Arts Diary: Creative thinking as Christine is tipped for theatre review, but why not do it in-house?

No – don’t worry – we’re not talking about the Christine Hamilton who tried to tear poor Martin Bell limb from limb on Knutsford Heath back in 1997. That would be nonsense on stilts. No, this Christine Hamilton was formerly director of planning and development for the Scottish Arts Council, following spells with 7:84 Theatre Company and the Citizens’ Theatre in Glasgow, and she has since worked for the University of Glasgow (founding their Centre for Cultural Policy Research in 2000) and for Coventry University, where she set up the Institute for Creative Enterprise – a centre for start-up creative businesses and postgraduate teaching and research.

With three decades of experience in the arts, Hamilton is highly respected and ideally placed to help conduct Creative Scotland’s theatre provision review. But the question, surely, is why Creative Scotland – a body made up of arts administrators employed on not-unreasonable salaries at the taxpayer’s expense – feels the need to bring in an outside consultant to assist with a review, again, at the taxpayer’s expense. I’d very much like to bring in a freelance journalist to write this column so I can toddle off to the pub, but I don’t think my editor would be too impressed.

Precious painting

A REAL treat for fans of JRR Tolkien today, as publishers HarperCollins release The Art of the Hobbit – a collection of 110 pictures, ranging from ink drawings to watercolours and pencil sketches, which the author produced while he was writing his first novel back in the 1930s. (A real treat for the people doing the marketing for Peter Jackson’s upcoming movie adaptation, too, as it’ll help ramp up excitement in advance of the film’s release in December 2012.)

For years, Tolkien’s pictures had lain gathering dust in Oxford’s Bodleian Library, but now they have been thrust into the public domain, experts and anoraks are queuing up to comment on what they might tell us about the inner workings of one of the most significant literary minds of the last century.

Tolkien, it seems, used his drawings as a writing aid, sketching the dramatic landscapes forged in his imagination as a means of making them more logical and coherent. In some cases, it seems, he would draw the same scene several times over, making subtle changes in each version until it made sense in geographical terms and fitted with the storyline of the book.

Some of his landscapes, particularly the watercolours, are very accomplished, but before we get too carried away with the genius of the man, it should also be noted that his figure drawings leave a lot to be desired. One sketch of a line of marching dwarves, for example, pictured left, makes the diminutive adventurers look like so many Father Christmases.

Posh Bird

WHEN the explorer Isabella Bishop (née Bird) died in Edinburgh on 7 October 1904, at the age of 72, tributes in the press came thick and fast. Her obituary in The Scotsman described her as “one of the most remarkable women travellers of modern times”, and the Spectator’s correspondent wrote: “There never was anybody who had adventures as well as Miss Bird.”

Originally from Yorkshire, but married to the prominent Edinburgh doctor John Bishop in 1881, Bird travelled incredibly extensively for the time, visiting North America, the Hawaiian Islands, China, Japan, Singapore, Malaysia and Morocco, and she wrote several books about her experiences, notably A Lady’s Life in the Rocky Mountains and Unbeaten Tracks in Japan.

Bird was also a keen photographer, and from 3-6 November, The Royal Geographical Society will exhibit 350 of the pictures she took during her 1895 visit to China at Olympia National Hall in London, as part of the 2011 Luxury Travel Fair, sponsored by Condé Nast Traveller magazine.

It promises to be a fantastic exhibition, but the Diary can’t help feeling it’s rather an odd fit. The Luxury Travel Fair bills itself as “the only dedicated consumer focused luxury travel event in the UK”, and seeks to promote “the most exclusive resorts, five-star and luxury boutique hotels, private game reserves and safaris.”

Bird’s travels, by contrast, tended to be anything but luxurious. As the obituarist in The Scotsman pointed out, “it was when she was roaming over some unbeaten track that she enjoyed her best health and spirits”.

Can’t help thinking she would have given a derisive snort at the notion of a boutique hotel.

Shack attacks

QUICK, somebody call the UN – Edinburgh is suffering from a shortage of afro wigs. Halloween rush? Or maybe it has something to do with the imminent launch of The Shack, a live comedy venue and 70s & 80s themed nightclub at 119 Rose Street. They’re offering half-price admission for anyone wearing period attire to Friday night’s opening bash, but when comedian and club owner JoJo Sutherland tried to buy her own clobber, she couldn’t get a ’fro for love nor money. “Loads of people must be planning to come dressed up this weekend because I’ve been to three fancy dress shops and there isn’t a suitable wig left for me,” she says. To donate a wig, visit www.theshackedinburgh.co.uk