Arran Theatre and Arts Trust are excited to announce the return of the McLellan Arts Festival for this summer!
This year's McLellan Festival will run from:
Friday 30th August to Wednesday 11th September 2024
Yours Truly,
All at Arran Theatre and Arts Trust
Robert McLellan 1907 - 1985
2024 Festival Programme
Tickets for all performances available online at Ticket Source or at the door on evening of performance.
BARGAIN! - Festival Season Ticket £50
Gives access to all of the McLellan Book Festival events AND all the McLellan Arts Festival events except Scottish Ensemble, National Theatre of Scotland and poetry workshop.
The McLellan Arts Festival Programme
Friday 30th August:
Traditional Ceilidh in Whiting Bay Hall with Gillian Frame, Finlay Napier, Arran’s young musicians and John Inglis’s Scottish stories.
Whiting Bay Hall 7.30 | £12.00
Saturday 31st August and Sunday 1st September:
McLellan Book Festival and Wee Mac Arran Children's Book Festival.
Brodick Hall and Arran Heritage Museum | Adult events £12 if bought individually or £40 for a McLellan Book Festival Weekend Pass, children's events free
Wednesday 4th September:
Poor Things – award winning film
Corrie and Sannox Village Hall 7.30 | Entry by donation
Thursday 5th September:
Scottish Ensemble - venue, prices and programme to be confirmed
Friday 6th September:
Poetry competition 2023 winners’ gig
Corrie and Sannox Village Hall | £12
Saturday 7th September:
Poetry competition 2024 winners’ gig including Scots language winners Corrie and Sannox Village Hall | £12
Poetry workshop - details TBC
Sunday 8th September:
Vivaldi’s Gloria. Performance conducted by Andrew Nunn of Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. Soloists from Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. McLellan Festival Chorus
Community Theatre at Arran High School | £12
Wednesday 11th September:
National Theatre of Scotland
Brodick Hall - prices and programme to be confirmed
Further details about individual events below
Tickets for each event will be available on the door or can be bought in advance online here
Friday 30th August
Traditional Ceilidh
Traditional Ceilidh in Whiting Bay Hall with Gillian Frame, Finlay Napier, Arran’s young musicians and John Inglis’s Scottish stories.
Whiting Bay Hall 7.30pm: £12.
Saturday 31st August & Sunday 1st September
McLellan Book Festival & Wee Mac Arran Children's Book Festival
McLellan Book Festival and Wee Mac Arran Children's Book Festival.
Brodick Hall and Arran Heritage Museum | Adult events £12 if bought individually or £40 for a McLellan Book Festival Weekend Pass, children's events free
Brodick Hall & Arran Heritage Museum: Adult events £12 if bought individually or £40 for a McLellan Book Festival Weekend Pass, children's events free
Wednesday 4th September
Film Screening: Poor Things
Wednesday 4th September:
Poor Things – award winning film
Corrie and Sannox Village Hall 7.30pm | Entry by donation
Thursday 5th September
Scottish Ensemble
Scottish Ensemble - venue, prices and programme to be confirmed
Venue, prices and programme to be confirmed
Friday 6th September
Poetry competition 2023 winners’ gig
The McLellan Poetry Fringe is delighted to welcome the award winning poet, and judge of the 2023 McLellan Poetry Competition to Arran on Friday 6th September 2024.
Joelle Taylor will be presenting some of her own work, and will also be presenting a selection of the 2023 winning and commended poets, some of whom will be reading their winning entries in person.
Joelle is a queer, working class author of four collections of poetry. Her most recent collection “C+NTO and Othered Poems” won the T.S Eliot Prize, and the Polari Book Prize for LGBT authors. She is co-curator and host of Out-Spoken Live at the Southbank Centre, and tours her work nationally and internationally in a diverse range of venues, from Australia to Brazil. She has judged several poetry and literary prizes, including Jerwood Fellowship, the Forward Prize, the Ondaatje Prize and our own McLellan Poetry Competition. Joelle is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and the 2022 Saboteur Spoken Word Artist of the Year.
