THIS weekend’s suggestions for activities start with something fresh and new on the grounds that the other recommendations have made a virtue of their veteran, some might say, crumbly status. It is the opening weekend for a new play by Ella Hickson at Edinburgh’s Traverse. Written for Edinburgh’s Grid Iron theatre company, The Authorised Kate Bane is the latest work from the twentysomething playwright, who has been hotly tipped in several quarters of late.
Billed as painfully comic, the piece follows the eponymous Bane as she returns home to visit her eccentric family. The nature of memory, family history and the various versions of the truth are all examined. The music comes from Michael John McCarthy of the rather exciting Zoey Van Goey band.
American comic Joan Rivers is in the middle of her first UK stage tour for seven years. Her actual date of birth has been much speculated on but is widely believed to have been at some point between the Russian Revolution and the Second World War. I mention this not to be unkind, but because the ageing process and all its indignities provide much fodder for her comedy. She can be brutal on herself but reserves much of her venom for her fellow celebs, describing one unfortunate as having had “so many facelifts, it’s miraculous she doesn’t have a beard”.
Unfortunately, a planned Glasgow gig by the Rollin’ Clones, part of their Meals on Wheels tour, has been rescheduled from this weekend. Instead, you may want to sample John Cooper Clarke’s gig at the Arches in Glasgow tonight.
Not quite as old as Mr Jagger but certainly better preserved, the Manc punk poet has beanpoled his way north of the Border as part of National Poetry Month. Lauded by Arctic Monkeys and a regular on BBC 6 Music, JCC’s star is in the ascendant again. His poem “Twat” is even part of the GCSE curriculum. For the sake of future generations, one hopes that Mr Gove’s recent reforms don’t edit the man out.