Issue 643

Traverse Theatre autumn festival 2009

Why the Edinburgh Theatre is ready for battle

10 Nov 2009

Dominic Hill tells Mark Fisher why the Traverse is still on a festival footing

Taste test: The Scottish Café and Restaurant

10 Nov 2009

Porridge with berries and heather honey Porridge needn’t be grey wallpaper paste served as punishment. Salt should be included judiciously when cooking (as with bread), but John Knox doesn’t birl in his grave if you put sugar on it – though berries…

The Film Noir Collection

10 Nov 2009

(12) 375min (BFI DVD retail) Having come to America in 1936 to direct his first love, theatre, on Broadway, Otto Preminger became one of Hollywood’s top filmmakers following the success of his 1944 film noir, Laura. Although the notoriously…

Topdog / Underdog

Citizens Theatre, Glasgow, until Sat 21 Nov

10 Nov 2009

Suzan-Lori Parks’ Pulitzer Prize-winning play is a fine example of the power that can be achieved with two actors and a single setting. Topdog / Underdog focuses on two African American brothers, Lincoln and Booth, who have very different ideas about…

Othello

Citizens Theatre, Glasgow, until Sat 21 Nov

10 Nov 2009

Guy Hollands’ production of the Bard’s tragedy of racial hatred, jealousy and betrayal is a stripped-back version, starkly lit, with minimal staging, that returns the focus squarely to Shakespeare’s language. Thus, the most successful moments come about…

Is That Baby What / It’s Not Real, Love

10 Nov 2009

Edinburgh audiences are accustomed to theatre shows being presented in non-traditional spaces, not least during the Festival Fringe. But it’s particularly unusual to find a coffee bar that has its own in-house theatre company. Leith’s new coffee…

Natura Morte brings theatre companies Derevo and Akhe together

5 Nov 2009

As partnerships go, it couldn’t be more perfect. One of Scotland’s most unusual and atmospheric venues effectively handing over the keys to two of the world’s most unconventional theatre companies. What the performance will look like is still anyone’s…

Exposure: Bronto Skylift

5 Nov 2009

For some reason duos can conjure more volume and power than traditional groups of twice the size can manage. Think The White Stripes, The Black Keys, Lightning Bolt, The Carpenters. OK, we can’t think of any more. No, hold on, here come Glasgow-based…

Jim Poole Film Awards shortlist announced

5 Nov 2009

The shortlist of films and judges for the 2009 Jim Poole Scottish Short Film Award are below. The awards will take place on Sunday 8 November at 1.00pm at The Cameo Cinema, Edinburgh. Entry is free and tickets are only available on the day itself.

The best winter hotel breaks in Scotland

4 Nov 2009

The Lovat, Loch Ness This beautifully restored hotel has been inspiring excellent reviews since refurbishment was finished in 2007. The Victorian main building is supplemented by studio annexes, with rooms done out in a hybrid of classic 19th century…

Interview with Sum author David Eagleman

4 Nov 2009

Brian Eno composed a score for it. Stephen Fry sent sales rocketing when he mentioned it on Twitter and Nick Cave, Jarvis Cocker and Miranda Richardson have been recorded reading from it. Kirstin Innes meets David Eagleman, author of Sum, one of 2009’s…

Michael Haneke interview

4 Nov 2009

‘I’m a control freak,’ says Michael Haneke, the current holder of the Palme d’Or. The Cannes prize-winning director is talking in a London hotel room, wearing a black shirt and trousers, German words spouting through his Santa Claus-esque white hair and…

Noel Fielding interview

4 Nov 2009

First record you ever bought It was Motörhead and it was an album called Bomber. I was quite a weird kid. Last time you were chatted up Probably last night. Last lie you told Probably last night as well. I lie every day. First movie you ever…

DJ Shadow and Grandmaster Flash launch DJ Hero

4 Nov 2009

Why did no one connect DJing and video gaming sooner? Both involve single-minded obsession, blinding dexterity, copious alone-time, and – potentially – serious carpal tunnel damage. Fortunately, Activision made the connection and expanded their Guitar…

Leading lights of gaming industry set for Dundee's new NEoN festival

4 Nov 2009

Scotland has had an amazing hit rate in terms of videogames. Starting with games like Lemmings through to the absolutely colossal Grand Theft Auto (the biggest selling game in the world), and with companies like Realtime Worlds, Denki, Dynamo, Digital…

James Ellroy interview

4 Nov 2009

The final part in James Ellroy’s Underworld USA trilogy comes as a hefty, rewarding brick of a book and is already being hailed as his masterpiece. Following up American Tabloid and The Cold Six Thousand, Blood’s a Rover is a blazing, epic 650-page…

The Scottish Café and Restaurant opens at the National Gallery of Scotland

4 Nov 2009

When the concession to run the 120-cover café and restaurant in the National Gallery of Scotland on the Mound in Edinburgh came up for renewal this year a predictable array of contract caterers, many based in England, came forward to bid. They were…

Film and DVD book round up

4 Nov 2009

Before he spawned America’s most famous Irish Catholic presidential dynasty Joseph P Kennedy was a Hollywood player. It could be said he was Hollywood’s prototype player. Between 1919 and 1928 he treated the burgeoning movie business like the gold mine…

Christmas and Hogmanay 2009 in Edinburgh

4 Nov 2009

It’s been all go for the last few weeks, as those in the know ponder how to bring you the best of times this Christmas and Hogmanay. In the capital, Edinburgh City Council is reportedly already looking to shindigs in 2010 and beyond, with early…

Royal Scottish Automobile Club renovation continues

4 Nov 2009

The massive renovation of the former Royal Scottish Automobile Club on Blythswood Square in Glasgow is reaching completion with the opening of the first batch of rooms and the hotel’s 120-seater restaurant and cocktail bar. Part of the Town House…

5 things you might not know about Eddie Izzard

4 Nov 2009

1 Born in Yemen, Edward John Izzard spent three pre-school years in mid-60s Northern Ireland. Oblivious to all the politics, he was brought up in a Protestant stronghold in Bangor and loved going out to chuck mud at passing cars. 2 A committed…

Music hitlist

4 Nov 2009

Mark Eitzel and Franz Nicolay The yin and yang of acoustic troubadourism: former American Music Club man Eitzel (pictured) whose tortured and black comic musings are the antithesis of the ever chipper The Hold Steady keyboardist and resident dandy…

The White Ribbon (Das Weiße Band)

4 Nov 2009

(15) 143min Writer/director Michael Haneke (The Piano Teacher, Hidden) mainlines the sentiments of fellow Austrians Alfred Adler (the psychiatrist who first formulated ideas of the inferiority complex) and novelist Marie Von Ebner-Eschenbach (who…

Henri-Georges Clouzot's Inferno

4 Nov 2009

(15) 100min Movie history is littered with the foetus corpses of abandoned projects and unrealised masterworks from Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis to Stanley Kubrick’s Napoleon, John Waters’ The Confederacy of Dunces and (arguably most tragic of…

Clubs hitlist

4 Nov 2009

Volume! Dubstep mayhem from the masked marauder Stenchman. Why not join in the insanity by donning your own disguises for this masked masquerade? The Bongo Club, Edinburgh, Fri 6 Nov. Melting Pot presents the Rizla Invisible Players Tour…