After the procession is over, and the last torch thrown into the burning galley then continue your night’s entertainment by heading to the Garrison Theatre.

Sandy will be accompanied by two other professional comedians, Mark Nelson, Scottish Comedian of the Year 2006 and frequent performer at the Stand Comedy Club (you can view a video of Mark Nelson on YouTube), and Raymond Mearns, actor, comedian and compere, at the Stand in Glasgow.

Both Sandy and Raymond are regular contributors to Radio Scotland’s Fred Macauley Show. Raymond appeared in the BAFTA award winning short Home, directed by Morag McKinnon, and It’s A Free World and Ae Fond Kiss both directed by Ken Loach. In 2008 he appeared in Rab C Nesbitt’s Christmas Special and played Happy Boab in the BBC Scotland sitcom Legit.

Raymond is due to appear in all six episodes of this year’s Limmy’s Show and in One Night in Emergency, both for BBC Scotland. Also look out for his role in the national TV advert for ‘Cheesestrings!’

So instead of dancing the night away among the Vikings and cartoon characters of Lerwick’s squads, laugh your way by taking a rare opportunity to enjoy some of Scotland’s top funny men at The Garrison Theatre on the last Tuesday in January – 26th.

The show begins at 9pm with doors open from 8.30pm. Tickets can be bought from Shetland Box Office, at Islesburgh Community Centre, 01595 745555 and are priced £10. Please note the recommended audience age is 16 and up!

All over Shetland people have been surprised and delighted, over the past few months, to discover MirrieDancers illuminations, as they drive through the dark winter nights. These are part of a cross generational project that fuses traditional craft with new technologies taking place at 12 sites throughout Shetland over the winter of 2009/10. This innovative and inspiring project, conceived by artists Nayan Kulkarni and Roxane Permar, was commissioned by Shetland Arts and funded by the National Lottery Inspire Fund. ‘Mirrie Dancers’ is the Shetland term for the Northern Lights or Aurora Borealis. Now, into 2010 five more sites are about to be illuminated.

The artists, Nayan Kulkarni and Roxane Permar, have been working on this project in response to a Shetland Arts’ commission to create public art for Mareel, using the medium of light. Residents of Shetland have attended light labs working with the artists to create light based artworks, not only for their locality, but also for a set of permanent art installations at Mareel, Shetland’s new cinema, music and education venue, due to open early in 2011. This venue will be a hub and a focus for the creative community and a catalyst for the emerging creative industry sector in Shetland so it is most appropriate that the people of Shetland help to light up this building.

The illuminations of the Floating Tin Shed in Lower Voe and of the Tin Shed in Haroldswick launched the programme, followed by illuminations at Da Giant’s Grave in Lochend and the Sand Dunes at West Sandwick, Yell. The fifth illumination, at The Glasshouses in Tingwall, took place over the holiday period and unfortunately suffered from some technical difficulties due to lack of wind. Although the snow meant fewer visitors viewing the glasshouses illumination, those that did venture out have seen effects caused by the ice and snow that the artists could not predicted.

Both Kulkarni and Permar have delivered projects in a national and international context and bring that experience to MirrieDancers. Multimedia artist Nayan Kulkarni’s work engages with ideas of site specificity, time, technology and perception. These themes are manifested in work that is generated from specific concepts, processes or places through diverse media such as light, video, installation, sculpture and photography. Over the last 15 years Kulkarni has developed a keen interest in the potential of site specific and collaborative practice.

Roxane Permar works in response to issues of location, history and community, using a variety of methods and media including film, textiles and social exchange to realise public art projects, events and sculptural installations. Her work often employs creative collaboration, networking and participation as well as gift-giving and exchange. Her involvement with Shetland began in 1985 and she works locally, nationally and internationally from her Shetland studio.

For full details of the project and to view photographs by Austin Taylor, Mark Sinclair, Davy Cooper and Duncan Turner go to www.mirriedancers.com or www.shetlandarts.org The images are stunning and inspiring. We invite you to visit the sites and see the illuminations for yourself.

