Issue 583

How to make it

16 Aug 2007

Talent. Britain has it, apparently. The airwaves are clogged up with fat, snaking queues of wannabes who want nothing in life so much as the chance to perform an acapella version of Rihanna’s Umbrella to a sneering celebrity panel. We’re in an age where…

La Didone

16 Aug 2007

‘I developed special software for the last couple of pieces,’ says Elizabeth LeCompte, artistic director of New York avant-garders the Wooster Group. ‘Final Cut Pro and Isadora, you know, I was the initial developer.’ Actually, she was nothing of the…

90s revival

16 Aug 2007

When you are young there is no such thing as nostalgia, there is only the seemingly limitless advance of new experiences. Music inevitably provides the backdrop – a drunken first kiss, the first gig you ever sneaked into underage, or maybe just that…

Billy Brag

16 Aug 2007

Billy Bragg was described by The Times as ‘a national treasure’. That particular phrase would surely bring a wry smile to his face, not least because the topic currently vexing the lifelong political campaigner and singer-songwriter is the fundamental…

Eagle vs Shark

16 Aug 2007

When New Zealand stand-up comic, actor, painter and photographer Taika Waititi took a shot at writing and directing a movie he had no idea it would be nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the prestigious Sundance Film Festival and become the focus of a…

Impressing the Czar

16 Aug 2007

‘You’re going to get really lost,’ predicts Aki Saito, principal dancer with the Royal Ballet of Flanders. She’s talking about the average person’s reaction to William Forsythe’s three-act extravaganza, Impressing the Czar. ‘You won’t know what to…

School of Comedy

16 Aug 2007

In this age of Asbos, hoodies and teenage gang warfare it’s probably illegal to encourage youngsters to swear and be rude in front of adults, but this is exactly what the grown-ups behind School of Comedy plan to do. The show is billed as ‘an adult…

Eat - New York-style delis

16 Aug 2007

The ampersand is on the march. Berits & Brown, Kember & Jones, Sonny & Vito, Phoebe & Floyd – all new or newish Glasgow café-delis except the last one, a kids’ designer clothes label. Still, easy mistake to make. You can probably blame the…

In control

Samantha Morton

16 Aug 2007

Samantha Morton is in control. The critically lauded, hard working and in-demand British actress plays the long suffering wife of troubled singer of legendary Manchester band Joy Division in the Ian Curtis movie, Control. Fresh from winning the Best…

Shop - Bolshie

16 Aug 2007

Ethical fashion may be being shouted about all over the internet, but Bolshie, Glasgow’s only clothes shop dedicated to ethical, Fairtrade, organic and recycled clothing, is tucked away on a leafy residential street near Glasgow University. It looks a…

Ratatouille

16 Aug 2007

The adventures of an aspiring rodent chef whose gastronomic endeavours make him the toast of Paris is hardly a conventional dish to serve up to audiences. But Pixar’s attention to character and detail has already created such unlikely characters as…

The Elves and the Shoemaker

16 Aug 2007

When it comes to classic tales, The Elves and the Shoemaker is high up on most people’s lists. Just picturing those little elves beavering away, creating tiny shoes, is enough to excite little ones, and send big ones down memory lane. Well you don’t…

5 Questions - Club Noir

16 Aug 2007

If you want decadent glamour, Club Noir is the ultimate burlesque experience. Promoter/performer Tina Warren spills a few secrets

A Different Kettle of Fish

16 Aug 2007

Irreverent, witty, surprising, mischievous, and overacted to great dramatic effect, this was an hour spent in wonderfully silly company. The troupe – four men and one woman – rattles through sketches so fresh they ought to patent them. JK Rowling…

A History of Scotland (In 60 Minutes or Less)

16 Aug 2007

The avowed intention of this whizz through Scotland’s turbulent past is to bypass the usual cheesy tartan and shortbread stereotypes in favour of something altogether grittier. While this is a noble aim, the trio of performers initially struggle to get…

A Mighty Heart

16 Aug 2007

Prolific, versatile British director Michael Winterbottom’s film about the kidnapping of Wall Street journalist Daniel Pearl by Pakistani militants in Karachi in 2002 is at once a riveting political thriller and an enormously affecting human drama.

