The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
THIS WEEK WE’RE READING...
Talking at the Gates: A Life of James Baldwin by James Campbell, Polygon, £14.99.
Scottish author James Campbell has received high praise for his biographical work on American novelist James Baldwin over the years. Talking at the Gates was originally published in 1991 and received rave reviews. With Baldwin’s centenary approaching, Campbell has decided to publish again with a new introduction that’s fit for our socially unstable times.
After reading this I felt two different emotions: one was that I felt ashamed to have never before come across such a highly respected critical novelist of the 20th Century. The other was a questioning of whether the work of a black novelist like Baldwin would have an impact on someone like me, a young, white, Scottish male writer. It did.
The fact that Campbell himself had been laughed at by editors over the years who questioned what a Scotsman was doing writing about James Baldwin emboldens this narrative, yet Campbell aptly notes in his new introduction the affect Baldwin continues to have on our modern world. Particularly, he points towards the Black Lives Matter movement where one activist said “Jimmy is everywhere,” portraying the strong literary conscience of the movement.
The new introduction also references new screen adaptations involving Baldwin’s work before moving on to the five-part core of the book which journeys through Baldwin’s life.
The first segment No Story, Ma, which includes a great quote from Baldwin at the beginning, takes us through his poverty-stricken childhood in the rough streets of Harlem before Part II sees the young writer start to find his voice.
Baldwin’s nine-year period of self-exile in Paris is documented as he finds the freedom both to embrace his homosexuality and also to escape the racial prejudices of the US.
The remainder of the book uncovers just how important Baldwin was in unravelling intersectionality in American society of the 1950s and ‘60s through his essays and novels, and this remains his legacy today. He spent much of his life nomadically, under constant FBI surveillance. He died in France in 1987.
Ultimately, Baldwin’s beliefs and writing are coloured by colour – they are free of prejudice. not
Anyone with even a slim knowledge of rock history knows the the mid to late 1970s punk explosion was one of the form’s most incendiary periods. From The Clash, Sex Pistols, Damned, X-Ray Spex and a dayglo array of misfits across the UK to American outsiders like Television, Ramones and Devo, the hard-hitting street movement shook up the Establishment in a way that’s only been rivalled since by hardcore hip-hop’s breakthrough a decade later.
Scotland wasn’t immune to the ripple effect from the seismic cultural maelstrom unleashed following punk’s London emergence in 1976, with a host of edgy homegrown outfits rapidly forming, among them Dunfermline’s own Skids.
Led by teen frontman Richard Jobson and future Big Country founder Stuart Adamson, the four-piece debuted live in August 1977 having trialled their sound at the Fife town’s Kinema Ballroom. “We were allowed to have a music club in there on a Thursday night,” Jobson remembers.
“First of all it’d be all these old long-haired hippies playing Stairway To Heaven and then they’d finish and we took over. We got to play all our own music and recordings from New York, London and Manchester that we liked.
“At the weekend the ballroom turned into a disco club where all these gangs from different parts of Fife and beyond would turn up. It was quite nasty.”
Such formative experiences have inspired The Skids’ forthcoming covers album Songs From A Haunted Ballroom, which also promises spoken word from “Jobbo” on his links to the long-closed Kinema, where the youthful Skids supported The Clash and Richard Hell in October 1977.
The homage to the likes of Joe Strummer’s gang, John Foxx-era Ultravox, The Adverts, Magazine and Mott The Hoople reflects tumultuous times at the long-closed Carnegie Drive venue – which Richard describes as Fife’s Barrowlands – and is set to see a return to The Skids’ trademark punky style following 2019’s acoustic offering Peaceful Times.
It also boasts re-recordings of the anthems Into The Valley and The Saints Are Coming, alongside surprise takes on Brooklyn songsmith Garland Jeffreys and ex-pop idol David Essex. “There’s the ridiculousness of us doing a version of Rock On,” adds Richard, 60.
