Written by Greg Hemphill and Donald McLeary, An Appointment with The Wicker Man is a new play set on a remote and distant Scottish island where amateur theatre company the Loch Parry Players are rehearsing a stage version of classic British horror film, The Wicker Man.

However, when their leading man goes missing in ‘mysterious circumstances’, they hire an actor – who plays a cop on the telly – to come over from the mainland and step in at the last minute. Soon real life begins to imitate art and the cast are at the centre of a mystery worthy of Edward Woodward and Christopher Lee.

In our first interview, co-writer and star of the play, Greg Hemphill, discusses his love of the film and his reasons for turning it into an affectionate homage rather than a a send-up:

In our second interview, actor Jimmy Chisholm talks about being involved with the play and why fans of The Wicker Man should enjoy the new production:

An Appointment with The Wicker Man will visit the following venues on its current tour:

His Majesty’s Theatre, Aberdeen
21 – 25 February 2012

Theatre Royal, Glasgow
28 February – 3 March 2012

Eden Court, Inverness
6 – 10 March 2012

Alhambra Theatre, Dunfermline
21 – 24 March 2012

Visit the An Appointment with The Wicker Man website for full details.

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Starting his acting career in the Channel 4 series, Boyz Unlimited, Scottish actor Adam Sinclair then took a long-running part in Sky One’s Mile High before appearing in films such as Van Wilder 2 and now Irvine Welsh’s Ecstasy.

Ahead of the premiere of Ecstasy at the Glasgow Film Festival in February 2012, we spoke to Sinclair about his early career and the future of filmmaking in Scotland.

Irvine Welsh’s Ecstasy is a Canadian dark romantic comedy film adaptation of the short story The Undefeated, from the novel Ecstasy by Irvine Welsh. Directed by Rob Heydon, the film stars Sinclair as Lloyd Buist, a drug addict who smuggles ecstasy from Amsterdam.

In the second part of our interview, Sinclair explains how he came to star in the film, the ten year development process and Edinburgh as a filming location.

Visit the Facebook page for Ecstasy to find out more about the film.

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To mark the 40th anniversary of the death of Scottish filmmaker John Grierson, this week’s film is a change from the norm in that rather being Scottish it was made in Canada to celebrate the life and career of the “father of the documentary”.

Born in Deanston, near Doune, Grierson served in the Royal Navy during World War I before embarking on a diverse career which eventually led him to create what we know as documentary filmmaking.

This feature film is a portrait of Grierson, who also became the first Canadian Government Film Commissioner and founder of the National Film Board in 1939. Interweaving archival footage, interviews with people who knew him and footage of Grierson himself, this film is a sensitive and informative portrait of a dynamic man of vision.

John Grierson died on 19 February, 1972, meaning this is a perfect time to learn more about one of Scotland’s best-known filmmakers. Grierson is streamed from the website of the National Film Board of Canada.

Find out how to submit your film to Film of the week.

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Written by Greg Hemphill and Donald McLeary, the play is set on a remote and distant Scottish island where amateur theatre company the Loch Parry Players are rehearsing a stage version of classic British horror film, The Wicker Man.

However, their leading man has gone missing in ‘mysterious circumstances’, so they’ve hired an actor – who plays a cop on the telly – to come over from the mainland and step in at the last minute. Soon real life begins to imitate art and the cast are at the centre of a mystery worthy of Edward Woodward and Christopher Lee.

Firstly, here’s the new poster for the play as it was meant to be seen:

The play opens at His Majesty’s Theatre in Aberdeen tonight and moves onto Glasgow, Inverness and Dunfermline, full details are on the National Theatre of Scotland website.

I attended some rehearsals for the production a few weeks ago and it was shaping up nicely. I’ll have some interviews online in the next few days, in the meantime here’s the trailer:

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Gene Kelly in an almost Highland scene in Brigadoon

A few eyebrows will have been raised at the inclusion of Brigadoon in the 2012 Glasgow Film Festival programme. Perhaps a Highland voice even bellowed out declaring, “Hoots Mon! Yon bonnie pictur hoose is shon thay richt guid fulm Brichadoun.”

Or perhaps not.

In a world littered with incredible cultural and historical inaccuracies and in a medium packed with astonishing interpretations of a Scottish accent, Brigadoon is still heralded as something so extreme that the very name is a commonly used adjective for caricature or falsehood.

However, Brigadoon is hardly alone in donning the garish tartan trews to pa de bas in celebration of some fantastical Scottish national identity. Film and television have never been shy to stunningly miscast the role of a Scots man or woman and then shovel shortbread, whisky, heather and haggis on top of it. Yet Brigadoon retains a place among the most infamous of them all.

Why should this be? The film is first and foremost a fantasy, a musical fairytale set in a village that only appears for one day every hundred years. This is hardly the setting for gritty realism.

It’s also filmed entirely on sound stages. Explanations for this production decision range from the unpredictability of the Scottish weather to producer Arthur Freed bizarrely being unable to find any locations ‘suitably Scottish’.

Whatever the thinking behind it, an indoor shoot with painted backdrops was never going to evoke any sort of realism. It was far more likely to present the image of a stage play and, after all, that’s exactly where the story and songs came from. Originally opening to great success on Broadway and then repeating that success on The West End, this was a hugely popular attraction.

Like many hit plays, Brigadoon, has been periodically revived ever since and is still a mainstay in American amateur dramatic productions as a quick search on YouTube will confirm. There was even a Dutch television special in 1964. These actors and audiences clearly see no shame in it, incredible accents included, so it’s a pity that many Scots remain embarrassed by its very existence.

