Issue 586

Alasdair Gray Interview

20 Sep 2007

Claire Sawers meets Alasdair Gray at his Glasgow home and finds that he has created yet another iconic, naïve and semi-tragic anti-hero.

King Creosote and Emma Pollock interview

20 Sep 2007

We meet in Edinburgh’s Fruitmarket Gallery Café in the middle of the day. Not because Emma Pollock and King Creosote (AKA Kenny Anderson) are living the rock’n’roll lifestyle and couldn’t get out of bed because of terrible hangovers, but to give both…

Vintage clothes in Glasgow and Edinburgh

20 Sep 2007

Throwing out old clothes can be an emotional task and parting with that ripped pair of jeans you wore every day when you were 19 can be hard, but with a little imagination and some creative stitching, rips, tears and pinching waistlines need no longer…

The Barber of Seville

20 Sep 2007

She’s 31, he’s 62. She’s a young Scot at the start of her operatic career, he’s a singer who seems to have been at the top of his for ever. But in Scottish Opera’s new production of The Barber of Seville, it is not as singers that the two come together.

Kylie – The Exhibition

20 Sep 2007

EXHIBITION Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, Glasgow, Fri 21 Sep–Sun 23 Jan 2008 ‘The interesting thing about Kylie is that she represents that world of glitter and glamour and sparkle that so many gay people wrap around themselves as a form of…

Andrew Weatherall

20 Sep 2007

If you know dance music you already know Andrew Weatherall. He’s been at the forefront of the scene since the early days of acid house. He’s one of the most respected DJs in the world, his techno mixes often veering off into new undiscovered…

Merchant City Festival

20 Sep 2007

We’re not short of festivals in Scotland. The months between April and November have begun to feel like one of those Strip the Willows that happen at particularly drunken céilidhs, where you’re buffeted relentlessly between cultural events and…

George Clooney in Michael Clayton

20 Sep 2007

There are two sides to George Clooney that are as bipolar as his famed salt-and-pepper hair. Although it would be fair to say that when he popped up in Venice to promote Michael Clayton, for which the former ER star is heavily tipped to be in Oscar…

A Mighty Heart

20 Sep 2007

THRILLER/TRUE CRIME (15) 107min For a number of reasons, it’s difficult not to think of Henry Miller’s remark that ‘whatever there be of progress in life comes not from adaptation but through daring’ when watching Michael Winterbottom’s powerful…

The Bow

(15) 89mins (Tartan/DVD retail)

20 Sep 2007

Best known in Western audiences for Bad Guy, 3-Iron and Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter . . . and Spring, enfant terrible Korean director Kim Ki-duk has some serious twisted form in Asian cinema. This one, like most of the others, comes recommended. The…

The Yacoubian Building

20 Sep 2007

EPIC DRAMA (PG) 172min With the possible exception of Iran, new cinema from the Arab world gets a fairly raw deal in the UK, so it’s a rare pleasure indeed to immerse oneself in this accessible but sprawling multiple story drama from Egypt based on…

Death Proof

20 Sep 2007

HORROR/ACTION (18) 113min Like the best roller-coasters, Death Proof takes an eternity to get moving, but once in top gear, Quentin Tarantino’s thriller will leave you hanging on tighter than poor Zoe Bell, who clings grimly to a speeding car’s…

Transylvania

20 Sep 2007

DRAMA (15) 101min Tony Gatlif’s latest musing on Romany life is a visually stunning road movie that attempts to evoke the freewheeling spirit of Fellini’s La Strada. Wild-eyed Zingarina (Asia Argento) discovers she is pregnant and heads to Romania…

Evening

20 Sep 2007

DRAMA (12A) 117min From its literary origins through its evocative photography and exquisite production design to its award-winning crew and all-star cast, Evening is the kind of class act that Hollywood refers to as a ‘prestige picture’. Adapted…

The Brave One

20 Sep 2007

CRIME/THRILLER (18) 122min There is no actor working today who portrays motivational fear better than Jodie Foster. Her performances in The Accused and The Silence of the Lambs and to a lesser extent the more recent Panic Room and Flight Plan are…

Also Published...

