Highlights

The Sunday Post •

Declan McKenna on Edinburgh show and Sabrina Carpenter tour

After playing Glasgow’s TRNSMT festival last weekend, Declan McKenna will be heading back north of the border next month as part of the Edinburgh International Festival. We caught up with him about the upcoming show at the Edinburgh Playhouse and preparing to tour with pop’s newest megastar, Sabrina Carpenter. From a festival goer’s perspective, it’s an opportunity to catch new music, maybe something you haven’t heard before and you just bump into something. It’s so important for new bands, I gu...
The Sunday Post •

Sudden Death: Rosco McClelland explores heart condition in Fringe show

Dying is a subject often avoided or talked about in hushed tones, but not for comedian Rosco McClelland. The stand-up, one of the brightest stars in the current wave of new Scottish comedy talent, feels acquainted with death as an old friend, and it’s even one of the only things that gets him really laughing. He has Long QT syndrome, a rare and life-threatening heart condition that gives an increased risk of an irregular heartbeat which can result in fainting, seizures, or, worst case scenario,...
The Sunday Post •

Nina Conti on donning monkey suit for debut feature film Sunlight

If it wasn’t hard enough to juggle starring in and directing her debut feature film, Nina Conti gave herself an extra challenge – do it all in a giant monkey suit in the blistering heat of the New Mexico desert. Best known for her ventriloquism work, she combines her usual hectic Fringe schedule this year with premiering dark comedy Sunlight at the Edinburgh Film Festival. In it she goes further than just lending her arm and voice to Monkey and goes for full immersion, playing Jane, a woman who...
The Sunday Post •

INTERVIEW: Katherine Ryan on the Fringe, fame and family

Having established herself as a familiar face on our screens, married her teenage sweetheart and played to sold-out audiences around the world, Katherine Ryan is aiming to tick off yet another life goal – becoming besties with Shania Twain. In the latest big TV job to come her way, the comedian will soon be jetting back to her homeland to take a seat alongside the country-pop superstar on the new judging panel of Canada’s Got Talent. If you go by her lyrics, Shania is famously hard to impress, b...
The Sunday Post •

Maureen Lipman on Edinburgh memories, Corrie, and staying busy

When she sits down for a Q&A in Edinburgh later this month, Dame Maureen Lipman will no doubt cast her mind back down the decades to her first visits to the city and its famous festival. Before she became a household name, the actor, writer and comedian appeared alongside Tamara Ustinov in Kerry Lee Crabbe’s play The Burn at the Fringe in 1965, hailed as a masterpiece by the renowned drama critic Sir Harold Hobson. Maureen, who says she still has that review in a ‘dusty scrapbook’ somewhere, wou...
The Sunday Post •

Richard Armitage on how roots of real life inspired second novel, The Cut

As one of the most popular audiobook voice actors, Richard Armitage has narrated some of the biggest page-turners, cliff-hangers and whodunnits. Now the star of The Hobbit, Spooks and Red Eye is having a thrill ride of his own in a surprise new career chapter as a novelist. Following the success of his first book Geneva, which has a TV adaptation in the works, Richard released his follow-up, The Cut, as an Audible exclusive earlier this week. A lifelong lover of the escapism of fiction, the Robi...
The Sunday Post •

Jo Nesbø on Scotland and Norway's cultural ties and solace in crime novels

Whether it be works inspired by shared rugged landscapes and unpredictable climates, or our respective genres of Nordic and Tartan Noir crime thrillers, Scotland and Norway have long shared strong cultural ties. Fittingly for a man who has sold millions of books worldwide, best-selling author Jo Nesbø, puts it perfectly, describing us as ‘national soulmates’. As the Norwegian crime writer heads across the North Sea to meet fans of his page-turner thrillers, he knows he’s almost coming to a home...
The Sunday Post •

Poet Liz Lochhead on revisiting her life's work for new collection

In her hands, Liz Lochhead is holding her newest book, and most of her life’s work. “There it is,” she says. “A great big stonking thing.” It is indeed quite a hefty tome. For the first time, all of Scotland’s second modern Makar’s published poetry has been put together in one release. Titled A Handsel, it also includes her first new poems since 2016. Although she daren’t look too closely in case she’s missed a typo, there’s a clear sense of pride in bringing her legacy together. The poet and
The Sunday Post •

