Issue 599

Edinburgh International Festival programme unveiled

2 Apr 2008

This year’s Edinburgh International Festival will take the changes and challenges facing contemporary Europe as its theme, it was announced today. Highlights of the programme include the world premiere of Matthew Bourne’s new dance work ‘Dorian…

Garth Jennings - Son of Rambow

27 Mar 2008

‘Would you like a slice of sponge cake with your cup of tea?’ Garth Jennings says amiably. ‘I made it this morning. Not sure if it’s any good, mind.’ A warm welcome aboard his floating studio, housed on a barge on a canal in north London, this may…

Boys-only cocktail classes

27 Mar 2008

‘If you want an interesting party sometime,’ the American novelist Robert Fulghum quipped, ‘combine cocktails and a fresh box of crayons for everyone.’ Today I’m doing the next best thing: I’m joining a cocktail class aimed at getting men back into the…

Elbow

27 Mar 2008

Elbow’s recently released fourth album, The Seldom Seen Kid, was met by a whole raft of effusive, praise-filled reviews which all fitted a familiar template. The underlying message across the board was essentially, ‘This band are unbelievably amazing…

Scottish crime fiction

27 Mar 2008

Agatha Christie and Dorothy L Sayers were arguably the most successful authors of the ‘golden age of the detective fiction’ in the 1920s and 30s while prolific contemporary thriller writers such as PD James, Ruth Rendell and Patricia Cornwell…

Enrico David

27 Mar 2008

Italian-born, London-based artist Enrico David showed the exhibition Ultra Paste in late 2007 at London’s ICA, where it received significant critical praise. In fact, since 2001 his reputation has grown so considerably he is now regarded as one of the…

Model-Turned-Actor - The Hottie and the Nottie

27 Mar 2008

Paris Hilton’s latest celluloid foray, The Hottie and the Nottie earned a grand total of £20,000 at the US box office; considerably less than Hilton pockets to swan around for a couple of hours at a Hollywood shindig. Hilton’s rotisserie chicken…

Arches Theatre Festival

27 Mar 2008

‘Well, it’s kind of hard to describe. I’m sorry, I just have to meet the person whose party this is... Hello! I’m back. There are two dressing rooms which are used for musicians, and there’s a room next to it with washing machines in it, and then…

Comedy Central Collection

27 Mar 2008

DVD/CD (Comedy Central) For anyone who thinks that American stand-up comedy means Bill Hicks, Chris Rock and Joan Rivers, those wonderful people at Comedy Central are setting out to put you straight. A new set of DVDs and CDs should thrust you out of…

The Gossip - Live In Liverpool

27 Mar 2008

LIVE ALBUM (Columbia) The Gossip may have been catapulted to fame on the back of an advert for E4 teen-soap Skins, but they’ve been playing spine-tingling gigs on the underground for years, and this live performance, recorded in Liverpool’s Carling…

Edinburgh International Science Festival

27 Mar 2008

Since 1988, the Edinburgh International Science Festival has proved that the words ‘science’ and ‘fun’ are not mutually exclusive. Indeed, the Festival’s extensive programme of hands-on events has become a highlight in the interactive kiddie…

Belfast

27 Mar 2008

St George’s Market on a Saturday morning. High, tented ceilings filling up with barbeque smoke; cheerful art graduates selling hand-printed T-shirts side by side with grumpy, knowledgeable fishmongers and cheese merchants; stalls offering gourmet olive…

Social Club scene

27 Mar 2008

Social clubs were first established in Victorian times as places for working class men to relax, drink and listen to music. Today, they are fast shaping up as the best venues for an unpretentious, unusual night out, the perfect shabby-chic alternative…

Puppet Animation Festival

27 Mar 2008

PUPPETRY Various venues across Scotland, until Sat 26 Apr Puppetry has come a long way since the days of Punch & Judy on the beach. And puppetry in Scotland has made some leaps of its own. Back in 1984, when the Puppet Animation Festival first came…

Poppy Shakespeare

27 Mar 2008

DRAMA Channel 4, Mon 31 Mar, 9pm The point where the axis swings between madness and sanity, the fiscal-led emphasis of modern health politics and the desire to find our place in the world are at the heart of this excellent drama based on the debut…

