Issue 584

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

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…

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…

Michael McIntyre

23 Aug 2007

Michael McIntyre has the look of someone your mother would like. Unashamedly middle class in his dress, mannerisms and speech, it’s easy to see why he is being heralded as the latest thing in ‘posh comedy’. In terms of demeanour and delivery, McIntyre…

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.

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…

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…

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…

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…

Lady Chatterley

(18) 168min

23 Aug 2007

An understated yet compelling French adaptation of Lawrence’s once scandalous novel. Eschewing melodrama the director Pascale Ferran focuses on how the sexual relationship transforms the lives of the lovers. Marina Hans and Jean-Louis Coullo’ch do…

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…

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…

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…

Rhona Cameron

23 Aug 2007

‘I don’t feel you know enough about lesbian relationships,’ is somewhat unsurprisingly a misconception that this 41-year-old wishes to clear up, back at the Festival after a four-year break. But what broadens this show’s appeal from niche to mainstream…

Butch

23 Aug 2007

Skinny, effeminate Menno Kuijper has many things, including his wit, style and falsetto vocal cords, but what he really wants is to grow muscles and date army captain ‘Stud’, reasoning that: ‘if Harry Potter can do it, why can’t I?’ In a theatrical…

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…

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…

Holly Burn

Brian Donaldson

23 Aug 2007

There’s a genuine acting talent in Hello, Holly! but a laugh-free script does nothing to save her from dying here. Nice ideas like bringing to life the Angel of the North and a horse actor recur with little weight behind them and Burn’s tortured…

Jerry Sadowitz

23 Aug 2007

The Sadowitz invective seems ever more bilious each passing year. The victims of his ire in this show range from the English (‘feckless cunts’), Heather Mills (‘cripple’) and even Harry Potter (‘fictional cunt’). Outrageously offensive and with a…

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…

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…

The City of Violence

(18) 90min (Premier Asia DVD retail/rental)

23 Aug 2007

Deeply indebted to a host of Western classics, this dazzling flick by Korean director Ryoo Seung-wan smoothly blends all of its influences into a fast-paced, gorgeous-looking whole. With shades of Get Carter, the hard-bitten (and just plain hard…

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…

The Swingers

23 Aug 2007

This inventive mix of film and live performance is a comical romp about one couple’s foray into the seductive world of swinging. Film sequences are used to hilarious effect with perfect timing and some brilliant character acting. The German porno is a…

Ae Fond Kiss

Greer Ogston

23 Aug 2007

Not to be confused with the 2004 film of the same name, Anne-Marie di Mambro’s play focuses on an awkward teen, Zed, who arrives for his birthday present – an hour with Lola. But Lola is not quite what he expected, in more ways than one. This tender…

Amsterdam Underground Comedy Collective

23 Aug 2007

If this is Dutch humour at its finest, I’m off to Germany for my laughs. The AUCC may have a cult following back home but there’s little reason to believe that their comedy travels at all well in this lame, tame hour. The supposed heavyweight talents of…

Andrew Maxwell

23 Aug 2007

5 words to describe this year’s show, Waxin’? Beautiful, real life, white lies. 4 stand-ups/comedy acts who you think should be more famous in September than they are now? Rhod Gilbert, Jim Jeffries, Steve Hughes, Stephen K Amos. 3…

Austin Low

23 Aug 2007

This jovial Aberdonian admits to gulping a couple of litres of fizzy pop every single day. Which perhaps explains his inability to stand still or focus on his material for any given amount of time. There’s a fine show in the caffeine-happy head of Mr…

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…

Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea

23 Aug 2007

This engaging mix of movement, song and animation presents a variety of vivid situations. The central characters are two eerie sisters not unlike the little girls from The Shining, who lead us through a series of grim gothic adventures in an inter-war…

Brad Meltzer & Ed Benes

(DC/Titan)

23 Aug 2007

Novelist Brad Meltzer proved he has a knack for comics with the gripping Identity Crisis, perfecting a style of weaving human feelings into tales of world shattering superpowers. This is no mean feat given that it’s often near impossible to anchor the…

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…

David O'Doherty

23 Aug 2007

Due to his distinctive, idiosyncratic style (plus, possibly, last year’s Eddies nomination) David O’Doherty has a strong following and has nothing to prove. Yet, for the sixth year, he serves up the goods. In sharp contrast to O’Doherty’s endearingly…

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…

Game Theory

23 Aug 2007

At the end of a war with some resemblance to the Yugoslavian conflict, a succession of scenarios unfolds. Three government officials negotiate fruitlessly over responsibility and territory, a woman returns to her abandoned, vandalised home with her two…

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…

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…

Kirsten O'Brien

23 Aug 2007

Early on in what feels rather like a light-hearted corporate seminar for C-List celebrities, Kirsten O’Brien talks of her status as a ‘borderline boiler’ and the probability of male audience members having entertained bedroom fantasies for the toothy…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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.

