Brian Donaldson

Interview: Joe Dunthorne - author of Submarine and Wild Abandon

Edinburgh shows with Unbound, Aisle16, Luke Wright and Tim Clare

21 Jul 2011

The day before our phone interview, Joe Dunthorne was on Radio 4, bantering with Tim Key about the perfect opening line. Chatting to him the next day, it appears the Welsh-born poet, short story writer and novelist has worked out a potential strategy.

Julian Barnes - The Sense of an Ending

Economically-told novella from the master storyteller

21 Jul 2011

(Jonathan Cape) Imprecise memory, lifelong regrets and the inconsistencies between shared histories are at the heart of Julian Barnes’ short and sharp new novella. As a title, The Sense of an Ending refers to the way in which his characters…

Interview: Chris McCausland

The comedian discusses his blindness ahead of gigs at Highlight, Glasgow and the Fringe

21 Jul 2011

As Rudi, the ever jovial market-stall owner, Chris McCausland cut a fine dash across CBeebies screens in Me Too! With Big Time, his upcoming Fringe show at the Pleasance Courtyard, he’s back reflecting upon childish things by wondering how time seems to…

Rules of Civility, Queen of Kings, Spartan, The Submission and America Pacifica

Debut novels round-up

21 Jul 2011

Described by David Nicholls as ‘a smart, witty, charming Dry Martini of a novel’, Rules of Civility (Sceptre) veers from a photographic exhibit in 1966 to a jazz bar on the last night of 1937. In this fizzing debut by Amor Towles (pictured), both places…

Vic & Bob's Afternoon Delights

The anarchic duo's web-based sketch comedy fails to capture their former glory

21 Jul 2011

Here we go again: seems that the death of television has marched a big step closer because Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer have stuck their latest work online rather than on the box. Hot on the heels of the excellent Alan Partridge comeback Mid Morning…

Channel Hopper: The Hour

Taut, Abi Morgan-penned period news drama starring Ben Wishaw, Romola Garai and Dominic West

21 Jul 2011

Let’s get this straight: here we have a modern BBC drama about a 1950s BBC news programme called ‘The Hour’ with each of its six episodes lasting an hour? Yes, The Hour (BBC2, Tue, 9pm) may originate from a confusing place, but through the spandex-tight…

Stefan Merrill Block - The Storm at the Door

Fictional biography of Block's grandparents' struggles with mental illness and institutionalisation

21 Jul 2011

(Faber) Based on the true story of Stefan Merrill Block’s grandparents, Katharine and Frederick, The Storm at the Door is the fictionalised account of the trauma which lay deep in the heart of their relationship. A veteran of World War II…

Comedy picks for the Edinburgh Fringe 2011

20 Jul 2011

David O’Doherty Two shows this year from the beloved man of lo-fi musical comedy with the high-laugh quotient. His usual brilliant sit-down/stand-up fare, David O’Doherty is Looking Up, is augmented by his debut on the one-man comic play scene. Rory…

Interview: Daniel Sloss - A guide to Fife

The young comedian tells us about the environment that inspires his material

20 Jul 2011

The Beach East Wemyss I remember when I was about eight, we had a French au pair come to ours for a few years running. This is not in a posh ‘oh we need an assistant’ way, he was a French student trying to learn English and, of all places, he came to…

Viva Brother - Famous First Words

Dull and pointless album of Britpop-era rejects

13 Jul 2011

(Geffen) ‘If you don’t give yourself the option of fucking up, then you can’t fuck up,’ boldly announces Viva Brother frontman Lee Newell. And yet, time and again, their ‘gritpop’ (oh dear) debut album offers chance after chance for the band to make…

Lamb - 5

Diverting aural oddities abound on this return to action

13 Jul 2011

(Strata) Have you ever seen anything more 80s than Lamb’s cover design for 5? No, we’d venture, you haven’t. Yet curiously, their big comeback album (they’d put themselves on ice since 2003 and not, as you might guess first time, during the summer of…

World Press Photo 2011 in Edinburgh - Jodi Bieber interview

Photo of mutilated young Afghan woman a symbol of tormented times

8 Jul 2011

Bibi Aisha was 18 when the Taliban came calling for her just before midnight. Forced into a mountain clearing in the southern Afghan province of Uruzgan, she was put on trial and convicted by a local commander. Her crime: fleeing from a violent husband…

