Jay Richardson

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…

The best places for barbeques in Edinburgh and Glasgow

Barbecue recipe alternatives to burgers and sausages

27 May 2011

For the more discerning al fresco cooks and diners, here's The List's lowdown on how to spark up your barbecue summer.

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

A selection of the best comedy podcasts

Free comedy from Robin Ince, Richard Herring, Andrew Collins and Marc Maron

19 Nov 2010

The explosion in free podcasts has been a boon for comedy fans, delivering intimate interviews, topical improv and experimental sketch shows, all the while plugging audiences directly into the psyches of their favourite stand-ups. US comic Marc Maron’s…

The best upcoming Scottish comedians in 2011

James Kirk, Chris Forbes, Dee Custance, Davey Connor, Antony Murray

7 Mar 2011

Overlooking the cosmopolitanism of Glasgow’s International Comedy Festival, The List invited five of the best upcoming Scottish comedians to the Stand for a light-hearted debate about the psychological trauma of making drunks laugh on demand. James…

Fawlty Towers Experience

The hotel inspectors

31 Jan 2007

A swarthy waiter pursues a hamster beneath a table of dinner guests, chased by a tall, quiveringly angry man with a moustache. The diners erupt with laughter as the waiter re-emerges, accidentally displacing the wig on a female guest’s head. The furious…

Helen Schulman - This Beautiful Life

Slightly outdated family drama that retains some timeliness and authenticity

1 Feb 2012

(Atlantic) With frightening believability, New York novelist Helen Schulman depicts a single, unthinking mouse-click tearing a family apart. Set in 2003, aspects of This Beautiful Life are outdated, but the key dramatic action of a 15-year-old boy…

Nicolai Lilin: author of Siberian Education

The writer tells of his time in prison, tattooing, and film offers

5 Aug 2010

Handed his first weapon at the age of six, Nicolai Lilin was destined for a life of violence. Having fled the horrors of his past, he tells Jay Richardson why death is sometimes a better option. Born into a Siberian criminal dynasty, convicted of…

Matthew Collin

16 Aug 2007

At the turn of the 21st century, uprisings against undemocratic governments in Serbia, Georgia and Ukraine benefited from a prominent youth resistance, with groups using humour and satire to undermine the authorities. ‘After Otpor in Serbia, similar…

Alexander Trocchi - Young Adam (1954)

100 Best Scottish Books of all Time

1 Jan 2005

Virtually forgotten by his death in 1984, Alexander Trocchi's Young Adam was one of the great beneficiaries of Rebel Inc's assault on the Scottish literary canon during the 90s. But it took David Mackenzie's excellent film adaptation, with Ewan McGregor…

The Edinburgh Festival comedy shows incorporating High Art

Hannah Gadsby, The Horne Section, New Art Club and Vikki Stone

29 Jul 2011

Sean Lock once likened media coverage of comedians to that of strippers, none too respectful of something that involved divesting so much. Despite comedy’s current boom, scrutiny still tends to focus on comics’ television careers or transgressions…

Thom Tuck Goes Straight to DVD

Penny Dreadfuls' Thom Tuck's 2011 Edinburgh show examines Disney sequels

6 Jul 2011

Just as the emotional yearning of The Little Mermaid reinvigorated animated cinema on its release in 1989, Thom Tuck hopes his analysis of that movie’s follow-ups, plus various other Disney sequels, spin-offs and shameless House of Mouse cash-ins has a…

Des Bishop tells his father's near miss story at Fringe 2010

Irish-American comic presents My Dad Was Nearly James Bond

29 Jul 2010

Des Bishop has wanted to tell his father’s story for a long time. The former model and actor, who had bit parts in Zulu and Day of the Triffids, narrowly lost out to George Lazenby for the role of James Bond in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. After…

Richard Herring - How Not to Grow Up!

28 Apr 2010

(Ebury Press) Expanding on his 2007 stand-up show, Oh Fuck, I’m 40!, this unlikely coming-of-age memoir chronicles Richard Herring’s hurtle towards middle age and the various crises it accelerated. Unmarried, childless and avowedly immature, the…

Emily Woof - The Whole Wide Beauty

22 Mar 2010

(Faber) The debut novel of actor and playwright Emily Woof, The Whole Wide Beauty arguably betrays its author’s thespian background with the sheer self-absorption of her characters, densely layered but seemingly incapable of empathy outwith sudden…

Stewart Francis hits the Stand

7 Jan 2010

Stewart Francis used to open his set with, ‘Don’t worry, I haven’t heard of you either.’ Between hosting schlocky gameshow You Bet Your Ass in his native Canada, then moving to Spain, his memorable one-liners were an itinerant treat on the UK circuit to…

Tim Minchin: Ready For This?