The gallery walls display a range of disciplines – paintings, drawings, prints, photographs and paper cuts; textiles and mixed media work, all in unframed A5 format, by over 25 local artists, allowing a rare opportunity to buy a piece of Shetland art that you can then mount and frame in your own style.  This is also a great chance to send Shetland artwork through the post as Christmas gifts without the worry of broken glass and damaged frames.  Work from emerging artists Jono Sandilands, Chloe Garrick and Samantha Jack hangs alongside pieces by Gail Harvey, Peter Davis and Mike Finnie.

You can never have too many handbags!  This year you buy an indulgent handbag printed on a fabric shopper and you get a great bag that can help ‘save the planet’.  These bags make a charming gift or why not a pre-Christmas treat for you.

The passion for badges that is sweeping the nation is reflected by Megan Price’s jigsaw pieces while initial badges from Showpony can be used to label and decorate your Christmas parcels.

There is some fine wood-turning by Bert Marsh: exquisite bowls in birch, maple and rosewood.  Also in wood, but in a different genre, is a range of humorous automata by Neil Hardy – known as Neil Hardy’s fabulous animals.  Stunning modern glass and ceramics in a variety of styles, appear alongside contemporary work that features nostalgic 1950s graphics contrasting with the simplicity of Sue Candy’s blue and white square pieces.

Painted silk scarves by Pamela Rawlinson and knitted silk and printed wool scarves by Joanne Edden.  can add colour to a Christmas outfit or warmth when sledging or building that snowman.  Wearable art somehow never seems such an indulgence.

And finally, the Bonhoga Christmas exhibition would not be complete without the usual wonderful array of jewellery.  Acrylic, aluminium, wire with pearls and gemstones, Perspex, glass, silver and resin feature in pieces elaborate and ornamental, minimalist and quirky.  The jewellery is innovative, exciting, and covetable and just what you need to treat yourself as well or wrap up pretty and place beneath the tree.  The art deco era influences Lorraine Gibby’s work while Shauna Sturrock’s pieces have a contemporary, yet Victorian, feel.  Sarah Keay, a former resident at The Booth who worked with secondary school pupils in Shetland, has produced a bright, colourful range of ‘funky’ jewellery for Christmas.  Sarah’s work is becoming very collectable and this will be a good opportunity for jewellery collectors to acquire a piece while prices are still affordable.

So, be you in benevolent or decadent mood, come to Bonhoga and be enchanted by our tempting array of Christmas treats – then reward yourself with home bakes and a marshmallow laden hot chocolate in the Mill Cafe.

The exhibition runs until 23 December and, as usual, with the Christmas show, work can be removed before the exhibition ends so that parcels can be wrapped and posted.  Bonhoga Gallery is open Tuesday to Saturday 10.30 – 4.30 and on Sundays from noon until 4.30.

Although the ideas are still at the conceptual stage, the proposal is to create a performance that takes the idea of promenade theatre to the extreme and transports the audience to various locations and scenes, culminating in a large scale theatrical event.

Drama Development Officer for Shetland Arts John Haswell said “The project ideas are still in their infancy but both Stuart’s family and Shetland Arts wanted to launch the idea to coincide with the second anniversary of Stuart’s death. We intend that the final project will feature themes that resonate with the aims of the ‘Slow for Stuart’ campaign but will be a dynamic artistic event in its own right. The first stage will be to create a small group of people to take the project forward. This group will feature those who can make an artistic contribution as well as those with a personal and social agenda. Our hope is that many of the people who worked with Stuart will contribute to the final performance.”

Supporting the project, Liz Henderson said “We, Stuart’s family and his fiancée Crystal, are delighted that Shetland Arts is planning to stage this play. This will further the aims of the ‘Slow for Stuart’ campaign. Last year we held a balloon launch on the first anniversary of Stuart’s death to highlight awareness of road safety. On this, the second anniversary, and with road accidents constantly in the news, we felt it was a good time for Shetland Arts to announce this project. Stuart was passionate about Shetland Youth Theatre and we are sure he would be happy that his friends and colleagues want to remember him in this way.

