Kirstin Innes

Janice Galloway - A Selfless Act

Interview

4 Sep 2008

After an absence of six years, Janice Galloway has returned with a memoir rather than a novel. Her fans won't be disappointed, though. Kirstin Innes meets her

Words 2008

A way with words

4 Sep 2008

How do you create an exhibition of creative writing? And why? Kirstin Innes finds out about Words 2008

Janice Galloway interview: full transcript

4 Sep 2008

Transcript of an interview that took place in the residence drawing room of the Scotsman Hotel in Edinburgh on Friday the 22nd of August. Janice Galloway is interviewed about the first volume of her memoirs, This Is Not About Me, which covers her life…

Paul Auster - Man in the Dark

21 Aug 2008

In addressing the increasingly threadbare myths that America tells itself about 9/11 and the ensuing war, Auster has shed the dazzling hyper-reflexive post-modern narrative trickery he’s known for like an empty skin, revealing something tender and…

Scottish Dance Theatre

Two very different displays of talent

21 Aug 2008

It’s not bombastic patriotism to suggest that some of the most accomplished and satisfying contemporary dance on the Fringe is homegrown. These two works performed by Scottish Dance Theatre are an excellent showcase for the jaw-dropping versatility of…

GOODD

Goodd intentions

21 Aug 2008

‘Well, I think even just in order to keep our own interest intact, we needed to do something more than a retail outlet.’ Brian Proudfoot is talking me through the philosophy behind his new Glasgow venture GOODD, which he co-runs with fellow interior…

Scaramouche Jones

21 Aug 2008

Scaramouche Jones, the white-faced clown, has lived a century and wants to tell you the story of his life. Bring a cushion, because it's gonna be a loooong ride. An energetic performance from writer Justin Butcher doesn't hide the fact that this…

The Vanishing Point

Awe inspiring spectacle on stilts

14 Aug 2008

The Vanishing Point is sheer delight. The stilt walkers, communicating to each other through some sort of primeval whale song, trace a pattern of evolution from dinosaur-like creatures and sexually charged tribal people to, briefly, dead-eyed office…

Mudfire

Awe inspiring spectacle on stilts

14 Aug 2008

I picked the wrong day to go and see US acrobatic company Carpetbag Brigade's two Fringe offerings. After 48 hours of rain their outdoor performance space at Sweet ECA had turned swamp and the company was making do with a hastily-converted studio space.

Borderline

Repetitive beat poetry

14 Aug 2008

The Stone Roses come on, and over in the corner there’s always one monged fella pivoting off the wall. He starts monkey-dancing closer like he thinks he’s Ian Brown, gurning and chewing his face off with the pills. He’s pointing at you. He’s looking you…

By The Way

On a road to nowhere, for no reason

14 Aug 2008

There’s obviously a lot of talent behind this little two-hander, which follows a pair of friends on a road trip through a dystopian France, where an unnamed plague is killing off everyone’s mothers. The actors are likable and clearly talented, and for…

Lie of the Land

Two go mad in the countryside

14 Aug 2008

Him and Her move to the country on her family’s money. Mostly. He contributed, though. He’s not as rich as her, rather lacks her breeding. But he’s kind, and she is trying to civilise him. The important thing is, it’s their house. All theirs. Away from…

Spirit of the Samurai

Swordplay blunted by repetition

14 Aug 2008

This display of Samurai skill comes with a weighty pedigree: company director Tetsuro Shimaguchi not only appeared in Kill Bill 1, but choreographed the sword fighting scenes. He's working with hugely skilled performers here, and they know their target…

Damned Beautiful

Dorian Gray does discordancy

7 Aug 2008

One of many pieces pivoting on The Picture of Dorian Gray at this year’s Fringe, this duet pares down the complexities of Wilde’s novel to focus on the obsessive sexual relationship between Basil Hallward and his beautiful boy. There is some beautiful…

Garlands - Falkirk

7 Aug 2008

What does the richest man in America in the early 20th Century have in common with the Cocteau Twins? Falkirk. Or more specifically, the area around Falkirk and Grangemouth, birthplace of Captain Robert Dollar, Elizabeth Fraser and Robin Guthrie. They…

Holdin' Fast

The mathematics of sexuality

7 Aug 2008

As we file into the UK debut by the Czech Republic’s only professional contemporary dance company, we’re confronted by the body of a young man, draped over a blackboard covered in mathematical equations. Upstage, under a half-raised curtain, running…

New Electric Ballroom

Ladies night or Groundhog Day?

