Issue 584

Knocked Up

(15) 128min

23 Aug 2007

Production assistant Alison Scott (Katherine Heigl) gets the opportunity of a lifetime when she is given the chance to present on an entertainment TV channel. One day her producer tells her that her body could do with being a little ‘tighter’. But no…

New digital video service to teach fans how to recreate songs

23 Aug 2007

Aspiring musicians are being offered the chance to learn their craft from the music maestros themselves this month, following the launch of ‘Now Play It’, a new digital video service developed to help offer a more instant and direct way of learning, to…

Jarvis Cocker

23 Aug 2007

During the heady days of Britpop I was a Jarvis Cocker obsessive; following Pulp around from town to town, skipping school to buy concert tickets and waiting outside venues and hotels for autographs and photos until all hours of the morning. Once the…

Lady Chatterley

23 Aug 2007

Showjumping’s loss is cinema’s gain. As a teenager Marina Hands was a sufficiently accomplished equestrienne to feature in the French junior national team, along with the future actor-director Guillaume Canet. ‘We weren’t good enough to become…

Ricky Gervais

23 Aug 2007

There really can’t be too many comic names who would get away with performing a one-off gig at the Fringe for an International Festival ticket price, but Sir Richard of Gervais is one such man. With Fame, his obedient fans will be entertained with tales…

Mountain biking

23 Aug 2007

You’re tired and you’re sore. Nights on the vodka still don’t mix with nights on the air mattress. Sunlight splits the trees as the smells of pine forest, fresh earth and your own Red Bull–tinged breath fill your nostrils. It’s daft o’clock in the…

Björk

23 Aug 2007

It is a muggy summer’s afternoon, and although she has been doing interviews in an airless west London hotel suite for several hours, the Queen of Quirk is in fine form and fizzing with energy. Having recently released Volta – touted as her most…

The Easy Star All-Stars

23 Aug 2007

It seems that these days the cover version is more popular among artists and listeners than ever. Mark Ronson’s stone-cold funk renderings have made him friends aplenty (as well as a few enemies), and one cottage label has made the high concept leap…

Breach

Chris Cooper interview

23 Aug 2007

Chris Cooper’s got pedigree. The 56-year-old American actor began his impressive big screen career with the great independent filmmaker John Sayles, making four films with him, including Cooper’s 1987 debut, the miner’s union drama Matewan, and the…

Beastie Boys

23 Aug 2007

Take an objective look at the Beastie Boys’ musical output over the last 25 years and in all honesty it’s pretty patchy. Patchy but fun-filled. Rarely do we see a group so switched on – they’ve been rocking their whole implausible career for kicks. Who…

Bobby Gillespie

23 Aug 2007

Fire Engines ‘I’m a big Fire Engines Fan. They were a big influence on us: fifteen minute sets, very intense. ‘Get Up and Use Me’ – their single. ‘Candy Skin’, ‘Meat Whiplash’, ‘Sympathetic Anaesthetic’, you know? Big fan of the Fire Engines…

Bonus points

23 Aug 2007

The Unknown Pleasures Tent Kicking off the fun in the Manicured Noise Field on Friday will be Glaswegian dubsters and reggae-ska lovers, Mungo’s Hi-Fi. Their party mix of mellow, feelgood beats has already gone down a storm at the Knockengorroch…

Orpheus X

23 Aug 2007

The gods are surely smiling on Edinburgh this month, as the American Repertory Theatre rocks up to the Edinburgh International Festival with a modern version of the Orpheus myth. The brainchild of master performer and maverick musician Rinde Eckert…

And When Did You Last See Your Father?

