Issue 585

The hot young things of Scottish theatre

6 Sep 2007

Who: Hannah Donaldson, 23, who graduated this year from RSAMD What: Will be playing the lead role in the Tron’s production of Antigone, directed by David Levine, and can also be seen in the upcoming series of Rebus. Sunny, pretty and immediately…

Ian Rankin interview

6 Sep 2007

So this is the end, then. Well, perhaps not quite. Exit Music, the much trumpeted latest work from Ian Rankin sees his world famous cynical copper Detective Inspector Rebus handing in his warrant card for the last time and retiring permanently to the…

Scottish Dance Theatre

6 Sep 2007

In the past ten years, Scottish Dance Theatre has commissioned over 30 works, none more captivating, emotive and engaging than Liv Lorent’s Luxuria. So it’s little wonder that for its 21st anniversary tour, the Dundee-based company has chosen to…

Dating - Love is in the air

6 Sep 2007

Not so very long ago, the idea of one of your friends owning up to joining a dating agency would have been unimaginable. Most of us would rather have walked over hot coals or lie on a bed of glass than admit to something which carried such social…

Control wins List screenplay award

6 Sep 2007

Forget all the other festival awards: there is only one that counted this year and that was The List and The Writers’ Guild’s Edinburgh Writing Award for Best Screenplay of a New British Film. There were 11 UK films at this year’s Edinburgh…

KT Tunstall interview

6 Sep 2007

Looking around the room gives a clear indication of the reason behind KT Tunstall’s remarkable success. Crammed into the boardroom at XFM Scotland’s headquarters in Glasgow are two dozen competition winners being treated to an intimate acoustic show…

An Audience With . . .Nick Nairn

6 Sep 2007

Up until now, the most terrifying moment in Nick Nairn’s career was during the height of the recent foot and mouth crisis, when he interviewed the First Minister live on the BBC programme Landward. However, Nairn likes to push himself, and so to kick…

Small Engine Repair - interview with Iain Glen

6 Sep 2007

It’s the eyes. I’m sitting in an Edinburgh member’s club, and I’m looking at the 46-year-old Edinburgh born actor Iain Glen. I’m trying to work out what has compelled me to follow his career since his remarkable turn as poet, artist and Barlinnie inmate…

Get on course

6 Sep 2007

Dance Edinburgh A vast range of courses from salsa and ballet to breakdancing and street dance are available at Dance Base along with various pay on the day classes. Book before 29 September for the autumn term. Classes run from beginner to advanced…

The outer limits

6 Sep 2007

We packed Allan Radcliffe and Kirstin Innes off on two very different Scottish weekend breaks – the former thrown to the wind in the rugged peninsula of Knoydart, the latter placed in the lap of luxury in a country house – with strict orders to…

Klaxons interview

6 Sep 2007

The List It’s been the buzzword in the music press for the last year. But what does the term ‘new rave’ mean to you? Simon Taylor-Davis I don’t really think the term new rave has anything to do with the actual music: it’s terminology for an attitude.

The Sopranos - final season

6 Sep 2007

In May 1998, traumatised executives at US cable channel Home Box Office (HBO) were in mourning when the last episode of the ground-breaking spoof chat show comedy The Larry Sanders Show aired. Having reached a creative peak since its inception in 1965…

News round-up

6 Sep 2007

Big-hearted Scottish comedy Gregory’s Girl has been hand-picked as part of a specially selected best top ten film poll by Scottish Screen. The film topped a hitlist of educational films aimed at kids. Cinema Paradiso, Monsters Inc, Great Expectations…

Butcher Boy

6 Sep 2007

With corporate indie currently riding high in the charts and flash in the pan, fashion-obsessed tykes pervading the blogs, Butcher Boy are more than a breath of fresh air. If you haven’t yet had the pleasure of their musical company, first album Profit…

Half Life - interview with Angus Farquhar

6 Sep 2007

It doesn’t take long in conversation with Angus Farquhar to realise that he’s not a great fan of Time Team. The artistic supremo of NVA has, for a good few years now, presided over a succession of multi arts projects, which might sit as comfortably…

