Issue 612

Tropic Thunder

Reality bites

4 Sep 2008

Shaping up as this season’s most riotous comedy, Tropic Thunder casts Ben Stiller, Jack Black and Robert Downey Jr as three self-important actors making a movie in a real war zone. They talk to Miles Fielder about satirising Hollywood and scandalising…

Bon Iver - Lone justice

4 Sep 2008

The breathtaking debut album from Bon Iver is evidence that isolation can produce something truly special. Colin McKean revels in this most singular of musical visions Disillusioned and frustrated by the disintegration of DeYarmond Edison, the band…

Janice Galloway - A Selfless Act

Interview

4 Sep 2008

After an absence of six years, Janice Galloway has returned with a memoir rather than a novel. Her fans won't be disappointed, though. Kirstin Innes meets her

Only the brave

Arches Live!

4 Sep 2008

As Arches Live! returns to Glasgow for its sixth year, David Pollock talks to new artistic director Jackie Wylie about her vision for the annual celebration of experimental theatre and performance art

David Simon - Man on Wire

4 Sep 2008

With his true crime books and epoch-forming TV shows, David Simon has painted a bleak picture of modern America. Miles Fielder hears him pray that it all turns out OK

Words 2008

A way with words

4 Sep 2008

How do you create an exhibition of creative writing? And why? Kirstin Innes finds out about Words 2008

Macbeth

4 Sep 2008

The last time Liam Brennan starred as Macbeth it was in a modern-day interpretation in Musselburgh in which the soldiers wore khaki, news was conveyed by TV screen, and when the thane of Cawdor heard bells it was the sound of his mobile. Ten years…

Pineapple Express

4 Sep 2008

As with last year’s Superbad, male bonding lies at the heart of the latest Judd Apatow production which also comes from the screenwriting team of Evan Goldberg and Seth Rogen. After playing one of the cops in Superbad and starring in Knocked Up, Rogen…

Scottish Ballet

4 Sep 2008

Since its reinvention five years ago, Scottish Ballet has embraced a wide variety of dance styles, the full gamut of which it's managed to squeeze into one diverse mixed bill. Featuring works by the mother of American postmodern dance, Trisha Brown, New…

Calexico

4 Sep 2008

‘It’s not what some people have called a return to form, because there are new elements on the record,’ says Joey Burns, singer, songwriter and co-founding member (with percussionist John Convertino) of the idiosyncratic alt.country outfit Calexico.

RocknRolla

4 Sep 2008

Is there a filmmaker in Britain who’s been more derided than Mr Madonna? A bit unfair all this criticism is too: it’s not Guy Ritchie’s fault that the competent, very watchable gangster flicks Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch were some of…

Exposure: Punch and the Apostles

4 Sep 2008

‘We’re not exactly palatable, but not immediately repulsive,’ suggests lead singer Paul Napier, to sum up the sound of Punch and the Apostles, the Glasgow seven-piece who’ve been bringing chaos to traditional folk music for almost a year now. Mashing up…

Fast punk club

4 Sep 2008

‘We call it a punk night,’ says Christopher Fast, ‘but it’s more about a punk attitude to music. From rockabilly, 60s soul, garage and hip hop to disco and electro, we set out to make different genres work together in an interesting way.’ For five…

Stewart Lee: 41st Best Stand Up Ever!

DVD

4 Sep 2008

When Stewart Lee first wrote this 2007 show, he was seriously hacked off with the BBC. Having been commissioned by the corporation to make a series of half-hour comedies which would feature Lee performing in front of unusual audiences (a group of…

The 9/11 Faker

Channel 4, Thu 11 Sep, 9pm

4 Sep 2008

And so let's roll with the annual grief-fest which marks the day when planes smashed into the heart of New York's business sector and flattened any notions of US impregnability. In the years which followed, tales of heroism and sacrifice emerged from…

Sunset Song

4 Sep 2008

Director Kenny Ireland is looking to instil some pride in the nation's literary heritage by bringing Lewis Grassic Gibbon's classic tale of community, national identity and sexual awakening back to the stage. Set in an early 20th century farming…

Angel

4 Sep 2008

After years of gleeful, near bi-polar genre shifting, France’s greatest living film parodist, Francois Ozon (5x2, 8 Women, Sitcom), makes the film that every gay teenager, who has grown up in the latter part of the 20th century, would kill to…