7 Aug 2008

From the secret teenage worlds of Disco Pigs to last year's The Walworth Farce, Enda Walsh's work has been preoccupied with the private codes and languages of insular groups. Here he focuses on three sisters who have effectively locked themselves away…

Pierrepoint: The Hangman's Tale

7 Aug 2008

The story of Albert Pierrepoint, the most prolific chief executioner of the 20th century, has fascinated audiences for years. This stark, sobering, well-written and excellently acted new play, low on production values but strikingly effective as a…

The Judgment of Paris

Can Can, corsets and high camp

7 Aug 2008

With sculpted, Harlow-platinum wigs, gorgeously gilded corsetry and tongues in cheeks firmly set to ‘high camp’, this riotous piece of dance theatre by Company XIV merges Baroque dance forms, Can Can and contemporary ballet to music by Offenbach and…

Tim Minchin

7 Aug 2008

Like an Enlightenment Man in eyeliner channelling Michael Hutchence, Minchin wriggles Puckishly about the stage, genre-hopping between brilliant riffs on the mathematics of attraction, Shakespeare, beat poetry and one-man stadium rock. Some of his…

A healthy dose of Edinburgh Festival skepticism

Kirstin Innes' festival blog

31 Jul 2008

Today and tomorrow are the sort-of starts of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Although of course the official opening is Saturday. I think. The Art Festival opens tomorrow, properly, as does the newly-minted Comedy Festival, and the Book Festival kicks…

Beatrice Colin - The Luminous Life of Lilly Aphrodite

31 Jul 2008

HISTORICAL FICTION (John Murray) This is a big, plush velvet cushion of a book, dense with historical detail and already picking up comparisons to Sarah Waters’ weighty, sexy epics. It’s the story of Lilly Aphrodite, an orphan turned silent movie…

Finished With Engines

Attack Mode

31 Jul 2008

Stephanie Viola and Drew Friedman, draped sleepily about a rehearsal room, don’t look much like wisecracking sailors with the power to blow up the world. It might be the jet lag. The New York-based actors, best known as founder members of the multi…

Interrupt

Relationship drama on the dancefloor

31 Jul 2008

The bustle of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe is not necessarily the ideal place to premiere a new piece by a new company. But David Beer, of still wet-behind-the-ears classical/contemporary dance company, Collisions, is letting the experience shape his…

Pericles Redux

Getting physical with the Bard

31 Jul 2008

‘Putting Shakespeare to dance is a dangerous thing to tackle,’ says John Farmanesh-Bocca about his ‘wild retelling’ of Pericles. ‘People are like, “well, are you going to make it a dance or are you actually going to speak the language properly?” We’re…

Social networking

Single files

31 Jul 2008

Recent Pixar smash Wall-E imagines a future in which lumpen humans only engage with each other through computer screens. Worryingly, this seems all too plausible a prospect. Online interaction and social networking are two of this year’s Fringe hot…

The Lighthouse Keeper

31 Jul 2008

‘Clowning has an ageless appeal,’ says Clive Nicholas Andrews, of his new one-man show, The Lighthouse Keeper. ‘When I was a kid I grew up loving people like Charlie Chaplin, Laurel and Hardy and Buster Keaton. I’d call my style clowning with added…

Real gone kids - Architecting

Edinburgh Festival Fringe

22 Jul 2008

Fringe favourites The TEAM return to Edinburgh with a reimagining of Margaret Mitchell’s iconic Southern drama. Kirstin Innes caught up with them to discuss everything from Barack Obama to Scarlett O’Hara.

