Issue 637

Rewind: Artists’ Video In The 70s & 80s

Audience-unfriendly presentation of a tricky medium

14 Aug 2009

In 1968 the portable camcorder was invented, and the decades which followed were a period of impassioned invention and experimentation in a fertile new medium. Rewind contains fine examples of video art. There are classic videos like David Hall’s ten…

Take 5: Festival venues

Five essential places to experience the festival

14 Aug 2009

udderBELLY, Underbelly's Hullabaloo, Royal Mile, Charlotte Sq, Holly's House

Callum Innes: I Look To You

Compelling new work by leading abstract painter

14 Aug 2009

Sheets of oil colour have meshed into linen and expanded themselves over wooden stretchers. Some reveal a matte finish, others sparkle with glossiness, all have bleeding lines around the edges. These extremities are clues for the anterior panels: like…

Visual Art Hitlist

Our pick of the week's exhibitions

14 Aug 2009

Self-Made Cavalcade, Milestone, Jane and Louise Wilson: Unfolding the Aryan Papers, The Creative World of Alan Davie, The Enlightenments, The Discovery of Spain, Eva Hesse: Studiowork

Singles and Downloads

The good and less good of what's out this week

14 Aug 2009

Art Brut - ‘DC Comics & Chocolate Milkshakes’, Eric Hassle - ‘Don’t Bring Flowers’, Jack Penate - ‘Pull My Heart Away’, Lily Allen - ‘22’, Biffy Clyro ‘That Golden Rule’

Twitter Natter

14 Aug 2009

Here at List Towers we have been inundated with Twitter reviews. We've collected our top picks, for the people by the people

Poorboy Playrooms

14 Aug 2009

Stealthily, and behind the backs of paying customers, some of the most exciting companies and performers on the Fringe have been experimenting together. As we reported at the beginning of the month, the Poorboy Playroom project, set up by Scottish…

Dance Flick

14 Aug 2009

Few genres are as ripe for parody as the ‘I’m gonna dance my way out of the ghetto’ teen flick. Unfortunately, few comic talents have such a lamentably poor track record as the Wayans clan, creators of the vile Scary Movie series as well as White Chicks…

Grandmother Waits For You

Oddly beautiful structure explores ageism, community and unconditional love

14 Aug 2009

Centred on an undeniably impressive central knitted construct that stretches from the ground floor balustrade all the way to the ceiling of this curious backstage venue Grandmother Waits For You is cheeky conceptualism for The Matrix generation.

Film: Also released

14 Aug 2009

The Yes Men Fix The World (12A) 86min ●●●● Prankster duo Mike Bonanno and Andy Bichlbaum continue the work they started in 2004’s The Yes Men. This time they take the capitalist fat cats and expose the people profiting from Hurricane Katrina and the…

Pythonesque

And now for something completely different

14 Aug 2009

This superb celebration of the great surrealist-absurdist comedy troupe is so much more than a straightforward homage to Monty Python. Aptly named playwright Roy Smiles has constructed a very clever narrative that’s playfully self-referential, loaded…

Accidental Nostalgia

The past is a foreign country music

14 Aug 2009

Underneath this bizarre, eccentric and hypnotic little operetta lies so many of the themes of the old 90s style postmodernism that it really ought not to work. Memory, subjectivity, selfhood and identity; the whole shebang smacks of the Generation X…

Around Town Hitlist

14 Aug 2009

Dr Sketchy’s Anti-Art School, Late Summer Yard Sale and Cafe Aww, Philippa Gregory, The Peat Cutter’s Ball, Liam McIlvanney

Top 5 authors with three names

14 Aug 2009

For some writers, a middle initial just isn’t enough to get across their need for a slightly longer name than is the norm. Here’s a quintet of triple-monikered authors: George Dawes Green Two events from the tri-titled New York chap, firstly…

Power Plant

Hallucinogenic sound and light display at the Botanics

14 Aug 2009

Even without special effects, the greenhouses at the Royal Botanic Gardens are among the most magical spaces in Edinburgh, and however badly the organisers of this show had mangled their work they’d have had a difficult job to spoil the surreal and…

I Love You, Beth Cooper

14 Aug 2009

John Hughes protégée Chris Columbus desecrates his mentor’s memory with the ill-timed release of this so-called ‘comedy’. Columbus once rode high with comedies Home Alone and Mrs Doubtfire but his return to the teen genre in which he made his debut with…

A-Team – The Musical

DIY nostalgia for fans of the original

14 Aug 2009

There’s a cute, homespun feel to the cardboard props, hand-held backdrops and plywood vehicles of Joss Bennathan’s production, from a playful bit of tongue-in-cheek 1980s nostalgia by Gareth Kane. That said, it might need more material to fully take…

5 Reasons to go see: Bill Callahan

14 Aug 2009

The American alt-rocker plays Stereo in Glasgow. Here's why you should see him.

Kids Events at the Book Festival

The events and authors for the younger generation

14 Aug 2009

Old favourites for kids include Michael Morpurgo (22 Aug), Malorie Blackman (22 Aug), Jacqueline Wilson (23 Aug), Anne Fine (23 Aug), Julia Donaldson (24 Aug), and Terry Deary of horrible history stardom (28 Aug), but there’s a whole lucky-dip of events…

Trembling Bells

Ecstatic folk-rock magic from Glasgow

14 Aug 2009

Alex Neilson’s questing spirit has led him to play with Will Oldham and Texan outsider Jandek, make free jazz with saxophonist Sonny Simmons, and explode traditional folk songs with Scatter and Directing Hand. But with Trembling Bells, the mercurial…

Jason Cook: Fear

The Geordie’s honest approach falls short with Fear

14 Aug 2009

Anyone familiar with Jason Cook’s routines knows that he likes to produce heart-warming comedy with an emotional kick. Since 2007’s My Confessions and last year’s Joy, the brutally honest approach has been a refreshing departure in the scene, especially…

Aindrias de Staic - The Summer I Did The Leaving

For fiddle-fanciers and Hibernophiles only

14 Aug 2009

The Summer I Did The Leaving recalls a seminal season in the youth of fiddler, raconteur and all-round rudderless hippie Aindrias de Staic (the Leaving Certificate is the Irish equivalent of the Scottish Highers). Through song and story he revisits…

Private Peaceful

All’s not fair in love and war

14 Aug 2009

This one-man show, performed by Finn Hanlon and adapted by director Simon Reade from Michael Morpurgo’s novel, questions why over 300 British soldiers were executed for perceived cowardliness or desertion during World War I, through the character of an…

Hardeep Singh Kohli

Laugh-lite Glaswegian gourmet

14 Aug 2009

During his enforced leave of absence from the BBC, the Scottish Sikh star of The One Show is indulging his fondness for cooking with this culinary-themed comedy show. The simple set-up has Kohli cooking a meal on stage, based on ingredients supplied on…

Women in Harmony

Out of the Kitchen

14 Aug 2009

Women in Harmony is a self-described ‘girly trio’ consisting of three well-established Scottish singers and instrumentalists, Karine Polwart, Annie Grace and Corrina Hewat. The trio grew out of an informal get-together in Corrina’s kitchen back in…