Latest news with #Pitlochry
Daily Record
11 hours ago
- Business
- Daily Record
Four Bank of Scotland branches to close by end of 2025 as Lloyds axe dozens of sites
Bank closures are a trend that shows no sign of slowing down. Four Bank of Scotland sites have been confirmed as shutting in the coming months as closures continue to dog the industry. High streets across the UK are seeing financial hubs shut at a worrying speed. Since January 2015, more than 6,200 bank branches have closed in the UK, reports The Express. This works out at over 50 closures every month for the past decade. Elderly customers and those who prefer in-person banking to online services are finding it harder and harder as towns continue to lose their banks. Sadly, there seems to be no stopping the trend of the last 10 years. The latest closures have been confirmed by the Lloyds Banking Group, which includes Halifax and Bank of Scotland. Four BOS branches will shut their doors before the end of this year, according to the latest statements from the banking giants. While one of them is in Edinburgh, their Corstorphine site, it is rural bankers who will be hit the most. Following the capital closure on October 29, Pitlochry (October 30), Thornhill (November 3), and Moffat (November 19) will all lose branches. There are also a number of closures for Lloyds themselves, with 50 sites shutting, and Halifax, where 32 branches are expected to be axed. Elsewhere, NatWest has confirmed 54 further branch closures, with Spanish banking giants Santander announcing 42 sites shutting. There are nine Santander branches in Scotland that have closed this summer, with one more, Turiff, also due to shut but with no date confirmed yet. Bucking the trend, a couple of banks have held off on shutting sites, with another confirming they are to open three new branches. HSBC has said it won't have any more closures until at least 2026, while Nationwide announced it will stop any closures until 2028. American firm Metro Bank said it was opening three new branches in Gateshead, Chester, and Salford. Bank of Scotland sites to close Edinburgh (Corstorphine), October 29 Moffat, November 19 Pitlochry, October 30 Thornhill, November 3 Lloyds sites to close Biggleswade, November 5 Blandford Forum, November 10 Bristol Bishopsworth (Church Road), November 6 Bury, October 21 Chard, November 11 Coventry (Foleshill), November 4 Debden, November 12 Dunstable, November 4 East Grinstead, November 12 Feltham, November 4 Ferndown, November 17 Hexham, November 5 Hornchurch, September 11 Kidderminster, October 16 Leeds (Cross Gates), August 20 London Tooting, October 8 Manchester (Newton Heath), November 5 Plymstock, November 4 Pontardawe, November 20 Sheffield (Woodhouse), November 11 Shipston-on-Stour, November 11 Southall, October 15 Stoke-on-Trent (Trent), October 10 Walthamstow High Street, October 22 Halifax sites to close Barrow-in-Furness, September 10 Bexleyheath, October 23 Blackpool (South Shore), October 29 Bolton, November 20 Brentwood, September 10 Bristol (Kingswood), October 8 Carmarthen, October 6 Castleford, September 8 Cirencester, September 25 Crewe, October 14 Derby, October 23 Eltham, October 29 Epsom, September 15 Erdington, September 24 Folkestone, October 9 Hayes (Hillingdon), October 6 Hexham, November 11 Hove, October 20 London Clapham Junction, September 23 Long Eaton, September 18 Manchester (Stretford), October 15 Mold, October 16 Northwich, September 3 Rhyl, September 23 Richmond (Surrey), September 16 Skegness, September 3 Southport, October 7 Stevenage, October 23 Telford, October 22 Walkden, September 25 Wickford, November 10 Woolwich, October 1 NatWest sites to close Garstand, expected to be confirmed later Market Drayton, expected to be confirmed later Willerby, September 22 Abingdon, September 24 Birmingham (Acocks Green), September 16 Ashby-de-la-Zouch, expected to be confirmed later Bicester, September 30 Birmingham (Edgbaston), September 11 Birmingham (Shirley), October 1 Birmingham (Smethwick), September 25 Bridgwater, October 27 Bridport, October 29 Bristol (Fishponds), September 4 Cardiff (Canton), September 16 Cardiff (Llanishen), September 11 Chippenham, October 15 Cirencester, September 17 Cromer, expected to be announced Cwmbran, September 1 Dorchester, October 22 Ely, September 10 Evesham, expected to be confirmed later Halesowen, September 3 Hinckley, September 17 Honiton, October 21 Launceston, expected to be confirmed later Leamington Spa, October 1 Leicester (Melton Road), September 2 Leicester (Oadby), September 10 Leighton Buzzard, October 28 Llangefni, September 4 Lowestoft, October 15 Luton (Leagrave), September 15 Melton Mowbray, September 29 Midsomer Norton, October 8 Mold, October 21 Neath, October 13 Newmarket (Suffolk), September 24 Northampton (Weston Favell Shopping Centre), September 15 Paignton, October 2 Portishead, expected to be confirmed later Rayleigh, September 2 Redditch, October 14 Ringwood, October 1 Romsey, October 13 Stevenage, October 7 Stratford-upon-Avon, October 8 Sudbury, September 30 Torquay, expected to be confirmed later Trowbridge, October 16 Wellingborough, October 7 Wickford, September 18 Wisbech, September 1 Yate, September 25
