Issue 582

Jimmy Carr

9 Aug 2007

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

9 Aug 2007

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

9 Aug 2007

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

9 Aug 2007

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

9 Aug 2007

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

9 Aug 2007

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

Katrin Himmler

9 Aug 2007

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

Seasick Steve

9 Aug 2007

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…

Bill Callahan

9 Aug 2007

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

9 Aug 2007

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…

5 Questions: Fiona Evans

9 Aug 2007

Fiona Evans, writer of poignant Fringe drama Scarborough, about the relationship between a 15-year-old boy and his teacher, answers our quick questionnaire

5 Reasons To Go See - Giant Tank vs The Fringe!!!

9 Aug 2007

Edinburgh’s premiere promoters of aktionist noise happenings commemorate a decade of cottage industry chunder with three bloody Sundays of non-Fringe-based hissy fits. Five reasons for their essentialness follow 1 It’s not music. It’s just noise And…

5 Reasons To Go To - Scottish Novels On Screen

9 Aug 2007

1 Andrea Gibb (pictured) No relation to the Bee Gees, Gibb (AfterLife, Dear Frankie) is one of Scotland’s most prolific and successful screenwriters. She will be chairing this event/debate which looks at the success of Scottish literature in its many…

A Conversation with Edith Head

9 Aug 2007

Hollywood costume designer Edith Head worked on almost 500 films in her 54-year career. She dressed Mae West, Dorothy Lamour and Barbara Stanwyck in their most iconic outfits. She played with the big boys at Paramount (and later Universal) and her onyx…

A Day in Dig Nation

9 Aug 2007

According to Baudrillard, the apocalypse has already happened through our descent into the hyper-real, our love of convenience and inability to form human relationships, we have destroyed our civilisation, but what if this were only the beginning and…

A Glance at New York

9 Aug 2007

Another year, another excellent off-Broadway New York company debuts on the Fringe. Unlike their predecessors The Riot Group and T.E.A.M, however, Axis Theatre Company aren’t blazing trails with their original scripts. They’ve managed to create one of…

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…

Adam Hills

9 Aug 2007

Bantering with the front row always seems like a great idea in the sweaty confines of a comedy club but in one of grandest chandelier-happy rooms on the Fringe, it’s a pointless, excluding exercise. Inviting a Rocky Horror-esque audience-stomping finale…

Aesop's Fables

9 Aug 2007

Many children’s shows profess to be ‘adult friendly’, but few deliver to the same degree as this hugely enjoyable new production. Written by former children’s laureate, Michael Morporgo, Aesop’s timeless fables have been fleshed out into sharp, witty…

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…

Alex Hartley

9 Aug 2007

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

Alice Munro

Canadian legend in LongPen revolution

9 Aug 2007

A standard piece of advice given to budding fiction writers eager for publication is to forget airy fairy, uncommercial notions of publishing short stories and dive headfirst into the novel.

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…

Also Published - 5 Food Books

9 Aug 2007

Sid Owen - Life on a Plate Ricky from EastEnders shows off yet another of his many talents with this tome, subtitled ‘The Journey of an Unexpected Chef’. I’ll say. Century . John Dickie! - Delizia The author of Cosa Nostra brings us a book which…

Also Released - Film

9 Aug 2007

• License to Wed (12A) 91min * 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. The…

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…

Andrew Maxwell

9 Aug 2007

There comes a point in every comic’s career where he or she must decide whether they are going to stay the joker forever or grow up and move onto doing something respectable for the rest of their life. Andrew Maxwell had a brief shot at British TV…

Andy Warhol

9 Aug 2007

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…

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…

Anthony Holden

Old school poker shark

9 Aug 2007

As a biographer of the Royals, Shakespeare and Tchaikovsky, as well being the classical music critic of the Observer, Anthony Holden has always been a respected writer but it is the less respectable subject of poker that has given him his biggest sales.

Arthur Smith

9 Aug 2007

The Fringe veteran takes a different approach with a showcase of his and other comedians’ artwork. This exercise in combining comedy and art is Dadaist in its execution, with empty cupboards, daft signs and a happy slapping video. Stewart Lee’s…

As the Mother of a Brown Boy

9 Aug 2007

Just as society lets so many young black men fall through the net, As The Mother Of A Brown Boy also struggles to reach the dead boy it tries to reclaim from the ranks of statistics. As usual, Chickenshed are to be lauded for attending to a subject…

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…

Auto Auto

9 Aug 2007

Humans like doing what they know they shouldn’t: smoking, though we know it could kill us; drinking, though it makes us ill; eating the food that’s bad for us (ever got a thrill from eating a lettuce leaf?). But in real life, without running the risk of…

Away

(Granta)

9 Aug 2007

SOCIAL DRAMA Amy Bloom’s latest novel follows the journey of Lillian, a Russian woman who watches her family being brutally killed and then travels to America to escape those memories and her country. Once there, the plot rockets through a number of…

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?

