The Star's critic MARIA DUARTE recommends an impressive impersonation of Bob Dylan
How to make better TV
PAUL TUCKER asks whether a new access scheme can get more working-class people into the TV industry
The Star's critic MARIA DUARTE reviews Here, Vermiglio, William Tell and Wolf Man
New releases from Thorpe and Morrison, Daria Kulesh, and Will Finn and Rosie Calvert
RINA ARYA confronts the brutal operation of Francis Bacon’s approach to portraiture
Emphasising his continuous engagement in labour movement struggles, ALISTAIR FINDLAY salutes John Foster’s contribution as activist, strategist, intellectual and defender of the Morning Star
ANDY MIAH advocates the use of AI to assist people by expanding access to global literature and culture
EWAN KOTZ relishes a veteran Glasgow band that have lost none of their verve for live performance
“TV was everything to me,” said British playwright James Graham at this year’s Edinburgh TV Festival’s MacTaggart lecture on August 20. The dramatist used his recollections of the television he watched in his youth together with tales of his working-class background to discuss a possible future of TV — including the launch of a new scheme to get more people like him into the industry.
The James MacTaggart memorial lecture has been the centrepiece of the Edinburgh TV Festival since 1977. It is named after the Scottish writer, producer and director who died in 1974 after a career making groundbreaking TV such as Play for Today and Z Cars, an early British police drama.
Born in Mansfield, Nottinghamshire, Graham has made his name as a writer of political screen drama (Brexit: The Uncivil War, and Coalition) and award-winning plays (Dear England, Boys From The Blackstuff). But he is perhaps best known for the BBC series Sherwood, based on the mining village where he grew up — series two starts on August 25.
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