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© 2026 A Kick Up The Arts with Nicola Meighan
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A Scottish Arts & Culture Podcast with Nicola Meighan
50 Episodes
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Send a text We’re celebrating the wonder of writer, artist, Glasgow icon and cultural polymath Alasdair Gray - not for the first time, I grant you… The annual Gray Day takes place at Glasgow’s Oran Mor on February 25th, and - among other things - it’ll be revelling in Alasdair’s masterpiece, Lanark, on the 45th anniversary of its publication… Alan Bissett will perform another excerpt of his outstanding theatre work inspired by a photograph of Alasdair with Billy Connolly at the launch of Lana...
Send us a text My guest in this episode is an award-winning, best-selling writer and style icon - look, I’m just stating the facts here - whose terrific work includes crime fiction, comic books, theatre shows, and historical novels… Following titles like The Garnethill Trilogy, the Paddy Meehan and Alex Morrow series, Rizzio, Three Fires, Hellblazer and Conviction - the latter of which was celebrated as part of Hollywood star Reese Witherspoon’s book club - Denise Mina's latest novel is The G...
Send us a text I’m delighted to be joined by one of our best-loved, and most successful writers, who’s sold over 30 million copies of his best-selling Rebus novels - not to mention theatre, TV and radio spin-offs, all based in Edinburgh. He’s also a broadcaster, a sometime rock ‘n’ roll star, and a Fifer with a fab taste in music - and a Knighthood to boot… He is of course Sir Ian Rankin, and this conversation was recorded at the Carnegie Hall in Dunfermline, as part of last year’s wond...
Send us a text My special guest on this episode is a woman - an icon - whose brilliant debut album sounded like nothing else when it hurtled into our musical landscape 35 years ago - and there really is still nothing like it… The record’s The Same Sky, the artist is the mighty Horse, and since that record’s release in 1990, she’s raised the roof, and fired up our hearts, with records like God’s Home Movie, and The Road Less Travelled… She’s shared a stage with Burt Bacharach, she’s tour...
Send us a text In this episode, I'm joined by an actor, writer, comedian and TV star, thanks to roles in Look Around You; Fags, Mags & Bags; Dept Q; I Swear; the new Irn Bru advert - and of course, Still Game... He's also a synthesizer and keytar maverick who’s played on-stage with Wilco - but we'll come to that.. Sanjeev’s starring in a new adults-only panto this month - Patter Productions’ The Wizard Wae The Big Baws - which is touring Greenock, Dumbarton and Glasgow this mo...
Send us a text In this episode - recorded live at the wonderful Stand in Glasgow - I’m joined by a legendary musician, singer and songwriter who’s been associated with so many bands and artists that if I listed them all, we’d be here till next week… They include, however, The Pretty Flowers - with BMX Bandits’ Duglas T Stewart, The Soup Dragons’ Sean Dickson, and The Vaselines’ Frances McKee - not to mention The Boy Hairdressers, The Clouds, The New Mendicants, Jonny, Jad Fair, De La So...
Send us a text This episode was recorded live at Glasgow’s Civic House a few weeks back, as part of the brilliant Scottish Mental Health Arts Festival… I was joined by three of Scotland’s most vital songwriters and musicians, for an evening of live music and conversation that reflected on the ways in which music and creativity can have an impact on mental health - for better, and worse - both on a personal level, and with regard to bringing about wider social change, and kindness, and underst...
Send us a text This week I'm hearing from two terrific writers whose latest books are perfect for cosy reading over the next few weeks - and beyond... Jenny Colgan is a best-selling author. whose latest - The Secret Christmas Library - follows accidental book detective Mirren, and Jamie, who's desperately trying to do his best on a crumbling family estate in the Highlands... It's a snowed-in, fired-up celebration of family, secrets, ancient novels, dogs, adventures, mysteries, castles -...
Send us a text In this episode I’m delighted to be joined by actor, artist, comedian and Still Game favourite Gavin Mitchell who - among other things - is known and loved as Boabby the Barman… His work includes early roles on stage and behind the scenes at The Citz in Glasgow, via Velvet Soup, Monarch of the Glen, Bill Forsyth’s Being Human, Casablanca: The Gin Joint Cut - and various dramas with his kindred spirit John Byrne, including the Tutti Frutti theatre show… We recorded this conversa...
Send us a text In this episode, I’m joined by the brilliant poet Hollie McNish, whose latest collection, Virgin, is out this week. We caught up last night in her dressing room, ahead of a sold-out gig at Glasgow’s Oran Mor, kicking off her Scottish book tour. Virgin is a blazing, bright, riled love letter to the best of us - which is most of us - in the face of man-made constructs, expectations, blame, shame, and abuses of power. It features mashed potatoes, pomegranates, warm baths, po...