The Banishment

4 Sep 2008

Fledgling master Russian filmmaker Andrei The Return Zvyagintsev’s flawed second feature is a nonetheless interesting fusion of British gangster flick Sexy Beast, Ingmar Bergman’s Persona and (thematically at least) Scenes from a Marriage as created by…

The Duchess

4 Sep 2008

In his second film feature UK filmmaker Saul Bullet Boy Dibb retells the tragic true life story of 18th/early 19th Century aristocrat Georgiana Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire. Celebrated beauty and socialite Georgiana (Keira Knightley) is married off…

Wrong Island

4 Sep 2008

‘Last month, a guy from London came up to us and said, “this is exactly what I remember the old Basement Jaxx parties being like”,’ says Teamy, co-promoter and DJ at Sleazy’s finest basement party since it won itself a late licence. ‘That’s just what…

Ziauddin Sardar - Balti Britain

4 Sep 2008

Ziauddin Sardar - Balti Britain (Granta) Balti Britain is a comprehensive and startling exploration into how Britain and India have shaped each other's fates. Ziauddin Sardar, an academic and cultural commentator, admits to his own ignorance of…

Islay Jazz Festival

4 Sep 2008

If the idea of a successful jazz festival on Islay once seemed more than a touch outlandish, the actuality has been quite the opposite. The Islay Jazz Festival celebrates its 10th anniversary this year with a line-up that typifies the programming policy…

Annie Proulx - Fine Just the Way It Is

4 Sep 2008

Fine Just the Way It Is marks Annie Proulx's return to Wyoming, the setting of two previous collections of short stories. The cast is, at once, familiar and fantastic. The devil refurbishes hell, adding to the décor centuries of portraits by mortals…

Peak Practice

4 Sep 2008

'The Lighthouse Architecture Series is a new five-year series celebrating a range of Scottish architectural practices, which have delivered nationally, and now deserve recognition in the international market,' says Leonie Bell, programme director at…

Steven Campbell: Wretched Stars, Insatiable Heaven (new work 2006-2007)

4 Sep 2008

Steven Campbell's work may not be to everyone's taste, but it's certainly powerful and affecting. Large-scale paintings assail the viewer with bright colours; paisley patterns merge with abstract designs and motifs borrowed from art history while…

Mother Courage and Her Children

4 Sep 2008

One of the neglected aspects of Mother Courage and Her Children, Brecht's great condemnation of capitalism as it is manifested in war, is its humour. There's a certain dark perversity to Brecht's story, which depicts a mother inadvertently sacrificing…

Alt-w: New Directions in Scottish Digital Culture (group show)

4 Sep 2008

Alt-w funds artists whose work engages with new technologies and the worldwide web. Featuring artworks by practitioners funded over the last eight years, this exhibition should be an embarrassment of riches. Yet, with such a heavy reliance on new media…

Sister Corita: Power Up

4 Sep 2008

Anti-war art is largely a samizdat operation, in which the means of production are seized via cheaply-made DIY posters and pamphlets. In the 1960s especially, pop art was imbued with a political context often left out of more hedonistically-inclined…

The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas

4 Sep 2008

Bruno (Asa Butterfield) is the nine-year-old son of a Nazi Commandant (David Thewlis). When his father is seconded to manage a concentration camp in a remote area of the Fascist empire, the lonely Bruno makes a new friend, Schmuel (Jack Scanlon), beyond…

List picks: Theatre

4 Sep 2008

Scottish Ballet, Sunset Song, Mother Courage and her Children, Fleeto, Macbeth, Arches Live!, Don Juan

Floored genius

4 Sep 2008

Hula-hooping, burlesque and aerial acrobatics are all withinreach of your twinkle toes this autumn if you have the urge. The phenomenal success of the Strictly Come Dancing and recent Hollywood offerings including Shall We Dance? and Step Up seems to…

Robert De Niro

Family affair

4 Sep 2008

What better way to kick off a preview of this autumn’s movie highlights than with a bona-fide legend, Robert De Niro. The two-time Oscar winner has always been notoriously reticent about his private life, but here Richard Mowe finds him playing a family…

New film & DVD releases

4 Sep 2008

Witness the fitness of this autumn's movie schedule.

