Issue 678
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- Issue 678
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Edinburgh International Science Festival highlights 2011
24 Mar 2011
Lego robotics, mini jungle safaris and wind turbine workshops
Ah. Science. No, not the teensy rapper from the 2005 Big Brother house (we at The List are nothing if not timely), although perhaps it does suffer from a similar image problem. Organisations such as the Glasgow Science Centre and the Edinburgh…
Performance poet Luke Wright set for Glasgow Comedy Festival
24 Mar 2011
Young poet to deliver some Cynical Ballads at Tron
The world of live poetry is a barely recognisable beast to the one which Luke Wright entered in the late 90s. Back then, the likes of John Hegley, Hovis Presley and Murray Lachlan Young were making stage names for themselves, but in a field which had…
Profile: Matt Bissonnette, director of Passenger Side
24 Mar 2011
Canadian director's third feature earning critical praise
Name Matt Bissonnette Born Montreal, Quebec, November 2 1965. Background Bissonnette is an autodidact at the school of Alfred Hitchcock, Gus Van Sant and Richard Linklater. He studied English and film at Concordia University and read law at…
The rough guide to Portobello, Edinburgh's seaside
24 Mar 2011
Neighbourhood Watch: The best bits by the beach
What’s it like? An utterly charming, slightly wonky area of Edinburgh, characterised by the city’s only beach and a very distinct, anti-corporate local community ethos. Formerly the holiday destination of most Central Belters, a lack of investment in…
Liz Lochead translation Educating Agnes explores universal themes
24 Mar 2011
Scotland's Makar translates Moliere's The School for Wives into Scots
Following on from the success of Tartuffe in 1985 and Miseryguts (nee The Misanthrope) in 2002, Scotland’s new makar Liz Lochhead will return once more here to translating the work of the 17th century French satirist Moliere into Scots, with the…
Gavin Sutherland aka Fudge Fingas to launch new album Now About How at Ultragroove
24 Mar 2011
Edinburgh-based producer's smooth, soulful deep house
‘I’m not a fan of DJ culture, to be honest,’ says Edinburgh-based producer and musician Gavin Sutherland, aka Fudge Fingas, who leads the way as one of the most exciting electronic artists working in Scotland today. ‘Although I suppose I support it…
The Extraordinary Adventures of Adele Blanc-Sec
24 Mar 2011
Luc Besson brings Jacques Tardi's adventure comics to the screen
(12A) 107min The ‘cinéma du look’ pioneer Luc Besson returns with this old-fashioned adventure-cum-fantasy yarn, adapted from Jacques Tardi’s long-running comic book series. Although set on the eve of World War One, its intrepid titular heroine…
Arthur Flowers & Manu Chitrakar: I See the Promised Land
24 Mar 2011
Mystical graphic novelisation inspired by the life Martin Luther King
(Tara Books) The life and times of saints and heroes have long been the base for storytelling traditions. With I See the Promised Land, African-American writer and blues singer Arthur Flowers repositions civil rights leader Martin Luther King’s story…
The Kills: Blood Pressures
24 Mar 2011
Alison Mosshart and Jamie Hince deliver a stirring slice of art-rock
(Domino) More well known these days for their dalliances with Jack White (musical) and Kate Moss (marital), Alison Mosshart and Jamie Hince make a long-awaited return to The Kills after a three-year break. Throughout Blood Pressures there are…
Roddy Doyle: Bullfighting
24 Mar 2011
A collection of short stories from the Irish master storyteller
(Jonathan Cape) Having shouldered the full weight of 20th-century Irish history, Roddy Doyle is now almost visibly loosening up. His Last Roundup trilogy may largely have been a thing of literary beauty, but there will be readers relieved to see him…
Alela Diane: Alela Diane & Wild Divine
24 Mar 2011
Family-made folk album from Diane
(Rough Trade) Something of a family affair this for Alela Diane’s third album, with husband Tom Bevitori and daddy Tom Menig helping out on, respectively, co-writing and guitar duties. In this patchy yet occasionally uplifting collection, a downbeat…
The best Easter 2011 events in Glasgow and Edinburgh
18 Mar 2011
Easter egg hunts, beaches, boat trips and activities for Easter weekend
Beach Babies Scotland is scattered with some of the most peaceful and well-kept beaches in the UK. In particular, North Berwick on the east coast is a famously picturesque seaside town, complete with miles of sand, cobbled streets full of friendly cafés…
The Way
18 Mar 2011
Emilio Estevez directs dad Martin Sheen in measured hiking drama