23 Aug 2007

‘It’s not my story, of course. It’s Blake’s story,’ says screenwriter David Nicholls of his latest project. Having cut his teeth on TV drama Cold Feet, Nicholls successfully adapted his own novel Starter For Ten for the cinema before he agreed to give…

Trisha Brown Dance Company

23 Aug 2007

In 1962, one building in New York City became the centre of the modern dance world. Artists flocked to Judson Memorial Church to produce work, and when they left, went on to influence dancers and choreographers around the world. But when I ask Trisha…

Flavour of the month

23 Aug 2007

Food at festivals is too often hit and miss. At best you may find some culinary treat that shocks and delights the pallette, while others are there to fill a hole as you rush from stage to stage between bands. But the organisers of Connect are…

The sound of progress

23 Aug 2007

Hand-picked from the regular industry showcases at King Tut’s, 20 of the top bands in Scotland have been selected to play the YourSound Band Stand. Among the Friday line-up: North Atlantic Oscillation, Le Reno Amps, Frightened Rabbit and…

Happy Mondays

23 Aug 2007

‘Hola!’ Shaun Ryder is just back from Spain, and has clearly been learning the language. In between shows leading up to next week’s T on the Fringe gig, though, the surprisingly sharp and decidedly affable Happy Mondays frontman is at home, ‘catching up…

Silicone Remembers Carbon

23 Aug 2007

In the first ten minutes of experiencing David Rokeby’s work at Glasgow’s CCA, I am ‘taken’, ‘dismayed’, ‘intrigued but resistant’, ‘troubled’, ‘voyeuristic’ and then ‘convinced’. So the randomly generated adjectives tell me, words that appear floating…

Idlewild

23 Aug 2007

‘We’ve always been the band of bad timing, haven’t we?’ laughs Idlewild singer Roddy Woomble. ‘We’re perennially called underachievers or underdogs, because we’ve always put out records that are out of sync with what’s being played on the radio. We’re…

Screwloose

23 Aug 2007

New kid on the electro block Screwloose makes its debut at the Arches this fortnight with a solid roster of interesting musical guests to get your teeth into. Even if it seems that every club in both Scottish cities has the ‘electro’ genre in its revue…

Room to roam

23 Aug 2007

Summer festivals are attended by two kinds of people. Those who think camping is fun and those who think it is a near manifestation of hell on earth. If you’re the former, you revel in every muddy, messy moment. If you’re the latter, you are conflicted…

Craig Davidson

23 Aug 2007

Craig Davidson doesn’t pull any punches. We might as well get the terrible boxing pun out the way at the start, because his debut novel, The Fighter, is a brutally violent but brilliantly written tale set in the world of underground bare-knuckle…

Josie does Edinburgh

23 Aug 2007

Hello again, I’m delighted to report that, three weeks in, I’m surviving. My show Trying is Good has received what I am describing as ‘delightfully mixed’ reviews. I have seen some inspiring shows over the last week, Will Adamsdale and Kristen Schaal…

News round-up

23 Aug 2007

This year’s if.comedy awards are set to be sprinkled with a little Hollywood gold dust, when actor Christian Slater returns to the Edinburgh Fringe to announce the winner this week. Slater, who brought One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest to the Fringe in…

Tenori-On

23 Aug 2007

It’s hard to neatly sum up the Tenori-On. The bare facts are these: it’s a new music device from Yamaha; it produces a light show that corresponds with what is being played; it can be programmed in real time and is a new innovative, intuitive…

Modest Mouse

23 Aug 2007

When I call for a chat, Modest Mouse’s Isaac Brock is at home in Washington State. He’s been hard at work all morning trying to replace the starter on his van, and seems excited at the prospect of getting his hands dirty. Not the sort of pastime you…

The Jesus and Mary Chain

23 Aug 2007

Jim and William Reid drew out their plans for their rock’n’roll band down on paper long before they ever picked up their instruments. They knew how they wanted to sound and look but it was surely not in their master plan to be playing their first London…

Picasso on Paper

23 Aug 2007

They say that all is fair in love and war – although the word ‘fair’ seems a little humdrum when you take in the remarkable collection of works exhibited in one of the Festival’s undeniable big guns. Throughout a selection of around 120 graphic works…

