Cate Simpson

LGBT TV Special

8 May 2008

Televised gay kisses may have come a long way since Beth Jordache on Brookside but mainstream programming still lacks fair representation (for the supposed 10% of us) with only the occasional out and proud offering, mainly The L Word and Queer as Folk.

All glimmers in limbo: Tramway

14 Feb 2008

Glasgow’s Tramway has a rich, varied history that closely mirrors the city’s development from a noisy industrial town to a centre of arts and culture. The building began life as a tram terminus (the clue’s in the name), housed the Museum of Transport…

Stars

17 Jan 2008

POP Oran Mor, Glasgow, Sun 27 Jan Stars describe their music as ‘melodramatic popular song’, an accurate if tongue-in-cheek description of the grandly-monikered In Our Bedroom After the War, released last year. But Stars’ emotional rawness and…

Spiders - Eight-legged freak out

15 Nov 2007

A spider fear is an embarrassing thing to admit to. They don’t bite, they don’t sting, they’re almost blind, and yet I find the sight of one running towards me distinctly unsettling. I’d like to be one of those people who scoops them up in her bare…

Singles & Downloads

15 Nov 2007

There’s a definite sense of gloom hanging over this fortnight’s bunch, particularly from the Glaswegians. Make Model prove that misery needn’t be without a sense of humour in ‘The Was’ (EMI) ••••, whose grungy cries of ‘Comatose stoned/Softening the…

Crime Scene: Edinburgh - the Ian Rankin exhibition

1 Nov 2007

There’s a pleasing circularity to this exhibition at the National Library. Ian Rankin wrote much of Knots and Crosses, the first Rebus book, in the reading room here, thanks to a PhD thesis on Muriel Spark that fell by the wayside. With Rankin’s famed…

Jeanette Winterson

6 Sep 2007

SOCIAL FABLES The Stone Gods offers up four stories about civilisations destroying themselves, and the individuals who find unconventional love among the ruins. Some of these work better than others, with Winterson ill at ease and over-explaining…

Dot Allison

6 Sep 2007

POP This album is nice. It’s nice to have on in the background, and it’s nice to fall asleep to. In fact, the latter is hard not to do as Dot Allison’s tender vocals wash over you, evoking Sarah McLachlan without the melodrama. While the album’s…

Dan Willis

23 Aug 2007

Very few things that are this good are offered for nothing. Willis turns a potentially difficult venue to his advantage, ad-libbing off his audience and displaying obvious ease behind the microphone as people from the pub downstairs wander in and out.

Janice Phayre

23 Aug 2007

With Occasional Showers is like a comedy hit and run: over before you know it has begun, it leaves you stunned by an onslaught of gags about relationships, sex and being an asshole. Its finale is so surreal and utterly surprising that not even the…

Christina Davis

23 Aug 2007

It would be unforgivable if a show called Sex failed to be funny, given the range of available material. Davis’ set avoids well-worn jokes, managing to be both surprising and intelligent. But Sex ultimately suffers from a somewhat disjointed delivery…

Tunng

Good Arrows

16 Aug 2007

FOLK POP Citing influences from Icelandic prog rock to choral music and film soundtracks, Tunng’s third album is a musical playground of varied sounds. Stand-out track ‘Bullets’ is a simple catchy pop number. ‘Hands’ and ‘King’ are gently beautiful…

Limmy

Hit and miss character affair

9 Aug 2007

Delivering character and sketch comedy with a distinctly Glaswegian accent, Limmy has built himself a considerable following with his World of Glasgow podcasts, and followers are packed into every corner of Stand II to see his first live shows. But…

John Richardson

Delightful surreal obsessive material

9 Aug 2007

BBC6 radio host Jon Richardson is clearly at home behind a microphone. Charming and self-effacing, he moves through a show that might have been subtitled OCD, Or How Other People Drive Me Insane, segueing effortlessly between the different elements of…

Get Smashed

(Hodder & Stoughton)

9 Aug 2007

MEDIA HISTORY This is the story of the 1960s advertising revolution that led to the shedding of jingles and rigid formulae in favour of a certain whimsy, spurred on by the visions of a handful of people who made a tidy fortune. Sam Delaney chronicles…

Stan Stanley

9 Aug 2007

Stanley’s theme of embarrassment attempts to hold together this jumbled set, with no transition between gags about his parents and standard jokes about Harry Potter and the War on Terror. His finale is a re-enactment of the show’s best visual humour…

Editors

Album

18 Jun 2007

ROCK Editors have grown up since debut, The Back Room. There’s new confidence to Smith’s vocals, and anthemic ‘Weight of the World’ has a gravity that ‘Open Your Arms’ never quite attains. The sound has the urgency of shouts in the dark, and Smith’s…