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…