Edinburgh
Quartet for the End of Time, Greyfriars Kirk, EdinburghTuesday, 12 August 2014
If you want an image that defines, for this writer at least, the essence of the Edinburgh Festival, it is the sight of Greyfriars Kirk full to capacity at 5.30 pm on a blustery Monday afternoon. At other times of year this sort of event might be... Read more... |
Edinburgh International Festival Opening Concert, RSNO, Knussen, Usher HallSaturday, 09 August 2014
On paper this was an interesting programme. The Edinburgh Festival traditionally opens with a major choral work, but while the international audience would probably be happy with endlessly recycled requiems and masses, festival directors have often... Read more... |
Edinburgh Fringe: Andrew Maxwell/ SpoilingSaturday, 09 August 2014
Andrew Maxwell (****) tells the Scots in the audience that he’s going to “rip the shit out of everything they hold dear” in Hubble Bubble, his take on the independence referendum. He doesn’t quite do that but it’s a witty and thoughtful take on the... Read more... |
First Person: 'Thomas Bernhard? I love him'Tuesday, 05 August 2014
Some years ago I read a piece about a novel of Thomas Bernhard, Wittgenstein’s Nephew. Bernhard (1931-1989) was perhaps the most famous Austrian writer of his time, but unknown to me. In this article he was described as intense, manically obsessive... Read more... |
10 Questions for Actress Celia ImrieMonday, 04 August 2014
Celia Imrie is admired and loved as a comic actress. Her conversation, just as much as her performances, is full of her trademarks: sudden darting looks, alertness, natural timing, changes of register. They will all be in display in her cabaret show... Read more... |
Edinburgh Fringe: Sarah Kendall/Christian O'ConnellMonday, 04 August 2014
Comics rarely start a show by referencing the ending of a previous one, but Sarah Kendall has first to do a bit of housekeeping to explain the genesis of Touchdown. The payoff for her last show was her dropping the c-bomb on her high-school gym... Read more... |
One Direction, Murrayfield Stadium, EdinburghWednesday, 04 June 2014
The sheer scale of One Direction’s global victory march is something to behold. Last night’s stopover on their Where We Are tour was the biggest concert ever staged by one band on Scottish soil, with 64,000 fans pouring into the national rugby... Read more... |
BBC Young Musician of the Year 2014, BBC FourMonday, 19 May 2014
No quibble about the result. Pianist Martin James Bartlett deservedly became BBC Young Musician of the Year 2014 at Usher Hall in Edinburgh last night. The 17-year-old, a student at the specialist Purcell School in Hertfordshire, and at the Junior... Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: Josef KSunday, 11 May 2014
Josef K: The Only Fun in TownJosef K seem like one that got away. Their fellow Postcard Records’ bands Aztec Camera and Orange Juice had high-profile afterlives with, respectively, the careers of their songwriters and front men Roddy Frame and... Read more... |
Pires, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Ticciati, Usher Hall, EdinburghFriday, 07 February 2014
This is more an excuse for celebration than a review. Six years after the Scottish Chamber Orchestra was founded in 1974 – the birth year we were marking last night – I rolled up in a foggy Edinburgh one February day and chose it as my alma mater on... Read more... |
Sunshine on LeithFriday, 04 October 2013
There will be some who will sneer at this film, but ignore them. Director Dexter Fletcher has fashioned a wonderfully enjoyable movie from a play by Stephen Greenhorn (who also wrote the script), in which a good-natured story about family, love and... Read more... |
FilthThursday, 03 October 2013
Not long ago James McAvoy finished a brutal run as Macbeth, and he’s back in Filth as another manic Scotsman hurtling towards self-destruction. The setting is Nineties Edinburgh, and his character, dodgy policeman Bruce Robertson, has a... Read more... |