Coming soon

4 Sep 2008

Witness the fitness of this autumn’s movie schedule - 88 Minutes, Blindness, Body of Lies, Burn After Reading, Choke, Death Race, Easy Virtue, Faintheart, Fears of the Dark, Ghost Town, Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr Hunter S Thompson, How To Lose…

Marianna Palka

Interview

4 Sep 2008

To get her first film made Glasgow-born Marianna Palka had to do it all herself, she tells Miles Fielder. Talk about indie spirit. In order to make her first feature, the low-budget, highly offbeat and very accomplished romantic comedy Good Dick…

Remote control

4 Sep 2008

Brian Donaldson finds some dramas over-stretching themselves and failing, while those staying within their means do the business

Parklife - Brand new dance

4 Sep 2008

This first-ever instalment of dance music festival Parklife should take attendees back to the mid-90s glory days when T in the Park was still young and finding its feet, and Strathclyde Country Park was big enough to contain it. It’s not like the Park…

Don Juan

Juan for the ladies

4 Sep 2008

Misogynist, sex god or libertine? Don Juan is all this and more, as theatre director Jeremy Raison tells Mark Fisher

Last word: Bollo (aka Dave Brown)

4 Sep 2008

Better known to most as Naboo's gorilla sidekick Bollo in The Mighty Boosh, Dave Brown has also just finished putting together the brand new Mighty Book of Boosh. Here, he reminisces about great times spent with Neil Young in a urinal

Cut to the chase

4 Sep 2008

Eddie Harrison investigates the low fi, low budget revolution going on in Scottish filmmaking. Jean-Luc Godard said all you need to make a film is a girl and a gun. But anyone who has ever picked up a camera knows that cash in the bank helps too. The…

Cail Bruich West

Gael force

4 Sep 2008

No one quite expected the Gaelic renaissance to include food. Fiona Anderson took along her phrasebook for a meal in Glasgow's West End.

Taste Test - Chocolate Ice Cream

4 Sep 2008

Häagen-Dazs Belgian Chocolate, £2 for 100ml tub This surprised a few in the blind tasting, who were expecting something more artificial from this worldwide brand. In fact, the silky texture, rich taste and genuine chocolate flavour were fairly…

W.

Oedipus Tex

4 Sep 2008

Paul Dale welcomes Josh Brolin’s first lead role and Oliver Stone’s Presidential biopic W. with glee

DVD roundup

4 Sep 2008

We start this horror round-up with a trio of box sets. The John Carpenter Collection, The Roger Corman Collection, Blacula

Doing it in style

Scottish Style Awards announced, with ceremony to take place in October

4 Sep 2008

Glasgow's cultural calendar enjoyed an injection of glamour this week, following news that the Scottish Style Awards are back with suitable sass. Organiser's said last night that the awards ceremony, to be held at the end of next month, will be…

Fleeto

4 Sep 2008

The perceived increase in knife crimes on the streets of Scotland is steadily raising awareness of a deadly culture creeping through the nation's young population. Knives continue to be used only in around eight percent of violent crimes, but it's the…

Profile: Saul Dibb

4 Sep 2008

Name: Saul Dibb, Born: London, England, 1968. Background: Dibb started his career working on documentaries. Lifters followed a group of shoplifters and 2003’s Easy Money detailed the life of a couple working in the porn industry. He also worked as a…

Bloc Party - Intimacy

4 Sep 2008

Sending out mixed messages is hardly a new tactic in the already fickle world of indie rock. Kele Okoreke and his clan have been issuing out puzzling notices for some time now, topped off with the claim that their Leeds Festival show would be their last…

Singles and downloads

4 Sep 2008

Let’s get any hating out the way first. The Pussycat Dolls claim ‘When I Grow Up’ (Interscope) * is a tongue-in-cheek look at attention-seekin', dollar-sniffin', 'boobie' flashin' wannabes, but if there's a punchline to their melody-free joke, the girls…

Caledon

4 Sep 2008

They’ve toured all over the world, but for the first time in a couple of years Scotland’s three tenors, Caledon, are performing back in their home city of Glasgow. Classically trained Alan Beck, Jamie MacDougall and Ivan Sharpe bring a programme of…

Introducing: Soundcrash

4 Sep 2008

Residents: Big Dada’s regular tour DJ and a contender for the title of ‘Aberdeen’s most famous DJ’, A’ La Fu. Also Mixed Bizness’ Boom Monk Ben, although he’ll only be appearing at this first instalment in his guise of promoter. Guests: The riotous…