The Herald Scotland
10-07-2025
- Entertainment
- The Herald Scotland
Will Alan Cumming help Pitlochry become new culture capital?
A new contender suddenly emerged last September when Pitlochry Festival Theatre unveiled one of Scotland's best-known stage and screen stars as its new figurehead. Read more: Alan Cumming's appointment as artistic director was a breathtakingly bold move made at a time when the Scottish theatre world was very much in the doldrums. The combined impact of prolonged pandemic restrictions, more than a decade of standstill funding, soaring costs and Scottish Government cuts had driven many of Scottish theatre's most senior figures to the break of despair and out the door, in some cases. Pitlochry Festival Theatre wants to become 'a cultural beacon locally, nationally and internationally' by 2029. Last summer's Edinburgh festivals ended in acrimony over the sudden shutdown of a vital Scottish Government fund for artists, with actors protesting on stage at the targeting of the arts for cuts again. The actor's appointment weeks later offered more than a glimpse of an optimistic future ahead for the industry, which has finally been able to plan ahead for the first time in years in January when new Scottish Government funding was confirmed up to 2028. Sunshine on Leith has been among the biggest hits at Pitlochry Festival Theatre in recent years. Pitlochry arguably trumped the Edinburgh International Festival's undoubted coup in landing violinist Nicola Benedetti as both its first female director and first Scottish director. It certainly highlighted the level of ambition of Pitlochry's board and executive director, Kris Bryce, who launched a search for a 'truly visionary leader" last year. Nessie has been among the most recent productions staged at Pitlochry Festival Theatre. The key goal they set out in the artistic director's job description was to established the theatre as "a cultural beacon locally, nationally and internationally" by 2029. Pitlochry has a lot to thank Cumming's successor, Elizabeth Newman for. She 'planted the seed' that he could potentially take over the running of the theatre when he visited to film his railway travel show and left firm foundations for him to build on. Pitlochry Festival Theatre has been hosting productions since 1951. (Image: free) Newman's hugely successful tenure saw the theatre battle through the pandemic with imaginative programming and new partnerships forged with other venues, the opening of an outdoor amphitheatre and an indoor studio theatre, and the launch of acclaimed new versions of the musicals Sunshine on Leith, The Sound of Music and Beautiful: The Carole King Musical. But what can audiences expect from the Cumming era? He immediately promised to 'bring the world's best theatre artists here and showcase the best of Scotland's thrilling theatrical legacy.' It will be intriguing to see how Cumming plans to deliver on the first pledge given the relatively tight budget he has to play with. Although the theatre's annual Scottish Government will have doubled by next year since Cumming was appointed, it will still only amount to £850,000 a year for what has become Scotland's leading venue for in-house theatre productions. However it seems almost certain that Cumming's star power will see his theatre attract more commercial backers than ever before. With Cumming extremely well connected after decades of working in Broadway and Hollywood, the possibilities of which stars and companies he may be able to lure to Pitlochry, and the potential spin-offs for the Perthshire town and Scottish tourism, are endless. Scotland's theatre actors, writers and directors will, of course, be intrigued to see how Cumming's second pledge is realised. He has already said he wants to 'counter' what he felt Pitlochry's theatre had stood for in the past, recalling how he was told 'not to bother' auditioning for shows there when he graduated from drama school in Glasgow, and suggesting it had traditionally favoured English actors instead of Scots. Cumming recently suggested he would look to revive 'some of the great plays that have been written in Scotland in recent decades, and often only had very short first runs.' He already has a long-standing working relationship with the National Theatre of Scotland, which will continue next year with the long-awaited reboot of the TV sitcom The High Life as a stage musical, which