The Australian musical comedian returns to Scotland

1 Oct 2009

I’ve interviewed Tim Minchin several times, but never in the surprisingly big, hairy and hungover flesh before. ‘I’m totally comfortable on stage but I like to appear discomforted and vulnerable because it works with my material. I’m surprised how…

Frank Skinner - ‘I always try to take the piss out of myself’

The comedian on his second memoir, On the Road

13 Jul 2009

The List: How do book readings compare to performing stand-up? Frank Skinner: Well, I select a couple of bits from the book, read a bit and then get interviewed by whoever they’ve got to interview me. Then I read some more. But the ones I’ve done so…

Russell Howard

18 Oct 2007

A regular panellist on BBC2’s Mock the Week, with a Sunday morning radio show and an if.comeddie nomination to his name, Russell Howard recently played the biggest gig of his life, and at 27, his comedy future seems assured. ‘We just almost crashed on…

Juli Zeh - The Method

A riveting intellectual and emotional thriller set in a dystopian future

16 Mar 2012

(Harvill Secker) German author Juli Zeh’s translated 2009 novel is an Orwellian vision of the near future in which civilisation adheres to the stark principles of The Method. Priority is given to physical health over mental freedom of the mind with…

The Rubberbandits

The musical comedy pranksters are coming to Glasgow, and they've got a horse outside

15 Nov 2011

Last year, they just missed out on the Christmas number one in their native Ireland, with the brilliant ‘Horse Outside’ notching over 8m views on YouTube (see below). And now gangster rap scamps The Rubberbandits are filming a series of online sketches…

Margaret Atwood - In Other Worlds

Slightly patchy collection of critical sci-fi essays

17 Oct 2011

(Virago) A companion to Margaret Atwood’s published science fiction rather than an essential purchase in its own right, In Other Worlds charts the Canadian Booker Prize winner’s relationship with SF from an early age, bringing a welcome clarity and…

Interview: Comedian Vir Das at Edinburgh Festival

Household name in India brings show Walking On Broken Das to Fringe

9 Aug 2011

A Harvard graduate and gross-out film star, Vir Das is a household name in India. Jay Richardson met him on his home turf before he tests himself at the Fringe

Frisky and Mannish interview - Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2011

Infectious pop parodies via the twisted side streets of camp cabaret

8 Jul 2011

It has often been remarked that in times of recession, we all seek reassurance from flamboyant pop parody duos. Hence the buzz around Frisky and Mannish's creation for the 2011 Fringe, Pop Centre Plus, which after School of Pop and The College…

Tom Green interview - Canadian comedian brings stand-up show to Edinburgh

Shock humour actor from internet show and Freddy Got Fingered

6 Jul 2011

When the bestiality-heavy, incest-evoking, gross-out cult Freddy Got Fingered won Worst Picture, Worst Actor, Worst Director, Worst Screenplay and Worst On-Screen Couple at the Golden Raspberry Awards, Tom Green became the first actor in history to…

Humphrey Ker is Dymock Watson: Nazi Smasher!

Penny Dreadfuls' Humphrey Ker solo show at Edinburgh Fringe 2011

6 Jul 2011

With a title like Humphrey Ker is Dymock Watson: Nazi Smasher!, you might imagine that his show is a Boche-bashing, Boy’s Own-style romp in which our hero takes on Hitler’s war machine. And you’d be right. But it’s also based on the real-life exploits…

David Reed: Shamblehouse

Penny Dreadfuls' David Reed brings solo show to Edinburgh Fringe 2011

6 Jul 2011

‘It’s not the best PR being called “the middle one”, is it? “The most castable one”? “The handsome one”, would you say? “The funny one” would be good, wouldn’t it?’ David Reed is giving his profile some thought. The Yorkshireman seems to have cynically…

John Cleese - interview

The legendary ex-Python talks to us ahead of his wide-ranging Alimony Tour

23 May 2011

Condemned to perform until he dies, till he is an ex-Python, till he has ceased to be, John Cleese is remarkably sanguine about his current Alimony Tour, necessitated by the comedy legend’s $20m divorce from his third wife. A retrospective of his life…

The Death of Eli Gold

David Baddeil's fictional biography returns to his favourite themes of love, sex and commitment

