Ryan, check these out @ Edfringe 2015

Hey, Ryan: it was great to see you! I think you caught the last of the Glasgow summer, too... good work. 

Anyway: tops tips for The Fringe? You know I know... you say you are bringing your girlfriend? So two people will hate me if I suggest a flop...

Daggers MacKenzie

Do I need to say anymore? It's called Daggers MacKenzie. Well, the performer used to be in a  rocking band (do people still say 'rocking'?), and the story is full of wild west high jinks. 

Plus, there are daggers getting chucked about. Won't that remind you of your time in Dundee?





Satan Speaks

It's the Fringe: if there was ever going to be a chance for the prince of darkness to walk abroad and not be noticed, it has to be Edinburgh in August. Just watch out for any flyers that you might pick up: your soul for an hour of good comedy can feel like a bargain.

But as Satan himself insists, he does not exist anyway. But going dark for a few hours won't hurt (and the promotional video suggests that this might be a witty monologue, theology aside).




Clout: Feast
Cast n'er a clout, til the Fringe be out. These Lecoq trained anarchists (aesthetically, not politically, Mr Cameron) are having a slap-up this year. So that means cannibalism is on the menu. Probably not one to see before you've had whatever food you manage to pick up between shows, but a company who are showing how the British can adapt the French style (although the company has members from around the world). Take that, UKIP.




RIOT

I don't know if you have the same enthusiasm that I have for super-heroics but this is something like my dream production. There are super-heroes and dancing. It's avant-garde but feeds from comic culture.  Contemporary dance is tough enough already, but add in a tale of people with powers and cool outfits... 







Blake Remixed




I might have picked this one, but the PR has not replied to my repeated email. So, maybe, if you like Blake's poetry? 






Anyway, if you like any of these, pick one, and I can do another top five based on it... you know, like 'if you like this, then...'

January - First Top Five...

Having been locked up for the past fortnight with only the internet for company - there seemed to be some kind of celebration going on with my family in the adjourning room, but I was trawling for essays on the political traditions of puppetry - I am glad to see that at least some performance is happening in January. It used to be the case that July - as the Fringe approached - and January were dead months in the arts, but programmers realised that they had to provide critics with something to write about before we all became disillusioned and start making our own productions.

Celtic Connections will dominate Glasgow for most of the month - even the Tron is filled with folk song - but the SSO is doing a favour to fans of a more experimental bent. I know him best for his blistering interpretations of Ornette Coleman (Spy Vs Spy redoes free jazz through the filter of hardcore punk), but John Zorn has become one of the most important contemporary classical composers who isn't in the minimalist or squeaky gate schools.

It's difficult to believe he has hit sixty, or that the BBC are offering a portrait of his orchestral works - there's even a new commission, Suppôts et Suppliciations. I picture him as that slightly geeky looking hard bop saxophonist, a contemporary of Sonic Youth and full of that bad-ass attitude that was the interesting legacy of punk. The SSO have got in their principal guest conductor, Ilan Volkov - himself no stranger to the more intriguing end of classical music - to throw down with his wordless opera La Machine de l’être and the strings only special Kol Nidre.

Zorn will be present, although he is not down to play. I suggest that a chant ought to go up at the end, to get him to honk a number out on his saxophone. Maybe that wild solo he scattered over Black Girls  by The Violent Femmes. 

City Halls, 12 January

I've banged on about the Lyceum's revival of A Taste of Honey and The Maids at the Citizens before, but I am still excited by both. Being a bit of a curmudgeon, I complain about most things that aren't brand new, except when they are pieces that my random sense of aesthetics has decided are "important." A Taste of Honey is obviously a crucial jewel in the threaded necklace of contemporary scripted drama - tersely political, confrontational, it predicted a social engagement that is a key theme of modern drama. The Maids is an example of how Genet was experimenting so radically with theatre that half a century later, it still has a forbidden exoticism.

A Taste of Honey fits in with the emergence of Britain's "Angry Young Men" playwrights (only the author was a woman, indicating how even the twentieth century was falling foul of a certain gender blindness): The Maids jumbles up sexuality and sex, murder and manipulation into a queer mixture that predates the celebratory adoption of the word. As I prepare for a few months of Live Art and Object Manipulation (Buzzcut and manipulate are on their way to my heart), here's a couple of reminders that I probably ought not to ignore the script.