has seen him return to working with Victor and Barry sparring partner Forbes Masson. Although The High Life tour will not be visiting Pitlochry, Cumming has suggested he will be taking to its stage in at least one major show next year. It will be no surprise if his debut programme features a strong mix of well-known Scottish actors and home-grown talents. Pitlochry's theatre, which has attracted an audience in excess of 100,000 in recent years, boasts a fiercely loyal following, many of whom are drawn from around Perthshire and return to the venue at least once a year. Even without knowing what Cumming has up its sleeve, his arrival in Pitlochry seems certain to attract a much bigger audience from across Scotland, including many of have never previously set foot in the town.
The Herald Scotland
10-07-2025
- Entertainment
- The Herald Scotland
Val McDermid's new play has been 40 years in the making
The crime writer's long-time ambition to tackle the unsolved mystery over the death of 16th century English playwright and poet Christopher Marlowe is about to be realised at Pitlochry Festival Theatre, which has just been taken over by the Perthshire-born actor. Read more: McDermid sent Cumming her unperformed script for 'And Midnight Never Come' after plans to bring it to the stage of one of Edinburgh's best-known theatres were abandoned due to a lack of funding. However the play has been rebooted by Cumming in his first year as artistic director at Pitlochry, after agreeing to stage a special 'script-in-hand reading' ahead of his first season of full-scale productions in 2026. Alan Cumming is helping to bring Val McDermid's new play to the stage. (Image: Supplied) McDermid is working with director Philip Howard, former artistic director of the Traverse Theatre in Edinburgh, to bring to life her script, which will be performed at the Edinburgh International Book Festival the night after its Pitlochry premiere. And Midnight Never Come will focus on the run-up to the death of Marlowe, who was said to have been fatally stabbed in a guest house in Kent on May 30, 1593. Crime writer Val McDermid has sold more than 19 million books to date. (Image: PA) There have been centuries of debate and conflicting theories over Marlowe's death, including claims that he may have been killed over an involvement with espionage, was assassinated on the orders of Queen Elizabeth I, was targeted for his religious beliefs or was murdered by a former lover. McDermid, from Kirkcaldy in Fife, initially pursued a career as a journalist after studying English at Oxford University. She said: 'I was captivated by Marlowe as a writer when I was an undergraduate student. When I read up on what is known about his life I found it fascinating. "The more I read and discovered the more the version of his death seemed to be implausible. 'I came up with my own theory about what happened to him and that's what underpins the play, although I don't want to say any more about that theory. People will have to come and see it for themselves. 'When you are writing something that is rooted in the past you know certain things. It's about trying to come up with a story that makes sense with the facts that we know. That's what I've done with Marlowe. "My first attempts at this were more than 40 years ago. I just couldn't work out how to do it structurally and tell the story that I had in my head. I went back to it time and again over the years." McDermid has sold more than 19 million books and seen her work translated into more than 40 different languages since her first attempt at a novel when she was working as a trainee journalist in Devon. She recalled: 'My first attempt at a book was full of tortured relationships and all the big emotions – grief, rage, jealousy and love. It was truly terrible although I did finish it. 'But I also sent it to a friend of mine who was an actor and she said to me: 'I don't know much about books, but I think this would make a really good play.' 'I thought: 'That's easy. I'll just cross out the descriptions and leave in the speaking bits.' That's essentially what I did.' 'I wrote some extra scenes to cover the bits I'd crossed out and went to the local theatre. The director was very excited about it and said it would be perfect for a season of new plays. 'Completely by accident, I was a professionally performed playwright by the age of 23. 'I thought it was the start of something big and that I was going to be the new Harold Pinter, but it didn't work out that way.' Although McDermid's debut was adapted by the BBC, her career as a playwright was halted when was dropped by her agent 'after a couple of years of not making him any money.' The writer recalled: 'I just couldn't write any more plays because I didn't understand what I'd done right. The ambition and desire were there, but unfortunately skills and ability were not. Nowadays you can go off on a course and learn the nuts and bolts of your craft. But that wasn't really available back then. 