Abigail Burdess

16 Aug 2007

Coming out in a wheelchair and disarming everybody with her offbeat chatter, Abigail Burdess shows it’s no big thing to break your foot if you’re a comedian. She warms up the audience with her quirky, wide-eyed observations and quotes from her…

Adam Bloom

16 Aug 2007

The concept of downtime is unfamiliar to Adam Bloom. After charging onstage and whirling through five minutes or so of funny, friendly, filthy audience interaction, the act proper begins without a wasted nanosecond. Bloom has a sort of sunny fury…

Age of Angels

16 Aug 2007

This piece explores one cataclysmic moment during which ten lives collide. The school kids’ ball goes over the fence and across a busy road, beginning an unstoppable chain. One actor tells the story from multiple perspectives, creating each character in…

Al Pitcher

16 Aug 2007

He’s been called unpredictable and divided audiences with his ad hoc ways, but happily for Pitcher, his celebration of saying precisely whatever pops into his head could earn the recognition he deserves. Never a dull moment, this walking, face-pulling…

Alan Warner

16 Aug 2007

When the movie of Morvern Callar opened the Edinburgh International Film Festival back in 2002, there was much talk that this would be the first of many film adaptations of Alan Warner’s work. Frankly, the thought of anyone trying to get a script out of…

Alex Gray

5 Questions

16 Aug 2007

5 words to describe The Riverman? Taut, pacy, atmospheric, warm, believable (my editor’s words, not mine; I’m too modest). 4 authors who you think should be more famous than they are now? Alanna Knight, Deryn Lake, Lin Anderson, Suhayl…

Alistair Barrie

16 Aug 2007

For someone who describes himself as a ‘twat’ and claims to suffer from low self-esteem, Barrie exudes a reassuring confidence that draws you into his world and holds you there. His show hangs around the loose theme that we’re all going to hell in a…

Also Published

16 Aug 2007

• Marie Phillips - Gods Behaving Badly Aphrodite is a phone sex operator while Apollo peddles a living as a TV psychic. Only their cleaner Alice can help save these fallen Greek gods. Jonathan Cape. • Adrian Hyland - Diamond Dove Set in central…

American Poodle

Miles Johnson

16 Aug 2007

Guy Masterson is, as ever, a man with his fingers in many pies at this year’s Fringe, working on no less than six shows. This particular outing, billed as an exploration of the ‘special relationship’ between Britain and its American chums so discussed…

An Air Balloon Across Antarctica

16 Aug 2007

We all cope differently with grief, however we can probably assume that very few of us are likely to grab a hamster, jump in a hot air balloon and journey across Antarctica in the style of this slightly surreal play’s protagonist. Talking hamsters with…

An Audience With Adrienne

16 Aug 2007

This show makes for an endearing evening with an extremely personable performer, which, within Theo Clinkard’s fluffy, camp lounge room set, is likely to bring you some pleasant memories and the odd melancholic thought. In it, performance artist and…

Andrew Lawrence

16 Aug 2007

Of all the descriptions Andrew Lawrence gives himself - ‘a voice like Joe Pasquale’ or ‘hair the colour of sexual rejection’ – the one that gets the biggest laugh is his ‘special needs character from a Dickens novel’. Returning after last year’s…

Andrew Marr

16 Aug 2007

Andrew Marr has always used his vast intellect with such wit and verve that he has always come across as a political pundit real people could enjoy. It’s hard to imagine David Frost interviewing Gordon Brown on a Sunday morning, as Marr did last month…