Lucy Beaumont on reality and fiction colliding in marriage to Jon Richardson

Having attempted to fit herself into her own suitcase during a break in filming Taskmaster, the assessment of Lucy Beaumont as “consistently unpredictable” seems fairly fitting. The stand-up, writer and actor, who is one of the contestants on the current series of the Channel 4 panel game show, largely agrees with the words used by the show’s co-host, Alex Horne, in a recent interview. “You don’t really know sometimes that you’re odd until you see it in writing,” she laughs as P.S. catches up
The Sunday Post •

Love still burns bright for couple brought together by Glasgow fire strike

Rattling along the M8 at 30mph in a Green Goddess fire engine, a young RAF airman from Yorkshire had no idea his life was soon going to change forever. Steven Bentham-Bates was just 18 years old when he was drafted in to cover strike action by Glasgow’s firefighters 50 years ago this week. After a quick crash-course on how to extinguish blazes at Edinburgh’s Redford Barracks, he was assigned to a crew when they reached Maryhill. Little did Steven know that saying yes to a soldier, who asked h
The Sunday Post •

Lewis Capaldi on special bond with fans, new album and Big Weekend

As Lewis Capaldi clambers over a barricade to greet Janet Kirk, the moment encapsulates the special connection the singer has formed with his fans. For 80-year-old Janet, it was her first-ever gig and she made the journey just to see the singer-songwriter in action. He may shrug off national treasure status, but Capaldi’s honesty about his mental health in recent years – coupled with his immense talent, laid-back style and sense of humour – has formed a bond many artists could only dream of.
The Sunday Post •

Crying in the bathroom and a hug from Cate Blanchett: Lesley Paterson on her emotional rollercoaster Oscars

A big hug from Cate Blanchett was one of the highs in a rollercoaster night of emotion at the Oscars, according to triathlete-turned-screenwriter Lesley Paterson. Her film All Quiet On The Western Front was nominated for nine Oscars and won four – including Best International Feature Film – but missed out on Best Adapted Screenplay to Women Talking. “I’ve never experienced anything like it, really believing in your heart that you’re going to win something and then you don’t, but then your film
The Sunday Post •

Blackadder star and history presenter Tony Robinson on cunning new podcast

As Blackadder’s Baldrick, Tony Robinson captured hearts as the classic comedy presented a surreal, subverted version of British history. His character always had a “cunning plan” but when it comes to a 50-year career, the actor, author and presenter has simply been following his natural curiosity about the past. From documentaries ranging from Egyptian tomb hunting to the world wars, royalty and the climate, to two decades on Time Team, he is a font of historical knowledge – despite dropping o
The Sunday Post •

Implications of hurtling advances in tech to be discussed at Scottish AI Summit

We have, of course, heard it before and become used to news of technological advances threatening to upend our lives, take our jobs and transform our lives. Artificial intelligence (AI) is, according to experts and new converts, different. It is, they say, the real deal – capable of triggering change like the internet did but at a faster pace. We have only started scratching the surface of its capabilities, which seem to advance with every day that passes. From painting like Michelangelo and
The Sunday Post •

Katherine Parkinson on Significant Other, loneliness, and Taskmaster

Taking on her latest role, Katherine Parkinson found herself feeling a bit sorry for herself. Or, at least, her past self. In Significant Other, ITV’s new comedy drama, her character finds herself adrift, alone and with a heart that is sick in more ways than one. While a hectic schedule encompassing TV, theatre, interviews and the school run has her, perhaps, longing for a little solitude once in a while, playing Anna allowed her to cast her mind back to her university days where the company s
The Sunday Post •

Dreading the hordes? Experts assess post-pandemic theatre behaviour as staff report increased levels of abuse

To sing along or not to sing along has been the theatre etiquette question igniting debate since a showing of The Bodyguard in Manchester was stopped and police called to deal with an audience member insistent on giving their own rendition of I Will Always Love You. It was the latest in a string of incidents including a brawl during The Jersey Boys at Edinburgh Playhouse in January that has put theatregoers’ behaviour under the microscope. Impassioned debates over how audiences act in the thea
The Sunday Post •