Room with a view - Ingleby Gallery

Edinburgh International Art Festival

22 Jul 2008

From much-missed nightclub space to the biggest commercial gallery outside of London, Kirstin Innes goes behind the scenes at the new Ingleby Gallery

Fall

War requiem - Traverse

17 Jul 2008

New director of the Traverse Dominic Hill’s own directorial debut is an unobtrusive choice. Kirstin Innes meets Zinnie Harris, the playwright behind Fall

Overarching drive - Jackie Wylie new artistic director of the Arches

17 Jul 2008

It’s been less than a week since Jackie Wylie was appointed artistic director of the Arches (bringing the grand total of women in that position in Scottish theatre up to three), but the 28-year-old has already jumped in with both feet. ‘I’m excited.

Goldfrapp - Your lovely head

17 Jul 2008

Mildly obsessive fan Kirstin Innes pays a personal tribute to the ever-changing faces of Alison Goldfrapp A confession: I just don't see the point of Madonna or Kylie. Sorry. I don't see that anything they've done past 1990 has had the slightest bit…

Three places nearby the Côte d’Azur

17 Jul 2008

Cannes Although most famous for the illustrious film festival that swamps the city in actor-types every May, Cannes' reputation for glamour is evident throughout the year. The main streets are packed with expensive boutiques, but most of the town's…

Scotland: A Changing Nation

3 Jul 2008

‘I don’t want to blow our own trumpet, or anything,’ says Maureen Barrie, standing with her arms spread in front of a blank wall that will shortly be emblazoned with a giant replica of a Tunnock’s Teacake, ‘but we’re a hell of a nation if you think…

Bethan Roberts - The Good Plain Cook

3 Jul 2008

FAMILY DRAMA (Serpent’s Tail) In the mid-30s, the American heiress and philanthropist Peggy Guggenheim set up house in the Sussex countryside with her daughter, her poet lover, his daughter, and a young local girl to cook for them. Bethan Roberts has…

Eco-friendly festival shopping

5 Jun 2008

Never mind Kasabian at Connect or Shaky at Glasto, the real headliner at this year’s festivals is the environment, stupid. The ecological impact of 80,000-odd people producing a huge amount of concentrated waste is immense but festivals are offsetting…

West End Festival

5 Jun 2008

Best for al fresco frolicking There is of course more to the West End Festival than Scotland’s Mardi Gras (pictured), but the impact of 500+ musicians and costumed revellers stopping traffic on Byres Road (Sun 15 Jun) is not to be sniffed at. Propping…

Little Otik - Sandy Grierson

22 May 2008

‘It’s a bit of wood!’ ‘That’s my baby!’ ‘It’s a bit of wood!’ ‘My BABY!’ The air in the Citizens’ Theatre is thick with the smell of peat, spread all over the stage where actors Sandy Grierson and Louisa Ludgate are rehearsing what, taken out of…

Liar

22 May 2008

CHILDREN'S THEATRE TAG at the Citizens’ Theatre, Sat 24 May–Sat 7 June Children’s theatre is relatively uncharted territory for Davey Anderson. The young Glasgow playwright is best known for Snuff and Rupture, jet-black, heavily political pieces set…

Edinburgh Marathon

22 May 2008

‘I’ve run a marathon every year since 2004, mainly just to keep healthy. The first time I crossed the finish line I swore I was never, ever, ever going to do that to myself again, but after about a week I forgot all the pain and decided to make it an…

Rigmarole

22 May 2008

DEVISED THEATRE Arches, Glasgow, Wed 28–Fri 30 May, Ah, the youth of today. They skulk around at bus stops, they commit acts of arson . . . they devise experimental theatre pieces structured around Pirandello farces. . . Phil Spencer, one member…

Eilidh MacAskill and her Daily Ukulele Ceilidh

8 May 2008

MUSICAL COMEDY Last year, one woman set out on an incredible journey. There were tears. There was laughter. There were good times, there were bad, and there were midnight YouTube sessions in front of her cat, as Eilidh MacAskill attempted a…

O2 Undiscovered

8 May 2008

Tell ya, kid. These days, everybody wants to get into showbiz. O2 Undiscovered, which lands in Glasgow this fortnight, is the latest in a fast-growing succession of hands-on networking events offering the public a chance to meet and get advice from…

Summer trends

8 May 2008

Blame Status Quo. Blame grunge. Above all, blame Christopher Kane’s continuing fascination with the clothes his babysitters wore circa 1989. But how will a summer full of bleached denim and ra-ra ruffles work on our streets? We ask the experts. . .