The Maids, Citizens Theatre, 17 January - 2 February

A Taste of Honey, Lyceum, 18 January - 9 February

At the risk of being Glasgow-centric, my last two choices have got to be part of Celtic Connections. I'd give a shout for the whole festival - before it was instituted, January was a moribund month. Not only did it find new audiences, it has livened up the city after Christmas and probably encouraged the theatres to programme earlier in the year. However, a few specific choices would bring this list up to five...

I am going to be vaguely sentimental in picking an  All Will be Well - The Life and Songs of Michael Marra. To be honest, I don't really want to hear Hue and Cry do Mother Glasgow, but there are a few other names that are less tainted by my youthful prejudices against polished pop. Michael Marra came from Dundee and wrote not a few songs that dealt with contemporary life in an idiom that was as much Tom Waits as it was folk.

His recent death was a loss to Scottish music - I liked him the best for his compositions in Plan B's A Wee Home From Home and this tribute is an appropriate way to remember his song-writing brilliance.

Royal Concert Hall, 28 January

The final choice is too easy. Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares: described as "magnificent, otherworldly soundscapes of dissonant diaphonic harmonies," I was one of the trendy indie kicks who loved this in the 1990s and so "helped kick-start the whole world music movement." Admittedly, there's a few problems with that whole category, but there's few things more astonishing than a Bulgarian choir in full assault mode.

Kelvingrove Art Gallery, 24 January

My Inbox, emptied

It must be getting close to Christmas: there's a bunch of seasonal stuff in my inbox. Attune Theatre have taken a leaf from the GFT's book, and are touring It's A Wonderful Life around Scotland. Being about a year old, Attune are a busy company, and they promise to have found the connection between Capra's feel-good film and contemporary Scotland.

Wasn't the original about a good hearted bank manager? I'm not sure how well that is going to fly, what with the Credit Crunch and the general dislike for Fat Cats and Financial Frauds. Still, it is interesting to see something doing the rounds in December that isn't pantomime.

Not that there is anything wrong with pantomime.


I did get a wee keek at the exhibition in the Briggait: it's named after a Radiohead song (Blame it on the Black Star) and does, indeed, feature a large number of inflatable stars. There are two rooms, one with a ceiling full of stars ("connoting aspirations or goals") and "the second room contains grounded stars (reflecting earthed reality)." I went into what I thought was the empty room - of course, the stars were above my head, but bottled racing into the one with stars on the floor.

It was the opening and everyone else was having civilised discussion around the table of alcohol. I didn't want to look like a school kid jumping into the ball-pit.

Darius Kowal, 24 November - 21 December @ The Briggait
I might have been a little cynical when the NTS announced their version of A Christmas Carol last year: I didn't see the need for another version of Dicken's "well-loved" special at a time of year when there are plenty of pantomimes to distract the audience.

Still, I was wrong: it was a critical and commercial smash, and used puppetry in a contemporary, devastating manner. They didn't miss a trick, either. Because of the format of the show, it is transferrable. This year, it's going to Fife and expects to charm the local audiences as it did in Govan.

This show could become a moveable Christmas feast, so long as Benny Young doesn't mind giving it some Scrooge every December. It is highly recommended to anyone who might like a Christmas show that doesn't invite chanting from the crowd, enjoys puppetry that isn't for children (not that it ever is, these days) or wonders whether small scale theatre can pack a big emotional punch.

The Old Kirk, Kirk Wynd, Kirkcaldy, KY11EH
Fri 7, Sat 8, Tues 11-Sat 15, Tues 18, Thurs 20, Fri 21, Sat 22, Thurs 27, Fri 28, Sat 29 @ 7.30pm
Matinee performances: Wed 12, Fri 14, and Wed 19 December @ 1.30pm
Sat 8, Sun 9, Sat 22, Thurs 27, Sat 29 and Sun 30 @ 2.30pm


From pop up theatres to pop up art shop - PUGS is occupying a disused shop on Great Western Road, turning it into a festive gift shop selling the work of Scottish artists. It's a chance to find something a bit more interesting than the socks I probably need this yuletide, and marks the third year that PUGS has invaded a space to sell art direct to the public.

