Profile

Russell Howard

Beat surrender

14 Aug 2008

Russell Howard can't resist a spot of testicular tomfoolery but, he tells Jay Richardson, his new act is less Buster Gonad than Jack Kerouac With his infectious, wide-eyed optimism currently offering a counterbalance to Frankie Boyle's unflinching…

Profile - The Wee Man

29 Nov 2007

Who’s he then? Creation of Neil Bratchpiece, smallest comedy member of the not very tall Bratchpiece Family, The Wee Man is a pure wee basturt Burberry fiend whose stage demeanour ranges wildly from quite threatening to really very threatening…

Rebel With a Cause - Jack Whitehall

He's fresh out of his teens, and already onto our screens. Mum still does his washing though.

24 Jul 2009

Given the small screen and stage swagger and poise of Jack Whitehall, it’s hard to believe that this bright young thing of comedy still lives at home with his parents. This startling fact will be centre stage of his debut solo Fringe show, Nearly…

Tom Phillips

Big picture

1 Nov 2007

Tom Phillips Widely considered a touchstone of postmodernism, Tom Phillips’ artistic project, ‘A Humument: A Treated Victorian Novel’, has achieved cult status since its initial publication in 1970. One day, Phillips went into a book shop with the…

Edinburgh Festival comedy highlights for a fiver

15 Jul 2009

Ooh, a Fringe in a credit crunch. It’ll be interesting times for all this year, but if you get in quick you can catch some of the best acts in exchange for a mere fiver. We’ve selected fifty of the finest shows you can see for the price of a…

Barbara Rafferty discusses Lark, Clark and the Puppet Handy

The show also stars Sean Scanlan and Frank Gallagher

27 May 2011

What made you want to be an actor? My mother was a cinema usherette so I went to the movies and was hooked. It was another world I wanted to be a part of. First and foremost I am an actor but when I was asked to direct a show, My Name is Margaret…

Gerhard Richter

Man for all seasons

30 Oct 2008

When Sonic Youth toured their 1988 Daydream Nation album in 2007 on the back of the same year's two-CD deluxe edition of what had originally been the New York art rock pioneers' final independent release, the original LP cover art was probably the last…

An Hour to Sing fo Your Soul - Kevin Bridges' stand-up show

23 Jul 2009

When comics make their Fringe debuts, many of them are hell-bent on working up the biggest theme their minds and mouths can maintain over the course of an hour. Not such manufactured tosh for a guy like Kevin Bridges, the latest in a long line of great…

Paul Brannigan, star of Ken Loach's The Angels' Share - profile

The actor is also set to appear with Scarlett Johansson in Under the Skin

23 May 2012

Born 1987, Glasgow, Scotland Background After working as a football coach in the Barrowfield community in Glasgow and helping to tackle knife crime as part of a Strathclyde Police initiative, Paul Brannigan was spotted by screenwriter Paul Laverty…

Alan Davie at 90 - A colourful history

24 Jun 2010

Celebrating his 90th birthday this year, cherished Scottish artist Alan Davie is being honoured by a series of exhibitions and events in his native Falkirk. Paul Dale speaks to him

Interview: Isy Suttie on tea, Technotronic and Ice, Ice, Baby

Stand up comedian, actress, writer and musician

6 Jan 2012

First record you ever bought. ‘This Beat is Technotronic’ by Technotronic. Last extravagant purchase you made My Martin three-quarter-size guitar. First film you saw that really moved you Manhattan. Last lie you told I told the postman…

5 things you might not know about... Shappi Khorsandi

Some lesser-known snippets about the British-Iranian comedian

4 Mar 2011

1 Khorsandi grew up in west London in the 1980s after her Iranian family fled in exile to the UK. At the age of 11, she wrote to the Ayatollah Khomeini to ask him not to kill her father, a journalist and comedian whose stock-in-trade was political…

Artist Anthony Fry on why he’s happy to be back in Scotland.

