Issue 598

The No 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency

If there is still such a thing as ‘appointment television’ in this multi-channel age, The No 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency is it. The adaptation of Alexander McCall Smith’s much- loved novel arrives on the small screen this fortnight thanks to a wealth of…

Helen Walsh

Helen Walsh has lived a little. At 13, while her classmates in Warrington were flicking through Smash Hits, she was swept up in the early 90s euphoria of acid house and ecstasy. At 16, as most girls her age sat their GCSEs, she was hooked on cocaine and…

Taste Test - Posh cheese and onion crisps

Tyrells Mature Cheddar & Chives, 50g, 65p Kember & Jones, 134 Byres Road, Glasgow; Jenners, 48 Princes Street, Edinburgh The classy looking, see-through packaging looks promising, but these hand-cooked crisps are over fried and over flavoured. The…

Guru

‘I’ve personally always been about trying to create new, relevant, hot music,’ states Guru in a considered tone that sits well with his rap canon, ‘and thanks to my partnership with the super-producer Solar I’m able to do that. Not everyone has a…

Douglas Maxwell

'It’s a bit like being at the controls of a jumbo jet after four pints at lunchtime. It’s exhilarating but terrifying.’ Douglas Maxwell is employing a typically vivid metaphor for entering into fatherhood. With a child of three months recently arriving…

Glasgow Comedy Festival - Stewart Lee

When a stand-up is dubbed ‘a comics’ comic’, that can usually be translated into: ‘loved by his peers and critics; not quite so loved by audiences.’ Yet, when you look at the career of Stewart Lee, the adulation of comedians and journalists may have…

Scotland’s craft community

Click, click, click. For the past few years, the needles of crafters up and down the country have been spinning a revolution. A very quiet, civilised revolution, granted. Productive. With minimal bloodshed, and lovely accessories. Okay, that might be…

Ceilidh Culture

FOLK Various venues, Edinburgh, Fri 21 Mar–Sun 12 Apr Ceilidh Culture, Edinburgh’s spring fling of acoustic music and the traditional arts has this year moved from its council house, and is now being run by a team from the Usher Hall. Rather than…

Vanity Fair

Sitting at a pub table surrounded by actors can be intimidating. Yet, the assembled cast of Tony Cownie’s upcoming production of Declan Donnellan’s adaptation of Vanity Fair are able to put this journalist at ease by dint of the sheer enthusiasm they…

5 Things you might not know about - French & Saunders

When Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders first met in 1977 at London’s Central School of Speech and Drama, they didn’t exactly hit it off. Saunders believed French was a ‘cocky upstart’ while Dawn thought Jen was ‘snooty and aloof’. French is credited…

System 7

PSYCHEDELIC TRANCE King Tuts, Glasgow, Fri 14 Mar After fronting cult, eccentric 60s space-rock collective Gong, guitarist Steve Hillage ploughed a psychedelic furrow through prog-rock before resorting to production duties for Scottish bands It Bites…

Out on the Wing

Oran Mor, Glasgow, Mon 17–Sat 22 Mar Being gay in the armed forces isn’t illegal any longer, but in the male-dominated world of sports, it would appear that, even in the 21st century, boys can only play football professionally if they’re avowedly…

The Wall

The anxieties and dilemmas of teenage life seems to be the theme of the moment in Scottish theatre. But it’s hard to imagine that they could be approached with such guile, deftness and warmth as in DC Jackson’s new play for Borderline and the…

Exposure - Simon Breed

With shades of Scott Walker, Smog and Simon Bonney by way of Julian Cope and John Cale to his intimately epic, full-larynxed crooning, Simon Breed’s wordier than thou late-night troubadouring has been championed by Bad Seed Mick Harvey, the late John…

Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea

If there was an award to be won on last year’s Edinburgh Fringe, Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea won it. As well as a Fringe First, Herald Angel and Total Theatre Award, the show earned a trip to New York courtesy of the Carol Tambor Award and a…

Manchester Orchestra

ROCK Oran Mor, Glasgow, Sun 10 Feb When it comes to compiling the worst album titles of all time, this Atlanta-based five-piece will surely be up there with the likes of Fiona Apple and Limp Bizkit with their second release, I’m Like a Virgin Losing a…

Remote Control - TV round-up

It’s Easter time, so there seems no reason on this ungodly earth why we shouldn’t crack open the chocolate eggs and indulge in a bit of The Passion (BBC1, Sun 16 Mar Feb, 8pm). Anyone who remembers Robert Powell being strapped to the cross back in the…

Go west: Print The Legend

The idea of the American West once stretched out like a great virginal expanse of prairie, a fantasy only limited by imagination and the Pacific Ocean. This myth is not only an American obsession, but one that the whole western genre film-viewing world…

Peter & The Wolf

DANCE & CLASSICAL MUSIC Edinburgh Festival Theatre, Wed 26 & Thu 27 Mar To young ears, an orchestra can seem like a giant melting pot of sound. And picking out which instrument is playing when is a rather tricky affair. Which is why Sergei…

Wotever

CLUB, FILM & WORKSHOP Various venues, Glasgow, Thu 27 & Fri 28 Mar The name may bring to mind the nonchalant brush-off of disaffected youth, but Wotever is in fact a lively, long-running London-based club and arts movement run by LGBT performers and…

The Style Issue - Trendspotting

Dieny Itoe Clothes Not yet out of college, 23-year-old model and design student Dieny Itoe is hotly tipped for fashion fame. Her sophisticated interpretation of form and fabric earned her the coveted Glasgow 1999 Design Medal last year, and while…

The Style Issue - Music style

With many high street retailers currently stocking just about every item of attire an aspiring indie hipster could dream of – from neon-splattered hoodies to trousers crotch-wrenchingly tight enough to do more for family planning than an entire social…

Harmony Korine

Harmony Korine was thrust into the limelight aged 22, when his sensational script for Kids garnered him the status of overnight sensation. Then came Gummo, a film made in the best traditions of German maverick Werner Herzog, which established the young…

Shopping Showdown - Glasgow

The Style Issue

Glasgow styles better Kirstin Innes and Sharon Stephen report on the heavily accessorised cheap chic trend-setting of the West Coast Despite the manicured, designer labelled image promoted by the city marketing bureau under the umbrella Glasgow…

Peter’s Yard

Across Britain there are around 3000 craft bakeries. In France, with a similar sized population but a rather different attitude to bread, there are 35,000 craft or artisan bakers. French, German and Eastern European traditions have exerted the strongest…