What Richard Did is a striking and emotionally daunting movie revealing the ease with which a single act can completely alter the course of a life. Set among the rich upper class of Dublin, the film follows the story of Richard (Jack Reynor), an extremely popular rugby player whose life is all planned out until Read More
For readers familiar with Drown, Díaz’s earlier story collection, This Is How You Lose Her will be welcomed as a sequel of sorts. For those new to the author, this book shows he clearly deserves his place as one of America’s best, though not amongst its most prolific, writers. The book shares some similarities with Read More
Most of us take sex for granted but, as demonstrated by Judd Apatow’s The 40 Year Old Virgin (2005), if you’ve never had sex it can seem like the biggest deal in the world, the pressure and expectation bearing down on you the older you get without having a sexual experience. Sex becomes an unattainable Read More
Two very different pieces were performed by the international Scottish Dance Theatre at Dundee Rep in late February. The programme’s opener, Second Coming, featuring music by Paganini, Bach, Beethoven and Jasper Gahunia, was from the Angelino choreographer Victor Quijada, while the Norwegian Jo Strømgren designed the next offering, Winter, Again. Strømgren used voice-over for narrative Read More
This major new exhibition by German artist Jutta Koether represents a coup for DCA. Sensitively grouped and divided between the DCA’s two main two galleries, Seasons and Sacraments comprises Koether’s response to two series of paintings by the classical artist, Nicolas Poussin, The Seasons and The Seven Sacraments. Gallery one displays work that was shown Read More
The dust is setting around The Byre Theatre after its sudden liquidation last month, and a passionate and dedicated community in St Andrews can, at the very least, congratulate themselves on bringing the battle for its future to national attention. With The Byre about to enter its 80th year, the livelihoods of its tireless workforce Read More
According to philosopher and art commentator Jean-François Lyotard, there is a distinction to be made between art and its cultural reception. The cultural reception of art situates it in time and space, inscribes it within an art-historical narrative, and presents it alongside other features of the world. It seeks to understand art by placing it Read More
Nothing is Heavy, Vicki Jarrett’s debut novel, is a blackly comic and compelling read. Jarrett is better known for her shorter fiction, some of which has been featured on BBC Radio 4. Shortlisted for the Lucy Cavendish Fiction Prize 2011, Nothing is Heavy is a confident and exciting work which confirms Jarrett’s skill as a Read More
New Writing Dundee is an annual collection of literature compiled by “Literary Dundee” from works submitted by both published and unpublished authors. The end result is an eclectic mix of poetry, short prose, extracts from novels, and essays. The seventh volume of New Writing Dundee opens and also ends with the engaging “Wendell’s Story”, a Read More