Leader: Scottish Baftas all glaur and greeting

SCOTLAND’S Downton Abbey, where are you? This year’s Scottish Bafta nominations make clear there is no room for anything to do with the upper classes.

The list is dominated by costume dramas of another sort – grim, gritty depictions of working class life: less Cliveden, more Clydebank. Angst and misery are driven home with the subtlety of shipyard rivets. There is Peter Mullan’s film Neds, a hard-hitting portrayal of teenage gang life in 1970s Glasgow, and Morag McKinnon’s working class portrayal, Donkeys. The entertainment category includes Rab C Nesbitt, Limmy’s World and Burniston. The drama series Field of Blood, about a journalist investigating a serial killer in 1980s Glasgow, is nominated in three categories. And in case all this smacks too much of Edinburgh New Town frippery, the controversial documentary The Scheme has been nominated for its stark portrayal of life in a drug- and drink- addled council estate in Kilmarnock. Given this field, it’s only odd that Bullet the dog hasn’t been put up for a Bafta Best Barker.

It’s not the business of such awards, of course, to be concerned with default stereo-typing and cliched portrayals, but the skill, professionalism and talent that has gone into the productions.

Nevertheless, the list begs big questions about how Scotland sees itself – and that self-portrait is grainy, dour and unsparing. Many will applaud the apparent inability of our writers and directors to move out of a well-trodden rut of beaten miserabilism. But uplifting? More like “See Scotland and Cry”.