Issue 636

The xx - xx

10 Aug 2009

How many times have we heard the maxim ‘less is more’ rolled out for someone new just because they resist knocking everything up to 11? Too often, perhaps, but this bewitching debut starts barely there, and doesn’t get much more full on than that. A…

The Fall of Man

Paradise Lost in a bedsit

12 Aug 2009

An affair between middle-aged, middle-class Peter and his children’s Slavic nanny is told with contemporary dialogue and passages from Paradise Lost. Milton’s long lines feel rushed and therefore unlike real-life musings, but powerful body language…

Book Festival day planner

Our guide on the festival's must-see events

10 Aug 2009

As with most of the festivals, the Book Festival is a scary prospect at first glance. Here, Lizzie Mitchell maps out a plan which should make the minefield a little easier to negotiate. All events are based in Charlotte Square Gardens.

The Most Important Show of the Day

An interactive wake-up call

10 Aug 2009

Riding the waves of recently popularised characters such as Brüno and Borat, Richard Simms is a pint-sized fitness fanatic in an 80s-inspired get-up of fluorescent shorts and leg-warmers. ‘Are you getting enough SECS (Spoken Encouragement Compliments…

Andy and Mike's… Big Box of Bananas

Fun and frolics in the fun pad

9 Aug 2009

The power of children’s TV was always going to ensure that CBeebies presenter, Andy Day found an audience at the Fringe – and a big one at that. What’s pleasing, therefore, is that it’s thoroughly deserved. Day and his partner in silliness, Mike James…

Morecambe

Show-stopping comic tribute

10 Aug 2009

This funny-sad account of the life and death of the man who was dubbed Britain’s ‘comedian of the century’ is already a big hit with Fringe crowds. It’s fair to assume that the prospect of seeing the late, great Eric Morecambe brought back to life on…

Will Gompertz

Educating the masses about art history

10 Aug 2009

A strange one this. Will Gompertz is a senior director at Tate Gallery and looks it: tall, bookish, bespectacled, with a brow you could advertise on. His show aims to informally inform about the history of modern art from the Impressionists onward and…

Dance Hitlist

Shows that have got The List moving

10 Aug 2009

Spectrum, Dance Base – Give Dance a Chance, Tap Kids, Flhip Flhop: Everything Happens on the Break, Four Quarters, Venezuela Viva

David Bainbridge

Debunking the myths surrounding teenagers

7 Aug 2009

Vilified, hated, dismissed, feared and ridiculed, with a reputation blackened beyond damage limitation by even the deftest of spin doctors. Teenagers may be the least fashionable or genial of causes to champion, but that is exactly what David Bainbridge…

Milestone

Provocative exhibition accompanying a live stone-carving project

6 Aug 2009

Entering the quad of the Edinburgh College of Art feels a bit like discovering yet another ill-placed tram construction site. The air is full of the drone of power tools, and dust clouds settle in your hair and mouth. Milestone is an unconventional…

All That Gomez

Brash bravado and thoughtful theatrics

10 Aug 2009

Marga Gomez is wearing a gold lamé tracksuit top with boots to match, a pair of black-framed glasses and a headscarf. This ensemble is loud, brash and ridiculous but like her comedy, it’s hard not to like. At first Gomez seems hesitant; ‘can I talk…

Cardinal Burns

Turkish delights amid the prop failure

10 Aug 2009

If there’s one thing you can be certain of from sketch duo Cardinal Burns, it’s a clean show. Not that there aren’t moments of splendid filth and degradation, but the opening sequence of an ironing, pampering and spraying duo fills the sweaty air with…

The Creative World of Alan Davie

Remarkable mix of the dark and the sublime from much-loved Scottish artist

8 Aug 2009

Saxophonist and journeyman translucent Alan Davie is surely one of Scotland’s greatest living artists. At almost 90 years old it’s remarkable to think that this is the first exhibition of his work to embrace the breadth of his output in painting…

This is Now: From Drawing to Contexture

Well-stocked ragbag from a new wave of textile artists

6 Aug 2009

The first impact of this show, and the most enduring, is the overwhelming urge to touch. Perhaps it’s no surprise that the artworks are more tactile than, say, a series of oil paintings.

Susan Calman: The Last Woman on Earth

A warm show from a friendly talent

13 Aug 2009

Susan Calman was once heckled by a guy who said he wouldn’t shag her if she was the last woman on earth. Taking his abuse as a launchpad, the premise of the pocket-sized Weegie’s show is that we’re all stuck in a bunker after a nuclear attack, and she…

Chika Unigwe

Learning how much shame there is in luxury

12 Aug 2009

The depiction of prostitutes in fiction can be a one-dimensional affair, but not in Chika Unigwe’s poignant and moving novel On Black Sisters’ Street. Unigwe was raised in Nigeria, but has spent the last decade in Belgium, and it was a culture shock…

Sylvia Plath - Three Women, The First Revival

Rare production of the poet’s play, with fine performances

12 Aug 2009

There’s more than a touch of the poet and playwright herself in each of the three titular characters in Robert Shaw’s production of what was originally a radio play from 1962. The triumvirate of voices are those of a wife (Louisa Clein), a secretary…

Profile: Aly Michalka

Bandslam

12 Aug 2009

Name Aly Michalka Born 1989 Torrance, California Background Having already had top 20 singles in the UK and UK with her sister Amanda as AJ and Aly, and opened for Hannah Montana/Miles Cyrus, rising star Michalka has got the right qualifications…

The Hide

11 Aug 2009

Don’t miss this all-too brief chance to catch Marek Losey’s minimalist, claustrophobic and tense debut set in the rarefied world of advanced bird watching. Inside a bird-hide on the Suffolk mudflats sits Roy Tunt (Alex MacQueen). His solitude is…

Wil Anderson

Australian comedy striving to find the good in us all

11 Aug 2009

This sweet, excitable Aussie thirtysomething is driven to find the good in the world, no matter how cynical it gets. He definitely has his moments, but too often you can see the pay-off from miles away, and he deflates some of his sharpest ideas by…

Jojo Sutherland

An autobiographical tale of a not very interesting life

11 Aug 2009

Sutherland is a frank middle-aged woman who has led a more interesting life than most. Sadly she seems to think that this plus a few threadbare jokes are enough to carry her autobiographical show. They’re not. Unless your thing is sitting in on a group…

Thankless Child

Amusing tales are found amongst the wackiness

11 Aug 2009

Two decent actors get beyond some initial wackiness to offer up amusing cautionary tales in which milk is spilled and eggs are regrettably put in the one basket. It should actually be hateful, but they rescue it by pulling in the reins at the last…

Die Roten Punkte

Otto and Astrid aim to rock your world

10 Aug 2009

Over the past few years, the piano-playing Tim Minchin has captured hearts at the Edinburgh Fringe while Kiwi double-act Flight of the Conchords also began their rise to super-stardom on the city’s hallowed streets. Die Roten Punkte – a pseudo-German…

Title sequence - Sin Nombre

10 Aug 2009

Studio backing and awards at Sundance have seen Mexican immigrant-tale Sin Nombre become one of the most talked about upcoming films. Selina Robertson meets the director.

Primary School Musical

Singing to save the school

10 Aug 2009

Faced with the potential closure of his children’s primary school, Angus Reid did all the usual things: went to meetings, met the Council and Scottish Parliament, wrote a musical. The last one on that list may seem a strange response, but as Reid says…