Justice Interview

The French revolution

6 Sep 2007

More than just the latest duo to traverse the English channel to blow our minds, David Pollock reckons Justice are at the vanguard of a new musical movement

Touching the void

6 Sep 2007

There’s something about the term ‘the void’ that grates ever so slightly. The mention of it conjures up, at best, the Jungian notion that we humans are empty vessels into which experience is poured. The term is so overused that when you meet it in the…

Drawing Room

6 Sep 2007

It used to be called the Brewery Tap, which was simple. Turn tap on, punters (students, largely) come to drink. Turn tap off, punters leave. Often shambolically. Now it’s Drawing Room, and a bit more complex. There are puns happening, because they…

The Serpent - interview with Olga Kurylenko

6 Sep 2007

The most striking thing about the slick French thriller The Serpent is Olga Kurylenko, the beautiful 27-year-old Ukrainian model-turned-actress who plays the film’s femme fatale-cum-crime victim, Sofia. Kurylenko’s character only makes it as far as the…

DVD Round-up

6 Sep 2007

The stand-alone DVD rental and retail markets have been buzzing over what turned out to be a perfect summer for home entertainment. As we move into September, the box-set heavyweights move in to fill the hole in those darkening nights. You really can’t…

Singles & Downloads

6 Sep 2007

It’s Autumn again and, as ever, there are a sack full of new singles struggling to squeeze into limited radio rotation spots like fat men caught in a revolving door. Just as scientists have a tough time predicting natural disasters, gauging how…

The Go! Team

6 Sep 2007

POP The Go! Team have always ploughed a lonely, if thrilling, furrow. When the Brighton six-piece outfit’s debut album, Thunder, Lightning, Strike, exploded in our faces in 2004, it was a joyful, irrepressible record which sailed in the opposite…

The Car Man

6 Sep 2007

Everyone loves a drifter. The myths of whole countries have been built around those beautiful, denim-clad strangers who roll into towns to stir up trouble. It’s a conceit that works much better in small-town America than, say, Motherwell, which Matthew…

Clare Stephenson: Bandaged Heads

6 Sep 2007

After a successful exhibition as part of a group show of work at Stirling’s Changing Room, Clare Stephenson returns to Glasgow to continue her examination of performativity and the exaggerated poses that we adopt in our everyday lives. These new…

Atonement

6 Sep 2007

There’s a visually astounding set-piece at the centre of this adaptation of novelist Ian McEwan’s superb tragic romance set before, during and after World War II. It’s a lengthy tracking shot of the beach at Dunkirk during the Allied troop withdrawal…

Exposure - Rachel Unthank & the Winterset

6 Sep 2007

The all-girl folk quartet, famous for singing in their gorgeous Geordie accents, are back with The Bairns, the follow-up to 2005’s Cruel Sister, which received a hearty thumbs up from folk purists and mainstream radio alike. How do you follow up a…

3.10 to Yuma

6 Sep 2007

Pitting Russell Crowe and Christian Bale head-to-head guarantees a bout of intense, tortured manliness and this glowering, gripping remake of Delmer Daves’s 1957 Western (adapted from an Elmore Leonard short story) practically fires rounds of solid…

Islay Jazz Festival

6 Sep 2007

JAZZ The Islay Jazz Festival seemed a risky proposition when it was first launched back in 1999, but it took off in no uncertain terms. Guitarist Martin Taylor declared it ‘the best wee jazz festival in Scotland’ after the inaugural event, and there…

Jimmy Van M

Techno/House clubbing

6 Sep 2007

The DJ known only as Jimmy Van M is a man with a nomadic history. Born in Belgium and currently based in Barcelona, he first made his name as a DJ in Florida, after his family moved to the Sunshine State when he was ten years old. ‘A friend of mine…

Profile: Scream Club

6 Sep 2007

Occupation Hip hop, glam rock, queer girl band. What’s the skinny? Scream Club are two very sexy lady rappers by the names of Cindy Wonderful and Sarah Adorable from Olympia, Washington who are making their Scottish debut at Utter Gutter this…