5 Things you might not know about - I'm Sorry I Haven't Got A Clue

27 Mar 2008

1 Humphrey Lyttelton had a top 20 hit in the 1950s with ‘Bad Penny Blues’ and played on Radiohead’s ‘Life in a Glasshouse’. The Humph appeared on Desert Island Discs in 2006. 2 Tim Brooke-Taylor’s grandfather was a parson who played centre-forward…

Old-fashioned sweetie shops

27 Mar 2008

Ever since Topshop’s flagship store in London’s Oxford Circus introduced a pick’n’mix crammed full of sugary treats designed to top up the sugar levers of over-excited teenagers, all the cool kids have known you’re not anyone unless you have a…

La Vallée Blanche

27 Mar 2008

When rationalising business-speak began to creep into the way things were run at étain restaurant in Princes Square a couple of years back, chef Neil Clark knew it was time to pack up his pans. Not one to compromise on his creativity, he left the…

Taste Test - Posh pork sausages

27 Mar 2008

British Pork and Fresh Herb £0.56/100g (••••) Sainsbury’s Taste the Difference, stores throughout Scotland, www.sainsburys.co.uk Though the promise of ‘fresh’ herbs seemed unlikely and the hint of lemon was a mere notion, this was a surprisingly…

Barry Adamson

27 Mar 2008

Barry Adamson is making his pitch. The way the composer, crooner, ex-Magazine and Bad Seeds bassist and now big(ish) band leader tells it regarding his forthcoming eighth album, Back to the Cat, though, sounds like making movies. But then, the absorbed…

Trampolining

27 Mar 2008

My training for this Olympic sport began at a tender age. I was three years old, and a friend had hired a bouncy castle for her birthday party. Back then I wasn’t really thinking about the cardiovascular favours I was doing my body, or the muscular…

Three others to try: Alternative Fitness

27 Mar 2008

Hula Hoopla classes Another blast from the past, this playground game is a great way to tighten flabby waistlines, slim hips and improve your Elvis-pelvis dance moves. Dance Base, Edinburgh (www.dancebase.co.uk, 0131 225 5525) pay-as-you-go classes…

Martin Kihn

27 Mar 2008

A year ago, Martin Kihn was a textbook ‘nice guy’. He was polite, thoughtful and hard working, but his life was going nowhere. He lived in a poky apartment, had a dead-end job and everyone, including his dog, treated him like a bitch. When he hit 40, he…

Black Watch - John Tiffany

27 Mar 2008

Certainly the most phenomenal success produced by the Scottish theatre for a couple of decades, Greg Burke’s Black Watch has travelled the world since its first appearance at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2006. New York, Sydney, Los Angeles – it has become…

Playlist - free online horror movies

27 Mar 2008

Do you like scary movies? Fancy watching one on the internet? Beware! The shaky camcorder techniques of video pirates can make the latest Hollywood blockbuster look as scrambled as Cloverfield. So, rather than pick a fight with the copyright-lawman, why…

Havana Rakatan

27 Mar 2008

CUBAN DANCE Theatre Royal, Glasgow, Tue 8–Sat 12 Apr To the untrained eye, Cuban dance can seem like one big mass of hip-rolling passion. When in fact the country is rich with individual dance styles, each with its own tale to tell. The history of…

Big in Falkirk line-up announced

27 Mar 2008

The programme for Big in Falkirk, one of Scotland’s largest free events, this year includes some old favourites alongside new commissions. Now in its ninth year, the arts jamboree regularly attracts more than 100,000 visitors. This year’s…

Son of Rambow

27 Mar 2008

DRAMA (12A) 95min It’s the summer of 1983. Margaret Thatcher and the Conservative party are winning their second landslide election victory and NASA is putting the first American woman in space, two schoolboys from the south of England are about to…

Remote Control

27 Mar 2008

A public health warning should accompany Storyville: The English Surgeon (BBC2, Mon 31 Mar, 11.20pm ••••). Around the one hour mark, just make sure you haven’t got your dinner in front of you as the sight of hotshot London neurosurgeon Henry Marsh…

Bargain breaks

27 Mar 2008

Flying visit Gallant little Belgium tends to get overlooked by weekend-breakin’ types which is good news for you, as Ryanair are currently offering flights from Glasgow Prestwick to Brussels from £2.99 one way. It only takes 35 minutes, too. Brussels…

Funny Games US

27 Mar 2008

HORROR/THRILLER (18) 111min The conventional thinking about shot-for-shot remakes is why bother? We only need cast our minds back to the furore surrounding what many thought to be the sacrilegious and pointless remake of Psycho by Gus Van Sant.

