Issue 601

Persepolis - An interview with Marjane Satrapi

24 Apr 2008

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

24 Apr 2008

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

24 Apr 2008

‘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

24 Apr 2008

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…

Alasdair Gray

24 Apr 2008

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…

Striped Bass

24 Apr 2008

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…

Winners of the 2008 List Eating and Drinking Guide Awards revealed

24 Apr 2008

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

24 Apr 2008

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…

Ladyfest

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

24 Apr 2008

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…

P2 - An interview with Wes Bentley

24 Apr 2008

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…

The Drawer Boy - An interview with Andy Arnold

24 Apr 2008

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

24 Apr 2008

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…

Adele

24 Apr 2008

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…

Janelle Brown

Capital gains

24 Apr 2008

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…

Jim Lambie: Forever Changes

24 Apr 2008

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…

Jimmy Carr

24 Apr 2008

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

24 Apr 2008

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…

The Budungo Trail

Kings of the swingers

24 Apr 2008

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…

The Emperor’s New Kilt

24 Apr 2008

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…

5 Things you might not know about - Nick Doody

24 Apr 2008

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…

James Kelman - Kieron Smith, Boy

24 Apr 2008

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…

Kalup Linzy

24 Apr 2008

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…

Private Property

24 Apr 2008

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…

Ulrich Schnauss

24 Apr 2008

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…

Andrew Drummond - Elephantina

24 Apr 2008

HISTORICAL TALE (Polygon) Scottish author Andrew Drummond has a strong reputation for writing comedic historical novels, and while this third book covers similar territory, it seems thinner on substance than his previous outings. Purporting to be the…

Maternity: Images of Motherhood

24 Apr 2008

PAINTING, PRINT, SCULPTURE AND PHOTOGRAPHY Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh, until Sun 22 Jun This exhibition takes us down the well-trodden path of ‘maternity in art’ and, for the most part, succeeds in eliciting ideas beyond the…

Profile - Gus Van Sant

24 Apr 2008

PROFILE Suzanne Black considers the work of one of Queer cinema’s great auteurs as two of his key films are released on DVD Gus Van Sant is one of a handful of directors to have crossed from arthouse credibility to mainstream pennies and back again.

Remote Control

24 Apr 2008

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…

That Night Follows Day

24 Apr 2008

NEW WORK Tramway, Glasgow, Thu 1–Sat 3 May ‘My own observations show that we have rated the powers of children too low and that there is no knowing what they cannot be given credit for.’ Freud believed growing up became a matter of submitting to…

The Oxford Murders

24 Apr 2008

CRIME/THRILLER (15) 104min Having graduated from the kitsch sci-fi satire of Acción mutante and the heavy metal horror of The Day of the Beast to the Hitchcockian black comedies Common Wealth and Ferpect Crime, Bilbao-born filmmaker Álex de la Iglesia…

The Xcerts

24 Apr 2008

INDIE Barfly, Glasgow, Tue 6 May Indie rock is the musical opiate of the masses. Recapture that first hit ecstasy with The Xcerts, a fresh-faced three-piece from Aberdeen and Exeter. Get Cape Wear Cape Fly liked their fully-formed, captivatingly…

Brent Ghelfi - Volk’s Game

24 Apr 2008

CRIME THRILLER (Faber) This debut novel from former US Court of Appeals clerk Brent Ghelfi introduces us to Alexei Volkovoy. ‘Volk’ (‘wolf’), a one-time sniper for the Russian Army in Chechnya, is now an unscrupulous gangster commissioned to steal a…

Elephant

24 Apr 2008

VISUAL SPECTACULAR Festival Theatre, Edinburgh, until Sat 3 May We’ve seen enough McTheatre in recent years to spot the big, spectacular, all singing, all dancing, massive special effect extravaganza a mile off. Inside the profession such shows are…

