Issue 601

Persepolis - An interview with Marjane Satrapi

Sitting across from me in a tartan-walled basement of a London hotel room, Marjane Satrapi cuts an imposing figure. Arms folded, with an all-black outfit reflecting her mood, the Iranian-born 38-year-old is in town to discuss Persepolis, her…

Nick Cave

Nick Cave is in his car. It’s a big car, but no Chelsea tractor. He’s in the driving seat, howling madly along with the bombast blaring out of the speakers. This isn’t a cruise down endless stretches of autobahn, freeways of America or through the arid…

Nova Scotia - John Byrne

‘Thirty years! Thirty years!’ John Byrne is standing in the middle of Victoria Street in Edinburgh, looking like one of his own drawings. Perfectly-sculpted, curled white quiff, battered layers of tweed and colour, thoroughly imposing, nicotine-stained…

Big in Falkirk - Ajay Chhabra and Mike Roberts

Anyone staging outdoor theatre in Scotland crosses their fingers – and toes and eyes – that the weather will behave itself at showtime. But for Ajay Chhabra, co-artistic director of nutkhut, who is bringing the dance and pyrotechnic spectacle Bollywood…

Striped Bass

All the best chefs and critics advise that the best way to cook fish and seafood is to keep it simple. Pop it in the pan or under the grill for a few minutes, with just a squeeze of lemon or a drizzle of oil or a scattering of herbs. Don’t over…

Alasdair Gray

Sometimes it’s more fun to ignore the explanatory gallery text and have a good look at the work. This seems an obvious enough way of dealing with art objects, but usually makes for lazy viewing and reviewing on the part of the critic. But it is…

Winners of the 2008 List Eating and Drinking Guide Awards revealed

The List is delighted to reveal the winners of this year’s List Eating & Drinking Guide Awards, as we launch our 2008 guide, free with the latest issue of the magazine. Now in their sixth year, The List awards highlight some of the best eating out…

Budget Star Fashion

To hell in a handbag Let’s start with handbags. Celebrities are always snapped clutching the season’s most covetable, whether D&G’s Lily bag or a classic tote by Louis Vuitton. Fortunately, hiring a designer bag is the newest way of saying you’ve got…

The Drawer Boy - An interview with Andy Arnold

The Tron seems to be undergoing its own version of a glorious 100 days at the moment as its newly appointed artistic director, Andy Arnold, hits the ground, not so much running as sprinting. The former artistic director of The Arches avows that a very…

Vampire Weekend

The Paul Simon revival, inexplicably, just might start here. Preppy New York quartet Vampire Weekend borrow elements of their sound from Afrobeat, post-punk and new wave, but the fact of four well-off white kids co-opting African rhythms can’t fail to…

P2 - An interview with Wes Bentley

Wes Bentley was just 21 when he played Ricky Fitts in American Beauty. It turned him into an overnight star. He was nominated for a BAFTA and fêted as the heir to Tom Cruise. The world was his oyster. Plastic bags could have been named after him. Then…

Ladyfest

Various venues, Edinburgh, Sun 4 May–Sun 1 Jun

Ruby-red lips, set perms and Avon panstick. Not the traditional image of a feminist – certainly not the popular, laddish stereotype of a feminist. However, Ladyfest, Edinburgh’s first female-focussed festival, launches this fortnight with an event that…

Janelle Brown

Capital gains

It might be set in a curtain-twitching west coast suburban American town rife with neighbourly intrigue and extra marital affairs, but Janelle Brown’s debut novel is no Desperate Housewives. In All We Ever Wanted Was Everything, far darker things go on…

The Budungo Trail

Kings of the swingers

In Edinburgh a group of extrovert housemates have just moved into a new high tech environment where they will be under almost constant supervision by the public. For the next few weeks experts predict squabbles, group bonding and excessive personal…

Adele

POP Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh, Sat 26 Apr Nineteen-year-old South Londoner Adele has some big shoes to fill. Already being hailed as ‘the New Queen of British Soul’ and ‘the New Amy Winehouse’, she bagged the Critics Choice prize at the Brit awards…

Jim Lambie: Forever Changes

SCULPTURE AND INSTALLATION Gallery of Modern Art, Glasgow, until Mon 29 Sep Lambie seems to be an ideal choice for the Gallery of Modern Art’s contribution to the Glasgow International, particularly given his established international reputation yet…

The Emperor’s New Kilt

CHILDREN’S THEATRE Theatre Royal, Glasgow, Thu 24–Sat 26 Apr It’s hard to know who to praise most for this clever, funny and engaging show. There is not a single weak link to be found. The intelligent script blends humour, pathos and insightful…

Jimmy Carr

STAND-UP Royal Concert Hall, Glasgow, Thu 24 Apr Some people out there have looked upon his stand-up and TV work and judged Jimmy Carr to be a smug, self-satisfied posh guy who would undoubtedly be prepared to eat himself were he comprised of the…

Shrink Rap

TALK SHOW More4, Mon 28 Apr, 10pm Alongside Billie Piper’s transformation from pop pixie and booze-sodden celebrity missus to respected TV actress, the most unexpected showbusiness career shift of our times has to have been Pamela Stephenson’s…

Kalup Linzy

FILM, PERFORMANCE AND PAINTING Washington Garcia, Glasgow, until Sun 27 Apr New-York based Kalup Linzy is more Vaginal Davis than a ‘Paris is Burning’ starlet, more Judy la Bruce (Bruce’s alter-ego) than Hedwig. But it cannot be denied that all of…

James Kelman - Kieron Smith, Boy

POST-WAR NOVEL (Hamish Hamilton) James Kelman doesn’t have a reputation for writing easy-to-read books. Not necessarily a bad thing, since often the most rewarding fiction is the most demanding. Compared to his last two novels, Translated Accounts and…

Ulrich Schnauss

ELECTRONICA Voodoo Rooms, Edinburgh, Sun 4 May Without British Forces radio, Ulrich Schnauss’ brand of transcendent electronica wouldn’t be quite so lovely. In early 90s small-town Germany, it was the only way quintessentially English bands such as…

Private Property

DRAMA (15) 95min ‘The story of an explosion in a closed world’ is how the young Belgian writer-director Joachim Lafosse has described Private Property, his emotionally complex and mordantly amusing family drama, in which the boundaries between parents…

5 Things you might not know about - Nick Doody

Nick Doody’s debut Fringe show in 2006, Before He Kills Again, kicked off with a disturbing song about clowns. So disturbing that the imagery cannot be repeated in a family publication. He shares a house with fellow stand-up Matt Kirshen. Noam Chomsky…

Remote Control

It’s the end of the world as we know it and not even Hamish Macbeth or Hercule Poirot can save us. Or rather, Robert Carlyle doing a dodgy cockney accent as a hotshot engineer or David Suchet coming over all governmental as the beleaguered deputy PM in…