Edinburgh // Current TV

Not Alone Always Home

This short film is about the making and release of my album The Exile. It looks at how... more

reachout
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2 years ago
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Hollie Demands Justice: Against Paedophile Ring Cover Up

A small group of Hollie supporters picketed the Hilton Hotel in Edinburgh today, where... more

TweetsBay
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2 years ago
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A man walks into a bar with a Giraffe...

Talented young student film maker and producer from Edinburgh... more

TweetsBay
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2 years ago
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Edinburgh Coalition Against Poverty - Making A Difference

http://edinburghagainstpoverty.org.uk/ Edinburgh Coalition Against Poverty (ECAP) is a... more

tipster
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2 years ago
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Flood uncovers cannabis farm

Cannabis farm floods out neighbour http://bit.ly/hEAYC0

GoodNewsDays
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2 years ago
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Papal visit: Pope to begin historic UK trip

Pope Benedict XVI has arrived in Edinburgh at the start of the first papal visit to... more

eva2
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2 years ago
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7 comments

Another World_Edinburgh :: Dali, Magritte, Miro and the Surrealists :: Q3Q4 2010

Stunning range of Surrealist art. Must see.... more

globalARTnews
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2 years ago
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Climate Camp Trojan Pig makes a mess at Cairn Energy

Climate Camp activists cause ‘oil’ spill outside Cairn Energy

An ‘oil’ spill was caused outside the offices of Cairn Energy in central Edinburgh this morning. Activists targeted the Scottish energy company because it used public money from RBS to help it start drilling for oil off the coast of Greenland last month.

The activists who met at the Climate Camp carried a two metre long pig(gy bank) branded with the RBS logo filled with 60 litres of an oil like substance towards Cairn Energy’s offices. Triggered by a golden coin representing the public money used to bail out the bank, the RBS ‘piggy bank’ unleashed its contents, believed to be molasses, covering the entrances and the street. Activists also sprayed ‘oil’ on the outside of the building with fire extinguishers.

It was revealed yesterday that Cairn Energy received ￡117 million of loans and equity last year from RBS, almost half of which directly enabled the drilling off the Greenland coast to start. This drilling is particularly controversial because (a spill in the area would be almost impossible to clean up due to the thick ice) the area hasn’t been exploited for oil before and has only been made possible as climate change has caused icebergs in this region to melt. The BP Deep Water oil spill has clearly shown the dangers of offshore drilling and it’s argued that Cairn don’t have the experience to deal with accidents in the previously pristine and extremely environmentally sensitive Arctic.

Alex Wilson, one of the activists who undertook the action said:
“RBS doesn’t just sponsor the Edinburgh Fringe, it sponsors the oil companies who destroy the lives of hundreds of millions of people around the world through oil spills, war, drought and floods.

“Risky drilling in the Arctic by Cairn Energy has only been made possible by financial involvement by RBS. This is an outrageous use of over a hundred million pounds of public money given the economic and climate crises that we are facing.”

The activists say that this is the start of a new focus on taking direct action against the oil industry. A mass day of action dubbed ‘The Crude Awakening’ is already being planned and is set to take place in October in London.

Rachel Stone said:
“We have got the oil industry in our sights. We will be targeting the pumps, airports and factories that oil flows through. We will be taking direct action to switch off oil because it is at the heart of the climate crisis that we are all facing.”

According to Bloomberg figures released yesterday Cairn Energy received ￡117 million in equity and loans.

For more information on the Camp for Climate Action see http://www.climatecamp.org.uk

For more information about the Crude Awakening – day of action in October go to http://www.crudeawakening.org.ukClimate Camp activists cause ‘oil’ spill outside Cairn Energy An... more

YouandIfilms
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2 years ago
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Eight arrests in Edinburgh climate protests

The article says the police are taking a reactive phase to the five day protest... more

Mcellie
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Scottish Invent Bio-Fuel From Whisky

From the inventors of cloned sheep and golf comes another absolutely brilliant... more

DrinkPhilly
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2 years ago
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Dave O'Hara: Showreel

Currently working as a freelance video artist in Manchester and Lincolnshire. I... more

davidaohara
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3 years ago
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Danny MacAskill: The Stuntmeister’s Awesome, Death Defying Bicycle Tricks!

