Reviews & features: Henry Northmore
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Asher Treleaven: Troubadour
28 Aug 2012
The Aussie comedian amiably breaks his life down into six parts
It’s a question you wish more stand ups would ask before embarking on a 30 date Festival run: ‘is my life actually interesting enough to talk about for a whole hour?’. Of course by posing this query at the start of his show Asher Treleaven sets himself…
Wil Hodgson: Kidnapped by Catwoman
22 Aug 2012
A personal history of sexual turn ons
With The Dark Knight Rises ruling the box office this summer, Wil Hodgson has chosen a timely crush for the title of his new confessional comedy show on kinks, turn-ons and fantasies. As it turns out, he’s more interested in the 60s Adam West-era feline…
Sound & Fury's Doc Faustus
22 Aug 2012
Comedy troupe deliver a low-quality western pastiche of the famous morality tale
When you first read, or saw an adaptation of, Christopher Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus, was your first thought: ‘it’s okay but what it really needs is more cowboys’? If you did Sound and Fury have answered your prayers with a country and western take on the…
Husband and wife graphic novel team Bryan and Mary M Talbot - interview
19 Aug 2012
The pair collaborated on Dotter of Her Father's Eyes
‘I think we’re living in the golden age of the graphic novel,’ explains veteran comics artist and writer Bryan Talbot, whose art has graced the pages of 2000AD, Batman and Sandman. ‘Every major literary festival has something on graphic novels these…
An Appointment with the Wicker Man
19 Aug 2012
A populist comedy success from Greg Hemphill, Donald McLeary and Vicky Featherstone
Of course the idea of a musical version of acclaimed horror movie The Wicker Man is absurd. That’s pretty much the point of the National Theatre of Scotland’s play-within-a-play from writers Greg Hemphill and Donald Mcleary and director Vicky…
As Ye Sow
17 Aug 2012
Strong performances and mounting tension in well-conceived ghost story
Without the use of special effects horror can be quite tricky to bring to the stage with the result that ghost stories are usually the sub-genre of choice for the theatre. The audience can fill in the gaps that clever editing or CGI would usually…
Interview: Kieran Hurley's Beats performed at the 2012 Edinburgh Festival
10 Aug 2012
Explores collective and individual identity during decade of rave culture
Kieran Hurley’s play, Beats, resurrects the 90s via one boy’s journey though the club landscape of 1994. Written, directed and performed by Hurley alongside DJ Johnny Whoop and VJ Jamie Wardrop, it’s a story of ‘chemical excess’, love, longing and…
Wojtek the Bear
10 Aug 2012
Fascinating real-life bear drama is worth a look
Fascinating real-life bear drama is worth a look There’s no denying that the true story of Wojtek ‘the soldier bear’ is fascinating. Sold to the Polish army stationed in Iran in 1942, he was officially drafted into the 22nd Artillery Supply Company…
Darkness Rising
7 Aug 2012
Comedy-horror mash-up is generally great entertainment
Comedy and horror might seem like unlikely bedfellows but when you get it right it can be an inspired mix of pitch black humour and creeping dread. The shocks heighten the relief the gags offer, just witness the gore soaked laughs of Shaun of the Dead…
Miss Havisham’s Expectations
4 Aug 2012
Linda Marlowe deconstructs Dickens’ jilted bride
Without doubt one of Charles Dickens’ most infamous creations, Miss Havisham casts an eerie shadow over Great Expectations, the black heart of the story, a woman ruled by spite but also suffering deeply from her own heartache at being jilted. Linda…
Choose Your Own Adventure author Ian Livingstone to visit Edinburgh
3 Aug 2012
The author will appear at both the Book Festival and Edinburgh Interactive
I always had a big interest games. In the 1960s I used to play Diplomacy [a strategic WWI board game] and play-by-mail games. When Steve Jackson and I met up in London in the 70s, we were old school friends and we thought, wouldn’t it be a great idea to…
Highlights from the Fighting Fantasy series of role-playing games
3 Aug 2012
Henry Northmore and Murray Robertson pick their favourite Fighting Fantasy books
The Warlock of Firetop Mountain A collaboration between Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone, this was the book that started it all. The first installment was written back in 1982, and is set as you set out to plunder the treasure of the mystical mage.
