Reviews & features: Claire Prentice

Meredith Monk’s Songs of Ascension set for EIF

The multi-disciplinary american composer on her Edinburgh show

Meredith Monk’s Songs of Ascension is a characteristic multi-disciplinary work that combines music, film and movement to create an uplifting ritual. She tells Claire Prentice about her background and career – and why she’s so excited about visiting…

Suspicious Package preview

Interactive iPod noir where not everything is black and white

Why watch a Fringe show when, for a small fee, you can star in one? Direct from a sell-out run in New York, Suspicious Package is an ‘interactive iPod noir’ which invites you to do just that. ‘I wanted to do a show where each person that turns up could…

Admeto Re’di Tessaglia

Getting a handle on Handel

Scorned lovers, jealous tantrums and furious outbursts are all in a day’s work for conductor Nicholas McGegan. As he explains, ‘There’s not a great deal of difference between opera and soap opera – they are all about love, jealously and ambition.…

Tonhalle-Orchester Zurich

American soprano is mobbed, but not in the mob

Dawn Upshaw is up to her elbows in batter. She’s in the kitchen of her New York home, making pancakes with her son. It’s a very domestic scene, but then the American soprano couldn’t be further from the diva-ish stereotype. She’s just returned from the…

East 10th Street

One-man portrait of old New York with a motley supporting cast

Edgar Oliver has had enough nightmare neighbours to write the script. So, with typical New York gumption, that’s exactly what he did. The result is East 10th Street: Self Portrait with Empty House, a humorous, fantastical portrait of his life, lived in…

Unit 46

Former Edinburgh resident creates offbeat comedy about flat-dwelling

Leof Kingsford-Smith locked himself in one room of his family home for four days to get into the mindset of his reclusive character in Unit 46. 'I drove my family mad, they thought I'd finally flipped,' says the Australian actor, laughing. A hit in…

Die Roten Punkte - Robot/Lion tour

German rock siblings Die Roten Punkte are set to be bigger than U2

Germany has made a number of unforgettable gifts to modern pop music, from Nena’s mulleted anti-war anthem ‘99 Luftballons’, to the soaring synth tinkle of Alphaville’s ‘Big in Japan’. But Die Roten Punkte could be set to eclipse them all with Berlin’s…

The Enlightenments - Visual art in the Edinburgh International Festival

Contemporary artists explore the big ideas in different media

From evolution and the meaning of life to the role of religion and humanity’s impact on the planet, The Enlightenments takes on the big ideas which have been a puzzle and inspiration through the ages. But visitors to the visual arts strand of the…

Stacy Mayer's grave expectations

The Funeralogues takes a comic look at the big sleep

Stacy Mayer has an unusual hobby for an otherwise cheerful, well-adjusted adult: funerals. She experienced her first one aged six (her great-grandmother’s) and so began a lifelong obsession. It has taken her from the bottom of her garden (her pet…

Doris Dörrie to direct Handel's Admeto, re di Tessaglia

The opera is given a Far Eastern flavour

It might be nearly 300 years since it was first performed in London, but Handel’s opera Admeto, re di Tessaglia isn’t showing its age. Given an innovative reworking by director Doris Dörrie, the action has been transplanted from the classical Greek…

Louis CK

Domestic policy

Championed by Ricky Gervais, loved by late-night US TV and censored by his wife, Louis CK is preparing to launch his brand of outrageous confessional comedy on the UK. Claire Prentice finds out just how far he's prepared to go. Louis CK is driving…

Fuerzabruta

With its mix of acrobatics, dance, theatre and club, Fuerzabruta is impossible to define. Claire Prentice visits South America for a sneak preview. The DJ whacks up the volume on the decks and suddenly the whole audience erupts. Fifteen hundred people…