Issue 616

Hunger

Protest picture

30 Oct 2008

'Were you out last night my friend?' 'Is it that obvious?' I say pulling down a wrinkled lower eyelid to expose an eye as bloodshot as those of the two men opposite me. They are hot young actor Michael Fassbender - all fair brown hair, blue eyes, slight…

Stephen Petronio Dance Company

30 Oct 2008

As the enfant terrible of the dance world Stephen Petronio has worked with some of the world’s most recognisable names. Kelly Apter meets the man behind the stage magic

Quantum of Solace

30 Oct 2008

Director Marc Forster has said in interviews that he agreed to do Bond because the producers asked him to make an art house version. Well, if this is art house then the Pope is atheist, Quantum of Solace starts with a trademark action sequence involving…

James Bond - Killer Tracks

30 Oct 2008

When Bond's latest music maker, Jack White, told Rolling Stone magazine recently that he wanted to 'join the family of Barry, Bassey, Connery and Craig', he cleverly omitted any reference to the occasional black sheep of the 007 family. After all…

Jazzie B

Keep on movin'

30 Oct 2008

'I never made house music, mate! You've got the wrong bloke.' He's got a point actually, maybe I have. Is this the same Jazzie B whose band Soul II Soul produced a genre defining album entitled Club Classics Vol. 1 just as house music was breaking…

Circuit training

30 Oct 2008

‘Tangerine Dream,’ Kraftwerk’s Ralf Hutter said to Lester Bangs in a 1975 interview, ‘although they are German they have an English name, so they create onstage an Anglo-American identity, which we completely deny. We cannot deny we are from Germany…

Gerhard Richter

Man for all seasons

30 Oct 2008

When Sonic Youth toured their 1988 Daydream Nation album in 2007 on the back of the same year's two-CD deluxe edition of what had originally been the New York art rock pioneers' final independent release, the original LP cover art was probably the last…

Dylan Moran

Good stock

30 Oct 2008

Despite the current economic doom and gloom, or more likely because of it, live comedy is booming, with a host of big names currently touring the UK. And while luminaries like the Mighty Boosh, Sarah Silverman, Steve Coogan and Lee Evans have recently…

Slava’s Snowshow

30 Oct 2008

After well over a decade on the road, Slava’s Snowshow continues to pack ‘em in. Steve Cramer reckons this is about childishness, love and pain

Michel Faber

Baptism of fire

30 Oct 2008

Michel Faber is a tough act to follow, especially when you're Michel Faber. The chameleonic author has built an impressive back catalogue that flips between postmodern memoirs of a Victorian prostitute, ghostly love stories or a sci-fi thriller about a…

Birmingham Royal Ballet

30 Oct 2008

George Balanchine, Kenneth MacMillan and Bronislava Nijinska – a heavyweight line-up of choreographers, all of whom have created a ballet to Stravinsky’s 1928 score, Le Baiser de la fée. So when British choreographer, Michael Cordor was asked to make a…

Rebel Waltz

30 Oct 2008

It's been to Barcelona, to Shoreditch and even to Brazil, but Rebel Waltz co-founder Murray Richardson finds much amusement in the fact that his club, which celebrates its tenth anniversary here, will be happening on the very same street on which it was…

John Updike - The Widows of Eastwick

30 Oct 2008

For almost half a century, novelist, poet and New Yorker writer John Updike has chronicled the concerns, thoughts and sexual foibles of the American middle class. Not always successfully though, as can be forgiven amidst a career which embraces almost…

Hunger

(15) 95min

30 Oct 2008

In 1981, IRA member Bobby Sands allowed his body to become the ultimate instrument of protest when he led the Maze prison hunger strike in order to win political status for imprisoned members of the IRA. Directed by Turner Prize winning artist Steve…

Telefunken

30 Oct 2008

Telefunken is a proper house night. Its music jacks in all the right places, its residents know how to mix without molestation and its guests are great. You can tell residents Alan Gray and Nick Wilson come from the right sort of background because…

The Caretaker

30 Oct 2008

Pinter’s tale of a power struggle between three men, one destitute, one marginalised by mental health issues and one seeming to exist at the twilight edge of bourgeois respectability, assumes a new power in the current economic climate. When…

Alexander McCall Smith - La's Orchestra Saves the World

30 Oct 2008

When a master of storytelling such as Alexander McCall Smith puts pen to paper, we have come to expect great things. And he doesn't disappoint with this latest stand-alone title, a warm and captivating tale of strength, passion and friendship set in…

Terence Davies

Liverpool echo

30 Oct 2008

Of Time and the City is an idiosyncratic and deeply personal documentary essay, which draws on vivid archival footage and some inspired musical selections (everything from Mahler to Peggy Lee), it's narrated by Terence Davies, who peppers his commentary…

W.

