Kirstin Innes

The Hot 100 2011: 100-50

The definitive list of Scottish creative talent

16 Dec 2011

100: Gordon Ferris. Kilmarnock crime author makes good. The already packed Scottish crime writing field has finally found a bit of elbow room for another burgeoning talent. Joining the likes of Rankin, Brookmyre, McDermid and co is this Ayrshire-born…

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…

Words Per Minute: Five new Scottish writers

Allan Wilson, Neil Butler, Kirsty Logan, William Letford, Simon Sylvester

16 Dec 2011

Allan Wilson. His brilliant debut collection, Wasted in Love, pulls together spare, twisted stories from Glasgow's young and wasted. He's a great reader of his own work, too. Neil Butler. Two great books of short stories by young Scottish gents in one…

St Vincent, Stereo, Glasgow, Tue 15 Nov 2011

Thrillingly eclectic live set from the American musician

21 Nov 2011

St. Vincent (okay, Annie Clark if you must), looks good lit from behind, her curls silhouette into an entirely appropriate halo-effect as the first angelic vocals hit an absolutely rammed Stereo. It's a set almost entirely taken from new album Strange…

Scottish Ballet at 2011 Edinburgh International Festival

Ashley Page and Jorma Elo on the EIF programme

25 Aug 2011

Ashley Page maintains that, when putting together Scottish Ballet’s new double bill for the Edinburgh International Festival, pairing the legendary Scottish choreographer Kenneth MacMillan’s neo-classical 1965 piece Song of the Earth with a completely…

Take One Action Film Festival 2011

Event highlights from the political film fest

25 Aug 2011

Radical, committed, and delivering a great, high-quality programme, this year the Take One Action Film Festival, celebrating, as patron Archbishop Desmond Tutu puts it ‘the people and movies that are changing the world’, has an excellent programme of…

Neighbourhood Watch: Shawlands, Glasgow

25 Aug 2011

What’s it like? The unofficial hub of the Southside. Young, bustling and almost completely tenement-bound, packed with pizza places, big bars and some excellent independent shopping, Shawlands also benefits from proximity to the lovely space of Queen’s…

Viewless

Paranoid Orwellian bureaucracy has comically sinister effect

19 Aug 2011

A paranoid story of Orwellian bureaucracy played for comically sinister effect, this short piece feels unfinished. We’re introduced to two officers from the Witness Protection Programme, going about their daily business in a warehouse; the boredom, the…

Enclosure 99: Humans

Are we human or are we dancer?

18 Aug 2011

The youngest female folds her body into a knot in the corner of the Perspex-fronted cage, slipping her head into the lap of the youngest male. ‘As you can see, this one is particularly flexible,’ explains the zookeeper, wryly. ‘And this one; well, we…

Hidden Glasgow

Undercover activities, city secrets and grassroots organisations

17 Aug 2011

Parks, gardens and tours So, you think you’d like to get to know the city a little better? Glasgow City Council’s website offers a number of downloadable heritage trail guide packs. We particularly recommend following the Bridgeton Tour, which takes…

Alternative Fringe hubs: The Forest Cafe

Edinburgh's soon-to-be dearly-departed hippy haven

17 Aug 2011

Name: The Forest Café Occupation: Leader of the resistance, home of Edinburgh’s true creative spirit. Resembles: A glorious, shambolic cluster of plants, art, rugs, hippies and graffiti, spread across several rooms. What’s on there, then?