P.U.G.S (Pop Up Gallery Shop)
407 Great Western Road, Glasgow28 November – 16 December 2012 (closed Mondays)
Tues – Fri, 12 – 6pm
Sat - Sun, 10am – 5pm
FREE

SHHHH! A Festival of quiet Music and Art is taking over Platform for one day next week: Emma Pollock and Meursault are amongst the plethora of artists who won't be turning it up to eleven this time.  RM Hubbert, acoustic guitarist and collaborator with... well, most of Scotland's musical community... is hosting, along with Platform and offers the chance for a peaceful afternoon in Easterhouse.

Easy jokes aside about how quiet Easterhouse can ever get, the cool thing about Platform is that it has all sorts of other things to do. So, if you get bored with the tunes, you can sit in the library, which has a great collection of graphic novels and a book about Lady Gaga, or have a swim. 

Saturday 1 December , 3pm - 11pm
Gravenhurst / Meursault / Emma Pollock / Laura J Martin /
Rick Redbeard / Wounded Knee / Eagleowl / Finn Le Marinel /
Jo Mango / Woodpecker Wooliams / Craig B / I Build Collapsible Mountains / Yusuf Azak


Taking place at Glasgow’s Platform – the all-day event (proudly hosted by The Local, RM Hubbert, Platform and The Line Of Best Fit) is a chance for performers, artists and audience alike to come together in quiet unison.

Of course the bands are not ALWAYS super quiet, but the audience is. We’ll be bringing in our expertly trained ShhUshers for the event meaning you’ll be guaranteed a perfect listening environment for some of the most exciting and innovative names in music.

Expect to see the more established likes of Gravenhurst and Wounded Knee play alongside newer acts such as Eagleowl and I Build Collapsible Mountains at this unique all-day festival, tickets for which are priced at £12 if you’re an early bird or £15 if you’re not.

Top Five out of my Inbox

Frankly, it can all get a bit much. I mean, I love sitting here, watching my in-box fill up with press releases: it reminds me that I am fortunate enough to live in a country where the arts are thriving. However, I have to make hard decisions: Black T-Shirt Collection at Tramway tonight, or Philip Jeck at Pulse: Touch 30? In the meantime, here's my latest collection of happenings across Scotland.

The RSNO have just received the Diapason d'Or de l’Année for their recording of Debussy with former musical director Stéphane Denève. 

Before Denève left in May 2012, he had made the orchestra into a veritable machine for Debussy - the conductor has a real love for the composer, and his work is beautifully pitched between modernist brevity and having a good tune. 

Hopefully, he'll come back and conduct a few shows in celebration: if not, the album is entitled Stéphane Denève Conducts Debussy and is on the Chandos label.

Still on the recording tip, Radio Hour favourites A Band Called Quinn are releasing their new album on Monday. Unfortunately, they've decided to launch it at Glasgow Loves Christmas which means I can't invite their singer onto the show and flirt pathetically with her. 

ABCQ have had a busy year: when they are not reinventing the rock gig as a theatrical performance, featuring the legendary Diane Torr as a nasty business man, singer Louise has been recording with Kid Loco or they are off supporting The Beat around Scotland. Having survived the machinations of the music industry - their Biding Time (remix) chronicled the fun they had being twisted into generic glamour fodder - ABCQ have made the jump into performance art, maintaining their smart new wave sound and sly pop sensibility. 

Over on the east coast, Cobweb Theatre Company present A Night of Fairy Tales in The Black Box at Queen Margaret University on the 7th of December. It's hard enough to make the major events these days, and now student companies are plugging into my fascination with dark fantasy and cabaret style theatre. They are including a "wonky, music based adaptation of Peer Gynt" - recently a smash hit for the NTS - and choreography featuring an intoxicating women in red and a snatch from Snow White's post-adventure marital disfunction. Now that pantomime is taking over the theatres, I'm always looking for a hit of more perplexing pleasures.

If I can get to Inverness - which isn't that likely - I wouldn't mind catching Georg-ina Porteous' Over Egging the Pudding. The result of her residency in Berlin, it is described as a durational blancmange demonstration. Failing that, there is someone blowing up lots of black, star-shaped balloons in the Briggait at the moment - I'll go and find out whether it's an exhibition or just a party for Goth children after I finish this.