7 Mar 2011

A comic meditation on the death of ‘the world’s greatest living writer’, the destructive selfishness of male desire and the passing of the last ‘great man’ as a species, David Baddiel’s fourth novel further explores his preoccupations with love, sex and…

Stefanie Pintoff - In the Shadow of Gotham

Deeply flawed turn of the 20th century crime drama full of the unnecessary

30 Nov 2010

(Penguin) A turn of the 20th century crime drama, In the Shadow of Gotham is deeply flawed. A damaged detective in a quiet town north of Manhattan is dragged back into New York’s seedy underbelly by a brutal murder, partnering with an eccentric…

Natalie Haynes - The Ancient Guide to Modern Life

3 Nov 2010

(Profile) With a rich broth of war, patricide and incest tales to draw upon, comedian Natalie Haynes champions the Greeks and Romans as role models and warning oracles for coping with the 21st century. A passionate authority on the classics, this…

Emily Woof at the Writer's Retreat

The ex-actress conducts a deep involvement with language

6 Aug 2010

Emily Woof first graced Edinburgh nude and on a trapeze for a trilogy of one-woman Fringe plays, under the Sex umbrella. And throughout The Whole Wide Beauty (the debut novel by The Full Monty and Wondrous Oblivion star), the loss of physical expression…

Neil Hamburger descends upon the Fringe with a surprise for his critics

Controversial stand-up talks Tenacious D, hecklers and Mel Gibson

5 Aug 2010

With a characteristically phlegmy cough, Neil Hamburger clears his throat and recalls his last Scottish gig, opening for Tenacious D in Glasgow. ‘I sure got a lot off my chest there,’ he reminisces. ‘Though of course, they got even more off because they…

Top five late-night comedy shows at the Fringe 2010

Late ‘n’ Live, Lach’s Antihoot and Spank! deliver the goods past midnight

4 Aug 2010

Late ‘n’ Live Still one of August’s hottest tickets, this booze-fuelled behemoth of a night retains less of the volatile anarchy of its Cowgate heyday. Nevertheless, it remains a tremendous opportunity to see some of the festival’s best comics in a…

Sketch team Delete the Banjax return after success of 2009

Word-of-mouth comedy hit of 2009 return for more

29 Jul 2010

‘We came up with a bit of a reputation and it just went off!’ recalls Sam Champion, in a pub similar to the Free Fringe Royal Mile watering hole where Delete the Banjax established themselves last year. ‘We loved doing the Free Fringe and agreed with…

Abandoman - Pic ‘n’ Mixtape

Destined to be among the Fringe’s most popular draws, rapping improvisers Abandoman have to be seen

27 Jul 2010

‘It’s lovely when a hip hop audience sees us,’ says genial frontman Rob Broderick. ‘Two lads wander out, one with a guitar, the other with an Irish accent, and you can tell they’re thinking, “this is going to be a disaster”. But then we start and they…

Stewart Lee - How I Escaped My Certain Fate

23 Jul 2010

(Faber) Like Ezra Pound’s notes on The Waste Land if they’d been more cutting, self-critical and in awe of Johnny Vegas, Stewart Lee here transcribes and annotates the three stand-up shows that brought him back from disillusioned retirement in 2001…

The Swedish and Norwegian comics hitting the Edinburgh Fringe

Magnus Betnér, Dag Sørås and Lasse Nilsen head up Scandinavian invasion

16 Jul 2010

Magnus Betnér is leading a charge of the Swedish and Norwegian stand-ups playing the Fringe. Jay Richardson meets those who are raising the bar of north European comedy

Sam Lipsyte - The Ask

3 Jun 2010

(Old Street) Satire has become a dirty word in Britain, devalued through excessive application to intelligent but superficial, self-satisfied observations of our uncertain times. In the US though, where The Daily Show and The Onion set the standard…

This Party’s Got to Stop - Rupert Thomson interview

16 Apr 2010

Rupert Thomson ‘always had this perverse view that fiction is true and memoirs aren’t, because there’s so much you can’t say in them’. Yet the novelist always knew he was going to write This Party’s Got to Stop, the moving, darkly humorous account of…

Alex Horne - Wordwatching

7 Jan 2010

(Virgin Books) Alex Horne is a true logophile. He’s a lover of words, especially rare words, like ‘logophile’, that seldom make it into dictionaries. Or ‘bollo’, ‘pratdigger’ and ‘mental safari’, his own recent coinages that the comedian has been…

