Coffee-Table Notes

Make the most of Lydia Lunch when she appears tonight at Edinburgh’s Voodoo Rooms fronting Big Sexy Noise, the bad-ass bump-and-grind rock-and-roll sleaze merchants formed with James Johnston and Ian White of Gallon Drunk. Once the first lady of New York’s 1970s No Wave scene finishes up the band’s current European tour inbetween dates with Marc Hurtado showing off their homage to peers and fellow travellers Suicide, it’s unlikely she’ll be doing any music for some time. It’s not that the artist formerly known as Lydia Anne Koch is retiring in any way. Far from it. She may have just celebrated her sixtieth birthday, but the in-yer-face spoken-word polymath and sonic provocateur remains as dangerously prolific as ever. A forthcoming documentary, Lydia Lunch: The War is Never Over, has been made by Lunch’s long-term friend, New York contemporary and similarly taboo-busting independent auteur, Beth B. There is also a new book of essays, So Real It Hurts, due any day now, while Lu

King’s Theatre, Edinburgh Four stars Life during wartime is tough in Cephalonia, the idyllic Greek island that becomes both safehouse and arena for Louis de Bernieres' phenomenally successful novel. Now a quarter of a century old, and with only a schmaltzy film version to come out of it, Bernieres’ story is adapted here for the stage by Rona Munro. The allure of music is at the heart of its love across the barricades yarn concerning doctor's daughter Pelagia and the eponymous Corelli, who heads up occupying Italian forces with an urbane reluctance and an artistic sensibility that reaches out beyond the uniform. With Cephalonia sheltered from the blast of war, Pelagia tends to her goats, while her widowed father Iannis pees on the plants inbetween tending to the poorly. Once the Italian army, move in, alas, with Pelagia’s new squeeze Mandras already a casualty of one form or another, things can only get worse. Played out against Mayou Trikerioti’s monumental set d

The Playhouse, Edinburgh Three stars It was a little bit longer than fifty years ago today since Gerome Ragni and James Rado’s hippy musical created with composer Galt MacDermot first turned on, tuned in and didn’t so much drop out as attempted to subvert the mainstream with their piece of anti-Vietnam War pop propaganda. Half a century on, this touring anniversary revival of the trio’s loose-knit yarn about a youthful tribe of draft-dodging, free-loving, dope-smoking, acid-dropping, bad-tripping children of the revolution is a blast from the past. With the tribe sashaying their way through the auditorium at the top of Jonathon O’Boyle’s production, the tone is set with a rousing take on Aquarius that features some lovely harmonies that pulse the show throughout. Musical director Gareth Bretherton’s arrangements also sees him leading a five-piece band augmented by flourishes of piccolo, flute and trumpet played by the cast. The narrative, such as it is, focuses on Paul W