Issue 564

Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art chief quits

7 Dec 2006

Richard Calvocoressi, director of the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, is leaving to become director of the Henry Moore Foundation.

Arab Strap

Belt up

28 Nov 2006

OBITUARY It’s September 1996. A message is being left for me by Arab Strap’s Malcolm Middleton. ‘One of us looks a bit like Chris Evans, the other looks like, em, Tony Slattery.’ As a means of setting up a face-to-face interview with people I’ve…

Leith chefs

Galloping gourmet

28 Nov 2006

Chef Tony Borthwick has uprooted his Michelin-starred restaurant The Plumed Horse from Galloway and is re-opening it in Leith. In the process he’s confirmed Leith’s status as one of the hottest culinary spots in Britain. Barry Shelby meets the man who’s…

Insider our readers' homes

Inside I'm Dancing

28 Nov 2006

What do our homes say about us? Out of town furniture stores may be cheap and easy, but most people want to avoid an identikit approach to interior design. We had a hunch that there’s a maverick spirit in Scotland’s approach to home-making, and we…

Rave - Robert Altman

Rave - by Donald Hutera

28 Nov 2006

Actors all over Hollywood - and more than a few in Britain, no doubt - were probably counting their retrospective blessings last week, or cursing their bad luck. In the first category are those with the good fortune to have appeared in a film by the…

Leech

Sucking the blood of popular entertainment

28 Nov 2006

Skulking in an underground bunker, monitoring Chinese satellites and decoding Tom and Katie’s wedding vows in all known languages and intergalactic dialects for clandestine instructions to destroy Hollywood, the Leech has little time for conspiracy…

Glasgow artists' studios expand

Guerilla tactics

28 Nov 2006

Studio Warehouse, the exciting, innovative arts facility in Glasgow’s West End, which offers open plan studios for rent to local artists, has already established itself as a jewel in the cultural cityscape. Run by visual artist and curator Mutley, it…

Artists unite to tackle child abuse

28 Nov 2006

Edinburgh artists have donated work to an exhibition and auction aimed at tackling child abuse in the captial and across the Lothians. More than 20 pieces are currently being exhibited at Sofi’s Bar on Henderson Street in Leith - which is well known for…

Remote Control - TV round-up

Remote Control

27 Nov 2006

Yes, but is it art? This is the question that the good people of Margate are asking with both their mouths and their eyes as Antony Gormley creates his latest controversy. But rather than the constant Geordie reminder that is his Angel of the North…

Pantos

Psychorella

27 Nov 2006

Well, we’ve only ourselves to blame. If we, as adults, persist in dragging our children along to pantos and Christmas shows, what grounds do we have to complain that they turn out to be twisted and violent? The stories themselves seem to display an…

Scottish Mining Museum

Life at the coal face

27 Nov 2006

There’s a yellow canary called Bev that lives in a well-appointed cage at the Scottish Mining Museum. He’s been there five years, and is named in honour of Ernest Bevin, Minister for Labour during World War II. Bevin’s the one who decided that 10% of…

Wild Japan - Outlaw Masters

Nippon rising

27 Nov 2006

Wild Japan: Outlaw Masters is a BFI Touring programme of twelve of the most extraordinary films you may ever have the chance to see. This selection of Japanese cult films made between 1963 and 1977 covers most bases, from westerns to gangster and…

Thomas Pynchon

Silent witness

27 Nov 2006

T is for Tinasky Wanda Tinasky was a bag lady living under a bridge in Northern California who wrote witty correspondence to a local paper during the 1980s. Rumour was rife that Thomas Pynchon was behind the letters, but more prominence has been given…

Masters of Horror Series 1: Volume

(18) 1684min (Anchor Bay UK DVD retail/rental)

27 Nov 2006

HORROR Whenever a compendium of horror films comes along, you know you’re in for a mixed bag. Even the old Amicus portmanteaus tended to contain at least one duff entry. These new one-hour films from some of the supposed greatest directors working in…

Heroes

Theatre Royal, Glasgow, until Sat 2 Dec

27 Nov 2006

WEST END TOUR Perhaps the thing that haunts most of us about old age is the fear of loneliness. The need to create human bonds, and the fear that poverty and isolation will prevent this is something demonstrated in our own society each time we see an…

London to Brighton

(18) 85min

27 Nov 2006

GANGSTER/THRILLER ‘One year they wanted my ho to be a poster girl... for birth control.’ Jackson Brown, US comedian, pimp. It’s just after 3am in a rundown London toilet and seasoned prostitute Joanne (Georgia Groome) is trying to console a…

Stranger Than Fiction

(12A) 113min

27 Nov 2006

COMEDY/DRAMA/FANTASY We’re so used to Will Ferrell playing the crazed maniac that it’s a pleasant surprise to see that he can play the straight guy equally well. He’s Howard Crick, a taxman with an Obsessive Compulsive Disorder whose life is turned…

Stage Whispers - theatre news and views

Stage Whispers

27 Nov 2006

For those of you in despair at the lack of theatre other than pantos and Christmas shows at this time of the year, Whispers has glad tidings. If you look long and hard enough, you’ll find that other kinds of theatre are still out there, if largely…

Planting the Tele

Mary Mary, Glasgow, from Sat 25 Nov-Sat 13 January

27 Nov 2006

INATALLATION, FILM AND WORKS ON PAPER Glasgow has seen very little of Hayley Tompkins of late, but she has returned in a curatorial capacity in Planting the Tele at Mary Mary Gallery, bringing together new work by seven artists: Anne-Marie Copestake…

Dispatch - Vic Galloway

The Dispatch

27 Nov 2006

It’s time once again to approach our impending festive doom! Yes, Christmas is upon us and has been so since the Hallowe’en decorations came down. What does this mean for the world of music? A morass of greatest hits compilations, that’s what. Do we…

Ingmar Bergman Collection - DVD review

The Ingmar Bergman Collection

27 Nov 2006

BOX SET For a filmmaker who’s recently denounced Godard as a ‘desperate’ bore, Welles as a ‘phoney’ and Antonioni as someone who never learned his craft, Bergman wouldn’t make much of a critic. But how does he compete with the people he condemns?

Big Nothing

(15) 85min

27 Nov 2006

COMEDY/THRILLER Sometimes things just don’t work out. Particles and elements shift and design gets de-railroaded. That’s how you end up with a koala bear instead of a kangaroo or in this case a Big Nothing instead of Blood Simple or Fargo Big…

Artbeat - art news

Artbeat

27 Nov 2006

Don’t let that artist near those scissors! We’ve all seen artist homemade hair-dos, hacked, feathered and blunt-scissored monstrosities, well Hairwaves FM - 87.7FM brings artists and designers together to celebrate good and bad examples of hairdressing…

Film Books for Christmas

27 Nov 2006

The Films of Tod Browning Bernd Herzogenrath (Black Dog Publishing) Stimulating and fascinating collection of essays about, and stills from, the films of the ‘Edgar Allan Poe of cinema’. Browning’s films, from Freaks, Dracula, The Unholy Three to Devil…

Green Whale

Traverse Theatre, Thu 7-Sun 24 December

27 Nov 2006

KIDS THEATRE Panto season may be amongst us, but one woman is making sure there’s a viable alternative in at least two of our theatres. Virginia Radcliffe and her Lickityspit theatre company will be taking up residence at the Byre Theatre, St Andrews…