Nova Scotia - John Byrne

24 Apr 2008

‘Thirty years! Thirty years!’ John Byrne is standing in the middle of Victoria Street in Edinburgh, looking like one of his own drawings. Perfectly-sculpted, curled white quiff, battered layers of tweed and colour, thoroughly imposing, nicotine-stained…

Magpie

24 Apr 2008

CONTEMPORARY DANCE Dundee Rep, Wed 7 May Aptly named after a cocky wee beastie with an eye for cherry-picking gems, Magpie is an expertly-curated rummage through some of the most exciting contemporary choreography of the last 20 years – a modern…

Glasgow International Art Festival

10 Apr 2008

‘What we’ve tried to do this year is suggest a loose theme of ‘public and private’, which runs through many of the curated shows,’ says Francis McKee, director of the biannual Glasgow International, talking me through the 70 plus exhibitions, public…

Glasgow Subway Festival

10 Apr 2008

The weather might, finally, be on the upswing, but underground at the Clockwork Orange they’re praying for rain. The first ever Glasgow Subway festival is set to launch on Thursday 10 April, with a packed out programme of events, underground in the…

Hairdressers

10 Apr 2008

Family of hair Claire Fleming set up Claire Frances in Glasgow in 1997 ‘We’re a family business – our mother has been in the industry for over 40 years, and that’s a lot of hair cuts! I’ve been doing this for 20 years now and I really love my job…

Nederlands Dans Theater 1

10 Apr 2008

CONTEMPORARY DANCE Edinburgh Festival Theatre, Fri 11 & Sat 12 Apr Although Nederlands Dans Theater’s ever-excellent youth company paid us a visit in May 2007, it’s been almost two years since principal company NDT1’s memorable, award-winning…

Arches Theatre Festival

27 Mar 2008

‘Well, it’s kind of hard to describe. I’m sorry, I just have to meet the person whose party this is . . . Hello! I’m back. There are two dressing rooms which are used for musicians, and there’s a room next to it with washing machines in it, and then…

Belfast

27 Mar 2008

St George’s Market on a Saturday morning. High, tented ceilings filling up with barbeque smoke; cheerful art graduates selling hand-printed T-shirts side by side with grumpy, knowledgeable fishmongers and cheese merchants; stalls offering gourmet olive…

Rebecca Miller - The Private Lives of Pippa Lee

27 Mar 2008

SOCIAL DRAMA (Canongate) At first, a novel about the awakening of a woman who has spent her life subjugated to a famous, powerful man seems almost quaintly anachronistic in today’s heady post-feminist climate. But then you remember that the novelist…

Romeo and Juliet

27 Mar 2008

CLASSIC Dundee Rep until Sat 29 Mar Is Romeo and Juliet really ‘the greatest love story ever told’? The breathy publicity for Dundee Rep’s latest production, featuring young, beautiful, talented actors Hannah Donaldson and Kevin Lennon as the…

G1 Group ditch plans for Botanics nightclub

20 Mar 2008

Following a nine-month campaign by the Save Our Botanics Group and extensive political pressure from MSPs across the spectrum, the G1 Group, which owns a number of bars, restaurants and nightclubs in the Glasgow area and beyond, has dropped proposals to…

Scotland’s craft community

13 Mar 2008

Click, click, click. For the past few years, the needles of crafters up and down the country have been spinning a revolution. A very quiet, civilised revolution, granted. Productive. With minimal bloodshed, and lovely accessories. Okay, that might be…

Shopping Showdown - Glasgow

The Style Issue

13 Mar 2008

Glasgow styles better Kirstin Innes and Sharon Stephen report on the heavily accessorised cheap chic trend-setting of the West Coast Despite the manicured, designer labelled image promoted by the city marketing bureau under the umbrella Glasgow…

The Style Issue - Trendspotting

13 Mar 2008

Dieny Itoe Clothes Not yet out of college, 23-year-old model and design student Dieny Itoe is hotly tipped for fashion fame. Her sophisticated interpretation of form and fabric earned her the coveted Glasgow 1999 Design Medal last year, and while…