5 History Books

20 Sep 2007

Rosemary Goring Scotland: The Autobiography Here comes the story of a nation in the words of its folk from the first century to now. Everyone from Mary Queen of Scots to the Big Yin have their say. Viking. Roy Hattersley Borrowed Time The ex-Labour…

Also Released - Film

20 Sep 2007

The Sound of Music (U) 174min ••• This restored print re-release of the popular sugar-coated family musical is a must for fans but hardly essential viewing for everyone else. Selected release from Wed 26 Sep. Across the Universe (15) 133min •••…

Also Released - Music

20 Sep 2007

• Qui - Love’s Miracle ( Ipeac ) Former Jesus Lizard frontman David Yow joins two LA malcontents for some gleefully deranged and frequently ingenious tribal blues rock. • Miaoux Miaoux - Rainbow Bubbles ( Koshka ) Glasgow one-man-army Julian Corrie…

As You Like It

20 Sep 2007

COMEDY/ADAPTATION (12A) 126min His forthcoming remake of Anthony Shaffer/Joseph L Mankewicz’s Sleuth (this time adapted by Harold Pinter) may put his career back on track, but Kenneth Branagh’s once golden touch with the Bard turns leaden with As You…

Bella Mbriana - restaurant review

20 Sep 2007

There are, probably, too many Italian restaurants around. Don’t take this the wrong way: Italian cuisine and, perhaps more importantly, the Italian attitude to food, bows to no-one on earth. Yet a month hardly passes without the appearance of another…

Beneath You - Spider Girls Are Everywhere

20 Sep 2007

One in ten women in the UK uses more than half her monthly take-home wage to pay off debt, and popular TV programme Spendaholics no longer shocks us with its weekly depiction of debtors borrowing thousands in their quest to portray the perfect outward…

Beyond the Surface

20 Sep 2007

California-based photographer Andrew Printer’s work explores issues of queer identity in relation to intimacy, risk and suspicion in a post-Aids environment (his ‘Touch Me’ series), and takes a sideways glance at the notion of queers being accepted by…

Brakes

20 Sep 2007

Regarded on their formation a couple of years ago as an indie supergroup for England’s south east, they’ve been together for as long as the bands they put on hold – Electric Soft Parade, Tenderfoot and British Sea Power – arguably with as much success.

Captain America: The Chosen No 1

David Morrell & Mitch Breitweiser

20 Sep 2007

In the current Marvel universe, Captain America is dead. Still, that doesn’t stop him being reincarnated when David Morrell – the novelist who created Rambo – comes calling for a scripting job. The majority of this first issue of six is about as…

Catweasels

20 Sep 2007

INDIE PUNK Between the broad north-east English accents, quirky vocal harmonies and tunes possessing more angles than a job lot of geometry sets, Chester-Le-Street quintet Catweasels will be constantly dogged by comparisons with The Futureheads. The…

Chuck Prophet

20 Sep 2007

AMERICANA King Tut’s, Glasgow, Thu, 27 Sep Not to be confused with the current trend for trucker-chic and check shirts, Americana in the musical sense magics up the sound of smoky bars, whisky-soaked nights in the desert and heartbroken farm boys.

Clubland

20 Sep 2007

COMEDY/DRAMA (15) 107min Brenda Blethyn is on Little Voice form in this touching, bittersweet Australian comedy. She plays Jean, an ageing stand-up comedienne whose best days are behind her. She’s also a control freak who refuses to accept that her…

Colombiafrica

20 Sep 2007

WORLD Voodoo Love Inna Champeta Land (Riverboat Records) The title and artwork evoke early Dr John, but this exuberant album was brewed in a much bigger melting-pot than New Orleans. Like the original bluesmen travelling to London to record with their…

Crazy P

20 Sep 2007

DISCO HOUSE Ultragroove at Cabaret Voltaire, Edinburgh, Sat 22 Sep With a new album recorded and all-but mixed, the artists formerly known as Crazy Penis have toned down to appeal to the popular market. ‘Yeah, the Penis has gone,’ says singer…

Dàimh

20 Sep 2007

FOLK Crossing Point (Greentrax) The addition of Lewis-born Gaelic singer Calum Alex MacMillan to their well-established instrumental line-up has added a new dimension to the music of Dàimh, a band with roots in the West Highlands, but a personnel that…

Dan Dare Rogue Planet

Frank Hampson & Don Harley

20 Sep 2007

Purists might be shocked by the news that Dan Dare is to return in a new series written by Preacher’s iconoclastic author Garth Ennis, yet no update could surely go further than Grant Morrison and Rian Hughes’ Dare , which saw our despairing hero…

Dan Miller: Stockade

20 Sep 2007

DRAWING, SCULPTURE AND PAINTING Studio Warehouse, Glasgow, until 24 Sep One has to wade through the familiar sophomoric references to modernist architecture, ‘dazzle’ camouflage and death to arrive at the germ of what is an interesting talent, in the…

Divisadero

Michael Ondaatje

20 Sep 2007

Best known for The English Patient, Michael Ondaatje provides another trademark non-linear narrative, attempting to create a whole out of disparate story strands, but with rather limited success. On a Californian farm, Anna, adopted sister Claire and…

DJ IQ

20 Sep 2007

HIP HOP Live from the Sofa (Man Can) Don’t worry, the Sofa isn’t some tragically hip underground club you’ve never heard of – it’s in the living room of DJ IQ, one of the UK’s most tenacious new beatsmiths. With the help of a whole bus-load of UK hip…

