STATE OF THE ARTS FEATURE
writer on A Little Older helped his company win the 1992 Independent Theatre Award on the Edinburgh Fringe. Strong on gay issues. left-wing politics and soft-centred romance.
THE BLUE NILE
‘They have signed to Geffen but there's 3
no update yet. It‘s a bit too soon.' So say The Blue Nile’s new record company. and hopes of a third album this millennium fade away. The lads themselves. meanwhile. lounge by the pools in LA. hang out with Hollywood actresses. and generally live a life an aeon apart from the drab~but-dreary Glaswegian existence that is writ large over A Walk Across The Rooftops and Hats. How their new lifestyle will affect their new album remains to be seen.
THE RMX BANDITS
Like old whatsisname who patented the
deelybopper. The BMX Bandits are always going to be credited more for what they‘ve spawned than with their own charming oeuvre. Practically every Glaswegian band of guitar-toting slackers worth their salt cut their teeth on the Bandits‘ sonic confectionery and each of their members at any given time habitually moonlights for some other crowd of troubadours. lixcept for enigmatic frontman Duglas. w idely rumoured to be the deilic epicentre of a vast genetic engineering programme. A troubling fascination with Barbie dolls and sweeties has led him inexorably to declare kinship with Japanese popsters Shonen Knife. but some ‘Serious Drugs’ should curb that.
i year's stage play. Colt/ultoun and i MaeBrvde — has often been greeted by
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London critics. however
CHRISTINE RORLANII
Borland is one of the rising stars of Transmission Gallery. a breeding ground for Scotland's young generation of artists. Over the last few years she has created works and installations which involve her shooting at objects with different guns — the name and calibre of the gun is then letraset onto the wall behind the bullet-ridden object. Borland has exhibited in East Berlin and New York and is currently preparing for a London exhibition. with fellow up—and-coniing Transmission artist Craig Richardson. for which l()() people lent objects — including condoms. cigarette packets. and glasses — for her to shoot at.
JOHN RYRNE
Playwright. painter. Known both for his visual art and his writing for stage and screen. Byrne is an authentic
I
spokesman for contemporary urban Scotland. whose writing resists the blanding effects of much mass media. As a result. his work — notably Your C/teatin' Heart and Tutti Frutti and last
bewilderment by the isolationist
enthusiastically embraced by the rest of the population. His painting. prints and sketches display the same meticulous attention to detail and slightly exaggerated characterisation as his
STEPHEN CAMPBELL Although he was born in Glasgow in 1953. Campbell‘s first solo exhibition
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- fore on both stage and screen. As
artistic director of Glasgow-based Rain Dog Theatre Company. he has guided the company from its acclaimed debut production of One Flew Over The
C uekoo 's Nest to List cover material with a revival of Still Life. He drew on personal experience in the building trade to play a Glaswegian brickie in London in Ken Loach's RiffRajf. and will find himself in a different cinema league later this year when his name appears on the credits of'Bill Forsyth's Being Human alongside Robin Williams and John Turturro.
CAPERCAILLIE
That nightmare of a touring band. the group viln ploughing off an icy road. took Capercaillie out of their sold-out national tour at the end of last year. Wounds healed. they are forging ahead with their original Scottish synthesis of fast. tricky reels andjigs. fluent syncopated rhythms. and a post- Clannad way with synthesizer and Gaelic vocals. Their video and single Coiseagh na Ruin from the Delirium album last year took the language for the first time into the charts. In a highly talented band. adventurous but careful of the music's integrity. Karen Matheson stands out as one of Scotland's few great singers.
JIMMY OHISHOLM
If you want a pantomime dame. if you want to guarantee a laugh. if you want a flamboyant jester who stops just short of outrageous camp. then Jimmy Chisholm is your man. A delight in several Royal Lyceum productions. notably the highly successful Marriage of Figaro this time last year. and a mainstay with Wildcat. Chisholm takes to the stage with an irresistibly joyous energy that is infectious. And wouldn’t you know it. he's even a nice person off stage.
took place 30 years later in New York. and is largely credited for the surge of international interest in Scottish
painting. Like fellow so-called 'Glasgow Boys' — Howson. Currie. Wiszniewski and Conroy Campbell took part in the fashionable revival of figurative painting. but his work is the most enigmatic. Surreal compositions depict earnest-looking young men involved in nonsensical pursuits in a pastoral setting. There is a tweedy nostalgia about them reminiscent of P. G. Wodehouse (whose use of the absurd. Campbell greatly admires). His first major show since 198‘) takes place at the Talbot Rice Gallery next August.
PETER CAPALDI . The first face to grace a List cover in I993. Capaldi the actor teamed tip with ; Capaldi the writer to bring us Soft Top. Hard Shoulder. the UK road comedy that snatched the London Film Festival audience prize. Capaldi the director should be the next to emerge. as his short film script Fran: Kafka 's It 's A Wonderful Life has recently received the green light from the Scottish Film Production Fund. Although based with his wife Elaine Collins in London. Capaldi projects are sure to draw on a pool of Scottish talent. including thespian chums Phyllis Logan and Richard Wilson.
' GARY CLARK As proven by Gary Clark‘s recent acoustic showcase in Edinburgh. the art of articulate. bespoke. classy soul is alive and well and living in a basement fiat in London SW7. With Danny Wilson these things were tnore fleshy and flashy. With the solo career the tone is as effortless and plain and clear- eyed as the title of the imminent album — Yen Short Songs About Love. Consider too. the unforced. unstressed
; purity of his white soul voice (tellingly.
l Hall & ()ates ‘Sara Smile' was pitched J!
ROBERT CARLYLE
An RSAMD graduate with the usual Taggart/Advoeates workload behind him. Carlyle has quickly come to the
The List l2—25 February I993 9