Hallam Foe

(18) 95min

23 Aug 2007

As writer and philosopher William Gass once noted: ‘for the voyeur, fiction is what’s called going all the way’. No one knows this better than rural Scottish boy Hallam Foe (Jamie Bell). While his father (Ciarán Hinds) and stepmother (Claire Forlani…

John Pilger

23 Aug 2007

In this day and age, journalist is a job title which is afforded a disdain from the general public on a par with estate agent, parking attendant and serial killer. Trust is a commodity that is lacking when it comes to relations between newspaper people…

Vashti Bunyan

23 Aug 2007

From Stones protégée to modern folk icon, Stewart Smith counts down the four ages of effervescent folk singer Vashti Bunyan

MIA

23 Aug 2007

Were we to try and describe the precise sound which London-born, Sri Lanka-raised MIA makes, we’d be here all day. While she can be very broadly described as an electro-grime act whose vocals are a combination of hip hop cajoling and reggae rhythm…

Hot Chip

23 Aug 2007

Hot Chip will break your legs, snap off your head. At least, that’s what they claim on The Warning, the title track of their magnificent second album. Apparently the London-based electro-pop duo of Alexis Taylor and Joe Goddard met at school, where they…

Subway

23 Aug 2007

Perhaps understandably, the number of people who feel pessimistic rather than optimistic about Britain’s future has grown exponentially over the last few years, according to a flurry of recent surveys. This smart and stylish production from Vanishing…

Singles & Downloads

23 Aug 2007

Without the right tunes, a buff set of pipes are about as much use as a pair of boxfresh Nikes to a landmine victim. For proof, check out London’s latest supposedly hot-prospect Bobby Kray ’s ‘Silly Games’ (V2) ** – four minutes of rangy vocal…

Nathan Coley

23 Aug 2007

Be careful when entering this exhibition – a sturdy strip of wood runs right across the entrance just high enough to trip unsuspecting visitors flat onto the floor. This is not a health and safety oversight but artist Nathan Coley’s intervention…

Sean Hughes

23 Aug 2007

On the face of it, the stage Sean Hughes of 2007 doesn’t seem a whole lot different from the one who nabbed his first bit of fame back in 1990 as the youngest winner of the Perrier. With that boyish gaunt look still intact, he certainly doesn’t look any…

Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players

23 Aug 2007

Having visited the Fringe in 2004 and 2005, last year wasn’t quite the same without the Trachtenburgs around, sporting their thrift store chic. There seems to be no real barrier between the onstage and offstage personalities of Jason, Tina Pina and…

Frank Skinner

23 Aug 2007

After a decade away from the stand-up circuit, you’d think that quite a fuss would have been made of Frank Skinner’s Edinburgh return, back in the exact same room where it all started for him with his Perrier-winning year of 1991. Yet when the lights go…

Ensemble 415

23 Aug 2007

It’s not unheard of for groups of musicians to give themselves identities that have something to do with numbers. The Sixteen, for instance, take their name from the regular quota of their singers. Or there’s New York’s Ensemble 21, whose contemporary…

Hitlist - the best rock, pop and folk

23 Aug 2007

The Black Lips Atlanta, Georgia may be hoaching with hip hop stars for the most part but there’s also lowdown rock’n’roll dogs like this bunch. Come feel their twang. Optimo, The Sub Club, Glasgow, Sun 2 Sep. (Rock & Pop) Connect Festival Hopefully…

Game?

