Chemo Savvy
The Guardian 19 August 2024 What a lovely thing to have done. When the great actor Andy Gray was being treated for leukaemia before his Covid-related death in 2020, his…
Precious Cargo
The Guardian 11 August 2024 The accents on the voiceovers say it all. We hear southern English, Australian, American and Hebridean. One thing links them: these are the grownup voices…
So Young
The Guardian 8 August 2024 Instead of Chekhov’s gun, we have Maxwell’s whisky. The bottle of Japanese spirits shows up early in Douglas Maxwell’s comedy of social awkwardness and at…
Yurts, a cruise ship, my flat
The Guardian 10 August 2024 Of all the extraordinary things about the Edinburgh fringe, the easiest to take for granted is that performances in the world’s biggest arts festival take…
June Carter Cash: The Woman, Her Music and Me
The Guardian 7 August 2024 The most powerful country songs are those written from the heart. In the words of Harlan Howard, it is about “three chords and the truth”.…
VL
The Guardian 6 August 2024 On the way out, I hear someone tell his friends he had been educated at Watson’s, the £17,000-a-year alma mater of Malcolm Rifkind and David…
A History of Paper
The Guardian 4 August 2024 When Oliver Emanuel was taken by brain cancer at 43, one friend observed that the playwright had “taught us how to die”. By all accounts,…
The Outrun
The Guardian 4 August 2024 Amy Liptrot’s memoir is having a moment. Nora Fingscheidt’s screen version starring Saoirse Ronan is about to open in the Edinburgh international film festival and,…
What You See When Your Eyes Are Closed
The Guardian 12 August 2023 Seeing is believing, right? That is a phrase used repeatedly by Mamoru Iriguchi and co-star Gavin Pringle in What You See When Your Eyes Are…
Lightning Ridge/Grow
The Guardian 11 August 2023 If the idea of imaginary friends strikes you as juvenile, consider the act of theatregoing. What does an audience do if not pretend to be…