Coffee-Table Notes

4 stars Forget Bowie and Bing. As winter warmers go, Bill Wells' reinvention of twelve festive favourites featuring vocalists Lorna Gilfedder (Golden Grrrls), Kate Sugden (Johnny and the Entries), Aby Vulliamy (The One Ensemble) and Gerard Black (Francois and the Atlas Mountains) is an exquisite slowed-down treat. With each of the singers offering more reflective and at times mournful renderings of normally celebratory sing-alongs, from Sugden's opening take on Oh Xmas Tree, through to the finale of We Three Kings, more depth is given to each song that belie any notions of Nouvelle Vague style kitsch. Wells' textured keyboard arrangements lend even more weight to a collection that puts meaning back into a season where comfort matters as much as joy. The List, December 2012 ends

Ingleby Gallery, Edinburgh until January 26th 2013 4 stars If the Obscene Publications Squad are on the case of this first solo exhibition in Scotland by a York-born painter possessing a name like a pulp fiction hack, rest easy. Ellison’s monumental depictions of dog-eared Penguin book designs down the decades may look like the sort of behind-the-counter smut peddled under plain cover, but it’s the titles themselves that show off the real art of fiction. On the one hand, epic tomes such as the punk-inspired ‘Fuck Art, Let’s Dance’, the scientifically inclined ‘Incurable Romantic Seeks Dirty Filthy Whore’ and the possible Off-Broadway smash, ‘Born to Get it in the Tits Every Single Day Though’ are masterpieces of cock-snooking fantasy-wish-fulfilment obscenity a la Joe Orton’s adventures in Islington library. Beyond pop savvy fun and games and the Rude Kid style relish with which sweary-words are employed to flirt with the forbidden (as with old-school porn emporiums,

The Third Door, Edinburgh Saturday November 24 th 2012 4 stars “Can we borrow the support bands' guitars?” asks Iceage vocalist Elias Ronnenfelt with the sort of sleepy-eyed mix of boredom, shyness and self-belief that doesn't expect any answer other than action. Three songs in, and the baby-faced Danish neo-hardcore quartet's own guitars are fucked, a mess of snapped-string fury that's the only thing that's made them pause for breath on this fourth date of their European tour. With a name that recalls a song by Joy Division in their early, proto-punk Warsaw incarnation, Iceage's 2011debut album, New Brigade, announced to the world a primitive outburst of teenage frustration that was both a throwback to a million spirit-of-'76 one chord wonders and an urgent rebirth of the same crash-and-burn attitude. With New Brigade's follow-up on Matador Records imminent, Iceage are currently between moments, holding on to both for dear life so tightly th

Liquid Room, Edinburgh 4 stars Questions may be asked about who the real head-liners were in this glorious double bill, though in the end it was the songs that mattered. Seeing Green Gartside's revitalised Scritti Politti live at all is a thrill, even if a bottle of cough medicine is on standby to help Gartside's honeyed tones. Opening with the slow skank of The 'Sweetest' Girl's deconstruction of the love song set the bar high, but, coming so soon after providing the live soundtrack to dancer/choreographer Michael Clarke's latest work, Gartside's four-piece band were happy to go through the Scritti back-catalogue without too much analysis. Technology has made it easier to play shiny 1980s hits like The Word Girl and Wood Beez, which sit seamlessly alongside more recent wonders like The Boom Boom Bap. There's one new number, which apparently references Kant's response to cultural relativism, and only Gartside can think his eponymous count

When Birds of Paradise announced their new artistic team in October of this year, it came after a heady year for disability and mixed ability initiatives. The London Paralympics had caught the nation's imagination over the summer more than ever before, while Birds of Paradise's appointment of a three-way team of two joint artistic directors and a creative producer suggested that team-work was even more important in what looks like a major leap forward for the company. The fact that Shona Rattray, Robert Softley Gale and Garry Robson already had a significant track record on projects with Bird of Paradise, as well as the disability arts sector, also meant that they'd effectively come through the company boot room, and were already au fait with what it's about. “One of the nice things is that we already do know each other,” say Rattray, “so we can talk about ideas we've got straight away.” “We worked out last night that it was ten years ago this week tha

Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh 3 stars There's a moment in Peepolykus' new show when a medium calling on the creator of Sherlock Holmes attempts to enter the room through the window. As the supposed arbiter of the spirit world clambers through the opening, he slips on the ledge, almost coming a cropper on the street below. The fact that the performer playing the spiritual con-man is clearly on his knees hanging on to a window at ground level doesn't prevent at least one first night audience member from gasping audibly at his apparent near miss with gravity. This incident speaks volumes about this comic meditation on truth and artifice in which suspension of disbelief is subject as much as form. It's framed around a faux lecture by PhD candidate Jennifer McGeary, who, along with a couple of actors she's hired to illustrate her spiel, takes a step back in time to meet Dr Doyle himself. The fact that her hired help bear a suspicious resemblance to Peepolyku

Pitlochry Festival Theatre 4 stars In terms of scene-setting, the snow-dappled Perthshire hills beyond the theatre already gave director John Durnin a head start for his production of the classic Irving Berlin-scored musical. While It’s remarkable that David Ives and Paul Blake’s stage version of Michael Curtiz’ 1954 big-screen vehicle for Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye has only been around since 2004, it’s a gift to see a show normally reserved for the commercial circuit in such refreshingly close-up form. Beyond the uber-slick song and dance routines from a twenty-strong cast plus an exuberant ten-piece band, it’s also a fascinatingly telling period piece. Ex GIs turned big-time double act Bob and Phil wind up in an unseasonally sunny Vermont for Christmas with sisters Betty and Judy. With their former general’s hotel in hock, Bob and Phil conspire to put on a benefit gig for the old boy, doing the decent thing with the girls en route. As Bob and Phil, Grant Neal and S