Jings! Oor Wullie's American superfans cap off dream holiday with visit to Sunday Post HQ

A family of Oor Wullie superfans from Reno, Nevada, are heading home to the United States with a suitcase full of cartoons after a visit to the birthplace of Scotland’s favourite mischievous wee laddie. John Kitchen passed his love of the comic strip, alongside The Broons and classic characters from the Beano and Dandy, down the generations to his grandchildren Gracie, 14, Jackson, 12, and nine-year-old Caden. The youngsters love reading the adventures and antics so much that they even lapse i
The Sunday Post •

Alba Fyre & Isla Dawn: Meet the latest Scots to grapple with fame as WWE stars

There are now so many Scots wrestling for WWE that they’ve got their own WhatsApp group chat – with the Braveheart-inspired name “Freedom”. For the latest pair of warriors to get called up to the sports entertainment giant’s top shows, it’s a culmination of years of hard work that’s taken them from community centres across Scotland to the big arenas of the world. The tag team of Kayleigh Rae, who performs under the name Alba Fyre, and Courtney Stewart, who is known as Isla Dawn, were stunned t
The Courier •

Radio 1's Big Weekend: Jess Glynne can't wait to reintroduce herself when festival comes to Dundee

Thanks to seven number one hits, frequent radio airplay and her song Hold My Hand’s ubiquitous presence in summer holiday adverts, it feels like Jess Glynne has never been away. But when she appears at Radio 1’s Big Weekend in Dundee, the London-born singer will be taking her first steps on stage for several years having taken time out to re-focus. Reintroducing herself at a festival in front of thousands of people is a nerve-wracking prospect, but riding high on the success of new single Sill
Press and Journal •

Katie Gregson-MacLeod on rubbing shoulders with Sting and Highland homecomings

As she rubbed shoulders with Sting at last week’s Ivor Novello awards, Inverness singer-songwriter Katie Gregson-MacLeod knew she was definitely on the right track. Complex, the viral hit which last summer that changed her life, was vying for Best Song Musically and Lyrically at the prestigious awards bash, hot on the heels of signing a record deal, moving to London, and making music her full time career.
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The Sunday Post •

Kathleen Wallfisch on being music supervisor for epic blockbusters

A period blockbuster wouldn’t be complete without big-budget scenes of grand celebrations involving hundreds of extras. As there’s no party without a bit of music, directors face an extra logistical challenge in showing performers on screen and trying to abide by historical accuracy. It’s here that music supervisors, often unsung heroes in the film world, come into their own. “You have to oversee everything from beginning to end,” said Kathleen Wallfisch, the Scot who took on the role for the re...
The Sunday Post •

Life according to... comedian Ed Night

After a sell-out run at last year’s Edinburgh Fringe, we caught up with Ed Night as he brings his show The Plunge back to the capital and Glasgow next month. I was delighted because I hadn’t done the Fringe for a long time. I’d fallen out of the habit of writing a new show every year. I was worried it was going to be very different from what I remembered, I was going to be out of practise and basically feel like a bit of a spare part. If anything, getting out of the rhythm of having to churn out...
The Sunday Post •

Meet the petrolhead who’s driven Smart car around Europe

An intimidating sign meets drivers at the winding pass that connects the Highland peninsula of Applecross to the outside world. While it’s not quite “abandon all hope, ye who enter here”, the entrance to Bealach na Bà warns vehicles and drivers to think twice about taking on the hairpins of the UK’s steepest road. For David Ward, it might as well have read that way, since everyone asks him the same question when he takes his car on an adventure: “What, in that?” But the petrolhead’s beloved 2003...
The Sunday Post •

Children’s charity The Yard aims to provide safe play spaces

From her first visits to The Yard, Celine Sinclair could see the transformative power that play could have on children with disabilities and additional needs. With it facing closure, she was determined to help it continue and help others in the way that it had helped her with her four-year-old son, Alex, who had recently been diagnosed with autism. Now, almost 20 years on, she heads up the charity, which has expanded to help thousands of children and families. Using play as a vehicle at centres...
The Sunday Post •

