Coffee-Table Notes

Brunton Theatre, Musselburgh 3 stars At first glance, Perth-born writer Ben Tagoe's new play for Leeds-based veterans Red Ladder looks like the sort of timely dissection of financial corruption that fuelled the likes of Lucy Prebble's hit, Enron. Rod Dixon's production opens with naïve computer whiz-kid Noel being courted by wheeler-dealer Ray to make some easy cash by investing other people's money in illegal ventures without them knowing. When he's found out, Noel takes the rap while Ray slithers his way towards the next fall guy. We next see Noel in a prison cell, forced to share with bully boy Michael and father figure Emmanuel. Noel may be incarcerated, but he finds himself caught up in the same cycle as before, co-opted into a black economy not of his making until he finally sells his soul in order to survive. While there are shades here of David Mamet's early play, Edmond, which also ends in a prison cell, it's not difficult to see Tag

One night Hector MacMillan was sitting backstage in the old Pool theatre in Edinburgh with the actors who'd just performed in his play, The Sash. MacMillan was told there were two men in the auditorium who wished to see him. On making his way out front, MacMillan was greeted by what he describes as “two very polite Orange men from Leith, who took issue with the content of the play.” Given that The Sash looked at inter-familial conflicts on the day of the Orange Order's annual parade in Glasgow, this came as no surprise. The pair had to admit that, while they'd thoroughly enjoyed the play, you would never find anybody like Bill MacWilliam, the monstrous loyalist patriarch at its heart, in the Order itself. MacMillan hadn't noticed that there were other people lingering in the Pool's tiny shop-front auditorium as well as the two Leithers. Only when a dissenting voice boomed out “like the Reverend Iain Paisley,” according to MacMillan, to interject, did he

When playwright Davey Anderson travelled to Beijing with Scavengers, as short play written for students at the Royal Conservatoire in Glasgow, he was exposed to a world of Chinese theatre that went beyond the Golden Hedgehog festival of student drama which Scavengers was appearing at. Anderson was taken to the Beijing Fringe Festival, where lots of home-grown work made largely by directors was being shown. “I saw very little new work,” Anderson recalls, “and that made me curious about where all the new writers were. I've actually seen very little work by Chinese writers, but I knew there must be some, and that there were great stories out there about China today.” Through the auspices of the National Theatre of China, Anderson put out an open call for writers. This was, he admits, “a mad idea, just inviting all these writers into as room with us to scribble.” After whittling the writers down to a ten-strong group, Anderson put them with three Scottish writers, incl

Summerhall, Edinburgh 3 stars How would Scotland's capital city cope if it went into lockdown after an all consuming plague ran amock through the city? How would the survivors react if they were forced to decide on a course of action which may or may not save them? And what if the plague in question was a horde of flesh-eating zombies infected with a killer virus? All these questions and more are asked in this promenade performance devised by the London-based LAStheatre, who have presented similar perambulations through the Old Vic Tunnels. As the 200-strong audience queue outside the film-set like maze of the former Royal Dick Vet School, they are scrutinised by men in uniform checking for signs of infection. Once inside, a general in command barks out orders while chaos reigns. We will be broken up into six groups, we're told, and led through the building where we'll be introduced to assorted real life scientists who will help us decide what action to take; qu

There's a story Terre Thaemlitz, aka DJ Sprinkles, tells in a footnote to an address given at Tate Modern a few weeks ago, and which is now published on Thaemlitz's website. It tells how, while DJ-ing a deep house set at the closing party of the event – a queer and trans-gender cultural symposium - Thaermlitz was approached by a blonde-haired woman who requested something be played by Madonna. When Thaemlitz declined to play anything by her or any of the woman's other requests, she turned nasty, and started calling Thaemlitz a faggot before staff moved her away from the DJ booth. Such an ugly incident speaks volumes about how deep-rooted homophobia remains in society. The fact that this was a queer and trans-gender event makes the incident even worse. This is just one of the concerns which may be raised in 'Episode 5: Hidden in Plain Sight', Episode 5 of Instal and Kill Yr Timid Notion festival founders Arika's latest line of inquiry, which gives as much

4 stars Eclectica abounds on on this four-band snapshot compendium of dispatches from some of the country's more gloriously, and at times wilfully off-piste musical glories, who provide two songs apiece to this limited edition vinyl, alongside more of the same to be downloaded on purchase of an equally limited pack of customised beer. Plastic Animals kick things off with 'Sheltered,' a piece of sci-fi grunge that counterpoints urgent guitars and manic synth squiggles with laid-back stoner vocals. On side two, the band's second piece, 'Floating,' is jauntier, leaning here to more hypnotically voguish dream-pop stylings Magic Eye sound beamed in from behind a shoe-gazer's fringe, so beguilingly lovely are the swooping female vocals and echo-box filtered guitar patterns on 'Flamin' Teenage', which leaves plenty of swoonsome space to breathe. 'Japan' drifts off into similarly exotic waters, guitars pinging out oriental melodi

Henry's Cellar Bar, Edinburgh Wed March 20th 2013 Edinburgh scene super-groups don't come along every day, yet the arrival of Et tu Brutus opening a four-band House of Crust bill headlined by Californian punks, Fracas, is a tantalising prospect. Initiated by Edinburgh School For the Deaf/St Judes Infirmary/Young Spooks/Naked auteur Grant Campbell and The Leg's Dan Mutch as a studio project, the pair have drafted in a rhythm section of Leg drummer Alun Thomas and former Sara and the Snakes guitarist Andy Brown to put flesh on the skinny-assed bones of Campbell and Mutch's avant-garage hardcore template. With Campbell wielding a microphone/intercom set-up that looks and sounds like it was looted from a 1950s black cab, the muffled fuzz gives the words he reads from A4 sheets of paper a rawness that's accentuated by the band's wilfully no-fi sound helmed by Mutch's guitar, which is played relentlessly, veering off into all kinds of odd angles bef