needs and they need to be able to not lose money from this'. "So I do try and offer expenses but it's a real testament to the people who choose to give up their time and energy for this, they aren't paid to play so I really appreciate them giving up their time and energy. "It's just a great celebration of the spirit and attitude of Glasgow's music community. "The third will be the biggest and best yet - that's the plan." While the gig will showcase the Glasgow music scene and more, the overall message is wider. Mr Burns explains: "Principally we want to elevate the conversation which is that refugees are human beings and should be treated as such, and all of your opinions are usually based on someone trying to implant a certain view into you rather than give an accurate representation. "If you live in diverse communities you'll understand them as people rather than enemies. "Refugees are people and you don't need to deviate from that, people should have comfort, safety and human rights, and that's what we're always trying to put at the forefront of these events. "It's a great gig, I'm glad you saw your favourite local bands and that they gave their time but you should be going away thinking, 'what can I do other than come to a gig? How can I have this conversation with people in my life who aren't as inclusive or tolerant?'. "We try and make the gigs a vehicle for that." Tickets for No A Mean City III are available here
The National
27-04-2025
- Entertainment
- The National
Andrew Tickell: The consequences of axing River City are not trivial
Having mastered the art of keeping still and turning the right shade of green, juvenile artistes became credible candidates for your actual vertical and breathing roles as one of the long-running series' suspects and perpetrators. Speaking parts as stabber rather than stabbee sometimes followed. But even if you had to do it with a mortuary tag around your big toe, that first big on-screen credit got your foot in the door (and sometimes other parts of your anatomy). Sometimes it also helped you reach a very large audience. I've a vivid but decidedly strange memory of turning on the TV in Germany some time in the early 2000s, only to be greeted by Mark McManus's sour puss and Maggie Bell's No Mean City soundtrack creaking out over the iconic aerial shots panning out over the Glasgow skyline from the Campsies. There might as well be a statutory requirement to describe the show as 'gritty'. It certainly projected a particular version of Scotland's largest city to the world, but one that usually managed to blend that characteristically Scottish combination of jaundice, pathos, and mordant good humour. Even with our dramatically declining murder rate, we're still swithering about what version of ourselves to give the world. READ MORE: River City star 'overwhelmed' as Holyrood debates iconic soap's future A significant number of Hollywood careers kicked off for young actors who began their working lives as suspects under investigation by Maryhill CID, including Dougray Scott, Billy Boyd, Ashley Jensen and Alan Cumming – to pick out just a handful of the Scottish actors who put in a turn in the series over the eventful 40-year period it ran on STV. It's a reminder that everyone needs to start somewhere. For many Scottish actors, these indigenous opportunities to gain experience, demonstrate their talent, and catch a casting agent's eye have made all the difference between a long-running career reaching international audiences and ending up as an almost-made-it, saw-it-briefly-in-the-distance, or a never-was. Not everybody made it off the forensic slab – but many did. It's also a reminder that creative opportunities all have a material basis. Can I do my job where I live, or are all the opportunities reserved for people somewhere else? Do I need to change my life in order to pursue these ambitions? And if all the money and the opportunities end up being concentrated elsewhere, why is this the case? Who decided it should be so? There's an awful tendency to look at all this as an accident of economic demands and costs. But as is so often the case in the UK, the fight for what we quaintly describe as 'regional investment and recognition' strains against the many and varied centrifugal forces trying to drag every penny towards the south of England at the expense of everywhere else. Just over a month ago, BBC Scotland announced it would be scrapping its flagship soap River City in the autumn of 2026. Filmed in Dumbarton and first premiered in 2002, the soap opera is set in the fictional Shieldinch distinct of Glasgow and has provided solid work and local opportunities not only for local character actors, but for emerging generations of writers, directors and other freelancers, drafted in over the years to keep this longstanding soap on the air. Over the years, it has blended serious storylines on tricky topics including stalking and domestic abuse with humorous character work in the best Scottish tradition. Old theatre hands have done a dramatic turn in it during their seventh decades, giving their careers an unexpected last act on air. Presumably in response to a shrinking audience, the show has increasingly leaned into boring and basically undramatic preoccupation with gangsters. Like almost all Scottish broadcasting, its depiction of any colourably middle-class character is palpably ludicrous, extravagant, and unrecognisable. But within these constraints, it is clear it has created real opportunities and material benefits for the sector. Last week in Holyrood, MSPs ventilated concerns that the decision 'will have a disproportionately negative impact on performers in Scotland', uprooting established training resources and opportunities for budding creatives in front of and behind the camera to test their wares. Others have described the decision as 'cultural vandalism.' It was reported this week that over the last couple of years, more than 20 Scottish screenwriters got their first on-screen credit thanks to River City. Quite a few of them are graduates, taught by my colleagues in Glasgow Caledonian University's Media and Journalism department. READ MORE: BBC Scotland accused of 'snobbery and classism' over River City axing Behind the camera, the show has become a pipeline opportunity for budding directors, cutting their teeth on the show's half-hour episodes, able to go out to market with this experience under their belts. This isn't just true of the talent in front of the cameras, but all the invisible hands, drafting the dialogue, cutting the scripts, and directing the cameras behind the scenes. In a risk-averse commercial broadcasting culture with an oversupply of content and limited opportunities to stick it on telly and online, nobody is going to blow millions commissioning an untried and untested first script by an unknown quantity with no track record and no history of success. Try knocking together a 28-minute script, show us that you can work within the established forms and create drama from pre-existing characters by finding their voices and using the limited sets and settings to tell new stories – that's the kind of byline a budding new writer can realistically aspire to, and if it goes well, parlay into future credibility and work. Justifying the decision to close the show next year, a BBC Scotland spokesperson said: 'As viewing patterns change and competition intensifies, this is the right time to invest in the next generation of high-impact drama series from across Scotland showcasing storytelling across the UK. Our goal is to grow Scotland further on the global drama map – with a slate of world-class productions that set the standard not just here but internationally too.' You may not, I suppose, find it particularly encouraging that the people tasked with assessing dramatic work talk and think in what might as well be AI-generated gobbledegook like this. But you can understand the sector's scepticism in the face of these amorphous and unstructured kinds of ambitions. 'Always keep tight hold of nurse for fear of finding something worse' isn't always a bad motto. Cancellations are always concrete. Promises of future investment are speculative and unrealised. You know what you're losing. You can't be sure what you might gain. READ MORE: 'Hammer blow': River City editor issues warning for Scotland as BBC axes show Fire up BBC iPlayer, and BBC Scotland's output is currently made up of odds and sods of news programmes. Cultural programming might as well not exist. Food and drink are scantily covered. Original drama is at best episodic and occasional. In the last decade, the intellectual level of news coverage has appreciably fallen. Presenters without an intellectual hinterland increasingly predominate. The landing page on BBC Scotland News feels increasingly static, often spotlighting stories of breathtaking triviality. The potential consequences of this are not trivial. What is the consequence of never seeing the life you live dramatically represented? What does it do to your sense of self, that the sounds and cadences of your everyday life are almost never captured or encountered in any kind of art and drama? What does it do to people, to be allowed only to live imaginatively in a whole series of elsewheres, as if life is only dramatic when it doesn't resemble your life, and nobody who is depicted in it looks or sounds remotely like anyone you know?