DVD Round-Up

20 Sep 2007

On hearing of Marilyn Monroe’s death, the filmmaker and actor John Huston said: ‘It’s a terrible pity that so much beauty has been lost to us.’ Forty-five years on, the first of two definitive DVD collections dedicated to her are coming out. Marilyn…

Ecoute Le Temps

20 Sep 2007

MYSTERY/CRIME (15) 87min There are echoes of Brian de Palma’s superb 1981 thriller Blow Out in this low-budget, high-concept drama from writer/director Alanté Kavaïté. A documentary sound engineer Charlotte (Émilie Dequenne, best known for her debut…

Elf Analysis - theatre preview

20 Sep 2007

Few young writers of recent years can have had quite so rapid a rise to prominence as Morna Pearson. Before November of last year, few beyond a handful of mentors would have heard of the Elgin born writer, but after her Critics’ Awards for Theatre in…

Exposure - Foals

20 Sep 2007

Tomorrow’s music today. This issue: Foals Mixing a love of techno, Timbaland and loud guitars really is no rarity these days but what sets Foals apart from the rest is the Brighton-based quintet’s musical prowess, math rock tendencies and fierce…

Feist

20 Sep 2007

FOLK POP Oran Mor, Glasgow, Wed 26 Oct If Leslie Feist has done one thing in her varied career that deserves to make her a star, it’s the day she spent shooting the video to her recent, mesmerisingly cheerful single ‘1234’. Google it or find it on…

Foo Fighters

20 Sep 2007

ROCK Echos, Silence, Patience and Grace (Roswell/RCA) A wave of post-Nirvana excitement propelled Foo Fighters through their first few albums with ease and just as they were going to running out of steam a whole new generation of rock kids came along…

Georgie James

20 Sep 2007

POP Places (Saddle Creek) Imagine The White Stripes raised on summer sunshine and vintage Beach Boys instead of Detroit rain and Delta blues, and you’ll get some idea of the genius of boy-girl duo Georgie James. This is pure, driven pop music with…

Hamlet - preview

20 Sep 2007

If I had a Kroner for every time someone reinvented Hamlet, I could afford a cruise to Denmark. If it’s not being set in Nazi Germany or a mental institution, the lead is being performed by – Gosh o’blood – a woman, the whole thing’s being done in the…

Hatchet

20 Sep 2007

HORROR/COMEDY (18) 85min Although the tagline – ‘it’s not a remake, it’s not a sequel and it’s not based on a Japanese one’ – suggests Hatchet is an original horror movie, it’s far from that. It is, as a second tagline more accurately describes this…

Hitlist - The best classical & opera

20 Sep 2007

• BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra: Thursday Night Series The opening concert of the BBC SSO’s new series is inspired by heavenly bodies, centred on Holst’s everlastingly vivid portraits of The Planets, one of the most popular pieces of classical music…

Hitlist - The best comedy

20 Sep 2007

• Fred MacAulay The star of telly and radio also happens to be a truly inspiring stand-up performer and this show is one of the main draws of the Merchant City Festival. The Old Fruitmarket, Glasgow, Sat 22 Sep. • Debra-Jane Appelby The former…

Hitlist - The best dancefloor action

20 Sep 2007

• Merchant City Festival Club Every night the best in local DJs play the hottest sounds to round off your festival day including Bebado, Harri and the Trouble DJs. Carnival Arts Centre, Glasgow, Thu 20 Sep–Sun 23 Sep. • Our Haus Set in a tenement…

Hitlist - The best exhibitions

20 Sep 2007

• Scott Myles This exhibition of installed sculptures and work on paper frustrates easy judgements of taste, and plays with ideas of illusion, reflection and artifice with a sense of humour. Myles’ sculptures, as fixtures and fitting, stand apart from…

Hitlist - The best film & dvd releases

20 Sep 2007

• The Yacoubian Building Good Egyptian films don’t come round that often so don’t miss this epic multi character drama. GFT, Glasgow from Fri 21-Sun 23 Sep. • A Mighty Heart Angelina Jolie stars in Michael Winterbottom’s moving adaptation of…

Hitlist - The best rock, pop, jazz & folk

20 Sep 2007

• Dean Owens and the Whisky Hearts This masterful Edinburgh songwriter kicks of ten days of shows in Darvel with a full-blooded, full-band show of his beguiling Americana. Darvel Music Festival, Darvel Town Hall, near Kilmarnock, Wed 26 Sep. (Folk…

Hitlist - the best books, comics & events

20 Sep 2007

Bruce Parry, the intrepid BBC guy, helps launch the book of the TV series Tribe. Yann Martel, the Canongate author who sprung a major surprise with his Booker win for Life of Pi, drops by for a couple of events to mark the illustrated version of his…