MUSIC
WHAT’S HAPPENING?
“YOU are not a computer/you are complex and undefined ... I am bigger than a hexidecimal!” so goes Binary, the joyous calling card from Edinburgh’s Spook School (above). Composed of Nye and Adam Todd, Anna Cory and Niall McCamley, the off-kilter popsters describe themselves as “four silly sausages singing songs about gender, sexuality and coping”. Hitting the road for a UK tour with Washington DC power punks Bad Moves, Spook School may treat gig-goers at Edinburgh’s Banshee Labyrinth (May 17) and Glasgow’s 13th Note (18) to new material taken from their forthcoming album, the follow-up to 2015’s Try To Be Hopeful. A much-needed dose of optimistic, empowering if ramshackle pop, as one reviewer put it, Spook School make “dance music for introverts.”
WHAT’S HAPPENING?
NEITHER football hooligans nor the kind of hard-Brexiteers that John Major was recently venting about, Glasgow three-piece Ultras (top) head out for a short Scottish tour on the back of recent debut album and current single You’ve A Foul Mouth John Barleycorn. A searing, catchy track big enough for a nightclub, it’s a great introduction to a band who count electronica and hip hop as strong influences on their self-described “violent pop”. They play Paisley Bungalow (May 13) and Edinburgh’s Sneaky Pete’s (May 16) this month.
THEATRE
WHAT’S HAPPENING?
STAGED in a caravan, Mobile (above) is the newest production by excellent Leeds company The Paper Birds. Based on interviews with people from around the UK, it explores our ideas around class, belonging and aspiration against the realities of social mobility. Mobile’s Scottish dates are May 7 to 21 at Inverness’s Eden Court Theatre and May 22 to 24 at Dundee Rep.
www.eden-court.co.uk www.dundeerep.co.uk
WHAT’S HAPPENING?
THE story of Rudolph Hess bailing out over Eaglesham in May 1941 remains curious and puzzling to this day. A hit in Edinburgh at last year’s Fringe, during which Derek Crawford Munn’s portrayal of Hitler’s deputy attracted considerable acclaim, HESS now comes to Stirling Tolbooth on May 20 before going on to the Prague Fringe at the end of the month.
WHAT’S HAPPENING?
IN 1942, when Daphne Oram was 17, she went to a séance, an experience that inspired her to forge a 30-year career in music including co-founding the world-famous BBC Radiophonic Workshop. Featuring a live score by Anneke Kampman, the award-winning Blood of the Young ensemble presents the premiere of Daphne Oram’s Wonderful World of Sound as part of Mayfesto at Glasgow’s Tron (May 9 to 13) before touring to Aberdeen’s Lemon Tree (May 16), Inverness Eden Court (May 18), Edinburgh’s Traverse (May 23, 24), Eastgate Theatre, Peebles (May 31), MacArts Galashiels (Jun1) and Dundee Rep (Jun 2).
www.bloodoftheyoung.org www.tron.co.uk
FESTIVALS
WHAT’S HAPPENING?
DUNDEE Rep Dance Festival (May 11) is a showcase of some of the best dance work in Scotland today and will feature premieres from Bob Bennett and Steven Martin, and the very first visit to the Rep by the National Youth Dance Company of Scotland (above), who will perform Re Place (Or, the thing I miss most) by award-winning choreographer Yael Flexer. New work will also be performed by Fusion Youth Dance Company from City Moves Aberdeen, Macrobert Youth Dance Company and Lothian Youth Dance Company.
WHAT’S HAPPENING?
TAKING place at Glasgow’s CCA between May 10 and 12, Sound Thought celebrates ten years of the annual festival of music and sound research, composition and performance. Run by postgraduate students from the University of Glasgow, this year’s aim is to explore the intersections of music, sound and other artistic forms.
WHAT’S HAPPENING?
