Culture - The Glasgow Guardian



A review: Jockstrap at Glasgow Classic Grand

28th November 2023

It was perhaps the most Jockstrap thing ever… They’ve just opened for Blur at Wembley, have over two-hundred thousand monthly Spotify listeners, have an album shortlisted for a Mercury Prize and they still choose a tiny, intimate, bizarre 500-person venue on Glasgow’s energetic Jamaica Street to kick start their tour. The venue usually hosts a ...


Daft Punk: A Retrospective

28th November 2023

A love letter to “dafty punky thrash”. Forming in 1993 and disbanding in 2021, Daft Punk gifted the world 4 studio albums, 2 live albums, a soundtrack album, and two films. The impact the robots have had on both music and the wider world is difficult to explain. The duo sold over 10 million records ...


Watching Squid live from afar

28th November 2023

Music Editor Daniel sends out an expert team to review Squid live at the Barrowlands. Squid defy categorisation. They combine a plethora of approaches, from post-punk to krautrock, creating whirling compositions of tension and release. They are, naturally, a band which any good music editor should want to see; however, when duty calls elsewhere, who ...


Notes on Booker Prize 2023 winner Prophet Song

27th November 2023

Paul Lynch, winner of The Booker Prize 2023, told the awards ceremony that he risked “dooming his career” by writing Prophet Song. His dystopian novel follows an ordinary, middle-class family, The Stacks, whose lives deteriorate in tandem with the city where they live, Dublin. Written poetically – with no paragraph breaks or speech marks – ...


In conversation with Ryan Rutherford

26th November 2023

Break a leg! Ryan Rutherford does Glasgow proud with new strides in his career. Self-described as a “28-year-old wee Scottish guy from Edinburgh”, Ryan Rutherford graduated from the University of Glasgow in 2018 with an MA in Theatre Studies. Since then he has been working incredibly hard in one of the world’s most competitive industries. ...


Mischief, mayhem, soap: Fight Club, 24 years on

26th November 2023

The first rule of Fight Club is that you don’t talk about Fight Club. The second rule of Fight Club is that you don’t talk about Fight Club. 24 years on since its UK release, David Fincher’s Fight Club remains one of those films. Divisive, clever and a certified cult classic, Fight Club’s reputation precedes ...


An artist that marked me: Francis Bacon

26th November 2023

Francis Bacon was missing from my life when I was young, although I didn’t know it. Francis Bacon, an Irish artist known for his surrealist and disturbing work, is somewhat predictable as the choice for my favourite artist. Growing up, I was always interested in somewhat disturbing ideas and media. Although I was a fairly ...


“Objects are never lonely”: Male vs female loneliness in film

26th November 2023

In the realm of the silver screen, how we approach loneliness is filtered through our own lens of gender In her essay Females, Andrea Long-Chu makes the bold claim that “everyone is a woman, and everyone hates it.” She doesn’t mean this literally (if that wasn’t clear), but just that maleness is necessarily something unobtainable. ...


Wes Anderson’s new quartet of short movies on Netflix

26th November 2023

Wes Anderson continues to evolve his style and push the boundaries of cinema in his new short movies on Netflix On the vast Netflix platform, we have the uniqueness of Wes Anderson’s latest offering to his by now, huge audience. It is a trip into the world of Roald Dahl’s short stories, combined with Anderson’s ...


Billie Zangewa’s silk collages make a compelling Scottish solo debut

26th November 2023

In her exhibition A Quiet Fire at Tramway, Billie Zangewa invites us into her world through intricate hand-stitched works Displayed just beyond the entrance to A Quiet Fire, an exhibition of Billie Zangewa’s work at Tramway, is a large self-portrait work commissioned by the gallery. Reclined in a pose that recalls the traditional female nude ...