Advertising, Mad Men and the future - John Hegarty interview

Advertising guru set for Edinburgh Book Festival 2011

8 Jul 2011

"In the end, virtually everything I work on is, to a certain extent, irrelevant." After the best part of an hour's chat in which John Hegarty has pretty much sold me on the unparalleled joys and benefits of advertising, it's a refreshing shock to the…

Edinburgh Festival of Politics 2011 - Highlights

Richard Holloway, Sarah Boyack and David Greig among highlights

8 Jul 2011

The Festival of Politics may be one of the junior members of the August fraternity, but it just keeps coming of age. An array of events, speakers and themes are on the agenda this year with technology and the upheavals across north Africa and the Middle…

Debut novelists at 2011 Edinburgh International Book Festival

Rebecca Hunt, Adam Levin and Mary Horlock among visiting authors

8 Jul 2011

Charlotte Square Gardens will be teeming with quality first novels for the whole of August, one of which will receive the EIBF's Newton First Book Award. Brian Donaldson looks at the cream of this year's debutants

Highlights of the Edinburgh International Book Festival 2011

Alasdair Gray's Fleck, Kristin Hersh and Heather Brooke among picks

8 Jul 2011

An event with the writer of landmark works such as Lanark and Poor Things is exciting enough, but the Book Festival has cranked up the fever to 11 with another excellent first. In 2007 Gray wrote Fleck, an adaptation of Goethe's Faust and the closing…

Interview - Dave Gorman's Power Point Presentation

Comic who set the bar for concept shows makes welcome Fringe return

6 Jul 2011

When Dave Gorman was pottering away on his latest project – finding and playing obscure and unique games – he came to the conclusion that maybe there wasn’t a book, documentary series or stand-up tour in it. Meeting people and playing their games in…

Katherine Ryan: Little Miss Conception

Canadian comedian's hits Edinburgh with show about crucial early years

6 Jul 2011

As a little girl growing up in the Canadian smalltown of Sarnia (not a made-up place), Katherine Ryan’s parents put her forward into those pageants that only north Americans are capable of laying on. Yet even at an early age, Ryan showed a healthy…

The Governor, Being Human and Traffik among DVD highlghts

The old school fares well against newbies in TV drama releases

29 Jun 2011

The Governor ●●●● features a curious performance from Janet McTeer, just four years before her 1999 Oscar nomination for Tumbleweeds. In the first season of Lynda La Plante’s excellent prison drama, she switches between giggling schoolgirl and feisty…

John Hegarty - Hegarty on Advertising

'Turning Intelligence into Magic' with a history of the cut-throat industry

29 Jun 2011

(Thames & Hudson) As the man behind the iconic adverts for Levi 501s (Nick Kamen in his boxers), Audi (‘Vorsprung durch Technik’) and Barnardo’s (a baby jacking up on heroin), John Hegarty is better placed than most to discuss the perfect campaign.

Hannah Gadsby set for Stand show ahead of Fringe run

Tasmanian-born comic's new show Mary, Contrary

28 Jun 2011

There’s not one single route, rhyme or reason for people to take their first plunge into stand-up comedy, but how many have grasped the mic because of a farmyard accident? That’s right, surely only Hannah Gadsby. ‘I was planting trees in a…

Alan Hollinghurst - The Stranger’s Child

Sprawling 1913 family epic leave reader underwhelmed

28 Jun 2011

(Picador) When it comes to keeping his fans waiting, Alan Hollinghurst has got it down to a very fine art. It’s seven itchy years since the London writer scooped the Booker Prize for The Line of Beauty and this resultant beefy doorstopper proves…

DVD review - Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle

Uncompromising, awkward and confrontational style and content cements reputation

28 Jun 2011

(2entertain) The second series of Stewart Lee’s Comedy Vehicle will do very little to alter the entrenched opinions on both sides of his critical fence. Those detractors will switch off in their droves at the uncompromising, awkward and…

Danny Bhoy - Five things you might not know

Scottish-born comedian returns home from Australia for Glasgow show

28 Jun 2011

1: The b(h)oy from Moffat is a fully-fledged Aussie now, though he had a nervous wait to find out if the immigration panel would give his application for permanent residency the thumbs-up after they requested tickets to see his show in Canberra. Despite…

Edinburgh International Book Festival 2011 line up highlights

Grant Morrison, Will Self and Jo Nesbø among highlights

16 Jun 2011

A selection of international authors, a bunch of Scottish novelists, an array of top non-fiction scribes, a host of children’s writers and a series of exciting innovations: yes, it’s just another Edinburgh International Book Festival programme. A cliché…