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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

Tim Deluxe

O lucky man

16 Aug 2007

‘Diversion is all about good music at good prices, and getting down to some seriously good tuneage in a proper party atmosphere. We state our music policy as “dirty house and twisted electro”, but we’re not afraid to try something new or a bit…

Red Hot Chili Peppers

16 Aug 2007

There’s a tenuous logic that argues if an artist is not struggling their art is less vital in some way. There’s a healthy disrespect for careerist attitudes in art, especially among musicians, but there’s a contradiction inherent to the notion that…

Sally Osborn

16 Aug 2007

It seems that low-impact art can sometimes hit the hardest. Minimalist canvases can cause an immediate reaction that seems to contradict the apparently modest intentions of the artist. Often you do not need bold brushstrokes or controversial subject…

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…

Owen Sheers

16 Aug 2007

‘Sitting at a desk talking to myself’ is how poet, novelist, playwright and journalist Owen Sheers defines writing. It seems his desk has served him well. His latest work is a radio play about WWII poet Alun Lewis; and a collaboration with composer…

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…

Josie does Edinburgh

16 Aug 2007

Two weeks in, The List’s columnist is tired, sick and dreaming of taking hallucinogens in the desert. Other than that, she’s having a ball

The Bourne Ultimatum

(12A) 115min

16 Aug 2007

ACTION/THRILLER/SEQUEL ‘Remember everything, forgive nothing’ is the tagline for Paul Greengrass’s satisfying conclusion to the spy trilogy based on Robert Ludlum’s books, in which Jason Bourne (Matt Damon) gets his memory jogged about his previous…

The Bacchae

16 Aug 2007

There have been many and varied interpretations of Euripedes’ classic over the years. There’s the conventional reading, contrasting the straight-laced and controlling personality against the sensual hedonist (witness the various productions of the 90s…

Phantom Love

16 Aug 2007

One of the undoubted highlights of this year’s experimental Black Box strand is US filmmaker Nina Menkes’ black and white internationally roaming surreal familial drama Phantom Love. Menkes has been described as one of ‘the most provocative artists…

Mother and the Addicts

16 Aug 2007

After 13 years of stellar service to the indie scene, Chemikal Underground are throwing a party to celebrate their 100th release. Well, if you’d introduced the world to new music by acts such as Mogwai, Arab Strap, The Delgados, Bis and Aereogramme…

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…

Singles & Downloads

16 Aug 2007

A pair of lovely lady sounds open this issue’s whip through the short players, which has a strange males vs females dynamic incidentally. ‘Mr Blue’ (Tallgrass) *** by Catherine Feeny ambles along in a loved-up winsome haze, its head lost in a cloud of…

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…

Romeo and Juliet

16 Aug 2007

Having finally got over Baz Luhrmann’s version, it feels like we can move on to a new approach to this popular, if flawed, old Shakespearean standby. If Peter Meineck’s version for Aquila doesn’t quite make for a new ‘standard’, it certainly…

JR Ewen

16 Aug 2007

AK Can you tell me about the work you’ll be exhibiting? JRE My work will include a small video piece and fabric compositions based on women’s costume. Bodices, boned supports for gowns, modern BDSM clothing lend a structure for the designs. 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…

Marina Lewycka

16 Aug 2007

Marina Lewycka’s debut A History of Tractors in Ukrainian won over hearts and minds with a witty and largely autobiographical tale of a long settled immigrant family clashing over the encroaching senility of its obsessive and stubbornly romantic head.

POPPEA

16 Aug 2007

One of the most powerful leaders in the world abuses his position by having an affair and ignoring the will of the people – it’s a concept as familiar today as it was 2000 years ago for the Romans, on whose machinations Claudio Monteverdi based his…

Jason Manford

16 Aug 2007

Too much success early on in a career can be a double-edged sword. Jason Manford first came to attention two years ago with an inspired, Perrier-nominated debut in which he exploded various urban myths and apocryphal tales. As a fan of that auspicious…

Mark Watson

16 Aug 2007

Mark Watson deserves his moment. Having proved to be one of the true innovators on the Fringe with his marathon comedy sessions, off-the-cuff novel writing and participation in daft quizzes, his solo hour of stand-up has grown in stature and scope in…

Richard Long: Walking and Marking

16 Aug 2007

Even at 60, Richard Long is a towering, physical man. He has trekked across the Sahara, Lapland, and the Himalayas, crossed Ireland in 12 days and lost himself in the Gobi desert and the Norwegian wilderness. For the past 40 years Long has been making…

Jim Jeffries

16 Aug 2007

You may consider yourself not easily offended. You may feel that nothing shocks you, and that there is nothing left to say that is truly controversial or distasteful. If this is the case consider yourself well and truly wrong. Since his appearance at…

Scottish Ballet

16 Aug 2007

In 2005, when Scottish Ballet performed at the Edinburgh International Festival after an absence of 20 years, great excitement surrounded their return. Now that the company is back for the third year running, they almost seem old hat – yet there are a…

Josie Long

16 Aug 2007

Josie Long is already holding court about nothing much as the sold-out audience squeezes in. She happily assures us that this is not to make it seem like a piece of avant-garde theatre, that she just likes to chat. Following on from last year’s runaway…

William Eggleston: Portraits 1974

16 Aug 2007

No matter what decade you were brought up in, the 1970s are absolutely dripping with glossy, honey-hued nostalgia. And it’s exactly this kitschy, colour-saturated era that William Eggleston has captured in his 1974 photographs on show at Inverleith…

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 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…

Michael Craik: Razed to the Ground

16 Aug 2007

There can be an arresting intimacy in small paintings. The artist’s relationship becomes that much closer and more private, the intentions more modest. Certainly this seems to be part of the appeal of Michael Craik’s most recent works, all of which are…

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…

Julian Baggini

16 Aug 2007

Julian Baggini is certainly not afraid to engage with popular culture. He recently wrote this on BBC online: ‘Matt Groening is the true heir of Plato, Aristotle and Kant’. Although this article landed Baggini a mention in Private Eye, he talks of 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…

Knocked Up

Top 5

16 Aug 2007

The 40-Year-Old Virgin – nipple wax scene In an effort to make virgin Steve Carell more appealing to women, his friends take him to get his chest waxed. Carell agreed to do the waxing for real in the film. By the time they reach his nipples, you too are…

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…

Paranoid Park

16 Aug 2007

Using Blake Nelson’s novel as inspiration Paranoid Park is a cross between Memento, Brick and The Outsiders. Gus Van Sant pushes the boundaries of the time-jumping narrative he essayed in Elephant to tell this pulp tale of a high school kid who gets…

Spook Country

William Gibson

16 Aug 2007

POLITICAL THRILLER Two-thirds into William Gibson’s latest novel, a most contemporary of thrillers, a character declares that, ‘sometimes the closer to a truth one gets, the more complicated things become’. By this stage in proceedings, that…

Ruth Thomas

16 Aug 2007

Things to Make and Mend is a quiet, moving, wryly amusing work which explores themes of friendship, class and betrayal. Ruth Thomas highlights her themes through the turbulent relationship between two very different women, Rowena and Sally, who first…