Miles Johnson

Fawn

A muddled monologue

21 Aug 2008

While perhaps the simplest form of theatre to stage, the monologue is not the easiest to pull off successfully. Fawn, a fantastical narrative about a girl transported from a forest into a netherworld of alternative realities, never quite rises to the…

The Musical of Musicals, The Musical!

Solidly performed Sondheim send-up a safe bet

18 Aug 2008

Essentially a send-up of musicals by Sondheim and Rodgers & Hammerstein among others, The Musical of Musicals is unlikely to be appreciated (or its references understood) by non-aficionados. This said, it is solidly performed and often amusing, the…

Yasser

An original take on the Middle East conflict

14 Aug 2008

The concept of national identity becomes ever more fragile in the absence of a nation state. A people bereft of the glue that binds modern communities together – whether real or imagined – risk having their identity defined by others, moulded by…

The Caravan

Impressive site specific verbatim piece

14 Aug 2008

One of modern Britain’s cruel realities is that, while a US presidential hopeful dominates front page news, the continued homelessness of thousands of UK citizens after the 2007 floods, has gone largely ignored. When this situation is mentioned, it is…

The Murder Monologues

14 Aug 2008

There are few things more grating in the theatre than a bad American accent. This set of monologues sports not one but two, with both actors mangling the impact of their respective lines, veering from what initially sounds like a Russian twang to…

Another Paradise

Preaching to the converted

7 Aug 2008

There is an annoying tendency among political theatre-makers to be so convinced of their arguments that they neglect to present them in an interesting way. Such unreflective laziness cripples this debut production of Sayan Kent's Another Paradise which…

Bouncy Castle Dracula

7 Aug 2008

The Bouncy Castle Project returns to the Fringe to subject Dracula to typically blunt treatment. After a nanosecond of excitement at the concept, you are left with a production so dire it would be near criminal for someone to fork out £9 to see it.

Not Everything is Significant

7 Aug 2008

This latest work from respected Fringe writer and performer Ben Moor would perhaps have been more effective as a short story. The serious discrepancy between the quality of the writing and the poor central performance sadly reduces the impact of a…

Dad's Money

7 Aug 2008

A father's death reunites two estranged brothers, before his inheritance drives them apart. Writer/director Richard Fry, the man behind last year's Greedy Scratchers, has a keen eye for moments of comic pathos as the brothers reflect on their many…

InvAsian Festival

Culture shock

31 Jul 2008

When, earlier this year, a BBC executive lamented the continued dominance of a ‘liberal, white, middle class elite’ across British television, his words could equally have been applied to Edinburgh in August. For all the Fringe’s variety, the number of…

The Bird & The Bee

Powerful double bill tells tales of star-crossed lovers

31 Jul 2008

The young, it is sometimes said, are society’s canaries in the mine, the first to sense when something has gone awry. Few could have failed to be moved by the strange and tragic events at Bridgend in Wales, where, in the months to June this year, 22…

The Burma Play - A Comedy of Terror

Burma’s political nightmare, from colonial times to the present day

31 Jul 2008

The Fringe may be brimming with comedians cracking gags at the expense of politicians, but it would be fair to presume that few, if any, have tried out their material under the watch of a police state. The Burma Play, however, was inspired by…

Bow Selecta - Dizzee Rascal Interview

22 Jul 2008

He’s worked with Arctic Monkeys and Calvin Harris while giving British rap a good name. With his own record label on the rise, urban music star Dizzee Rascal tells Miles Johnson about a life of grime.

Kid Canaveral

3 Jul 2008

INDIE Henry’s Cellar Bar, Fri 20 Jun Henry’s, for all its charms, is hardly the most sparkly place in town. However, bringing a solid dose of summer to the venue’s dimly lit confines, St Andrews four-piece Kid Canaveral’s lively guitar pop does the…

Profile - Laurent Garnier

29 Nov 2007

Name Laurent Garnier Who? Techno DJ and producer Laurent Garnier is one of France’s most successful musical exports. Beginning as a Madchester house DJ he has gone on to rise to the giddy heights of a hugely in-demand globe-trotter, lugging his…

Singles & Downloads

1 Nov 2007

This issue’s singles and downloads have a distinctly local tinge, with our whirlwind tour of new Scottish bands beginning in the company of Vale’s The Casuals. ‘Confusion’ (No Carbon - 3 stars) certainly wins the prize for the most inadvertently apt…

Lethal Bizzle interview

4 Oct 2007

It’s sometimes said you know you’ve hit the big time when your song gets banned. London MC Lethal Bizzle might not have reached the notoriety of the Sex Pistols when his infamous track ‘Pow! (Forward Riddim)’ was banished from clubs across the country…

Singles & Downloads

6 Sep 2007

It’s Autumn again and, as ever, there are a sack full of new singles struggling to squeeze into limited radio rotation spots like fat men caught in a revolving door. Just as scientists have a tough time predicting natural disasters, gauging how…