30 Oct 2008

The American aphorism that suggests 'any boy can grow up to be president' is blandly dramatised in Oliver Stone's outrageously timed film, the first biopic to consider the life story of a sitting US president. Fresh from his deadly pursuit by Anton…

Hydro

30 Oct 2008

Straight outta Bellshill, Hydro grew up listening to his dad’s hip hop collection, split into ‘kid friendly’ and ‘non-kid friendly’ categories. He soon skipped the De La Soul and Tribe Called Quest and broke out the NWA and the Public Enemy. Moving to…

Shellac

30 Oct 2008

'My band means too much to me for me to allow anyone to put me in a position of resenting my band. I insist that it remain a hobby for that reason. If it becomes anymore than a hobby then it becomes something that I rely on, and my frame of mind and my…

Martin Kershaw

30 Oct 2008

A visit to the Eduardo Paolozzi retrospective at the Dean Gallery four years ago was the starting point for alto saxophonist Martin Kershaw’s ambitious new Hero as a Riddle project. A Scottish Art Council New Music Award has finally allowed Kershaw…

Jean Muir

Absolutely fabulous

30 Oct 2008

Jean Muir didn't invent the little black dress, but she made it her own. The trailblazing designer, who established her own label Jane & Jane in 1962 before branching out under her own name in 1966, was loved not for her catwalk extravagance or her…

Suddenly Last Summer

30 Oct 2008

Tennessee Williams’ Suddenly Last Summer is the theatrical equivalent of a shot in the arm from a hypodermic needle, a visceral cocktail of madness, repressed sexuality and cannibalism all played out against the sweltering New Orleans heat. It’s also…

Hannah and Harvey

Young people's theatre

30 Oct 2008

Mental illness isn’t something you see on the stage very often, and certainly not in a show aimed at children. But given that one in four of us will experience it at some point in our lives, we’re as well to find out about it sooner rather than…

Alex Frost: Compassion Fatigue

30 Oct 2008

The packaging from healthy breakfast cereals, eye drops, tooth polish and intensive moisturising lotion may not sound like promising subject matter for contemporary art, but Alex Frost's excellent new exhibition consists of works based on just these…

Richard Alston Dance Company

30 Oct 2008

Music has always played a huge part in Richard Alston’s work, but these days he’s having fun with lyrics, too. Last year’s Shuffle It Right introduced dance audiences to the witty words of late American jazz singer, Hoagy Carmichael. ‘Hoagy was an…

Monika Sosnowska

30 Oct 2008

While Polish artist Monika Sosnowska's architecturally-concerned works can often be playful in tone, the pieces on display here are masked by a kind of bleak austerity. In this regard, Sosnowska has taken inspiration from her home city of Krakow, and in…

5 Things you might not know about - Tina C

30 Oct 2008

Despite appearances to the contrary, Tina C is not a genteel C&W dame from Tennessee but is in fact a strapping gentleman by the name of Christopher Green, a bloke from Derbyshire. To be more map-specific, Green hails from Matlock, a true hotbed of…

Simon Day

30 Oct 2008

From white rapper to alcoholic car salesman, Simon Day has taken on a wide and varied range of comedy personas over the years - most famously getting us giggling with his hilarious skits on successful sketch show The Fast Show. But he's tired of only…

Celtic charms

Celtic Connections

30 Oct 2008

From Africa to America, bluegrass to country, Celtic Connections looks set to showcase a roster of international talent, finds Anna Millar

Bring in the bells

30 Oct 2008

This year’s Hogmanay festivities could provide a stepping stone to stardom for one lucky band, as King Tut’s Wah Wah Hut and Winterfest Glasgow this year offer an unsigned Scottish act the chance to kick off New Year festivities in Glasgow’s George…

A History of Scotland

BBC1, Sun 9 Nov, 9pm

30 Oct 2008

Following recent criticism about the lack of native history being taught in Scottish schools and widespread whinging about BBC Scotland spending increasingly less cash on home-grown fare, the corporation has risen to both challenges with this ambitious…