Playwrights unite to address lack of statues of women in Edinburgh

Walk around Edinburgh’s streets and you’re more likely to find a statue dedicated to a famous animal than a named woman. At last count, the likes of Greyfriars Bobby and Wojtek the Bear outnumbered just eight women honoured in the capital. That only increases tenfold when considering the men. Now, a new theatrical walking tour, Monumental, aims to address the issue, exploring the lives of five women ingrained with the city. Playwright and producer Rachel O’Regan was inspired to start the project...
The Sunday Post •

New exhibition celebrates luxury liners and makes appeal for stories of QE2 on the Clyde

When the Queen Elizabeth 2 slid into the famous shipbuilding waters of the Clyde for the first time it was the start of a storied career but, in many ways, a final hurrah. It was the last great ocean liner to be built on the river, meaning grand launch days like it would become rarer and rarer as the industry’s boom entered its final throes. In the wider world, commercial air travel was replacing traditional transatlantic ship voyages and holidays on the high seas would trend towards vessels res...
The Sunday Post •

Scottish Police Federation film highlights reality of the frontline

It lasts just three-and-a-half minutes, but a gripping new short film encapsulates the full range of distressing scenarios faced by police on Scotland’s frontline. In a swooping take through a block of flats in Glasgow, we see a lone officer dealing with the emotional turmoil of talking a teen down from the roof, while downstairs, cops face a man brandishing a machete. Elsewhere in the building a young cop tries to find the words to talk to a child whose mum has overdosed, and as the film ends,...
The Sunday Post •

Nick Mohammed on Mr Swallow, Ted Lasso and love of magic

Comic Nick Mohammed on his character Mr Swallow and going from playing to three people to an Emmy nomination for Ted Lasso. It’s a typical Mr Swallow show in that it’s about everything and nothing. It’s sort of about the origin of the character. There’s magic tricks in it, songs, it’s Mr Swallow showing off all his skills. There’s an end-of-the-pier entertainment quality about him. Even though he can be irritating with his voice and his clumsiness he’s quite charming, a classic fool. The materia...
The Sunday Post •

Sally Magnusson on leaving Reporting Scotland after 27 years

As she heads into the final stretch of 27 years hosting Reporting Scotland, Sally Magnusson has battled with a newsreader’s greatest adversary: a dodgy throat. Lumbered with the lurgy earlier this year, her voice has only just recovered enough to make it through bulletins without coming to a croaking halt. But that didn’t prevent one brief episode becoming a viral moment of a different kind. “I’m assured I have become a TikTok sensation because some bright spark recorded my coughing fit,” she ex...
The Sunday Post •

Iain Stirling on stand-up tour, Love Island and Oor Wullie

Comedian Iain Stirling on his enduring passion for stand-up, suddenly being recognised and his love of Sunday Post favourite Oor Wullie. I’d be doing it even if I wasn’t a professional and was doing it in rooms of pubs, I just love stand-up and always have done. I feel fortunate I started 15 years ago, just before the big wave where it was seen as a shorthand way to get to television. There’s also a working-class part of me which was always told me to get a trade. My trade’s stand-up, weirdly. T...
The Sunday Post •

Judith Ralston and Grado on their laugh-out-loud Scottish road trip

Having taken in the best sights and stays the country has to offer, Grado and new Scotland’s Greatest Escape co-host Judith Ralston have come back from their recent adventure with enough holiday snaps to fill several albums. The unlikely pairing of wrestler and weather presenter have also picked up another valuable souvenir – a flourishing friendship that has them in fits of laughter as they recount some of their travel tales ahead of the first episode airing tomorrow. Having fronted the first t...
The Sunday Post •

Pioneer astronaut Kathy Sullivan on studying Earth from above and below

Having blasted off on three space shuttle missions and plunged to the Earth’s deepest ocean trench, Kathy Sullivan has a unique perspective on the planet she’s devoted her life to studying. The pioneering astronaut heads to Scotland for next month’s Edinburgh Science Festival on her continuing mission to help us better understand our changing planet. The first American woman to walk in space, she was also the first female to reach the Mariana Trench in the Pacific Ocean, so has plenty of stories...
The Sunday Post •

