Issue 582

Jimmy Carr

With his short sharp shocks, Jimmy Carr has outraged and amused audiences around the world. He tells Brian Donaldson why no one has the right to be hurt by a bit of wordplay

Take That

Faced with the prospect of Never Forget, ‘a new musical based on the songs of Take That’, you’d be forgiven for thinking ‘Mamma Mia, here we go again...’

Norman Mailer

Writing about difficult subjects helped turn Norman Mailer into a literary star. Rodge Glass analyses his career and believes only he could have broken the final taboo

Made in Scotland

Think of Scotland’s most famous traditional exports and what comes to mind? While in reality they may now be as diverse as the people living within its boundaries, Scotland still sometimes struggles to escape the clichés – tartan, whisky, misty…

Tilda Swinton

Even without her bright beacon of red hair, it would be difficult to miss Tilda Swinton at this year’s Edinburgh International Film Festival. Enjoying her inaugural year as patron, alongside the venerable Sir Sean Connery, you can take your pick when it…

Ethan Hawke

Kaleem Aftab talks to actor, writer and now director Ethan Hawke about adapting his novel The Hottest State for the big screen

Seasick Steve

Every now and then pop culture throws something into the public consciousness based solely on quality. It may not be fashionable, it’s not part of a new movement, it doesn’t fit into any scene, it’s just good. This year’s phenomenal anomaly is…

Katrin Himmler

Katrin Himmler was born into a family with a dark history, but has only now been able to write about it. She tells Doug Johnstone about reliving the past

Bill Callahan

By way of a typically cryptic explanation, the enigmatic American singer-songwriter Bill Callahan once said – in response to what can only have been a helluva lot of queries about his willfully opaque moniker Smog – ‘I live in smog.’ He may have done…

Back to basics

Emerging talent in the world

Flash gaming is a funny beast. For some it is a mere distraction while others see it as a formidable force in the gaming industry despite the odd ‘bad egg’ website devoted to vulgar cartoons and controversy.Flash gaming is a funny beast. For some it is…

Berlin Alexanderplatz: Remastered

The recent deaths of art cinema colossi Ingmar Bergman and Michelangelo Antonioni – at the ages of 89 and 94 respectively – led me to wonder about some of the great filmmakers who did not make it to their fifth decade, let alone approach their tenth.

Bernadette Lafont

The veteran French actress Bernadette Lafont is casting her mind back 50 years and recalling her first ever film role. It was in a short called Les Mistons (The Brats), made by a tyro filmmaker called François Truffaut. Shot in her hometown of Nimes…

Edinburgh Interactive Festival

That’s entertainment

As The Edinburgh Interactive Festival roles into town, Henry Northmore looks at the links between art and technology

KG Cafe

Star attraction

Too often tourist attractions boast deeply uninspiring cafés. Donald Reid is glad to discover the KG Café at Kelvingrove has culinary ambitions befitting such an important gallery and museum

David Rokeby

The CCA continues its exploration of the relationship between technology and art, with the first major show and retrospective of Canadian-born artist David Rokeby. The exhibition brings together five of his award-winning installations, new media…

Ivan Smagghe

Ivan Smagghe has a pretty impressive CV. Along with Mark Colin he formed Volga Select who released records on über fashionable French imprint Kitsune, 20:20 Vision and Output as well as being responsible for the Tigersushi compilation So Young But So…

Jess Weixler

Jess Weixler is so all-American she looks like she’s jumped straight out of a photograph of high school cheerleaders. Her long blond hair and blue eyes make her the archetypal American beauty – just like all those Britney Spears wannabes lusted after by…

Josie Long

A week in, The List’s columnist is having a fabulous Fringe, despite witnessing brutal scenes of child cruelty at the local swimming baths

Damascus

Routines based on the business of translation are a pretty well precedented source of humour in the theatre. What gives a rare quality to David Greig’s new play, which amounts to an entire two-and -a-half hours of this schtick, is the subtlety and…

Scottish Opera appoints new director

News

Italian conductor Francesco Corti signed up as new music director

Punt and Dennis

It’s quite astonishing that Punt and Dennis, one of the household names of British comedy, have never quite performed a live show in Edinburgh as a duo.

Long Time Dead

‘On this proud and beautiful mountain we have lived hours of fraternal, warm and exalting nobility. Here for a few days we have ceased to be slaves and have really been men. It is hard to return to servitude.’ With these words, French climber Lionel…

ENGLAND

Tim Crouch, who has built a strong reputation at the Fringe with his shows My Arm and An Oak Tree has seemed a guaranteed banker in the months since this year’s show was announced. And this piece is worth the wait. It involves Crouch and performer…

Andy Warhol

Andy Warhol is 20th century America. It is impossible to decide which came first. Did he create that nation’s brash, shiny, sexy yet sickening materialism, or is he a product of it? The exhibition of his work at the National Gallery makes it impossible…