An evening with… Damian Barr

Join us for an evening with author Damian Barr to discuss his new book The Two Roberts – a novelisation of the true story of working class artists, Robert Colquhoun and Bobby MacBryde. All tickets include a glass of wine or a soft drink and there will be the opportunity to get your book signed too.

‘Epic and touching’

DAVID NICHOLLS

 About The Two Roberts
Meet Robert MacBryde and Robert Colquhoun: artists, lovers, outsiders. From 1930s Glasgow to wartime London, The Two Roberts is a captivating love story, inspired by the true story of their wild lives.

Scotland, 1933. Bobby MacBryde is on his way. After years grafting at Lees Boot Factory, he’s off to the Glasgow School of Art, to his future. On his first day he will meet another Robert, a quiet man with loose dark curls – and never leave his side. Together they will spend every penny and every minute devouring Glasgow – its botanical gardens, the Barras market, a whole hidden city – all the while loving each other behind closed doors. With the world on the brink of war, their unrivalled talent will take them to Paris, Rome, London. They will become stars as the bombs fall, hosting wild parties with the likes of Lucian Freud, Francis Bacon and Elizabeth Smart. But the brightest stars burn fastest.

Stunningly reimagined, The Two Roberts is a profoundly moving story of devotion and obsession, art and class. It is a love letter to MacBryde and Colquhoun, the almost-forgotten artists who tried to change the way the world sees – and paid a devastating price.

‘Working-class life and artistic Bohemia collide in this novel of all-consuming passion and the torture of creation. Brilliantly written, poignant and powerful. This is Damian Barr’s chef-d’oeuvre’

IAN RANKIN

About Damian Barr
Damian Barr is an award-winning writer, broadcaster and journalist. His memoir Maggie & Me, won Stonewall Writer of the Year and Sunday Times Memoir of the Year. His debut novel, You Will Be Safe Here, was shortlisted for six major awards and named a Book of the Year in the Observer, Guardian and Mail. He has written columns for The Times and Sunday Times and hosted Front Row on BBC Radio 4 as well as his own series Guide Books. In 2019, Damian brought books back to television with the Big Scottish Book Club, now in its sixth series and syndicated internationally. Also on BBC TV, he presented Shelf Isolation and the landmark documentary for Sir Walter Scott’s 250th.

Damian holds a PhD in Creative Writing from Lancaster University and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. His world-famous Literary Salon ran from 2008 to 2023, celebrating writers from around the world and widening the cultural conversation. He is a trustee of Gladstone’s Library and a campaigner for libraries. He lives in Brighton.

 ‘The Two Roberts is the greatest and truest story of two male lovers I have ever read. A masterpiece. The celebration of these men while staring down their every relentless failing is world class. What an act of the imagination! It’s wonderful, beautiful, heartbreaking, inspiring, honest, true, vital and magnificent. They live, they love, they fight, they sing, they fight naked and drunk, this is truly a literary miracle to look at these men and create them anew with such love, but such a tough, cold eye too’

RUSSELL T DAVIES