Tom Bonnick Everything that’s wrong with Stewart Laing’s adaptation and direction of Puccini’s immensely popular 1896 opera La Boheme — performed in Glasgow by the usually superb Scottish Opera — seems to be a consequence of the dramatic modernisation to which it has been subjected. That sounds like there’s a lot that’s bad, which isn’t [...]
Lauren Martin Set in New York City in a post-9/11 world, three couples are tormented by events that ultimately destroy their relationships. The stage is simple and claustrophobic, allowing the starkness of these private moments to be laid out bare for the shock and discomfort of the audience. The Furies tells of a gay couple, [...]
Dominic Maxwell-Lewis A stage version of hugely successful film Backbeat is something that writer and director Iain Softley has said he has wanted to do since he made the film back in 1994. It’s easy to understand why, especially when performed so deftly by such a strong cast as this. The story is of the [...]
Tom Bonnick Joshua Ferris’ first novel, 2007’s Then We Came To The End, announced a bold new voice in American fiction — one which lay somewhere between Don Delillo (whose own work of fiction, Americana, gave Then We Came to the End its title) and Jonathan Franzen. In that instance, Ferris’ reach did not quite [...]
Sage Pearce-Higgins discusses the importance of satire in Nabokov’s fiction In 2008, Woolworths briefly stocked a range of children’s bedroom furniture with the brand-name Lolita. Initially baffled by the complaints that were made, the company subsequently withdrew the items from sale. It seemed that their marketing department was not only ignorant of the literary connotations [...]
Sage Pearce-Higgins Chopin, Piano Concerto in F minor. Scottish Chamber Orchestra; Joseph Swensen, conductor; Polina Leschenko, piano. “Chopin was proud, passionate, tormented and very manly.” So Ingrid Bergman tells us in the film Autumn Sonata. Without doubt one of the hardest composers to interpret, the conventional image of Chopin has his music balanced precariously between [...]
Phoebe More Gordon Through Acousmatic Art, Luke Fowler sets out on an exploration of the relationship between looking and listening, and thus questions the ways in which to develop new and meaningful dialogues between sound and film. Acousmatic sound is sound one hears without seeing an originating cause — an invisible sound source. In A [...]
Dominic Maxwell-Lewis The space above the main auditorium of the Tron Theatre is a cosy studio space named the ‘Changing Rooms’, which by virtue of its title suggests an adaptable venue for works that are non-conventional in form or small in stature. The latest offering in this space was Ian MacPherson’s new play ‘Anguish With [...]
Tom Bonnick I never imagined that one day I’d be reading a book with “positive thinking” in the title — save for some unlikely gun-pointing-head scenario — and least of all that I would, a week later, be singing its praises. And yet, here we are. Barbara Ehrenreich has achieved both of these feats in [...]
Tom Bonnick Whatever terrible environmental or political apocalpyse this new decade — the teens? the tensies? I prefer, in the spirit of cultural critic Jody Rosen’s designation of the last decade as “the Beyonces”, to think of them as the Lady Gagas — will herald in, we will still always be able to find solid [...]
