This year’s MayDay celebrations in Glasgow will move up a gear, with many more organisations and individuals planning events in this crucial moment just before the election.

One of the many highlights is the hugely popular cabaret Great MayDay Cabaret, now in its third year.

It’s compered by Dave Anderson at Oran Mor on Monday 4 and is headlined by celebrated Irish singer and peace activist Tommy Sands, with poet Elvis McGonagall, actress Juliet Cadzow, comedians Bruce Morton and Susie McCabe and singers Arthur Johnstone and Siobhan Miller also on an outstanding bill.

One hundred years after the success of the Glasgow rent strikers in changing the law, their struggles take centre stage with a screening of the 1984 film Red Skirts on Clydeside Saturday May 2 at Glasgow Film Theatre.

The first world war women’s fight against exploitative attempts by private landlords to hike up rents came to an end after court cases against 18 rent strikers were abandoned in 1915 and the law was changed by the enactment of the Rent Restriction Act. The film is introduced by Maria Fyfe, former MP for Maryhill.

At Oran Mor on Saturday May 2 Glasgow-based film actor Gary Lewis stars in a specially commissioned rehearsed reading of John and Willy Maley’s play From the Calton to Catalonia about their father’s experiences in the International Brigades. Linking International Workers’ Memorial Day on April 28 with MayDay, there’ll be a screening of Ken Loach’s The Navigators on April 30 at CCA.
cca-glasgow.com/glasgowfilm.org/oran-mor.co.uk/may1st.org.uk