I Made You a Mixtape review – frothy fringe fun as dorm mates party like it’s 1999

TheSpace Triplex, EdinburghNine college students fall out and make up as they dance to punk-pop and alt-rock in this lively showThis is such a festival show: uncategorisable, buzzing, slightly chaotic and unlike anything else. As director Christie Lee …

Continue Reading

Charlene Kaye: Diversity Shredder review – killer riffs slay toxic music industry

Gilded Balloon Teviot, Edinburgh This is a fun and feverish journey, with well-crafted comedy and screaming guitar, through the star’s career so farIn an industry that claims to be inclusive, it’s so easy to feel tokenised. For musician and comedian Ch…

Continue Reading

‘This craving to go viral is tiresome’: the artists who’re sick of the pressure to promote on social media

From Stewart Lee in his wolf costume to Werner Herzog’s big steak sizzle-up, artists are now under huge duress to ‘chase the algorithm’ and reach audiences. Many of them are hitting burnout – and hitting backThere was a meme recently featuring Tony Sop…

Continue Reading

Hit New Zealand comedy duo Flight of the Conchords reunion gigs sell out in minutes

Bret McKenzie and Jemaine Clement announce four shows at Wellington venue Meow Nui from next week – their first gigs since 2018New Zealand’s self-described “fourth most popular guitar-based digi-bongo-a cappella-rap-funk-comedy-folk duo” Flight of the …

Continue Reading

The best theatre to stream this month: a decade of Dom Coyote’s spellbinding stage music

The composer’s new album features tracks from Hamlet and Everyman, while The Importance of Being Earnest with Ncuti Gatwa has a free week on YouTubeDom Coyote says “electronics, acoustics, voice and story collide” in his compositions for theatre. His n…

Continue Reading

The best theatre to stream this month: a decade of Dom Coyote’s spellbinding stage music

The composer’s new album features tracks from Hamlet and Everyman, while The Importance of Being Earnest with Ncuti Gatwa has a free week on YouTubeDom Coyote says “electronics, acoustics, voice and story collide” in his compositions for theatre. His n…

Continue Reading

Someone’s Knockin’ at the Door review – in search of Macca’s Mull of Kintyre hideaway

Òran Mór, GlasgowAn anecdote about a trip to find Paul McCartney’s Scottish retreat turns into a sweet-natured two-handerMilly Sweeney is a young writer gaining traction. Staged in Pitlochry last year, her play Water Colour, about the changing states o…

Continue Reading

‘It’s a lot darker than Sleaford Mods’: Jason Williamson on acting, rejection and a radical portrait of street life

The frontman is realising his stage dreams by starring in Edgecity which draws on playwright gobscure’s experience of sleeping rough. The pair talk about an urgent, explosive showIn the late 1980s, fresh from being kicked out of school, Sleaford Mods f…

Continue Reading

‘It’s a lot darker than Sleaford Mods’: Jason Williamson on acting, rejection and a radical portrait of street life

The frontman is realising his stage dreams by starring in Edgecity which draws on playwright gobscure’s experience of sleeping rough. The pair talk about an urgent, explosive showIn the late 1980s, fresh from being kicked out of school, Sleaford Mods f…

Continue Reading

‘Liam Gallagher is funnier than most standups!’: Is comedy the new rock’n’roll – or vice versa?

Oasis’s tour gobbled up Edinburgh audiences while fringe comics put on shows about Britpop and Arctic Monkeys. The music industry and the funny business could be more entwined than ever‘Comedy is the new rock’n’roll!” This line, variously attributed to…

Continue Reading