Alternative Scottish love stories make awards shortlist

11 Mar 2008

Two Scottish authors have made it onto the shortlist of the prestigious international Le Prince Maurice Prize, awarded to literary love stories which display a particular emotional intelligence. James Meek and Ewan Morrison, along with English…

£2m boost to National Museums of Scotland

10 Mar 2008

The fortunes of the National Museums of Scotland (NMS) received a significant boost this week, thanks to a £2m from a benefactor. Miss Adèle Stewart, a long-time patron of the National Museum of Scotland, willed the money to the trust in order that…

Leonard Cohen

28 Feb 2008

There’s no particular reason why Glasgow poetry promoters Vital Synz are holding a Leonard Cohen Supper this fortnight. It’s not the great songwriter’s birthday, and he’s still, as far as we know, in rude health. He is being inducted into the Rock…

Ashton Lane fire damages historic venues

25 Feb 2008

A number of venues in Glasgow’s Ashton Lane, including bars, restaurants and the recently-restored Grosvenor Cinema, have been closed after a fire ripped through the structure of the lane’s conjoined historic buildings yesterday. The fire is thought…

Fairtrade Fortnight

14 Feb 2008

Hey! You there! Traipsing about in your fashionable budget high street coat, sipping at your chainstore coffee! This is your conscience calling! Since 1996, the ever-expanding, UK-wide Fairtrade Fortnight has been nagging Scotland’s consumers to put…

Six Characters in Search of an Author - interview with cast and crew

14 Feb 2008

Trying to get to the nub of Luigi Pirandello’s 1921 absurdist classic Six Characters In Search of An Author is an infuriating, intellectually taxing, challenging and rewarding process. Essentially, six characters – fictional characters, but somehow…

Valentine's Day tango classes

31 Jan 2008

It’s bucketing down on Buchanan Street with all the maudlin misery of your traditional Glasgow winter. However, if you divert up a side alley, local dancers are generating the sort of heat and wild, sensual rhythm better suited to the backroom of an…

Pick-up techniques - interview with Neil Strauss

31 Jan 2008

IceDragon, Scotland’s number one PUA (pickup artist), is trying to lock me into conversation. However, he’s quickly surrounded. Deep Vertigo has perched at his shoulder and five other members of the Glasgow lair are hovering on the fringes. Chance, 20…

James Meek - We Are Now Beginning Our Descent

Canongate

31 Jan 2008

WAR DRAMA JAMES MEEK We Are Now Beginning Our Descent (Canongate) After the epic scope of his post-Russian Revolution prize-winner, The People’s Act of Love, James Meek turns his eye to recent history, drawing on his experience as The Guardian’s…

Holocaust Memorial Day

17 Jan 2008

For most of Scotland, the end of January means Burns Night. Whisky, tradition and rousing renditions of ‘A Man’s A Man For A’ That’; a time for national nostalgia and a noisy assertion, however fleeting, of equality. Perhaps it’s fitting then that a…

Ever So Sweet launch party

17 Jan 2008

Now that we’ve got your attention, how exactly to describe this event? There are cakes, there are bands, there’s an auction. The cakes are very, very, very good, one of the bands is called Dick Dangerous & the Love Bastards (we’re, like, so there), and…

Neue Liebe

17 Jan 2008

Pulling together a host of well-meaning, spiffily-clad and shamelessly talented Edinburgh bohemian types in the brand new surroundings of the Voodoo Rooms, Neue Liebe, performance-poetess-about-town JL Williams’ (pictured, right) cabaret evening, is…

Dine Around Edinburgh

4 Jan 2008

January and February are slow months for everyone, but particularly difficult for our poor friends in the restaurant trade. A broke, broken, bloated city does not make for great clientele, so in order to lure you back, some of Edinburgh’s fanciest…

Burke and Hare-themed events

4 Jan 2008

‘Up the close and down the stair/But and ben wi’ Burke and Hare/Burke’s the butcher, Hare’s the thief/Knox the boy who buys the beef . . .’ Everyone gets a bit rueful round about this time of year, don’t they? A lot of poring over old mistakes, a…

