Issue 560

Aardman's Darkside - DVD

Aardman's Darkside

2 Oct 2006

ANIMATION As a company renowned for the sweetly naïve, homely fun of Wallace and Gromit, Morph and Creature Comforts, it’s something of a jolt to the system to discover Aardman’s adult entertainment wing. Like the Sooty pregnancy episode or…

Accepted

(12A) 90min

2 Oct 2006

COMEDY Steve Pink the director of Accepted also wrote High School tribute movie Grosse Point Blank, adapted Nick Hornby’s High Fidelity so there was much hope that this film would herald a second coming. Alas, Pink’s movie lacks two vital ingredients…

Aly Bain & Phil Cunningham - album review

Aly Bain & Phil Cunningham

2 Oct 2006

FOLK Fiddler Aly Bain and accordionist Phil Cunningham are Scotland’s most celebrated folk duo, and serve up another set of impeccably performed tunes on this new studio disc, their first in four years. They play with a matchless level of…

Aryan Couple, The

The Aryan Couple

2 Oct 2006

HISTORICAL DRAMA (12A) 119min John Daly is a big man in the filmmaking world. His exec producer credits include Salvador, River’s Edge, Platoon, The Last Emperor and Loach’s Hidden Agenda. So how he came to direct a film this bad is something of…

Badly Drawn Boy - album review

Badly Drawn Boy

2 Oct 2006

SINGER SONGWRITER This fifth album from Mancunian troubadour Badly Drawn Boy was, by Damon Gough’s own admission, his hardest to make. And, well, you can tell, because it simply isn’t any good. Having moved from indie label to major, Gough seems…

Brothers of the Head

(18) 93min

2 Oct 2006

MOCKUMENTARY Brothers of the Head This British mock-rock-doc is something of a curate’s egg. It purports to tell the life stories of Tom and Barry Howe, a pair of conjoined twins who were snatched from the obscurity of England’s southern…

Brothers of the Head - interview

I wrote Don Quixote

2 Oct 2006

‘The danger is you mythologise,’ says British screenwriter Tony Grisoni, with reference to promoting his film Brothers of the Head. Prior to its premiere at last August’s Edinburgh International Film Festival Grisoni tells me, ‘During the making of a…

Comets on Fire

2 Oct 2006

Picture if you can, a fantastical world where Mudhoney became the global unit shifter and not Nirvana. Instead of hordes of three-chord Montys spewing out their bombastic pop angst rock, we’d have . . . hordes of three-chord Montys spewing out their…

Countess Dracula

(18) 93min (Network DVD retail)

2 Oct 2006

HORROR Having sunk her fangs into the heaving flesh of Kate O’Mara and other voluptuous beauties in the 1970 Hammer hit The Vampire Lovers, Polish scream queen Ingrid Pitt was immediately cast in another softcore horror. Drafted in to replace Diana…

D'Offay art collection

Sale of the Century

2 Oct 2006

Last week provided an undeniably momentous moment in the history of British art. The landmark joint announcement by Tate and the Scottish National Galleries that Britain’s two largest public collections of contemporary art will join forces to acquire…

Death of a President

More4, Mon 9 Oct, 9pm; Channel 4, Thu 19 Oct, 9pm

2 Oct 2006

DRAMA DOCUMENTARY Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, North Korea. Possibly being added to the candidates listed as America’s public enemy number one is the United Kingdom, when this goes out on air. The international incident sparked by ITV’s 1980s Saudi drama…

Departed, The

The Departed

2 Oct 2006

THRILLER Ghosts are always a problem for Martin Scorsese. Each film he makes is inevitably compared to his own past masterpieces, so let’s start by saying that The Departed (those ghosts are even in the title now) is not as good as Taxi Driver…

Devil Wears Prada, The

The Devil Wears Prada

2 Oct 2006

DRAMA Long before Jimmy Choo or Louis Vuitton, the Romans knew the score on couture. Back in 1AD Roman philosopher Seneca warned of the imperilled dangers of living ‘not according to reason, but according to fashion.’ Not that anyone took any notice.

