sat 27/07/2024

Scotland

P!nk, Hampden Park, Glasgow review - a high-wire act with bravado and bombast

There was a point in this stadium spectacular when P!nk gave her fans two choices. They could either “make out with their partners or go queue for a beer” she suggested, prior to one of the first slow-paced numbers of the evening, but the latter...

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Smashing Pumpkins / Weezer, OVO Hydro, Glasgow review - double-bill of unlikely bedfellows makes a racket

The current trend for package tours with two headliners appears to be growing, and this jaunt presented somewhat unlikely bedfellows – the theatrical angst of Billy Corgan’s crew and Rivers Cuomo’s indie trendsetters united by a shared love for...

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Girls Aloud, OVO Hydro, Glasgow review - pop queens return with poignant hit parade

There was a point in this pop revival jaunt where you could feel members of the crowd wince. Not for the performance, but because Nicola Roberts introduced a song by mentioning it was from “the Chemistry album, which came out 19 years ago”. You...

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Album: Isobel Campbell - Bow to Love

Isobel Campbell has maintained a consistent career on the fringes of popular music for three decades. She's made a home in the area where indie, folk, rock and BBC 6Music merge. Aside from her 1990s involvement with Belle and Sebastian, she’s best-...

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Nadine Shah, SWG3, Glasgow review - loudly dancing the night away

First Nadine Shah raised hopes, then dashed them. “I’ve never had a dance off onstage before,” she observed at one point, impressed by the shapes a crowd member was cutting, before confirming it wouldn’t be happening on this evening either. You’d...

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Janey review - fitting punchline for a contentious comedian

The Glaswegian comedian Janey Godley, the woman who put the punch in punchline, has what she would call a “mooth” on her. It delivers pith and grit and lots of short words needing asterisks. Though possibly not for much longer, as she is in the...

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Ragnarok, Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh review - moving miniature apocalypse

In terms of conveying monumental events using small-scale means, Edinburgh’s Tortoise in a Nutshell visual theatre company has form. Their 2013 Feral, for example, depicted the social breakdown of an apparently idyllic seaside town using puppetry...

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Many Good Men, Tynecastle Stadium, Edinburgh review - daring but flawed provocation

There’s been an incident in Edinburgh. Right near the Scottish Parliament. Several dead, many more injured. Among the witnesses were two of the capital’s young football stars, now clearly traumatised by what they’ve seen. Someone shouting about...

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The Traitors, Series 2, BBC One review - back to the mind-labyrinth

Asking whether there could be an end to melody given only 12 notes to work with, Sergey Prokofiev compared the possibilities to a chess game: “for the fourth move of the White there will be about 60 million variants.”So it is with the basic formula...

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Jekyll and Hyde, Lyceum Theatre Edinburgh review - audacious contemporary resonances

Evil walks among us. But it doesn’t arrive courtesy of mad scientists, bubbling potions and horrifying transformations. Instead, it comes from ordinary people surrendering themselves to their basest desires and resentments. Even worse, doing that...

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Powell and Pressburger: A Celtic storm brewing

“Nothing is stronger than true love,” a young laird says to a headstrong young woman in Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s I Know Where I’m Going! (1945), his voice heard above the sounds of wind and waves. She replies, “No, nothing.”Even as...

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Same Team, Traverse Theatre Edinburgh review - shamelessly unseasonal Christmas cheer

You can keep your Cinderellas, your Aladdins, your wannabe Lord Mayors of London. The way forward with Christmas shows is clearly women’s football – more specifically, a Scottish five-a-side team that competes in the Homeless World Cup.You’ve got to...

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