ENDS

Further information from
John Haswell – Development Officer for Drama
01595 743843
01595 743739(direct)
e-mail: john.haswell@shetlandarts.org

Tuesday 10th November will see the launch of a poetry anthology published in memory of, and in tribute to, the late Adrian Mitchell aka the Shadow Poet Laureate, who died in December 2008. The event will take place in Shetland Library and will begin at 7.30pm. An invitation is extended to all who will be made welcome at the event.

Adrian: Scotland Remembers Adrian Mitchell is published by Markings and edited by John Hudson and Chrys Salt. It features contributions from some of Scotland’s major poets, including Liz Lochead, Jackie Kay, Bill Herbert. Kevin MacNeil and Edwin Morgan also contribute introductions as well as poetry. The anthology also features work by people who knew Adrian, including Sir Paul McCartney. John Hudson is Shetland Arts’ Writer in Residence for November and, along with others, will take part in readings from the anthology. He will also talk about the book and how it came to be.

From a Shetland point of view, Kevin’s introduction is particularly poignant, given that it is largely drawn from his introduction of Adrian to the large audience at Wordplay 2008. In fact Adrian’s memorable performance at Wordplay, and his month long stint as Writer in Residence with Shetland Arts were to be his last major engagements because of the pneumonia, diagnosed on his return to London. Writer in Residence, John Hudson said “I feel honoured to be following in the footsteps of Adrian Mitchell in taking up the post of Writer in Residence in Shetland. Adrian was a mate of mine and a fabulous writer. When he died I was left shocked and deeply saddened. I immediately set about putting together a published tribute from Scottish writers among whom Shetland Arts’ own Donald Anderson features. It’s particularly fitting that we are launching the anthology here in Shetland so swiftly after our debut at the Scottish Poetry Library in Edinburgh and in my own home, Galloway, where Adrian was our special guest in 2007. I hope those who knew, met or respected the work of Adrian Mitchell will be able to attend this special event.”

The launch, which is organised by Shetland Arts and Shetland Library, in association with Markings Publishing, is free. Copies of the Adrian: Scotland Remembers Adrian Mitchell will be available to buy at the event.
Doors open at 7pm.

All the films will be introduced by festival director Lizzie Bisschoff, who will also give an introductory talk on the Friday evening. In addition, Lizzie Bisschoff will conduct a Q and A session at the end of Bamako on Saturday evening.

Films to be screened in Lerwick include the documentary Like A Man on Earth, made by a young man who fled Ethiopia to escape violent political repression, showing the tremendous struggles and suffering borne by refugees; Tilai (The Law) made by the acclaimed African director Idrissa Ouedraogo, which is the story of an illicit love affair and its consequences for a small village in Burkina Faso, and Bamako, an offbeat, satirical comedy written and directed by Abderrahmane Sissako, in which the director imagines how it would be if Western powers were forced to answer for the damage they have done in the Third World; in the courtyard of a shared house in a village in Mali, African civil society spokesmen decide to take proceedings against the World Bank and the IMF, whilst all around them, village life goes on.

There will also be a free programme of short, animated films for children and young people on Saturday, to which adults are also welcome!

Stuart Hubbard from Shetland Film Club said that the club was delighted to be able to assist in bringing African film to a wider audience. “As part of our outreach partnership work with Shetland Arts, we feel this is a perfect opportunity to celebrate the film makers of Africa, who rarely make it to the screen in the UK.” This leg of the festival has also been supported by Unison (Health Branch) and Shetland Amnesty International Group. The Film Club outreach work is funded by Shetland Arts, the Shetland Charitable Trust’s Arts Fund and by the Co-op Community Fund.

Tickets will be on sale from the Shetland Box office at Islesburgh from Monday 2nd November onwards, tel. 01595 745555. For those over 15 years old there is a festival ticket costing £10 (£7 concessions) which will get you in to all screenings and talks. Otherwise, individual tickets cost £4 (£3 concessions) and the young people’s animation session is free.

For further information contact Kathy Hubbard at Shetland Arts on 01595 743843 or e-mail kathy.hubbard@shetlandarts.org or Stuart Hubbard at Shetland Film Club on 01950 477235, e-mail skhubbard@btinternet.com.

