Alan Riach

Alan Riach recommends a handful of new and recent poetry books, some of the rare places in a world of lies and distractions where you know you can rely on some kind

TODAY in St Columba’s Kirk, at the top of the Royal Mile from 3-4pm, I’m introducing a session on Tragedy & Translation. For my money, this will be the most important theatrical event of any Edinburgh Festival – EVER! Quite a claim. Well, let’s see.

IN Chapter XIV of his 1920 book Cartagena And The Banks Of The Sinú, an account of the history of the major port city in Colombia and his own travels there in 1917, RB Cunninghame Graham makes the memorable assertion that “the Catalans are the Scotch of Spain”. 

A UNIQUE event will take place next month celebrating the life and work of Robert Bontine Cunninghame Graham.

ALAN Riach talks with Sandy Moffat about his current exhibition at Fire Station Creative gallery, Dunfermline: Alexander Moffat at 80.

JOHN Purser today begins a new intermittent series of – what shall we call them? – vignettes, bagatelles, a collection of observations, moments, anecdotes, memorable instances, portraits of characters, people in a history on the point of disappearing over a horizon and into a past that may be irrecoverable without some account of them.

Alan Riach drives his conversation with Kenneth Munro – sculptor, film-maker, archivist – forward to a challenging question...

ALAN: Over the last two weeks, our conversation has centred mainly on Bill Douglas but also bringing in a range of film-makers whose lives and work have been eclipsed, one might say, by the commercial world. I’m thinking of Bill’s friend Peter Jewell, or Harry Watt, as well as Margaret Tait, Helen Biggar, Ruby Grierson, Marion Grierson. We talked of them a little last week but there’s more to be said ...

ALAN Riach continues his conversation with Kenneth Munro, archivist and sculptor, about his rediscovery and championship of fellow film-maker Bill Douglas

Alan Riach talks to Kenneth Munro, film-maker, archivist, sculptor, about his rediscovery and championship of the film-maker Bill Douglas