Issue 583

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…

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…

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…

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…

Lady Chatterley’s Lover

(18) 99min

16 Aug 2007

SEX DRAMA In lieu of the release of Pascale Ferran’s masterful new French adaptation of DH Lawrence’s erotic tale (released at the end of this month) comes the dubious DVD release of this tawdry adaptation from 1981. Cobbled together by the same team…

Macbeth: Who is That Bloodied Man?

Nicola Husband

16 Aug 2007

Macbeth, like most of Will’s plays, has suffered from many strange interpretations, including a film that transposes the action to a 90s rave and an American theatre version that quite literally strips the characters bare. These wacky interpretations…

The Hamiltons

(18) 84min

16 Aug 2007

HORROR When you realise that The Hamiltons is helmed by directorial duo The Butcher Brothers (aka Mitchell Altieri and Phil Flores) you realise you’re in for a gruesome treat. They’ve given the serial a subtle twist that turns it on its head, and for…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

Oh For Christ Sake I Like Shortcake featuring The Twilight Sad

16 Aug 2007

The name of this indie night is trying to tell us we should expect something Scottish. But nothing as twee or naff as a tartan tin of all-butter fingers. Instead, the line-up showcases four of Scotland’s most promising and pioneering acts. First up are…

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…

Siamsoir: The Battle for Eire

16 Aug 2007

Their name comes from the Gaelic word for ‘entertainer’, and that’s precisely what young company Siamsoir’s fusion of traditional Irish and contemporary dance sets out to do. Trawling the misty myths of ancient Eire for subject matter…

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…

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…

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…

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…

James Campbell's Onomatopeia Society III & Spinistry of Moonerism

16 Aug 2007

James Campbell is, deservedly, at the forefront of the children’s comedy scene and his shows will always attract a loyal following, which makes the slight flatness of this year’s offering confusing. Alongside the popular Comedy Club 4 Kids, he’s written…

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…

Lavinia Greenlaw

16 Aug 2007

Lavinia Greenlaw’s latest book, The Importance of Music to Girls, is a memoir recalling her girlhood rendered through music. Beginning with her first musical memory of waltzing on her father’s feet, it meanders through the musicals and recorder practice…

Les Witnesses (Les Temoins)

16 Aug 2007

French director Andre Téchiné (Strayed, Alice et Martin) returns with this urgent and compelling relationship drama, which is terrifically acted by its ensemble cast. Split into three parts, and beginning in Paris during the summer of 1984, it swiftly…

Mark Olver

16 Aug 2007

Olver’s confidence and breezy stage presence have been whetted by his work as a warm-up comic for TV shows, and a good thing too: you need to be pretty self-assured to hold forth on the intricacies of your colonoscopy to strangers. The Bristolian has a…

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…

Robyn

Robyn

16 Aug 2007

POP Robyn leaps out of the gate looking like your typical kooky Scandinavian popstar with her first track, ‘Curriculum Vitae’, hyping and bigging her up in time honoured boxer/rap fashion. The lyrics boast of her triumphs – curing AIDS, scoring ‘two…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

Jihad: The Musical

16 Aug 2007

The magic of the musical genre is that you can get away with so much. If you can’t say it, sing it. This show is a perfect example. Catchy songs like ‘The Jihad Jive’ whisk us through Sayed’s story. In it we follow a young naïve Afghan flower seller who…

Lucy Porter

16 Aug 2007

From the instant Porter bounds onstage, her consummate professionalism is evident. Speedy, precise delivery and uncommonly consistent rhythm explain her popularity. It’s just a pity she still relies exclusively on relationships for material. She has the…

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…

The Big Filling: This Time it's Pie-Sonal

16 Aug 2007

It’s hard to know who enjoys this show more – kids, who help private detective, Johnny Pieman solve a dastardly crime, or adults who spend the whole hour spotting references to film noir classics. In a dark, atmospheric room, the tale of Pieman…

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 Fringe Half-Price Hut

16 Aug 2007

he Fringe Half-Price Hut opened last week, offering Festival-goers a range of tickets for half the regular price. Situated on the pavement-level roof of the Princes Mall shopping centre, the Half-Price Hut displays a list of shows offering tickets at…

The Voice of Things - Toilet Paper

16 Aug 2007

The solo performer waters her toilet rolls, wears a toilet paper skirt and crown, drapes toilet paper across the stage and generally loses herself, and the audience, in the slow and painful process. Are Underbelly trying to fill their rooms or just…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

John Moran and his Neighbour, Saori

16 Aug 2007

First off, this is not the show we’re supposed to see. At time of reviewing, the eponymous Saori was still in New York, nursing a burnt foot. By the end of Moran’s Edinburgh run, the Japanese dancer should be on stage with him – albeit slightly less…

Lawrence Leung

16 Aug 2007

Australian comedian Lawrence Leung is under the impression that he isn’t cool. Granted he stands awkwardly on stage, an adorable grin spread across his face and displaying a beard only a maths teacher could sprout; yet there is something undeniably…

Les Chansons d’Amour

16 Aug 2007

Teacher, novelist, playwright, children’s book author and now filmmaker, Christophe Honoré is fast becoming the name to drop on the world film festival circuit. His last two films – incest drama Ma Mere and playful Nouvelle Vague-ish comedy drama Dans…