Remote Control

30 Oct 2008

A worrying trend has developed in recent times: folk better known for doing other things have begun reinventing themselves as TV documentary-makers. From Louise Reknapp's psuedo-journalistic investigation into the phenomenon of size zero models to…

Screen bites

30 Oct 2008

When a 1970s Indian journalist labelled populist Bollywood films as 'masala movies' - a dollop of drama, pinch of comedy, stirred in with some song and dance - Indian cinema's association with food became firmly established. While the masala movies…

The Bollywood Lounge & Indian Restaurant

Movie smoothie

30 Oct 2008

The gaudy glamour of the Indian film industry seems a parallel universe away as you button up on a dreich Glasgow night and stride past Sauchiehall Street's greasy takeaways and booze-addled hordes down by Charing Cross. Yet, just on the other side of…

Last word - Kyle Falconer

30 Oct 2008

Singer Kyle Falconer from Dundonian indie rock outfit The View waxes lyrical about boozing, Paul McCartney and Pulp Fiction

Taste test - Chicken Tikka Masala

30 Oct 2008

McLeish Brothers, Lidl, Mother India, Tesco, Caledonian Curry Company, Marks & Spencer

Singles & Downloads

30 Oct 2008

You know times are tough when you have to resort to Tony Christie to get you through the day. OK, the climate’s shagged and the banks are collapsing, but it’s the piffling amount of brilliant tracks that’s really getting my goat this issue. What? Us…

Valerio Zurlini

Italian Stallion

30 Oct 2008

In one of his last-ever interviews, Italian director Valerio Zurlini discussed his life-long passion for Leo Tolstoy. 'What I find extraordinary in his work,' Zurlini observed, 'is the remarkable fusion between public and private history'. Zurlini never…

Build your own Bond movie

30 Oct 2008

Exotic locations, the hot girl, the evil villain, clever gadgets, bad puns and interrupted love scenes.

Cockroach

30 Oct 2008

It sneaks up on you unexpectedly, this full-length debut by Sam Holcroft. At first, she gives the impression of writing a lightweight comedy of high school life; all cat-fights, smashed windows and detentions. But something is afoot in the biology…

West Side Story

30 Oct 2008

From Charles-Francois Gounod’s 19th century opera to Baz Lurhmann’s gun-toting 1996 film, there’s been no shortage of momentous adaptations of Shakespeare’s love epic. But of all the play’s modern reworkings, West Side Story continues to be one of the…

Profile - Toby Jones

30 Oct 2008

Name Toby Jones Born 7 September 1967, Oxford, England Background In 2001, the diminutive British actor premiered his self-penned monologue – Missing Reels at the Edinburgh Fringe. The show was an entertaining account of how his role as a…

Scottish Opera - La Traviata

30 Oct 2008

‘Born to die’ seems a bit of an extreme expression to describe a singer, but for Carmen Giannattasio it appears to fit the bill. Star of tragic opera after tragic opera, the Italian soprano says it’s unfortunate, but, ‘I have died so much in the last…

Film & DVD Playlist - Paul Newman

30 Oct 2008

‘What we’ve got here is failure to communicate’ was the tagline of Cool Hand Luke, 1967’s chain-gang drama starring Paul Newman, who sadly died from cancer in October. The many obituaries covering his best-known performances in hits like Butch Cassidy…

DVD Round-up

30 Oct 2008

The much threatened, barely still breathing DVD industry has had little to celebrate in the last few years. The current modus operandi seems to be: ‘let’s release as much old, new and rubbish stuff as we can before the bubble bursts and new technology…

Umek

30 Oct 2008

Name Umek Also known as Uros Umek Occupation The biggest name in Slovenian techno, whose reputation is growing around Europe and even further afield. Where is he from? Ljubljana, where he was born 32 years ago. A teenage devotee of the…

News Briefs

30 Oct 2008

A self-portrait of Edinburgh-born artist Allan Ramsay has gone under the hammer in the capital’s Christie’s auction for almost £300,000. A painting by Edinburgh-born Samuel Peploe, Roses, fetched £529,250 – a record sum for a Scottish Colourist.…

Heartbreak

30 Oct 2008

Stuck between two separate camps of zeitgeist-grabbing greatness, East London based duo Heartbreak are both flag-bearers for the much name-dropped Italo disco revival, and also affiliates of the ever-high quality scene based around Australia’s Modular…