‘The work in this year’s show is very eclectic and the judges had a difficult job making their choices’ said Mary Smith, Curator. She continued, ‘ It is so good to see so many entries and I am looking forward to working with the prize winners to develop the next Open Quintet show in the spring of 2010.’

The prize for best craft exhibit, presented by Shetland Arts & Crafts went to Ruth Fisher for her ‘Shag’. Millgaet Media’s photography prize was awarded to Dave Donaldson for ‘Landlocked’, while Hilary Seatter won John Goudies’s prize for best print. Peter Biehl’s fine drawing of ponies received the Vaila Fine Arts prize for best painting and drawing.
The best newcomer award went to Ross Fulton for his painting ‘Pallets’.
The prize winners will take part in a joint exhibition in 2010.

The Open is on show at Bonhoga Gallery until 4 October. The gallery is open Tuesday – Saturday 10.30 am to 4.30 pm and on Sunday from 12 noon – 4.30 pm.

Shetland Arts’ Bonhoga Gallery will shortly be opening the annual exhibition of work by artists and craft-makers from across Shetland. The Shetland Open is showing at Bonhoga Gallery, Weisdale Mill from Thursday 3rd September until Sunday 4th October 2009.

The Open is a non-selective exhibition of work by amateur, professional and student artists and craft-makers who are Shetland by birth, education or residency. Each exhibitor, aged 18 or over, is allowed to exhibit one piece of work up to 1mx1m in size.

The show has been running annually for 14 of the last 15 years and attracts work from a huge range of people throughout the Isles, in many different styles. This year the work is as varied as ever, featuring wearable craft items, digital and metalwork, as well as the more conventional disciplines of painting, photography, printmaking, embroidery and applied arts.

There will be awards made by the following sponsors:
Vaila Fine Art, John Goudie, Millgaet Media, Shetland Arts and Crafts and Baker Tilly.

After the success of this year’s Quintet show, in which last year’s five winners were given the opportunity to stage a group show of work at Bonhoga, Shetland Arts hopes to repeat this formula by matching each prize with a further £100 towards the group show for 2010. Exhibition Curator Mary Smith welcomed this development opportunity, “this is an ideal way to encourage and further the development of Shetland’s artists and craft-makers and provide them with a platform to show their work in a professional capacity if they so choose. We had a great response to the Quintet show this May and a number of works were sold”.

The Open is always a popular show with locals and visitors alike – the work is eclectic and shows what a variety of talent Shetland has to offer.

All the work in the exhibition is for sale, giving an opportunity for collectors to purchase a piece by their favourite Shetland artist or spot a bargain by one of the younger artists or makers on the local scene.

The preview of the Shetland Open is on Wednesday 3rd September at 7.30pm this year, to avoid a clash with the WordPlay and ScreenPlay events of the following days. Everyone is invited to come along to celebrate the opening of the show.

The Bonhoga Gallery is open Tuesday to Saturday 10.30-4.30 and on Sunday from 12pm-4.30.

One writer who will need very little introduction is Louis de Bernieres, perhaps best known for his best selling novel, Captain Corelli’s Mandolin (1994) winner of the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Best Novel. A Partisan’s Daughter (2008) was short listed for the Costa Novel Award and his new book, Notwithstanding: English Village Stories is due to be published this autumn. As well as writing, he plays the flute, mandolin, clarinet and guitar, and performs regularly with the Antonius Players.

Another festival guest, coming to Shetland for the first time, is the acclaimed writer, animator, broadcaster and artist, Steven Appleby who lives in a garden shed in London besieged by children and sycophantic cats. Over the past 23 years his work has appeared in newspapers (including The Guardian, The Times and The Sunday Telegraph), over 20 books (including Men: The Truth; Normal Sex; Antmen Carry away My Thoughts As Soon As I Think Them and Jim – The 9 Lives of a Dysfunctional Cat), television (the animated series Captain Star), BBC Radio 4 (Steven Appleby’s Normal Life), theatre (Crocs In Frocks) and on the walls of art galleries and private homes.