Joelle’s novel of interconnecting stories The Night Alphabet has recently been published by Riverrun. Her most recent acting role was in Blue by Derek Jarman, which sold out its run across the UK, with more dates expected for the future.
Please do take this opportunity to come along to hear Joelle on the Isle of Arran and to see and hear the wonderful winning and commended poetry entries from the 2023 Competition. Joelle’s performances are always spell-binding and not to be missed!
See Joelle's website here. And you can read the winning and commended poetry entries from the 2023 Main Competition here (read the winning and commended poetry entries from the 2023 Scots Competition here)
Please note: this event is suitable for aged 16+ only
Corrie and Sannox Village Hall 7.30pm: £12
Friday 6th September
Poetry Winners’ gig 2024 including Scottish winners
Join us on Saturday 7th September 2024 for a wonderful evening of poetry presenting the winning and commended poets of the 2024 McLellan Poetry Competition.
The first half of the evening will be presented by the judge of the 2024 Scots Competition, the poet Jim Mackintosh. Jim will announce the winners and a number will be joining us to read their winning or commended poems, after which Jim will read some of his own entertaining Scots poetry.
Jim Mackintosh is a poet, editor, playwright and producer who has published six collections including Flipstones (Tippermuir Books, 2018) and edited or co-edited four anthologies including The Darg (Drunk Muse Press, 2019).
Along with Duncan Chisholm and Hamish Napier, Jim brought Beyond the Swelkie to Celtic Connections in 2022 as a multimedia production which was then toured and returned to Celtic Connections in 2023
His book The Banes o the Turas (Tippermuir Books, 2022) was a poetical translation into Scots of Turas Viaggio by Italian poet Pino Mereu and was shortlisted for Book of the Year at the 2023 Scots Language Awards. It was premiered at the 2024 Celtic Connections and is now touring Scotland.
Jim was the Makar of the Federation of Writers Scotland in 2021, the Poet in Chief of the Hampden Collection (2019-22) and the Poetry Editor of Nutmeg Magazine (2017-22) and is the current Makar of the Cateran EcoMuseum in East Perthshire and the Angus Glens.
His latest book published by Seahorse Publications - We are Migrant will be launched in Glasgow on the 1st May. The book is a series of poems examining the constant shift of humanity from my Jim’s own Great Grandfather’s journey as a 14 year old boy from Donegal to work on the railway tunnels of Glasgow, to the hellish existence of refugee camps in too many places across the world, to the desperate plight of people fleeing persecution, crossing dangerous waters and war zones, to the highland clearances and much more. The collection includes the poem Tour Package which was Highly Commended in the 2023 McLellan Poetry Prize.
We are delighted that during the second half of the evening, the wonderful poet William Letford will be joining us to present the winning entries of the 2024 International English Competition, and to read a selection of his own captivating work.
William Letford published his first collection of poetry while working as a roofer. Since then, his work has been adapted into film, projected onto buildings, carved into monuments, adapted for the stage, written onto skin, cast out over the radio, and performed by orchestras.
He has helped restore a medieval village in the mountains of Northern Italy, taught English in Japan, fished with his bare hands in Indonesia, been invited to perform in Iraq, South Korea, Lebanon, Australia, Germany, India, Palestine, and many more countries.
William (Billy) Letford has published three books, “Dirt”, “Bevel” and his latest book published this year “From Our Own Fire” which is a Telegraph and Observer Book of the Year.
“The pleasure I have gained from William Letford's poems... will, I am confident, stay with me for ever.” - Nicholas Lezard, Guardian
“William Letford is the future of Scottish poetry.” - Mark Buckland, Cargo Publishing
You can read the winning and commended poetry entries from the 2023 Scots Competition here (read the winning and commended poetry entries from the 2023 Main Competition here).
Corrie and Sannox Village Hall 7.30pm: £12
Sunday 8th September
Vivaldi's Gloria
Performance conducted by Andrew Nunn of Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. Soloists from Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. McLellan Festival Chorus
Community Theatre at Arran High School, Lamlash 7.30pm: £12
Wednesday 11th September
National Theatre of Scotland
National Theatre of Scotland
Brodick Hall - prices and programme to be confirmed
Brodick Hall - prices and programme to be confirmed