Our arts specialists give you the lowdown on what to look forward to in 2011

Published on Sunday 2 January 2011 16:46

FILM SIOBHAN SYNNOT

THE film forecast for 2011 may not be bright exactly, but sunny spots include the Coen Brothers' version of True Grit, Mark Wahlberg in the rousing crowd-pleaser The Fighter, Peter Mullan's brilliantly feral account of the fall of a promising student, Neds, and large areas of puzzlement as audiences get to grips with Darren Aronofsky's surreal Black Swan, starring Natalie Portman as a ballerina having a breakdown.

2011 also has foggy patches of uncertainty – Thor, for instance, gives us hammers, Vikings and the Norse god himself with Kenneth Branagh directing, followed by the shield-bearing, lycra-fan Captain America: The First Avenger in the summer, starring Chris Evans.

A mist also hangs over how good Ryan Reynolds will look in Spandex in The Green Hornet, and how much Seth Rogen will be able to send up Hollywood's overweening obsession with superheroes in The Green Lantern

In Scotland, there's particular interest in the arrival of local temperature-raisers such as James McAvoy in the reboot of X-Men: First Class, while Kevin Macdonald will be premiering The Eagle, his epic about a lost Roman legion.

And who knows – at some point we may even see David Mackenzie direct Ewan McGregor in Perfect Sense, a Glasgow love story set to blow in to the Sundance film festival later this month.

From The Hangover Part II to Transformers 3 and, thank God, the final part of the murderously over-extended Harry Potter series, the trend to keep franchise films alive continues in 2011, with even Pirates Of The Caribbean gearing up for a fourth instalment, despite the fact that just about everybody involved seems to have died at least once.

We can be 100 per cent confident that the thunderously brooding cloud gathering over November will herald the arrival for teens of the first part of the two-part final instalment in the Twilight series, Breaking Dawn, while the usual heavy fall of vampire and zombie flicks is expected around Hallowe'en.

Also upcoming, the resurrection of 1980s hit movies continues with remakes of Footloose (1984) and Conan The Barbarian (1982), while the Edinburgh International Film Festival has announced a remake of its own next year, to be supplied by Tilda Swinton and Mark Cousins and a chorus of "artistic advisors".

Despite a garnish of fine words, this sounds like a belt-tightening exercise rather than a cause for celebration for the beleaguered grandaddy of film festivals. Apparently "many of the things people are familiar with will not be there." Let's hope they don't mean films.

TV

AIDAN SMITH

The year gets off to a great start with a new Alan Bleasdale drama. Scots Brian Cox and Lindsay Duncan star in his Second World War drama The Sinking Of The Laconia (Thursday, BBC2, 9pm).

Duncan will return soon afterwards in Christopher And His Kind (BBC2), the story of how young Chrisopher Isherwood immersed himself in the hellzapoppin' cabaret scene of 1930s Berlin. And the other Brian Cox, the new shooting star of science on the box, will front The Wonders Of The Universe (BBC2).

Fresh from Any Human Heart, Jim Broadbent stars, with John Simm as his son, in Exile (BBC1), "an intimate story of prodigal redemption". It's written by Paul Abbott, usually a guarantee of quality, just like Tony Marchant, whose new drama is Public Enemies (BBC1).

BBC4 picks away at the reputations of light entertainment legends to startling effect. Hattie – Hattie Jacques, of course, played by Ruth Jones – tells of her secret affair with a younger man while still married to John Le Mesurier.

Meanwhile the comedy Episodes (BBC2, with Matt LeBlanc and Tamsin Greig) continues the trend for shows about the business of TV. On ITV1 the biggie is Marchlands, a haunted house drama with Alex Kingston and Denis Lawson. Big-hitters Trevor Eve (Kidnap & Ransom) and James Nesbitt (Monroe) return as hostage negotiator and neurosurgeon respectively. In The Reckoning, Ashley Jensen is bequeathed 5 million – provided she can kill a man.

Channel 4's most eye-catching drama is Peter Kominsky's The Promise, set in the modern-day Middle East and spooling back to 1940s atrocities.

The Model Agency is a documentary series promising unrivalled access to the catwalk. Gordon Ramsay: Shark Bait is surely the year's most tantalising title; Jamie's Fish Suppers sounds like can't-beat-them, might-as-well-join-them. But for some, 2011 will begin and very probably end with the second singalong season of Glee (E4).

VISUAL ART

MOIRA JEFFREY

2011 feels like a year of consolidation rather than outright invention. From 28 May, the British Art Show 7 hits venues across Glasgow showcasing a diverse range of art in a generational spread from the very young to the young-at-heart Alasdair Gray.

In mid-June, the art world will decamp to the Venice Biennale, where Mike Nelson will mess with the austere British Pavilion and the brilliant Karla Black (see Page 12) promises a show of uncompromising and experimental sculpture for Scotland.

Who will be 2011's emerging young stars? Having made grown-ups weep with her performance at a recent Tramway-curated night at the Miami Basel Art Fair, Dundee-trained Cara Tolmie's solo show, opening at Dundee Contemporary Arts on 21 May, will be the one to watch.

As usual, Scotland's artists will be making their names overseas. Kate Davis has a very busy year with solo shows in Berlin, New York, Massachusetts and the University of Glasgow. Cathy Wilkes has a prestigious solo show at the Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh. Within these shores, it's hard to think of a better place to spend the summer solstice than at Orkney's Pier Art Centre with Jim Lambie from 17 June.

Meanwhile, at the National Galleries of Scotland, king of kitsch Jeff Koons will be the subject of an Artist's Rooms display at the National Gallery of Modern Art from 19 March; and the major summer exhibition at the National Gallery Complex will be a retrospective of the work of Elizabeth Blackadder from 2 July to 23 October.

