Issue 608

Office Party

Party On

31 Jul 2008

The medieval feast of fools was an event where established hierarchies were overturned, sexual and social proprieties were transgressed and the everyday laws of the culture were suspended. It’s the subject of academic study all over Europe, where…

Saddle up

31 Jul 2008

As a posse of spoof country and western acts rides towards the Fringe, Allan Radcliffe asks why songs about rednecks, guns and erections make for sublime comedy

Pajama Men - Night moves

31 Jul 2008

Their brand of unique, unhinged comedy has had critics and judges raving about the Pajama Men. Claire Sawers finds that they’re keeping the silly wigs firmly in the bag The voice on the phone sounds impossibly camp. It has a slick and persuasive way…

Live at Loch Lomond - Róisín Murphy

31 Jul 2008

A backless dress with a microscopically small pork pie hat. A sequinned black body sock topped off by a feather boa. Spray-on Lycra and a red ‘Allo ‘Allo beret. Pop chameleon and ex-Moloko frontwoman Róisín Murphy knows a thing or two about killer…

Polish theatre

Poles apart

31 Jul 2008

Sitting in a picturesque café in the heart of Warsaw – Poland’s capital and largest city – it’s easy to forget the turbulent history that has shaped this country’s place in the world today. The city has long had a reputation as a vibrant playground…

Drive-By Truckers - Evolution rock

31 Jul 2008

Drive-By Truckers may hail from America’s south but they do way more than your average redneck stomp. Doug Johnstone meets an ambitious rock band unafraid to take themselves and their audience to new highs

InvAsian Festival

Culture shock

31 Jul 2008

When, earlier this year, a BBC executive lamented the continued dominance of a ‘liberal, white, middle class elite’ across British television, his words could equally have been applied to Edinburgh in August. For all the Fringe’s variety, the number of…

On the Waterfront - Steven Berkoff

Fighting talk

31 Jul 2008

Steven Berkoff’s position in the British theatre is a bit like that of the mysterious nail that seems to belong nowhere after you’ve constructed your Ikea bookshelf. On the face of it, he simply doesn’t belong, but somehow things don’t work without…

Wisecrackin’ Mindsqueezin’ Behemoth - Big time

31 Jul 2008

Their first stage meeting involved simulated copulation. John-Luke Roberts and Nadia Kamil now make beautiful music in their Behemoth sketch guise. Brian Donaldson hears about the pair’s celebrity fans and those nasty critics

Three Billy Goats Gruff

31 Jul 2008

This is the third year in a row that the very wonderful Theatre of Widdershins has played the Fringe – and, rather appropriately, they’re doing a show all about threes: the eponymous goats, plus a few other fairytale characters such as Goldilocks’ pals…

Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller

31 Jul 2008

Six different, self-contained installation pieces by hugely acclaimed Canadian artist partnership Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller, which run a series of gamuts, taking in culture both high and popular, film, multimedia robotics and…

Stage Oddities

31 Jul 2008

Death By Chocolate ‘Interview the suspects, sample the chocolates, solve the crime’ is the pitch for this interactive murder mystery night. The setting is a chocolate-themed singles’ night; the audience are given notepads and pens and encouraged to…

What's up doc?

31 Jul 2008

Borrowing from a classic heist movie, Man on Wire is the latest documentary to take its cue from the art of the feature film. Miles Fielder looks on as the line blurs between fact and fiction It's supposed to be a documentary about a daredevil…

Edinburgh Art Festival

Street arts

31 Jul 2008

Edinburgh residents are used to a takeover at this time of year. As hoardes of performers, artists, comedians and their assorted entourages set up a whole other city on top of theirs, the festivals can feel divorced from the realities of Edinburgh life.

Tim Minchin - Looney tunes

31 Jul 2008

Not one for being stuck in a pigeonhole, Tim Minchin is a musician, actor, comic and father. Anna Millar meets the man who looks like a scarecrow and is terrifying the world of traditional stand-up comedy

War and Conflict

Theatre of war

31 Jul 2008

There’s always a profit to be made from war. The black market proved lucrative during World War II for the sale of rationed chocolate, coffee and cigarettes, while oil companies such as Halliburton have been kept ticking over nicely by the recent…

Felix Dexter - Comedy shuffle

31 Jul 2008

At the RSC he pretended to be the sea and in Edinburgh he sparred with Christian Slater. Leaving the theatre behind for now, Felix Dexter tells Julian Hall that he’s happy again with his first love It’s the first time in over a decade that Felix…

The Meeting - Suits you sir

31 Jul 2008

Three young talents have variously got a boardroom comedy, a sketch show and a student competition to contend with. Our chair Julian Hall asks if there is any other business This year it’s going to be hard for many Fringe-goers to leave work too far…

Norway

31 Jul 2008

Given that Norway is one of the few places in Europe more expensive, and with worse weather than Scotland, it’s not one of the most obvious destinations for a summer holiday. But for those who appreciate quirky historic towns, dramatic scenery and a…

Kickboxing

31 Jul 2008

It’s nothing to do with overdosing on Buffy the Vampire Slayer re-runs, kickboxing is meant to be a great work out. ‘And let’s face it, would you rather I vent my frustrations at you or focus them onto a well padded target?’ I ask my rather frightened…

Nina Nastasia

31 Jul 2008

Nina Nastasia is incredibly merry. The talented NYC-based songstress has just arrived in Ireland for a run of UK dates and has spent the day reacquainting herself with old friends and the local whiskey she loves so much. When we finally pin her down for…

Melting Pot

31 Jul 2008

‘Disco music as a genre essentially stopped in the mid-80s and became dance music as we now know it,’ says Andrew Pirie, promoter and DJ at Glasgow’s Melting Pot. ‘Everything happening in dance music today has some sort of roots in disco. Just as disco…

Social networking

Single files

31 Jul 2008

Recent Pixar smash Wall-E imagines a future in which lumpen humans only engage with each other through computer screens. Worryingly, this seems all too plausible a prospect. Online interaction and social networking are two of this year’s Fringe hot…

Clubbing onstage

Chemical Romance

31 Jul 2008

As an experience that thrives on the spontaneity of the moment, and, often, some kind of altered state of consciousness, clubbing is a difficult subject to translate into drama. Since the mid-90s, the much-trumpeted drug movie or novel has largely…

Kenny Hunter

31 Jul 2008

People who live in cities are dishearteningly used to stepping over piles of rubbish from split bin bags and negotiating street obstacles such as piles of old furniture and abandoned televisions. This phenomenon is international, and is becoming ever…