23 Aug 2007

If you’ve ever been to a dinner party and wanted to scream in frustration then this creative company, Tangled Feet, have the play for you. What begins as a get together to welcome the neighbours soon morphs into a sharp, surreal insight into the…

Phil Nichol

23 Aug 2007

When a comic stands before his crowd after yet another uninspired anecdote and asks: ‘Don’t you think that was hilarious? I thought that was hilarious,’ you can only conclude that he knows he is in big trouble. With Hiro Worship, last year’s inaugural…

Hitlist - the best dancefloor action

23 Aug 2007

Happy Mondays’ Aftershow Keep the Madchester vibes flowing as Shaun and Bez descend on Studio 24 for a DJ set. Studio 24, Edinburgh, Fri 24 Aug. Relentless The darling of the great Tresor imprint, UK techno purveyor James Ruskin is in town to…

Stereotype Live

23 Aug 2007

Just when you thought it was safe to kick back for a traditionally sleepy September in Edinburgh along comes Stereotype Live with its one-long-night bash that promises to fuse live electronic performance and rare DJ sets in one last Festival blow out.

BBC bruisers

23 Aug 2007

Jeremy Paxman We’re not sure if there was ever a clause in his contract that read ‘be rude,’ or whether he just improvised as he went along, but Paxo has certainly stuffed a few politicos in his time. 26 Aug, 6.30pm, £8 (£6). Clarissa Dickson…

Hitlist - the best exhibitions

23 Aug 2007

Picasso on Paper An exhibition of drawings, prints and illustrated books spanning the career of one of the 20th century’s most important artists. Picasso’s early work gave those artists who followed him a route into pure abstraction, with his later…

The Beat Club

23 Aug 2007

Residents So far Pinup Nights are confirmed to launch this new venue. Guests We are promised top quality bands and DJs from the get go. Music policy Varied and eclectic. What they say ‘In these days of large, homogeneous, soulless operations…

Spiegel Garden to stay open an extra week

23 Aug 2007

The end of the Fringe may be in sight but the carnival atmosphere shows no signs of abating. Due to overwhelming demand, the Spiegel Garden will stay open for an extra week this August, continuing the festivities after most performers have left town. As…

The most pleasant Festival surprises

23 Aug 2007

The not uniformly horrible weather After what started out as a summer of slush, the temperature has improved in recent weeks with the sun even putting in the occasional appearance. OK, it might not be tropical, but at least it’s sweats rather than…

Hitlist - the best Festival comedy

23 Aug 2007

Stewart Lee Making a mockery of his low placing as the 41st Best Stand-Up Ever, the co-writer of Jerry Springer: The Opera has had everyone making a song and dance about this year’s show. UdderBELLY’s Pasture, 0870 745 3083, until 27 Aug, 7.30pm…

Xplicit

Drum & bass

23 Aug 2007

By the end of August the residents of Edinburgh will have endured almost a month of living and working in the midst of the International Festival. Those embracing the mayhem have been out and about soaking up the atmosphere and ensuring the 5am licenses…

Christine Brewer

23 Aug 2007

As comfortable chatting about American Idol as she is arias, Christine Brewer is swift to dispel any notion of the opera diva. Indeed, from the moment she burst onto the stage as a teenager with the Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, Brewer knew she had…

Ewan Morrison

23 Aug 2007

For any writer who spends most of their time away all on their own in a darkened corner, it’s essential to have a release and to get some thoughts on their work from people they know and trust. For an author such as Ewan Morrison, dubbed notoriously as…

Hitlist - the best Festival music

23 Aug 2007

The Tiger Lillies A few short years ago we were being blown away by this band’s antics at the Spiegeltent. Now they’re up at the International festival. The change of festival has not diluted their appeal, here they team up with Concerto Caledonia for…

Roddy Doyle

(Jonathan Cape)

23 Aug 2007

In light of the lucrative offers put his way over the years to pen a full sequel to his 1987 classic The Commitments, it’s so very Roddy Doyle that he instead gave one of the book’s major characters – manager Jimmy Rabbite – a rebirth in the pages of a…

Hitlist - the best Festival theatre

23 Aug 2007

Damascus David Greig’s new play about a man on a first time business visit to the eponymous city is full of humour, tragedy and political insight. Traverse, 228 1404, until 26 Aug, times vary, £16 (£5–£11). Venus as a Boy Tam Dean Burn is towering…