Scotland: An Eejit's Guide

9 Dec 2009

Less a reflection on its audience than a spoof of the sort of titles you’ll find in Waterstone’s clearance bins come January, Scotland: An Eejit’s Guide is a comedy homage to Caledonia from two of its most voluble amateur historians. Mixing grim…

Dave Gorman back in the cycle of stand-up

3 Sep 2009

Dave Gorman rarely takes the easy route to a laugh. Having transformed the comedy landscape with his quest-based, storytelling shows, he’s back performing conventional stand-up. Except that he’s also currently cycling 50 miles a day between gigs as part…

Jazz Hans

The highly strung Dutch star Hans Teeuwen has quit comedy back home to bamboozle UK audiences

6 Aug 2009

In Holland, Hans Teeuwen is such a legendary entertainment figure that grown men imitate his comedy routines to the point of driving their daughters mad. Or at least that’s the plot of Just Hans, a forthcoming Dutch film in which Teeuwen appears as a…

Dave Gorman

A one-man innovative juggernaut going coast to coast

6 Aug 2009

Dave Gorman’s Googlewhack Adventure is ostensibly the story of a comedian travelling the world trying to establish disparate pairings of words that return just one hit in the search engine. ‘Essentially a show about me having a breakdown’, is how Gorman…

Clever Peter

Rude sketch troupe sticking eggs into the appropriate baskets

24 Jul 2009

Despite a widely praised debut, the thrusting chaps of sketch troupe Clever Peter are back at the Fringe with greater ambition, tighter writing and less sexual gratuity, if not crudity. Dental torture and primate anal rape are the abiding memories of…

Edward Aczel

Solving the world’s woes in a pleasingly shambolic way

24 Jul 2009

Having performed essentially the same critically-acclaimed non-show for the last two years, anti-comic Edward Aczel is planning something a little different for this Fringe, as he ambitiously Explains All the World’s Problems … And Then Solves Them.

Out of the bag - Dead Cat Bounce

They may have upset everyone at Mo Mowlam’s memorial gig but Dead Cat Bounce are now flying high

22 Jul 2009

If you’ve never actually met rock’n’roll sketch band Dead Cat Bounce, you could be forgiven for thinking that these guitar-wielding Dubliners occupy a place so far ahead of the curve that they’re on the outermost tip of the zeitgeist’s serrated edge.

Campaign manager - Mark Thomas

The comic who matters brings democracy to the Fringe

13 Jul 2009

The origins of the apocryphal Chinese curse ‘may you live in interesting times’ are obscure. But for comedian and activist Mark Thomas, political instability, economic meltdown and the imminent collapse of Western civilisation can occasionally feel like…

Will Andrews

11 Jun 2009

Although he first tried stand-up as a 17-year-old in Newcastle, Zimbabwe-born Will Andrews established his comedic reputation in Scotland. Performing live as his alter-ego Tony Carter, a dole-sponging Geordie on a government retraining scheme, he…

Bethany Black

28 May 2009

As the UK’s foremost goth, lesbian, post-op transsexual stand-up, Bethany Black worries about being pigeonholed. So it’s a ‘recovering alcoholic, drug addict and love addict too’ who will be showcasing material from her forthcoming Fringe show this…

Holly Walsh

16 Apr 2009

A self-confessed ‘comedy nerd’, writer and long-term, long-suffering temp Holly Walsh only began performing stand-up in 2006, because ‘I was coming up with jokes that nobody else wanted but which I thought were really funny. Turns out they weren’t but…

Ross Noble - Things Change

19 Mar 2009

Despite just losing his farm in Australia to the recent bush fires and flying into the UK on the morning of this interview, Ross Noble maintains he’s completely primed for questioning. ‘Oh, wait, I’ve put too much pressure on myself,’ the Geordie comic…

Glasgow Comedy Festival - The Penny Dreadfuls

5 Mar 2009

Conspiring in the darkest bowels of BBC’s Henry Wood House in London, three earnest young men, exemplars of aggressive Victorian ambition, are hatching a dastardly, somewhat far-fetched plot to conquer Edinburgh this August. Beginning with sorties into…

Amy MacKinnon - Tethered

5 Feb 2009

PSYCHODRAMA The most remarkable aspect of Tethered, Amy MacKinnon’s debut novel about a mortician drawn into the hunt for a missing child, is that the central character, Clara, an isolated, damaged woman, who devotes herself to beautifying the dead…