Closing Time

23 Aug 2007

The present conflict in Iraq may dominate both news and Fringe agendas but, lest we forget, away from the cameras and newspaper columns, hundreds of conflicts continue to rage on all four corners of the globe. Alongside death, it is human dispersion…

Babble

23 Aug 2007

A monologue based on the Jorge Luis Borges short story ‘The Library of Babel’, Babble focuses on a secluded librarian’s (Jonathan Clarkson) quest for the answers to all life’s puzzles in his stacks of books. Though the fundamental ideas behind the play…

Hamlet Solo

16 Aug 2007

To do justice to Hamlet is no easy task, but to render the Danish play as a one man performance is almost laughable in its ambition. There is, of course, the obvious novelty value to witnessing Hamlet being performed by one man. But Hamlet Solo is far…

Emergence-See!

16 Aug 2007

Set on an otherwise unremarkable day in 2006, slam poet Daniel Beaty’s one-man show Emergence-See! begins with New York City’s descent into chaos as a slave ship floats up from the Hudson Bay. Bobbing just below the Statue of Liberty and stacked with…

Take a Bite

Miles Johnson

16 Aug 2007

Sometimes it takes for people to be physically locked up together for them to touch freedom. Starting out from this premise Take a Bite opens with protagonist Vera (Anna Rylance Murdoch) waking to find herself trapped in a windowless room with a teenage…

The Last South: Pursuit of the Pole

9 Aug 2007

Between 1910 and 1912 two competing teams, one British one Norwegian, set out to become the first men to reach the South Pole. Only one managed to return home to tell the tale. Constructed from the diaries kept by the British explorer Captain Robert…

Lady of Burma

9 Aug 2007

Aung San Suu Kyi, the pro-democracy activist and lady of Burma to which the title refers, is the only Nobel Peace Prize winner to be currently in jail. The country’s ruling military junta is one of the most abhorrent regimes in the world, with its…

The Container

9 Aug 2007

Set in a life size cargo crate, The Container allows the audience to sit in on the fraught interaction between five refugees attempting to make their way illegally to Britain. Certain critics have lampooned some of the site specific shows on offer at…

Hippo World Guest Book

9 Aug 2007

The internet has indeed made the world a smaller place but arguably that little bit more bilious too. As anyone who has spent even a moment on a forum or blog will be aware, faceless interaction can often serve as a Petri dish for the most vile human…

Genaro

Genaro

9 Aug 2007

ROCK There is a fine line in the risky profession of innovative guitar music between brilliance and wanksmithery and Benbecula signings Genaro appear to tread this with glee. Still, the majority of their debut sits on the right side of the divide…

Esther O’Connor

The Place Where We Are

9 Aug 2007

POP Esther O’Connor is something of a musical paradox; a singer-songwriter specialising in slick commercial soft rock that she proudly releases on her own DIY label. As the daughter of the guitarist from Wet Wet Wet, she has certainly picked up her…

ESG

South Bronx Story 2

9 Aug 2007

HIP HOP While the past year has seen much blathering about the Nu Rave scene and its various spin offs, many have been quick to forget that dance rock first came into existence back when many current bands were still playing hopscotch. New York’s ESG…

Johnson and Boswell – Late But Live

1 Aug 2007

In 1773 Samuel Johnson, the portly curmudgeon of English letters, accompanied James Boswell on a tour of the Scottish Highlands.

Various Artists

Neon Nights

1 Aug 2007

n these heady days of nu rave saturation, when it is once again acceptable to be seen gurning while clutching a glo-stick, it’s easy to forget that there were indie-dance bands long before the NME reached for its big book of genres.

The Beats

16 Jul 2007

Beats international Miles Johnson raps about hip hop with Example and Professor Green, two of the acts on The Beats, the label set up by Streets frontman Mike Skinner With the emergence of Mike Skinner and Dizzee Rascal, British hip hop is…

Lethal Bizzle

Album

16 Jul 2007

GRIME LETHAL BIZZLE Back to Bizznizz (V2) The ailing Grime scene too often forgets that it was spawned from dance music, not hip hop, with many MCs eschewing potential club hits in favour of brainless trigger talk. Lethal Bizzle, on the…

Randan Discotheque

Album

16 Jul 2007

SINGER-SONGWRITER RANDAN DISCOTHEQUE I Am the Singer, You Are the Song (Fife Kills) Snaking from Johnny Cash train stomp rhythms to delicate love stung paeans to departed muses, Randan Discotheque throws up an occasionally disconcerting…

Summer in the City

3 Jul 2007

It’s summer. Well, as close as it gets to summer in Scotland. Sunshine is carefully rationed so when it does make an appearance you’d better be prepared to make the most of those breaks in the cloud. Here we present some of the best ideas for enjoying…

Black Affair

18 Jun 2007

ELECTRO In an aside from his post-Beta Band project King Biscuit Time, Steve Mason has concocted a fresh sound with Black Affair, being profiled on the band’s MySpace as ‘probably the best known and most discussed modern songwriters and thinkers’.