Camilla D’errico & Joshua Dysart - Avril Lavigne’s Make 5 Wishes Volume 1 & 2

4 Jan 2008

TEEN (Titan) I really wanted to hate this. I was hoping for a cheesy, corporate celebrity tie-in scamming money out of a willing fanbase. Sadly, it’s a stunningly-drawn, intelligent, jet-black study of adolescent isolation. Dammit. Hana is a…

Hula Hoopla

4 Jan 2008

OK, we’ve officially found the best ever way to rediscover your waist in the new year. Dance Base’s weekly Hula Hoopla classes, which start on Monday 7 January and run into March, not only tone your hips and backside back into shape, but allow you the…

Kylie: The Exhibition

4 Jan 2008

It’s never too late! You’ve still got time . . . except, er, you haven’t. On the stroke of midnight on Sunday 13 January, all of the pint-sized popstrel’s frocks on display in Kylie: The Exhibition will turn back into pumpkins. ‘Give me just a little…

Preview 2008 - Fashion

4 Jan 2008

Is it just me, or has it got dark in here? Spring/summer fashions usually burst out in bright colours, but this year most designers haven’t managed to shake the winter blues (and purples and greens). Klaxons, who led 2007’s tooth-jangling Technicolor…

Hot 100 - 2007's hottest talent

13 Dec 2007

Scottish culture has shone in 2007, and so have Scottish stars. Throughout the year we have been working tirelessly to spot the hottest talent out there. We also invited you to nominate the people, places and events you think have made the greatest…

Alternative Christmas

13 Dec 2007

With both Edinburgh and Glasgow running dedicated Christmas festivals this year, tapping into the festive spirit has never been so easy. The city centres are hoaching with fake snow-capped German market stalls punting mulled wine, and suddenly there’s a…

M.I.A. interview

29 Nov 2007

M.I.A. – Maya Arulpragasam to her friends – is a hard woman to pin down. After a week spent scheduling and rescheduling an interview, I finally caught up with her in Minneapolis, a brief pause before she went on to soundcheck for her gig that night.

Pecha Kucha

29 Nov 2007

PowerPoint presentations are really not sexy. Ask anyone who’s ever sat through a wobbly series of badly-punned headlines, dodgy clip art and incomprehensible animated pie charts meant to ‘jazz up’ a sales report or sector growth analysis . . . see…

Winterfest Glasgow

29 Nov 2007

2007 is the first year that Glasgow has consolidated all of its wintry activities under one festive umbrella, the secularly-named Winterfest Glasgow. The main action happens at either end of Queen Street, with Glasgow on Ice (pictured) taking over the…

Glasgow grins and bares it

29 Nov 2007

Celebrate your cellulite this Christmas! Professional ego-booster Gok Wan is in town for the live How To Look Good Naked roadshow. Two audience members will get the full-on nudie glow, and a host of hairstylists and make-up artists will be doling out…

Lou Hickey

Pop

29 Nov 2007

‘I was brought up watching Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin movies, and when I was a little girl I wanted to be just like Marilyn Monroe singing ‘Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend’. Lou Hickey is a bit of an anachronism – a classically-trained…

On the Buses

29 Nov 2007

In the run up to International Human Rights Day on Monday 10 December, Edinburgh and Glasgow bus passengers just need to look up to do their bit. After a series of workshops run by Oxfam Scotland and the Scottish Poetry Library, five poems written by…

Eating in Inverness

15 Nov 2007

I’d never really thought about Inverness as a holiday destination. To be perfectly, shamefacedly honest, I hadn’t really ever thought much about Inverness. In an age of £20 flights to Europe, the idea of the weekend city break has come to mean something…

Christmas secrets of the master chefs

15 Nov 2007

MARY CONTINI Our family traditions are tied up with the religious traditions that my grandparents brought across with them from Italy, and are to do with fasting and abstinence in the days leading up to a feast. So on Christmas Eve, we always have…

Scotland vs Italy

15 Nov 2007

This is it, folks. The big one. The day when our nation discovers if we can turn 400+ years of entrenched pessimism into something beautiful. No, we don’t think we’re overreacting about this at all. Get your lucky rabbit’s foot out, let your epidermis…