The Black Diamond Express

23 Aug 2007

Like the fastest train of the Lehigh Valley Railroad, The Black Diamond Express is, at full compliment, a nine-piece soaked in poetry, myth and bourbon. Led by the enigmatic Jack of Diamonds its combination of slide, acoustic and electric guitars over…

The Honeymoon Suite

23 Aug 2007

Mikelangelo and Undine Francesca vaunt to entertain, to hypnotise and twist a wry smile out of you with their deader than deadpan, darkly comic cabaret. She as the chanteuse with a voice that reaches notes lower than the bowels of hell and he by…

The Psychic Detective (And Those Disappeared)

23 Aug 2007

With the Scottish Arts council adopting ‘cultural entitlement’ as their current buzzword, local company, Benchtours’ solution to fulfilling funding criteria takes the form of a customised 40ft articulated truck, which, following its stint at the Fringe…

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…

The Wilders

23 Aug 2007

It seems only reasonable that a band with a lead singer called Ike Sheldon and a fiddle player called Betse Ellis should dress in sparkling white ten gallon hats, hail from Kansas City, Missouri and play honky tonk, hill billy music like they’ve just…

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…

William Eggleston

5 Questions

23 Aug 2007

5 words to describe Eggleston’s show this year? Even William Eggleston loves it. 4 exhibitions you really want to see at the Art Festival? Richard Wright, the Andy Warhol films, Jock McFadyen and Amazing Rare Things. 3 things that you…

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…

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…

AL Kennedy

23 Aug 2007

Dramatic career shifts don’t come more eye-opening than the transition from author to stand-up comic. But that’s the move AL Kennedy made over a year ago and she has gone on to prove to be just as adept in her new job. For this event, she will talk…

Alan Bennett

(Profile)

23 Aug 2007

Alan Bennett’s latest work is a charmingly subversive novella in which the Queen develops a taste for reading. She stumbles upon the Westminster travelling library thanks to her ill-mannered corgis, and swiftly moves from a determined and dutiful…

Attic Lights and The Primary 5

23 Aug 2007

It was only last year that Glasgow fivesome Attic Lights climbed down the stairs from the attic where they’d been honing their big guitarry sound – a power pop blend of 60s Beach Boys harmonies and gently melodic Americana – and finally stepped outside.

Basic Training

5 Questions

23 Aug 2007

5 words to describe Basic Training? Inspiring, uncomfortable, character, interactive, true. 4 things you love about Edinburgh in August? That’s easy! Mariachi’s restaurant, Elephants & Bagels, the buzz and the spectacle. 3 things you…

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…

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…

Bomber’s Row

23 Aug 2007

In a maximum security prison in Colorado, three of the most dangerous terrorist bombers alive mix with a Cuban drug lord. From their cages in an exercise yard they converse, then a female barber with a secret cuts their hair. Based on true events and…

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…

Breach

(12A) 110min

23 Aug 2007

Superior political thriller based on the true story of an FBI turncoat who created the biggest security breach in the organisation’s history. Chris Cooper is excellent as FBI agent Robert Hanssen and Ryan Phillippe is equally good as the undercover…

Charles Mingus Sextet

Blue Note Records

23 Aug 2007

There is no shortage of live Mingus music available on record, officially sanctioned and otherwise, but this previously completely unknown concert recording from Cornell University in March, 1964, is a genuine discovery. The gig took place shortly…

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…

Chris McCausland

23 Aug 2007

There are laughs and truths universally acknowledged aplenty in the company of blind comedian Chris McCausland with his tales of planes, trains and shameful ordeals. He takes a pop at bargain airlines and cryptic crosswords, and jollies his way through…

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…

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…

Dan Atkinson

23 Aug 2007

With shambolic hair and stately intonations, Atkinson looks and sounds like an endearingly mad university professor. He uses his amiable and rambling persona to enlighten the audience with talk of Greek philosophy and nicely worked illogical theories.

David Kendall

(Robinson)

23 Aug 2007

This really is a weighty tome with over 500 pages of war comics culled from across the world and through the ages (from 1965–2006). Keiji Nakazawa sets the mood with his personal account of the bombing of Hiroshima in I Saw It, a poignant tale that…

Fall Out Boy

23 Aug 2007

Famed for their highly polished, energetic stage show, the kings of emo-pop, Fall Out Boy, fill their down time from the Reading and Leeds festivals with a quick jaunt up to Scotland. The band broke through to the mainstream with hits like ‘Sugar We’re…

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…

Footlights

23 Aug 2007

Judging by the comedy graduation success of the Cambridge sect, the next Mark Watson or Stephen Fry may well be among the folk on stage, but they’re as difficult to spot as a funny sketch. Still, the cast’s occasional efforts to swallow their own…

Gently Progressive Behemoth

23 Aug 2007

While the sketch show may have fared rather poorly at this year’s Fringe, the oddball double act might well be having its salad days. Certainly, if the Gently Progressive Behemoth (in the shape of comically theatrical young Cambridge guns Nadia Kamil…

