“The skailing of the picters”: The coming of the talkies in small rural townships in Scotland

Neely, S. (2020) “The skailing of the picters”: The coming of the talkies in small rural townships in Scotland. Journal of British Cinema and Television, 17(2), pp. 254-272. (doi: 10.3366/jbctv.2020.0522)

Abstract

Like that of many other nations, Scotland’s film history has been characterised largely by its focus on its great metropolitan centres. The occasional studies which do look outside ‘The Central Belt' stretching between Scotland’s two greatest cities, Glasgow and Edinburgh, are likely to concentrate on two of its other sizeable cities, Aberdeen and Dundee. This article will consider cinemas north of Inverness (Scotland’s most northerly city), including those in Wick, Thurso, and the islands of Orkney and Shetland.   The talkies arrived late to all of the townships considered. Cinema audiences dwindled as silent films fell out of favour with local audiences well aware of the ubiquity of the talkies elsewhere in Britain.  When sound finally did arrive, the return of audiences to local picture houses had a great impact on the small rural townships, forcing councils to deal with the ‘problem of the talkie queues’ and the ‘skailing of the picters’ (the audiences spilling out into the town after a film). Using a variety of archival sources – from local newspapers, council reports, oral histories and diary entries – this article focuses on the various economic and social impacts resulting from the arrival of sound.

• Item Type: Articles
• Keywords: cinema conversion, early cinema in Scotland, John O'Groat Journal, Kirkwall, Lerwick, Orkney and Shetland, talkies, The Orcadian, Thurso, transition to sound, Wick.
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Neely, Professor Sarah
• Authors: Neely, S.
• College/School: College of Arts & Humanities > School of Culture and Creative Arts > Theatre Film and TV Studies
• Journal Name: Journal of British Cinema and Television
• Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
• ISSN: 1743-4521
• ISSN (Online): 1755-1714
• Published Online: 01 March 2020
• Copyright Holders: Copyright © Edinburgh University Press 2022
• First Published: First published in Journal of British Cinema and Television 17(2):254-272
• Publisher Policy: Reproduced in accordance with publisher policy