Serj Tankian

27 Mar 2008

METAL ABC, Glasgow, Tue 1 Apr System of a Down were a singular prospect in metal – intelligent, intricate and unique. Now vocalist Serj Tankian has released his first solo album, Elect the Dead, and, as you’d expect it’s as distinctive as his former…

Vanity Fair

27 Mar 2008

ADAPTATION Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh, until Sat 12 Apr Anyone watching the difficulties of our formerly all powerful financial sector over the last few months could not fail to be struck by some echoes in this production at the Lyceum. If you’re…

Mamma Mia!

27 Mar 2008

MUSICAL SECC, Glasgow, Tue 1–Sat 27 Apr Last time I saw Mamma Mia! I was sitting directly behind Fish out of Marillion. I mention this not to name drop. If I was that shallow, I’d point out that Bridget McConnell, Glasgow’s culture supremo, and her…

Singles: Electronica Special

27 Mar 2008

Of late, the singles and downloads review has been driven more towards the indie scene, understandable perhaps, given the lack of creativity in dance music lately. But while all this ‘real band’ resurgence has been going on, electronic music has found…

Profile - Michael Pitt

27 Mar 2008

Name Michael Pitt Born 10 April 1981, West Orange, New Jersey Background Having moved to New York City aged 16, studied drama, appeared on stage, and been talent-spotted for a part in the TV drama Dawson’s Creek, boyishly pretty Pitt wasted no…

Various - Messthetics #105

27 Mar 2008

INDIE PUNK (Hyped 2 Death Records) This is a surprisingly worthwhile US import representing a wide range of – as the subtitle suggests – Scottish DIY and (very) indie post-punk from 1977-1981. There are 24 tracks (in 69 glorious minutes) to wade…

Club promoters get heated over fly posting

27 Mar 2008

Club promoters and police are at loggerheads over the increasingly heated issue of fly posting in the capital. Club promoters told the The List they feared the increasingly ‘heavy handed’ approach of the police could have a detrimental effect on the…

Lau and The Ainslie/Henderson Trio: Reinventing the Reel

27 Mar 2008

FOLK Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh, Thu 27 Mar; Tolbooth, Stirling, Fri 28 Mar; CCA, Glasgow, Thu 3 Apr ‘The band started about two-and-a-half years ago,’ says master fiddler Aidan O’Rourke. ‘Martin (Green), Kris (Drever) and I were hanging around…

Torsten Lauschmann

27 Mar 2008

PHOTOGRAPHS, INSTALLATION AND SCULPTURE GoMA, Glasgow, until Mon 26 May It’s difficult to pin down Glasgow-based Torsten Lauschmann’s work. All attempts to create a narrative or to find some kind of justification or single intention fail. This is the…

The Gutter Twins

27 Mar 2008

ROCK Oran Mor, Glasgow, Mon 7 Apr For a legendary hellraiser, Mark Lanegan is surprisingly perky considering it’s early morning after a show in Amsterdam. I say ‘perky’, it’s all relative, he’s still monosyllabic, menacing, moody and terse. So how was…

Profile - Krisztina Goda

27 Mar 2008

Name Krisztina Goda Born Budapest, 1970 Background Having grown up in Budapest, where both her parents were doctors, Goda studied directing and editing at the National Film and Television School in Beaconsfield, and then won a scholarship to…

Method Man, Redman and LuckyMe

27 Mar 2008

HIP HOP Carling Academy, Glasgow, Sat 29 Mar - RESCHEDULED FOR SUNDAY 20 APRIL ‘Change’ seems to be a popular word at the moment; politically, environmentally, it’s all about moving into something new. As always, you can rely on hip hop to reflect the…

Scottish Chamber Orchestra

27 Mar 2008

NEW COMMISSION Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh, Thu 10 Apr; City Halls, Glasgow, Fri 11 Apr It’s not often that a new orchestral commission has its world premiere in Strathpeffer, but that is what happened in the case of Stuart MacRae’s Scottish Chamber…

