Laura Ennor

Summer Festivals 2012: Community

Solas, Leith and West End Fests among the best community-focused fests around Scotland this summer

25 May 2012

West End Festival Where: Various venues, West End of Glasgow, 1–24 Jun, westendfestival.co.uk Price: Free–£20 for bigger gigs Line-up: James Yorkston, Howard Marks, Suzanne Vega, Michael Marra, We Were Promised Jetpacks You want to learn Gaelic in…

How to put on a festival: Essential dos and don'ts

Organising your own music festival

30 May 2011

There are days now when The List can barely pop out for a pint of milk without tripping over a pop-up shop, flashmob silent disco or warehouse rave; and that’s not just because we live in a particularly hip part of town, it’s because this is the age of…

The best breakfasts in Edinburgh

The finest cafes, bistros and restaurants in the capital for a morning meal

29 Mar 2012

Broughton Delicatessen 7 Barony Street, 558 7111, broughton-deli.co.uk Breakfast served: Mon–Sat 8am–3pm; Sun 11am–3pm. What does this place not do well? A great deli, healthy lunches and superb, made-from-scratch breakfasts from morning until 3pm…

Stag & Dagger, various venues, Glasgow, Sat 19 May

Eleanor Friedberger and Miaoux Miaoux play as part of 13 hour gig crawl

22 May 2012

While its London sister seems to have died a death, presumably smothered by a surfeit of such hipster-friendly crawls and brawls in the English capital, the Glasgow leg of multi-venue one-dayer Stag and Dagger happily lives on, albeit with perhaps a…

The best things to do in Glasgow

22 Apr 2010

Where to … … take a walk Dumbarton Road is Mecca for enthusiastic charity shoppers (tip: start off at the Salvation Army near Byres Road) – make a day of it by wandering round the junk and vintage shops of nearby Ruthven Lane first. (Kirstin…

The best breakfasts in Glasgow

The best all-rounders in the west, plus a few specific breakfast-item highlights

29 Mar 2012

Café Gandolfi 64 Albion Street, 552 6813, cafegondolfi.com Breakfast served: Mon-Sat 8am-noon; Sun 9am-noon. The long-standing, Scottish cuisine-focused eatery has beefed up its breakfasts in recent years, resulting in a menu with eight different egg…

How the capital sound of Edinburgh's music scene is rising

31 Mar 2010

For a long time it’s felt as though Edinburgh’s music scene has had to play second fiddle to its cooler, bigger West Coast brother, picking up on Glasgow’s trends and regularly borrowing its records, its clothes and a little of its cachet. But while the…

Classic Cuts Summer Season at A Play, a Pie and a Pint

Bite-sized classics being served up for lunch at Oran Mor

23 May 2012

In what is traditionally a quiet time for theatre, Glaswegians in search of a dramatic fix are strikingly well-served, and for those who don’t fancy giving up their precious long summer evenings there’s an especially tasty array of bite-sized classics…

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…

Of Mice and Men

Quietly shocking aftertaste of Lyceum Steinbeck adaptation

27 Feb 2012

Director John Dove breaks his run of eminently solid productions of Arthur Miller plays at the Lyceum with this solid adaptation of John Steinbeck. And in a similar style to shows like 2010’s The Price, the sets here are towering, intricate and…

T in the Park 2010: Black Keys, Frightened Rabbit and Eminem

T in the Park blog

11 Jul 2010

Saturday 10th July For the obsessive music fan, it’s one of the eternal frustrations of festivals that sometimes the bands you love don’t get the attention they deserve. This was very much the case with Broken Social Scene, who took to the stage at…

The Table

Puppet show silliness backed up by serious skill

8 Aug 2011

Blind Summit are a company of puppetry geeks, with the triptych of pieces that make up The Table, they’ve made a show that lovingly reflects that. They’re also a company with a great sense of fun, and happily this hour-and-a-bit more than embodies that…