Stop-Loss - An interview with Kimberly Peirce

24 Apr 2008

Two films in ten years is a meagre output by any filmmaking standard. But then American writer-director Kimberly Peirce’s striking 1999 debut, Boy’s Don’t Cry, won an Oscar, and her belated follow-up, Stop-Loss, might be the first film about Iraq to…

Joy Division

24 Apr 2008

DOCUMENTARY (15) 96mins After last year’s Control, Anton Corbijn’s considered and stylish dramatisation of Ian Curtis’ life, it would be easy to think that everything you need to know about the legend and legacy of English post-punk outfit Joy…

Pendulum

24 Apr 2008

DRUM & BASS Carling Academy, Glasgow, Sat 3 May Pendulum, the drum & bass production trio from Perth, Australia shifted more than 200,000 copies of their debut album Hold your Colour. Like Roni Size, LTJ Bukem and a few others that had gone before…

Trumpets and Raspberries

24 Apr 2008

FARCE Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh, until Sat 10 May Farce is a form that seems to thrive on dangerous times. From the great war disillusionment and depression that saw Travers and Coward at their peaks, on to the social revolution of the 60s that…

Magpie

24 Apr 2008

CONTEMPORARY DANCE Dundee Rep, Wed 7 May Aptly named after a cocky wee beastie with an eye for cherry-picking gems, Magpie is an expertly-curated rummage through some of the most exciting contemporary choreography of the last 20 years – a modern…

5 Reasons To Go See - Willy Vlautin

24 Apr 2008

He’s an amazing singer, songwriter and frontman For the last 14 years, Vlautin has fronted Richmond Fontaine, the alt.country outfit based in Portland, Oregon. Eight finely crafted albums have seen him evoke the ghost of Gram Parsons in telling intimate…

Abigail’s Party

24 Apr 2008

REVIVAL Brunton Theatre, Edinburgh, Thu 1 & Fri 2 May Neighbourhood cocktail parties, with their inevitable cheese and pineapple sticks, are something of a quaint 70s throwback, but notions of an aspiring middle class have altered little in the past…

Adel Abdessemed: Trust Me

24 Apr 2008

REVIEW VIDEO, DRAWING AND INSTALLATION The Common Guild, Glasgow until Sat 7 Jun One of Adel Abdessemed’s videos was rejected by the Gi’s committee for this exhibition due to its excessive violence. This further cemented his reputation as an artist…

Also Published - 5 Sports Paperbacks

24 Apr 2008

Barry Davies - Interesting, Very Interesting Over 40 years of broadcast commentating are recalled here by a man who reached the peaks when he went on Big Train to cover the World Stare Out Championships. Headline . Eddie Jordan – An Independent Man…

Also Released - Film

24 Apr 2008

Pathology (18) 94min •• When new intern Ted (Milo Ventimiglia) stumbles across a very nasty little secret at a university hospital in Philadelphia, he knows he has to act. The trouble is that the future of his career revolves around him turning a blind…

Also Released - Music

24 Apr 2008

The Ossians - The MacPherson Tapes (45b) Akin to Marlon Brando in On the Waterfront, this long lost Edinburgh quartet ‘coulda been contenders’ had they not ended up imploding in a hail of rock’n’roll misfortune. This is the recently uncovered album that…

Beaufort

24 Apr 2008

WAR/ACTION/DRAMA (15) 125min The Beaufort of the title refers to a castle built by the Crusaders during the 12th century in southern Lebanon. In 2000 this mountaintop fortress is occupied by IDF (Israeli Defence Force) troops, who are preparing to…

Bebado

24 Apr 2008

Zero db (aka Chris Vogado) makes a guest appearance at Bebado for this bank holiday special. The Ninja Tune signing is known for his no-holds-barred mash up of Latin beats, global rhythms, electronica and jazz eclecticism as showcased on his album…