Scottish Opera Unwrapped

15 Nov 2007

Go behind the scenes of Scottish Opera’s latest productions, The Barber of Seville and Seraglio, with all-new evening sessions designed to ease even the staunchest aria-phobe into an appreciation of all things operatic. Talk to the performers, meet the…

Scottish crime writing

1 Nov 2007

‘Ah, well. If you’re Scottish, and you’re writing crime fiction, at some point someone is going to hail you as “the new Ian Rankin” until they remember, no, actually Ian Rankin is still there. Alex Gray has been described as the Glaswegian Ian Rankin.

Eilidh’s Daily Ukulele Ceilidh: The Stage Show

1 Nov 2007

Just a brief update on the progress of Eilidh’s Daily Ukulele Ceilidh, first featured in the Around Town section in July this year. Those interested in checking out Eilidh McAskill’s ongoing quest to play some form of ceilidh, on her ukulele, for every…

Peter Dorward - review

Literary thriller

1 Nov 2007

The 1980 terrorist bombing in Bologna that killed 85 people is the focal point of Peter Dorward’s debut novel from new Scottish publishing company Two Ravens. Idealistic, charming Don and his estranged daughter, ‘blue-stockinged virgin’ Rosie, are drawn…

Tamburlaine Must Die

1 Nov 2007

ELIZABETHAN THRILLER Tron Theatre, Glasgow, Sat 3–Sun 11 Nov Considering she hasn’t even seen the script, Louise Welsh is remarkably relaxed about the upcoming Glasgay! production of her 2004 novella, which trails the playwright and spy…

Shop - Tam Shepherd’s Trick Shop

18 Oct 2007

I’ve picked the worst possible time of the year to interview Julia Walton. It’s 12.30 on a Sunday afternoon, just before Hallowe’en, and the door of Tam Shepherd’s Trick Shop is constantly jingling. ‘Yes, it’s definitely our busiest time,’ she says…

Cyrano

18 Oct 2007

CLASSIC Dundee Rep, Fri 19 & Sat 20 Oct Edmond Rostand’s Cyrano de Bergerac is not obvious source material for a children’s show. Yes, the big nose is funny, but the story is shot through with brutal death and a mean streak of self-loathing; the…

Britannia Panopticon Theatre

18 Oct 2007

The area around Glasgow’s Trongate has pulled its socks up somewhat over the last decade, but tucked in among the upmarket restaurants catering for the Tron Theatre’s well-heeled audiences and glossy bars spilling over from the Merchant City is a…

David Lynch and Donovan

18 Oct 2007

David Lynch, and Donovan. Together at last. If your mind hasn’t blown itself yet, try throwing some transcendental meditation into the mix. No, not a strange Twin Peaks spoof. Lynch actually will be speaking in Edinburgh and Glasgow this fortnight, in…

Hitlist - The best events, talks and sport

18 Oct 2007

• The One Game As part of their commitment to kicking racism out of football, the Easton Cowboys visit Glasgow for a five-a-side football game, followed by a screening of The One Game, a documentary about Palestine. Pearce Institute, Govan, Glasgow, Sat…

Oxjam Clothes Swap

18 Oct 2007

CHARITY EVENT Swapping all over the world Oxjam Clothes Swap, Buff Club, Glasgow, Tue 30 Oct, 8pm. Ah, remember back in the gilded past of our youth, when nobody spat in the street, and putting on a fundraising event was a simple matter of arranging…

Travel - Excess Baggage

18 Oct 2007

Boldly going where no one else really wants to •Ta ta Lonely Planet Thorn Tree! Farewell Facebook! Baggage has a new favourite website that we’re getting all evangelical about. It’s called Nothing To See Here ( www.nothingtoseehere.net ) and it’s just…

Why Scotland's writers are talking about Glasgow's sidestreets

4 Oct 2007

Think about the route you take to work every day. Between worrying about the day ahead, checking for your train pass, sorting your hair and laughing at last night’s jokes, how aware are you, actually, of your surroundings? There are spaces like this in…