My Brother is an Only Child

27 Mar 2008

DRAMA (15) 103min It is sometimes worth remembering that there was a time of passion and politics in Europe before mass consumerism and cultural deception helped nullify and stupefy the general populace. This nostalgic idea runs through Antonio…

Interview - David Sillars

27 Mar 2008

Alexander Kennedy Can you tell us briefly about your new work? David Sillars Well it’s an evolving show; the pictures and the installation will be changing. Most of the pieces just now are about that continuing enquiry into our experience of…

Introducing . . . BumFunk

27 Mar 2008

The best new nights in town. This month: BumFunk Residents Miss Chris, Marco Smith (both ex-Taste) and Kaupuss (Fever). Guests Although big-name guests aren’t planned for the night, the aim is to corral a selection of established and rising…

You, the Living

27 Mar 2008

COMEDY/DRAMA (15) 93min In an unnamed Nordic city a moustachioed tuba-player starts talking about savings and pensions, while making love to his wife who is wearing a military helmet. A dog is dragged along a pavement, attached to the walker of its…

Hudson Mohawke

27 Mar 2008

GLITCH-HOP Twisted Wheel, Glasgow, Fri 28 Mar As the world of music as we know it continues to fragment and more DIY genres bloom online, the idea that any musician can be defined as truly zeitgeist-grabbing slips further away. If we were to try and…

27 Dresses

27 Mar 2008

COMEDY/ROMANCE (12A) 110min During an interview to promote Knocked Up, actress Katherine Heigl said of the Judd Apatow comedy that brought her worldwide fame (after her years lighting up Grey’s Anatomy): ‘It paints women as shrews, as humourless and…

Modern Lovers

27 Mar 2008

PSYCHEDELIC SOUL The GRV, Edinburgh, Fri 28 Mar It’s always nice to hear that promoters – some of them at least – don’t just book guests because they hear tills ringing in their ears. ‘I’ve always been a fan of Teenage Fanclub,’ says Modern Lovers…

The Rise and Fall of Little Voice

27 Mar 2008

REVIVAL Perth Theatre, until Sat 29 Mar, then touring Scotland’s own Terry and June, Elaine C Smith and Andy Gray are brought together for this touring production of Jim Cartwright’s now familiar urban fairytale, which focuses on a young girl who…

Cirque du Soleil

27 Mar 2008

CIRCUS SECC, Glasgow, Wed 9 & Thu 10 Apr Think Cirque du Soleil, think big top, flying acrobats and crazy make-up. Well, the last two are still there, but Delirium sees the Canadian circus troupe crank it up a gear. Having sold out in 55 cities…

Romeo and Juliet

27 Mar 2008

CLASSIC Dundee Rep until Sat 29 Mar Is Romeo and Juliet really ‘the greatest love story ever told’? The breathy publicity for Dundee Rep’s latest production, featuring young, beautiful, talented actors Hannah Donaldson and Kevin Lennon as the…

Can We Live With You?

27 Mar 2008

NEW WORK Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, Thu 3–Sat 5 Apr Edinburgh’s Lung Ha’s theatre company has always steered clear of politics. Although set up to give performing opportunities to people with learning disabilities, the company prefers to let the…

James Green: You Are Still Here

27 Mar 2008

PAINTING AND MIXED MEDIA Corn Exchange Gallery, Edinburgh, until Thu 10 Apr John Merrick, otherwise known as ‘The Elephant Man’, is the unusual starting point for Royal College of Art graduate James Green’s first solo exhibition in Scotland. What from…

Gordon Burn - Born Yesterday

27 Mar 2008

NOVELISED HISTORY (Faber) Having dabbled in the world of real life Manchester United legends in Best and Edwards and fictionalised the stories of semi-real boxers and comedians for The North England Home Service, Gordon Burn’s latest, the ‘News as a…

The Apprentice

27 Mar 2008

NEW WORK Oran Mor, Glasgow, until Sat 29 Mar There’s a long tradition of theatre and film which explores bigger existential questions through what might, on the face of it, seem a familiar commercial vehicle. It’s possible, for example, to see…

