Reviews & features: David Pollock

Gordon Ferris - The Hanging Shed

Evoking the dark side of 1950s Scotland

For an author whose subject matters might be referred to as solidly traditional – a compelling combination of post-war historical drama and ripping crime thriller – Gordon Ferris is at the leading edge of a publishing revolution. The first two novels in…

Best Edinburgh Festival street food

The ten best pop-up food stalls to be found at 2011 Edinburgh Festival

Mussel Men Seafood George Square walkway (east side), 11am–1am The guys in the stripey Breton shirts are actually London-based Scots, serving up fresh mussels and oysters from the west coast near Oban. Steaming hot moules come in a wee box sturdy…

Interview - Mike Slott, Eclair Fifi and Machinedrum of LuckyMe

Glasgow DIY label set for Edinburgh Festival clubnight

Mike Slott (producer) I met Dom [Flannigan] who runs LuckyMe in Borders Books. He was sneaking flyers into hip hop magazines. We got chatting, we liked similar music and in Glasgow if you’re into a certain kind of music, you bump into the same people…

Katri Walker: North West

Intriguing exploration of Scottish/Wild West links

This triptych of work by Edinburgh-born artist Katri Walker recasts the landscape of Scotland as the wilderness of the American old west, quite literally in the case of the titular central work. Projected over three connected screens, the rocky cliffs…

David Mach: Precious Light

Edinburgh Art Festival exhibition of biblical proportions by Fife-born artist

Without doubt, Methil-born artist David Mach’s work ‘Golgotha’ will stand out as the defining image from the artistic strand of this year’s Edinburgh Festival. Three enormous figures of threaded steel nailed to metallic crosses, which take up the entire…

Hayashi Takeshi: Haku-u (White Rain)

Impressive hand-carved sculptures

Once upon a time, Japanese artist Hayashi Takeshi looked out over a paddy field in the rain, the texture of the water’s surface as each inverted wet plop rose and fell clearly ingraining itself on his memory. With the primary and titular work on display…

Chris Larner - An Instinct for Kindness

True-life assisted suicide tale at Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2011

Having earned her third major Fringe award for last year’s forensic, verbatim one-man show Lockerbie: Unfinished Business, director Hannah Eidinow moves one step closer to her subject matter here. With An Instinct For Kindness, solo performer Chris…

English-language version The Golden Dragon set for Edinburgh 2011

Rabble rouser that isn’t afraid to shake-up convention

‘It’s really sexy! It’s got naked women and lots of blood!’ Director Ramin Gray has his tongue planted firmly in his cheek as he attempts to sell his English-language version of celebrated contemporary German playwright Roland Schimmelpfennig’s The…

The National - Matt Berninger interview

US band set for Edinburgh gig as part of 2011 UK tour

The National‘s Matt Berninger has a way with a tear-jerking lyric. However, as he tells David Pollock, the release of album High Violet has ushered in good times for the Ohioan band. That, and Obama getting elected.

Music highlights from the 2011 Edinburgh Festival Fringe

Lach's Antihoot, James Blake and Withered Hand among highlights

The LuckyMe collective of artists and designers is one of Glasgow’s most successful cultural exports of recent years, and the group’s August party will once more give festivalgoers a chance to find out what they’re all about. This year, they’re having…

Amjad Ali Khan to perform set of morning ragas on sarod at EIF 2011

Edinburgh 11am concert accompanied by Ravi Shankar's evening ragas

The sarod may not be as familiar an instrument to western audiences as the sitar made famous by Ravi Shankar, but virtuoso player Amjad Ali Khan is happy to establish its proper context. 'Ravi Shankar's teacher was a sarod player,' says Khan on the line…

Armitage's first appearance at the Book Festival

Decorated poet goes in a new direction and talks poetry performances

This will be the first Book Festival appearance of Simon Armitage CBE, since the nod was given the much-adored Huddersfield poet’s way in the Queen’s birthday honours earlier this year. ‘Flattered,’ is how he felt. ‘That’s it. Just flattered.’ He’s lost…