'I just didn't know what I was supposed to be doing. I thought I should go off and do something that I understood how it worked. I had read a lot of crime fiction since I was about nine years old, so I thought I could maybe have a crack at a crime novel. 'At the time, in the early 1980s, the only British crime fiction that was around were village mysteries and police procedurals. I felt I didn't know enough about the police to write a convincing police procedural novel, so I got a bit stuck. 'What finally got me moving was when a friend of mine who had moved to America sent me a copy of Sara Paretsky's first novel, one of the early iterations of so-called new-wave feminist crime fiction. 'Her private eye character was a woman who had a brain and a sense of humour. She didn't rely on the guys to do the heavy lifting. When the going got tough she just got tougher. What I also liked about her novel was its strong sense of place. There was a sense that the story arose from the city of Chicago. It had a sense of social politics as well. That book really inspired me to get started.' McDermid's debut novel, Report for Murder, was published in 1987 and kick-started a career which has seen her write more than 50 books to date, and develop five separate series. One of the most recent, focusing on the detective Karen Pirie, is about to return to ITV for a second series this month, with Lauren Lyle returning to the lead role. McDermid's return to theatre work has emerged seven years after a foray into the lunchtime drama series A Play, A Pie and A Pint, with political comedy Margaret Saves Scotland, about a Yorkshire schoolgirl who returns from a holiday filled with a burning desire for Scottish independence. The experience of working on that show with director Marilyn Imrie persuaded McDermid to return to the idea of a play about the Marlowe mystery several decades after she had first started to work on it. McDermid's play, which depicts the last day of Marlowe's life as well as key events in his life, was snapped up by the Royal Lyceum in Edinburgh and went into development for a full production, which was shelved after the theatre decided it was unaffordable. McDermid was in talks over a possible performance of her script at last year's book festival, which did not go ahead due to a programme organised to mark 200 years of James Hogg's novel The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner. Within weeks, though, Cumming had been unveiled as Pitlochry Festival Theatre's new artistic director. McDermid said: 'When Alan took over at Pitlochry I thought: 'I'll let Alan take a look at it.' 'He got very excited about it and said: 'This is fantastic, I love it, we must talk about it.' 'He said would talk to me about it at the Winter Words book festival earlier this year. 'The weekend went on and nothing had happened. I said to my partner: 'I think he was just being nice.' 'After the final event at the festival, he collared me and said: 'We have to talk now!' 'He told me he wanted to do a rehearsed reading of it. I said that the Edinburgh book festival had talked about doing that, but it hadn't actually happened. He suggested that it was done as a joint project. Two days later we were all in a Zoom call to sort out the details. It was amazing. 'My main hope now is that people out and enjoy it. I also hope that a producing theatre will have someone in the audience who thinks: 'We should be putting this on stage.' 'I know theatres have timetables, schedules and budgets. I'm not putting any pressure on anyone to do it. 'But I would love it if it was on at Pitlochry because there is such a great team there and it's a place where you can have a real day out. They've got a wonderful restaurant, you can eat in the restaurant and then go and see a play. 'Alan is a man of great passions, his work-rate is phenomenal, and he just makes things happen for people. He's the kind of person we need working in the arts at the moment.' McDermid's Marlowe play will finally see the light of day in Pitlochry and Edinburgh in the wake of her book interpreting the story of Lady Macbeth. She said: 'My idea of the perfect novel is one where you don't have to do any research at all because you already know everything you need to know. But that never happens. 'With historical stuff, it's a case of digging down, looking at all the available sources and working your way through them. It just takes a bit longer before you can get started on the writing. 'It does create more work when you write historical books, but when an idea roots itself in your head the only way you can get rid of it is to write it."
