Claire Black: Encouraging have-a-go heroes isn’t going to do anything helpful
CITIZEN Power. That sounds like a good idea to me. In fact I was thinking about just that as I watched two teenage girls pick all of the lettuce off their wraps and drop it on the floor of the bus the...
View ArticleFordyce Maxwell: I go cold at the thought of teaching a class of children
THERE were more mermaids, water nymphs and surfers than in the original, but Treasure Island – The Musical enthralled local audiences here during its run of two evening performances, one matinee.No...
View ArticleAndrew Eaton-Lewis: In an ideal world, people would pay what they want for art
I HAD a great idea for a Fringe production last week. Its working title is The Shrinking Universe. The first performance is an hour long, like most Fringe shows. Every subsequent performance is two...
View ArticleA tale of two burghs: Govan and Partick cherish their unique identities
‘NEVER mind Scotland being independent,” says Tommy McMahon, “Govan should be independent from Glasgow. The Luftwaffe couldn’t damage Govan more than the Glasgow council has. But we remember our proud...
View ArticleFestival preview: David et Jonathas
It may have a gay, pacifist subtext, but David Et Jonathas will stay faithful to its authentic baroque charms while moving closer to our times, writes David Kettle‘IT’S basically a pacifist opera,”...
View ArticleFilm reviews: Ping Pong | Swandown | A Simple Life | Flowers Of War
Siobhan Synnot reviews the best of the new cinema releasesPing Pong (PG) ****Hugh Hartford traces the progress of eight players as they fight for supremacy at the 2010 championships in China, in the...
View ArticleFilm review: The Bourne Legacy
SEQUELS and prequels are an unsubtle way of separating trusting filmgoers from their money, but The Bourne Legacy isn’t a son, a parent or even part of the Robert Ludlum family of books; it’s the...
View ArticleFestival reviews: Mess | The List | Thread | Hand Over Fist | Juana In A Million
IF THIS were my real review of Caroline Horton’s Mess, I’d start off in a teasing way, giving the impression the show was just a bit of a giggle. I’d talk about the songs performed to the live...
View ArticleFilm review: Take This Waltz
WHAT do you think attracted Michelle Williams to this film about the temptation of infidelity? Take This Waltz (15)Director: Sarah PolleyRunning time: 116 minutes****In Brokeback Mountain, her husband...
View ArticleAlbum reviews: James Yorkston | Spector | Dead Can Dance | Kathleen Ferrier
We review the latest album releases.James YorkstonI Was A Cat From A Book Domino, £11.99 ****Arriving like an Indian summer, Yorkston’s fifth album shimmers like the low sun through the trees at the...
View ArticleDVD of the week: This Must Be The Place
What is it? Sean Penn plays an ageing, retired Goth rock star on a mission to find his dying Jewish father’s Nazi tormentor, in the enjoyably offbeat English-language debut of Italian director Paolo...
View ArticleGame of the week: Inversion
Alien invasions are the basis for some of the best third-person shooters on the market, Gears of War and Resistance for example. Unfortunately, Inversion feels like a cheap knock-off.InversionNamco,...
View ArticleArt review: Picasso And Modern British Art, Scottish National Gallery of...
IN 1960, the Surrealist artist, jazz musician and great British character, George Melly received an invitation to a royal reception at the Tate Gallery to mark the opening of its major Picasso...
View ArticleScared of the skin you’re in
Despite naturist Kimberley Craigie’s optimism, Britain still finds nudity either titillating or taboo, writes Emma CowingANDREW Welch is doing the ironing. Also, he’s naked. “I didn’t suddenly decide...
View ArticleBook review: Pulphead by John Jeremiah Sullivan
I HATE John Jeremiah Sullivan. He gets thousands of words – “long-form journalism”, the Americans call it – for a feature on Axl Rose. He uses up lots of them on his teenage obsession with Guns N’...
View ArticleBook review: The Liars’ Gospel by Naomi Alderman
MAYBE it is because there is not one but four accounts of the life of Jesus in the New Testament (let alone the many more, much odder, later apocryphal versions) that so many fiction writers aspire to...
View ArticleBook review: Occupation Diaries by Raja Shehadeh
OF ALL the many outrages that fire Palestinian lawyer, human rights activist and Orwell Prize-winning author Raja Shehadeh’s prose, it’s a small thing, his lack of a postcode, that pulls you up...
View ArticleBook review: My Gun Was As Tall As Me by Toni Davidson
IT’S GOOD to have Toni Davidson back. He was one of a group of young Scottish authors who emerged around the same time as Irvine Welsh and Alan Warner but never fulfilled their potential.My Gun Was As...
View ArticleTV reviews: Wonderland: Young, Bright And On The Right
AFTER two weeks of admiring perfect physical specimens, we look at ourselves and say: “I should be fitter.” We look at those we know and say: “You definitely should be fitter.” We look at George...
View ArticleTV previews: Accused | Who Do You Think You Are? | Bad Education
This week Aidan Smith will be watching...PICK OF THE WEEK AccusedBBC1, Tuesday, 9pmA cabbie squints into his rear-view mirror – electric blue minidress, Tammy Wynette hair, fantastic boobs – and asks:...
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