Broken Records

18 Jun 2007

ROCK The audience at Capitol may have been somewhat thin on the ground but the stage was bulging at the seams as Edinburgh septet Broken Records struggled to fit a music shop of instruments onto its dinky frame. At first sight it almost appeared…

Records - The Cribs

5 Jun 2007

INDIE Despite the friends The Cribs won with their last two albums, lingering beneath the racket it was impossible to ignore the heckles over their similarity to a certain tussled indie combo from New York. It appears those cruel accusations of being…

Dizzee Rascal

21 May 2007

HIP HOP For many the turn of the new millennium was a bleak time for British music. A mixture of saccharine garage, imported nu metal and Travis had ripped the spine from the charts, leaving a charmless corpse and no respite in sight. Few though…

Wiley

Album

21 May 2007

GRIME Long hailed as the progenitor of grime, since his 2004 debut Wiley has struggled to match his credibility with commercial success. Sadly, lacking any degree of quality control, his third album sees only more underachievement. While others can…

The Dykeenies

QMU, Glasgow, Fri 13 Apr

23 Apr 2007

INDIE Despite sporting a moniker which sounds like a cbeebies show involving two conversing plant pots, Cumbernauld quintet The Dykeenies have made quick business of vaulting themselves into contention. The now standard MySpace malarkey ensured their…

5 Reasons - Yann Tiersen

5 Reasons To Go See

9 Apr 2007

1 He plays the typewriter Chuffing on Gauloises and quaffing glass after glass of fine French wine, the 37-year-old’s live shows involve him hopping around variety of instruments, stopping off occasionally to bash away rhythmically at a typewriter like…

Little Doses

Little Doses

27 Mar 2007

INDIE ROCK Cabaret Voltaire sees a good turnout for tonight’s New Found Sound showcase of local talent. Though third down on the bill, Vitamin Flintheart’s swirling atmospheric set sets a solid standard. Switching between flickering melodies to…

Singles & Downloads

28 Feb 2007

The road to musical hell is paved with good intentions. This year’s Comic Relief charity single sees two of our most treasured girl groups unite for a cover version of Aerosmith’s ‘Walk This Way’ (Fascination/Island - 2 stars). Unfortunately, while the…

The Horrors interview

Smoke & mirrors

30 Jan 2007

The Horrors are in need of a fag. Having had their ch ance for a nicotine fix disrupted by fans who are loitering outside The Caves in Edinburgh hoping for a glimpse of the band, they now find themselves upstairs experiencing first hand the realities of…

Lady Sovereign - album review

Lady Sovereign

29 Jan 2007

GRIME POP When people first began getting their pantaloons in a twist about London’s Grime scene, much of the media rumpus was concentrated around mini MC Lady Sovereign. After a year of set backs and a chance meeting with Jay Z (he signed her to his…

Jamie T - album review

Jamie T

29 Jan 2007

INDIE Instantly labelled as a ‘troubadour’, seemingly this year’s music journalism cliché de rigeur, Jamie T and his bass guitar pop has enjoyed a year of steadily conscripting devotees to his cause. Striking a lyrical balance between mockney…

Various - Blue Skies Up - album review

Various

11 Dec 2006

INDIE With a manifesto aiming to ‘save pop’, Dogbox Records have certainly set themselves a tall task. Most of the ‘pop’ on this compilation is as likely to hit the charts as a duet from Robert Kilroy-Silk and Michael Barrymore, but this reflects far…

Singles and Downloads

22 Nov 2006

This issue’s singles and downloads rundown begins not with a bang but a whimper. Babyshambles ’ ‘The Blinding EP’ (Regal - 2 stars) was set to be Britain’s most famous junkie’s return to form, and, in parts, his talent still flickers through. Sadly it…

Tapes'n'Tapes

Liquid Room, Edinburgh, Mon 6 Nov

26 Oct 2006

INDIE On hearing the words ‘eclectic’, ‘experimental’ and ‘intelligent’ to describe a US indie act, one would generally imagine their CDs more likely to be tucked away on a dusty import shelf rather than David Letterman demanding they make their…

Lilly Allen

ABC, Glasgow, Mon 23 Oct; Studio 24, Edinburgh, We

10 Oct 2006

POP There are two renditions to the Lily Allen story. The first casts her as a hopeful potty-mouthed princess, effortlessly posting her calypso-pop tracks on Myspace and flashing two fingers at the record industry as she cruises to the top of the…

DAM - album review

DAM

10 Oct 2006

HIP HOP Being Palestinians residing inside Israel, and one of the first breakthrough acts to rap in Arabic, DAM’s are truly unique in the hip hop world. This might have been more curse than blessing - there was always the risk that their novel ouevre…

Larrikin Love - album review

Larrikin Love

2 Oct 2006

INDIE Spawned from the waste The Libertines left in their wake, London four-piece Larrikin Love have taken their dreams of the good ship Albion and sailed into muddy waters. Where songs like ‘Happy as Annie’ are tinged with a charming gypsy-punk…