The Translator's Dilemma

Dark, taut work about industrial negligence

17 Aug 2011

Plays designed to educate the audience about a particular issue often just come off as lectures, so it was clever of new playwright Jessica Philippi, who also takes on most of the burden of performing, to actually set her piece about the appalling…

Josh Howie: I am a Dick

Patchy quest with dodgy material

16 Aug 2011

Somewhere along the way, the idea that a sniggering comedian telling a badly-timed rape gag is the vanguard of free speech has become entrenched. It’s not: it’s just lazy. There’s nothing ‘edgy’ about Josh Howie’s material in I am a Dick; he’s not…

Tea with Queenie

Very moving tragic-comic piece for three people, including tea and cake

16 Aug 2011

This tiny-audienced show (Queenie can take a maximum of three for tea) takes you right into the messy home and mindset of an old lady who lives by herself. There’s no getting away, no matter how uncomfortable she makes you. Although it could benefit…

Rich Fulcher: Tiny Acts of Rebellion

Surreal and sedate show from the rambunctious Mighty Boosher

16 Aug 2011

It’s an uncharacteristically laid-back, practically sedate show from the normally rambunctious Mighty Boosher, and anyone turning up to see him unleash a full-force storm might feel a little disappointed. That said, Fulcher’s still a class act even when…

4.3 Miles From Nowhere

Good performances and brilliant live folk band but no dramatic stakes

14 Aug 2011

Young company Fine Chisel claim A Winter’s Tale as an influence on their Fringe debut, although with two sets of teenage lovers and a Puckish meddler lost in the woods, A Midsummer Night’s Dream also looms large. There are absolutely no dramatic stakes…

Audience

Ontroerend Goed slip out of the major league with cynical show

11 Aug 2011

Audience opens with an informal talk from cast member Maria, about what it means to be in an audience. You’re not really supposed to talk; you need to clap at the end. We chuckle appreciatively. The joke is that of course we know this. We’re not just…

Pinocchio: A Fantasy of Pleasures

Adults-only retelling is decidedly not Disney

11 Aug 2011

Sometimes the spectacle is enough. The experience of watching Company XIV’s radical reinterpretation of Pinocchio is a little like gorging on gourmet food: something sensual and rich that might not offer you too much nourishment in the long run, but…

Pasta! Macaroni Puppet's Show

Children's show where pasta comes to life

11 Aug 2011

Given that nursery schools the world over have already realised the potential of dried pasta shapes to entertain small children, this lovely little show by Italian puppeteers Placedumarche seems to be the next logical step in pasta-based play. The…

Forgetting Natasha

Multimedia memories with excellent choreography

11 Aug 2011

As a poetic and artistic response to early-onset dementia, Forgetting Natasha is a well-conceived idea with some utterly beautiful moments. The writing, by Anna Mae Selby, is sharply-observed and designed to tug at the heartstrings. Multimedia…

The Girl With The Iron Claws

A fairytale for grown-ups

11 Aug 2011

Taking as their starting point a Nordic myth that clearly shares some of its roots with Beauty and the Beast, The Wrong Crowd weave a subtle, dark fairytale about an independent-minded princess who falls in love with a bear (of course, he’s really a…

Dot504: Mah Hunt

Acclaimed Czech dance company bring duet to 2011 Edinburgh Fringe

10 Aug 2011

DOT504 made its Fringe debut in 2008 with Holdin’ Fast, a woozy, delicate work about desire, with six young dancers tumbling and fondling under showers of glitter and old Persian carpets. The company returned by popular demand in 2009 with the darker…

Mission Drift

The TEAM achieve the huge, soaring size of their ambitions

8 Aug 2011

The TEAM (Theatre of the Emerging American Moment) don’t deal in the small. Since their Fringe debut in 2005 with the Richard Nixon-fixated solo Give Up! Start Over!, their chaotic, rambunctiously-expressed subject matter has been myth-making factory of…

Dance Marathon

Sweat-slicked endurance test

8 Aug 2011

At three hours in, the fatigue has begun to show. As per the First Rule of Dance Marathon, we’re all still moving our feet constantly, but it’s descended to a listless, obedient shuffling. A room full of sweating strangers, inhibitions completely lost…

Alma Mater

Immersive, lovely look at childhood innocence and loss

8 Aug 2011

There’s been so much recent chatter about the use of digital technology in theatre that you can practically hear the inevitable Luddite backlash grinding up already: don’t let ‘em drown out this tiny, beautiful ghost story. Using – at face value – just…