Black Acid

24 Apr 2008

ROCK Nice’n’Sleazy, Glasgow, Tue 6 May Nice’n’Sleazy is an aptly titled venue for the debut of Richard ‘Death in Vegas’ Fearless’ new psychedelic scuzz rock outfit, Black Acid. The five-piece – a full band replete with Farfisa organ and Fearless on…

Capercaillie - Roses and Tears

24 Apr 2008

FOLK (Vertical Records) Capercaillie have done very nicely with their particular fusion of traditional music with more contemporary influences, and it is hardly likely that they are going to suddenly throw all that aside in pursuit of some radical new…

Carol Kidd

24 Apr 2008

To say Carol Kidd is a well respected jazz vocalist is a bit of an understatement. The four-time British Jazz Music Award-winner counted Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennet among her fans and picked up an MBE for her services to music. Here she performs for…

Civil War: Iron Man

24 Apr 2008

He’s an Avenger; he’s been Secretary of Defence; he’s a member of the shadowy Illuminati. But nothing exemplifies Iron Man’s key position in the world of comics more than his role in Marvel’s huge crossover event of 2006, Civil War. Mark Millar’s…

Cloud Gate Dance Theatre of Taiwan

24 Apr 2008

CONTEMPORARY CHINESE DANCE Edinburgh Festival Theatre, Fri 25 & Sat 26 Apr Since its formation in 2000, the Dance Consortium has brought us an array of international treats. From ballet to hip hop, the Consortium introduces diverse, innovative and…

createeurope

She’s a model, und she’s looking good

24 Apr 2008

The Goethe Institut are helping to launch createeurope, a pan-European competition for young fashion designers, with a day of talks and discussions looking at how the German and Scottish fashion industries have been revived after years of being…

David Kay

24 Apr 2008

Some have compared this special Kay to American deadpan surrealist Steven Wright and if that isn’t enough to have you trotting along to The Stand, we’re not sure what will, as the self-proclaimed ‘fireball of Scottish comedy’ entertains you. The…

Dead by Dawn

24 Apr 2008

Scotland’s oldest, biggest and best international horror film festival opens its doors again for gore aficionados everywhere. This year’s programme will be topped and tailed by Scottish-themed horrors. Doomsday (pictured), Neil Dog Soldiers Marshall’s…

dEUS - Vantage Point

24 Apr 2008

ROCK (V2) Belgian artrockers dEUS have a large cult following, but this fifth album deserves a wider audience. Expansive and eclectic, Vantage Point sees the fivesome refining their mix of powerfully emotive themes with leftfield, intelligent rock…

DVD Round-Up

24 Apr 2008

Horror has to be one of the most prolific genres, particularly on the direct to DVD market, so as per usual there’s plenty to get through this issue. For the true aficionado Mother of Tears (Optimum) ••• (pictured) is the sequel you’ve been waiting 28…

Eastern Conference Champions

24 Apr 2008

American indie rockers formed by Josh Ostrander and Greg Lyons after leaving their previous band Laguardia due to conflicts with their record label. Working as landscape gardeners during the day and writing tracks at night the band bolstered their…

Edinburgh Fringe set for Scandal

24 Apr 2008

The Fringe is set to be sexed up in style this year with the arrival of one of New York City’s longest running burlesque shows, Le Scandal, due to hit Edinburgh in August, following its debut at the Brighton Fringe next month. The show is currently…

Enrico David: Ultra Paste

24 Apr 2008

Using drawing as a backbone but also borrowing from traditional craft techniques and stylistic design, David employs technique with mischief, playfulness, and a certain knowing crudeness; setting before us a cast of characters in theatrical situations…

Enrico Rava & Stefano Bollani

24 Apr 2008

JAZZ Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh, Tue 29 Apr With Assembly Direct planning no new activity at The Lot until after the Edinburgh Festival (a direct result of last year’s changes to the Scottish Arts Council’s distribution of jazz funding, although…

