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ABOUT THE EVENT
Join us for the next in our regular monthly cultural nights Speakeasy Stirling celebrating the best of contemporary talent. Each night features a mix of performance, live music, and spoken word, programmed in collaboration with Kevin P Gilday (Stirling Makar).

LINEUP

Scott Agnew (comedy)
Aurora Engine (music)
Amy Matthews (comedy)
Ash Dickinson (poetry)

EVENT TIMES
7pm - Doors/tunes
7.30pm - Kevin Gilday opening piece and intro
7.40pm - Aurora Engine

8.10pm - Break/tunes

8.25pm - Kevin poem
8.30pm - Ash Dickinson
8.55pm - Amy Matthews

9.20pm - Break/tunes

9.35pm - Scott Agnew
10pm - Kevin Gilday - outro
10.05pm - Tunes til late

Amy Matthews

Amy is a stand up, writer & actor from Essex who has made Scotland her home for almost a decade. She has written, performed and toured several critically acclaimed stand up shows, including I Feel Like I'm Made of Spiders (2023) which is now a special on ITVx, and Commute With The Foxes (2024), which is now a vinyl record released through Monkey Barrel Records. Her stand up has also featured on Comedy Central Live (2024, 2025). She also runs Comedians Do Poems with Ben Pope - a quarterly poetry night for comics. As well as her own tours, she has supported Ed Byrne, Tom Davis, Suzy Ruffell, Sarah Keyworth, and Tom Allen.

The List have named Amy in their "Hot 100" contributors to culture three times. Amy has featured on Radio 4's Comedy Club, Fred at the Stand and is a regular panelist and lead writer on BBC Radio's Breaking the News.

She played Annie in BAFTA award winning Scot Squad for three series and will appear as Cassandra in the upcoming series GIFTED on the BBC.

Amy is the host of the official English Heritage podcast and previously hosted the BBC podcast, SNOOKERED, covering the World Championships and interviewing stars of the snooker world. She has also guested on Off Menu podcast and worked with Taskmaster on their English Heritage collaboration in summer 2025.

She has written for Have I Got News for You and provided additional material for Scot Squad (BBC Scotland), as well as contributing to writers rooms for Horrible Histories. She has/had TV and radio scripts in development with Pirate Productions, Little Wander, and BBC Studios.

Articles and poetry by Amy have been published in The Idler, The Skinny, The Metro, Ancient Times, English Heritage Magazine and more.

Ash Dickinson

Ash Dickinson has been full-time as a poet since 2008. A multiple slam champion including Edinburgh, Cheltenham, the Museum of Scotland and BBC Radio, he has performed in Australia, Canada, USA, New Zealand, Spain, Jordan, Denmark, France, The Netherlands, the Czech Republic and Germany, and headlined countless shows and festivals throughout the UK. 

Ash is in great demand to run writing workshops in schools, libraries, museums, prisons, with writing groups and through art education. His debut collection, ‘Slinky Espadrilles’, was the very first title published by Burning Eye Books. His second major collection, ‘Strange Keys’, also released by Burning Eye, came out in 2016. A collection for younger years, ‘Show Cats In Transit’, followed in 2019. His latest book ‘Instructions For Outlaws’, was published in 2022.

“Impressive wordplay” – The Times
“Clever and funny” – The Scotsman
“Brilliantly surreal invention…fabulous poems” – Edinburgh Evening News
“A master of stand-up poetry” – Apples And Snakes

Aurora Engine

Aurora Engine (Deborah Shaw) is a harpist/pianist, singer/songwriter, composer and sonic artist. Fusing real instruments, voice and progressive electronica, her work encapsulates a singular and striking sonic landscape. Using real instruments (harp, piano, voice)  and collected sounds she sets out to create beguiling songs and compelling soundscapes. Her recent single ‘Coal Dust’ - made Fresh On The Net’s ‘Fresh Faves recently, as well as receiving national BBC airplay. 

Her new work 'Flutter' an exploration of Tourette's Syndrome for voice and electronics will be showcased by Cryptic in Mach 2026. She composes for screen, a recent commission from Cinetopia and Instutute Francais of the 1920's film Paris Qui Dort for electronics and harp. 

Scott Agnew

Scott Agnew's 2025 nomination for the Sir Billy Connolly Spirit of Glasgow Award was his second having first been nominated for the inaugural award at the 2023 Glasgow International Comedy Festival. It is just the latest of accolades for the critically acclaimed, multi-award winning Glaswegian comedian. In 2024 his debut three part BBC Radio 4 series Scott Agnew: Dead Man Talking was aired to much praise and earned him a nomination for Best Comedy (Sound) at the Celtic Media Festival 2025.

Having won Scottish Comedian of the Year in 2008 he went on to huge critical success with his Edinburgh fringe shows in 2009, 2012, 2016 and 2017 - all of which has seen him garner 5 star reviews and being named in The List's Hot 100, win Best Show at Scottish Comedy Awards, The Icon Entertainer of The Year and Proud Scotland Entertainer of the Year. Not forgetting, the pinnacle, named as Attitude magazine's 94th Most Eligible Gay Bachelor in the World in 2017. 

He's a regular host and act at The Stand and Glee comedy clubs and has performed at comedy festivals and clubs across the globe from Edinburgh and Leicester Comedy Festivals to Prague and Perth and Adelaide with gigs in Vietnam, Indonesia, Singapore and Malaysia to boot. He's a regular panellist on BBC Scotland's Breaking The News as well as appearing in BBC Scotland's TV show Comedy Underground. He has performed to crowds of 12,000 plus supporting Kevin Bridges at Rockness, and supported Janey Godley, Jim Jeffries and Dylan Moran on the Scottish legs of their tours. 

Offstage Scott's life has been equally "busy" - leaving behind a career in journalism and selling his house on a whim in 2003 was the start of a years long battle with cyclothymia (a form of bi-polar) taking him on a path to a multitude of addictions including stand-up, crystal meth and injecting drug use before being diagnosed with HIV in 2015 and eventually surviving a heart attack and three cardiac arrests in 2021.

"Rudely, hysterically funny and brutally, touchingly honest this is not a show for the faint-hearted, but for the tender-hearted. This is autobiographical, explicit comedy at its pinnacle." 

Chortle *****

“Likening him to Billy Connolly would seem trite if it weren’t accurate. Always hilarious.”

FringeGuru *****

"A comedic thrill ride, searingly honest, exploding with humanity, laugh out loud funny from beginning to end"

Scotsman ****