Anita Loos Retrospective

16 Aug 2007

Name Anita Loos. Born 26 April, 1888, California. Died 18 August 1981, New York. Who was she? Loos was one of the most celebrated US screenwriters, playwrights and authors of the last century. Over her long life she experienced several…

Anti-Ageing, Look Better, Feel Better, Live Better

16 Aug 2007

Has Scotland spawned its next Gillian Mckeith? Join Elizabeth Roddick for this seminar that tells you all the things you know already and choose to ignore about living a healthy life. It’s not easy to take what someone says seriously while they’re…

Apollo/Dionysus

16 Aug 2007

‘Naked’, is the first word that springs to mind but prurience is slowly replaced by curiosity as philosophical questions are posed; about right and wrong, good and bad, religion, love and family. This piece examines the age-old relationship between man…

Attempt 3.4

16 Aug 2007

A group of enthusiastic young actors attempt to create their own city from nothing. Their high energy levels and creative characters are fun to watch for the first ten minutes, but you can’t help but feel they are enjoying themselves more than we are as…

Ballads of the Book

16 Aug 2007

The relationship between music and literature has always been a strong and natural one, but never has that bond been tighter than with the Ballads of the Book project. Described by Chemikal Underground as a ‘meteoric creative hoopla’, it brought…

Ballerina Who Loves a B-Boy

16 Aug 2007

Although it’s been crammed into a hotel function room better suited to the cringey frugging of a wedding disco, this gleeful little production is the most assured and exuberant of the cluster of Korean breakdance shows infesting the Fringe this…

Bang On! - Junk Percussion Workshop

16 Aug 2007

Before you leave home to attend this workshop, take a good look around you. What have you got that’s broken, unwanted, and, most crucially of all, makes a good noise when you whack it, shake it or scrape it? Whatever it is, bring it along – because the…

Barb Jungr Sings Dylan

16 Aug 2007

Barb Jungr’s cabaret-influenced take on the songs of Bob Dylan is certainly a distinctive one, but it proved very effective on disc when the Glasgow-based Linn Records issued Every Grain of Sand back in 2002, and should do likewise in this outing. The…

Basic Training

16 Aug 2007

The humour we associate with issues of belonging can be very powerful, mainly because it instils a kind of panic in people as who we are, where we are from, and where we are going are thrown into question. And panic is always funny. Kahlil Ashanti’s one…

Belly of a Drunken Piano

16 Aug 2007

When Stewart D’Arrietta takes to the stage beneath the cloak of darkness, he emits a tone-perfect Waitsian growl. There’s no doubting that this Australian troubadour knows and loves the songs and gets a kick out of being grumpy at a mobile going off and…

Camille O’Sullivan

16 Aug 2007

5 words to describe your show Dark, edible, vulnerable, cheeky, flammable. 4 things that would be on your dream rider Nick Cave, Marmite, a winning lotto ticket, a handsome, pretty masseur. 3 things you’d like to get out of your visit to…

Cat and No Mouse

16 Aug 2007

Dressed in bow ties and tails, a bossy cat and gullible mouse attempt to put on a show. Only trouble is, Cat is convinced she can go it alone as the star of the show – hence the title. Setting her ego aside for one minute, Cat agrees to perform the…

Chas Early

16 Aug 2007

5 words to describe this year’s show? Your very last chance, baby. 4 stand-ups/comedy acts who you think should be more famous in September than they are now? Josie Long, Gordon Southern, Isy Suttie, and Robin Ince, who is already a little…

Christian Reilly

16 Aug 2007

Reilly was a comfort eater, until he discovered rock. Mixing cheeky songs with a legs-spread rock stance, he throws in Lou Reid and Stephen Hawking impersonations and a crowd-pleasing Chris Martin piss-take. When his acoustic guitar sounds a little…

Classic Entertainment!