Woyzeck

Creative adaptation that disregards the fourth wall entirely

10 Aug 2009

Three actors jump through (and indeed urinate against) the fourth wall, sometimes with a little too much knowing satisfaction, in this creative adaptation of Georg Büchner’s tragic fragment. The good-humoured and unflappable cast excel at portraying the…

The Marriage of Figaro

DC Jackson breathes new life into Beaumarchais’ 18th-century original

28 Mar 2012

With this energetic adaptation of Beaumarchais’ 18th-century original, DC Jackson has breathed fresh life into a classic. It’s a good-humoured, good-time show, with just enough emotional power up its sleeve (plus a few other surprises) to make you feel…

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…

The Boy with Tape on his Face

Line up early for a mime with universal appeal

19 Aug 2011

The Boy has become a victim of his own success. A word to the wise before we lose ourselves to unabashed gushing: if you want to see this show, turn up early and be prepared to queue, for someone here has made a grave error in their choice of space. For…

Generation

Glasgow theatre company Glas(s) Performance looks at the political views of today's teenagers

27 May 2011

Following swiftly on from a winter of discontent that was nowhere more pronounced than among our nation’s young people, comes a new show from Glasgow company Glas(s) Performance looking at the perspectives of today’s 17- and 18-year-olds on life, the…

Magnetic North's Wild Life explores idea of modern day feral child

Playwright Pamela Carter's play inspired by ‘Wild Boy of Aveyron’

24 Feb 2011

From travelling freak shows to Channel 4’s sensationalistic Bodyshock series, voyeurism has long been a part of human nature, and the internet has only increased the opportunities for pointing and staring at those who stand out somehow from what our…

The Snow Queen

Lyceum Christmas production as bold and bumptious as any panto

15 Dec 2010

Dear festive theatre-goer, don’t let yourself be misled this Christmas. (And no, we don’t mean about Father Christmas.) Don’t be taken in by the sleek, icy blue publicity for this year’s Lyceum Christmas production – for this show is as bold and…

Romeo and Juliet

22 Sep 2010

As the prologue foretelling the deaths of the most iconic of lovers is spoken, we see them, statuesque in an embrace, their now reconciled families laying wreaths at their feet. With this opening, and the almost universal knowledge of how this story…

Toby Hadoke

Well-trodden paths of 80s small-screen nostalgia

16 Aug 2010

Offering what is as much a passionate argument in favour of the BBC as it is a stand-up comedy show, Hadoke’s delivery is slightly rough around the edges, seemingly out of sheer blustering exasperation at the kids these days. Those of his own…

Edinburgh Tattoo: Everything you need to know

A 21-gun salute of facts about Edinburgh's military show of strength

16 Jul 2010

Everything you need to know about that noisy thing with all the crowds up at the castle. Laura Ennor offers up 21 handy bitesize chunks of facts about the Tattoo

Best of a decade: Music

2 Dec 2009

Arcade Fire – Funeral, The Knife – Silent Shout, Radiohead – Kid A, Bon Iver – For Emma, Forever Ago, The White Stripes – White Blood Cells, Franz Ferdinand – Franz Ferdinand, Animal Collective – Merriweather Post Pavilion, Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Fever To…

The Lieutenant of Inishmore

Comedy about republicanism, terrorists and dead cats follows predictable arc

25 Apr 2012

A comedy about republicanism, terrorists, and dead cats that’s more fun than it sounds, The Lieutenant of Inishmore displays Martin McDonagh’s talent for harnessing the comic potential in those peculiarly Irish turns of phrase. Many of the play’s best…

Tinariwen - Oran Mor, Glasgow, Thu 5 Apr 2012

An evocative but occasionally flat show from the Tuareg blues guitarists

23 Apr 2012

A beguiling mix of blues guitar sounds, gently insistent but sometimes complex rhythms and desert sensibilities is what’s always made Tinariwen unique. Live, the blend is all the more compelling, which must be due, at least in part, to the sheer…