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…

Batman Black & White Volume 3

(DC/Titan)

9 Aug 2007

Usually at home as a simple back-up slot in the monthly Batman: Gotham Knights, Batman Black & White has taken on a life of its own and has quickly become a jewel in the crown of DC’s myriad caped crusader titles. A creative playground for various…

Bed and Breakfast

9 Aug 2007

Oh, the very Englishness of a seaside B&B. The musty quilted headboard, the individual sachets of Nescafe, the trouser press, the damp.

Believe – Linda Marlowe

9 Aug 2007

This series of monologues from Matthew Hurt, performed by Linda Marlowe, evokes tales from the Old Testament in order to explore the nature of faith, and how we find ways of creating it within ourselves.

Berlin Alexanderplatz: Remastered

9 Aug 2007

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

9 Aug 2007

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…

Bigger than Jesus

9 Aug 2007

Structured using the catholic liturgy and with more technology than you could shake a crucifix at, Rick Miller takes us on a journey through the beginnings of Christianity. There is a lecture, a sermon, a dramatic interpretation of the crucifixion and a…

Blood Confession

9 Aug 2007

It’s priests versus police as these long established institutions collide when an old murder investigation is re-opened. Two priests arrive at the local police station to sign some papers and report vandalism only to find they are to be interrogated for…

Breaking the Seal

9 Aug 2007

As far as Australian accents go, Larah Bross has got one of the best. Add to this Russian, New Jersey, and downtown Montreal, and you’ve got the basis for some desperate and down-and-out alcoholics living it up in Scotland. Bross takes broad…

Brendan Hunt

9 Aug 2007

Warning: don’t have sex with this man. Maybe think twice about employing him, too, and do not sleep with his girlfriend. After a merciless autobiographical trawl through the Boom Chicago star’s mucky linen that builds to a frenzied climax (literally) in…

Bridget Christie

9 Aug 2007

And here comes Stewart Lee’s missus as he indulges in her long-held obsession with Charles II, influenced by the fact they share the same hair and a love of oranges. Endearingly quirky and historically offbeat, the set loses steam rather quickly but…

Bunny Lake is Missing

(12) 115min (DD Home Entertainment DVD retail)

9 Aug 2007

THRILLER Rejoice people rejoice! Otto Preminger’s long difficult to get hold of 1965 psychological thriller is finally seeing the light of day on a decent digitally remastered pressing. When single mother Ann Lake (Carol Lynley) moves to London…

Call of Juarez

Ubisoft

9 Aug 2007

When you think about famous gunfights you don’t really tend to picture war or futuristic alien combat or even urban crime.

Candide

9 Aug 2007

In setting up this year’s Opening Concert of the Edinburgh International Festival, Jonathan Mills has quickly ditched the tradition of a Sunday evening kick-off (although the St Giles’ Festival Service remains in place for the morning) and has brought…

Cape Dance Company

Kelly Apter

9 Aug 2007

Bringing a show to the Edinburgh Fringe is a financial challenge for most people – but when you live over 6000 miles away, it’s a Herculean effort. Cape Dance Company has visited the Fringe twice before, in 1996 and 1998, so a return visit is long…

Carey Marx

9 Aug 2007

Holding a teddy bear aloft, Marx says, ‘I’ve got a new rape joke,’ and then proceeds to cast aspersions on little people, religious fanatics and his poor girlfriend, nicknamed ‘Elbow Face’. Scapegoating the bear when his more offside jokes fail to…

Cash In Christ

9 Aug 2007

Leaders of the Sunrise Church, husband and wife team Bob and Fanny Comfort, take us through a sing-along sermon as they try to recruit us into a church where we can get rich in Jesus. Teachings of Sunrise include the need for women to be beautiful, the…

Change: The Upcoming War with Iran

9 Aug 2007

Since 2001, under the watchful eye of President Bush, America has been waging its War on Terror, leaving a country in ruin and lots of radical Islamists out for revenge. So did they learn any lessons from Iraq?

Charlotte Hudson & Leila Hackett

Fresh sketches and bouncy tales

9 Aug 2007

Charlotte Hudson and Leila Hackett’s lively performance and British beach setting perfectly reflect a Blackpool-style summer: slightly tacky and full of tongue-in cheek exhibitionism. Fake seagulls call in the distance as a parade of characters accost…

CHAV! IT’S A MUSICAL INNIT

9 Aug 2007

The Debden in which this show is set is the town of David Cameron’s nightmares. Union Jack thongs are flashed, bus stops are vandalised and groups of unemployed teens impregnate each other like Lambrini addled rabbits.