16 Aug 2007

Mr Winchester and his slightly camp, hapless sidekick Tommy (who replaces Winchester’s wife following her mysterious disappearance) are intent on injecting some cabaret into the alternative comedy circuit. Dodgy wigs, inappropriate asides and bad…

Copying Beethoven

(12A) 104min

16 Aug 2007

BIOPIC ‘He’s deaf, of course . . .’ explains a helpful old woman when Anna Holz (Diane Kruger) comes knocking on the door of Ludwig van Beethoven’s house. It’s an awkward introduction followed by the great composer’s heartfelt explanation of how he…

Craig Hill

16 Aug 2007

Crazed musical energy makes Hill’s comedy infectious, and smarty-pants audience interaction makes it hilarious; some of the funniest bits come from his savaging of hapless crowd members who refused to answer his questions. Whether it’s memories from a…

Crazy Love

16 Aug 2007

Burt Pugach was working in the movie business when he spotted Linda Rise sitting on a park bench and decided he had to have her. Little did she know that he had a wife and disabled child already. From this moment on their story proves the adage that…

Dan Clark

16 Aug 2007

Clark unfangles himself, argues with his imagination and donates a few purposefully awkward silences in this neat yet unobtrusive little parcel. Raising more titters than belly laughs with his observations on life and Facebook, Clark might not brand…

David Batchelor

16 Aug 2007

5 words to describe your show this year Not dark, not heavy, not deep, not tragic, not sublime. 4 exhibitions you really want to see at the Art Festival Lygia Clark, Eva Hesse, Hanna Hoch, Mira Schendel. 3 things you love about the Art…

Dead Living

16 Aug 2007

Multinational corporations usually come under fire in climate change debates, but just last month, one such giant, Coca-Cola Enterprises, announced plans to cut down the amount of water it uses by six percent and reduce energy used for lighting by 50…

Deborah Frances-White

16 Aug 2007

The bowler-hatted one is back with an advice shop for men and women on seduction techniques. You know a show is struggling when the comic takes a seat in the front row to let her audience play out the scenarios she’s dreamed up, leaving a series of…

Denied

16 Aug 2007

The continued threat of terrorism across the UK, combined with a heightened awareness of honour killings, form the basis for a play that attempts to question the beliefs that cause some Islamic women to be denied what most would consider basic human…

Desert Island Dances

16 Aug 2007

This year, a proportion of the Fringe dance programme seems to be backing away from huge, political themes, focusing instead on small, personal moments of introversion. Desert Island Dances by Wendy Houston, whose Haunted, Daunted and Flaunted triptych…

Dickens Unplugged

16 Aug 2007

Unless you were brought up in a workhouse, you’ll be familiar with at least one of Dickens’ many tales. Beginning with Oliver Twist, this musical, is not quite as Dickens intended. We embark upon a full speed tour of his books, ending with A Christmas…

Dougie Dunlop

16 Aug 2007

Live from a ‘building site’, Dunlop’s debut is as gritty, opportunistic and incongruous as his venue. Reluctantly succumbing to themed comedy, he centres loosely on the elderly, with cake as both prop and post-spectacle sweetener. A deadpan, wry Scot…

Duncan and Wilma Finnigan

Scottish filmmaking

16 Aug 2007

Meet the Finnegans: Duncan and Wilma Finnigan, the John Cassavetes and Gena Rowlands of Coatbridge. Scotland’s best kept filmmaking secret. The couple’s films inhabit a strange hinterland between community video amateurishness, Forsythian whimsy and…

Early music

16 Aug 2007

Early music has never been an area that the Edinburgh International Festival has paid much heed to, despite the fact that the genre undoubtedly enjoys a strong following among the music-loving masses. Even commercial radio – Classic FM – has…

Edinburgh International Film Festival moves to June

16 Aug 2007

After 60 years at the forefront of the biggest show on earth, the Edinburgh International Film Festival has announced plans to go it alone. From next year, the EIFF will be held in June rather than August with the rest of the Edinburgh…

Eirlys Bellin

16 Aug 2007

Bellin performs entirely in the guise of Rhian Davies, a fame-hungry Welsh girl prepared to do anything to get on the telly. Draped in this character, Bellin actually auditioned for Big Brother, and secretly filmed her adventure. There’s so much…

Emergence-See!

