Louise Bourgeois, the French – American artist who died in 2010 at the age of 98, was pure punk. She was best known for her casts of clothes, bodies and meat, but also her incredible large-scale sculptures, like the 30 foot tall spider called ‘Maman’. The reason for its title was that she adored herContinue reading “In Praise of Louise Bourgeois”
Tag Archives: Culture
G-L-O-R-I-A
Gloria Steinem has passed away at 92 and I have nothing but respect for what she achieved in her lifetime. From protesting for our reproductive rights, to working undercover as a Playboy Bunny to report on their unfair working conditions, she was pretty fearless. The tireless feminist activist and journalist made women’s struggles go mainstream.Continue reading “G-L-O-R-I-A”
Farewell, Polka Dot Queen 🎨
Id been thinking a lot about the great Yayoi Kusama lately, about how indefatigable she was. Now she’s passed away at the age of 97 and I wished I’d written about her sooner. The Polka Dot Queen is dead. She represented modernity in art like few others, painting garish polka dots and pumpkins onto prettyContinue reading “Farewell, Polka Dot Queen 🎨”
The Royal Mile During the Fringe
Was there ever a better analogy for social stratification than the Royal Mile during the Edinburgh Fringe? A teeming mass, a melee of desperation and showing off, it displays the disparity between the classes in all of its garish, wanton glory. Almost Ballardian in scale,the crowd even works as a guide to life itself. FirstlyContinue reading “The Royal Mile During the Fringe”
Roll Up! Roll Up! It’s Fringe Time
Roll up! Roll Up! It’s Edinburgh Fringe time. Quick, hide the addicts and the homeless. Slap on your rouge and your lipstick and get in that doorway, bitch. Entice them in. Shake yer moneymaker. Show them yer wares. A tartan tart in tat, that’s what you are. By god, it’s pure radge but we willContinue reading “Roll Up! Roll Up! It’s Fringe Time”
Some Edinburgh Fringe 2026 Predictions
****! A title will have a swear word and the accompanying poster will have a suitably provocative image, which will be catnip/rage bait to Quentin Letts. Gilded Balloon,7.30 pm 68 Guns Despite featuring music by The Alarm, this gory new musical, written by David Ireland, focuses on The Troubles. Traverse Theatre almost wet themselves withContinue reading “Some Edinburgh Fringe 2026 Predictions”
“I’ve had a great night… This wasn’t one of them!”
All too often , art critics are dismissed as being malcontents like The Muppets’ Statler and Waldorf, curmudgeonly, jaded old men who find no joy or pleasure in anything. But that’s both unfair and unhelpful. When poring over the music press as a teen, I knew this was what I wanted to do. Some epiphanyContinue reading ““I’ve had a great night… This wasn’t one of them!””
Theatre Review: Educating Rita, Dundee Rep Theatre
Dundee Rep Theatre, May 28th, 2026. In a week that saw a bitter row erupt within the BBC regarding men taking on women’s stories (four hundred female writers signed an open letter against Jeff Pope doing a dramatisation of Sarah Everard’s murder) questions still remain about the authorship of female experience. But there’s no suchContinue reading “Theatre Review: Educating Rita, Dundee Rep Theatre”
The Great Performance Debate
Commedia Dell’arte Dr Gareth K Vile, great friend of mine and brilliant thinker, recently ruminated on the great Scottish theatre debate, because some critics hadn’t been invited to the musical version of ‘One Day’ : is it dying? I can’t speak to a broader academic discourse, as I’m a university dropout, and not a doctorContinue reading “The Great Performance Debate”
Keep It Live
There’s nothing like seeing artists playing live. The energy, that electricity that can’t be replicated elsewhere is one of my favourite experiences in life. New artists are passionate and give their all. At the moment, though, I’m recovering from hip replacement surgery, so unable to see music like I used to. This town has noContinue reading “Keep It Live”
