Issue 609

Circus Oz: 30th Birthday Bash

Acrobatics with an Aussie accent

7 Aug 2008

Characters in colourful costumes exchange banter with the audience, the live band plays a constant stream of Gogol Bordello-like polka and one act involves a dramatic take on Frankenstein's monster. This isn't your average circus. Far more theatrical…

Top 5: Blur Moments

7 Aug 2008

With Alex James coming to chat about his past life as a Britpop superstar, we reflect on the bits of Blur that we remember ‘There’s No Other Way’ As much of a Madchester rip-off as it was (those guitar lines ride in the slipstream of The Stone…

Ecstasy

MDMA-fuelled love story

7 Aug 2008

Based on ‘The Undefeated’, one of three stories from Irvine Welsh’s 1996 novel Ecstasy, this piece centres around Lloyd (Jack McGowan), an ageing clubber who wants more out of life than living for the weekend. In the meantime, though, he’s content to…

Kristin Hersh

After the flood

7 Aug 2008

To the casual observer, Kristin Hersh is a bundle of contradictions. Just seconds into our conversation she is gabbing away like an old friend, expounding on her one-woman show Paradoxical Undressing, the tale of a tumultuous teenage life when, in the…

Kids' Events

Trains and tweens dominate the first week

7 Aug 2008

Trains and tweens dominate the first week The good, the naughty and the hungry are all in evidence in the opening salvo of the kids programme, with the whole shebang kicked off in boisterous style by queen of tween Cathy Cassidy (9 Aug) who presents…

Tasty sub - Glasgow Sub Club honoured in Resident Advisor poll

7 Aug 2008

Glasgow clubbing institution the Sub Club has been honoured with a place in respected dance magazine Resident Advisor’s Top 10 list. The Sub Club was placed inside the worldwide Top 10 in three out of four categories, including Atmosphere, Programming…

Richard Hamilton: Protest Pictures

Incomplete display of anti-establishment works by a British master

7 Aug 2008

While this exhibition gives a flavour of just how iconic the work of pioneering British pop artist Richard Williams has been, particularly in relation to the authority-subverting subtexts at work within them, the impression upon leaving is that only…

5 Questions - Rosie Kay

7 Aug 2008

5 biggest influences as a choreographer: Charlie Chaplin and Fred Astaire films. Artist Otto Dix and the Weimar Republic period of German history. Merce Cunningham. Pina Bausch. My old history teacher, Philip MacKenzie, at the Royal High School. 4…

Rick Shapiro

Not pretty but very punchy

7 Aug 2008

Rick Shapiro is introduced as a man 'fighting himself', but for tonight's performance it's the theatre tech who is taking most of the comedian's acerbic blows. Trying to sync up highly designed video graphics with Shapiro's meandering mind is an…

Three Billy Goats Gruff

Three is the magic number

7 Aug 2008

He's done it again. Andy Lawrence, storyteller and puppet-maker extraordinaire, has created another perfect kids show. Back at the Fringe for the third year running, following the success of The King's Got Donkey's Ears and The Elves and the Shoemaker…

Interview - Alexander Hamilton

Travels without my camera

7 Aug 2008

It might seem laughably low-tech in a digital age, but the camera-less cyanotype, one of the earliest and simplest forms of photography, still enthrals Edinburgh artist Alexander Hamilton. ‘It’s just two chemicals mixed together and applied to…

Death Defying Acts

7 Aug 2008

ROMANCE/THRILLER (12A) 97min Freely mixing historical fact with fictionalised biography, this Brit-Aussie co-production turns on a fascinating premise: a battle of wits and wills between world-famous escapist and sceptic of all things supernatural…

Wheels of Life

From Russia – via Glasgow – with love

7 Aug 2008

It’s hard to call Wheels of Life, the new production by Sharmanka Kinetic Theatre, a ‘play’ as such. Huddled in the intimate Theatre Workshop venue, the audience is confronted with a macabre toy box of intricate artistic contraptions; a captivating maze…

Alun Cochrane

Dad talk amid the credit crunch

7 Aug 2008

Last summer, the tallest Yorkshire-Glaswegian on the comedy circuit opted not to bring himself up to the Fringe. Not because he was writing a sitcom or developing a novel or workshopping sketch ideas; his absence was down to the more noble activity of…

Animal Olympics

Astrological antics

7 Aug 2008

Quirky and educational, Animal Olympics explores how Chinese astrology began. Francesca Beard, known for her performance poetry, puts a lot of energy into portraying the 12 animals of the Chinese zodiac as curious individuals. After slipping on her…

Children of the Khmer

Cambodian song and dance

7 Aug 2008

This is as inspiring as it gets. An ensemble of young talented performers from Cambodia delivering perfectly orchestrated dance routines that are soulful, funny, enthusiastic and set against a powerful musical backdrop. It starts off on a mellow…

DJ Sneak

7 Aug 2008

The Telefunken team are joined by an acknowledged master of Chicago house in the form of DJ Sneak, for his first Edinburgh show in five years. Moving to Chicago from his native Puerto Rico in 1983 he quickly soaked up the sounds of Frankie Knuckles…

Martin Wishart

Michelin star chef preaches accessibility in the kitchen

7 Aug 2008

It’s hard to believe that next year will mark the tenth anniversary of Martin Wishart’s arrival on Leith Shore. Then, a young Scottish chef opening a small fine-dining restaurant with his own name above the door seemed, well, confident. But Martin…

Jonny Woo: International Woman of Mr ‘E’

Moving and darkly comic one-(wo)man show

7 Aug 2008

Moving and darkly comic one-(wo)man show. Jonny Woo, drag queen darling of the London alt.queer scene appears onstage beneath sequined butterfly make-up and various costumes. He knows that the act of wearing a mask is designed to reveal rather than…

The Great American Trailer Park Musical

Snappy, sassy and show stoppin'

7 Aug 2008

A feisty, sun worshipin', gum chewin', all singin', all dancin' trio of girlfriends (who can't help poking their noses into other people's business) gradually divulge the scandal going on in the bosom of their beloved Florida trailer park. Nicely…

Another Paradise

Preaching to the converted

7 Aug 2008

There is an annoying tendency among political theatre-makers to be so convinced of their arguments that they neglect to present them in an interesting way. Such unreflective laziness cripples this debut production of Sayan Kent's Another Paradise which…

Best of the 15th Raindance Film Festival Shorts

7 Aug 2008

SHORTS (15) 100min (PIAS DVD retail) Cottoning on to the fact that in the future the best film festivals will probably take place online and from the comfort of our own homes, those good people at Raindance have put together a best of DVD. The…

Alcock Improv

Hateful yet seemingly hilarious ad libbing

7 Aug 2008

Apparently this lot are causing sleepless nights for the Cambridge Footlights crowd, as the establishment quake in their boots as the Alcock crew go around snapping at their improvised heels. The whole ad-lib game is at best hit and miss, and at worst…

Danielle Ward

Pacy set that's both clever and funny

7 Aug 2008

'We haven't even flirted with the line yet' warns Danielle Ward as one joke gets a hesitant reaction. She isn't lying; the rest of Ward's material, all rapidly told, invokes death by decapitation, the sex drive of a Siamese twin and some depressing…

How The Giraffe Got Its Neck

Evolutionary tales

7 Aug 2008

Full of questions about the animal kingdom, two explorers set off on a journey down-river. Along the way, they impart stories about how the leopard got his spots, the elephant got his trunk and finally, how the giraffe ended up with such an elongated…