Side Dishes

27 Mar 2008

Manchester’s only Michelin star holder, Paul Kitchings, is leaving Juniper restaurant with plans to relocate to Edinburgh’s New Town within the year to open a boutique hotel with small restaurant attached. Frequently cited as one of Britain’s most…

Food For Thought

27 Mar 2008

As a burlesque performer, I’d love to say I eat men for breakfast, but that wouldn’t be strictly true. I’m pretty healthy, and I’ve been vegan for 17 years. Breakfast is herbal tea, and fruit or vegetable juice that I make up in the juicer. At lunch…

Frightened Rabbit

27 Mar 2008

INDIE Cabaret Voltaire, Edinburgh, Thu 27 Mar; Barfly, Glasgow, Sat 29 Mar Returning the conquering heroes from equipment trashing gigs at SXSW, Frightened Rabbit are playing a series of Scottish shows to mark the imminent release of their follow up…

Also Released - Film

27 Mar 2008

The Hottie and the Nottie (12A) 90min • Paris Hilton stars as a hot babe who performs a makeover on her plain friend June (Christine Lakin) so she can get some dates in the excruciatingly unfunny romantic comedy. General release from Fri 28 Mar.

Awake

27 Mar 2008

THRILLER (15) 84min Written and directed by first-timer Joby Harold, Awake examines ‘anaesthetic awareness’, which unaccountably leaves patients fully conscious and physically paralysed during surgery. The grisly real-life phenomenon is explored…

John Romita Jr & Various - Marvel Masterworks: John Romita Jr

27 Mar 2008

SUPERHERO ANTHOLOGY (Marvel UK) With the release of World War Hulk, Kick-Ass and this retrospective it’s a great time to look back at the career of one of comics’ best-loved artists. Nepotism may be an ugly word but in the case of the great John…

John Taylor and Gwilym Simcock

27 Mar 2008

JAZZ Strathclyde Suite, Royal Concert Hall, Glasgow, Thu 3 Apr; Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh, Fri 4 Apr This concert marks a new venture in jazz promotion in Scotland. Singer Todd Gordon reckons he has spotted a gap in the current market for promotions at…

Maximilian Zentz Zlomovitz: Waiting for Maleism

27 Mar 2008

INSTALLATION Mary Mary, Glasgow, until Sat 5 Apr The title an artist gives to an exhibition can act as a manifesto, and Maximilian Zentz Zlomovitz’s ‘Waiting for Maleism’ is no exception. He’s asking for trouble. The work on show comprises installed…

An Advert For The Army

27 Mar 2008

NEW WORK Oran Mor, Glasgow, Mon 7–Sat 12 Apr The question of how much we must compromise our principles in order to live our lives is one that has plagued cultures for as long as we’ve recorded them; it’s as much part of modern drama as it was in…

Oresteia

27 Mar 2008

NEW WORK Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, Thu 27–Sat 29 Mar Critics tend to use the phrase ‘an uncomfortable night of theatre’ to describe the effect of a challenging piece on an audience. But in Lazzi’s one man version of Aeschylus’ tragic trilogy, the…

Also Released - Music

27 Mar 2008

Clinic - Do It! (Domino) It’s nice to think that the cash made by Arctic Monkeys records goes into something positive for the world like Clinic albums. More slightly erratic, vibrating genius from a band who evoke the spirit of The Residents and Soft…

One Missed Call

27 Mar 2008

HORROR/MYSTERY (15) 86min Actors Shannyn Sossamon (Wristcutters: A Love Story, The Holiday) and Edward Burns (Confidence, The Brothers McMullen) might have hoped that appearing in a remake of a Miike Takeshi 2003 J-Horror would give their stalling…

Zorro: The Musical

27 Mar 2008

MUSICAL King’s Theatre, Glasgow, Tue 25–Sat 29 Mar The renewed interest in superheroes that has taken place in recent years might owe something to the uncertain world we currently inhabit, but the enduring figure of the masked superhero owes a debt to…

First Sunday

27 Mar 2008

CRIME/COMEDY (12A) 97min When trousers fall down to reveal brightly-coloured underwear, any comedy is instantly revealed as low-brow, yet this vehicle for ex-rapper Ice Cube written, directed and produced by his old promo director friend David E…

How She Move

27 Mar 2008

DRAMA (12A) 91min The latest entry in the competitive step-dance cycle initiated by Bille Woodruff’s 2003 Honey, Ian Iqbal Rashid’s How She Move adds little to the tried-and-tested format of recent entries Step Up and sequel Step Up 2 The Streets.