Raymond Mearns

22 Jan 2009

STAND-UP If you’ve only witnessed Raymond Mearns on roistering compering duty, then you’ve barely experienced the burly Glaswegian’s skill with a well-spun anecdote. ‘I feel I can get a lot better if I get the opportunity to do longer sets,’ he says…

Woodlands Bumper Value Comedy Club

27 Nov 2008

NEW CLUB With parts of the Jongleurs’ chain under threat of sell-off, these are interesting times for comedy in Scotland. Even more so now with the growing number of smaller nights emerging to challenge the Stand-Jongleurs hegemony and spread the…

Dylan Moran

Good stock

30 Oct 2008

Despite the current economic doom and gloom, or more likely because of it, live comedy is booming, with a host of big names currently touring the UK. And while luminaries like the Mighty Boosh, Sarah Silverman, Steve Coogan and Lee Evans have recently…

Laura Dockrill - Mistakes in the Background

30 Oct 2008

The emergence of a sassy-tongued poet who can relate to the yoof should be a good thing. And Laura Dockrill, aka MC Dockers, truly does seem to be articulating, in her unaffected, unchecked, stream of consciousness way, the existence of the Facebook…

Jacques Chessex - The Vampire of Ropraz

2 Oct 2008

CRIME NOVELLA Taking a true story, apparently, Swiss author Jacques Chessex has crafted a disconcerting novella of horrific sexual crime that alternately seduces and appals. Set against a bleak 1903 backdrop of rural belief in black magic, the Jura…

Scottish Comedian of the Year

18 Sep 2008

STAND-UP COMPETITION Approaching its third anniversary, the Scottish Comedian of the Year final looms ever more influentially in the stand-up calendar. Inspired by Manchester’s City Life contest – won by the likes of Peter Kay, Chris Addison and…

Danny Wallace

Ghostbusters-obsessed yes man with another voyage of self-discovery

7 Aug 2008

The trailer for a Danny Wallace movie biopic might go something like this: ‘In a time of global terrorism, credit crunching and general fatigue with social networking sites, one committed tea drinker’s relentless optimism in the face of cynicism and…

Helen Fitzgerald

Gruesome tales from Glasgow-based Aussie

7 Aug 2008

Currently writing her fourth thriller, ex-parole officer and social worker turned screenwriter Helen FitzGerald was in perpetual ‘movie development hell’, until her latest rejection prompted her to transform the story into a debut novel. ‘Dead Lovely…

John Pinette

Fringe debut for big talent who appeared in Seinfeld

31 Jul 2008

A heavyweight performer in every sense, John Pinette never imagined he’d be playing ‘a place where I have the best cholesterol in the country’. The 44-year-old Bostonian has been a stand-up comedian half his life and a muffin devotee far longer, earning…

Sean Grant

Curmudgeonly Scots comic with show which pricks a few balloons

31 Jul 2008

Reigning Scottish Comedian of the Year and through to the So You Think You’re Funny? competition semi-finals, Sean Grant only began performing stand-up last summer after a declaration of love. ‘I’d always enjoyed watching comedy, but it never occurred…

'It’s a comedy colonic!' - David O’Doherty

Edinburgh Festival Fringe

22 Jul 2008

Jay Richardson meets David O’Doherty, the mild-mannered comic whose musical musings and offbeat observations have won him a legion of indie followers. This year he’ll be feeding his insomnia by entertaining kids and adults alike As an award-winning…

Owen O'Neill

17 Jul 2008

STAND-UP The Stand, Edinburgh, Thu 17 Jul An award-winning playwright, poet and subscriber to the theory that redheads are genetic ‘mutants’ (having conducted the required research for a BBC documentary), Owen O’Neill was one of the first Irishmen…

Helen FitzGerald - Dead Lovely

5 Jun 2008

CRIME NOVEL (Faber) Once I got beyond the fact that the murderer in this crime thriller-meets-chick lit novel resides on my Glasgow street, I found plenty to enjoy in Helen FitzGerald’s debut. Opening with Krissie’s confession that she’s cheated with…

D.A.M. Fine Comedy

22 May 2008

NEW COMEDY NIGHT Gramofon Bistro, Glasgow, Thu 22 May & 5 Jun New comedy nights emerge and disappear in Scotland every year, but to acknowledge a mea culpa, few are noticed by the media. Regardless, undeterred comics are increasingly becoming comedy…