Ernst Caramelle

24 Apr 2008

PAINTING AND MIXED MEDIA Mary Mary, Glasgow, until Sat 17 May Constructed from arrangements of geometric shapes, Caramelle’s paintings exhibit a judicious use of colour, which he uses to manipulate the illusion of perspective and space. While these…

European premiere of zombie thriller in Dumfries

24 Apr 2008

Surprise hit horror flick Outpost will find its way to Dumfries next week, for its European premiere. The zombie thriller about Nazi soldiers who come back from the dead has been picked up by Sony Pictures for £1.2m. Movie producers Arabella Croft…

Exposure - NORAVE

24 Apr 2008

Nu rave? What a joke, it’s just a pity the East London scenesters don’t seem to get it. Here to show them the error of their ways and release some genuinely innovative new music in the process are Little Rock Records’ Niall and Boag. Their NORAVE…

Food For Thought

24 Apr 2008

I can’t eat breakfast first thing in the morning. I’ll have a milky coffee when I get out of bed, then porridge with Maldon sea salt mid-morning. If I’m in the restaurant, I don’t normally have a sit-down lunch because I end up tasting dishes while I…

Forgetting Sarah Marshall

24 Apr 2008

ROMANCE/COMEDY (15) 110min The Judd Apatow movie production line shows no signs of abating as Forgetting Sarah Marshall follows the template of Knocked Up to deliver some laughs, banal moralising and side characters that outshine the lead. Writer and…

Forsyth to stand down as director of BAFTA Scotland

24 Apr 2008

After ten years as director of BAFTA Scotland, Alison Forsyth will be leaving on Wednesday 30 April. Forsyth presided over a growth in memberships and established the BAFTA Scotland Awards. A successor will be appointed this summer.

Frank Goes to Hollywood

24 Apr 2008

The celluloid career of Frank Sinatra is celebrated in this season of some of his best films. Highlights include High Society (pictured), The Manchurian Candidate, The Man with the Golden Arm, a new print of Vincente Minnelli’s oft overlooked 1958…

Frightened Rabbit - The Midnight Organ Fight

24 Apr 2008

INDIE (FatCat Records) Graduating from underground heroes to a mainstream proposition often, unfortunately, requires a little softening around the edges. No signs of this where Frightened Rabbit are concerned, however. While the Glasgow-based foursome…

Future of the Left

24 Apr 2008

ROCK Stereo, Glasgow, Wed 9 Apr Heckling can make or break a gig. In this case, it’s all fuel to an explosion-in-waiting – this Welsh trio’s almost fanatical following know exactly which buttons to push, and Future of the Left are a band that operate…

Glamour expected at EIFF Opening Gala

24 Apr 2008

Keira Knightley and Sienna Miller will inject some glamour into this year’s Edinburgh International Film Festival, following the announcement that they are to join The Edge of Love director John Maybury on the red carpet at the festival’s Opening Night…

Group Show: Run 'Run'

24 Apr 2008

SCULPTURE, FILM AND DRAWING The Collins Gallery, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, until Sat 3 May There has always been an indubitable relationship between art and science. A charcoal mark made on a cave wall is the result of various scientific…

High Tech Soul

24 Apr 2008

DOCUMENTARY (E) 64 min Subtitled the ‘Creation of Techno Music’ this documentary sets out to detail just that very subject, going back to the roots of the Detroit scene, the birthplace of techno as we know it today. The film aims to position the…

Hostel opens its walls up to artists

24 Apr 2008

The Blue Sky Hostel in Glasgow’s West End is looking to transform a large amount of its wall space into a free gallery for local artists to exhibit work.