Daedelus

6 Sep 2007

ELECTRONICA ‘My background is in more orchestral music and cinematic stuff,’ says Los Angeles electronicist Alfred Darlington aka Daedelus. ‘So my recording for Ninja Tune is an attempt to marry their dance aesthetic to what I normally do; to…

Mabou Mines Dollhouse

6 Sep 2007

Bad taste is always a good defence in the theatre of the last few decades. With it, we can reappraise all the conventional attitudes that accrue in both art and society. This, presumably, is the starting point for Mabou Mines DollHouse, a kind of vulgar…

Arnab Chanda

6 Sep 2007

Be funny about things that you know is one of the most common pieces of advice that young comics are given by more experienced stand-ups. Arnab Chanda, then, should have a wealth of funny stuff at his fingertips purely from the places he’s lived during…

12.08 East of Bucharest

6 Sep 2007

On 22 December 1989, the Romanian Revolution that was to see the end of Communist rule and the execution of long-standing Communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu had spread to most major cities. It was a day of rebellion, demonstration and change that few…

Caribou

6 Sep 2007

PSYCHEDELIA Once in a while we all need to try something new... and no one knows this better than Dan Snaith. The chap otherwise known as Caribou was forced to embrace change in 2004 when ancient rocker Richard ‘Handsome Dick’ Manitoba filed a…

Bumpin' & Stompin'

6 Sep 2007

Northern soul events may no longer go on all night but the scene is still alive and well in Scotland, and September welcomes the return of long-standing soul-a-thon Bumpin’ & Stompin’. Run by soul-boy duo Jolly and Shaz the club set out as a humble…

Hitlist - The Best Comedy

6 Sep 2007

Ross Noble Everyone’s favourite Geordie japester, above (unless you retain a soft spot for the bearded teacher in Byker Grove), offers up Nobelism, his latest freeform extravaganza. Playhouse, Edinburgh, Sat 8 Sep; Theatre Royal, Glasgow, Sun 9 Sep.

Hitlist - The best books, comics & events

6 Sep 2007

David Peace, one of Britain's finest young writers. James Kelman with the relaunch of his epic The Busconductor Hines. Ian Rankin, the clock is starting to tick on Rebus. Joe Matt, following in the confessional footsteps of Robert Crumb and Harvey…

Hitlist - the best theatre

6 Sep 2007

Subway Vanishing Point’s splendid fringe hit begins its tour, complete with a strong Kosovan band and two stand-out performances. The story of a young man’s role in a revolution starting in Leith 15 years in the future, this piece is full of comedy…

Sally Osborn: Oh Ha Hmm

6 Sep 2007

The metaphorical and actual preciousness of Sally Osborn’s previous sculptural work has been crushed under the onslaught of an expanding self-confidence in the work on show at Glasgow Sculpture Studios. It is overly simplistic to read a surer sense of…

Hitlist - The Best Dancefloor Action

6 Sep 2007

Damaged Goods Sleazys are putting on some stellar club nights in the coming months. This offering from David Sinclair (Killer Kitsch), David Barbarossa (Optimo) and Some Young Pedro's Mark Donaldson looks like a right old knees up. Punk to reggae to NY…

Voluntary Action

6 Sep 2007

It’s now ten years since Stirling’s small artist/volunteer-run space The Changing Room opened its doors. In that time it has provided a supportive platform for emerging and established talent from Scotland and beyond. The continuing success of this…

David Thewlis

6 Sep 2007

BLACK COMEDY When Chris Morris and Charlie Brooker came up with Nathan Barley on Channel 4 a couple of years back, many people were perturbed that its main sticking point was in poking fun at a group who seemed no longer ripe for satire. Surely…

Rise of the Footsoldier

6 Sep 2007

If you’ve already picked up any of the Nick Love titles displayed alongside the vegetable-rack in your local supermarket (The Football Factory, The Business, Outlaw), then you’re in the target audience for Julian 'Rollin’ With the Nines' Gibley’s feral…

