Suzanne Black
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Desert storm
7 Aug 2008
‘The disease in question had, as its main deleterious effect, the fact that it renders its victims perfectly unable to write anything but 500-page books about the civil war in Sudan.’ The ‘victim’ in this case is US author Dave Eggers, but the…
Brendon Burns
7 Aug 2008
Award winner is back and still pretty angry
What do you get when you take an aggressive Aussie comic with a history of psychosis, substance abuse and vitriolic rants about every sector of humanity and award him the if.comeddie main award? Gladiator costumes, Schwarzenegger impressions and a…
Circus Oz: 30th Birthday Bash
7 Aug 2008
Acrobatics with an Aussie accent
Characters in colourful costumes exchange banter with the audience, the live band plays a constant stream of Gogol Bordello-like polka and one act involves a dramatic take on Frankenstein's monster. This isn't your average circus. Far more theatrical…
Jonny Woo: International Woman of Mr ‘E’
7 Aug 2008
Moving and darkly comic one-(wo)man show
Moving and darkly comic one-(wo)man show. Jonny Woo, drag queen darling of the London alt.queer scene appears onstage beneath sequined butterfly make-up and various costumes. He knows that the act of wearing a mask is designed to reveal rather than…
Lucky You
7 Aug 2008
Carl Hiaasen novel translated into slick madcap romp
If redneck losers Chub and Bode are going to fund their confederate militia they need JoLayne's winning Lotto ticket. But nature-loving JoLayne (who happens to be black) needs it to save local woodland. The church needs her help to legitimise their…
Teddy Bares
7 Aug 2008
Making the leap with cheek and charm
Stand-up comedy is an act of onanism. The trick is to make the audience feel like their satisfaction is the aim and Teddy observes this rule well in his rambling discourse on his travails in love. The Dunfermline-born 28-year-old with pinchable cheeks…
Matt Green
7 Aug 2008
Observational notes and familial anecdotes on the theme of childishness are all bound up in a neat structure that ties the strands together and tucks the ends in. Genial and self-aware, Green's manner and material is wholly inoffensive, which means…
Apes Like Me
7 Aug 2008
It's tough playing to a tiny crowd but most stand-ups are capable of going it alone without audience participation to lean on. Kate Smurthwaite excavates the seams of evolution, creationism and the close human/chimp relationship to create another…
The Gadabouts
7 Aug 2008
There was a young sketch troupe called Gadabouts / With three handsome gents, or thereabouts / When scene-ending got hairy / They used an anthropomorphised cherry / They'll go far with this comedy, I've no doubts. Knockabout, laugh-a-minute sketches…
Alex Horne
7 Aug 2008
The classically educated birdwatcher is on about neologistic invention (that's new words) this year. Imagine a self-deprecating hybrid of Stephen Fry and Dave Gorman holding court on his favourite subjects with some clever (if sometimes distracting…
The Judgment of Paris
22 Jul 2008
Edinburgh Festival Fringe
Brigitte Bardot, Marlene Dietrich, Helen of Troy, Marilyn Monroe: icons each and every one of them, all famed for their beauty. For the Fringe debut of Brooklyn dance team Company XIV, artistic director Austin McCormick plans to lay on a paean to the…
Profile - Gus Van Sant
24 Apr 2008
PROFILE Suzanne Black considers the work of one of Queer cinema’s great auteurs as two of his key films are released on DVD Gus Van Sant is one of a handful of directors to have crossed from arthouse credibility to mainstream pennies and back again.
The Xcerts
24 Apr 2008
INDIE Barfly, Glasgow, Tue 6 May Indie rock is the musical opiate of the masses. Recapture that first hit ecstasy with The Xcerts, a fresh-faced three-piece from Aberdeen and Exeter. Get Cape Wear Cape Fly liked their fully-formed, captivatingly…
IAMX
24 Apr 2008
ELECTRO-GOTHIC POP King Tut’s, Glasgow, Mon 31 Mar ‘Willkommen, bienvenue, welcome!’ The Deutsch kitsch musical number from Cabaret is the perfect aural backdrop for IAMX (the demonic brainchild of ex-Sneaker Pimp Chris Corner) to take to the stage.
Singles & Downloads
13 Mar 2008
Hurrying past James Blunt and Bryan’s Adams’ new singles, let’s start at the only logical place, the ‘Start Beginning’ (FDM Records) ••• with Nizlopi (of ‘JCB Song’ notoriety) and their relentlessly optimistic, acoustic pop rainbow of a song that could…
Kei Miller - The Same Earth
28 Feb 2008
RURAL DRAMA (Weidenfeld & Nicolson) Kei Miller, a recent addition to the teaching staff on Glasgow University’s Creative Writing course, is under 30 and of the male persuasion. So the ease with which he tells this homely collection of life stories…
Plain White T's
17 Jan 2008
ALT.ROCK Barrowland, Glasgow, Fri 25 Jan Dave Tirio is asleep. Fifteen minutes after the interview is scheduled to start he’s probably dreaming about number ones and sell-out tours. But these things are fast becoming more than dreams for the…
Various - Now That’s what We Call Music Vol 1
13 Dec 2007
INDIE (Fantastic Plastic) To celebrate their 100th release the music bods at Fantastic Plastic have cast a nostalgic ear over their back catalogue and corralled a bunch of past rarities and new offerings. It’s a sampler of accessibly alternative…
Bryan Lee O’Malley - Scott Pilgrim Gets it Together
29 Nov 2007
MANGA ROM-COM Scott Pilgrim Gets it Together (Oni Press) Scott Pilgrim is a 23-year-old slacker with no money, no job and no hope of getting either. Luckily, in the tradition of classic gen X wastrels he is totally irresistible, which is why the…
Mary Gaitskill
15 Nov 2007
SOCIAL DRAMA Veronica (Serpent’s Tail) Mary Gaitskill rarely shies away from the violence of inner life. S&M, self-harm and bad sex torment characters as they struggle to define themselves and the world and new novel Veronica is no different. Alison…
Annie Christian and :Cryoverbillionaires
4 Oct 2007
Cabaret Voltaire, Edinburgh, Thu 13 Oct Every face in the crowd waits expectantly for the one song from the back catalogue of Annie Christian that means the most to them, whether from their electro-infused, gloomy and melodic indie origins in the…
Fuyomi Kuono - Town of Evening Calm, Country of Cherry Blossoms
4 Oct 2007
Historical manga
Set ten years after the US dropped the ‘Little Boy’ atomic bomb on Hiroshima, decimating the city, these two stories follow the lives of the Hibakusha (‘explosion-affected people’). ‘The first story, ‘Town of Evening Calm’, details the descent into…
Jonathan Trigell - Cham
4 Oct 2007
Mystery Thriller
Snowsports are gnarly and the Romantic poets were rad so why not have them meet on common ground (the ski resort of Chamonix; Shelley’s Mont-Blanc) and add in a serial rapist for good measure? After winning the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize in 2004 with Boy…
Slam
20 Sep 2007
Nick Hornby
Sam is 15. He skates, chases girls and narrates his own coming-of-age novel. Things are going well until he gets one of those girls pregnant and is introduced to the world of adult responsibility. Plus, his father figure is a poster of pro-skater Tony…
Ronan Bennett
6 Sep 2007
POLITICAL THRILLER After being serialised in The Observer in 2006, Irish author Ronan Bennett’s thriller of politics, psychoanalysis and chess gets a fully bound release. It’s 1914. Russia is under the thrall of singularly powerful men, the…