Dominic Streatfeild

Brainwash (Hodder & Stoughton)

2 Oct 2006

POLITICAL HISTORY From the man who brought us Cocaine comes the richly detailed story of mind control, the full unexpurgated past of truth drugs, hypnosis, Pavlovian experiments and sleep deprivation. Everything from the Moscow Show Trials to…

Drenched

Touring

2 Oct 2006

NEW PLAY There’s something that doesn’t ring true about playwright Gary Young’s portrayal of a disturbed young woman in Drenched. Played by Melanie Wilson in this 60-minute solo, Cassandra sees herself as a victim of an egotistical mother and a…

Droopy Met Hal/Degeneration

Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, Fri 6-Sat 7 Oct & Sat

2 Oct 2006

DANCE The Traverse has long been the home of innovative theatre, but increasingly it’s also the place to catch ground-breaking dance. Two different but equally interesting companies are heading for the venue this fortnight, each with an international…

Eric Bibb

2 Oct 2006

It’s no real surprise that Eric Bibb took to playing guitar early in life. He grew up in a musical family (his father was a singer, and his uncle was pianist John Lewis of the Modern Jazz Quartet), and began performing professionally while still in…

Fabio Moon & Gabriel Ba

De: TALES (Dark Horse)

2 Oct 2006

URBAN MYSTICISM Moon and Bá are Brazil’s answer to Los Bros Hernadnez. Like the Mexican creators of Love & Rockets this pair of young writer-artists are siblings (twins in fact), and like Jaime and Gilbert Hernandez’s comics, Moon and Bá’s strips mix…

Felicja Blumental - album review

Polish Fantasy (Brana Records)

2 Oct 2006

If your idea of a Polish fantasy stretches as far as smoked sausage washed down by a glass of vodka, then it’s time to listen to Brana Records’ latest release. Despite the recent influx of Poles to these parts, the classical music of their homeland…

Gay Against You

2 Oct 2006

POST PUNK The Subway, Edinburgh, Mon 11 Sep What to do with a sparse audience on a soggy Monday night? If you’re electro-saccharine noise terrorists Gay Against You, you drag all 20-odd onstage with you, thus immediately quelling the venue’s…

Glasgay!

A doubling in funding means three new productions

2 Oct 2006

There’s one event in the Glasgay! 2006 programme that doesn’t quite fit. Graffiti Brasil , a series of photographs of spray painting from the South American country, showing ‘fanatical vandalism’ and ‘jaw-droppingly elaborate murals’, doesn’t seem to…

Grapevine

Plucking fruits from the cultural bush

2 Oct 2006

Rumours of his retirement from the rap game have clearly been exaggerated as Eminem has begun on a new D12 album. Plus, Mr Mathers has a new mixtape entitled Eminem Presents: The Re-Up, due out in December, containing six marvellous new tunes . . . Jake…

Heretic's Tale, The

The Heretic's Tale

2 Oct 2006

NEW WORK Extreme intoxication, wild sexual orgies, incest, cannibalism - I know, you’re thinking of those students who took over the flat next door a couple of weeks back. But these kinds of activities, or at least, accusations of them, have been…

History Boys, The

The History Boys

2 Oct 2006

THEATRE ADAPTATION It was no surprise to find that Alan Bennett’s biggest West End hit since The Madness of George III should follow it to the silver screen, given the cash it generated, but one wonders whether its producers might have taken into…

Hitlist

The best comedy

2 Oct 2006

Hitlist Howard Marks Special Mr Nice transforms into Señor Nice to tell tales of the Straight Life from Wales to South America. Which is nice. Jongleurs, Glasgow, Thu 5 Oct. Mark Nelson Just crowned Scottish Comedian of the Year, you’ll want to…