Scotland
Greta Van Fleet, OVO Hydro, Glasgow review - all rock and very little rollWednesday, 22 November 2023
If nothing else, you couldn’t accuse Greta Van Fleet of short-changing fans when it came to costumes or pyro. It felt like every few minutes the Michigan throwback rockers frontman Josh Kiszka was disappearing offstage, only to reappear in a variety... Read more... |
Shetland, Series 8, BBC One review - same place but a different programmeThursday, 09 November 2023
The question they’re all asking is, can Shetland survive the loss of Douglas Henshall as DI Jimmy Perez? After all, it was Henshall’s shrewd and quietly anguished performance which gave the show much of its allure. And now there’s no Mark Bonnar... Read more... |
FLIP!, Summerhall Edinburgh review - sassy, satirical parableFriday, 03 November 2023
You can almost feel the energy blazing off the stage in this fast, furious and fiercely funny two-hander from writer Racheal Ofori and Newcastle-based Alphabetti Theatre. Don’t blink or you’ll miss a crucial plot twist, or a nifty swerve into new... Read more... |
Maisie Peters, O2 Academy, Glasgow review - conjuring up an enjoyable pop spellThursday, 19 October 2023
When Maisie Peters first appeared onstage she loudly asked if the crowd were ready for “the best night of their lives”, and given the youthful nature of the audience the ensuing 80 minutes might have lived up to the hype. There were screams,... Read more... |
They had a good war: Powell and Pressburger's no-nonsense heroinesWednesday, 18 October 2023
In the current reappraisal of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, what to make of the depiction of women in their key films, that striking tribe of Isoldes with chestnut hair and passionate natures?Powell (1905-90), a man of Kent whose love for... Read more... |
Dracula: Mina's Reckoning, Festival Theatre Edinburgh review - audacious and entirely convincingTuesday, 17 October 2023
An all-female production of Bram Stoker’s Dracula – well, kind of – that transplants the novel’s more local action to the northeast of Scotland, and finds a bloody new calling for one of its less ostentatious characters? Elgin-born writer Morna... Read more... |
The Last Dinner Party, SWG3, Glasgow review - affection and adulation for rising starsWednesday, 11 October 2023
The first declaration of love for the Last Dinner Party arrived approximately one song into their set. “I love you too,” declared a delighted looking Abigail Morris, the band’s pirouetting frontwoman, in response, and the ensuing hour suggested... Read more... |
Group Portrait in a Summer Landscape, Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh review - a maze of ideasTuesday, 10 October 2023
The title of Peter Arnott’s new play – a co-production with the Pitlochry Festival Theatre, and now partway into a ten-day run at Edinburgh’s Lyceum Theatre – might conjure a painterly image of contented friends and family in an idyllic rural... Read more... |
New Order, OVO Hydro, Glasgow review - a nostalgia trip with a modern feelSaturday, 07 October 2023
Early on in this arena gig by New Order, a youthful, enthusiastic voice could be heard to say gleefully, “They’re just so 80s!”. That statement was both accurate and yet also misleading, for as this near two-hour performance showcased New Order’s... Read more... |
The National, OVO Hydro, Glasgow, review - commanding arenas with easeTuesday, 26 September 2023
There remains something disconcerting about seeing the National as arena rockers. Perhaps it’s the nonchalant stage entrance as they stroll on, a far cry from the pyro heavy displays this Glasgow venue usually witnesses. Maybe it’s the unassuming... Read more... |
Blu-ray: Gregory's GirlTuesday, 26 September 2023
Gregory’s Girl stands alongside Kes as one of the few films offering a realistic depiction of state school life. Director Bill Forsyth’s surreal flourishes delight without getting in the way: think of the penguin waddling along the corridors, or the... Read more... |
The Ossianic Ballads, Edinburgh Quartet, Màiri MacMillan, National Library of Scotland review - good ingredients get lost in the mixMonday, 25 September 2023
To coincide with the National Library of Scotland’s first bi-lingual exhibition Sguel/Story, an exhibition in English and Scottish Gaelic which celebrates stories and storytelling, the library presented a performance of newly reinterpreted Gaelic... Read more... |