Filmed in and around Edinburgh, this video of stunt bike rider Danny MacAskill... more

disembedded
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3 years ago
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David Tennant Joins Simon Pegg in John Landis' Burke and Hare

Back in August, the news... more

atomiclegion
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Things to Do in Scotland

When I was getting ready to record this video, I went online to find some wallpaper... more

lockergnome
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Pornography and Prejudice: Jane Austen's Dirty Talk

"What is this inescapable desire we have to mess around with Jane Austen? The poor woman has been through the mill of late, with the literary world seeing Elizabeth Bennet contending with the undead in Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, and the Dashwoods about to take on tentacled sea creatures in Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters. Meanwhile, onscreen, Elton John's Rocket Pictures is working on Pride and Predator.

So far be it for theatre to miss out. Fresh from a run on the Edinburgh fringe, Jane Austen's Guide to Pornography arrived at Battersea's Theatre 503 last week with an all-male cast and not a little innuendo. Steve Dawson's piece pitches a gay pornographic playwright, tired of only churning out one-liners and sex, up against Austen herself, who is near death, bored with her stories and "awaking screaming at the thought of another Mr Darcy". The pair look for inspiration from each other: Jane wants a bit of raunch in her new novel, Brett the playwright wants to inject true love into his writing.

There are some predictably nudge-nudge elements – ooh, let's make Jane Austen say "enormous cock", that'll be hilarious – but it actually works pretty well, particularly when Jane and Brett are squabbling over storyline ideas. It's silly, but it's also funny: "No one has ever fainted in my novels except for Emma, and that was the only one and not because she met this 'Dick' person," Jane tells Brett firmly. The burgeoning romance between the two actors/characters dreamt up by Jane and Brett is sweetly believable, ending with a clever twist on the "Marianne sprains her ankle" scene from Sense and Sensibility. Perhaps the mention of felching – "it sounds frightfully Mediterranean," says Jane – will get the Jane Austen Society up in arms, but the play is actually a very affectionate portrait of the author, so I hope not.

It does make me wonder, though, about this trend to sex up Austen. Someone has even written a book of "deleted sex scenes". Perhaps it's the buttoned-up nature of her characters – the closest we get to a bit of frolicking in Austen is probably Mr Knightley drawing Emma's hand through his arm. Maybe it's just immature and deliberately provocative, but I think our appetite for postmodern character cutting and pasting comes down to the genius of good writers. In Austen's case, we love her characters, we believe in their romances: we want to know – and see – more.""What is this inescapable desire we have to mess around with Jane Austen? The... more

St_Alia_10191
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3 years ago
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Fringe Boom from Economy Bust

"Tickets sales for this year's Edinburgh festival fringe have hit a new record, after a surge in the number of people spending holidays at home and looking for an escape from the gloom of the recession.

The Fringe Society said more than 1.85m tickets were sold for this year's event, an increase of 9% on the previous record, set in 2007, and 21% higher than for last year's disastrous event, which was hit by problems with its box office.

The scale of the improvement surprised fringe organisers. Many producers and residents had feared the significant upheaval by tram works cutting through the city centre and a dispute by refuse workers that left rubbish piled on kerbsides in the run-up to this year's festival would frighten off some visitors.

Kath Mainland, the event's new chief executive, said: "As this year's festival draws to a close, we can look back on a month of exceptional ticket sales and one of the best festivals in my 20 years in and around Edinburgh."

Many of the city's top venues reported steep increases in audience numbers. The Gilded Balloon said its sales rose by 15% from last year, boosted in part by staging large events such as the comedian Bill Bailey at the 3,000-seat Playhouse, one of Edinburgh's largest theatres.

Karen Koren, the venue's director, said many more local residents had bought tickets this year. Edinburgh's confidence has been hit by the collapse of Royal Bank of Scotland and HBOS last year. "My feeling is that the credit crunch, people not going away and the weather – although it hasn't been great, has been a lot better than last year – has all helped," she said.