Finding Nemo on Ice

4 Sep 2008

Frozen water usually spells disaster for our aquatic friends, but the shoal of fish heading to Braehead Arena feel right at home on the ice. Featuring 38 competitive skaters, who have swapped medals for make-up, Finding Nemo On Ice mixes technical…

Licence Pending

4 Sep 2008

Drew Taylor, compere and promoter of the Tron’s Licence Pending night, is outlining the ideas behind the event when he stops and checks himself. He’s just used the words ‘performance poetry industry’ and he feels the urge to add the caveat ‘if you can…

Great expectations

Programme announced at Wigtown Book Festival

4 Sep 2008

Book lovers have little reason to be disappointed following the launch of this year's sizeable Wigtown Book Festival programme. Taking place over ten days, the event will boast over 130 talks, debates, theatre, film and activities, organiser's revealed…

Meshuggah

4 Sep 2008

Sometimes the devil is in the detail, but there are also times when the more you explain something, the less sense it makes. In Meshuggah’s case both are true. As regards the first notion, their music is arguably among the most complex and…

Reworking practice

4 Sep 2008

With the big screen adaptation of Brideshead Revisited on the horizon Eddie Harrison examines other upcoming revamps

Side Dishes - Food news to nibble on

4 Sep 2008

As the flood of Festival tourists on Edinburgh's Royal Mile recedes, a handful of recent changes have shown up along the famous thoroughfare. Café Truva, the Turkish-themed café based on Leith's shore for the last decade, has taken over Plaisir du…

Amada

4 Sep 2008

Stories about prostitutes in the theatre are generally tales of suffering and abuse, yet this piece, adapted by Cora Bisset from a short story by Isabel Allende, takes an unorthodox approach to familiar subject matter. There's a transformative beauty to…

Seven Brides for Seven Brothers

4 Sep 2008

It's been 54 years since Seven Brides for Seven Brothers set a new bar for Hollywood big screen productions, but, as a new national tour of the musical suggests, it's still undergoing numerous theatrical reincarnations. What exactly is it about this…

Dean Owens - Whisky Hearts

4 Sep 2008

Dean Owens Whisky Hearts (Navigator) The craft of songwriting has become devalued in mainstream music these days, but there remain talented individuals out there waiting to be found. One such is Dean Owens, Leith-based singer songwriter with a…

List picks - Music

4 Sep 2008

American Music Club, Silver Apples, Meshuggah, Calexico, Stray Cats, Idlewild, Bon Iver, Islay Jazz Festival

Five reasons to go and see: Swervedriver

4 Sep 2008

1 The shoegazing revival starts here! OK, Swervedriver were kind of more grungy than shoegazing, but the ballistic Oxford outfit had feet in both camps, creating a mesmerising racket on a par with My Bloody Valentine and Ride for the whole of the 90s…

5 things you might not know about Pete Firman

4 Sep 2008

Firman was born in Middlesbrough, he made the breakthrough into TV by filming himself doing some tricks in his back garden, he was hugely influenced by Penn and Teller, he once did a trick with an egg and sparkler which went down a storm and his…

Judge Dredd: The Complete Case Files 10

4 Sep 2008

Judge Dredd is surely the greatest British comic character. He's graced the pages of 2000AD since in 1977, and in 2008 his maxim 'I Am the Law' still rings true. The ultimate judge, jury and executioner. It's a distopian future where the radioactive…

Absurd Person Singular

4 Sep 2008

Alan Ayckbourn's decades-long journey through English suburban angst was seldom better exemplified than in Absurd Person Singular. Central to the story is the compulsion of people to consume and accumulate wealth to the detriment of their emotional…

Sex and Chocolate

4 Sep 2008

A 50th birthday. Alone. In your office while your colleagues are out on the razz. This tripartite hell sounds like the stuff of a depressing dramatic monologue rather than a fantasy romp, but life-affirming comedy is precisely the aim of writer Rona…

List picks: Visual art

4 Sep 2008

Arches Live!, Susan Collis, Kate Davis: Outsider, Steven Campbell: Wretched Stars Inflatable Heaven, Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller, The Lighthouse Architecture Series: Gareth Hoskins Architects, Sister Corita: Power Up

Black, White + Gray

4 Sep 2008

James Crump’s documentary revisits the contentious work, life and times of seminal 80s photographer Robert Mapplethorpe. The artist’s legacy is re-examined through a close study of the life of his partner and patron, the curator and collector, Sam…