Hotel Café featuring Tom McRae

24 Apr 2008

The son of not one but two vicars, unsurprisingly Tom McRae started off singing in the church choir, but soon began trying to emulate his heroes, Bob Dylan, Neil Young and Paul Simon. Now a well respected singer-songwriter he heads this massive Hotel…

IAMX

24 Apr 2008

ELECTRO-GOTHIC POP King Tut’s, Glasgow, Mon 31 Mar ‘Willkommen, bienvenue, welcome!’ The Deutsch kitsch musical number from Cabaret is the perfect aural backdrop for IAMX (the demonic brainchild of ex-Sneaker Pimp Chris Corner) to take to the stage.

Indiscretion of an American Wife

24 Apr 2008

DRAMA (U) 69min (Freemantle DVD rental/retail) Coming in at just over an hour, this is a film that can be found in different versions (another one goes under the title of Terminal Station). This one’s strength lies in another of Montgomery Clift’s…

Iron Man: Demon in a Bottle

David Michelinie, Bob Layton & John Romita Jr

24 Apr 2008

SUPERHERO (Marvel) In the world of comics Iron Man is one of the main players in the Marvel Universe. As provisional leader of the Avengers for many, many years, he’s helped shape the fictional world more than most. However Iron Man hasn’t crossed…

Iron Man: Extremis

Warren Ellis & Adi Granov

24 Apr 2008

SUPERHERO (Marvel) This is perhaps the classic modern Iron Man tale. Warren Ellis gets his grubby hands on Tony Stark and changes him forever. Here the Golden Avenger takes on bio-chemically altered terrorists, who possess more power than even his…

Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan - Sunday at Devil Dirt

24 Apr 2008

COUNTRY/FOLK/BLUES (V2) Campbell and Lanegan’s Mercury-nominated debut was a one-trick pony, but it was a pretty cool trick. Campbell’s wispy whimper and Lanegan’s bourbon-soaked growl blended refreshingly over some old school folk and blues, but it…

I’m A Cyborg, But That’s Ok

24 Apr 2008

SCI-FI (15) 105 min Korean director Park Chan-wook burst onto the international film scene with the ferocious Oldboy in 2003. The bleak and violent study of revenge was very publicly championed by Quentin Tarantino. However, after the unrelenting…

Jonathan Harvey - Body Mandala

24 Apr 2008

CONTEMPORARY (NMC) Jonathan Harvey was Composer in Association with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra from 2005-7, and was a central figure in the recent IRCAM weekend in Glasgow. This CD includes two compositions written in his Glasgow residency…

Juno!

24 Apr 2008

BAGGY POP Limbo at the Voodoo Rooms, Edinburgh, Thu 10 Apr The MySpace of this buoyant Caledonian quartet has them listed as originating in Glasgow, Fife and Tokyo – the first two are true – but the jokey addition at the end would be better changed to…

Kaiser Chiefs to hit the Highlands

24 Apr 2008

A picturesque pavilion in the Highlands is setting its stall for the arrival of two gigs by popular rockers the Kaiser Chiefs . The band, known for hits such as Ruby and I Predict a Riot, will play Strathpeffer Pavilion in Ross-shire on the 19-20…

Last Word - Dave Gorman

24 Apr 2008

First record he ever bought; Last time he was chatted up; First film he saw that really moved him; Last lie he told; First movie he ever went on a date…

Les Vampires

24 Apr 2008

SILENT SERIES (PG) 339min (Artificial Eye DVD retail) Times of crisis are often also eras of escapism; yet the forms of art produced in such periods often unconsciously reflect the very crises we seek to escape. This is certainly the case in Louis…

Made of Honour

24 Apr 2008

ROMANTIC COMEDY (12A) 101min Tom (former teen heartthrob Patrick Dempsey) is a wealthy New York City playboy. Hannah (Michelle Monaghan) is Tom’s best friend and the single constant female companion in the life of a serial shagger. But when Hannah is…

Madonna to make an announcement?

