Coffee-Table Notes

Edinburgh Printmakers until September 8 th 2012 3 stars It's coming. The end of the world, that is. Or at least that's the case according to those who subscribe to the ancient Mayan theories of disaster-movie style apocalypse, who reckon it will all be over by Christmas. As the title of this group show suggests, artists such as Damien Hirst, Etienne clement don't take such hokum altogether seriously, and re effectively fiddling while Rome or wherever burns. The likes of Gordon Cheung's classical friezes set on backdrops of the FT index, meanwhile, have tapped into an infinitely more serious contemporary malaise. Hirst's gold-skulled 'Death or Glory: Sunset Fold/Blind Impression Glorious Skull' sets the scene on the stairs, while Clement's 'Second Coming' finds a Jesus figurine stopping the Matchbox car traffic against a building site backdrop as the cameras roll. Beyond such japery, Cheung's 'Revelations 1-XV' and &#

When Iain Robertson still lived in Govan, one of the workmen hired to do some plumbing work in his house recognised him, both from the play he was doing in town, and from his numerous film and TV appearances. Chancing his arm, the workie tried to tap Robertson for a couple of freebies. Robertson turned the tables on the guy, and asked if he too could supply his services gratis. “Oh, but that'll cost you,” the disgruntled workie said. Robertson pointed out that it was the same for him, and that, just because he was an actor, he wasn't rich, and was afforded no special privileges at the box office. Even if he was, he certainly couldn't afford to let anyone and everyone who crossed his path have access to his wares for free. As Robertson prepares to revive his solo turn in Ronan O'Donnell's play, Angels, as part of the Traverse's Edinburgh Festival Fringe season, such an incident says much about Robertson's approach to his craft. On one level,

All That Is Wrong – Traverse until Aug 12th – 4 stars Mess – Traverse until Aug 26th – 4 stars Blink – Traverse until Aug 26th – 4 stars Tam O' Shanter – Assembly Hall until Aug 26th – 4 stars I, Tommy – Gilded Balloon until Aug 27th – 4 stars A teenage girl and a young man sit on a stage with only a blackboard, a couple of overhead projectors and some pocket-sized mobile video cameras for comfort. A silent sideshow displays images of various forms of protest culture which are becoming increasingly prevalent as a younger generation become politicised. Without a word, the girl starts chalking out words about who she is, and what's going on in her head. As her scrawls become more urgent, it becomes clear this isn't teenage angst. Rather, this young woman is taking on the world. As with previous shows by Belgian iconoclasts Ontrorend Goed, All That is Wrong does what it says on the tin. Here, however, it suggests a coming to terms with a world beyond hardcore

1 Love and war are the staples, not just of all drama, but of pretty much how the world functions. And, as Shakespeare, the Greeks and the multiple myth-makers behind the Bible were smart enough to spot, possibly from experience, the personal and the political always go hand in dagger-wielding hand. Two very different Edinburgh International Festival shows recognise this just as clearly, even as they don't exactly mess with the template, but subvert it enough to bring their epic and all too familiar stories bang up to date. While just appointed director of Zurich Opera House Andreas Homoki's production of David et Jonathas (David and Jonathan) sets Mark-Antoine Charpentier's 1688 Old Testament opera with a libretto by Francois Bretoneau in its original landscape on the eve of war between the Israelites and Phillistines, Polish wunderkind Grzegorz Jarzyna's 2008: Macbeth is an explicitly post-modern political parable. Jarzyna was last in Edinburgh with hi

Summerhall, Edinburgh until August 27th 2012 4 stars Seven and seven is....well, a very magic number indeed in Jean Pierre Muller's walk-through collaboration with musical icons including Robert Wyatt, Nile Rodgers, Archie Shepp and Terry Riley. Free-associating ideas based around the number seven (days a week, musical scales, colours of the rainbow), Muller has created seven wooden huts, each painted a different colour of the spectrum. Inside each, short snippets of music created by one of the composers surrounds the viewer as they walk towards an extravagant collage painted onto shape of a note from A to G. From the outside, this brave new world looks part global village shanty town seen through a lysergic haze, part Sesame Street multi-cultural promised land. So for High Llamas auteur Sean O'Hagan's 'Mellow Yellow' shack, sound-tracked  by  exotically doleful banjo, there's big yellow taxis and yellow submarines; Ethiopian jazz genius Mulatu Ast

Summerhall, Edinburgh Wednesday August 1st 2012 As statements of intent go, Summerhall's opening shebang featuring this rare appearance by the 80-something saxophonist and contemporary of John Coltrane and Ornette Coleman was pretty much the way to go. It was Shepp, after all, whose 1965 Fire Music album captured its era's artistic, spiritual and political ferment, even as it sired a new shorthand for a fresh, angry breed of jazz iconoclasm. Summerhall may be en route to recapturing a similarly-minded sensibility, but Shepp himself has mellowed, as this low-key but life-affirming set to accompany visual artist Jean Pierre Muller's 7x7 installation, which Shepp contributes to, made charmingly clear. Arriving on stage with pianist Tom McLung, with whom he's made two albums with, including one featuring Public Enemy's Chuck D, Shepp's hat, suit and purple shirt and tie combination suggested a natty mix of old school elder statesmanship with a dapperl

A Midsummer Night's Dream – Botanic Gardens 3 stars Why Do You Stand There In the Rain ?– C – 3 stars Besides The Obvious – C – 3 stars Shopping Centre – Gilded Balloon – 4 stars From the moment a gaggle of day-glo painted sprites lead the audience gathered at the Botanics Gardens North gate through all manner of exotic flora and fauna, its clear that Scottish Youth Theatre's first ever visit to Edinburgh is a punky, spunky junk-shop take on Shakespeare's evergreen rom-com, A Midsummer Night's Dream. As Peaseblossom, Cobweb and all the rest giggle, skip and frolic in the long grass en route to what they as celestial debutantes describe as a party, we duly promenade to the pool outside Inverleith House, where Fraser MacLeod's playful production begins. A stripy-blazered cyclist pulls a small, lead-adorned truck with a mini sound system inside, and the fairies dance some more. As we move around already sumptuous-looking gardens dressed up even more b