List picks: Books and comics

4 Sep 2008

Christopher Brookmyrem, Ziauddin Sardar, Annie Proulx, Janice Galloway, David Simon, John Wagner, Alan Grant

Paul Vickers and The Leg

4 Sep 2008

‘You’ve all soaked up the reverb a bit,’ noted Paul Vickers a couple of songs in, ‘which is good’. He seemed a bit dazed by this whole experience, although that might just be down to the ex-Dawn of the Replicants singer’s Henry Rollins meets Daniel…

Solange - Sol Angel and the Hadley St Dreams

4 Sep 2008

So your big sister is Beyonce, one of the biggest pop stars in the world. What do you do? Open that bakery you’ve always fancied? Go help the poor kids in war-torn African states? No, of course not, you go into pop music. Knowles the younger has…

The Pope's Toilet (El Baño del Papa)

4 Sep 2008

DRAMA (EL BANO DEL PAPA) (15) 98min Like the recent Couscous, The Pope’s Toilet works up a great deal of narrative tension out of what are very believable anxieties. Its strength is that it generates a plot out of real life and real concerns.

Pearl and the Puppets

4 Sep 2008

With a voice that’s as elegantly fiery as the red dress she wears to take to the stage, Katie Sutherland – aka Pearl – puts on a feistily charming and totally beguiling show for what she tells the crowd is her first-ever gig at Tut’s with the…

The Wave Pictures

4 Sep 2008

This trio may be from London, but the fine city of Glasgow is evidently a spiritual home for singer David Tattersall, who excitedly announces ‘I used to live here. I wrote this here!’ before one of the band’s raw but epic numbers, one of which includes…

Jesus Camp

4 Sep 2008

Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady’s fly-on-the-wall documentary might easily be classified as a kind of real life horror film. In it we follow one Pastor Becky as she gears up to, and runs a summer camp for born again Christian children and their families.

List picks: Comedy

4 Sep 2008

The Mighty Boosh They're sold out to heck, so if you have a precious ticket, hold it as tightly to you as you would were it the Ruby of Kukundu. That's a Boosh reference right there for you. Festival Theatre, Edinburgh, Thu 11 & Fri 12 Sep; Pavilion…

Missing Twin presents

4 Sep 2008

Missing Twin is the publishing empire of cartoon genius Malcy Duff. Alongside geek-soul brother and Giant Tanker Ali Robertson, Duff makes up half of premier lo-fi fidgets, Usurper. This popcorn-friendly triple feature of late-night wow-and-splutter…

David Holmes - The Holy Pictures

4 Sep 2008

According to Holmes his fourth solo album began as a cluster of instrumental tracks which lead him into a creative cul-de-sac until seismic events in his life – becoming a dad, the death of his parents – inspired him to pen some personal lyrics and…

List picks: Days out

4 Sep 2008

Licence Pending Reliably good spoken word/ performance/music/live art/cabaret night run by a troupe of young Glasgow-based spoken word artists. This month, Martin O'Connor muses on masculinity, and live art duo Molly & Me make an appearance. Tron…

National Lampoon's Cattle Call

4 Sep 2008

It’s a shame that National Lampoon, long associated with tasteless but somehow crudely endearing comedy, should have lent its name to this effort by writer/director Martin Guigui (Swing, Changing Hearts). In it, we meet three young males who hatch a…

Sean Connery & Murray Grigor - Being a Scot

4 Sep 2008

Many Scots cynics, upon seeing the title of this new coffee table volume by our most famous actor, might be inspired to enquire just how much research on the subject can be done by an ex-pat who hasn't lived in the country for decades. It's an…

Eden Lake

4 Sep 2008

For obvious reasons, youth violence has become a favourite theme of British horror films recently. It’s strange that this trend seems to be going from strength to strength as none of the films, from Thomas Clay’s 2005 shocker The Great Ecstasy of Robert…

Take three: Outposts of the Gaeltacht

4 Sep 2008

Three top restaurants with Gaelic names.

Tibor Fischer - Good to be God

4 Sep 2008

Tyndale Corbett is worried that 'do-gooding, over-forgiving softies' have given religion a bad name. After stealing a friend's identity and fleeing to Miami to escape his dead-end existence, he wants to con a congregation into believing he's God.

