Scotland’s Top Theatre Tweeters

Posted by 307 days ago Under Social Media With 1 Comment

 Ilse via Compfight

I was rather disappointed by The Herald’s choices for their list, The Scottish Twitter 100. Their selections foreground traditional celebrity and doesn’t appear to discriminate based on quality of content. Robbie Coltrane (@RobbieColtrane_) manages to make the Top 10 of Acting despite only having tweeted once, nearly two years ago.

Rather than using sticking rigidly to a formula of follower ratio and Klout score, a little editorial tweaking would give greater weight to their ranking. Who do the writers of The Herald view as the most influential Tweeters? The article trumps Twitter as “today’s most powerful social medium” but does an update like David Tennant’s (@David_Tennant) “UK PREMIERE terrestrial television broadcast of St Trinian’s 2 The Legend of Fritton’s Gold starring David Tennant is on Channel Four NOW!!!” really reflect that claim.

The Herald’s list does a poor job representing the burgeoning arts community on Twitter. The list ignores visual art completely and the Top 10 of Acting does little to reflect the rich culture of theatre makers and commentators we have in Scotland.

Most unsettling, the list acknowledges our great Scottish exports but ignores the top notch talent we attract from our neighbours down south and beyond who help make our creative industries so vibrant and sucessful.

The paper invites challenge to their ranking, so here I go. Here is my Scottish Theatre Twitter Top 10. I’ve taken follower ratio and influence into consideration in my ranking along with how much users make me smile or think on a daily basis. I have also used the best indicator of Twitter prowess, Klouchebag, the anti-Klout which measures a users bad tweeting habits and places them on a scale of “ass hattery”. They are listed here in order of lowest (least ass hattish) Klouchbag score. I would have loved to included non-Scots working within Scotland on my list but decided to keep to a similar selection process as The Herald.

On starting this blog post, I had intended on matching The Herald with a Top 10 of my own. Turns out I can only stretch to 5 Top Theatre Tweeting Scots. My Twitter feed is still biased towards the time I spent living in South East England. There are many more great Scottish theatre makers out there using Twitter but not delivering the online impact, content or aggressive networking of their London equivalents. Are theatre makers physically more well linked in Scotland perhaps?

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Alan Bissett

Your friendly neighbourhood Falkirk novelist/playwright/performer.

Followers 1,334 Following 499 Tweets 1,334

Okay, so Alan Bissett was included on The Herald’s Top 10 for Literature but as one of these frustratingly skilled people who can turn their hand to different forms, he deserves to be my list for contributions to theatre too. Lots of personal promotion (which accounts for the incredibly low “ass hat” Klouchebag score of 3. Very few RTs on his feed) alongside independence debate and superhero movies.

Typical tweet

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Scott Purvis

23. Brand new English teacher, WhatsOnStage Glasgow editor and Pokémon Master 1999.

Followers 402 Following 282 Tweets 7,257

Scottish editor for WhatsonStage (so he needs to update his bio) with a genuine enjoyment for and excellent knowledge oftheatre. Daft, witty responses to everything he sees.

Typical tweet

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Davey Anderson

playwright, composer, director

Followers 276 Following 253 Tweets 211

Does brilliant things like share the entire score for a show on SoundCloud.

Typical tweet

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Kieran Hurley

theatre maker writer performer an that

Followers 1,334 Following 499 Tweets 1,334

Able to put across good arguments and pithy comments in well under 140 characters.

Typical tweet

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David Greig

Playwright, hill runner, ukulele player, amateur mycologist.

Followers 3,121 Following 314 Tweets 3,189

One of our greatest playwrights and source of many a great hashtag game. A vocal champion for Scottish theatre and an ace on Twitter.

Typical tweet

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So collating a list might not be as easy as it looks (props, Herald) but I like to think my short list creates a better reflection of a Scottish theatre industry, what concerns them and how they work.

Other top theatre tweeters from or working in Scotland include


Since I published this blog post, Linda McLean (@ElleMcElle)has challenged my exclusion of female theatre makers in my Top Tweeple. Can you suggest some and help me have a more rounded Twitter feed?

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One Comment

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  1. Kevin 18 July, 2012 →

    In terms of female tweeters, have you not considered yourself at all? Could be seen as egotistical, but when I rarely go on/use twitter there’s always some recent tweets from you making mention of theatre-y stuff

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