Closer to home, but looking towards Christmas, the Art School is hosting an outing to SWG3. It is going to take me far too long to write a sensible preview for this - I have to remember that I am trying to empty my in-box and use my blog to make up a working timetable for my non-stop life of art action. It's one of those multi-art events that young people love so much. I'll have to send Eric, I suppose.

Top Five for 85a

For eleven months of the year, I broadcast and write from Glasgow. This has caused me to be a terrible West Coast chauvinist, loudly proclaiming that the heart of Scotland's creative culture is on the left hand side of the map.

One group that have enabled my opinion are 85a - they might have roots in the visual arts, but water them with enthusiasms for live music, esoteric cinema and immersive performance. Their event at the Glasgow Film Festival converted The Glue Factory into an inverted multiplex, scattering the films of Svankmejer between installations, performances and shoved inside industrial sized boilers. They followed this up with Chernozem, their expressionist movie that included live action episodes, monstrous machines and a handy reminder of the link between industrialisation and totalitarianism.

Apparently, members of the Collective are coming to the Fringe tomorrow. I don't want them to be swept away by the horror of Edinburgh's mass appeal, so I am picking out anything that looks like it will chime with their aesthetic.

Chernozem made it clear that the Collective are tough enough to handle David Harrower's Blackbird, which looks unflinchingly at the issue of child abuse. By shifting sympathy between the characters, and refusing to follow an easy, judgemental line - although this is no apologist's piece - Harrower builds the intimate two hander to a moment of incredible intensity in the last few moments.

Originally, it was staged at the International Festival: now it is coming to the Fringe in a site specific production. Admittedly, it's in some offices, which is where the play is set, and I doubt they'll be going as far as 85a do. It's Harrower's characterisation of the couple that chills, and whether it is acceptable to describe this as a sort of love story opens up an entire can of critical worms about how theatre represents and persuades.

Edinburgh Training and Conference Centre, 17- 24 August


I'll get round to going on and on about I am Son  in a full post later, but I'd be remiss not to shout it out for 85a. They are three angry Italians, who take their cues from disillusion and distraction. Extracts from a poem that castigates the failures of the 1968 revolution soundtrack a vicious series of vignettes that lampoon fashion, nationalism, romance and alienation: high energy action from start to finish, it allies dance discipline, live art irreverence and a tiny taste of clowning (red noses are present, sardonic and tragic). Proving that dance can not only be political, it can be more precise than a script, I am Son is a refreshing burst of rage, controlled yet potent, when entertainment is being touted as the arts' answer to the idiocy of Our Friends in Westminster.

Dance Base, 16 - 25 August

Given how 85a feel about Eastern Europe - there is a strong Soviet Realism to much of their iconography - I'm calling up Future Tales (Sierakowski). It's rough and ready punk theatre, laughing at the vanity of a particular Polish leftist to make broad points about the failure of the Marxist cohorts to engage with society in a meaningful way. The music is loud, the performances direct, the bit about WWIII is funny and intense, and komuna//warszawa used to be anarchists. They decided that this wasn't working, so evolved into the closest thing Poland has to 85a.

Where 85a build huge sculptures, komuna are more likely to have suggestive mouse suits, but both gangs have a loud of the DIY, the punk, and the found space as a venue. Their dialectic against dialectic is superb, cabaret in style, their attitude harsh and their humour dark. Wait for the three way between the future Marxist dictator, the Christian and the Muslim churches. Apparently, it's all about the size...

Summerhall, 15- 26 August

I usually try to push my luck in the Top Fives, and roam around the venues, catching as much as I can... I am keen to mention  Zoo venues, because they have physical theatre and held a line against the encroachment of comedy... and Greenside is worth a visit both for its commitment to dance and the rather lovely gardens. But frankly, if I don't suggest the Polish work (any of it at Summerhall) and the Russians, I am not reflecting what I know about 85a.