Hitlist - The best rock, pop, jazz & folk

6 Sep 2007

] Devon Sproule Beguiling, understated country filled with quirks and an old fashioned sensibility from this 24-year-old from Charlottesville, Virginia. Cabaret Voltaire, Edinburgh 9 Sep; ABC, Glasgow, Mon 10 Sep. (Rock & Pop) • Operator Please…

Superbad

6 Sep 2007

One would have to return to the 1980s and teen movies Risky Business and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off to find a youth comedy that hits the G-spot quite like producer Judd Apatow’s Superbad. After writing and directing hits The 40 Year Old Virgin and Knocked…

Hitlist - the best exhibitions

6 Sep 2007

Frances Richardson: Internus, Picasso on Paper, David Batchelor: Unplugged, David Rokeby: Silicon Remembers Carbon

Spotlight on Picasso

6 Sep 2007

It is almost impossible to imagine the art world as it exists today without the influence of Pablo Picasso. Modernism in art simply would not have existed without the great Spanish artist. The work currently on show at the National Museum of Scotland…

Arches Live!

6 Sep 2007

By now, the Arches Live! mini-festival has become something of a post-Edinburgh Festival institution, if such a term can be applied to so experimental a jamboree. This year, there’s as great a diversity as ever, and too much to mention in one short…

Spotlight on open mic nights

6 Sep 2007

So you want to share your innermost thoughts with a room full of appreciative strangers, with the added bonus of payment and the chance of a dynamic post-show sexual encounter? Well then, stand-up comedy could be the job for you, provided you’re…

New Films New Talents: Best of Scottish Shorts

6 Sep 2007

Scottish Screen presents a selection of films it funded in 2006, and there are some excellent shorts here, including Zam Salim’s award winning Laid Off, a jaundiced and funny take on death as the equivalent of unemployment, where nobody recognizes your…

The Legacy - profile of Géla Babluani

6 Sep 2007

Name Géla Babluani Born Tblisi, Georgia, 1979 Who is he? Babluani comes from a filmmaking family; his father, Temur, started making films back in 1980. With the violent uprisings taking place in Georgia, Temur sent his kids to study abroad. Gela…

Disturbia

6 Sep 2007

When Kale (Shia LaBeouf), a teenage rebel haunted by the memory of a traumatic car smash, punches out his Spanish teacher in class, he ends up electronically tagged and trapped in his suburban home. His activities are further curtailed by his concerned…

Tourists given art on their way out of Scotland

6 Sep 2007

The talent of one of Scotland’s most interesting upcoming writers was flying all over the globe last week. The Scottish Arts Council, in partnership with BAA Edinburgh and publisher Faber & Faber, sent 1000 international passengers home with a work of…

Also Released - Music

6 Sep 2007

50 Cent - Curtis (Interscope) Lead single ‘Ayo Technology’ promises much – Justin Timbertoes and Timbaland guesting – but is hardly ‘If I Can’t’ or ‘P.I.M.P.’ The rest struggles to maintain his previous momentum. Jacknife Lee - Jacknife Lee…

Wild Beasts ••••, The Teenagers •

6 Sep 2007

UPSTARTS Having already missed a trick by rocking up late for the lo-fi electronic sing-along of Baltimore’s Dan Deacon, The Teenagers made for my second disappointment of a still young evening, the Anglo-Franc scenesters trotting out their lewd…

Plain White T's

6 Sep 2007

ROCK ‘We are the Plain White T’s from Chicago. And we’re super excited about this tour!’ Sharing that enthusiasm was the unusual occurrence of a squealing audience of young ladies in the Tut’s crowd, but despite a promisingly frenetic start, things…

In the Hands of the Gods

6 Sep 2007

Forget the ‘Brand Beckham’ circus bringing ‘soccer’ to the States. This journey of five working-class football freestylers who pitch up in New York to busk their way to their idol (the devious genius Diego Maradona, in Argentina) captures the genuine…

Hitlist - the best events, talks and sport

6 Sep 2007

Merchant City Festival Glasgow’s well-heeled cultural quarter comes into its own again, with a four day festival of fashion, theatre, clubbing, food, music and visual art. Look out for the giant maze popping up in the middle of George Square, the cream…

