Phoebe Cooke
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Little Mix to play at Edinburgh Playhouse on 2013 debut tour
4 Sep 2012
2011 X Factor winners will tour UK after release of debut album
The newest all-girl group sensation Little Mix has announced its debut tour for January 2013. The band, which was formed exclusively from individual entrants in X-factor, was the first group entry to win in the competition’s eight year history.
Rodriguez to perform in Usher Hall in Edinburgh on November 25th
4 Sep 2012
The Sugarman receives recognition in the west four decades after his music was originally discovered
Sixto Diaz Rodriguez will perform at Edinburgh’s Usher Hall on Sunday 25 November following sell-out shows in London. The music of the 70-year-old Detroit singer has only recently come to light in the western world, despite achieving a cult status in…
LCD Soundsystem: Shut Up And Play The Hits
3 Sep 2012
Reflective documentary about LCD Soundsystem’s final gig
LCD Soundsystem’s momentous four hour farewell concert will go down in music history as perhaps the most epic conclusion to a band’s life, overdoses aside. Will Lovelace and Dylan Southern’s documentary, which follows frontman James Murphy over a 48…
Shane Koyczan: Talk-Rocker
30 Aug 2012
Canadian spoken word poet conjures tears as well as belly ache laughs
Canadian spoken-word poet Shane Koyczan combines poetry with anecdotes to create an hour of word-wending magic that conjures tears as well as belly-ache laughs. Evocatively he recalls the loneliness of growing up, the bedroom monsters of his childhood…
The Les Cloechards – Dirty But Nice
28 Aug 2012
Part-time hobos rock the stage with bizarre but brilliant takes on old classics
These jokers, who seem French but are actually German, apparently – (their name is an amalgamation of three languages, but essentially means ‘The Tramps’) - have got their show’s subtitle just about right: They are very dirty, and they’re also quite…
Robbie Williams returns to solo performing with a series of 'intimate' gigs
28 Aug 2012
The pop star will play non-arena venues in Glasgow, Leeds and Southend on Sea
Take That member and solo act extraordinaire Robbie Williams will return to his roots this September on an exclusive three-gig tour around the UK. The 38-year-old award-winning artist will revisit the places that launched his solo career in 1997…
Folk at the Pleasance
24 Aug 2012
An enjoyable variety of folk music in a relaxed and intimate setting
This folk session is led by a tentative, yet somehow regal Sophie Ramsay, who in her flowing red dress and tumbling brown hair resembles a folky Kate Bush. After a soft introduction the Scottish songstress performs two songs, the first a melancholic…
Simon Amstell: Numb
24 Aug 2012
Raw, moving narrative from the despairing comedian-cum-poet
'It’s all about rules,' Amstell tells us urgently, as if his life depends on it, continuing an anecdote on why he had opted for the particularly joyless route of becoming a vegan. 'We need rules. Living with other people imposes those rules. Otherwise…
Encounters series offers insight into themes running through the Edinburgh International Festival 2012
23 Aug 2012
2 for 1 deals on Encounters talks during the last week of 2012 EIF
The Fringe/Book/International Festivals are coming to their various ends, but there's no need to dissolve into a flood of fest regrets: there are still gems to be found, and we can help you locate them. Encounters is a series of lectures and talks…
Return of the Close Up Magician
22 Aug 2012
Phenomenal close-hand tricks from a consummate performer
Close-hand magician Lewis Barlow is a likeable performer. Unlike Derren Brown and his ilk, Barlow creates a show where magic is not swamped by the overbearing personality of the performer, but rather one where magic takes the centre stage. Beginning…
Hannah Gadsby - Hannah Wants A Wife
21 Aug 2012
Aussie comedienne delivers insightful and sharply observed art history/comedy
Gadsby wanders onto stage, already hilarious in her waistcoat and coy pride in her art history slide show. It was a hard sell, she confidentially tells us. But you’re here now, she gleams. Concentrating on the Arnolfini Marriage painting by Jan van…
Wuthering Heights
20 Aug 2012
Emily Brontë adaptation by young Cardiff players is a praiseworthy production
Rarely has fiction portrayed the negative as well as positive emotions of love than in Emily Brontë’s masterpiece. Heathcliff and Cathy's passionate, never harmonious yearning is, of course, at the heart of the story, yet the novel's complex narrative…
Bigmouth
20 Aug 2012
Enthralling roller-coaster through history and its (in)humanity by Valentijn Dhaenens
‘History not merely touches on language, but takes place in it.’ This quote from the German philosopher Adorno could summarise the underlying themes of SkaGeN’s Bigmouth. The show makes the (perhaps not obvious connection) between figures of great…
Carl Donnelly: Different Gravy
20 Aug 2012
A tickling rather than side-splitting hour from home-made autobiography writer
Carl Donnelly is a nice guy. Beginning his routine with a slide-show (before he gets on stage) of his home-made autobiography cover and jokey snaps of family and friends, it’s clear that here is someone not afraid to take the piss out of himself, never…
Out of the Blue
20 Aug 2012
All-male a cappella group radiate charm with formidable vocals and infectious stage presence
Before a 500-strong, sold-out Saturday house, 15 young men shimmy onto a lights-down, mist-shrouded stage, to be greeted thunderously from what seems to be most of the visiting female population of Edinburgh. Out of the Blue is back. In their…
Janice Galloway wins 2012 Scottish Book of the Year award with All Made Up
17 Aug 2012
Category winners include Ali Smith, Angus Peter Campbell and Simon Stephenson
Janice Galloway has won the 2012 Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust Book of the Year Award for her memoir All Made Up, her second autobiographical work, which follows the highly evocative This is Not About Me. The author, who hails from Saltcoats in…
David Whitney – Struggling to Evolve
15 Aug 2012
Ill-conceived, unhappy show featuring cheap gags and little intelligence
Blasting his way onto the expectant stage with a hefty set of bagpipes, you could probably cite this loud start as the highlight of Whitney’s set. The tired-looking comedian immediately conceded (unnecessarily) that the bagpipes were a gimmick – before…
Alistair Barrie: Urban Fogey
13 Aug 2012
Solid material and great audience chemistry from cerebral suited comic
Now in his tenth year as a professional comic, Alistair Barrie’s material feels fresh and his stage presence uninhibited, despite the stylised, buttoned-up appearance. Swiping through swathes of usual comedian fodder, the suited self ironiser has a…
Wickerman Festival - East Kirkcarswell, Fri 20-Sat 21 July 2012
1 Aug 2012
Scissor Sisters, The Levellers, Newton Faulkner, Texas and more hit Scotland’s pagan festival
Wickerman. For those not already familiar with the 10-year-old music festival in hilly Dumfries, the word might conjure up images (or nightmares) of pagan rites, maniacal dancing, heady Hebridean-island-hippyism gone terribly awry, as witnessed in the…
Fence Records' Away Game festival in Eigg - photo gallery
30 Jul 2012
Line-up included Meursault, King Creosote and The Pictish Trail
The 2012 Fence Records festival was sold out even before any acts were announced, some achievement indeed considering the change of location from 2011's Home Game in Anstruther to the isle of Eigg. Perhaps music punters and Fence fans alike knew that a…