Mr Carmen by Akhe: don't be fooled by the rash of stars it has been getting. This is not a strong theatrical production. Michael Cox from Across the Arts endearingly compared it to a live action Tom and Jerry cartoon: it stars the two Akhe guys as classic Russian style clowns (that is, like they have come out of a production of Waiting for Godot) arguing about who's the best out of the famous romantic opera. 85a would be interested in the way that these "theatre engineers" foreground the act of building a set and their ingenuity in staging: the runway that they set up around them is charming and funny, and their antics behind it can raise a wry smile.

For sheer action, I would still go for Mefisto Waltz, same venue, same austere Russian atmosphere but with the bonuses of a fairly coherent narrative and emotive choreography, but Akhe is a curiosity. It might even guide your future approaches to installation based theatre.

Assembly Roxy, 3 -27 August

 Finally, it would be wrong of me not to mention Planet Lem. Of course, if you don't like the idea of a roller-skating robot, an astronaut arguing with the author, who has ended up a bit like God, only on a video screen, a rebellion against luxury and a warning against the dangers of relying on technology, I am sure there is some comedy around the corner.

This is in the Quad, so it is a massive spectacle. It is based on the writings of a great science fiction author from behind the Iron Curtain - apparently, he heard rumours about American sci-fi and wrote his own, without having actually read any. That he came up with Solaris might be astonishing given the circumstances, or the result of not having wasted time reading the pap that makes up much of the genre (like any genre, kit  has its share of cliché and dilettantes).

Planet Lem feels like a brief episode in a larger story, imaging a future universe, inhabited by millions of species across thousands of world, policed by travellers who bring their ideas to civilisations not yet ready to accept them.There is a cool spaceship bit, too.

Quad, 18- 26 August

Top Five Dance Shows OMG you must see (Fringe only)

The best thing about the Fringe is that it is a rare time when people read critics with a view to seeing something that we recommend. So before I become too jaded and exhausted, I am going to throw out my top fives in anything I vaguely understand.

Dance is the first victim...

The Woman Who Wanted to be Funny (Curious Seed) @ Dance Base

Curious Seed tend to win Fringe awards, so get in on the ground level. Artistic director Christine Devaney is both witty and cerebral, and here she teams up with musician (as heard on Mogwai's last album) and writer (author of Venus As A Boy) Luke Sutherland. Finding the missing link between stand up and choreography, The Woman promises to be moving and thoughtful, but playful.
Born out of Sutherland and Devaney's continued improvisations - they were originally introduced by the NTS when Venus As A Boy was transformed into a play - it discovers that comedy is... oh, okay... no laughing matter.



Booking Dance Festival @ EICC

I have been banging on about this in The Skinny for the past three years: it is a compilation show of American companies, with everything from a spot of tap, a dash of ballroom to more experimental choreography.
A good one if you are not convinced by dance as a medium, as nothing last too long and the seats are comfortable. It's unlikely that every turn will hit the spot, but it usually ends in the amusing sight of audience members arguing over which piece won.
Special note: I am looking out for Hammerstep, who have a live bluegrass band and claim that they are integrating a variety of outsider dances to create a contemporary and relevant style. Plus, that's the most METAL name I have ever seen for a dance company...

bAnger (Tara Cheyenne) @ Dance Base
...except for perhaps this solo show. And that is because it is about metal. And being a young man trying to find a place in the world. It sums up what I love about dance - it can cover most things, and in a form that is funny and accessible. I couldn't think of anything worse than a monologue about being a metal fan, and how the world doesn't understand. Mix in some choreography, and it is top of my must-see list.


Flamenco Roots (Ricardo Garcia) @theSpace
I love it when critics get poetic about shows, trotting out cliches about how this show or that show will transport the audience from rain spattered Edinburgh to an underground bar in Madrid. Puts me fair off my paella. Still, Garcia is good at this stuff: his shows tend to be folkier and more intense, with a real sense that the dancers and musicians would be going for it even if the gig was in their bedroom.
His website gives a taster of his guitar picking style (nice and loose), and although I don't want to get into that critical nonsense, I do believe that a hour with the Flamenco Flow will probably cheer up another Edinburgh day of storm clouds. 

Flashmob (Corrie McGuire) @ Assembly Hall
This is my wild card choice. Every year, the Fringe has one massive dance show. I reckon this is it... although it might be challenged by the one about football. Details to follow.