Scotsman
06-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Scotsman
Theatre reviews; The Great Gatsby
Sign up to our Arts and Culture newsletter, get the latest news and reviews from our specialist arts writers Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to The Scotsman, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... The Great Gatsby, Pitlochry Festival Theatre ★★★★ This is a Gift, Pitlochry Festival Theatre ★★★★ Just over week ago the world's super-rich offered a memorable display of their gilded lives, at the wedding in Venice of Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos. As in past golden ages of vast private wealth, though, the luxury enjoyed by the rich seems to come at a price, and not only for those excluded from it. The Great Gatsby unfolds seamlessly on a Pitlochry stage exquisitely opened up by Jen McGinley's fine art deco set (Picture: Tommy Ga-Ken Wan) This is therefore a perfect moment for the launch of Pitlochry Festival Theatre's centenary stage version of The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald's mighty 1925 novel about the interplay of wealth, class and history among the rich of Long Island, in the years following the First World War. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad In Elizabeth Newman's powerful new adaptation, the narrator Nick Carraway, superbly played by David Rankine, is a young man subtly changed by his war service, and desperately trying to finish a first novel inspired by the story of Jay Gatsby, an immensely wealthy self-made man whom he met in Long Island in those years; and from the first moments of the play, Rankine captures Nick's quest, his slight outsider status, and his real distress at Gatsby's fate, with an empathy and intensity that draws the audience deep into his story. It's always a compelling tale, of course; the story of lovely Daisy Buchanan – married to a wealthy and faithless bully – and her intense connection with Jay Gatsby, a man of relatively humble origins who knew and loved her before her marriage. And here, in Sarah Brigham's flowing production, the narrative unfolds seamlessly, over two hours or so, on a Pitlochry stage exquisitely opened up by Jen McGinley's fine art deco set, and to the sound of a superb jazz vocal score. The story is a tragedy, of course; and the reasons why Gatsby is finally unable to win Daisy for his own provoke deep thought about the enduring myths and failures of the American dream, in which Gatsby so profoundly believes. Blythe Jandoo plays a young school-leaver in This is a Gift (Picture: Tommy Ga-Ken Wan) With Oraine Johnson delivering a compelling and fascinating performance as Gatsby, though, and Tyler Collins cutting straight to the heart of privilege and reaction that is Tom Buchanan, the main roles in the drama are in impressive hands; and the impact of the story, in Newman's powerful version, is more exhilarating than downbeat, in its sheer determination to cut through the lies and illusions that surround these wealthy lives, and to tell something like the truth. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad In the Studio Theatre, meanwhile, Kolbrun Bjort Sigfusdottir's 80-minute monologue This Is A Gift could hardly come as a more perfect coda to Fitzgerald's masterpiece. Set in 21st century Leith, the play is beautifully performed by Blythe Jandoo as young school-leaver Zoe, who lives with her single dad in some poverty, thanks to the fading fortunes of his little gilding business, which specialises in picture frames. Everything changes, though, when Zoe arrives home one night to find a posh but dilapidated alcoholic collapsed on their doorstep, only to be rescued – after considerable kindness from Zoe and her dad – by a wealthy friend who offers to give Zoe's dad anything he wants, as a reward. Cue a modern-day version of the Midas myth, in which Zoe's Dad half-jokingly asks for everything he touches to turn to gold, and soon finds that the gift – for all the wealth it brings – is far more of a curse than a blessing.