“That used to be our gang song in the 70s. It was linked to the biggest gang in Dunfermline, which was called the AV (Abbeyview) Toi. They were notorious and quite serious, nasty guys. That was their theme song and when we started singing along you knew something was going to happen, so we’ve done a punky version of it and I do a monologue about all the gangs in the ballroom.
“It’s a real hairs on the back of your neck moment and people will hopefully go, ‘Holy s***, I get it now! I totally understand why they’re doing this’. The album was one of those ideas you have just chatting on the phone and within weeks it came together.”
Based in Bedfordshire following a stint in Germany, Richard says he’s returned to Dunfermline more often since the Skids’ reformation in 2017 than at any other time since childhood. “I think people forget that I left Scotland when I was 17 and I was gone – but I do have a deep love for the place and Fife is pretty extraordinary, actually.”
Fans will get a chance to hear strippeddown extracts from Haunted Ballroom when he joins Skids and Big Country guitarists Bruce and Jamie Watson for an online gig on March 7. Besides playing both outfits’ classics, the trio will also tackle songs from divisive 1981 Skids LP Joy. It barely featured guitarist Adamson, who quit during its recording.
“Joy was basically the end of the band,” says Richard. “It’s odd, because what we were trying to do is what, eventually, Stuart did with Big Country anyway.”
The album’s lead single Fields featured the Associates and Richard admits he was in awe of late Dundee-born legend Billy Mackenzie. “It’s still a great song and you hear Billy’s amazing backing vocals on the chorus.”
Tickets for An Evening With Skids are £12 via eventbrite.co.uk, with an album release date imminent.
Saturday, February 27, 2021 | 31
Rylan Clark-Neal is back fronting another series of Ready Steady Cook, but this time he is missing out on what should be a perk of the job. The presenter is banned from tasting the culinary magic created by the show’s contestants. It is all part of efforts to make series Covid safe. “We’ve got very, very good chefs. We’ve got brilliant food. I’m just so annoyed I can’t taste it no more. I’m not allowed to,” he says.
“Obviously the chefs are allowed to handle the food and so are the contestants. But it’s only the contestants that are allowed to eat their own food. So I’m very jealous.”
Clark-Neal has had a meteoric rise since shooting to fame as the X Factor “reject”, as he calls himself, nine years ago.
He is back for a second bite of daytime reboot Ready Steady Cook, which was previously hosted by Ainsley Harriott and Fern Britton.
Other credits along the way have included Big Brother’s Bit On The Side, Supermarket Sweep, Strictly Come Dancing: It Takes Two and his own Radio 2 slot, as well as winning Celebrity Big Brother.
But Ready Steady Cook feels different. “It’s quite relaxing that it’s all quite lighthearted, unlike Big Brother,” he says.
On that reality show “you’re worried you’re gonna come into work and someone’s punched someone in the face and tried to drown them in a hot tub”, the former parttime model says.
“You know you’re not going to get that” on Ready Steady Cook.
“It’s a real family-orientated show where it’s just giving people ideas for bits and bobs that they can do.
“We’re all so bored of cooking the same old thing every week.
“It feels lovely, and it’s actually quite nice for me to feel a bit more grown-up,” the 32-year-old adds.
The pandemic his “ambitions”.
“My answer to this always used to be, ‘Any ambitions?’ It would be a day off.’
“But after the year that we’ve just had, don’t think I should say that anymore.”
Looking back at his TV success, he adds: “It’s been a long nine years, and a quick nine years. has made him the
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“And I’ve been really lucky. I’m an X Factor reject so I never expected to have the career that I’ve got.”
He might be ubiquitous on screen, but he’s turned down plenty of job offers.
“For every show I host, I’ve said no to about 10. So I don’t just sit there and go ‘yeah, I’ll do it,’” he says.
“It’s actually the reason why I’m still going nine years, because of what I said no to, rather than what I said yes to.”
A hallmark of Ready Steady Cook, which first appeared on TV screens in 1994, is the audience deciding on the best dishes using the familiar red tomato and green pepper voting cards.
