ArtWorks Scotland Season 2008

Mark Seen

Danger! New Opera! Mar 24, 2008 Series about contemporary Scottish art. Scottish Opera has commissioned five new operas from some of Scotland's top writers and composers, including Ian Rankin, Alexander McCall Smith and Craig Armstrong. Some of them have never written an opera before. Can they attract a new audience to 21st century opera?

Mark Seen

Alison Watt: A Painter's Eye May 30, 2008 A personal and revealing insight into the mind of one of the art world's brightest stars. Alison Watt made her name when, still in her 20s, she was commissioned to paint a portrait of the Queen Mother. For the last two years she's been working on paintings for a solo exhibition at the National Gallery in London, an honour accorded to very few living artists.

Mark Seen

Tracey Emin: Sex Success and Celebrity Sep 1, 2008 As the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art in Edinburgh showcases 20 years of work by the controversial artist Tracey Emin, Artworks Scotland debates her worth, taking a considered look at her key works as well as the woman behind the hype. Is Emin really a great artist or just the artist we deserve - a product of our self-obsessed, confessional, celebrity age? Journalist Bidisha, sculptor Alexander Stoddart and art critic Tim Marlow help examine the evidence.

Mark Seen

Class Enemy: A Message from Sarajevo Sep 29, 2008 In August this year, the East West Theatre Company from Sarajevo brought a new version of Nigel Williams' play Class Enemy to the Edinburgh International Festival. It's a hard-hitting and foul-mouthed production that tackles the topical subject of youth violence head-on. Is Edinburgh ready for such an unstintingly brutal portrait of the lives of young people today? The programme meets the cast and director Haris Pasovic at home in Sarajevo and follows the journey of the play to Edinburgh and then on to the Glasgow suburb of Rutherglen to see how the production goes down with a group of Scottish teenagers.