(12A) 128min How strange that The Way should emerge just as Charlie Sheen – brother, of course, to writer/director Emilio Estevez and son to star Martin Sheen – has completely gone off the rails. Estevez’s second film, following the impressive…
Nick Hamm's rock'n'roll comedy Killing Bono fails to hit its targets
18 Mar 2011
Ben Barnes, Martin McCann and Pete Postlethwaite star in U2-envy film
(15) 113min Killing Bono – it’s probably a thought more than a few have entertained over the years. Whether Neil McCormick ever did is another matter. Author of the exuberant rock memoir I Was Bono’s Doppelgänger, aspiring musician McCormick grew up…
Top 5: A tribute to Rebecca Black's abysmal 'Friday'
18 Mar 2011
Spotify playlist: The best songs featuring days of the week
This week will go down in history as the week music soiled itself: chirpy thirteen-year-old Rebecca Black's single 'Friday' was released on iTunes, quickly notched up 10million YouTube hits, and is probably the most panned song ever released. With…
Girl X highlights complex nature of disability sexuality debate
18 Mar 2011
National Theatre of Scotland play succeeds despite dramatic limitations
Girl X was inspired by the real-life case of a pre-pubescent girl with learning difficulties whose mother successfully sought legal approval to have her womb removed to spare her the discomfort of menstruation. The show’s creators Robert Softley and Pol…
Theatre writer and performer Clare Duffy's new show about money
18 Mar 2011
Platform 18: Money - The Game Show
What drew you to the subject of money for your new show? I was amazed by the enormity of the financial crisis in 2008. I hadn’t really realised before that money might actually stop working on a global scale. Of course I was glad that it didn’t! But it…
Polish director, writer and actor Jerzy Skolimowski on new film Essential Killing
18 Mar 2011
Vincent Gallo-starring film tells tale of fugitive on the run from the CIA
‘I live in a remote area of the Masurian forest in Poland and one night I was driving back home on a very slippery road. My car skidded and I very nearly went over the edge, which would have killed me. I felt a real shock and I realised I was near this…
Mother Courage and Her Children
18 Mar 2011
Birds of Paradise production of resonant Brecht classic
The depressing thing about Brecht is that his plays never go out of date. At a time when Western governments stand accused of propping up corrupt dictatorships with a lucrative arms trade, his black comedic musical on the commodification of war and the…
Rona Munro’s play Pandas set for Traverse Spring Summer season
18 Mar 2011
Romantic comedy explores links with China through three couples
Just a few weeks after Rona Munro’s Pandas was revealed as part of the Traverse’s Spring Summer season, Edinburgh Zoo announced that it would soon be home to the first pair of giant pandas to live in the UK for 17 years. The timing may have been…
Ivan and the Dogs explores notion of feral children
18 Mar 2011
Theatre piece based on true story of Ivan Mishukov
You wait 18 months for a play about feral children, then two come along at once. Not since NIE’s My Life with the Dogs in the 2009 Edinburgh Fringe have we heard the true story of Ivan Mishukov, a four-year old boy from Moscow who lived with a pack of…
Little White Lies (Les Petits Mouchoirs)
18 Mar 2011
Overlong comedy-drama starring Marion Cotillard, Francois Cluzet and Benoit Magimel
(15) 154min Following the international success of his innocent-man-on-the-run thriller Tell No One, French actor/director Guillaume Canet returns with this sprawling ensemble drama, which concerns a group of friends in their 30s and 40s. One of…
Jim Loach's Oranges and Sunshine a worthy follower in dad Ken's footsteps
18 Mar 2011
Emily Watson, Hugo Weaving and David Wenham solid in social drama
(15) 104min Jim Loach, son of Ken, was always going to be on a hiding to nothing with his debut feature. Bringing a worthier-than-thou tale to the screen, the comparisons to his father’s immense body of work are inevitable, even more so given how…
Six Black Candles revives adaptation of Des Dillon novel
18 Mar 2011
Revenge story from writer of Singin’ I’m No’ a Billy, He’s a Tim
'I see myself as the Bruce Springsteen of Scottish writers,’ says Des Dillon with a smile. ‘I write about a certain class of people – white trash, basically – and I write about them in simple language, using hardly any words to create powerful images.
Source Code
18 Mar 2011
Jake Gyllenhaal and Michelle Monaghan star in body-swapping thriller
Duncan Jones’ dazzling debut Moon is, by any standard, a tough act to follow, but while sophomore effort Source Code can’t quite match up, it does ensure the director’s career remains on the right track. The film is an intriguing race-against-time…
