Take One Action

In the year of our Lord 2025, Take One Action, Scotland’s film festival dedicated to social justice, is as necessary as ever. The event, now in its 17th edition, uses cinema as a catalyst to help audiences explore how they can reclaim political agency, create solidarity, and feel less helpless in the face of injustices happening on our doorstep here in Scotland and across the world. 

This year’s programme is centred around the theme 'Real Utopias' and presents work featuring collective struggles and people imagining better futures. Among the highlights are Power Station, a heartwarming portrait of a community attempting to turn their suburban street into an energy-generating powerhouse; Union, about Amazon workers fighting for better conditions; and the classic 1984 documentary Red Skirts on Clydeside. Screenings kick off this week at Filmhouse in Edinburgh (17-21 Sep), before moving to Glasgow (25-28 Sep) later in the month, then to Inverness (10-12 Oct) and Dundee (7-8 Nov). Full programme at takeoneaction.org.uk

Mary, Queen of Scots | Image: Andy Ross

Mary, Queen of Scots

Theatre Royal, Glasgow. 17-20 Sep
 

Fresh from dazzling Edinburgh International Festival audiences last month, Scottish Ballet’s newest production, a queer, sexy, punky retelling of the fraught relationship between Mary Stuart and Queen Elizabeth I, begins its run in Glasgow.

Matthew Arthur Williams, Emollition Man, 2023 | courtesy of the artist

Matthew Andrew Williams

Stills, Edinburgh. 12 Sep-18 Oct
 

Matthew Arthur Williams’ new exhibition excavates the capacity of memory to hold and reveal hidden histories in the face of structural erasure. Through a series of self-portraits and landscapes, his photography examines states of loss and absence, reclamation and retrieval.

Ceylan Hay | Image: Elly Lucas

AMPLIFI

Queen's Hall, Edinburgh. 15 Sep, 8pm
 

AMPLIFI’s 5th season comes to a close – before they come back with a bang next month – with this intimate show featuring three musicians on the rise: multi-instrumentalist Bella Lungs (aka Ceylan Hay, pictured); experimental musician Kevin Leomo; and Glasgow-based ambient musician Lucian Fletcher.

Whiplash | Image: Sony Pictures

Whiplash + Allison Gardner

Glasgow Film Theatre. 14 Sep, 1.45pm
 

GFT say goodbye to its long-serving CEO, Allison Gardner, after three decades of service to the arthouse cinema, with an on-stage conversation looking back at key moments from her career, followed by a screening of Damien Chazelle’s Whiplash, one of Gardner's personal faves. She’ll be much missed.

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Advertorial: Rufus Wainwright's Want Symphonic: LIVE

Usher Hall, Edinburgh. 20 Sep, 7.30pm | The Glasshouse, Gateshead. 21 Sep 7.30pm

Rufus Wainwright teams up with the epic forces of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra for two unforgettable nights. Experience lush orchestral arrangements from his Want One and Want Two albums in a breathtaking performance with the BBC SSO that's a "match made in heaven" (The Herald). Don’t miss this rare chance to hear Rufus’s baroque-pop classics reimagined in glorious symphonic form!

Tickets at bbc.in/RufusBBCSSO

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Self Esteem | Image: Charlotte Patmore

↪ Self Esteem

Usher Hall, Edinburgh. 16 Sep, 7pm

Self Esteem (aka Rebecca Lucy Taylor) comes to Edinburgh with a tour celebrating her third album, A Complicated Woman. As with her spectacular Prioritise Pleasure show, expect spiky but anthemic pop songs, hugely danceable beats and jaw-dropping choreography. She's also at Barrowlands in Glasgow 20 and 21 Sep.

→ Josie Long

The Stand, Glasgow. 11 Sep, 7pm

Beloved comedian Josie Long brings her freewheeling Fringe show all about extinct megafauna to Glasgow. As well as reflecting on prehistoric beasts, expect Long to have something to say on the state of the world today. In addition to great comedy, this is also the perfect excuse to check out The Stand’s new venue on Great Western Road.

→ Lindsay Mendick: Growing Pains

15 Reform Street, Dundee. From 13 Sep

Margate-based sculptor Lindsey Mendick transforms a vacant high street shop in Dundee into an 'imagined estate agency' for this intriguing off-site collaboration with Jupiter Artland. We're told the installation, titled Growing Pains, will explore class, social mobility and the teenage experience.