REVIEW OF 1996 FEATURE
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GALLERY OF MOOERN ART (GOMA) in Glasgow opens to accusations of being too lowbrow — paintings by the likes of Beryl Cook (left) may be to the taste of director Julian Spalding but the critics take exception. The public storms the gallery anyway. meeting the annual visitor target of 300.000 within four months of opening. If thejury is out on GOMA. they’re about to be sworn in. as Murder ()ne hits telly screens with a fictional celebrity homicide trial that couldn‘t be cashing in on the ()J. Simpson bandwagon. could it? History is made when teenagers Bis appear on Top Of The Pops. the first unsigned band ever to do so. helping 'Kandy Pop‘ and the Chemikal Underground label into the charts. Ocean Colour Scene are back north of the border playing tiny venues. blissfully unaware of the explosion about to happen for them. Mel Gibson wears a touch of tartan as Brave/rear! sweeps the Oscars. Irvine Welsh‘s Murihuu Stork Nightmares begins its attempt at cross-media world domination at the Citizens’ Theatre. while another Glasgow theatrical institution. the Tron. presents Iz‘ndgame. the final production by outgoing artistic director Michael Boyd. But everything in the arts world is overshadowed when sixteen Primary One schoolchildren and their teacher are killed in Dunblane. pushing the gun debate centrestage.
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Beryl Cook
Move over Douglas Gordon: GOMA celebrates the art at
April
ADVENTURES IN MOTION PICTURES rufer a few feathers in the traditionalist ballet world with their production of Swan Lake. IVIusclebound men racing around the stage in bum-skimming cossies ensure the dance of the dying swan I will never be the same again. Jeff Torrington follows up his \V'hitbread Prize as"; winner Slt’illg Hammer Swing! with The Devi/is Carousel. a novel based on his 7.; experiences as a car worker in Linwood’s doomed Talbot works. Scotland’s ‘V' recent past is also explored in Gillies Mackinnon‘s portrait of famin life amid the gang violence of the 60s. Small Faces. a fitting addition to the country’s cinema heritage in the month marking exactly I00 years since the very first film screening in Edinburgh. Leftfield make their live debut and bring the house down at Glasgow’s Barrowland, while the drugs debate intensifies around Strathclyde Region social work director Mary I-Iartnoll’s out-of- context claim that ecstasy is no more dangerous than aspirin.
Show us your tail feathers: Swan lake with muscle
May
CHARLES RENNIE MAOKINTOSN’s impact on Glasgow’s design and architectural heritage is celebrated at the McLeIlan Galleries with the biggest ever retrospective of his work, although it is twelve times world Latin American Dance Champion Donnie Burns whose face adorns the Mayfest programme. Other Mayfest hits include the Tron Theatre’s The Trick Is To Keep Breathing and Irishman Donal O’Kelly’s Catalpa at The Arches. Glasgow’s dominance of May spills onto the football field, with Rangers securing the double. and the dancefloors. as Slam release their debut album Headstates.Television proves its potential for opposite extremes as Dennis Potter’s final work Karaoke is aired and O. J. Simpson is interviewed by. chm, Richard and Judy. In the film world Kids causes some controversy with its frank analysis of the sex and drugs lifestyle of young American teenagers; Pamela Anderson’s shot at becoming an action heroine in Barb Wire ~ A - :., , , -' slowly dellates and that Irvine Welsh chap faces the international press alongside his
Blg Mack: Glasgow revels In the Charles Bennie Mackintosh legacy movie buddies when Trainspotting storms the Cannes Film Festival.
The List I3 Dec I996-9 Jan 1997 7