Issue 567

Rome on a budget

The cheap life

16 Jan 2007

The Romans have a saying: ‘you’d need a lifetime to see all that Rome has to offer’. This seemed a laughable notion as my partner and I only had a few days in Italy’s capital. After not having taken a holiday in over three years, I was determined to…

Various, The Book of Boy Trouble - comic review

Various artists

9 Jan 2007

GAY Edited by two of its contributors, Robert Kirby and David Kelly, The Book of Boy Trouble brings together selected highlights of the first ten years of the alternative fanzine of the same title (minus the ‘book’ bit). It’s a collection whose…

Good food - fair price

Dining on a budget

16 Jan 2007

Dining on a budget should not be limited to eating cheap food amid dire surroundings. Restaurateur David Ramsden, formerly of (fitz)Henry and Rogue, and now working with The Outsider and Apartment restaurants in Edinburgh, sees value for money options…

Justin Currie with The Poems

ABC, Glasgow, Sat 20 Jan

15 Jan 2007

CELTIC CONNECTIONS Every year Celtic Connections’ programme throws up nuggets of thoroughly insightful booking, and this gig - showcasing green pastures new for a couple of Scottish artists whose musical careers seemed consigned to yesteryear - must…

Working lunch

It’s New Year. Time for a lunchtime revolution. Le

17 Jan 2007

Lunch can be a rushed affair, that precious hour or half hour of down time all too often descending into a mad dash to the local supermarket or chemist chain to shell out cash you can ill afford on unpleasant meal deals, composed of chilly sandwiches…

Ethical chic

What’s the human cost of your £10 catwalk-copy

16 Jan 2007

The backlash against cut-price clothing starts here. Bin your £2 T-shirts and call off the search for the low-budget version of Kate Moss’ latest tote, because fashion just got serious.

Rage - A good deal these days is hard to find

A good deal these days is hard to find

16 Jan 2007

RAGE Departs Newcastle, 20:40, say the tickets. I glance up at the departure board. Newcastle, 20:40, platform two, it says. Five minutes before, we shuffle up to the tracks. A train arrives at 20:38 - destination Edinburgh - and three weary…

Remote Control - TV round-up

Remote Control

16 Jan 2007

So British dramas don’t hold a candle to their American counterparts, huh? We may have taken this as read for years but could a seismic shift be happening. Not that our home-grown shows are lifting themselves up to a higher plane, but our pals across…

All My Sons

Sons and slaughters

16 Jan 2007

A brilliant, but profoundly uneasy evening awaits the ‘Well, Saddam was a son of a bitch, so the war was justified’ school of thought at the Lyceum. So, too, the ‘we can only vote for the Tories in power or those awaiting power’ mindset will face some…

Julie Roberts

A woman's work

16 Jan 2007

After a century of feminism and post-feminisms, the word ‘woman’ has been constructed and deconstructed in such an enormous collection of philosophical and psychoanalytic tomes by some of the world’s greatest minds (Freud, de Beauvoir, Lacan, Kristeva…

Authentic Bangladeshi food

Naan finer

16 Jan 2007

Don’t let the celebrity TV chef con you. Cooking at a restaurant is barely comparable to cooking at home.

Leech - sucking the blood of popular entertainment

Leech

16 Jan 2007

So, farewell then, Magnus Magnusson. You started, you finished and somewhere inbetween you delivered the finest reading of Flaubert this literary Leo Sayer ever heard. ‘Language is like a cracked kettle on which we beat out tunes for bears to dance to…

News extra

16 Jan 2007

Terry Riley is to make three rare appearances at the Usher Hall this year as part of Triptych. The minimalist pioneer will perform his groundbreaking composition ‘In C’ at the Edinburgh Usher Hall on Wednesday 25 April and a reworking of his electronic…

There’s No V In Gaelic

Citizen’s Theatre, Glasgow. Thu 25-Sat 27 Jan

16 Jan 2007

New Work People can be curiously disparaging about Gaelic as a cultural force for anything larger than localised music events, often with little personal experience on the topic beyond the odd maligned episode of Dotaman. The news that £1.3m worth of…

Stage Whispers - theatre news

Stage Whispers

16 Jan 2007

As New Year hangovers begin to lift, the theatre often stirs, slowly, to life in January, shaking off the grip of panto season with the first halting steps of a restarted season proper. Whispers finds no exception this year, with things not yet entirely…

Aye Write!

The write stuff

16 Jan 2007

Aye Write!, the west coast festival which celebrates Glaswegian writing and the best of Scottish and international literature, has cut the red ribbon on its 2007 programme.

Grapevine - showbiz news

Grapevine

16 Jan 2007

Worst casting decision of the fortnight (month/year/decade/trillennium) must be the one which has placed Mike Myers in the plum role of Keith Moon for the 2009-bound biopic of the Who drummer See Me Feel Me... That crazy blazing squad Arcade Fire are…

Aggregate, Jamie Shovlin

Talbot Rice Gallery, University of Edinburgh

16 Jan 2007

PAINTING, FILM, PHOTOGRAPHY, INSTALLATION Museological stirrings are already afoot at the Talbot Rice Gallery. London-based artist Jamie Shovlin has pulled out multiple dusty copies of Charles Darwin’s The Origin of Species from the University of…

* Hitlist

Hitlist

16 Jan 2007

Julie Roberts - The New Woman Artist Roberts’ paintings manage to bring feminist politics into the gallery and kick centuries of misogyny in the head, in images that revisit and reinterpret early archival photographs of women artists working in the…

Metal Bridge, The

Sorcha Dallas, Glasgow, until Sat 20 Jan

16 Jan 2007

DRAWING, FILM, INSTALLATION. The Metal Bride - Group Show This small group show brings together the work of four artists - Steven Claydon (London), Thomas Helbing (Berlin) Craig Mulholland, and Duncan Marquiss (who both live in Glasgow). The…

* Hitlist

Hitlist

16 Jan 2007

C-90 by Daniel Kitson Daniel Kitson returns with his Fringe hit of 2006. A warm, cuddly kind of monologue, it tells the story of a man who archives old cassette tapes sent by lovers and hopeful amours to their muses over the years. The curator himself…

Comedy Cuts

ITV2, Thu 18 Jan, 10.55pm

16 Jan 2007

COMEDY Some people hold the view that since the demise of The Tube, TV’s commissioning heads haven’t really taken live music seriously. Well, what of live comedy then? Apart from the Stand-Up Show, Scotland’s Live Floor Show, and the odd bonanza on…

Arts intervention

Artists take an academic approach to their work

16 Jan 2007

A trio of leading Scottish artists is crossing over into the world of academia in a bid to reinvigorate the way in which the arts are taught at higher education institutions.

Tartan Turns

The Jam House, Edinburgh, Sun 21 Jan, 6.30pm

16 Jan 2007

CHARITY EVENT There’s a certain appeal to a night of variety entertainment that many in the cognoscenti don’t really like to admit to. For this reason, it’s great when someone gives you an excuse to go by making it a charity night. So it is that we…

X Factor Dance

Tron Theatre, Glasgow, Thu 1 & Fri 2 Feb

16 Jan 2007

CONTEMPORARY DANCE Arriving in Edinburgh to work with X Factor Dance, Philippe Decouflé was faced with an unexpected array of talent. ‘I was surprised at how good the dancers are,’ says the legendary French choreographer. ‘They’re very experienced…