Paria

23 Aug 2007

‘Please take off your shoes,’ said the sign by the door. So we did, expecting some form of audience participation on a delicate floor. Instead, the entire show passed with no involvement for our stockinged/bare feet whatsoever. The real reason didn’t…

This Piece of Earth

23 Aug 2007

Such is the scale of the mighty historical narratives of any country, that eventually, be it the holocaust, the war in Iraq or the Armenian genocide, it’s difficult to convey the enormity of the tragedy in pure numbers. So just as we’ve seen the events…

Hitlist - the best Festival book events

23 Aug 2007

Tony Harrison The poet whose 1984 work ‘V’ sparked a torrent of tabloid and parliamentary outrage over its Channel 4 adaptation arrives to discuss the power of poetry. Thom Yorke is a big fan. 23 Aug, 11.30am, £7 (£5). Ian McEwan One of the…

Hitlist - the best Festival events for kids

23 Aug 2007

Modern Cautionary Tales For Children Poetry, dark tales and lots of fun participation from the very wonderful Murray Lachlan Young. Gilded Balloon Teviot, 668 1633, until 27 Aug, noon, £6–£7 (£5–£6). Aesop’s Fables With the aid of three hugely…

John Stezanker

23 Aug 2007

When representations of the human face are fragmented through photographic techniques or physically cut and pasted, as in the work of John Stezaker at the Stills gallery, the viewer cannot help but react. This easy appeal to our emotions is exploited by…

Hitlist - the best Festival dance

23 Aug 2007

Ballerina Who Loves A B-Boy The finest Korean breakdancers in town – treat yourself to headspins, streetdance and a wee bit of ballet in this five star show. clubWEST@Hilton, 0772 028 5550, 7.45pm, until 24 Aug, £12 (£9). Trisha Brown Dance Company…

Seraphim Falls

(15) 111min

23 Aug 2007

In this age of filmmaking retrograde, substantial lengths of celluloid are devoted to the lazy re-hashing of successful formulae and gratuitous remakes. Unfortunately this is not confined to action films or romcoms, as Seraphim Falls, a western, follows…

Paths of glory

23 Aug 2007

By Coach Citylink will be providing buses to and from the festival throughout the weekend and you can purchase your shuttle bus ticket at the same time as purchasing your festival ticket. This way you can sit back, enjoy the ride and take in the…

Two Days in Paris

(15) 100min

23 Aug 2007

French actress Julie Delpy jumps behind the camera for the second time with a film that pays a heavy debt to her most famous screen role, that of Céline in Richard Linklater’s Before Sunrise and Before Sunset. Two Days in Paris is an investigation…

Ann Patchett

23 Aug 2007

In the space of 24 hours, Ann Patchett’s Run covers an entire social spectrum: interracial relationships, Catholicism and its validity, familial conflict, economic and class equality, and political ethics. This is a hefty fallout from a single event for…

The Selfish Crocodile

23 Aug 2007

Some kids shows get the puppets right, others throw out a few catchy songs, while some tell a good story. But Blunderbus Theatre Company does all three, perfectly aimed at their target age range of 3–7-year-olds. Based on Charles Terry’s popular…

William Gibson

23 Aug 2007

For his new novel Spook Country, William Gibson has written a frightening dispatch from the zeitgeist with a plot that’s as outlandish as the technical and cultural details are convincing. The subliminal hum of Gibson’s influence will doubtless ensure…

Year of the Dog

23 Aug 2007

Talented comic screenwriter and actor Mike White (Chuck and Buck, The Good Girl, School of Rock) makes his directing debut with this low-key comedy about a loosely related group of neurotic nerds, geeks, dorks and stress monkeys living in bland suburban…

Once

23 Aug 2007

This Belfast-set musical romance about a lovelorn busker and a Czech immigrant single mother who get together to make music is a sort of low-key The Commitments (and Glen Hansard of Irish rock band The Frames appears in both films). It’s got its…