Adding to the eclectic feel of Wordplay 2009 is Mark McCrum, a writer of thirty years experience which includes work as a travel writer – Happy Sad Land (1994), and a ghost writer Jack and Zena (1997). Mark has also written about television – he wrote a book about Castaway. In 2001 he published Somebody, Someday in which he chronicled a tour with pop star Robbie Williams.

Another writer who will require little introduction to Shetland readers, especially young Shetland readers, is Mairi Hedderwick, the author and illustrator of the massively popular, Katie Morag stories. Mairi will be making a very welcome return to Shetland, in the company of Katie Morag, for her first appearance at Wordplay. As well as her books for children, Mairi Hedderwick has also written for adults, and her book, A Highland Journey: Sketching Tour of the Highlands, Retracing the steps of John T Reid, which follows the footsteps of the Victorian artist who travelled extensively in the Highlands and Islands, including Shetland (which he wrote about in Art and Rambles in Shetland).

Two other children’s writers who will make the trip north for Wordplay are, Keith Brumpton and John Fardell. Apart from a growing list of illustrated books which include such titles as Chariots on Fire and Curse of the Vampire Squirrels, Keith Brumpton has also devised and written TV programmes, including BBC’s spy show M.I High. Keith will run drawing workshops for young people. John Fardell, In addition to writing and illustrating children’s books – Manfred the Baddie, The Flight of the Silver Turtle – is also a cartoonist, and his work has appeared in various publications including The Independent, The Herald, The List, and Viz.

There is a strong crime theme, with three of the UK’s best selling and most talented crime writers due to appear. Shetland crime enthusiasts will need no introduction to Stuart MacBride, author of Cold Granite, Broken Skin, Dying Light and Flesh House all set in Aberdeen and featuring DS Logan Macrae, whose new book, Blind Eye is now published in hardback by Harper Collins.

Stuart will appear alongside his compatriot, Allan Guthrie, author of five novels, the most recent of which, “Slammer” was described in the Scotsman as “ the most relentlessly page-turning novel this reviewer has come across in a long, long time…” As well as a leading novelist, Allan is an editor and a literary agent with Jenny Brown Associates.

Also no stranger to Shetland is Ann Cleeves, author of the highly successful “Raven Black”, “White Nights” and the newly published “Red Bones”, three quarters of her Shetland Quartet of novels featuring Fair Isle born detective Jimmy Perez. Ann will take part in a very special event featuring her friend CSI Helen Pepper a lecturer at Teesdale University, which will involve Helen taking the audience through one of the crime scenes from Ann’s novels and examining it from the perspective of a professional Crime Scene Investigator. Ann and Helen will also run a series of workshops in Shetland schools in the week before the festival.

Continuing the crime writing theme and expanding on it, Ann Cleeves will join leading television writer, Mark Greig in conversation. A writer with a long pedigree and an enviable track record, Greig’s work includes, Ashes to Ashes, Life on Mars, The Bill and Taggart. In this session, both writers will discuss the similarities and the differences they experience in their different forms of writing.

Combining fact and fiction will be three Shetland residents, Tom Morton, Donald S Murray and Donald McDonald who will explore the importance of landscape to their writing. Listeners to Radio Scotland’s afternoon programme will of course be familiar to Tom Morton who has published a string of fine novels – the latest of which, Serpentine, (Mainstream Publishing (4 Jun 2009) is currently available in paperback. Appearing with Tom will be Donald McDonald who has published two books via the internet – Antichaos and Palindrome (lulu.com) – both of which combine dark humour with a keen eye for human foibles. Pitching in from a non-fiction perspective, is Donald S Murray, whose latest book, The Guga Hunters , was published in 2088 by Birlinn Books. The book is a fascinating history of the men of Ness, in the Butt of Lewis, of which Murray is himself a native, who set off every summer to the remote skerry of Sulisgeir, to catch the gannet chicks which they preserve for eating. The book has met with great critical acclaim, not least from Will Self who reviewed it glowingly, in the Daily Telegraph.