The Stand comedy club, which put on critically received theatre for the first time, said its audiences had grown by 20%. Tommy Sheppard, the venue's director, said: "It's been a record-breaking year despite the fact we've had to operate behind an iron curtain imposed by the city's tram builders."

This year's fringe, which featured a slightly larger number of shows compared with last year, with 2,098 productions, also featured a far larger number of recession-busting cut-price shows and cheap deals to draw in audiences. The number of shows on the so-called "free fringe" jumped from 350 last year to 465 this year, and they were held at a larger number of venues. While some shows were selling all their tickets for £5, the Underbelly comedy venue cut its prices for two nights a week.

Mainland said: "From the fringe's point of view, this is absolutely fantastic. We needed to re-establish confidence."""Tickets sales for this year's Edinburgh festival fringe have hit a new... more

St_Alia_10191
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3 years ago
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The Destinations that Inspire You! Trip on a Deal Ep. 16

http://www.triponadeal.com: This week we hit the streets of NYC to find out from you... more

triponadeal
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3 years ago
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Edinburgh Fringe and the £900,000 Mistake

"The full seriousness of the failure of a new box-office system at last... more

St_Alia_10191
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3 years ago
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3 comments

Funniest joke of Edinburgh Festival goes to a Hedgehog

Of all the thousands of jokes that are told at the Edinburgh Festival, one involving a... more

AnnieMole
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3 years ago
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8 comments

Spoilers Aren't Intrinsically Evil

Mark Fisher writes, "When I wrote a blog a few days ago about theatrical deaths, a couple of readers complained that I should have included a spoiler alert. There was merit in what they said: death is usually a big event in a play, so if you talk about it you're likely to give away key twists in the plot. Sorry if I ruined your night.

But how much information is too much? What balance should a writer strike between safeguarding the joy of discovery for those who haven't yet seen a play, and talking in such generalities that the writing becomes meaningless? Before I give examples, I have to give a spoiler alert. If it troubles you to know too much, don't read on, but I can't write about spoilers without spoiling things.

Let's take the case of 'Orphans,' Dennis Kelly's thriller at the Traverse theatre in Edinburgh. This is a play that depends for its tension on the is-he/isn't-he enigma of a character called Liam, played by Joe Armstrong. He starts off as a good samaritan who has helped a man in distress, but it's not possible to say how he ends up without giving away the plot.

In her Guardian review, Lyn Gardner keeps it enigmatic, giving away little more than "one bad decision leads to another". Joyce McMillan in the Scotsman, however, cuts straight to the chase: "The clearer it becomes that Liam's original story of helping a wounded man is a lie, and that he has in fact carried out a brutal racist attack, the more Danny wrestles with the question of whether he should call the police."

McMillan appears to believe that once a play has opened its plot is in the public domain, and therefore fair game. If you regard the job of a reviewer as little more than a consumer's guide, this belief is contentious. If, on the other hand, you want critics to engage fully with a work, then they must be free to talk about what happens, and what it signifies.

The answer is not clear-cut – it varies from show to show and writer to writer – but it raises a second question: how much damage can a spoiler actually do? Examples of a show asking the public not to give away its plot are rare: the West End play The Mousetrap, the book Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and the film The Sixth Sense rely heavily on suspense. There must be millions of people who enjoy those works on repeated sittings, even when the element of surprise is gone.

A work that depends on surprise alone is shallow indeed; so how much are you really put out if you know the details in advance? As a feature writer I'm often privy to this kind of information – after I've prized it out of artists who believe their work's power depends on a secret plot twist – but I rarely wish I'd been kept in the dark when it comes to seeing the show.

As an act of consideration, I won't reveal the coup de theatre in Silviu Purcărete's Faust, opening at the Edinburgh international festival, but even telling you that such a coup exists will alert you to it and subtly change your experience. Is that so bad?"Mark Fisher writes, "When I wrote a blog a few days ago about theatrical deaths,... more

St_Alia_10191
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3 years ago
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