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…