Owen Sheers

Covering the poetic landscape of Britain

One of those infuriating people whose expansive CV (poet, novelist, playwright, actor, television presenter) is matched only by their down to earth charm, Wales’ Owen Sheers will be presenting two very different projects at the Book Festival. The first…

LuckyMe decamps to Cabaret Voltaire for the Festival

David Pollock talks to the Glasgow-based record label/art collective

This has been the most important year yet in the evolution of Scottish electronic label LuckyMe, and this third annual Edinburgh Festival event featuring their friends, collaborators and signees should be the perfect showcase for local supporters and…

Kim Coleman and Jenny Hogarth: Staged

Edinburgh-based artists stage a cultural land grab from August’s invasion

Entered by way of a curtained-off doorway and presented in a compact room whose pillar-effect cornices form a kind of proscenium arch, this collaborative show by Edinburgh-based artists Coleman and Hogarth sets out its stall as a reflection upon the…

Mitchell Museum at the Edge Festival

Jangly, indie-pop by Weegie flatmates

Mitchell Museum, so legend has it, live, write and record together in a flat in the centre of Glasgow, Monkees-style. ‘It’s true,’ reveals their singer, Cammy MacFarlane. ‘It’s on Sauchiehall Street, just above Nice ‘n’ Sleazy. Well, above and to the…

Master of brutal deadpan Arj Barker returns to Fringe

US comic backs recent Flight of the Conchords role with Edinburgh show

This will be San Francisco comedian Arj Barker’s first working visit to Edinburgh in a decade, and he promises to pull out the stops for an audience which might only recently have become familiar with his work. ‘The show covers a range of topics, from…

Hot Mess takes modern angst theatre into the nightclub

Experimental look at contemporary relationships from hot young playwright

Despite feeling increasing pressure to give in and follow every other hot young thing to London, playwright Ella Hickson doesn’t want to leave Edinburgh behind. A graduate of Edinburgh University, Hickson wrote and directed her breakthrough Fringe play…

Edinburgh Fringe show based on 7th July 2005 London bombings

Whenever I Get Blown Up I Think of You addresses 7/7 London attacks

Molly Naylor is nervous, she doesn’t mind admitting. That’s partly because her first ever one-woman Edinburgh Fringe show is nearing the end of its rehearsal period when I speak to her, and is about to be unleashed upon preview audiences within a matter…

The Juan MacLean

New York house meets rock’n’roll by way of funk and post-rock

With the temporary absence of LCD Soundsystem while James Murphy and co near the finish line of recording their third album (and not, as rumoured at one point, split up never to return), the next best alternative for fans of New York disco-punk might…

Ian McMillan

Home truths from Yorkshire poet

‘Times are good,’ says Ian McMillan on the poet’s lot, with the articulate and enthusiastic Yorkshireman saying it in a voice that’s gently encouraging. ‘It’s easier than it used to be when I started. There are magazines, you can self-publish or publish…

Katie Pollard: Passing

Photographer’s finer details speak strongly of the mourning process

This set of 15 C-type prints by American photographer Pollard was created in the short- and medium-term aftermath of the artist’s father’s death two years ago. The works track the reactions of her family to the news over an extended period of…

Kim Edgar

A fixture on the Edinburgh folk and acoustic scene for some time now, Kim Edgar received her big break when she won the chance to participate in the Burnsong ‘Songhouse’ retreat in 2006 alongside established songwriters like Emma Pollock, King Creosote…

Nashashibi / Skaer: Our Magnolia

Collaborators tackle controversial subject compellingly and powerfully

The artistic careers of Rosalind Nashashibi and Lucy Skaer have followed parallel courses. Born two years apart, the pair studied at Glasgow School of Art, exhibited at the 52nd Venice Biennale in 2007, and have collaborated as Nashashibi/Skaer on five…

Stephen Carlin Blows the Lid Off the Whole Filthy Business

David Pollock chats to Stephen Carlin, a Scottish comic praised by the higher echelons of UK’s stand-up fraternity. So, why is he more worried about shatterproof rulers? With a title like Stephen Carlin Blows the Lid off the Whole Filthy Business, the…