Coffee-Table Notes

Theatre Royal, Glasgow Three stars If anyone fancies a glimpse of what some imaginary little Britain should remain like forever, they could do worse than take a look at this touring stage version of the phenomenally successful Sunday night TV cop show based on Nicholas Rhea's Constable series of novels. For eighteen years, after all, the Yorkshire hamlet of Aidensfield was forever stuck in a 1960s that barely swung, and where the common people doffed their cap to the local landowner while being kept in line by a succession of upright local bobbies. Crime, of course, never paid, especially if it was committed by a role-call of shifty interlopers from the fleshpots of the south. Things appear to be changing in what amounts to a feature-length episode penned by long-serving cast member David Lonsdale, who revives his role of village buffoon David Stockwell. It's 1969, patrician landlord of the Aidensfield Arms, Oscar, is recuperating from an illness in Bridlington, and chir...

When indie label boss Bob Last played one of his roster the forthcoming debut single by his latest charges, the high-concept studio gloss and anti-fascist sentiments of the song impressed the four young men gathered on Last's sofa. It was 1981, and with Margaret Thatcher forming an unholy alliance with U.S. President Ronald Reagan, Heaven 17's slap-bass driven '(We Don't Need This) Fascist Groove Thang' sounded like a very necessary anthem. No-one in the room expected the four young men, who, as Fire Engines, had just released an LP of so-called aural wallpaper called Lubricate Your Living Room on Last's Pop Aural label, to cover the song before the original was even released. Especially as the raw, rudimentary and highly-charged angularity of Fire Engines was as far away from Heaven 17's studied construction of style and substance as it could be. When Fire Engines ran out of time recording their first John Peel session, however, and opted to record ...

When David Ganly was cast in a trilogy of new plays by a little known writer in 1997, he didn't know that the productions by the Galway-based Druid Theatre Company would spend the next three years travelling to London and Sydney before embarking on a Tony award winning Broadway run. By that time, Martin McDonagh had been hailed as one of the most audacious and taboo-busting voices of his generation, and his rural west coast of Ireland set Leenane trilogy – The Beauty Queen of Leenane, A Skull in Connemara and The Lonesome West – three of the most shocking but laugh out loud hilarious plays of the decade's new wave of British playwriting. Almost two decades on, and Ganly is back in a new production of The Lonesome West that forms the highlight of the Tron Theatre's summer season when it opens next week. Where Ganly played local priest Father Welsh in the play's first production, this time out he takes on the pivotal role of Valene, one of two brothers who, in a play ...

Meadowbank Stadium, Edinburgh Four stars When a knight of the realm congratulates an entire country for being the only sensible people in what's left of the UK after the EU referendum, it's magnificently seditious stuff. When that knight is Sir Elton John opening the Edinburgh leg of his world tour to promote his recent Wonderful Crazy Night album, it makes it even better. Especially as an impish Sir Elton and his impeccable band has just ushered in a two and half hour set with the instrumental overture of the Goodbye Yellow Brick Road era Funeral For A Friend/Love Lies Bleeding. With his nibs sporting a sparkly blue outfit and red shades and following it with The Bitch is Back, such a mash up lays bare the maestro's unbridled raison d'etre of showbiz classicist panache that sits somewhere between Liberace and Mozart. As he rewinds his way through a fistful of hits that includes Benny and the Jets and Philadelphia Freedom, John's back catalogue also tr...

Botanic Gardens, Glasgow Four stars A little people power, as has been proven over the last few days, is a dangerous thing. So it goes with the Roman war hero who gives Shakespeare's most astonishingly current play its title. Thrust into politics on a wave of triumphalism, a lack of a common touch and open contempt for the people sees Coriolanus thrown out of office and cast out to the metaphorical wilderness where new alliances are forged. Gordon Barr's production opens this year's Bard in the Botanics season with a subversive swagger, with Coriolanus here a woman who goes off to battle with her boys, leaving Duncan Harte's stay at home husband Virgilius holding the baby. Coriolanus' sparring with her mother, Volumnia, played by Janette Foggo, is given a fresh edge by the gender-swap, even as Alan Steele's Menenius offers paternal guidance. Coriolanus herself is played with whirlwind-like ferocity by Nicole Cooper, who stomps her way through the Bo...

When former Buzzcock turned Magazine auteur Howard Devoto sang how 'Twenty Years Ago I Used Your Soap,' in 1980, the song's Proustian reflections embodied the post-Devoto Buzzcocks notion of nostalgia for an age yet to come. Thirty-six years on, suddenly anniversaries are everywhere. Most lauded of all birthdays just now is Punk's fortieth, which is currently being marked by Punk London, a year long commemoration best captured by an exhibition of memorabilia and suchlike at the British Library. One of the era's progeny, however, most definitely won't be blowing out any candles. Fashion designer, founder of lingerie label Agent Provocateur and son of Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood, Joe Corre, has declared his intention to burn his own collection of Punk memorabilia, estimated to be worth somewhere in the region of £5 million. It is the ideas of Punk that counts, Corre declared earlier his year, not the left-behind detritus which has now been hi-jack...

When filming on Graeme Maley's debut feature film was delayed, the Ayrshire-born director channelled his frustration into creativity. The end result of this nine month wait is not one, but two world premieres by Maley screened at Edinburgh International Film Festival this week. Pale Star and A Reykjavik Porno are a pair of dark thrillers filmed and set in Iceland, but co-produced with Scotland-based Makar Productions and supported by Creative Scotland. Given how Maley has divided his working life between Scotland and Iceland over the last few years, such a collaboration between the two countries seems appropriate. As a theatre director, Maley has presented Scots plays in Iceland, including the Icelandic premiere of David Harrower's play, Blackbird. Maley has also fostered a two-way traffic by bringing translations of Icelandic plays to Scotland. Djupid (The Deep), by Icelandic writing star, Jon Atli Jonasson, was first seen at Oran Mor in Glasgow before touring the Highland...