Issue 638

Otago Lane under threat from housing development

A plan to build flats and commercial units in Otago Lane in Glasgow’s West End has come under fierce opposition amid fears it will ruin the boutique-style lane and force the closure of one its best-loved retailers, the Tchai Ovna tea house. Protesters…

Stuck in a rut

Utter nonsense

For many of those students graduating in the centre of recession, the prospect of unemployment and mountains of debt to repay is a very real and current problem. This show is very loosely based on the dire situation much of the class of '09 are facing…

Dan Atkinson: Death by One Thousand Pricks

Compelling and entertaining thesis on the current state of Britain

Dan Atkinson is sick of pretending. He's through with being nice, kaput with repressing his desires, and done with right-wing 'pricks' that moan and whine on radio call-ins. Charmingly presenting the stage as a realm in which the truth runs free, and…

Miles Jupp: Telling it Like it Might be

Mr Nice Guy is generous with the laughs

Playing on his persona as a harmlessly posh good egg, the sort you’d happily leave your kids with, Jupp crafts tales of his failings and faux pas, mishaps visited on him and his own ineptitudes into a rolling onslaught of rib-tickling yarns. Designed to…

Kim Noble

Unfettered lunacy?

Of the near 600 shows listed under Comedy in the Fringe programme, there will be absolutely nothing in there like Kim Noble Will Die. Indeed, whether the return of the man who was once one half of the Perrier Best Newcomer winning double act Noble and…

Russell Kane: ‘Fakespeare: The Tragicall Saveings of King Nigel’

More bard theory than he's letting on?

Russell Kane’s second ‘Fakespeare’ play tells the story of Nigel, a vile Essex banker torn between his fat orange wife – ‘the Gorgon’ – and his ‘semi-chav’ secretary, Donna. Nigel also has to choose between suicide and the nefarious investment in Sudan…

Moscow State Circus

Backbends aplenty; smiles and spontaneity in short supply

The Moscow State Circus is full of extremely talented performers. High above the audience, Alexander Doktorov stands on his head, his hands and legs spread wide into the open air. Lots of people can do headstands, but I haven’t seen many executed on a…

The Bone House

No sleep tonight

The cult celebrity of serial killers and the average person’s ability to become one is the subject of this new horror play by Marty Chan that questions our fascination with the macabre. Beginning as an informal lecture by self professed ‘Mind Hunter…

Nagisa Oshima retrospective

Legendary Japanese director has his work shown at the Filmhouse

Arguably Japan’s greatest living director is honoured in this fantastic and near comprehensive 22 film retrospective. Tracing Oshima’s impressive body of work from early left-leaning melodramas Cruel Story of Youth, The Sun’s Burial and Night and Fog in…

Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters

One of the key American films of the 1980s

Paul Schrader’s brilliant overlooked 1985 biopic of the mad life and times of one of Japan’s most brilliant and troubled souls, Poet and novelist Yukio Mishima, gets a very rare outing on a new print in Glasgow while in Edinburgh they are showing the…

Chess in Concert

Video footage of the Abba/Tim Rice musical

Filmed performance of the blokes from Abba and Tim Rice’s musical about the sex lives of chess players. (It’s actually slightly more complicated than that, but who cares really?) Filmed at the Royal Albert Hall in 2008 with a full orchestra and chorus…

I'll Be Bert

Funny and touching one man show

Hero worship and unwavering loyalty are faithfully remembered in this funny and touching one man show by Bill Cronshaw. Charting his lifelong devotion to Manchester City FC, this piece recalls life in 50s Manchester by focusing on Cronshaw’s childhood…

Cabaret Whore

Sex, revenge and Katie Price

The themes of sex, revenge and Katie Price are just some of the topics tackled in Sarah-Louise Young’s all female cabaret show. Performed with passion from the very beginning, Young’s interchanging characters - Southern belle, socially inept librarian…

Crave

Raw and powerful from the very beginning

Royal Holloway Theatre’s restaging of Sarah Kane’s penultimate play explores four characters disillusioned with life due to excess, abuse and loneliness. Raw and powerful from the very beginning, Kane’s fluid, poetic script dominates a piece that makes…

The Big Smoke

A series of films about London

The ever English capital-centric British Film Institute presents this collection of films from lost London which includes shots of Victorians going to work, some turn of the 20th Century street scenes and, most interestingly, sci-fi short The Fugitive…

Life of Brian

Monty Python classic comes back to the big screen

Has it really been that long? Find out what the Romans really did for us in this special thirtieth anniversary screening of Monty Python’s most contentious and complete film. GFT, Glasgow from Sun 6-Tue 8 Sep.

Richard Williams - The Blue Moment

It’s the only jazz album that legions of non-jazz fans possess. It helped define a cultural era and raked out a path for much of what followed. When Miles Davis marched his merry band into a converted Manhattan church in the spring of 1959, even the…

Scottish Paintings: Old Masters to Contemporary

Great works undermined by staid and debilitating presentation

This closed and muted historical survey covers a time span of around 400 years and reaches from the dark, still-life ages of William Gow Ferguson in 1632, to the rarely exciting contemporary abstract paintings of Callum Innes. Chronicling Scottish…

Comedy Hitlist

Brendon Burns In years gone by this mouthy Aussie could have started an almighty battle in an empty room. He doesn’t have that problem anymore given the number of dates he’s added to this sold-out run. Pleasance Courtyard, 556 6550, 25–29 Aug…

5 Questions: Terry Alderton

Terry Alderton once played in goals for Southend FC before turning to comedy. There’s nothing in our

What five words best describes your show this year? No format, just full on. Can you name a comic who should be more famous than they are now why? Me. What bugs or delights you most about Edinburgh in August? The weather bugs me; it…

Also published: 5 Unit-Shifters

Dan Brown The Lost Symbol You may have heard of his last book, The Finchley Coat or something. Bob Langdon is back with more ‘history, codes and intrigue’. Some copies are expected to be sold. Bantam Press. James Patterson Alex Cross’s Trial…

Charlie Higson - The Enemy

(Puffin) Take a dose of 28 Days Later, touches of Survivors and Escape from New York and the author’s already-proven track record in writing adult genres for a young audience with the Young Bond series, and you have an impressive first instalment in…

Micaela Leon: Kabarett Berlin

An underwhelming tribute to eight 'Weimar Girls'

As Micaela Leon takes you through her top eight ‘Weimar Girls’, you get a real feel for her respect for these women – it’s just unfortunate that her tribute is an underwhelming substitute for the real thing, and her telling of their stories comes across…

A Promised Land

Weighty dramatisation of post-Holocaust Europe

Thought provoking by virtue of its subject matter (post-Holocaust Europe, the early days of the Israel-Palestine conflict), this play is weighty and worthy. Despite much originality and skilful performances from Corinne Harris as two very different…

Eric's Tales of the Sea

Moving, humbling, and comic

Breathtaking, poignant, suspenseful, and hilarious, Eric's tales are enthralling, told by a gifted storyteller who will draw you into the murky depths of his world. Self-deprecating and never boastful, he gives an account of the bravery of his fellow…