Issue 583

Newton Faulkner

Hand Built by Robots

16 Aug 2007

POP Until you’ve actually seen young Faulkner attack an acoustic guitar in a whirl of spider-like fingers and dreadlocks transforming it into a three-piece band in the process, it’s hard to properly appreciate this album. There’s loads of…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

Matthew Collin

16 Aug 2007

At the turn of the 21st century, uprisings against undemocratic governments in Serbia, Georgia and Ukraine benefited from a prominent youth resistance, with groups using humour and satire to undermine the authorities. ‘After Otpor in Serbia, similar…

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…

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…

Lie Detector Truth Detector

16 Aug 2007

Peter Yates’ play is made up of three thematically linked short plays. In the first a man accused of terrorism undergoes a lie detector test; in the second two security guards in a shopping mall abuse the authority of their uniforms, while the third…

Little Howard and the Magic Pencil of Life and Death

5 Questions

16 Aug 2007

5 great things about being small? Being able to tie people’s shoelaces together under tables; tricking people into thinking you’re further away than you are; winning at limbo dancing; being able to lie on the floor and know what the world looks like…

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…

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…

Sarah Kendall

16 Aug 2007

Back in the heady days of 2004, Sarah Kendall became the first woman to receive a Perrier nomination in nine years, and deservedly so. Having taken time out to trot the globe, she returned last year with a show that was worryingly patchy and left some…

Jan Akkerman

16 Aug 2007

Dutch guitarist Jan Akkerman is not an easy guy to pin down in terms of style. He made his initial reputation in the fondly remembered Dutch prog-rock outfit Focus, where he and Thijs van Leer formed the creative core of the band. After splitting from…

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…

Maeve Higgins

16 Aug 2007

This ultra-lovely Irishwoman falls into the Josie Long school of comedy, with sweet stories, domestic references and endearingly crap Halloween-based recycling ideas. Thanks to enough well-told dark material – such as a surprise rape gag or descriptions…

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…