Past, present and future combine as Citizens Theatre prepares to reopen

Across its more than 140-year history, the Citizens Theatre in Glasgow’s southside has provided a starting point for some of stage and screen’s biggest talents. From local heroes such as Sir Billy Connolly to the likes of Rupert Everett, Alan Rickman, Gary Oldman, Pierce Brosnan and Celia Imrie, many famous names have trodden the boards here on their way to stardom. It formed part of a bustling hub where people from Glasgow flocked to see theatre that pushed the boundaries and challenged the nor...
The Sunday Post •

Lyndsey Marshal on intense nightmare neighbour film Restless

As the famous Australian soap theme goes, everybody needs good neighbours. But what happens when they make life a nightmare, and stretch patience to the limit? The dilemma is at the heart of Restless, which has its UK premiere at the Glasgow Film Festival next week and sees Lyndsey Marshal star as empty nester and tired-out carer Nicky. She’s driven to madness and forced to extreme measures just to have a decent night’s sleep when noisy party animal Deano (Aston McAuley) moves in next door. He b...
The Sunday Post •

Author JD Kirk on exploring impact of AI on grief in new thriller HIM

It’s a question often pondered: where do we go when we die? There are, of course, many schools of thought, but in today’s tech-driven world, there could be a new answer – all our data gets put through artificial intelligence (AI) and we become digitally immortal. Grief tech, as it is known, has developed into a multi-billion-pound business worldwide but research is yet to be done on the impact it has on the grieving process. Californian James Vlahos founded HereafterAI after spending hours with...
The Sunday Post •

The Rig star Emily Hampshire on new psychological horror Mom

Schitt’s Creek star Emily Hampshire tells us all about The Rig and postnatal hell in new horror movie Mom. The idea of postpartum depression being the monster in your head was really interesting to me. I like doing serious subjects that are attacked by comedy or another genre. You get the message across without having to hammer someone on the head with it. When researching this part, I spoke to people who’ve been through post-natal depression and it does seem like a horror movie. It’s so terrify...
The Sunday Post •

Scots mountain bike champion Reece Wilson sets up his own team

Hurtling downhill at breakneck speeds, mountain bike champion Reece Wilson is used to taking his destiny into his own hands. Now he’s taking it one step further by branching out and forming his own team as he aims to help revolutionise a sport that’s finally getting its moment in the sun. The 28-year-old from the Borders has been obsessed with life on two wheels since first mounting a motorbike aged just six, as he followed in his motocross rider dad’s tracks. “My dad was my ultimate childhood h...
The Sunday Post •

BBC Radio 2's Trevor Nelson on his new afternoon show

As he takes the reigns of the afternoon show on BBC Radio 2, we caught up with Trevor Nelson about his new timeslot, music memories, and saying goodbye to The Rhythm Nation. It’s something I didn’t plan, that’s for sure, but I’m incredibly excited. For the first time in my career I’ve had a four week break from radio. I’m re-acclimatising into daytime living. Going into the BBC building was like a culture shock to me because it was buzzing with people! It’s the one thing I haven’t really done, s...
The Sunday Post •

Bethlehem Calling: Stories of young women of Palestine

Their diaries painted a picture of daily life in the West Bank for young women; talk of boybands, friendship and future aspirations interspersed with checkpoints, curfews and violence. Now, just over 20 years on, the stories of Palestinian girls growing up in the backdrop of the Second Intifada, a major uprising against Israeli occupation from 2000 to 2005, are being revisited. Mixing theatre and music, Bethlehem Calling at this month’s Celtic Connections festival creates a link between Palestin...
The Sunday Post •

Scots-based GB ice climbing team on sport's Olympic potential

In a converted church in Glasgow, a growing community could be creating the next generation of Scottish Olympians. A specially-built, world-class facility at the Glasgow Climbing Centre is the base for the GB ice climbing team to practice dry tooling, where athletes take on gruelling rock face challenges using ice axes and crampons. The sport’s elite have gathered in Cheongsong, South Korea this weekend, where a number of Scots climbers are taking part in the first round of this year’s World Cup...
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