American stars returned to Brigadoon in 1966 with another television version, which this time starred Robert Goulet and Peter Falk! Stage sets and painted backgrounds were to the fore once again, with the exception of the opening and closing segments. These additional outdoor shots hardly boost any realism as it clearly looks like these scenes were filmed in the Californian hills rather than the Scottish Highlands.

One thing that was very real in the MGM version was the Highland Cows, and Gene Kelly wasn’t happy. It seems the star developed some kind of fear of the horned beast and was unwilling to risk his safety when required to dance around one of the brutes.

According to some fantastic movie anecdotes, the solution to this was found either by placing a false head on the rear end of a real cow (so it wouldn’t be facing dancing Gene) or by chaining the hairy monster up and covering its eyes with a blindfold with false eyes put upon it!

I haven’t seen the film for years so can’t testify as to what is the most likely scenario. The best way to work out what the truth behind this scene is would be to see the film on a big screen, surely reason enough to get yourself along to the GFT.

Brigadoon is showing at the GFT at 11.00 on Friday 24th February and also in St Andrews in the Square (followed by a ceilidh) at 19.00 on Saturday 25th February.

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Way before I got interested in food (in particular the Slow Food movement), I loved cinema. There was one double-bill at the Cape Town Film Festival many moons ago that fused the two subjects beautifully. Both were documentaries, and both revealed a much wider picture than simply the food and eating at their heart.

They shared evocative names that would never get past the ‘keep it short’ dictum of today’s no-attention-span culture. Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe was the first, pretty self-explanatory. And it was followed by the slightly wordier Garlic is as Good as Ten Mothers.

The former told the story of director Herzog keeping his promise to cook and consume his shoe if a friend managed against all odds to complete a movie. The latter, made by the great documentary maker Les Blank, was a celebration of the ‘stinking rose’.

Both were shot years before the birth of the Slow Food movement and its promotion of traditional food cultures. However, each in its own way revealed that food was far, far more than something you eat. Eat to live, or live to eat? It’s a great deal more than that.

I’m excited to see if a local screening of an eclectic programme of historic documentaries will reveal a rich vein of insight into the roles of food, its consumption and manufacture here in Scotland.

Meals on Reels is being screened by Slow Food Edinburgh at The Scottish Café on 28th February in collaboration with Regional Screen Scotland. The films and extracts hail from the collection of Scottish Screen Archive at the National Library of Scotland.

The programme takes a nostalgic look at food and drink products, showcasing bygone products, methods of production and advertising before, during and after the Second World War. Divided into a ‘menu’ of footage, it features everything from Arbroath Smokies, Dundee Pehs and Black Pudding, to Dunlop Cheese, Lofty Peak cake and whisky. Included is a charming short on how to behave at the dinner table!

To discuss the films and the often forgotten world they bring to life, the eminent food writer and historian Catherine Brown will be joining the audience conversation when the lights go up.

There’ll be food too, Scottish naturally, on a menu inspired by the products and ingredients in the films.

If this whets your appetite for food and film, please contact fionarichmond_836@hotmail.com or call 07762 772014 to book or find out more.

I’ll be the one with the garlic breath at the front, not eating my shoe.

Find out more about Slow Food Edinburgh on The Scottish Café website.

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Following the recent announcement of the second Hippodrome Festival of Silent Cinema, this week’s film is An Escape From Reality – Memories of the Bo’ness Hippodrome.

This short film was made prior to the reopening of the Bo’ness Hippodrome Cinema in 2009. Originally opened in 1912, the Hippodrome is the oldest purpose built cinema in Scotland. The filmmakers spoke to local people who remember the cinema in its earlier incarnation and they reflect on the joys of going to the pictures.

As the team at the Hippodrome prepare for a year of centenery celebrations, An Escape From Reality is a perfect opportunity to see what the cinema meant, and still means, to locals.

Find out how to submit your film to Film of the week.

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Explaining that a trip to the cinema in Inverness is a 90 mile round-trip, the primary 5, 6 and 7 pupils also noted that travelling on the often hazardous A9 in winter can be off-putting to those who might want to sample the latest films on the big screen.

The pupils carried out a survey and discovered that 95% of the school would be keen to see the 80-seat cinema come to Newtonmore, while 94% of village residents polled noted they’d welcome Screen Machine.

As a result, the cinema will be showing four of the latest movies on Thursday 16 and Friday 17 February, including the Oscar-nominated Puss in Boots, Hugo in 3D and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, plus Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows.

“Thanks to the interest from pupils we’re delighted to be returning to Newtonmore after a break of nearly seven years,” said Screen Machine operator, Iain MacColl. “That was with the original Screen Machine, which has now been replaced with an all-digital cinema. If there’s a big turn out in Newtonmore then we’ll definitely be back.”

Screen Machine will be parked at the Highland Folk Museum car park, with times and tickets available from www.screenmachine.co.uk/newtonmore or by phone on 0871 902 5750.

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The film, shot in black and white, features Michael Fassbender and Liam Cunningham as two men taking on a risky heist in a pitch black room.

Footage of Maclean’s BAFTA win is now online, along with an interview.

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Now, thanks to James Bond fansite, MI6, we have a shot of Daniel Craig and Dame Judi Dench on set as Bond and M, near what is believed to be a safe house for the latter as her past finally catches up with her:

Judi Dench and Daniel Craig in Skyfall (courtesy MI6)

Daniel Craig as 007 in Glencoe

More photos from the shoot can be found over at MI6.

We’ll be following production of Skyfall in the coming months, so let us know if you have any more information about Bond’s return to Scotland in the comments section below.

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Related links

James Bond: Skyfall shoots in the Scottish Highlands

James Bond’s top five Scottish connections