Scotsman
27-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Scotsman
The Haunting of Alice Gilfrey
Sign up to our Arts and Culture newsletter, get the latest news and reviews from our specialist arts writers Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to The Scotsman, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... The Haunting Of Agnes Gilfrey, Oran Mor, Glasgow ★★★ Youth's a stuff will not endure, says Shakespeare; but in the age of the tribute musical, it can be endlessly recaptured, and made to live again on stage. Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey's 1971 show Grease – later transformed into the 1978 global hit film – is a tribute musical in the true sense. Set in the autumn of 1959, it is one of the original high school musicals, and its much-loved songs – Summer Nights, We Go Together, You're The One That I Want, and many more – are all lovingly crafted in the bubble-gum pop style of the late Fifties. Grease at Pitlochry Festival Theatre PIC: Tommy Ga-Ken Wan To work well, though, a show like Grease needs a company who are themselves full of the rebellious energy and sheer joie de vivre of youth; and that's what the 2025 Pitlochry ensemble provides by the truckload, in the opening production of this year's main stage summer season. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Co-produced with the Grand Theatre, Blackpool, Sam Hardie's Pitlochry-made production has already played a two-week run there; so the version that opened at Pitlochry over the weekend is already warmed up to sizzling-point. Working in the instruments-in-hand style perfected by Pitlochry musical director Richard Reeday, the 17-strong cast offer a sparkling display of quadruple-threat theatrical energy, as they act, sing, dance and play their way through the story of good girl Sandy, her beau Danny Zuko, and the Rydell High School gang who surround them. What makes the show a roaring success, though – despite the occasional rough edge and under-powered moment – is not only that energy, but the sheer underlying professionalism they bring to the task of making the story work, as a fast-moving two hours of theatre, plus interval. Blythe Jandoo is a beautiful, poignant Sandy, and Alexander Service a palpably decent Danny, with Tyler Collins and Fiona Wood fairly knocking the pinball out of the arcade as rough kids Kenickie and Rizzo. In the end, though, it's all about the ensemble, and the terrific collective spirit expressed through the big-number songs, and through Kally Lloyd-Jones's joyful choreography; and when they reach the final triumphant chorus of You're The One That I Want, the Pitlochry audience can hardly wait to leap to their feet and join in the jive, in one of those glorious celebrations of youth that never grows old. Manasa Tagica and Sarah McCardie in The Haunting of Alice Gilfrey at Oran Mor PIC: Tommy Ga-Ken Wan Youth's a stuff that can't be recaptured, though, for the central character in the latest Play, Pie and Pint lunchtime drama, co-produced with Mull Theatre. In The Haunting Of Agnes Gilfrey, by Glasgow based writer-performer Amy Conway, the central character Agnes is an outspoken Glasgow woman in her forties who loves her job in the film industry, but has recently fallen in love with, and married, a slightly younger man, an American actor called Jimmy, who is eager to become a Dad. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad The pair are therefore undergoing fertility treatment, so far with no success; and when they arrive for a romantic break at a holiday-let castle on Mull – and encounter the very strange housekeeper, Mrs Carlin – Agnes soon begins to feel haunted by the unhappy spirit of a former lady of the house, whose sombre portrait hangs over the fireplace. The play perhaps spends a little too much time setting up this situation, and referencing various horror-movie tropes, before Agnes's story finally moves towards its crisis. The point it wants to make, though – about patriarchal pressure on women to have children, and on how even the nicest, funniest men can be complicit with it – is a powerful one. And in Katie Slater's production, Mary Gapinski, Manasa Tagica, and a poignant and hilarious Sarah McCardie as Agnes, make a fine job of exploring the tough moment of choice she faces; as she learns to embrace her own inner cailleach, or crone, and her right to grow older, without shame or regret.