Miracle in Rwanda

16 Aug 2007

The 1994 genocide, which resulted in the deaths of almost one million people in only 100 days, forms the backdrop to the powerful and uplifting tale of Immaculee Ilibagiza’s survival. Forced to hide in a tiny toilet for three months with seven other…

Natasha Wood: Rolling With Laughter

16 Aug 2007

Natasha Wood likes to move. She rushes you through the story of her life at breakneck speed, mimicking her parents, her doctor, her lover and her brother. Her monologue flows in and out of family holidays and past conversations and across continents…

Planet B-Boy

16 Aug 2007

Breakdancing has come a long way in the 30 years since its rise alongside hip hop and graffiti in the housing projects of New York City. After enjoying a fleeting popularisation in music videos and kitsch movies of the mid-1980s, an international…

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…

Richard Dawkins

16 Aug 2007

These are combative times to be a God-denier. It’s not only loopy Christians who are trying to make us believe the world was made in a week, now certain Muslims are jumping on the creationist bandwagon. Turkey’s Adnan Oktar, writing as Harun Yahya, has…

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…

Scotrail’s Festival timetable

16 Aug 2007

Scotrail’s extended Edinburgh Festival timetable is now in operation, with additional carriages and extra trains scheduled to take Festival-goers to Edinburgh from Glasgow, Stirling and Inverkeithing. Scotrail is adding carriages to more services than…

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…

Six Women Standing in Front of a White Wall

Tom Tàbori

16 Aug 2007

Six Women Standing In Front of A White Wall bursts beautifully from the venue’s seams, with a wonderful idea powering the performance. Separating the six women’s pitiable writhing and the audience is a rope cordon – much like the boundary between the…

Tanyalee Davis

16 Aug 2007

She may be 3ft 6in, but describing herself as ‘low to the ground and kind of racy’ reflects that that there is definitely nothing small about Tanyalee’s personality. Her self-deprecating humour provides a fair few laughs detailing the trials and…

The Boy and the Dog Who Walked to the Moon

16 Aug 2007

This beautiful story follows the adventures of Tomas and his dog Don Alfonso as they travel to the moon, where Tomas hopes to find his mother. Along the way they encounter vibrant characters, such as the very grumpy eagle in the mountains, all depicted…

The Legacy

16 Aug 2007

Writer/director Géla Babluani heads back to his native Georgia for the follow-up to his gripping debut feature 13. A trio of French tourists and their local interpreter venture deep into the mountains to track down a property one of them has inherited…

The Man from London (A London férfi)

16 Aug 2007

Despite its troublesome and lengthy production history, Hungarian master auteur Béla Tarr’s newest film is another work of elegant despair. Closer to his 1988 film Damnation than the more recent Sátántangó or Werckmeister Harmonies in its length and…

Tokyo Year Zero

David Peace

16 Aug 2007

WAR DRAMA Tokyo Year Zero is unrelentingly miserable. A revolving recurrence of the same events, punctuated by endlessly repeated fragments of the narrator’s stream of consciousness, hammering, scratching and ticking, it is also, at least in parts…

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…

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…

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 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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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 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 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…

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…

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…

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…

Jimmy Tingle

16 Aug 2007

As the US satirist launches his Presidential campaign, not in the States but in Scotland, it’s all too clear that it’s doomed to the same failure as Doug Stanhope’s bid. Despite having some original/wacko ideas, when it comes to getting this across in…

Jo Caulfield

16 Aug 2007

With an opening gambit about Heather McCartney’s shoe(s), Caulfield shows she means business. Cooking up hell with her projectile invective about the things that enrage her, including Jodie Marsh, Clinton Cards and BA, she delivers one-liners like death…

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…

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…

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…

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…

Martin Soan

16 Aug 2007

It’s hard to imagine a show that encapsulates the Fringe more than Soan’s. The comedy veteran’s offering is one of the barmiest you’re likely to see. Aided by Sally Day, there’s a plethora of quick changes and loony props with the highlight being 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…

Méli Mélo II

16 Aug 2007

Parody is a tricky thing to pull off. There’s a risk that, while attempting to point out the absurdity of the medium you’re lampooning, you destroy what made it worth imitating in the first place. Happily, Chicos Mambos succeed in negotiating that…

Men of Steel

16 Aug 2007

There are three feisty cookie cutters on the prowl, storming around having adventures and getting up to mischief. They’re powered by a trio of talented young puppeteers, a creative bunch who’ve already found success with the piece in their native…

Miles Jupp

16 Aug 2007

There are few things in life quite so satisfying than seeing a posh person throwing a bit of a wobbler. And so it’s with great pleasure that Miles Jupp brings us Everyday Rage and Dinner Party Chit Chat, a perusal of the moments in life when Jupp…

Mohsin Hamid

16 Aug 2007

‘Write about what you know’ is perhaps the most cogent piece of advice given to aspiring authors. Pakistan-born, Harvard-educated novelist Mohsin Hamid set out to do just that with his follow-up to the critically acclaimed Moth Smoke, penning a book…

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…