The Unconquered

27 Mar 2008

REVIVAL Dundee Rep, Thu 3–Sat 5 Apr then touring Perhaps the greatest education we can receive is a sudden reorientation of perspective, and Torben Betts’ play, here revived by Stellar Quines in preparation for a tour ending in New York, makes this…

Greg Pak & John Romita Jr - World War Hulk

27 Mar 2008

SUPERHERO RAMMY (Marvel UK) The Hulk works best when written as a rampaging force of nature, a destructive power on the scale of an atomic bomb. He is, after all, a being of immeasurable strength, an angry behemoth with the power to crush all before…

Exposure - Midnight Juggernauts

27 Mar 2008

Tomorrow’s music today. This issue: Midnight Juggernauts They’ve toured with Justice and Digitalism, and are already a well-known name in their native Melbourne. Yet now, with their debut album Dystopia due for a somewhat belated release on these…

The Serpent

27 Mar 2008

THRILLER (15) 117min (Metrodome DVD retail) Photographer Vincent’s (Yvan Attal) marriage is in its death throes; his wife wants to relocate with his two young children from France to Munich without him. In the midst of all this, a ghost from his…

5 Reasons To Go See - Billy Joe Shaver

27 Mar 2008

1 He’s the real McCoy (and then some) The son of Texan cotton-pickers and moonshine-runners, BJS arrived in Nashville on the back of a cantaloupe truck after spells as a farmhand, sailor, rodeo bum, and lumber mill worker (he lost two fingers to the…

Miss Le Bomb and Wounded Knee

27 Mar 2008

AVANT GARDE ELECTRO Limbo at the Voodoo Rooms, Edinburgh, Wed 20 Mar Drew Wright, aka Edinburgh’s Wounded Knee, doesn’t show off. He just sits at a desk covered with all sorts of little mechanical toys, and asks in a frighteningly reverb-heavy…

Dananananaykroyd and Copy Haho

27 Mar 2008

INDIE Nice’n’Sleazy, Glasgow, Tue 18 Mar ‘We’re from Stonehaven,’ pointed out Copy Haho (‘hah-ho’, not ‘hey-ho’). ‘That’s in Scotland.’ ‘Darren Mackie!’ comes a bellowed reply, and the Scottish Cup shock happening along the road at Parkhead allows for…

My Electric Love Affair

27 Mar 2008

ROCK The Jam House, Edinburgh, Sun 16 Mar Despite the glittery, Lycra covered delights their name conjures up, lovers of dazzling showmanship probably wouldn’t have been bowled over by the stage presence of this Edinburgh three-piece. Apart from the…

Take Three: Eating spots with a curious former life

27 Mar 2008

A Room in Leith 1c Dock Place, Leith, Edinburgh 0131 554 7427, www.aroomin.co.uk John Tindal and Peter Knight recently opened their third ‘A Room In’ restaurant, replacing the Waterfront, itself a conversion of a red-brick waiting room once used…

Coup De Torchon

27 Mar 2008

THRILLER (15) 123min (Optimum DVD retail) Adapted from a Jim Thompson novel by Bertrand Tavernier, this loose adaptation shows local police officer Lucien Cordier (Philippe Noiret) in an African colony in 1938 inefficiently doing his job while being…

Chris Corsano and Massimo Pupillo

27 Mar 2008

EXPERIMENTAL The Ark, Edinburgh, Fri 14 Mar With scheduled headliners Italian skronk power trio Zu depleted in ranks by a broken-limbed drummer, last-minute reinforcements come in the shape of ubiquitous sticks-man Chris Corsano, briefly home from his…

Welcome to the Jungle

27 Mar 2008

HORROR (18) 78min (Optimum DVD rental/retail) A kind of cannibal version of The Blair Witch Project, this low-budget outing follows four characters into New Guinea as they pursue the trail taken many years before by Michael Rockefeller, the heir to…

Rebecca Miller - The Private Lives of Pippa Lee

27 Mar 2008

SOCIAL DRAMA (Canongate) At first, a novel about the awakening of a woman who has spent her life subjugated to a famous, powerful man seems almost quaintly anachronistic in today’s heady post-feminist climate. But then you remember that the novelist…

