Olly Murs, SSE Hydro, Glasgow - a little cheesy, a little laddish, but sincerely entertaining
Ten years on, X-Factor runner-up shows why he still has staying power
In an alternate timeline, Olly Murs - runner-up on a TV talent show a full decade ago - would have faded into obscurity by now. This, as the relentlessly charming performer on stage delights in reminding us, is not that timeline. Some internet commenter remarked, on the release of his first single “Please Don’t Let Me Go”, that it was what Murs would be telling his record company after they dropped him.
Wild Rose review - how country music can set you free
Jessie Buckley's starring performance is one from the heart
It was the fabled Nashville songwriter Harlan Howard who commented that country music is “three chords and the truth”. Rose-Lynn, the protagonist of Wild Rose, just happens to have the surname Harlan, and she has the “three chords” motto tattooed on her forearm.
Ed Gamble, The Stand review - amiable hour touching on personal issues
Opening show of 2019 Glasgow Comedy Festival
Ed Gamble starts the hour by telling us why his latest show is called Blizzard; he and a bunch of comic friends we stranded in New York by bad weather and it made the news - yet, strangely, the headline wasn’t a play on his name - a gift for hacks - but on the monicker of one of his mates. Cue faux outrage.
CD: The Twilight Sad - It Won/t Be Like This All the Time
Scottish miserabilists remind you why you fell for them in the first place
The disappearance of a band for a while calls for a re-set. A reminder, perhaps, of why you fell for them in the first place. "[10 Good Reasons for Modern Drugs]", the four minutes of minor-key chaos that opens the new album from The Twilight Sad, is exactly that reminder: a title written by a computer programme, a sound like an air raid siren, and James Graham’s raw, tender, aching voice, screaming “I see the cracks all start to show” in a tone at once unhinged and pure.
CD: Mogwai - KIN: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
The Scottish post-rock group continues an impressive run of form
Following on from last year’s blistering blast of conviction, Every Country’s Sun, it’s tempting to view Mogwai’s latest offering – the soundtrack to a new sci-fi action drama from the producers of Stranger Things – as a continuation of this return to form. There are, however, a couple of problems with this view.
Eugene Onegin, Scottish Opera review - sweepingly sumptuous Tchaikovsky
Evocative staging coupled with glorious music-making highlight power and passion
It’s 25 years since Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin last came to the Scottish Opera stage, and this brand new production, directed by Oliver Mears, DIrector of Opera at The Royal Opera, gives the stirring score a stately yet elusive grandeur.
Ariadne auf Naxos, Scottish Opera review - superb singing in slick new production
Sophisticated Richard Strauss hybrid sung in English and German
"The Show must go on". So say the posters dotted around Glasgow and Edinburgh for Scottish Opera's production of Richard Strauss's Ariadne auf Naxos. Except on Thursday, it didn’t. A fire at a nearby Glasgow nightclub which ravaged several city centre buildings caused the Theatre Royal to become so filled with smoke that the opening night’s performance had to be cancelled.
Craig Hill, Glasgow International Comedy Festival review - sweary and filthy fun
Festival gets off to a rousing start
The Glasgow International Comedy Festival kicked off with a performance by one of its most popular performers, Craig Hill, a comic far better known in his native Scotland than south of the border. That may be because his shtick relies so much on knowing the ins and outs of Scottish social classification – anyone from Fife, Paisley or Aberdeen was fair game for insults here, but non-Scots may be none the wiser.
Flight, Scottish Opera review - poignant and powerful, this production soars
Opera Holland Park's 2015 staging flies north of the border
Inspired by the astonishing true story of Mehran Karimi Nasseri, the Iranian refugee who lived in Charles de Gaulle Airport for 18 years, Jonathan Dove’s Flight is a humorous, touching, uplifting yet profoundly poignant study into human relationships, interactions and emotions. This is opera buffa for the modern age – relevant, relatable, lighthearted and often downright silly, but still revealing some very pertinent truths.