Destiny of a Man

6 Sep 2007

Probably best known for his six hour adaptation of War and Peace (also recently released on DVD), Sergei Bondarchuk’s 1959 debut feature is no meagre effort. As he tells the story of a Soviet citizen, Andrei Sokolov (played by the director himself…

Macbeth

6 Sep 2007

There’s nothing particularly new about updating Shakespeare’s medieval Scottish tragedy to a modern criminal underworld setting - see the 1956 American mob movie Joe Macbeth - but Australian filmmaker Geoffrey Wright nevertheless makes a decent stab at…

Adrian Tomine

6 Sep 2007

GRAPHIC NOVEL The fine lines that comprise Adrian Tomine’s expressive monochrome frames may seem spindly, but they hold a weight of meaning. It is the spaces between the action and dialogue that make Tomine’s stories so effective – the pregnant…

Also Published - 5 Travel Paperbacks

6 Sep 2007

• Robert Carver - Paradise with Serpents The author follows in the footsteps of his great uncle as he finds adventure and intrigue in the lost world of Paraguay. Perennial. • Felipe Fernandez-Armesto - Pathfinders This one is a 'history of…

Renée French

6 Sep 2007

DRAMA California-based cartoonist Renée French’s tale of a troubled childhood is a surreal gem. It concerns a boy named Edison Steelhead, whose birth cost the lad his mother’s life and whose disfigured face is inherited from his bereaved father. In a…

True North

6 Sep 2007

Without the knowledge of their skipper (Gary Lewis), Sean (Martin Compston) and sexed-up crewmember Riley (Peter Mullan) agree to solve their financial problems by illegally transporting a group of Chinese immigrants into the UK. As conditions worsen…

Neil Boorman

6 Sep 2007

LIFESTYLE TALE Your response to this book by London lifestyle journalist and publisher Neil Boorman is likely to correspond directly with your attachment to the very thing it challenges: brands, and the emotionally loaded consumerist machinery that…

Raymond Macdonald & Günter ‘Baby’ Sommer

6 Sep 2007

JAZZ More recorded documentation from the undoubted leader of the Glasgow school of free improvisation, saxophonist Raymond MacDonald. Hard on the heels of the Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra’s latest opus, Falkirk (FMR), comes this collaboration with…

Joe Matt

6 Sep 2007

AUTOBIOGRAPHY Joe Matt’s painful but hilarious autobiographical strips bring confessional cartooning a la dirty old sod Robert Crumb and grouchy elderly codger Harvey Pekar to a new and entertaining low. A generation younger than Crumb and Pekar, the…

London showcase for best of Scottish culture

6 Sep 2007

Scotland is celebrated in style this weekend as the two-day London Gathering showcases the best of Scottish culture. Taking place for the first time on 8–9 September at The Inner Temple Gardens in London, the main stage is hosted by Hardeep Singh Kohli…

Sid Waddell

6 Sep 2007

SPORTS MEMOIR Certainly among the most quixotic sports memoirs to have been published in recent times, this trip down memory lane from the iconic Geordie darts commentator Sid Waddell is a blessing for fans of the man and the sport (although it’s…

Jeanette Winterson

6 Sep 2007

SOCIAL FABLES The Stone Gods offers up four stories about civilisations destroying themselves, and the individuals who find unconventional love among the ruins. Some of these work better than others, with Winterson ill at ease and over-explaining…

Martin Simpson

6 Sep 2007

FOLK Like Christy Moore, Martin Simpson has an unconventional and idiosyncratic voice that is not technically great, but knocks spots of most of the competition in expressiveness and know-how. He has the priceless ability to make any song he sings…

Charlie Hunter Trio

6 Sep 2007

JAZZ Guitarist Charlie Hunter changes tack with this trio outing, which moves even further into rock territory than its more funk-oriented recent predecessors, and consequently, further from Hunter’s earlier and more overtly ‘jazz’ work as well. The…

