Sproule gig moved from music venue to Garrison
Tonight’s concert by American country artiste Devon Sproule has been switched from Mareel to the Garrison Theatre after more hiccups with the opening of the controversial music venue.
Support acts are Chloe Robertson and Sheila Duncan and some tickets are still available from the Shetland Box Office.
Promoter Neil Riddell said: “The original tickets are valid and the doors open at 7.30pm as planned. We can only apologise for all the confusion and the last-minute change of venue, but Devon and her band are still very much looking forward to playing for everyone.”
If people want a refund they can claim it beforehand by contacting Shetland Box Office.
Meanwhile, Shetland Arts has booked two performances by well-known Welsh singer Cerys Matthews in December.
The former Catatonia frontwoman will play at the music venue on Thursday 20th December at 5.45pm and 8.30pm, with tickets now on sale through the Shetland Box Office.
The “Cerys by Candlelight” tour is being billed as “a festive feast of music, poetry and the purely unexpected that makes each and every Cerys Matthews live show a unique experience”.
Matthews has come a long way since her big 1990s hits with Catatonia and her talents have emerged in her successful solo albums, ranging from Cock A Hoop, recorded in Nashville in 2003, through to 2009’s Don’t Look Down and the more recent Explorer (2011).
A Shetland Arts spokeswoman said: “She will also have a new album Baby, It’s Cold Outside, featuring 15 winter favourites, sung with great gusto and humour, two qualities that no doubt Cerys will be looking for when she visits Mareel in Shetland.
“There will be candles and songs so familiar that you will have little option but to sing along (with a sheet in your hand). It will be winter warming magic, and the perfect way to start your Christmas holidays with all the family.”
Tickets are £23.50 (£20 for under-14s for the 5.45pm concert) and can be booked via Shetland Box Office at Islesburgh Community Centre on (01595) 745555, or online at www.shetlandboxoffice.org.
S Terris
I have to ask, will Mareel be ready for Thursday 20th December? What odds can I get at the bookies?
Stuart Terris
ian tinkler
Whoops, here we go again. What a surprise,
ian tinkler
Lisa Ward
Dear Mr Tinkler
This is a message to inform you that you have been banned from the Mareel Facebook page due to numerous comments containing abusive language and significantly misleading statements about Shetland Arts’ staff.
Mareel’s Facebook page is a moderated space and, while we welcome opinions on Mareel, both positive and negative, we do not permit comments that attack Shetland Arts’ staff personally or that significantly misrepresent facts about the Agency and its venues.
You are, of course, welcome to share opinions of this sort elsewhere, but please refrain from doing so in Shetland Arts’ spaces in the future.
Kind regards
Lisa Ward
Marketing Officer
WHOOPS. Winston Churchill QuotesYou have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.
ian tinkler
Abusive language! Please highlight, significantly misleading statements, again do the same.
Lisa Ward, Shetlands Art, Mouthpiece, how about some honesty
Robert Lowes
Where’s the ‘like’ button? I’m looking for it so I can click it multiple times, but I can’t find the bloody thing.
Yours chortlingly,
ian tinkler
Lisa Ward, you stated, “Due to numerous comments containing abusive language and significantly misleading statements,” About time to go to law. Do you not think? I do and will, Lisa, abusive language, misleading statements; I have done no more than tell the absolute truth. You libel me, so much for honesty.
Ms S V Jolly
@ Lisa Ward: I’d be quite surprised if you haven’t broken Facebook’s Terms & Conditions by publishing outside of Facebook that Mr Tinkler has been banned from Mareel’s Facebook page. It is hardly professional of Shetland Arts to announce to all – could you not just have sent him a pm on Facebook?
Susan Jolly
Robert Simpson
Ever get the feeling that maybe the world doesn’t need to hear your thoughts all the time? Ever tune into that ‘silence is golden’ vibe. I know I do 🙂
Peace.
W Conroy
I’d like to apologise first as my reply has little to do with the story posted above but as Mr Tinkler seems to be posting his personal facebook comments here I’m starting to think of this as his personal blog space and have temporarily lost my common sense…
I dare say its when a person starts spewing bile and resorts to calling everyone else an idiot is around the point at which you can been seen to be overstepping the mark.
As has been commented by many others… Are the constant negative comments necessary? Is it possible to read a page of this online paper that Mr Tinkler doesn’t have a nasty comment about or doesn’t respond to others with animosity or worse still a personal attack?
Please Mr Tinkler… If you must spread your bile could you possibly use somewhere else as your personal blog space? You are making the online newspaper an unpleasant place to visit for the rest of us!