24 Apr 2008

Madonna fans await the widely-speculated announcement that the singer is planning a world tour, culminating in a performance at Wembley Arena. Whispers began after a gig listing for the Southeast Conference Theatre in Florida appeared on the AOL…

Midnight Talks

24 Apr 2008

Thirty-something Matylda (Magdalena Rózczka) decides she cannot waste any more time before having a baby and duly advertises for a sperm donor. When Bartek (Marcin Dorocinski) arrives on her doorstep she realises she may have bitten off more than she…

Miyagi - Lucky Face

24 Apr 2008

RETRO ROCK (Miyagi Music) Some of us demand originality in these days of ‘same-old, same-old’. Edinburgh’s Miyagi (a quartet with only one sold-out EP – Dragonfly – behind them) fall into many categories, none of them standardised pop. To pigeonhole…

Moovn

24 Apr 2008

Still a relatively new player on the Edinburgh house scene Moovn returns for its eighth party with the one of house music’s most respected names, Kenny ‘Dope’ Gonzales. One half of the world famous Masters at Work (alongside Lil’ Louie Vega) Gonzales…

MSTRKRFT

24 Apr 2008

ELECTRO Art of Parties at the Arches, Glasgow, Sun 27 Apr What they do is very 2001 in its electro simplicity, but there’s also something about the music of MSTRKRFT (pronounced ‘Masterkraft’) which isn’t likely to go out of style any time soon.

National Museum of Scotland to celebrate start of renovations

24 Apr 2008

The National Museum of Scotland will celebrate the start of the £46.4m Royal Museum Project renovations with a weekend of entertainment. The Red Hot Chilli Pipers will headline the event, which runs from Sat 26–Sun 27 Apr. See www.nms.ac.uk/celebration

Neil Cowley Trio - Loud . . . Louder . . . Stop

24 Apr 2008

JAZZ (Cake Music) Pianist Neil Cowley and his cohorts, bassist Richard Sadler and drummer Evan Jenkins, appear in Scotland this month as part of the last Triptych festival, and rate among the hipper items on the current UK jazz scene. Lauded for…

New Restaurant - Pani Solinska

24 Apr 2008

The bright idea. I was standing in the Kirkcaldy sunshine looking at an empty restaurant. I had been made redundant from my job after over 20 years and I felt a little at sea. Slowly the dawning of an old dream came to me. Why not now? A Polish…

Nim’s Island

24 Apr 2008

FAMILY/ADVENTURE (U) 95min Jodie Foster tries vainly to kick-start a career as a children’s entertainer in , a post-modern adventure aimed squarely at undemanding family audiences. Co-directed by Jennifer Flackett and Mark Levin, who made the…

Nova Scotia - From working class revolutions to conceptual art

24 Apr 2008

1978 Traverse director Chris Parr commissions The Slab Boys. ‘Chris decided that the Traverse was going to focus on new Scottish writing, and in doing so he changed the face of theatre in Scotland,’ says Byrne. 1979 Margaret Thatcher elected…

Out of the Blue

24 Apr 2008

New Zealand filmmaker Robert Scarfies Sarkies’ fictional reconstruction of the 1990 Aramoana Massacre, in which a lone gunman set out on a killing spree in a quiet seaside town, gets a brief outing at the cinema this fortnight. The film will also be…

P2

24 Apr 2008

HORROR (18) 97min P2 is another example of the bait-and-switch technique by which successful horror directors try and use their name as a brand to facilitate side-projects, in this case, a generic woman-in-peril melodrama set in a deserted parking…

Persepolis

24 Apr 2008

ANIMATION (12A) 96min Marjane Satrapi’s autobiographical coming-of-age graphic novel Persepolis has been expertly adapted to screen by the author and graphic artist Vincent Paronnaud. The dubbed English language version features the voices of…

Phil Harding - The Story of Beginners

24 Apr 2008

SINGER-SONGWRITER (Wb Records) Over 30 years in the making, prolific pop producer Phil Harding finally marks the release of his debut solo album. From working with the likes of Stock, Aitken & Watercrap during the nauseating 80s, The Story of…