Crime thriller comes to Oban

True crime has never been more popular - and Scotland has never been more misrepresented by it.

From bestselling novels to streaming dramas and podcasts, tartan noir has become one of Scotland’s most powerful cultural exports. But according to journalist Martin Frizell and criminologist Professor David Wilson, the stories we are telling about Scottish crime are increasingly out of step with reality - and that disconnect has consequences.

So they have concocted a new live event, Tartan Noir, to dispel these cultural contradictions and get right to the bones of real Scottish crime stories. 

“Crime fiction is not neutral,” says Professor Wilson, Emeritus Professor of Criminology and one of the UK’s leading public commentators on crime.

“When myths replace evidence, they influence how societies think about punishment, risk, and who we believe deserves protection.”

As prisons across the UK face overcrowding, sentencing rhetoric hardens, and public trust in institutions remains fragile, Tartan Noir asks whether Scotland is responding to crime as it actually exists - or as it is imagined.

Drawing on decades of experience in journalism and criminology, Frizell and Wilson revisit some of Scotland’s most infamous crimes and criminal figures - from Dunblane and Bible John to organised crime and the ‘ice cream wars’ - not to sensationalise them, but to examine how they have been remembered, retold, and distorted over time.