Wayne Conroy
Sandy McDonald
I think maybe Iain your crime is the the cause of abusive language from others.
ian tinkler
WHOOPS. Winston Churchill Quotes You have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.
ian tinkler
Just to clear a point. Lisa did not publish outside Facebook that she had banned me from Mareel’s facebook page. It was in fact me who chose to publish her epistle. Alongside Mr. Lowes I found the incident funny. It showed I was getting my point home; I was actually banned paradoxically for wishing Mareel’s staff well and daring to suggest someone at Shetland Arts should be held accountable for the fiasco of premature ticket sales. May I suggest slimming down of numbers employed in Shetland Arts could free funds to pay for music teaching in schools, starting at the top perhaps?
L Brown
@Susan Jolly
If you reread the comment you will see that it is actually Ian Tinkler posting the message he received from Lisa Ward and neither herself nor Shetland Arts announcing the fact that he is now banned from the Mareel page.
Liz Brown
Robert Lowes
@ S V Jolly
Read the comment again. It’s fairly obvious that this is either an email or Facebook message that has been sent to Mr Tinkler and which HE has chosen to air in public by cutting and pasting into a Shetland Times comment. It has his name attached to the bottom. You can hardly accuse Lisa Ward or Shetland Arts acting unprofessionally because the man chooses to air his dirty laundry in public.
Tommy Robertson
@ Ms S.V Jolly – look again, it is Mr Tinkler who has published a personal message from facebook, not the other way round.
It is entirely up to anyone who can or cant post on thier facebook page. We have all seen the lies and strange fantasies Mr Tinkler has been posting regarding Mareel, let alone his multiple personal attacks on individuals, why would anyone want that on thier facebook, or anywhere for that matter!
Posting it here is just yet another example of his delusion.
Tommy Robertson
Johan Adamson
I really enjoy a debate but this thread has moved just about as far from debate as possible. Please can you close the comments? As others have said, please can we move away from the personal comments and stick to reasoned argument or to humour if reason is not available, to make this worth reading.
ian tinkler
Now let’s just see if Mareel sinks or swims on its own. Then we will see who is delusional. At this time it has not had a very auspicious start; in fact it could not have been much worse.
Ms S V Jolly
I apologise to Lisa Ward for my error; unfortunately I have an eye problem at the moment for which I am receiving medical treatment!
I do tend to find it annoying when many Facebook pages tend to delete criticisms. That said, I don’t understand why you, Mr Tinkler, would want to broadcast the fact that you have been banned from Mareel’s Facebook page, allegedly for your choice of language, so to speak.
Whilst I’m not necessarily a fan of Mr Tinkler’s style, whether people care to admit it or not, Mareel’s opening is way over its anticipated opening date and has been somewhat shambolic.
leslie sinclair
It would be great if Mareel could be open soon for the benefit of the Shetland community.
Billy Wiseman
It would be great if Ian Tinkler could be sent back to where he came from for the benefit of the Shetland community!
ian tinkler
Thanks Billy, very constructive argument.
On a more intelligent plain, to answer Ms. S V Jolly’s, queries as to why I let it be known I had been banned from Mareel’s facebook. It was simply to draw attention to the fact that the Mareel/ Shetland Arts facebook was little more than a PR organ exploiting the wonders of the Mareel project. Criticisms of the “Soft Non Opening” are definitely not on the agenda. Nor the clear miss selling and advertising of tickets to various events. I was accused of using abusive language about the Staff of Shetlands Arts. The worst language I used targeted at whoever is responsible for this mess and the miss selling of tickets. The words stupid and incompetent clearly are appropriate and have been shown, I believe as do many others, to be wholly appropriate and to be true. That is really a very mild criticism; miss selling is often regarded as dishonest and sharp practice. I do not believe that to be the case, pure incompetence far more likely. I will again wish the Mareel project well and I hope Shetland Arts enjoy their new home. The most expensive and indulged office block in the UK, well done, great empire building, and great PR. I would love your personal stereo and film unit. Pity no one else can use it yet. My original question, as yet, still unanswered is how much is your overspend now?
Johan Adamson
I feel for Shetland Arts staff. they are so busy working on taking the Hansel of film around Britain, fiddle frenzy, Screenplay, wordplay, teaching college courses and on and on and then they have the embarrassment of not opening and cancelling everything (whatever positive spin may be put on it) and they have to move offices too. They are going to need a big paerty.
Shetland Arts
A note of correction: today’s Shetland Times contains a misleading statement which appears to imply that Shetland Arts’ Marketing Officer Lisa Ward posted a letter on its website about the recent banning of an individual from Mareel’s Facebook page for violating the commenting policy (policy publicly available on the “About” section of the page). This is categorically untrue.
The aforementioned “letter” refers to the comments posted above by said individual, quoting a private message he received from Shetland Arts as part of our standard moderation procedures. Shetland Arts’ did not make this information public at any point. We are disappointed that this misleading statement was published and saddened that we have been forced to comment publicly on this matter.