What is clear, though, is that the age of the big blockbuster is almost over and that our museums will increasingly choose to invest in and display their permanent collections. This year will see the unveiling of three capital projects the like of which we'll not see again for a generation.

In Edinburgh, the revamped National Museum will re-open in the summer and the Portrait Gallery in the Autumn. In Glasgow, this spring, the city will unveil the most ambitious project of them all. We'll get the chance to find out whether Zaha Hadid's showpiece Riverside Museum is a large tin shed or the work of architectural genius we're all hoping for.

THEATRE

MARK FISHER

It'll be a good year for catching up with Scotland's key plays. While the National Theatre of Scotland (NTS) continues to tour Gregory Burke's Black Watch, Rapture Theatre Company has assembled a strong cast to tour the playwright's breakthrough comedy Gagarin Way (17 February until 9 April).

On a bigger scale, several major venues have come together to revive the late Tom McGrath's The Hard Man about the life of Jimmy Boyle (31 March until 30 April). And Des Dillon, frustrated that Six Black Candles has not been seen in Scotland since its hilarious debut in 2004, has brought together most of the original Royal Lyceum cast to tour the play himself (15 April to 22 May).

David Harrower's Knives In Hens has been produced all over the world since its astonishing debut in 1995, but only a couple of times in Scotland, so a new NTS production (touring, 3-20 June) is very welcome. The NTS is also reviving Ena Lamont Stewart's Men Should Weep (touring, 16 September to 8 October), the 1930s tenement drama.

Among the new plays vying to become the classics of tomorrow are two by David Greig: The Strange Undoing Of Prudencia Hart, going on a tour of pubs courtesy of the NTS (10-26 February), and Dunsinane, a sequel to Macbeth (touring 14 May to 11 June).

It's a promising year for women playwrights – and snappy titles – with Sue Glover's Marilyn (Royal Lyceum, Edinburgh and Citizens', Glasgow, 17 February until 2 April), Rona Munro's Pandas (Traverse, Edinburgh, 15 April to 7 May) and Abi Morgan's 27 (Royal Lyceum, Edinburgh, 22 October to 12 November).

BOOKS

STUART KELLY

The book story of 2011 probably won't be a book, but the continuing change in how we read. Just after Christmas, Amazon announced that its new, third-generation Kindle had become its bestselling product: in other words, outstripping the old dead-tree and boiled-bones copies of Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows.

At the moment, whether you turn a page or click a button is relatively immaterial, but if the book industry follows what has happened in music and film, expect more and more e-books to have bonus features, extra content and interactive capabilities.

In the Old World of books, 2011 has much anticipated new novels by Ali Smith (There But For The, to be published in June by Hamish Hamilton) and AL Kennedy (The Blue Book, September, Jonathan Cape), as well as new novels by Graham Swift, Martin Amis, Alan Hollinghurst and Anne Enright.

Ian Rankin is back – with an as yet untitled novel – after his year's sabbatical; and Denise Mina's The End Of The Wasp Season is out in May. It promises to be a major year for Mina, with BBC Scotland's version of the Paddy Meehan novel Field Of Blood due to be broadcast.

The book I'm personally most keen to read is the posthumous final work by David Foster Wallace, The Pale King (April, Hamish Hamilton): reconstructed from his files, with assistance from his correspondents. Infinite Jest is a contemporary masterpiece, and this last work – a study of anomie and boredom – sounds intriguing.

If I had to tip a book for Steig Larson-style ubiquity, I'd be sorely tempted to mention David Wingrove's Son Of Heaven, published by Corvus, which is rapidly becoming a hallmark for quality, quirky fiction. Set in 2085, after the collapse of Western Capitalism, with a resurgent China and a "World of Levels", a megacity where your social status is mirrored by how far from the ground you are, it has all the makings of a cult hit. The first volume comes out in March – with another 19 to come.

POP

COLIN SOMERVILLE

T In The Park was the young pretender north of the Border that raised a defiant Scottish standard in 1994. Now it stands proud as a European festival institution.

Already confirmed for 2011 are Foo Fighters and Blink 182, which may just explain the Early Bird tickets selling out in record time.

Not to be left out, the new kid on the festival block, Rock Ness, saw T's Foos and Blink, and raised a Kasabian, Chemical Brothers and Paolo Nutini.

And with a host of boutique events also flourishing, Scotland now has more rock festivals per head to look forward to than the rest of the UK.

One of 2011's most eagerly awaited albums is Mogwai's Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will. In America it will be released on the celebrated Sub Pop label, here at home on the band's own Rock Action Records. The tour should bring Stuart Braithwaite and company to a concert hall near you at the end of the month.

Kindred spirits And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of The Dead, from Austin, Texas, return with their new album, Tao Of The Dead, and their more famous fellow Americans R.E.M. will hope to prove continuing relevance with Collapse Into Now.

Two of the UK's foremost female talents – PJ Harvey with Let England Shake, and Adele with the hotly anticipated 21 – will make the early running in the album of the year stakes.

Two Scottish bands to watch, meanwhile, are GoGoBot and Mr Kil. The former make pop music like Caledonian cousins of the New Radicals with a smidgeon of Scissor Sisters. The long awaited single from Gordon McNeil, Marko Kelly and Rosie McClune titled Is This Love is a clear statement of credible commercial intent. Mr Kil tick all the right boxes, boasting elements of The Killers, Muse and the rest of the coolly correct, and they have some great tunes to boot.

This article was first published in Scotland On Sunday, 2 January, 2011