Ronan Bennett

6 Sep 2007

POLITICAL THRILLER After being serialised in The Observer in 2006, Irish author Ronan Bennett’s thriller of politics, psychoanalysis and chess gets a fully bound release. It’s 1914. Russia is under the thrall of singularly powerful men, the…

Alan Moore & Various

6 Sep 2007

SUPERHEROES A lot is made of the genius of Alan Moore, and we can never discredit the man who gave us The Watchmen and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen or took Swamp Thing to new celestial heights. But that doesn't mean his every utterance is…

Vector Lovers

6 Sep 2007

ELECTRONICA On the cover of the the Vector Lovers’ third long playing offering there is a picture of a group of kids in a field at sunset. It look like it was taken circa 1977. Martin Wheeler -- the man who is Vector Lovers -- seems to crave a bygone…

Z Channel: A Magnificent Obsession

6 Sep 2007

Simultaneously a dream and a nightmare for film buffs everywhere, Alexandra Cassavetes’s film melds together various different strands into a fascinating portrait of the power of cinema. The Z Channel was an LA-based cable TV station dedicated to the…

Behind the scenes at Scottish Ballet

6 Sep 2007

As Scottish Ballet gears up for a move to its new permanent home in Tramway, the company is throwing open the doors and inviting the public in to see exactly what they do when not putting on performances. As well as demonstrating how they intend to…

Swimmer One

6 Sep 2007

INDIE There’s a lot of idiotic soulless electro pop around, so it’s a good job that Swimmer One are here to redress the balance. This stunning debut effort more than meets expectations raised by the Edinburgh and Glasgow-based duo’s promising set of…

King Creosote

6 Sep 2007

FOLK POP His prodigious output thas been celebrated no end in the past but Kenny Anderson has now been ingested into the musical machine in earnest now but has lost none of his wayward spirit. Sure, this could be argued as his most conventional…

Northern State

6 Sep 2007

RAP Although originally in debt to the Beastie Boys, this all-girl Brooklyn rap trio have gone on to become a highly-skilled and hugely entertaining outfit in their own right. This diverse third album, free from the constraints of their major label…

Swayzak

6 Sep 2007

DUB TECH HOUSE Swayzak have been chiselling at this face for a decade now and their latest is a sophisticated, dark and atmospheric collection. You could, however, read ‘sophisticated, dark and atmospheric’ as sharply produced but frankly bloody…

Karine Polwart on Thank You For the Music

6 Sep 2007

When choosing eight Scottish songwriters to profile, the BBC Radio Scotland series Thank You For the Music wisely eschewed yer flashier, more tabloid-friendly Tunstalls and Fratellis, focussing instead on low-profile, home-grown indie and folk heroes…

The Proclaimers

6 Sep 2007

POP With the Comic Relief single and a musical based on their songs, 2007 has already been a great year for The Proclaimers, and this consummately crafted and soulful album can only add to their wide grins. Title track ‘Life With You’ is as big…

Rilo Kiley

6 Sep 2007

ROCK Rilo Kiley’s last album and singer Jenny Lewis’s subsequent solo debut both contained a handful of indie-country stonewall classics, but this lacklustre and scattershot offering shows none of the same spark, despite Lewis’ ever-wonderful and…

The Dykeenies

6 Sep 2007

INDIE ROCK After a year of sell-out gigs and internet hype the Cumbernauld brotherly trio plus two mates release their debut album. The opener (‘The Panic’, about STD fear) is prophetic: a great, stompy, bang of the fists and wail of the klaxons with…

Dot Allison

6 Sep 2007

POP This album is nice. It’s nice to have on in the background, and it’s nice to fall asleep to. In fact, the latter is hard not to do as Dot Allison’s tender vocals wash over you, evoking Sarah McLachlan without the melodrama. While the album’s…

KT Tunstall

6 Sep 2007

POP KT Tunstall delared she wanted to make a ‘scuzzy rock’n’roll album’, but teaming up with Steve Osbourne, who has put the gloss on Placebo, Happy Mondays and U2 among others in the past, meant it was never really going to happen. Instead, Tunstall…