16 Aug 2007

Set on an otherwise unremarkable day in 2006, slam poet Daniel Beaty’s one-man show Emergence-See! begins with New York City’s descent into chaos as a slave ship floats up from the Hudson Bay. Bobbing just below the Statue of Liberty and stacked with…

Famous Last Words

16 Aug 2007

Two poets and a soldier face their mortality as an angry mob draws ever closer to the castle in which they are hiding. The soldier wants to die fighting and the poets wish to die writing, but before they go, they all want to tell their stories and leave…

Fatboy

16 Aug 2007

John Clancy, writer/director of returning show and 2005 Fringe hit Fatboy takes on the challenge of our Festival questionnaire

Festival Fringe Debate

16 Aug 2007

Napier University Business School is hosting the fourth annual Festival Fringe Debate on Wednesday 15 August at the City Art Centre, Edinburgh. The topic for this year’s debate is ‘Today’s Festival leaders: to lead or to be led?’ Influential figures…

Fettes Jazz Festival

16 Aug 2007

The jazz weekend under canvas in the grounds of Fettes College has become a bit of a staple of the otherwise rather thin jazz representation in the Fringe, and all the more so with absence of a jazz programme at The Lot this year. That has left Bill…

Field Study

16 Aug 2007

A virtually laugh-free show about three scientists analysing the mechanics of comedy is an irony lost on no one. The young trio try their damndest but there simply is no material here worthy of the name as they mug their way through an hour’s tortured…

Follow Me

16 Aug 2007

While the recent executions in Iraq shone a light, briefly, on the issue of capital punishment, there hasn’t been much public discussion of the matter since Mrs Thatcher lost her free vote on the subject in the late 80s. This, along with the relative…

Found — Etiquette

Claire Sawers

16 Aug 2007

Those clever Edinburgh Found boys have done it again. Their latest music-meets-art installation is a hands-on delight, making even the most tone-deaf feel like musical geniuses. Visitors to Newhaven’s Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop can play with 12 cute…

Fragile

(15) 97min

16 Aug 2007

HORROR You wouldn’t think Calista Flockhart would be the first name on most casting directors’ wishlists for a creepy UK horror film. Do you really want Ally McBeal wandering round your carefully constructed haunted hospital? And, while you can never…

Francesca Martinez

16 Aug 2007

Martinez tells us from the outset that she doesn’t do chit chat, and this sentiment prevails. Proselytising on politics, religion and other weighty topics, she sometimes veers close to mere soap-boxing with the albeit admirable force of her convictions.

Fuerzabruta

16 Aug 2007

A man runs frantically on a conveyor belt headlong into unavoidable obstacles; nymph-like beauties writhe, close enough to touch, on water-covered perspex; women somersault across floating tinfoil walls bathed in an aura of multicoloured light as wind…

Germaine Greer

16 Aug 2007

Writer, academic, critic and commentator Germaine Greer has been a particularly bristly thorn in establishment sides for the best part of 40 years. A native of Melbourne, she sprang fully-formed onto the global literary stage with The Female Eunuch, her…

Girl and Dean

16 Aug 2007

Sketch duo Jess Ransom (a girl) and Sarah Dean (geddit?) use make-believe and handicrafts to introduce us to conspiracy theorist supermarket workers, two posh kids role playing at ‘Disadvantaged Northerners’ and an asylum seeking vampire. With…

Gordon Southern

16 Aug 2007

Perhaps you just had to be there for Southern’s journey from Brixton to Australia via Wales. Perhaps he had a tough crowd. But this set of lad laughs with slightly frightening musical accompaniment fell wide of the mark. The easy banter never fails him…

