RICHARD JOBSON in conversation: The Kreuzberg Sonata and more

What a treat of an event we have in store!

Join Richard Jobson of The Skids in conversation, focused on hs fiction novel 'The Kreuzberg Sonata'. Richard will be chatting about the book, his writing, his time in Berlin (1979/80) and so much more for sure!

About the book:

Lang, a would-be writer falls in love with Caroline and follows her to Berlin in 1979.

They live together in the run-down district of Kreuzberg only a few streets away from the Wall.

In search of his heroes Joseph Roth and Kurt Tucholsky he navigates an island-city inhabited with a cynical mix of punk-squatters, heroin addicts, transvestites, prostitutes and dreamers.

As events overtake the young lovers, Lang realises that Berlin is now a city of ghosts where tragedy remains the only certainty.

About the Author:

Richard Jobson is the singer and lyricist with Scottish Punk band The Skids, who had a string of hits such as Into the Valley and The Saints are Coming which was recently covered by U2 and Green Day.

He was briefly in The Armoury Show with guitar legend John McGeoch, creating the album Waiting for the Floods

He published a series of books and spoken word records before becoming Sky TV’s Movie critic. He also produced as series of drama/docs for Ch4 with legendary American essayist Joe Queenan.

He produced ‘Tube Tales’ for BskyB in 1999 before producing and writing the story for ‘Heartlands’ for Miramax the following year. He directed his memoir ‘16 Years of Alcohol’ in 2001to critical acclaim, picking up best new director at the BIFA’s as well as awards at various festivals such as Edinburgh and Seville.

His second outing as a writer director in 2003 was an adaptation of his own comic book characters THE PURIFIERS, a Kung Fu gang movie with a Glasgow backdrop. He described the film as being a gift to his young son, Archie, who like him loved a mixture of graphic novels, comics and computer games.

His third movie set in his beloved Edinburgh was an existential SCi-FI romance set in a turbulent world of Parallel Universes and exploding stars. Written in French and English, the film A WOMAN IN WINTER, premiered at the LFF in 2005.

All of his films to date have been shot on HI-definition and for budgets ranging from £300k to £500k. He has attempted to take the possibility of digital technology to a higher level with each project, focussing on the ambitious themes with a fresh approach to a new visual language. This ambition to create new digital formats has also been evident in his short multi-platform work such as the Bafta award winning ‘I am Digital’ and the follow up projects ‘Am I digital’, which have been picked up by Sony for the PS3 platform.

His fourth film, NEW TOWN KILLERS, was inspired by the work he has been doing with Edinburgh charity ‘Circle’, which Jobson was asked to work on by Sarah Brown. The charity focuses on the marginalised, near socially invisible people from the outlying estates of Edinburgh. Jobson took a fictional 16-year-old character and placed him in the middle of an Edinburgh noir where two hedge fund managers have set him up to play a violent game of hide and seek.

He completed the hard-hitting sex trafficking film The Journey with Emma Thompson in 2010. This provocative film was premiered at the United Nations in New York.

In 2012 he filmed his fifth movie as a writer/directorThe Somnambulists, the story of 14 British service men and women’s experiences in Basra during the Iraq conflict. He describes it as a ghost story that points the finger at us the audience who allowed the war to happen without trying harder to stop it.

His sixth movie the feature film WAYLANDS SONG. The film premiered at the Cannes film festival in 2015.

In 2015 Somnambulists premiered as theatrical play at the Quarry Theatre in Bedford.
An exhibition of his photographic was held in 2016 at the Fire-station Gallery in Dunfermline. It concentrated on former coal mines where his Father worked in Fife which had been returned to nature.

He recorded the first Skids album in 35 years and toured with the band to celebrate its 40th Anniversary. The album Burning Cities was produced by Youth, responsible for global hits from acts as varied as The Verve, Pink Floyd, Jesus and MaryChain and Paul McCartney.
An exhibition co-curated with Ronnie Gurr called Scared to Dance opened in the Fire-station in Dunfermline from June 7th to July 2nd 2017. The show focused on punk and its influence on Scotland from 1977.

He released his biography Into the Valley to great acclaim in 2018

A new novel The Speed of Life was published by Unbound in 2018. It's a story of two Aliens who arrive on Earth to find their hero David Bowie so he might instruct them in the nature of creativity.

A long collaboration with Independent publisher Bracketpress has seen the releases of a flurry of books which include:

16 Years of Alcohol - memoir - 2018 (original book 1982)

Into the Void - novel - 2020

Another Dead Soul - novel -2024

The Kreuzberg Sonata - New edition 2025

No Bad books - the words of the Skids - 2020

Castles in Spain - the story of The Armoury Show - 2021

Days In Europa - the story of the recording of the Skids seminal album - 2024

He has published two books with Random Spectacular along with illustrator Jonny Hannah:The Story of the Skids 2021and The Alabama Song - 2025

He is currently working on The Ballad of Jo Lim - an existential hitman story set in Hong Kong and London