Hard-Fi

23 Aug 2007

With new album Once Upon a Time in the West released the day before this gig, the Staines crew bring forth their ‘club’ tour, giving fans another chance to catch the band’s chirpy dole-rock in an intimate setting. So expect more swaggering tales of…

Hattie Hayridge

23 Aug 2007

She may have one of the slowest openings to any comedy show on the Fringe, but Hattie Hayridge is in no mood to speed things along at any point. This is either fantastically brave or a sign that her nervy stage disposition is not as much of an act as it…

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…

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…

Hitlist - the best Festival film

23 Aug 2007

Run Granny Run Enjoyably eccentric documentary about a 94-year-old lady’s attempt to become the Democrat’s New Hampshire candidate for the senate. Filmhouse, 623 8030, 23 Aug, 4.30pm, £7.95 (£5.50). Faro: Goddess of the Waters Captivating…

Hitlist - the best film

23 Aug 2007

Knocked Up Hilarious unwanted pregnancy comedy from the team who made The 40 Year Old Virgin. General release from 24 Aug. Lady Chatterley Intelligent and compelling adaptation of DH Lawrence’s once scandalous novel. GFT, Glasgow from Fri 24 Aug.

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…

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…

Irezumi

(15) 85min (Yume Pictures/DVD retail)

23 Aug 2007

Based on the legendary decadent Japanese writer Junichirô Tanizaki’s short story, Yasuzo Masumura’s 1966 film is a tale of love’s labour lost to prostitution and murder after a woman, Otsuya (Ayako Wakao) from a superior background embarks on an affair…

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…

Nathan Englander

(Faber)

23 Aug 2007

Nathan Englander, the New York-born author of For the Relief of Unbearable Urges, makes a confident leap from critically acclaimed short story writer to novelist with the audacious The Ministry of Special Cases. It's set in 1970s Buenos Aires during…

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…

Patrick Monahan

23 Aug 2007

With Feel the Love, Monahan comes across as your archetypal loveable Geordie but you’d be hard pressed to feel anything but relief at the end of this. Devoid of any discernible subject matter, other than friendly audience banter, this is the equivalent…

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…

Planting the Dunk Botanic Gardens

23 Aug 2007

David Malikoff’s monologue amounts to a brief exposition of the history of Dunk Island near the great Barrier reef, followed by the story, told in the form of a prose poem by Mark O’Connor, of O’Connor’s struggle to create a garden in the jungle…

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…

Royal Scottish National Orchestra

23 Aug 2007

On stage at the start of this year’s Edinburgh Festival and back at the Usher Hall for its penultimate night, the Royal Scottish National Orchestra have three Glasgow dates that are equally unmissable before returning to Edinburgh with their winter…

Sally Osborn: OH HA HMM

23 Aug 2007

Site-specific artist Sally Osborn presents an installation using a range of seemingly disparate materials and processes including cast wax, recycled timber, fabric, mirror and a living cat. Glasgow Sculpture Studio, Glasgow, until Sat 15 Sep.

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…

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…

Simon Amstell

23 Aug 2007

Amstell is a good date. He makes you feel clever with his philosophical musings, draws you in with candid tales of heartache and social ineptitude and proves that his pulling power is still mighty away from the telly with tightly written, machine-gun…

Skolka

23 Aug 2007

Three mail order bride applicants sell themselves to the audience, and before you know it you’ve followed their life history and found out exactly how they ended up smiling at a camera in desperation. This physically enthralling piece draws you into the…

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…

Sugarhouse

(15) 90min

23 Aug 2007

Based on Dominic Leyton’s play Collision about a middle class man (Steven Mackintosh) who finds himself forming an unlikely alliance with crackhead D (Ashley Walters) when a volatile gangster Hoodwink (Andy Serkis) comes after him. Hammy, dull and…

The Bratchpiece Family

23 Aug 2007

It’s never a good sign when the compere insists that a comedy show is a ‘two-way thing’ and if we can show the acts some love then they will make us laugh. I’d always thought the latter came before the former, but neither is in much evidence as…

The Florists

23 Aug 2007

Take one florist with no flowers, a sad sack, his terminally ill sister and his mail-order bride, mix them all up in a fairly implausible, badly written script and you’ve got the premise of this bizarre and pointless comedy. If the play left out the…

The Importance of Shoes

23 Aug 2007

A story of obsession, infidelity and wondrous shoes, this piece uncovers the bad situations people can get into. With sharp, snappy dialogue exchanges the play stylishly skips along, light-heartedly exploring our faults and vices. Shoes become the…

The Man Across the Way

23 Aug 2007

Police are being given more money to conduct surveillance on suspected terrorists and the public are being asked to remain vigilant and report any suspicious activity. It is understandable in the context of the war on terror but you have to wonder…