Destroyaz and Rolando set to take over Substance
2 Aug 2012
The club celebrates its 50th event with an international techno line-up
Adam Richardson, promoter at Substance, explains how they are celebrating their 50th club event: ‘We were very mindful of organising a 50th Substance party which was both special and representative of the club over the past six years. As such, we’re…
Crate Digging: Marcel Heese
27 Jul 2012
Tresor resident Marcel Heese shares his favourite tracks with us ahead of his Unseen takeover night
Phase ‘Binary Opposition (Process 1)’ (Token Records) pretty much stands for the typical kind of club techno I love. It’s deep and hypnotic, yet powerful. Great production work and very detailed. I’ve been playing this in every single set for months…
Ravi Shankar - Usher Hall, Edinburgh, Mon 22 Aug
24 Aug 2011
A mesmerising show of classical Indian music as part of 2011 EIF
Ravi Shankar crossed over into popular culture with his associations with various 60s musicians, working with and/or influencing the likes of The Beatles, The Kinks and The Byrds. Going on to play at iconic festivals such as Woodstock and The Monterey…
Beckett & Smith
24 Aug 2011
A genuinely funny 60 minutes
There are some real gems on the free festival circuit, but picking the wheat from the chaff can be a daunting prospect. Split into two halves, Ian Smith launches this hour of stand up with some freewheeling rambling that at times cuts close to the bone…
Terry Alderton
16 Aug 2011
Hour of clever nonsense with surreal twist
Taking many of the conventions of old-school stand-up – observational comedy, sound effects, impressions – Alderton gives them a surreal twist before cramming them all together. Some punchlines get lost in the chaos of songs, dancing and vocal mimicry…
Isy Suttie
15 Aug 2011
Cute, clever music-based comedy from the Peep Show comedian
Best known as geek love interest Dobby from Peep Show, Suttie’s an incredibly likeable comedian. Mixing stand-up and music, her humour has a real warmth and the stuttering love story of Pearl and Dave that runs through the show is instantly engaging and…
Interview - Mike Slott, Eclair Fifi and Machinedrum of LuckyMe
8 Aug 2011
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…
Sink or Spin
8 Aug 2011
It’s gym life, but not as we know it
A site-specific comedy set in the working environs of Bannatyne’s Health Club (you even need to fill in a fitness form as you enter), you’ll spend most of Sink or Spin on an exercise bike in a distinctly unusual class taught by Clement (Donal Coonan).
Slavery to Star Trek
8 Aug 2011
Autobiographical show taking in Martin Luther King and Malcolm X
Andreea Kindryd has lived a fascinating life. She knew Martin Luther King, was friends with Malcolm X and worked on the original Star Trek series. She’s an engaging storyteller whose tale starts in the days of her great grandparents and slavery…
The Last Circus
20 Jun 2011
Spanish black comedy/horror takes in clowns, circus life, love and madness
The latest film from writer/director Alex de la Iglesia is almost unclassifiable, a love story, a black comedy and horror all apply and as fans of his Accion Mutante (1992) will know it’s this glorious mess of ideas and themes that makes for such a…
Rabies (Kalevat)
17 Jun 2011
An interesting twist on slasher movie conventions from Israel
The problem with slasher films is that they perhaps have the most rigid rules in cinema. It’s so easy to fall into the standard clichés as set out by Halloween and Friday the 13th. Not that it means you can’t make a fun, entertaining film within these…
Phase 7 (Fase 7)
16 Jun 2011
Dark pandemic tale from Argentina
There’s a vague ‘pandemic’ theme in this year’s EIFF programme (with talks and screenings of the likes of 28 Days Later, The Divide and Panic in the Streets) and Phase 7 is the first to raise its diseased head above the parapet. As a global epidemic…
Edinburgh Interactive gives games a festival platform
16 Aug 2010
Henry Northmore looks at how videogames are making their mark on Edinburgh’s festival landscape
With theatre, comedy, books, music, art and dance at various festivals across Edinburgh it’s only fitting that one of the newest artforms is represented by the Edinburgh Interactive festival. And while some may scoff at the idea of videogames being art…