Send us a text While I’ve got your ear, just a quick reminder that on the afternoon of Thursday the 9th of October I’ll be in conversation with writer and legend Denise Mina - that’s at The Stand in Glasgow, it’s at half two - and it’d be lovely to see you there. You can get tickets for the price of a coffee via akickupthearts.org… There are also events coming up with Emma Pollock, Irvine Welsh, John Niven, Sanjeev Kohli and Teenage Fanclub’s Norman Blake, Michael Pedersen - and more chats wi...
Send us a text We’re back at Scotland’s Crime Writing Festival, Bloody Scotland, for this episode - which is a whistle-stop blether with three of the many, many excellent writers who’re in my home town of Stirling this weekend… Tariq Ashkanani’s latest wide-screen Americana novel, The Midnight King, hones in on a best-selling writer, a father, a widower, and a friendly man who - guess what - is also a serial killer. It won this year’s McIlvanney Prize for best Scottish Crime book of the...
Send us a text Recorded live at The Stand, Glasgow... Scotland’s Crime Writing Festival, Bloody Scotland, kicks off tomorrow - that’s Friday September 12th, we’ll all be there and hopefully you will too… Ian Rankin’s the guest programmer, I’m chairing Ian and various actors who’ve played Rebus over the years at the Albert Halls tomorrow, and then I’m in conversation with Mark Billingham and Laura Lippman on Saturday, and there are so many terrific events taking place from Friday to Sund...
Send us a text This week, we’re looking back at this year’s Edinburgh Fringe, where we had a brilliant run of live guests including Barbara Dickson, Gordon Buchanan, Gavin Mitchell, Horse and Justin Currie - thank you so much for joining us, if you came along… I’ll post those chats, and others, in due course, but this week, we’re hearing from actor and broadcaster Grant Stott, who regalled us with tales about music, showbiz and secretarial studies at The Stand, and he talked about his family ...
Send us a text This week, I’m at Edinburgh’s Voodoo Rooms, for a chat with the goddess - the countess - that is Fay Fife… The Rezillos and Revillos trailblazer - and the only person in the history of the universe to sing Top of the Pops on - yes - Top of the Pops… is playing at the Voodoo Rooms from August 12th to 17th- so we caught up for a coffee, to chat all about it… She’ll be raising the roof with her swaggering country insurgents The Countess of Fife, playing songs from the glorious alb...
Send us a text Recorded at the East Neuk Festival in Fife This week, I’m hearing from one of our most gorgeous, and inventive musicians, who’s a composer, harpist, singer, songwriter and - as it turns out - a pretty fierce conductor too. Esther Swift is at Edinburgh International Book Festival tonight (August 15th) - in a collaboration with Jackie Kay - so we talked about that, and Esther’s glorious album Expectations of a Lifetime… But we met after her superb Zulu Voyage community performanc...
Send us a text This episode was recorded live at the brilliant Portobello Bookshop, in (near!) Edinburgh - thank you so much to Euan and the gang for making us so welcome - as ever - and to everyone at Birlinn. And thanks to the legend Val McDermid - folk singer; football fan; Fun Loving Crime Writer; creator of heroes like Lindsay Gordon, Wire in the Blood’s Carol Jordan and Allie Burns - and a newly-appointed doctor of letters. But we’ll get to that… To celebrate the paperback edition of h...
Send us a text This week, we’re chatting about comedian, writer and director Paul Black's terrific new BBC short film - Govan Fair Queen - which sees nine-year-old Abigail reluctantly roped into entering the annual local pageant by her fired-up granny Linda - played by Elaine C Smith. It’s a really warm and funny love letter to family, community and pride, via footballers, flatpack furniture and crufts… And it also features surely the three greatest-named siblings you’ll ever hear… ...
Send us a text Before we get to this episode, recorded at the brilliant Glasgow Women’s Library, a reminder that A Kick Up The Arts is live at the Edinburgh Fringe in August… I’d love you to join me at the Stand, which is only a five-minute walk from Waverley Station, for lunchtime chats with guests Gavin Mitchell on August 18, Gordon Buchanan on the 19th, Barbara Dickson on the 20th, Grant Stott on the 21st, Justin Currie on the 23rd, and then - on the 24th - the iconic Horse will be c...
Send us a text We’re at one of my old places of work for this episode - The Tron theatre in Glasgow, to celebrate a terrific one-man play called Man’s Best Friend - you might have seen the dogs who’re ostensibly at the heart of it all over social media - and it’s there until the 12th of July, before touring Aberdeen, Ayr, Dundee, Edinburgh, Greenock and Inverness in the Autumn. It’s written by Scottish theatre lodestar Douglas Maxwell, and directed by Tron artistic Director Jemima Levick, who...
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