RETURNING to Edinburgh’s Summerhall between May 11 and 13, FestivALE will see the arts venue taken over by street food stalls, live music, DJs and a bounty of producers and merchants such as Brauhaus Edinburgh and Cork & Cask, whose Brexit-themed bar will offer a range of refreshments from across Europe. Also featuring is ExperimentALE, a series of live beer-based experiments led by Professor Charles Spence of Channel 4’s Food Unwrapped.
VISUAL ART
WHAT’S HAPPENING?
ON show at Glasgow’s Hidden Lane Gallery until the end of June is a collection of signed, limited-edition prints of work by Alasdair Gray, most of which have never been available before in print form (above). These prints are on sale at prices that Gray hopes will make them accessible.
hiddenlanegallery.com www.alasdairgray.info
WHAT’S HAPPENING?
IN celebration of 175 years of exhibiting, the Scottish Gallery is hosting three exhibitions and an outdoor installation until June 3. These include Winter Journey, the latest show from landscape artist Duncan Shanks; survey exhibition Portrait of a Gallery, which includes work by Scottish Colourists; and A Birthday Celebration, more than 100 works created by contemporary artists specifically for the gallery’s landmark year.
WHAT’S HAPPENING?
THE photographs by Graham MacIndoe currently on display at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery are not easy to look at. These 25 self-portraits document the previously flourishing photographer’s descent into heroin addiction, a period from which he only recovered after a stint in New York’s Riker’s Island for possession and a tough rehab programme. Coming Clean is a highly intimate portrayal of the anguish and solitude of an addict’s life, shown here for the first time in the city in which he first explored the art form.
www.nationalgalleries.org www.grahammacindoe.com
TALKS
WHAT’S HAPPENING?
TO be branded by the late Nicholas Fairbairn as a “wrecker of civilisation” is no smear. This was, remember, a man who called women who brought rape cases “temptresses”. What sort of “civilisation” was he so keen to protect? Throughout her five-decade spanning career, the sometimes shocking, always interesting work of musician and performance artist Cosey Fanni Tutti (above) has challenged our conventional thoughts about morality and art, not least that devised when she was a pornographic model. This 18+ event at Glasgow’s CCA (May 20) sees Tutti talk about her memoir Art Sex Music with critic David Keenan.
www.cca-glasgow.com www.coseyfannitutti.com
WHAT’S HAPPENING?
WHAT’S wrong with free money? Very little, if it’s the Patti Smith song. But why do people with very different ideas advocate the idea of a universal basic income? Glasgow-based co-learning group Caught Learning have invited a selection of guests to explain at the CCA in Glasgow on May 12.
www.cca-glasgow.com caughtlearning.wordpress.com
WHAT’S HAPPENING?
BEHIND The Scenes Dundee on May 20 will help you discover the inner sanctums of “Britain’s coolest little city” (says GQ and us) by visiting a number of creative locations over the course of a two-hour walking tour, including the DCA’s print studio and vibrant co-working space Fleet Collective.
COMEDY
WHAT’S HAPPENING?
GLASWEGIAN Scott Gibson (above) won the Edinburgh Comedy Award for Best Newcomer in 2016, making him the first Scottish act to do so. It was for this show, Life After Death, which he performs at the Catstrand in Castle Douglas tonight and Falkirk’s Behind The Wall tomorrow. Ostensibly about the brain haemorrhage he suffered aged 24 and the chance occurrences that saved his life, it’s earthy, sometimes lurid, wise and very funny.
www.catstrand.com www.behindthewall.co.uk www.scottgibsoncomedy.co.uk
WHAT’S HAPPENING?
INSPIRED by an interview in which David Cameron couldn’t recall how many houses he owned, Jonny and the Baptists’ Eat The Poor is currently on a 50-date, three-month UK tour. That tells you about the appetite for gentle tunes about revolution but also about the wide appeal of Jonny Donahoe and Paddy Gervers’s comedy; think less Sleaford Mods, more Radio 4’s The Now Show, which they’ve guested on. That’s not to say there’s no genuine anger there, some provocative pay-offs and a heap of serious intent: the show was created over months of research with homeless groups, academics and policy-makers. The pair are at The Stand in Edinburgh on May 23 and Glasgow on May 24.
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