Jim Tait
The Shetland Times is now aware that the statement from Lisa Ward was not posted on our website by herself, and actually by Ian Tinkler. We therefore apologise to Ms Ward and Shetland Arts for the error.
While we will continue to accept general comments about Mareel in future correspondence we would be grateful if contributors would refrain from making personal attacks and abusive comments, as these will not be published.
Jim Tait
News Editor, The Shetland Times
Sandy McMillan
As we all know Mareel is in a state of limbo, we have Lisa Ward in the Mareel corner and Ian Tinkler in the public corner, It is a very good contest lets hope Mareel can put on as good a show if it ever opens!, thats the question, another question I would like answered is who is footing Mareels staff wages and the overheads as a building the size of Mareel will not come cheap to run , as there is no source of income that I know of, so where is the cash coming from, or is Mareel living on borrowed time.
Sandy McMillan
Johan Adamson
Shetland Arts is funded by The Charitable Trust and Scottish Arts (or whatever it is called these days) and anyone else who will fund projects (Leader, Trusts etc). Public money for our benefit. The SIC are paid to calculate their wages and look after the IT etc.
ian tinkler
So Mareel has at last opened its door, considerably over budget and after such a dither and ineptitude. I wish it well and all who perform in her. One final point (rant?)I would like to raise at this time is that, for a venue pertaining to raise the profile of Shetland talent, it’s forth coming schedule of events is almost totally devoid of concerts performed by local artist. Shetland arts seem to be targeting “prestige acts” and ignoring our own home grown talent.
I spoke to a lovely, talented and highly acclaimed young artist yesterday who was very crestfallen that no one at Shetland Arts had offered her a chance to perform at Mareel; no one at Shetland Arts had even contacted her at that time! How many other young Shetland artists have been ignored by Shetland Arts? I would suggest to remedy this unacceptable impression, a major benefit opening concert should be arranged, only Shetland artists performing. All profits, including Shetlands’ Arts fees and Mareel’s commissions and bar profits to be donated to fund “free music tuition in schools and the Freefield day centre”. That is a concert I would pay good monies to go to.
ian tinkler
Sandy McMillan, I am glad you enjoyed the Lisa, Tink, scrap, it was more Tink Shetland arts really, Lisa just did her job and followed orders from above. No hard feeling and no offense meant to Lisa, as for her bosses, well I am being moderated so best say no more. Great to be banned from Mareel facebook, gave me really good publicity and a chance to air my views. It gave me radio time across all Scotland and further air time across Shetland and Orkney. Anyone got a recording, I never heard it. Enough said about Mareel, enjoy it Shetland, it’s your very own money drain. Now I will try and save a few schools not enough funds to keep them open. I wonder why?
Robert Lowes
And now your motivations are revealed. Not the intention to highlight a perceived wrongs, nor a sense of public duty, but your own publicity. Narcissism at it’s worst. And now you’re off to save a few schools? Ian, your sense of self-importance is not only ludicrous, it’s laughable.
James MacGregor
Shetland talent is certainly not being ignored in Mareel. The NYJO of Scotland includes our very own Maggie Adamson in its line-up and this weekend also showcased the talents of a lot of young Shetland musicians who have been attending jazz workshops with the NYJOS while they have been with us in Shetland. They played Water Melon Man to great effect, astonishing for such a short-term exposure to a new genre of music.
And that was just the first weekend, Mr Tinkler. On Thursday night Mareel is bringing us the talented Neil Georgeson playing classical music on Mareel’s Steinway. He comes from Aith, Mr Tinkler. Instead of constantly criticising Shetland Arts, why don’t you go and save his old school from possible closure?
ian tinkler
Robert, you state “My motivations are revealed. Not the intention to highlight perceived wrongs, nor a sense of public duty, but your own publicity. Narcissism at its worst. And now you’re off to save a few schools? Ian, your sense of self-importance is not only ludicrous, it’s laughable.” Sticks and stones, Robert, hardly a powerful incisive argument. All I have stated about Mareel and the senior executive officers of Shetland arts has been shown, by recent events. to be only too true. The only fact we do not know now, is just how much over budget Mareel comes in at. Shetland arts for some reason refuse to divulge how deep the begging bowl will be. Such secrecy, in my opinion, is verging on the obscene All Mareel’s funding to date has been Shetlander’s and tax payer’s monies, with a bit of help from the lottery. Ironic if Freefield had to close its doors so cash could be diverted to keep Mareel from going under. That would be unforgivable. Now unless you have some further insult to throw at me, for your own sake, maybe it’s time for you to stop giving me a further platform to publicly air my views about Mareel.