Glasvegas - Glasvegas

4 Sep 2008

‘The Best New Band in Britain’ says the NME. And for once they have thrown their fickle arrow of instant fame at a worthy target. In 2006, former footballer James Allan assembled a motley crew to give form to his ‘poems’ – disjointed conglomerations of…

Cocktail Kudos

4 Sep 2008

Chris Stock, the newly appointed assistant bar manager of Edinburgh's Bramble Bar, shares his latest cocktail innovation with The List: 'I invented this one especially for cocktail competitions, and call it The Green Dragon Julep. I make it by smashing…

Arnaldur Indridason - Arctic Chill

4 Sep 2008

Crime fiction is routinely disregarded by literary types, but at its best it can provide the kind of sharp commentary on society that a million Oxbridge dinner party novels could only dream of. Arnaldur Indridason's Icelandic crime procedurals are…

New Jazz Orchestra - Camden ‘70

4 Sep 2008

New Jazz Orchestra - Camden ‘70 (Dusk Fire Records) Neil Ardley was well on the way to being a forgotten figure in British jazz, but reissues of some of his work in the past couple of years have gone some way to redressing the balance. It should be…

The Streets - Everything is Borrowed

4 Sep 2008

Mike Skinner might be one of the finest pop artists of our generation, but there’s no escaping the fact that his fourth album is a real disappointment. Certain passages of it might well grow over time, yet the suspicion is that it’s just too damn…

Constantines - Kensington Heights

4 Sep 2008

Look up ‘nearly men’ in the Dictionary of Obscure Indie Rock Lore and you’ll find a long, arduous, hand wringing essay about Constantines. A band who in nine years, have never quite had their moment in the sunshine but work away feverishly, secretly…

Also published - 5 History paperbacks

4 Sep 2008

Germaine Greer - Shakespeare's Wife, Lucy Worsley - Cavalier, TJ English - The Havana Mob, Richard Fortey - The Secret Life of the Natural History Museum, John Man - The Terracotta Army

Haftor Medboe Group - New: Happy

4 Sep 2008

The current line-up of Haftor Medbøe’s group is the strongest yet. The guitarist’s accomplished soloing is supported by powerful contributions from two of the leading horn players on the Scottish scene, saxophonist Konrad Wiszniewski and trombonist…

The Mighty Book of Boosh

4 Sep 2008

Ever wanted to dance like Bob Fossil, express 'polish guilt' like Howard Moon or paint watercolours like Ol' Greg? Of course you have! All these insider secrets, including Vince Noir's genius excuses for being late (revealed here), are packed into the…

Botched

4 Sep 2008

An inept jewel thief (Stephen Dorff) is given one last chance by Russian Mafiosa with a heist from an apartment block. Our robber and his Russian cohorts inevitably screw up, and are the pursued, along with an eccentric group of hostages, through a…

Gina Rae and Sandy Wright - On Main Street

4 Sep 2008

Edinburgh singer Gina Rae has proved herself adept in straight jazz idioms, but this album also reflects the pop-inflected side of her work. Sandy Wright’s acoustic guitar accompaniments provide a spare, uncomplicated support for her light, supple…

Underling - Underling

4 Sep 2008

Based in Dunfermline, Underling pull off the hitherto impossible trick of making the Kingdom of Fife sound like a district of Brooklyn. Their music is played live, a light but spirited bed of intently grooving jazz, through which Aron Moorhouse’s raps…

Elvis vs Spankox - Elvis Re:versions

4 Sep 2008

The world is a hard cruel place. War, famine, death, destruction, pain, suffering, poverty and disease all blight our soon-to-be not very green planet. Why, oh why then add to the misery with something so callous, contemptible and unthinking as this…

Judge Death: Young Death Boyhood of a Super-fiend

4 Sep 2008

Every hero needs an arch-nemesis. For Dredd that nemesis is Judge Death. In many ways he's taken Dredd's morality to the ultimate extreme with the idea that all crime is caused by the living, so life itself should be a crime. Unfortunately there has…

Beyond the Book Fest

4 Sep 2008

Following their success this summer, The Edinburgh International Book Festival will present a special autumn event with award-winning Australian author David Malouf. Winner of the Commonwealth Writers' Prize, his book Remembering Babylon was shortlisted…

The Women

4 Sep 2008

Depressing update of Clare Booth Luce’s 1936 satirical play set amid the idle and bitchy world of wealthy wives and divorcees. Immensely popular in its day (it ran on Broadway for over a year) and most famously adapted by Anita Loos for George Cukor’s…