Run Granny Run

23 Aug 2007

Don Ameche In the 20 or so years before his death in 1993, Ameche had become the über OAP in huge box office hits Trading Places and Cocoon. His best late great performance was as shoe shiner come ageing mafia don in David Mamet’s hugely enjoyable…

Biyi Bandele

23 Aug 2007

Biyi Bandele is a London-based playwright, poet and author. His adaptation of Chinua Achebe’s classic African novel, Things Fall Apart, has been published as a Penguin Classic and his plays have been performed at top venues, including the National…

Ex Drummer

23 Aug 2007

Based on the degenerate novel of the same name by the hugely popular Flemish novelist and poet Herman Brusselmans, Ex Drummer is like a checklist of the Belgian writer’s obsessions, noticeably alcohol, sex, disability, boredom, violence, punk rock and…

Kids' events

23 Aug 2007

The last few days of the kids programme takes a walk on the dark side with scary-sounding events such as Night of the Living Horror (25 Aug, 6pm) which opens up a world of gothic terror for those aged ten plus, though Justin Somper and his Vampirates…

Stardust

23 Aug 2007

This British blockbuster adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s marvellous English fantasy novel looks fantastic. It’s seriously marred, however, by a lacklustre script co-written by Jane Goldman (Mrs Jonathan Ross) and director Matthew Vaughn. Despite fine art…

1408

23 Aug 2007

Mikael 'Derailed Håfström'’s mild chiller is pretty much a one-man horror vehicle for John Cusack as Mike Enslin, a world-weary writer who makes his living from staying in supposedly haunted locations and describing his experiences. After a mysterious…

Brendon Burns

23 Aug 2007

There’s a lot to get annoyed about with Brendon Burns. He’s a bit squealy, a bit shouty, a bit prone to flights of squealy, shouty pseudo-philosophical ramblings. A bit like an Aussie Bill Hicks. A bit 1993. Yet with Brendon Burns, what you are seeing…

DT Max

23 Aug 2007

Three things compelled DT Max to set about writing The Family that Couldn’t Sleep. Firstly, as a science writer for the New Yorker and New York Times, he had an interest in prions, the rogue proteins behind mad cow disease. The second was personal: he…

State of the World

23 Aug 2007

Portmanteau films are always hard to pull off. After the carbohydrate rich, protein poor dish that was Paris, je t’aime, this six short film look at the state of the world is much more demanding. No film more so than Wang Bing’s Brutality Factory…

Stephen Grant

23 Aug 2007

Stephen Grant is a comic whose toil cannot be over-stated. The evidence is there on the back of his shirt which, over the course of an hour, becomes entirely drenched in sweat. Not that he’s a particularly physical comedian, but in the confines of a…

Martha Kearny

23 Aug 2007

Earlier this year, a few weeks after starting her new job as presenter of Radio 4’s The World at One, Martha Kearney brought some home-made biscuits and honey into the studio and thought to herself: ‘This feels very Woman’s Hour.’ And while it’s true…

Glenn Wool

23 Aug 2007

If ever a comic had an appropriate surname, then it’s this surrealistic Canadian. You could knit a jumper with the majority of this set, but while it may be overflowing with material, give one of its many loose ends a tug and all the threads would come…

News round-up

23 Aug 2007

Sir Sean Connery has topped a poll as the celebrity most people would want to hear reading their emails and text messages. The survey was launched by Avaya Inc, a company which creates software to combat the dangers of listening to voicemails while…

Wish I Had a Sylvia Plath

23 Aug 2007

Edward Anthony’s play takes us back into a mock suburbia of the 50s to explore the last hours and recollections of the poet of the title, here renamed Esther. Ted Hughes, in turn, becomes Ned Pughes and, as in all Plathian accounts of his life with her…

