Issue 582

Mother and The Addicts

Science Fiction Illustrated

9 Aug 2007

ART PUNK Mother and the Addicts’ debut album burst, in a flurry of white funk and eyeliner, from out of nowhere in 2005 – and subsequently left more people scratching their heads than dipping into their pockets. Successfully bedded in now, the…

Action Group

Greed

9 Aug 2007

ROCK Discounting the occasionally slightly home-made quality of these recordings, the debut album by Edinburgh’s Action Group signals the arrival of a band whose progress should definitely be kept track of. An indie-pop quintet with a fine line in…

Intolerance

9 Aug 2007

And so begins this year’s List-sponsored Anita Loos Retrospective of films, written by or adapted from the work of the grand old dame of American screenwriting. First up is legendary silent film director DW Griffiths’ one true masterpiece from 1916…

Barry Cryer

5 questions

9 Aug 2007

5 words to describe your show this year I’m still here you know. 4 acts who should be more famous in September than they were in July Chris Addison, Andrew Maxwell, Will Smith, Ann Widdecombe. 3 things that you love about Edinburgh in…

Asobi Seksu

Citrus

9 Aug 2007

ELECTRONIC POP In Asobi Seksu’s world dreamy vocals soar over turbulent guitars and delicate vocals switch between English and Japanese in sweeping psychedelic pop songs. But in the real world the result is somewhat toothless, and, despite its…

Taxidermia

9 Aug 2007

Welcome to the insane world of György Pálfi. Even if you have seen his previous film, Hukkle, a raw, near wordless film about ornery peasant folk, nothing would have prepared you for this.

Amanda Palmer

9 Aug 2007

She may be familiar to some as one half of The Dresden Dolls, the drum’n’piano duo who do for Weimar cabaret what The White Stripes did for Mississippi blues. Palmer strides out on her own for the third year at the Fringe with a clutch of new songs frm…

The Spirals

Without Control

9 Aug 2007

ELELCTRONICA The Spirals is yet another alias of Argentinian house duo Fernando Pulichino and Julian Sanza. Without Control starts off with all the sass and funk of a Prince backing track, but proceeds to go nowhere for 56 long minutes. There are…

All Aboard

9 Aug 2007

Take one classic 1970s kids album, a big bag of sweets and two over excited men and what do you get? All Aboard, a new show paying homage to songs such as ‘Two Little Boys’ by Rolf Harris and Benny Hill’s ‘Ernie’. Having bought the rights to the album…

Esther O’Connor

The Place Where We Are

9 Aug 2007

POP Esther O’Connor is something of a musical paradox; a singer-songwriter specialising in slick commercial soft rock that she proudly releases on her own DIY label. As the daughter of the guitarist from Wet Wet Wet, she has certainly picked up her…

Liars

Liars

9 Aug 2007

INDIE Musically this LA-based trio are as mad as a box of frogs. Since they exploded onto the music scene in 2001 with dance-punk driven debut They Threw Us All in a Trench and Stuck a Monument on Top, they have dabbled in everything from murky…

ESG

South Bronx Story 2

9 Aug 2007

HIP HOP While the past year has seen much blathering about the Nu Rave scene and its various spin offs, many have been quick to forget that dance rock first came into existence back when many current bands were still playing hopscotch. New York’s ESG…

Irvine Welsh

5 questions

9 Aug 2007

5 words to describe the film you have at the EIFF Racism and testicular cancer comedy. 4 of your favourite cinemas in the world Cameo, Edinburgh; Rio Dalston, London; IFI, Dublin; Castro, San Francisco. 3 people you would love to work with…

Jason Byrne

9 Aug 2007

This beloved Irishman is one of the Fringe’s safest bets and here he gives us his take on relationships, where women are monstrous and men are idiots. There’s a drunken tramp who is actually his seven-year-old son and we hear of his clowning…

O’Death

Head Home

9 Aug 2007

ALT.COUNTRY O’Death are five guys with barely a shirt between them, who, despite hailing from New York, evoke the deep south in their punk country songs: toothless yokels and moonshine-fuelled barn dances. Greg Jamie’s weathered vocals swings from…

License to Wed

9 Aug 2007

When lovebirds Sadie (Mandie Moore) and Ben (John Krasinski) become engaged, Reverend Frank (Robin Williams) puts them through a tortuous marriage preparation course to see if they deserve to be married in church.

5 Questions - Alex Hartley

9 Aug 2007

Edinburgh Art Festival virgin Alex Hartley prays for sun and an end to ‘mega shows’

Barry Castagnola

9 Aug 2007

We all know people who sit in the pub and regale us with stories and have us laughing like drains. How funny do you think these people would be if you put them on stage for a whole hour with no chance to get another round in and maybe a bag of peanuts?

AL Kennedy

9 Aug 2007

Delightfully warm and engaging, despite all those dreary press pictures, ALK gives the impression she really enjoys trying to endear an audience to her. It would be easy to dismiss this well-crafted material as the inevitable product of her writing…

Frank Skinner

Stand-up

9 Aug 2007

If you happen to be at one of Frank Skinner’s shows and spot a tear welling up in the corner of his eye, don’t be too surprised.

Jim Bowes

9 Aug 2007

Whether WMDs can be launched within 45 minutes may be debatable, but a far safer bet would be to spend that length of time in the company of Bowes. An affable and enthusiastic host, he guides us along the journey from polite to increasingly assertive…

Tea and Cake

9 Aug 2007

Afternoon tea with Tiernan Douieb and Lauren Shearing is an entertaining affair. Their well-written sketches are unashamedly unafraid to push the boundaries of taste and almost enough to put the delicate off their Lady Grey. They overcome awkward…

Andy Zaltzman

9 Aug 2007

Zaltzman has decided to create a utopia using a flea circus as a microcosm of humanity and his crowd are going to help. As a vehicle for political yet absurdist humour the structure works well, providing opportunities for potshots at governmental…

Des Clarke

9 Aug 2007

Glaswegian Clarke’s stand-up is far less grating and nippy than his work as a kids TV presenter. Catering for out-of-towners and locals with an enjoyable tour around Scottish clichés, his gags on Burberry, Buckfast, Irn Bru and dour, workshy…

Rhod Gilbert

9 Aug 2007

Being stuck in a hotel room watching What’s Eating Gilbert Grape is Gilbert’s starting point, as he trails off on various tangents about parental divorce, finding love, having a baby and the trials of growing up in a fictional town. Surreal, rambling…