The Printed Word

The 2019-20 Elite League is shaping up to be the most open yet. Coventry Blaze took the honours with a clean sweep of four points from this weekend - the only club to achieve that. They came up big on their scottish double header, winning 2-1 at Dundee Stars thank to a short-handed winner from Alex Forbes, and then ended Glasgow Clan’s eight-game winning streak with a free-scoring 8-6 victory. Those results gave Danny Stewart’s side a berth on the top five, one point below Fife Flyers who enjoyed a three-point weekend. They logged the miles in a  double header with Guildford Flames, losing 3-2 in overtime on home ice - after trailing 2-0 - but reversing the scoreline with an excellent 2-1 road win on Sunday. Todd Dutiaume’s side now face three tough games on the spin,  travelling to Nottingham on Saturday, before entertaining league leaders Sheffield Steelers on Saturday and then Belfast Giants on a televised game on Wednesday. Interestingly all tof th...

"I don't want to go home. I don't want to leave the stage." Richard Hawley makes no secret of his love for the Barrowland - and the  fans who packed it for his third visit would have happily adopted him and fulfilled his request tom move to Scotland. Touring to promote his eighth album, the excellent Further, the Sheffield singer-songwriter delivered the most glorious ballads, and then cranked the reverb up to maximum and blistered a layer of paint from this remarkable old venue. From start to finish, this gig was a blast. Hawley remains the single most under-rated songwriter of the past few decades - Tonight The Streets Are Ours remains a wonderful anthem. His trademark ballads, lush and layered quite beautifully, are the soundtrack to many people's lives. He didn't disappoint, delivering an utterly  magnificent Coles Corner, and showcasing the strengths of his new album with the showstopping Emelina Says, and Not Lonely which pinpoints the differ...

Happy birthday Adam Smith Theatre - 120 years young, and still the beating heart of  Kirkcaldy's cultural life. I couldn't even begin to count the number of shows I've seen there over the last 30-plus years. In the days when it hosted week-long stays for TV stars - Tarbie, Mike & Bernie Winters, The Nolans, Peter Morrison, and so on - and the biggest names from what we used to call 'light entertainment' every Monday night was theatre night for FFP staff. It was always a full house - two seats for the price of one ensured a full house of canny Fifers! - and our job was to deliver a positive review, from which a quote would duly appear on the posters for the end of the run. The same stars would also be the subject of a photo-shoot dreamt up by Bert Ross, the theatre's PR man, who'd pop in every week with a press pack, a joke or two,  and another idea to secure a front page pic. When Anna Wing, who played Lou Beale in Eastenders, appeared in a pl...

Ice hockey’s Challenge Cup finally kicks into life this weekend as qualifying places are on the line. Pic: Steve Gunn A competition hamstrung by a clunky structure will now deliver some definitive findings as places in the knockout stages start to fill. Group A could even deliver a thrilling, possibly intriguing final weekend. Four teams are chasing three qualifying spots - and therein lies one of the  structural problems. It’s even worse in Groups B and C where two of the three teams qualify, while the ones left behind stage a one-off game to claim the last of the eight quarter-final places. While they need one win to get to the stage of the competition that really matters, so do Fife Flyers. Two wins could give them top seeding and the pick of their quarter-final opponents, but, just for balance, two losses will pretty much end their interest. Flyers probably have more to play for than all of the teams in Groups B and C combined. The good news...