Chopper

23 Aug 2007

Chopper is the ‘international ambassador of hard’. So claims Heath Franklin as he brings us his successful sketch show character, based on real-life jailbird psycho Mark Brandon Read. The premise is simple: Chopper pops up wherever you least expect him…

Debbie Does Dallas - The Musical

23 Aug 2007

There’s a very fine line between a send-up of a ropey cultural item and something that’s just plain ropey. Almost from its shrill opening bars it becomes crystal clear that Debbie Does Dallas – The Musical has crossed the line. The fundamental…

Hitlist - the best exhibitions

23 Aug 2007

David Rokeby: Silicon Remembers Carbon Stunning new interactive multimedia work from David Rokeby. CCA, Glasgow, until Sat 15 Sep. Roderick Buchanan: Histrionics A series of works, by Glasgow-based artist Roderick Buchanan, examining the city’s…

Kirsteen Macdonald

23 Aug 2007

AK: Can you tell me about the tenth anniversary show? KM: We decided that one very unique thing to celebrate about The Changing Room was its staff, so we invited them back to show their work. Around 30 artists/volunteers are taking part, including…

Closing Time

23 Aug 2007

The present conflict in Iraq may dominate both news and Fringe agendas but, lest we forget, away from the cameras and newspaper columns, hundreds of conflicts continue to rage on all four corners of the globe. Alongside death, it is human dispersion…

Psister Psycho

23 Aug 2007

Violating the first law of comedy musicals – that they be intolerable, unfunny bilge – this broad and imperfect light opera is a pleasant surprise. Though the plotting won’t give the fear to David Mamet, nor the music cause Lloyd Webber any sleepless…

Time of His Life: The Films of Eddie McConnell

23 Aug 2007

1 John Grierson Feted Scottish documentary cameraman and filmmaker McConnell was mentored by the Stirlingshire documentary filmmaker Grierson in his early days in the profession. Much of Grierson’s dedication to the idea of cinematic truth and lyricism…

Manufacturing Dissent: Unconvering Michael Moore

23 Aug 2007

Is Michael Moore a self-regarding political liability who also screws with journalistic codes of conduct, or a wayward truth seeker who has no truck with compromise as he pursues fairness and justice? We probably didn’t need Deborah Melnyk and Rick…

Andrew O'Neill

23 Aug 2007

Is Andrew O’Neill rock or folk? He has the heavy metal chains but he also has long hair and black framed glasses. He has a V-shaped guitar, but it’s acoustic instead of electric. More importantly, is this a comedy show or surrealist theatre? The answer…

No Reservations

(PG) 104min

23 Aug 2007

There are plenty of reasons to feel reserved about this maudlin romance between chefs, carelessly reheated from the rather airier 2001 Italian foodie-flick Mostly Martha. Catherine Zeta-Jones plays Kate, a temperamental Nigella Lawson-type cook whose…

Murray Lachlan Young

23 Aug 2007

When only one person in his audience (a polite reviewer) applauds a less than blazing entrance, Murray Lachlan Young positions himself somewhere between crestfallen and carefree. It’s a decade since he was propelled into mini-celebrity status for just…

The Serpent

23 Aug 2007

This slick French thriller – somewhat reminiscent of another recent export from that country, Tell No One – employs the familiar framed-for-murder/man-on-the-run scenario. The fugitive in question here is Parisian fashion photographer Vincent Mandel…

Colin McRae: Dirt

Codemasters

23 Aug 2007

Surely the most attractive thing about rally sport is its white knuckle, mud-spraying, knife-edge excitement? Which is where most rally titles seem to go astray, preferring to follow the F1 or Touring Car route of exactitude, anal technical precision…

Tony Lee

23 Aug 2007

Despite the title’s claim to be ‘aggressive,’ Tony Lee turns out to be a kindly softy suggesting that anyone with mental health problems and those who are very drunk shouldn’t offer themselves up as hypnotist fodder; he’s the one that would get sued.