Greedy Scratchers

16 Aug 2007

From stone age to space age, this piece examines human life through the ages by focusing on one family. Beginning as homo sapiens relying on primal instincts, like sex, food and power, the piece explores how humans have evolved physically, emotionally…

Habagat

16 Aug 2007

Four sisters have just buried their father in a banana box and are facing life together on an island, which is deserted save for its angry natives. Dealing with sisterly love and hate, greed and colonialism, the play explores the devastating effect the…

Hamlet Solo

16 Aug 2007

To do justice to Hamlet is no easy task, but to render the Danish play as a one man performance is almost laughable in its ambition. There is, of course, the obvious novelty value to witnessing Hamlet being performed by one man. But Hamlet Solo is far…

Hannah Gadsby

Claire Sawers

16 Aug 2007

Sleepy-voiced, droopy-eyed and dressed in a uniform of cover-all black, Hannah Gadsby wants to bring us up to speed on her 28 years. Raised in a hick town in Tasmania, and made to feel in turns ‘big boned’, ‘retarded’ or ‘dykey’ when growing up, she now…

Henry Rollins

16 Aug 2007

It’s a wonder Henry Rollins has time to sleep. When the Black Flag legend is not writing books, hosting his own television and radio shows, acting in Hollywood and hopping from gig to gig, he is performing his quick-witted spoken word pieces around the…

Hitlist - The best dancefloor action

16 Aug 2007

• Club Olum Glasgow’s finest techno band Dirty Hospital cause mayhem this week. Bar Bloc, Glasgow, Thu 16 Aug. • Death Disco This month the deathly disco welcomes the trash-tastic Kissy Sell Out. Dance smash ‘Her’ caused grown DJs to fight like cat…

Hitlist - The best exhibitions

16 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

16 Aug 2007

• The Bourne Ultimatum The final adaptation of Robert Ludlum’s Bourne trilogy brings things to an exhilarating close, with amnesiac Bourne (Matt Damon) putting together the final pieces of puzzle. Once again director Paul Greengrass reinterprets the…

Hitlist - The best rock, pop, jazz & folk

16 Aug 2007

• Slint They may have only produced two albums but without them PJ Harvey would be Katie Melua and Mogwai would be Linkin Park, such is their influence. Come hear the bittersweet majesty of Spiderland, performed in all its glory. ABC, Glasgow, Mon 20…

Hitlist - The best Festival art

16 Aug 2007

Richard Long: Walking and Marking As one of this country’s important land artists, long takes over the SNGMA with works that record and relate to his treks around the world. Paintings and photographs fill the gallery, as sculptures and land art…

Hitlist - the best Festival book events

16 Aug 2007

Alan Warner One of our finest scribes takes part in a pair of events this Festival, one on his own in association with The List while the other has him hanging out with another totemic figure of Scottish letters, Janice Galloway. 17 Aug, 8.30pm, £8…

Hitlist - The Best Festival Clubs

16 Aug 2007

Climax Cracking double bill of live local techno with Stephen Brown and the Wee DJs. Jackhammer Quality techno to keeping things moving as Ben Sims takes on the Surgeon for a three hour set of punishing acid grooves and harsh electronic beats. Bass…

Hitlist - the best Festival comedy

16 Aug 2007

Kristen Schaal Winston Churchill roamed the Assembly Rooms last year in the guise of Mel Smith. He’s back for a ghost appearance in this superb show from one of America’s most delicate new comic talents. Assembly Rooms, 623 3030, until 27 Aug (not 20)…

Hitlist - the best Festival dance

16 Aug 2007

Into the Hoods London’s Zoo Nation are back at the Fringe for another helping of hilarious five star hip hop dance theatre. Truly unmissable. Pleasance Courtyard, 556 6550, until 27 Aug, 7.30pm, £15.50–£19.50 (£13.50–£15.50). Impressing The Czar…

