Skip to main content

Counterpoint

Talbot Rice Gallery until October 18th
Three stars
Waiting plays a big part in the Talbot Rice's compendium of eight
relatively off-piste artists for their EAF show. Nowhere is this more
evident than in Ellie Harrison's 'After The Revolution, Who Will clean
Up The Mess?' an installation of four confetti cannons which may or may
not be detonated on September 18th this year at a post-referendum party
ONLY if there is a Yes vote.  This is something Ross Birrell's
uncertainty-based works also point too in their pointers to Heisenberg
and Mallarme's poem, A Dice Throw.

If Harrison's specially commissioned piece in search of an audience for
a once in a lifetime event isn't enough motivation for the accompanying
all-night party to go with a bang, one might turn to
Michelle Hannah's ongoing fantasy-wish-fulfilment fascination with
retro-futuristic electronic torch ballads and the vogue for ice-cool
dystopian iconography that defined the accompanying rise of the pop
video. In 'Statue', Hannah looks to the Talbot Rice's own surroundings
to give her work the image of classicist gravitas.

Shona Macnaughton's quest for narrative looks to Jean Genet's play, The
Maids, for a self-reflexive video performance flanked by boardroom
tables that hint of brainstorms past. Craig Mulholland's bowling
alley-styled 'Potemkin Funktion' is a similarly unpopulated, with the
accompanying vocal samples giving off the air of an end of the world
amusement arcade. Alec Finlay's wicker bee-hive constructions and the
accompanying recording of him reading his 'Global Oracle (Navstar
satellites' is a more rural retreat than Keith Farquhar's aluminium and
corrugated iron constructions below.

If Andrew Miller's photographs look even more barren, his wooden
construction, 'Refraction' looks imported from an adventure playground,
and is as good a place as any to sprawl over and use as a viewing post
for forthcoming performances by Jeans & MacDonald, Alexa Hare and
Ortonandon. Whatever happens next, fireworks are inevitable.

The List, August 2014




ends

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Myra Mcfadyen - An Obituary

Myra McFadyen – Actress   Born January 12th 1956; died October 18th 2024   Myra McFadyen, who has died aged 68, was an actress who brought a mercurial mix of lightness and depth to her work on stage and screen. Playwright and artistic director of the Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh, David Greig, called McFadyen “an utterly transformative, shamanic actor who could change a room and command an audience with a blink”. Citizens’ Theatre artistic director Dominic Hill described McFadyen’s portrayal of Puck in his 2019 production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre in London as “funny, mischievous and ultimately heartbreaking.”   For many, McFadyen will be most recognisable from Mamma Mia!, the smash hit musical based around ABBA songs. McFadyen spent two years on the West End in Phyllida Lloyd’s original 1999 stage production, and was in both film offshoots. Other big screen turns included Rob Roy (1995) and Our Ladies (2019), both directed by Mi...

Losing Touch With My Mind - Psychedelia in Britain 1986-1990

DISC 1 1. THE STONE ROSES   -  Don’t Stop 2. SPACEMEN 3   -  Losing Touch With My Mind (Demo) 3. THE MODERN ART   -  Mind Train 4. 14 ICED BEARS   -  Mother Sleep 5. RED CHAIR FADEAWAY  -  Myra 6. BIFF BANG POW!   -  Five Minutes In The Life Of Greenwood Goulding 7. THE STAIRS  -  I Remember A Day 8. THE PRISONERS  -  In From The Cold 9. THE TELESCOPES   -  Everso 10. THE SEERS   -  Psych Out 11. MAGIC MUSHROOM BAND  -  You Can Be My L-S-D 12. THE HONEY SMUGGLERS  - Smokey Ice-Cream 13. THE MOONFLOWERS  -  We Dig Your Earth 14. THE SUGAR BATTLE   -  Colliding Minds 15. GOL GAPPAS   -  Albert Parker 16. PAUL ROLAND  -  In The Opium Den 17. THE THANES  -  Days Go Slowly By 18. THEE HYPNOTICS   -  Justice In Freedom (12" Version) ...

Billy Elliot The Musical

Edinburgh Playhouse Five stars A big National Coal Board sign looms large at the opening of Lee Hall and Elton John's decade-old musical stage version of Hall and director Stephen Daldry's hit turn of the century film. In a tale of one little boy's liberation as a dancer against the backdrop of the 1980s miners strike, however, the Durham Miners banner and the 'Save Our Community' sash held aloft matter more. It is this call to arms that forms the heart of Daldry's production, as Billy becomes a potty-mouthed beacon of hope in a situation where picket line, thin blue line and chorus line rub uneasily up against each other. Given such a context, there is bound to be some pretty grown-up stuff going on here, be it the institutionalised homophobia in Billy's village, the class war going on within it, or Billy's grieving for his dead mother that drives his every move. And, as so magnificently choreographed by Peter Darling, what moves they are. Watch...