Honours students from Abertay University’s School of Arts, Media and Computer Games once again set up shop at their annual platform, demonstrating their final year projects and portfolios to the public, tutors, fellow students, and potential employers. With an all-too-brief window of time in the afternoon in which to explore, I was only able to Read More
As in her debut novel, Lullabies for Little Criminals, Heather O’Neill turns to the streets of Montreal in The Girl Who was Saturday Night, once again portraying a young female dreamer, here living in the beautifully gritty Boulevard Saint-Laurent. Nouschka Tremblay and her twin brother Nicolas are beautiful, promiscuous and totally unstable nineteen year olds Read More
A new novel from prolific American author Anne Tyler is always cause for excitement, although as she has said it will be her last, this is tinged with some sadness too. A Spool of Blue Thread does not disappoint. It tackles some of the enduring themes of modern American life: the family as both platform Read More
Students undertaking the HND 1 in Acting and Performance at the D&A present the fruits of their labours over the past semester – a rousing rendition of Mike Bartlett’s acclaimed script, first performed in 2010. Jane Hensey, directing, writes in the programme’s foreword of the collaborative efforts that have gone into the production, and many Read More
One of the novels on the longlist for the Bailey’s Prize for Women’s Fiction 2015, Samantha Harvey’s entry Dear Thief offers a simple yet beautifully written exploration of memories and character. The plot of this book is rather basic and largely uneventful. It is written as a long letter from a woman to a long Read More
“Loving someone won’t save them.” This quote sets the tone for French-Canadian director Xavier Dolan’s fifth film, Mommy, a story that focuses on the ferocity of a mother’s love for her tearaway son, who truly embodies the “enfant terrible” archetype. The co-winner of the prestigious 2014 Cannes Film Award, Mommy focuses on Diane ‘Die’ Després, Read More
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7a4imrOhK-I Montage of Heck opens with a recording of Kurt Cobain’s disembodied voice inviting the audience to view a rare insight into his life: “Hey, I want to show you something.” Interviewing close friends and family only, very few voices are heard, presenting an intimate portrait of the punk-rock idol. With Nirvana bassist Krist Novoselic Read More
Jacques Strauss’ The Curator is, first and foremost, disturbing and unsettling. It makes you feel repulsed and disgusted, yet eager to read on. Set in Strauss’ native South Africa, flitting between the events of 1976 and 1996, its plot simultaneously shows the immediate aftermath of the murder of a family and how the effects of Read More
For ye shall hear, how our heaven king Calleth Everyman to a general reckoning: Give audience, and hear what he doth say. ~ Messenger, The Somonyng of Everyman In some ways, it takes a certain amount of enterprise to put on a play that has been around for half a millennium; it becomes a distinct sort Read More
Sara Maitland recently wrote in The Guardian (5th March 2015): “I believe that most of us have a deep yearning for the magical, for a secret ‘otherness’, for an environment flowing with abundance – not just with nature but with super-nature too”. To that end, she urged the trustees of Wayford Woods, near Crewkerne, not Read More