Ed Park - Personal Days

8 May 2008

COMIC THRILLER (Jonathan Cape) Set in an unnamed New York company, Ed Park’s quirky debut begins like a Dilbert cartoon or a particularly deadpan episode of The Office. A group of interchangeably fireable wage slaves, their jobs ill-defined even to…

TV Box Set Round-Up

13 Mar 2008

Set on a New York comedy sketch show, the whipsmart 30 Rock (Universal) •••• deservedly won Golden Globes for Tina Fey and Alec Baldwin. Former Saturday Night Live scribe Fey plays Liz Lemon, the chief writer struggling to save her baby from the best…

Jon Richardson

13 Mar 2008

STAND-UP Brel, Glasgow, Sun 16 Mar Watching Jon Richardson disparage Rab C Nesbitt and spectacularly misjudge a Scottish audience remains one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen: ‘they got quite angry’ he recalls. But he was careful not to repeat it…

Janey Godley

28 Feb 2008

STAND-UP Jongleurs, Glasgow, Thu 28 Mar; The Garage, Glasgow, Thu 6 Mar; Oran Mor, Glasgow, Sun 9 Mar ‘I read an article about Josie Long and Kristen Schaal saying, “Isn’t it lovely that female comedians are returning to being quirky and nice?”…

The Time of the Rebels

Travelogue by Matthew Colin

20 Sep 2007

A compelling account of the challenging and toppling of undemocratic governments by youth resistance groups across ‘the second world’, from Serbia to Georgia, through the Ukraine, Lebanon and beyond, Matthew Collin’s latest book is as much a tribute to…

Bill Bailey interview

10 Sep 2007

Audiences filing into the ‘humungoid shed’ of the Clyde Auditorium for the opening nights of Tinselworm, Bill Bailey’s new national tour, will be fighting for nothing less than the UK’s standing in Europe and democracy itself. Following year on year…

William Gibson

23 Aug 2007

For his new novel Spook Country, William Gibson has written a frightening dispatch from the zeitgeist with a plot that’s as outlandish as the technical and cultural details are convincing. The subliminal hum of Gibson’s influence will doubtless ensure…

Nick Cohen

Observing hatred in all its forms

9 Aug 2007

Nick Cohen is a rare beast. A pro-invasion of Iraq commentator with impeccable left-wing credentials, he was moved to write What’s Left? How Liberals Lost Their Way by a perception that liberals were forming an unholy alliance with fascism in failing to…

Glenn Wool

1 Aug 2007

Having missed Glenn Wool in Ireland on a day that he played three gigs and one football match, I eventually track him down to Amsterdam, where he’s spent two days balancing stand-up with the sit-down distractions of beer and ogling Dutch women.

A Light-Hearted Look at Murder

16 Jul 2007

BLACK COMEDY MARK WATSON A Light-Hearted Look at Murder (Chatto & Windus) (Image: © Emilie Fjola Sandy) Mark Watson has been described as ‘a Will Self with dignity’. Admittedly, it was in his spoof biography for the BBC2 comedy Time…

The Rise and Rise of Michael Rimmer

19 Jun 2007

COMEDY Written by Peter Cook, John Cleese and Graham Chapman, this 1970 political satire was panned on release, yet now looks startlingly prophetic. Cook was never more charismatic than as the mysterious Michael Rimmer, arriving unannounced at the…

Rufus Wainwright

Album

21 May 2007

POMP POP Conceived as a more commercial release than the acclaimed but largely overlooked Want One and Want Two, Release the Stars is nothing of the sort, not so much radio-unfriendly as radio-oblivious, despite the presence of Neil Tennant as…

I Think the Nurses Are Stealing My Clothes: The Very Best of Linda Smith

6 Dec 2006

CD Once voted the wittiest living person by Radio 4 listeners, Linda Smith’s death in February of ovarian cancer robbed the UK of one of its highest regarded satirical voices. Best known for appearances on The News Quiz, Just a Minute and Have I Got…

Borat: Cultural Learnings of America For Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan

30 Oct 2006

The poorly executed Ali G Indahouse seemed to stymie Sacha Baron Cohen’s big screen ambitions, yet Borat appears set to make him Hollywood’s new Peter Sellers. Forget that unsatisfying turn as Talladega Nights’ Gallic gay racing driver, because Borat…

James Frazer - The Golden Bough (1890)

100 Best Scottish Books of all Time

1 Jan 2005

Though largely debunked as anthropology, the legacy of James Frazer's The Golden Bough remains incalculable. Tracing humanity's belief in magic through religion to scientific rationality, across a staggering array of ancient and developing cultures…