Cirque de Sabotage

9 Aug 2007

This female three-piece act proclaims itself as ‘heavily character-driven, comprising sketch-based slapstick and silliness, woven together with verbal dexterity and an extensive wardrobe of props and costumes’. True enough, but then so was the…

Claytime

9 Aug 2007

Ever since Play-Doh took over the pre-school world, few other materials get a look-in. Which is why it’s nice to see somebody championing good old clay. Placing a huge slab of clay centre stage, Steve and Sally, our friendly hosts, show us exactly what…

Coffee

9 Aug 2007

Before engaging in conversation or flirtation we make a number of assumptions about people based on the way they look, act or dress. Perhaps this is unsurprising in such an image-conscious society, but it is these assumptions that form the basis of…

Common

Finding Forever

9 Aug 2007

HIP HOP Billed all too regularly as the nearly man of hip hop, this isn’t technically true of Common. Seven albums in, he was, until 2005’s Be an underground doyen, releasing excellent albums such as Like Water for Chocolate, which were scholarly…

Dai (Enough)

9 Aug 2007

As daily reports of suicide bombings in the Middle East flood into our homes, it’s impossible not to be desensitised. Figures substitute names, as personal stories take a backseat in favour of a delivery of the death toll. However, Iris Bahr’s one woman…

Daljit Nagra

9 Aug 2007

Daljit Nagra is very popular with the pupils he teaches English to at a north-west London school. Not because he lets them off with throwing paper aeroplanes across the room or allows them to bunk off early, but because he has injected them with a love…

Damascus

9 Aug 2007

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…

Daniel Townes

9 Aug 2007

This charming London-based Aussie’s set is built loosely around his detention and deportation from an LA airport for an apparently negligible misdemeanour, an encounter that offers him some considerable mileage. With the air of one of your funnier pals…

Darkness Within

9 Aug 2007

A young cast of three explore the bleak existence of three stereotyped characters; the nympho prostitute, junkie rent-boy and institutionalised manic depressive. By exposing each character’s inner-monologue in various situations within their lives, they…

David Batchelor

9 Aug 2007

David Batchelor has been a busy man of late, scouring pound shops in London and Scotland for pegs, combs, cutlery, clothes pegs, children’s toys, girly hair accessories and a whole manner of other cheap plastic objects in preparation for this new site…

David Batchelor and Nikolai Suetin

9 Aug 2007

Now in its tenth year as one of Edinburgh’s established independent galleries, the Ingleby has chosen to mark the occasion with a series of 26 small-scale shows which present a work by a well-known contemporary artists alongside another ‘complementary…

David Rokeby

9 Aug 2007

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…

Dead or Alive

(18) 105min (Tartan DVD rental/retail)

9 Aug 2007

FUTURISTIC DRAMA In 1999, Takashi Miike released two films. The powerful and disturbing Audition was joined by this ramshackle futuristic affair which featured similar stunts to that year’s Matrix while bowing heavily to the influence of Sergio Leone…

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…

Dick Lee Septet

9 Aug 2007

Clarinetist Dick Lee is a regular at this venue, and leads his seven-piece expansion of Swing 2007, featuring a four-horn frontline in which he is joined by Anne Evans, Duncan Nairn and Martin Foster, a combination that gives him access to a wide…

Druthers

9 Aug 2007

Druthers’ Everyman in the attic is hoisted from his hermitage by an entertaining barrage of multimedia performance from Bristol’s Precarious Dance. The company take the opportunity to showcase their very talented wares, making especially beautiful use…

Dye Young/Stay Pretty

9 Aug 2007

Gill (Beth Medley), a pregnant Debbie Harry fan from Dudley, decides that before she can succumb to the responsibilities of motherhood, she must fly to New York and meet her idol.

Edinburgh Interactive Festival

That’s entertainment

9 Aug 2007

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

ENGLAND

9 Aug 2007

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…

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…

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…

Eurobeat – Almost Eurovision

9 Aug 2007

Lycra, spandex, cheesy hosts, uber-innuendo and even a recorded welcome from Terry Wogan himself; it is indeed, almost Eurovision. There’s a palpable sense of excitement as badges are distributed, flags and clackers are sold and the cast do a warm up…

Exits and Entrances

9 Aug 2007

In Athol Fugard’s insightful new play, we find celebrated South African actor Andre Huguenet (Morlan Higgins) reflecting on all that he has sacrificed for his theatre career which is now reaching its end.

Extropia

9 Aug 2007

‘Perhaps a lunatic was simply a minority of one?’ So muses Winston Smith, hero of Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, and the basis for machine-operator ‘August Eight’ in The Flying Carpet Theatre’s sci-fi adventure.

Famished

9 Aug 2007

In this hammed-up musical, as our heroine awaits the safe return of her lover from some faraway land, singing/dancing zombies hit Victorian London.