As well as the crime fiction, children’s fiction and literary fiction, the festival will also feature a bevy of truly exceptional poets with readings featuring, 2008 TS Eliot prize winner, Jen Hadfield – Almanacs ( Bloodaxe 2005) and Nigh No Place (Bloodaxe 2007). Jen will be joined by Tivoli Prize winner, Kevin MacNeil – Love and Zen in the Outer Hebrides (Canongate 1998), himself until very recently a resident in Shetland. Also appearing is, Gerry Cambridge, editor of Scottish-American, literary magazine, Dark Horse, and several volumes of poetry including Aves (Essence Press, 2007; reprinted 2008), a collection of prose poems about wild birds; and Madame Fi Fi’s Farewell and Other Poems (Luath, 2003); and ‘Nothing but Heather!’: Scottish Nature in Poems, Photographs and Prose (Luath, 1999; 2nd edition, 2008). As well as his appearances at the festival, Gerry will be working as creative writer in residence in Shetland Primary Schools. Shetland resident is Gordon Dargie, whose talent came to the attention of the Scottish literary world with the publication of tunnel of love earlier this year, by prestigious pamphlet imprint Kettillonia Press poems from which were also published in the Scottish Review of Books and The Herald.

A star attraction at the festival will be an appearance by Puppet State Theatre, who will perform their hit show, The Man Who Planted Trees. The show has been a sell out for three successive years at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and has another run in Edinburgh this year. A captivating adaptation of Jean Giono’s environmental cult classic. A French shepherd sets out with his dog to plant a forest and transform a barren wasteland… this show is suitable for anybody over the age of seven and is a must see. “IT IS VERY, very rare to find something that appeals as effortlessly to children and adults as this magical show …” Scotsman, 5 Stars

Literature development Officer Donald Anderson said, “this year’s festival seems to be particularly busy and we are delighted to have such a wide range of literature related activity on offer and once again to welcome so many fine writers and artists to Wordplay.”

Tickets for all festival events are available from the Shetland Box Office – 01595 745 555 from Friday 7th August. Discount rates are available for tickets purchased before August 28th. For details see the festival programme, which can collected from Shetland Arts offices at Toll Clock Centre, Lerwick and venues around Shetland and downloaded from shetlandart.org/events/wordplay

Bobby Peterson, of South Califf, Tingwall, was one of the best fiddlers of his generation as Tom Anderson’s archive recordings testify. He learned from his father, and was inspired by the famous Geordie Stark the itinerant blind fiddler from Dundee. Bobby was one of the first members of the Shetland Fiddlers Society.

Bobby Peterson has greatly inspired his grandson, Bryan Gear who released his first, long awaited, solo CD, ‘Kebister Head’, in 2008. The tune ‘Kebister Head’ is one of Bryan’s grandfather’s few compositions. Bobby Peterson is virtually unknown outside Shetland, but his style and interpretation of many other tunes deserves recognition. His interpretation is as significant a part of the living traditions of his time as the higher profile work of Aly Bain, Fiddlers Bid and Bryan Gear today. ‘Kebister Head’ also has a CD attached with some of the late Dr Tom Anderson’s fantastic archives recordings of Bobby playing a few of the tunes transcribed in the book.

Students, from all over the world, have been requesting access to more traditional Shetland tunes. This tied in with a project Shetland Arts ran in conjunction with The Scottish Arts Council Youth Music Initiative when, for two years, young Shetland players researched and tutored on tunes, from their own areas which resulted in the first publication ‘Hamar Ower da Taing’, in 2008. Shetland Arts released this first fiddle tune book as part of the music development of their annual fiddle school and festival, ‘Fiddle Frenzy’. A second Fiddle Frenzy book and CD, ‘Shetland Session Tunes’, was published earlier this year to meet the demand from students who want to take part in local sessions and mix with local players. Session sets from the Shetland Fiddlers, the Heritage Fiddlers and the Cullivoe Fiddlers are included, and the CD has tunes played individually, at a very slow rate, then speeded up, in sets by the 2009’s Youth Music Tutors. This is a good aid to learning.

All the books have been transcribed by local fiddle player and teacher Margaret Scollay. Shetland Arts and Shetland Museum and Archives have worked in partnership on this project and look forward to working on further publications.