This series has no studio audience because of coronavirus safety rules, although the cards remain.
“As much as we miss the audience... it’s actually been really lovely because we have changed the format this year,” Clark-Neal says.
“We’ve brought the remaining chefs that aren’t cooking on to set, and they’re sat at a chef ’s table and they’re watching everything that’s going on and actually it’s the three remaining chefs that end up voting for their favourite dish, and that decides the winner,” he explains.
“So it’s lovely for me because we’ve got all of our chefs involved in every single show now.
“It gives me a bit more time to have a laugh with them as well.”
Clark-Neal feels “fortunate” to be working, even if it is in an environment far from normal.
“People working on make-up are looking like they’re just come out of a war zone in PPE and bio hazmat suits, it’s crazy,” he says of the crew on the new, six-week series.
“And it’s sad but we’re lucky to be doing it”. Just like Clark-Neal himself, there are no airs and graces on Ready Steady Cook.
“It doesn’t matter what age you are, what background you come from, where you live or even how much money that you’ve got because all the food we do is on a budget,” the star says.
“We’re not sitting there cooking a full lobster with a bottle of Champagne. We’re genuinely sitting there with some lentils we found in the back of the cupboard and a butternut squash.”
Ready Steady Cook starts on weekdays on BBC1 on March 1 at 3.45pm.
TV PREVIEWS TOP PICK Max Clifford: The Fall of a Tabloid King Channel 4, Monday, 9pm
This quite excoriating documentary delves into the sordid cesspit of Max Clifford’s life. The now-dead publicist was a vile human being – an amoral hypocrite, bully and narcissist. A pervert. A paedophile. Much like Savile, he hid in plain sight. Clifford revelled in power and the fear he wrought. A self-styled archmanipulator, he thought he was untouchable. So no wonder we all enjoyed some schadenfreude when he was eventually exposed and incarcerated. But, via contributions from some of his victims, the programme paints a far more important picture of an evil man who was kept afloat for years by some of our media. It’s the antithesis of Clifford’s philosophy. It prints the truth.
Would I Lie to You? BBC1, Monday, 8.30pm
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With the exception of Taskmaster, this is the best TV panel show by far. It’s not entirely consistent, but you’re guaranteed a few laughs per episode. A ringing endorsement, I know. The simple appeal of it is this – there is no aggression, no unpleasantness. It’s a warm, breezy game you can play along with at home (in your parlour) and, even after all this time, the effortlessly witty team captains Lee Mack and David Mitchell still appear to be enjoying themselves. The star guest this week is Johnny Vegas. Does he use a paint roller as a loofah in the shower? Did he and another man called Johnny once pretend to be members of Take That? Tune in to find out.
Why is Covid Killing People of Colour? - BBC1, Tuesday, 9pm
“As a 55-year-old black man,” says actor David Harewood, “I am three times more likely to die from Covid-19 than a white man of my age.” To find out more about the reasons behind this stark statistic, he talks to various doctors and scientists, as well as people of colour who have lost loved ones during the pandemic. It’s an angering expose of health inequality in Britain. “Race is a biological fiction,” says one doctor of Indian origin. Instead, this is a systemic sociological issue rooted in decades of economic and racial discrimination. People of colour are more likely to work in lowerpaying frontline roles, where protective conditions are often woefully inadequate. A national scandal.
DNA Family Secrets BBC2, Tuesday, 9pm
This touching series is basically STV’s Long Lost Families in newly upholstered trousers. But that’s fine, it works. In recent years, the growing popularity of genetic testing has given us unprecedented access to our ancestry. In episode one we meet Bill, a mixed-race man who has never met his African-American father, and Richard, who recently discovered that he’s not biologically related to the man who raised him. He also learns that he may have a half-brother. Bill and Richard gain some comfort from their findings, but some of the surprises are overwhelming. Presenter Stacey Dooley also meets Charlie, a wife and mother with a 50% chance of inheriting her father’s Huntington’s Disease. It’s an emotionally-charged journey.