Musical

Bandslam

Todd Graff's take on the teenage rock star dream

‘This is sick!’ says budding impresario Will Burton (Gaelan Connell) as he constructs a rock’n’roll band from his fellow high school students to take part in a battle-of-the-bands competition. The description ‘sick’, obviously meaning, that his band are…

Meet Danny Wilson

This lesser known 1951 Frank Sinatra film was made at the time his career had stalled, two years after his only role of note at that point, in the Gene Kelly musical On the Town, and two years before he won an Oscar for From Here to Eternity, the film…

Jonas Brothers: The 3D Concert Experience

(U) 75min New Jersey’s most popular rockers get the 3D concert treatment. No, sadly this isn’t The Boss and his E Street Band in all their blue collar glory, but Disney Channel-derived band the Jonas Brothers – a power pop threesome who make the…

Quadrophenia

The current economic crisis has cast many minds back to the unemployment-wracked 1970s, so it’s perhaps apt that a new stage adaptation of The Who’s Quadrophenia – one of the decade’s most celebrated albums – is touring this year. Composed by The Who…

Interview: Repo's Darren Lynn Bousman and Terrance Zdunich

Repo: The Genetic Opera is a truly unique film mixing rock opera with lashings of gore and dark sci-fi. Set in a world where transplanted organs are repossessed if you fail to meet your payments. Director Darren Lynn Bousman (who also directed Saw II…

Edith Piaf: Le Concert Ideal/The Documentary

(E) 110min (Acorn DVD retail) MUSIC/BOXSET The life of legendary chanteuse Edith Piaf was the stuff of melodrama, which, along with her incredible talents, accounts for her enduring appeal and status as a kind of deity in her native France. The…

The Ruling Class

COMEDY/MUSICAL Olivier Award-winning dramatist Peter Barnes’ adaptation of his own acclaimed play, directed for the screen in 1972 by Hungarian émigré Peter Medak (The Krays, Let Him Have It), was nominated for the Palme d’Or at Cannes and secured…

Film - Also Released

White Christmas (U) 120min New digital print of this Christmas staple. GFT, Glasgow and Filmhouse, Edinburgh from Fri 12-Wed 24 Dec. North Face (12A) 121min Exciting historical adventure recounting the dangerous ascent of the Eiger in 1936 by two…

Summer scoops top prize at Bafta Scotland awards

Summer, Grand Theft Auto, Gary’s Wrr and Lorraine Kelly were amongst the winners last night at the Lloyds TSB BAFTA Scotland Awards. The ceremony, at Glasgow’s City Halls with an audience of over 800, was broadcast live online worldwide.

Lou Reed's Berlin

CONCERT MOVIE (12A) 85min In 1973, Lou Reed was primed for a stellar pop career, following up the success of Transformer’s glam pop thrills with Berlin, an ambitious rock opera showcasing Reed’s versatile capabilities. But Berlin tanked, both…

Evita

MUSICAL Playhouse, Edinburgh, until Sat 21 Jun Performers bursting into song for no apparent reason is the slightly odd, but wholly accepted, calling card of musical theatre. But what better way to sidestep that moment of incongruity than to never…

Doctor Dolittle

MUSICAL Edinburgh Festival Theatre, Tue 20–Sat 31 May With a Hollywood pedigree that includes The Happiest Millionaire, Finian’s Rainbow and Half a Sixpence, Tommy Steele needs no lessons in how to turn in a charismatic lead performance in a musical.

Eilidh MacAskill and her Daily Ukulele Ceilidh

MUSICAL COMEDY Last year, one woman set out on an incredible journey. There were tears. There was laughter. There were good times, there were bad, and there were midnight YouTube sessions in front of her cat, as Eilidh MacAskill attempted a…

Also Released - Film

Leatherheads (PG) 113min •• Directed by and starring George Clooney, Leatherheads is a wannabe Preston Sturges-style romantic comedy set against the backdrop of the burgeoning American football league in 1925. Dodge Connolly (Clooney) is a cocky but…

Hello, Dolly!

MUSICAL Festival Theatre, Edinburgh, Tue 26 Feb–Sat 1 Mar If light entertainment is your bag, then you can’t beat a tried and tested classic. Hello, Dolly!, first performed in 1964, is the kind of bright and breezy musical that doesn’t take itself too…

Opera Jawa

MUSICAL (12) 120min (Yume Pictures DVD retail/rental) One of a handful of films commissioned to celebrate the 250th anniversary of Mozart’s birth, this generally hugely successful project (other films in the series have included Syndromes and a…

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

MUSICAL/HORROR (18) 116min Stephen Sondheim’s landmark 1979 Broadway musical has now been given the Tim Burton treatment. The director’s favourite actor, Johnny Depp, ditches the cutesy mannerisms he brought to Edward Scissorhands and Pirates of…

Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat

Much as there’s grumbling about Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musicals across the theatre world, it’s hard to deny their bankability. As the years pass, there might also be a certain nostalgia for such monolithic star vehicles as Joseph and the Amazing…

White Christmas

MUSICAL Edinburgh Playhouse, until Sat 8 Dec Starring in a soap opera can leave you typecast forever. So it’s testament to Craig McLachlan’s ability that in White Christmas he’s most definitely Bob Wallace, ex-soldier turned performer – and not…

Across the Universe

When Julie Taymor’s musical homage to the hippy era came out at the end of September it received terrible reviews and slipped off cinema screens quicker than you could say ‘all you need is love’. Taymor has previous form for daring to film the…

Little Johnny’s Big Gay Musical

Random Accomplice’s Julie Brown and Johnny McKnight have resurrected the loveable, if diminutive anti-hero of Little Johnny’s Big Gay Adventure, the deserved hit of Glasgay! in 2005. This time out they bring us an all-singing, all-dancing escapade as…

Jihad: The Musical

The magic of the musical genre is that you can get away with so much. If you can’t say it, sing it. This show is a perfect example. Catchy songs like ‘The Jihad Jive’ whisk us through Sayed’s story. In it we follow a young naïve Afghan flower seller who…

Dickens Unplugged

Unless you were brought up in a workhouse, you’ll be familiar with at least one of Dickens’ many tales. Beginning with Oliver Twist, this musical, is not quite as Dickens intended. We embark upon a full speed tour of his books, ending with A Christmas…

Debbie Does Dallas

Turning films into musicals is nothing new, but not too many classic 70s porn flicks have undergone the same transition.