Issue 611

Hydro Connect Festival - Glasvegas

City limits

21 Aug 2008

It’s hard to think of a band that sums up the Glasgow experience as succinctly as Glasvegas. Primal Scream and The Fratellis may have captured the hedonism, Biffy Clyro the anger and Franz Ferdinand the art, but Glasvegas are the streets of Glasgow writ…

Matthew Bourne's Dorian Gray

Thoroughly modern Oscar

21 Aug 2008

Although no one would bat an eyelid today, Oscar Wilde’s gothic novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray caused shock and outrage when it was published in 1890. The tale of an impressionable young man who becomes obsessed with his own image, had a little too…

Paul Auster - Man in the Dark

21 Aug 2008

In addressing the increasingly threadbare myths that America tells itself about 9/11 and the ensuing war, Auster has shed the dazzling hyper-reflexive post-modern narrative trickery he’s known for like an empty skin, revealing something tender and…

DJ Marky

21 Aug 2008

Think of Brazil and you think of music. It’s a country that lives and breathes to its own unique rhythm, a rhythm which DJ Marky has followed to the top of his profession. Inspired by the Sao Paulo clubs he partied in as a teenager, Marky started out…

Glasgow Pride

Out and proud

21 Aug 2008

It’s that time of year again. Dig out the cowboy hats, the feather boas and anything whatsoever with a rainbow on it. Oh, and dig out your conviction about your sexuality because this is one of the best days of the year to make a statement, celebrate…

Hellboy II: The Golden Army

21 Aug 2008

Fresh from the critical and commercial success of his Oscar-feted Spanish horror-fantasy Pan’s Labyrinth, Mexican filmmaker Guillermo del Toro returns to Hollywood with a second blockbuster adaptation of Dark Horse Comics’ cult supernatural title. A…

See the person, not the age

21 Aug 2008

The Scottish Government has launched a campaign that tackles negative perceptions of older people. It will highlight the positive and valuable contributions that older people make to life in Scotland today. It also looks at the similar negative…

The Wackness

21 Aug 2008

COMEDY/DRAMA Jonathan Levine’s follow-up to the surprisingly good horror film All the Boys Love Mandy Lane is another voyage into nostalgic romanticism and teenage growing pains. This time Levine is pining for his lost youth with a film set in 1994…

5 Questions - Irvine Welsh

21 Aug 2008

Give us five words to describe Crime? Crime is an existential thriller. Which authors should be more famous than they are now? I used to say Ron Butlin, but I think that’s changing now. I think Doug Johnstone will soon be very famous. If I have…

Ben X

21 Aug 2008

Mock-documentary Ben X introduces us to teen Asperger’s sufferer Ben. Moving backwards and forwards between his so-called life of bullying and high school torture and his escape into online role-playing games, the film’s doom laden narrative is led by…

Bryan Talbot

Graphic detail in the finest strips

21 Aug 2008

Bryan Talbot is a bit of a legend in the UK comics industry. He’s provided art for the likes of 2000AD, Sandman and Batman but you can still see the influence of underground comix artists such as Robert Crumb and Gilbert Shelton even in his most…

College Road Trip

21 Aug 2008

Aiming for the generational conflict of Freaky Friday, director Roger Kumble’s family-comedy-drama focuses on trust issues between high-flying teen Melanie (Raven-Symoné) and her over-protective father, police chief James Porter (Martin Lawrence). When…

Dan Le Sac Vs Scroobius Pip

Electrifying collaboration brought together by MySpace

21 Aug 2008

Opposites attract, right? That certainly seems true for Dan Le Sac vs Scroobius Pip, the former being a short, stocky, shy beatmaster while the latter is a tall, skinny hyperactive wordsmith. ‘We both bring the best out of each other,’ says Pip, aka…

Fiddler on the Roof

21 Aug 2008

This new touring production of the much-loved Jerry Brock musical stars Joe McCann as Tevye, dairyman and father to five headstrong daughters in Czarist Russia, who becomes torn between Jewish tradition and the actions of his family against a backdrop…

Janey Godley

Family tale from straight-talking Glaswegian

21 Aug 2008

The title of this show, Domestic Godley, doesn’t refer to the cooking, cleaning, dinner parties ‘domestic goddess’ stereotype. Janey Godley’s candid stand-up is specific to her east end of Glasgow upbringing and subsequently eventful life. With a…

Joseph Smith - The Wolf

21 Aug 2008

‘OK, you’re a wolf, it’s winter, you’re hungry and desperate and hunting for food. Now go away and write something.’ You can picture the creative writing class and the half-baked stuff you might get handed in, can’t you? Welcome to The Wolf, a debut…

Kate Davis

Outside interests

21 Aug 2008

This is the first time that New Zealand-born, Glasgow-educated artist Kate Davis has returned for a second exhibition within the same gallery space, and she’s eager that her latest show takes advantage of the fact. Where the original show with Sorcha…

Killer of Sheep - Charles Burnett

Sheep of the just

21 Aug 2008

Google Charles Burnett’s name and you will come across ecstatic proclamations such as ‘considered one of America’s greatest filmmakers’. That may come as a shock to the many who have never heard of the African American filmmaker or seen any of his…

Koko the Crocodile

A little touch of Africa

21 Aug 2008

Mara Menzies is fairly new to the storytelling game, but has taken to it like a duck to water. Or rather, like a crocodile to a riverbank – much like the wriggling, paw-waving one that appears in her charming new show. Based on Menzies’ recently…

Kristen Schaal & Kurt Braunohler

Schaal and pal delve into surreal corners

21 Aug 2008

A warning is gently dispatched: Double Down Hearts will break our minds. Co-written in reverse chronological order by Kristen Schaal, of Flight of the Conchords fame, and Kurt Braunohler, her ‘gift’ of a comedy partner, the play pastiches the melodrama…

Michael McIntyre

The accent is on over-familiarity

21 Aug 2008

Last year, Michael McIntyre apparently harangued two judges on the if.comedy panel for doing this nation the great disservice of not handing him the award on a plate. Still, he could at least reassure himself of his genius with all those flattering star…

Miniprofile: Jay Brannan

Sound sugar-coated acoustica with crystal clear swooping vocals and an edge of stark sexuality.

21 Aug 2008

Was it terrifying releasing your first album Goddamned yourself? It seems like the natural order of things to me because I’m such a weird person with very specific ideas and opinions and beliefs. It’s a lot of work, for sure. I’m like, ‘do I get to…

Nick Doody

21 Aug 2008

As if a three-week run at the Fringe wasn’t enough to leave him desperate for a well-earned break, Nick Doody brings highlights from his daffy, gently satirical Edinburgh show Tour of Doody to the west coast as part of Susan Morrison’s Pick of the…

Pierrepoint

21 Aug 2008

DRAMA Every now and again, the general public, as represented by the reactionary tabloid press, will rise up and demand a debate on the return of capital punishment. Fortunately, the process has never gone any further than some screeching headlines…

Scott Capurro

A mix of the inspired and the obnoxious

21 Aug 2008

It’s been said that the older people get, the less worried they are about causing offence. Scott Capurro, veteran of some 15 Fringe summers, has clearly decided to go for broke this year, trampling all over every sacred cow and totem of political…