Fast

9 Aug 2007

Raucous punk club Fast has secured the talents of Michael Dracula and Fake Fang (pictured) for a live double bill of fearsome live acts.

Fisher King Leven

9 Aug 2007

Musical collaborations are often more for the benefit of the artists involved than their audiences but fans of narrative songwriting of the folk-country variety will appreciate the coming together of Fisher, King and Leven. This triumvirate of…

Forgiven

Channel 4, Thu 16 Aug, 10.30pm

9 Aug 2007

FAMILY DRAMA Following in the footsteps of paedophilia drama Secret Life, this is another related single work which will make you feel pain long after the closing credits have gone. Based on a real case, Forgiven stars Derek Riddell (The Book Group…

Forgotten Voices

9 Aug 2007

The idea that war can be glorious has long since been purged, and yet the lessons of the past seem not to have been learned. For over ninety years now, World War One should have been used as an example of the human cost of conflict, yet wars continue…

Frank Muir

9 Aug 2007

If Festival visitors were asked where they expect Scottish crime novels to be set, a fair few would probably think of Ian Rankin’s Edinburgh first, or Denise Mina’s Glasgow.

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.

Frankie Boyle

9 Aug 2007

In some ways it would be difficult to imagine an encounter between Frankie Boyle and Jimmy Carr, what with them being, arguably, the two finest gag tellers in contemporary British stand-up comedy. How, you wonder, can they have a chat when they must be…

Gamarjobat

9 Aug 2007

The Japanese mime and magic duo take their street performance act inside for an hour of slapstick, spoof magic, acrobatics and guitar riffs with Rock’n’Roll Penguin. The pair waddle about like a hybrid of Pingu and Tommy Cooper and their non-verbal…

Genaro

Genaro

9 Aug 2007

ROCK There is a fine line in the risky profession of innovative guitar music between brilliance and wanksmithery and Benbecula signings Genaro appear to tread this with glee. Still, the majority of their debut sits on the right side of the divide…

Get Smashed

(Hodder & Stoughton)

9 Aug 2007

MEDIA HISTORY This is the story of the 1960s advertising revolution that led to the shedding of jingles and rigid formulae in favour of a certain whimsy, spurred on by the visions of a handful of people who made a tidy fortune. Sam Delaney chronicles…

God's Pottery

9 Aug 2007

God’s Pottery return after last year’s Eddies newcomer nominated outing where they raised over £100 for LaVert, a child who had cancer; or at least said he did. This year Gideon Lamb and Jeremiah Smallchild have upped the stakes and settled on saving…

Greedy

9 Aug 2007

There’s little doubting the acting skill and vibrant energy of this quartet, but they are let down by writing which flounders on the majority of their skits. Recurring routines about dinosaurs and a pesky lothario called Whistling Martin work best but…

Hallam Foe

(David Mackenzie, UK, 2007) 95min

9 Aug 2007

All four of talented Scottish filmmaker David Mackenzie’s features have premiered at the EIFF. Mackenzie’s latest, an adaptation of novelist Peter Jinks’ Edinburgh-set psychosexual romantic drama, is as good as any of his previous work. But, while…

Hippo World Guest Book

9 Aug 2007

The internet has indeed made the world a smaller place but arguably that little bit more bilious too. As anyone who has spent even a moment on a forum or blog will be aware, faceless interaction can often serve as a Petri dish for the most vile human…

Hitlist - The best exhibitions

9 Aug 2007

• David Rokeby – Silicon Remembers Carbon The Canadian-born installation artist brings a collection of interactive works together to create his first major Scottish show and retrospective at the CCA. Work on show includes the pioneering sound…

Hitlist - The best film & dvd releases

9 Aug 2007

• The Walker Writer/director Paul Schrader returns with another excellent existential character drama, a sequel of sorts to Taxi Driver and Light Sleeper. Woody Harrelson stars as an openly gay high society chaperone who becomes embroiled in a dirty…

Hitlist - The best rock, pop, jazz & folk

9 Aug 2007

• Ari-Up She’ll always be best known as the lead singer of seminal grrrrl punks The Slits but now, club night Pretty Ugly welcomes her back witha new band The True Warriors, who will be playing new material plus the songs of The Slits with a heavy…

Hitlist - Look Who's Talking

9 Aug 2007

Rabbi Lionel Blue: Godly and Gay The much-loved broadcaster talks about his experience of coming out as a gay man in religious circles and a religious man in gay circles. Part of the Festival of Spirituality and Peace. See…

Hitlist - The best dancefloor action

9 Aug 2007

• Baby Go Boom Taking laughter and dancing just one step further. Basically, it’s a comedy show with Scott Agnew and Hugh Reed & the Velvet Underpants telling the jokes followed by a disco to keep you moving. Genius. The Woodside Social Club, Glasgow…