Hitlist - the best Festival events for kids

16 Aug 2007

Men of Steel Mad puppetry and messy food combine in this chaotic Australian show. Assembly Rooms, 623 3030, until 27 Aug (not 20), 11am, £8–£9 (£7–£8). The Elves and the Shoemaker The most beautifully crafted puppets in town, from Fringe favourites…

Hitlist - the best Festival movies

16 Aug 2007

Control The Ian Curtis and Joy Division story gets the Anton Corbijn treatment. Cineworld, 623 8030, 17 Aug, 7pm & 19 Aug, 9.40pm, £7.95 (£5.50). Les Chansons d’Amour Bizarre ménage a trois musical. You’ll either love it or hate it. Filmhouse, 623…

Hitlist - the best Festival music

16 Aug 2007

Thomas Truax and Paul Vickers & The Leg American eccentric Truax, who does his own one man pop thing, is unequal parts Syd Barrett, Aphex Twin, Frank Sidebottom and Frank Zappa. A real trip. Underbelly, 0870 745 3083, 22 Aug, 9pm, £8. Tom Tom Club…

Hot Rod

(12a) 88min

16 Aug 2007

ROMANTIC COMEDY Originally created as a vehicle for Will Ferrell, who acts as executive producer here, Akiva Schaffer’s low-rent comedy in the Tallageda Nights/Blades of Glory mould features a number of fresh-faced Saturday Night Live alumni who are…

How to Pimp Your Kids and Shop for Free at Waitrose

16 Aug 2007

Matthew Collins begins with a shout, but lets it die to a whimper with limp storytelling. The title itself is a cheat, and gives the impression that there is cheekiness in the content, but instead there is only fond remembrances of a dad who dotes a…

Howard & Mimi

16 Aug 2007

Playing anthropomorphised pets, the duo of Haverstock and Gold weave a funny tale of new relationships, hissy fits and dog breath. Mimi’s (the cat) world is turned on its head when Howard (the pooch) and his master Nick move into her mistress Jane’s…

I Am My Own Wife

16 Aug 2007

Is it right for us to turn someone’s life, warts and all, into art after their death? When Doug Wright set out to write this play, he intended to create an appreciative portrait of a person he admired, however when he discovered discrepancies in her…

I Served the King of England

16 Aug 2007

On paper this looks like a dream project. Major Czech ‘Prague Spring’ filmmaker Jirí Menzel adapts Bohumil Hrabal’s much loved comic novel and tries to recapture the delights of their earlier bittersweet 1966 collaboration, Closely Observed Trains. The…

I, Lear

16 Aug 2007

Two bumbling actors (Andrew Jones and Ciaran Murtagh) share their wisdom of the theatre, including tricks of the trade such as Marmite up the nostrils for upset and spray cream foaming at the mouth for anger. They teach us techniques from the likes of…

In Search of a Midnight Kiss

Tony McKibbin

16 Aug 2007

Any film that invokes Woody Allen’s Manhattan in its opening moments is asking for invidious comparison. Allen captured late 70s bohemian New York with what seemed like time capsule astuteness. Alex Holdridge’s film does no more than suggest what a…

IS THIS ABOUT SEX?

16 Aug 2007

Christian O’Reilly’s contemporary sex farce isn’t a lot more than the kind of piece we saw from Brian Rix in the 70s, which, in those days, attracted pop cultural phrases like ‘adult’ and ‘sophisticated’. Even so, it contrives to be amusing from end to…

Ismo Leikola

16 Aug 2007

How funny is observational comedy with a Finnish accent? Very funny, actually. With comedy so low-key and off-the-wall it comes right out of nowhere, his style is decidedly un-energetic, but with a priceless delivery. Leikola is a Scandinavian Mitch…

I’m a Cyborg, But That’s OK

16 Aug 2007

Firm Festival favourite Park Chan-wook, the South Korean filmmaker who served up the queasy perplexing delights of Old Boy and Lady Vengeance, returns with something very different. I’m a Cyborg, But That’s OK is a madcap romantic comedy set inside a…