As well as why he loves coming home to paint

5 Aug 2010

As he prepares to showcase work inspired by exotic foreign locations renowned painter Anthony Fry tells Talitha Kotzé why he’s delighted to be back in Scotland. Well-known for needing the heat to paint, Anthony Fry has spent a great deal of time in…

Q&A: Marcus Brigstocke of Spamalot

14 May 2010

BBC regular Marcus Brigstocke has stepped out of his usually grumpy geography teacher garb to play armour-clad Arthur in the touring production of Spamalot. Here, he talks God, Todd (Carthy) and Rod (Liddle)...

Profile: Katie Jarvis of Fish Tank

3 Sep 2009

Name Katie Jarvis Born 22 June 1991, Dagenham, Essex Background You won’t recognise the star of Andrea Arnold’s Fish Tank, but you won’t soon forget her. Cast with no acting experience after being spotted arguing with her boyfriend at…

Profile - Riz Ahmed

16 Apr 2009

Born 1 December 1982 Background London Riz Ahmed graduated from Oxford with a degree in philosophy, politics and economics before training as an actor at the Central School of Speech and Drama. He came to prominence playing Shafiq Rasul, a member…

Interview - Joe Bone from Bane

The noir shows that have stalked the Edinburgh Fringe for three years

4 Aug 2011

Joe Bone is a busy man. A few years back, he created the hard-boiled character Bruce Bane in the wake of a spate of old detective movies he'd been watching. Fast forward to 2011, and Bane has taken on a life of his own, spawning three stage shows, a…

Glasgow International - Mark Cousins meets Douglas Gordon

15 Apr 2010

Glasgow International Festival of Visual Art returns this fortnight with a mouth-watering programme of work by over 50 artists in venues across the city, based around the theme ‘past, present, future’. Opening the festival, internationally renowned…

Emily Blunt - Yo majesty!

5 Mar 2009

When people got an eyeful of Emily Blunt’s striking good looks and acting ability in My Summer of Love, winner of the Best New British Feature award following its world premiere at the Edinburgh International Film Festival in 2004, the general consensus…

Priscilla, Queen Of Glasgow

Profile

23 Apr 2007

What’s this all about? In the very best Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert tradition, Glasgow’s bonniest lassies (well ten of them and don’t check their birth certificates) will go breast-to-fake-breast to duke it out for the title of…

Profile: Music, fashion and wedding photographer Kat Gollock

The Edinburgh-based photographer on her approach to photography

29 Mar 2012

I can remember the first photo I took that someone commented on. It was of my dad standing in front of some usual holiday vista in France. Both Mum and Dad commented on how good a photo it was, but it was the first time they really meant it.

Profile: photographer Takeshi Suga, aka Sugar Crisp

Japanese-born, Glasgow-based music photographer

29 Mar 2012

Takeshi Suga (aka Sugar Crisp) is a Japanese-born photographer now living in Glasgow. He takes photographs for the Fence Collective, NME and himself and mixes digital photography with the use of analogue cameras such as the £45 Diana Mini First…

Ralph Fiennes, star and director of Coriolanus - profile

Man behind the modernised Shakespeare adap has Bardic pedigree

5 Jan 2012

Name Ralph Fiennes Born Ipswich, Suffolk, 22 December, 1962 Background Initially a star onstage with the Royal Shakespeare Company, Fiennes gained international film recognition for his Oscar-nominated performance as Nazi Commander Amon Göth in…

Profile - Sebastian Koch

German star of coming-of-age Brit comedy Albatross

13 Sep 2011

Name Sebastian Koch Born Karlsruhe, Germany, May 31 1962 Background Koch has worked solidly in European films and TV for over 25 years, but it was his terrific performance in The Lives of Others (2006) that made him recognisable to cinema…

Five interesting things about... Dylan Moran

Irish comedian shares hometown with Tommy Tiernan and Pierce Brosnan

23 May 2011

1 Irishman Moran has been living in Edinburgh for some years now, but is originally from Navan, a small, five-lettered palindromic town, like Kivik in Sweden or Catac in Peru. Tiny it may be (according to the 2006 census, 3710 people resided there) but…