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AROUND TOWN Congrats to City of Edinburgh Council graphic designer Suzi Ridley, who has won the Best Typography category at the Creative Exchange Awards – Ridley picked up the gong for her part in raising awareness of the libraries’ role in Holocaust Memorial Day 2011. Across in Glasgow, plans are afoot for the Scottish Hydro Arena, due to open in 2013. The 12,000 capacity enormo-venue is being built at the SECC. Just outside Glasgow, and just in time for summer, a water bus has been launched on Loch Lomond. See our Travel pages next issue for more.
FESTIVALS Edinburgh’s Mela has a new festival director, Stephen Stenning, and a new slot, 2–4 Sep, on Leith Links. Stenning said of his appointment: ‘I’m very excited to see what our artists-in-residence – visual artist Rocca Gutteridge and performance artist Adura Onashile – have created during their time travelling around Scotland.’ FILM In random film news, Glasgow should lock up their children (and wives) it seems, following news that not only will new Brad Pitt zombie flick World War Z enjoy a bit of filming here, so too will the new Chris Nolan Batman flick, The Dark Knight Rises.
THEATRE The CATS verdict is in. Children’s theatre company Catherine Wheels happily emerged as the leader at this year’s Critics’ Awards For Theatre In Scotland ceremony at Edinburgh’s Festival Theatre, with their show White winning Best Production For Children And Young People, Best Technical Presentation and Best Design. Other winners included Cora Bissett, in the Best Production category for her extraordinary Roadkill piece (pictured left). Mercy Ojelade picked up Best Female Performance for Mary. Best Male went to David Birrell for his performance in Dundee Rep’s Sweeney Todd, while the Trav took home awards for Best New Play and Best Ensemble. Elsewhere, Muriel Romanes fierce competition to pick up Best Director for The Age of Arousal. In other theatre news, List HQ is much impressed by National Theatre of Scotland’s Five Minute Theatre project, with a stonking 235 five- minute pieces selected to be shown online in succession. See fiveminutetheatre.com. fought off
VISUAL ART And finally, three cheers again as the Scottish Fashion Awards reveal that photographer Rankin will be a recipient of their Hall of Fame.
Edinburgh’s Mela has a new festival director
ReviewofReviews
BON IVER, BON IVER OUT NOW ON 4D
WHAT WE SAID: Bon Iver is an altogether warmer, bigger, more welcoming beast. [Justin] Vernon’s fuzzy-focus falsetto is embraced by classic heart-rock and tear- jerking riffage.’ THE LIST WHAT THEY SAID: ‘That he is able to evoke true emotion and joy from a set of sonics long plundered and left for empty is testament to his talent.’ PRETTY MUCH AMAZING
‘Bon Iver is, lyrically, almost impenetrable. Any window into his soul has the curtains firmly drawn . . . You won't hear Bono instructing his audience to ‘build your tether rain-out from your fragments . . . break the sailor's table on your sacrum . . .’ THE QUIETUS ‘An album that reveals more on each listen, a gorgeous extension of the same impulses that created For Emma . . .’ THE TELEGRAPH
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Channel Hopper
Dispatches from the sofa, with Brian Donaldson
■ Were you to catch a distant earful of the string-laden theme tune for The Kennedys (BBC2, Fri, 9pm), and glimpse, out the corner of one eye, some swimmy stars and stripes, you could be half-forgiven for thinking that someone has stuck on a West Wing DVD. The vision of a progressive future encapsulated in Jed Bartlet’s Oval Office rose as much from the ghostly embers of JFK and brother Bobby as it did from the Clinton/Gore period. But The Kennedys’ version of an (Irish) American Dream soured by vaulting ambition and a default setting marked ‘tragedy’ is not the product of a Hollywood liberal such as Aaron Sorkin, but from the vantage point of executive producer Joel Surnow, the self-proclaimed ‘right-wing nutjob’ whose 24 enflamed American pride during the War on Terror and virtually gave the thumbs-up to torture and extraordinary rendition.
When this project was aired by the History Channel, liberal commentators were outraged at what they saw as the depiction of JFK as a man driven purely by his libido and chipping away at the Democrat’s genuine achievements. Where The Kennedys falls down against the weight of The West Wing is that while Sorkin’s drama weaved tension with each successive season, The Kennedys can only trundle its way to various fiery denouements, amid the sound of gunfire on a Dallas street and in a Los Angeles hotel lobby.
23 Jun–21 Jul 2011 THE LIST 9