The List of Adrian Messenger

27 Mar 2008

MURDER/MYSTERY (PG) 95min (Metrodome DVD retail) John Huston’s playful 1963 thriller is the solution to a regular trivia question at film quizzes: which movie features the combined talents of Kirk Douglas, Frank Sinatra, Burt Lancaster, Robert Mitchum…

Salman Rushdie - The Enchantress of Florence

27 Mar 2008

RENAISSANCE NOVEL (Jonathan Cape) There is much to admire in this ornate, complex Renaissance romp from Salman Rushdie, but when one of the main characters declares at one point: ‘A curse on all storytellers’, it’s hard not to agree, at least in part.

Celine Curiol - Voice Over

27 Mar 2008

SURREAL FICTION (Faber) Printed in the author’s native France in 2005 to much acclaim, Voice Over looks like repeating the trick in this new English translation. Certainly, no less an author than Paul Auster has championed the 30-year-old New…

Will Self - The Butt

27 Mar 2008

ALLEGORICAL TALE (Bloomsbury) Will Self’s latest novel is an allegorical tale of cause and consequence, which probes the addictions of the ‘liberal West’. Tom Brodzinski thoughtlessly flips his last butt onto Reggie Lincoln’s head, setting off a chain…

Bloody Sunday

27 Mar 2008

DRAMA (15) 110min (Optimum DVD retail) Better known for his bigger budget work on The Bourne Supremacy/Ultimatum films and United 93, Paul Greengrass’ 2002 docudrama showing the events that led up to the tragic incident on 30 January 1972 in Derry…

Box Club - Box Club

27 Mar 2008

FOLK (BoxClubRecords) The accordion is an instrument that still has an image problem in some quarters. Box Club are out to counter that perception by presenting the venerable instrument in much more contemporary trappings, including a slick visual…

Arthurs.Høiby.Ritchie - Explications

27 Mar 2008

JAZZ (Not Applicable) The Ritchie in this triumvirate is Scottish drummer Stu, and his work with the likes of Colin Steele and the excellent Trianglehead will mean he needs no further introduction in these parts. Anyone who has followed the more…

Edinburgh International Science Festival

27 Mar 2008

Scientists: officially cooler and wealthier than you. You spend your evenings staring at Corrie; they’re out there scoping out life on Mars (no, not the one with John Sim) and getting paid for it. All the seats have already gone for the hot ticket of…

Counting Crows - Saturday Nights and Sunday Mornings

27 Mar 2008

ROCK (Polydor) After hitting an impasse after their insanely popular but creatively redundant cover of Joni Mitchell’s ‘Big Yellow Taxi’, it looked like Counting Crows were on a one-way trip to rom-com soundtrackville. For this, their fifth record…

5 Paperback Autobiogs

Also Published

27 Mar 2008

David Coulthard - It Is What It Is From rural Scotland to a multi-millionaire lifestyle in Monte Carlo all thanks to the flashy world of Formula 1 motor racing. Orion. Mark Barrowcliffe - The Elfish Gene A memoir of a nerdish youth in the 1970s…

Benga - Diary of an Afro Warrior

27 Mar 2008

DUBSTEP (Tempa) Despite the rise of dubstep’s profile recently you still have to sift around to find the good stuff. One gold nugget is Beni Uthman aka Benga, the old skool kid on the block who, since age 16, has been showing many how it’s…

Estelle - Shine

27 Mar 2008

R&B POP (Atlantic/Homeschool) Estelle has paid her dues on the UK R&B circles before departing stateside. A meeting with US R&B star John Legend led to her signing to his Homeschool stable and this, her second album is executive produced by…

The Long Blondes - Couples

27 Mar 2008

INDIE (Rough Trade) This Sheffield fivesome have always seemed rather clinical, their debut Someone to Drive You Home sounding a little too self-aware and over-thought at times. However, with this Erol Alkan-produced second effort they have got the…

MGMT - Oracular Spectacular

27 Mar 2008

ROCK (Columbia) After first encountering this New York outfit making their TV debut on The Letterman Show wearing long black capes and romping though their breakthrough tune ‘Time to Pretend’, MGMT have only gone up even further in our estimation with…