Brian Donaldson

Noel Fielding's Luxury Comedy

The Boosh performer's latest TV effort abounds in surrealism but lacks coherence... and jokes

2 Feb 2012

Ahead of his new gaudily-coloured clutter-fest, Noel Fielding admitted that making this solo series left him feeling a bit unhinged. After ingesting just a few minutes of Noel Fielding’s Luxury Comedy (E4, Thu, 10pm) only the most avid Boosh fan will…

Kids' Events

Trains and tweens dominate the first week

7 Aug 2008

Trains and tweens dominate the first week The good, the naughty and the hungry are all in evidence in the opening salvo of the kids programme, with the whole shebang kicked off in boisterous style by queen of tween Cathy Cassidy (9 Aug) who presents…

Tracy Beaker Returns

7 Jan 2010

Anyone who tunes in to CBBC from time to time might not know it, but it’s five years since the last new episode of the show featuring the abandoned and shouty Tracy Beaker. But that constant loop of archive 20-minute snapshots of life within the…

The best free and cheap things to do in Glasgow and Edinburgh

Visit a library, go for a walk, bake a cake or see some cheap theatre

21 Jan 2011

Beat the January blues with these guaranteed pick-me-ups, suggested by our writers and some friends of The List. They’re all free, or cost just a few quid, so you’ll come out of winter with your bank balance intact and a smile on your face

5 Things you might not know about - Tina C

30 Oct 2008

Despite appearances to the contrary, Tina C is not a genteel C&W dame from Tennessee but is in fact a strapping gentleman by the name of Christopher Green, a bloke from Derbyshire. To be more map-specific, Green hails from Matlock, a true hotbed of…

Lucy Porter

A set down to its bare bones

14 Aug 2008

While it may have been slightly dispiriting for Lucy Porter to hop out on stage to a less than packed auditorium, there's little in her jovial demeanour to suggest crushed hopes. To spend an hour in Porter's company is akin to having a litre of Jelly…

Kids Events

14 Aug 2008

When Miranda Richardson so memorably played the child-like Queen Elizabeth I in Blackadder, a career in entertaining kids seemed to be in the offing. With Horrid Henry (16 Aug) she appears to have finally grasped that opportunity by voicing the little…

The Hot 100 2011 - No. 56: Freya Mavor

Moving on after being Mini McGuinness in Skins

16 Dec 2011

All good things, they say, must come to an end. So with the Skins policy of changing casts every two series, Freya Mavor may well be currently filming her final scenes of the popular E4 show. ‘I feel petrified of leaving my baby behind,’ Edinburgh’s…

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…

Kid loves - Children's books round-up

Edinburgh International Book Festival

22 Jul 2008

Harry Potter may have played his last game of Quidditch and Lemony Snicket’s series of events have unfortunately ceased to be, but there are still plenty of iconic figures hanging around in children’s literature. Brian Donaldson finds ten of them…

Hot 100 2011 - No. 49 to 1

The definitive list of Scottish creative talent

16 Dec 2011

The Hot 100 is the definitive list of Scottish creative talent. From fashion designers to performance artists, everyone who has made a sizeable splash in 2011 has a place in this countdown. It’s for people who’ve created a buzz, but it’s also about…

The Midnight Beast - Book At Us Now

Unfunny pop-parody book designed to cash in on upcoming TV fame

18 Oct 2011

(Coronet) ‘We mock the living hell out of stuff for a living,’ claim London pop parody trio The Midnight Beast. Even in this disposable age, simply poking fun at more talented people can only stretch so far before the game is up. Success rarely…

Perfect Vagina

Channel 4, Sun 17 Aug, 10pm

14 Aug 2008

Get set to cross your legs and grit your teeth as Lisa Rogers fronts a very different kind of scrapheap challenge as part of Channel 4’s The G-Spot strand. We’ve all read the headlines and overheard the news that women are literally queuing up round the…

Frankie Boyle

9 Aug 2007

In some ways it would be difficult to imagine an encounter between Frankie Boyle and Jimmy Carr, what with them being, arguably, the two finest gag tellers in contemporary British stand-up comedy. How, you wonder, can they have a chat when they must be…

Glasgow-set Lip Service may have more than just homophobes turning it off

Is new BBC3 drama just The L Word with rain?

17 Feb 2011

A recent poll by the BBC found that one in five people felt ‘uncomfortable’ or ‘very uncomfortable’ with gay people having their stories told on television. A mere 16 years after the ‘Brookside kiss’, such a stat can either be read as slow progress or…

Late'n'Live Guide to Comedy

The greatest hits of the legendary Fringe bear-pit makes an appearance on TV

2 Feb 2012

‘The performing equivalent of self-harm’ is how Johnny Vegas describes the bearpit hell of the notorious Late’n’Live. Brainchild of the Gilded Balloon’s head honcho Karen Koren, this Edinburgh Fringe staple has been sending chills down the spines of…

Interview: Eowyn Ivey - author of The Snow Child

Debut author discusses tale of heartbreak and hope set in 1920s Alaska

1 Feb 2012

Give us five words to describe The Snow Child? Alaskan. Wild. Magical. Rugged. Tender. Name one author who should be more famous than they are now? M Allen Cunningham. His novel The Green Age of Asher Witherow is one of the finest I have ever…

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…

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…

House of Windsor

Regal sketches with crowning glories to come

9 Aug 2007

With last year’s debut as the Future, Jonny Sweet and Joe Thomas received some rave reviews and an awards nomination before ending the summer being ensnared by one of the country’s powerhouse comedy PR companies. This year that soaring promise will…

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…

American comic Hailey Boyle set for shows at The Stand

US comic returns after Glasgow Comedy Festival show

30 Nov 2010

Back in March, the America Stands Up! bandwagon rolled into town for the Glasgow Comedy Festival with a Saturday night date at The Stand. While host Scott Capurro gave the crowd a typically catty performance, a couple of the lesser-known acts shone…

Ronna and Beverly's most embarrassing moments in chat

We ask the Edinburgh Fringe sofa beasts: What’s the chat?

29 Jul 2010

1: After situating herself firmly on his lap, Beverly pronounced to the audience that Mad Men’s Don Draper (Jon Hamm) smells like ‘scotch and testicles’. 2: Bombing at the International Jewish Men’s Softball tournament banquet in St. Louis. They…

Richard Herring: Hitler Moustache

Reclaiming symbols and raising standards

10 Aug 2009

A few things have gotten under Richard Herring’s skin of late. He’s hated being misrepresented in the press, got hacked off when his precious iPhone was nicked in open public view and truly bristled when the Great British public stood idly by while the…

Chris Isaak - Beyond the Sun

Listenable but redundant take on some of Sun Records' finest

5 Jan 2012

(Vanguard Records/Rhino) During its 1950s heyday, Sun Records churned out standards by the bucketload from the likes of Elvis, Cash and Orbison. During the recording of Beyond the Sun, David Lynch’s favourite bequiffed rockabilly star was presumably…