ABERDEEN ALTERNATIVE FESTIVAL listings
ABERDEEN ALTERNATIVE FESTIVAL cont
SUNDAY 12
This Braif Toun Cowdray Hall. 7.30pm. £5.50 (£3.50). A dance and music extravaganza inspired by the people who have made Aberdeen what it is today. Mixed Company Lemon Tree. 7.30pm. £3 (£2). Mixed ability group of 16-40- year-olds in a performance incorporating art. music and dance. Bob Downe Music Hall. 7.30pm. £10 (£8). Crooning and bitching from New South Wales’s toppermost daytime TV
resenter. Bob lives with his mum.
on Sexsmith Lemon Tree. 7.45pm. £7 (£5). Canadian troubadour has a celebrity fan in Elvis Costello. which is a recommendation in some eyes. Has been compared to Ray Davies and Harry Nillson. Botella Papel Arts Centre. 8pm. £5 (£4). French folkies with a taste for the sounds of Peru. Bolivia. Argentina and Ecuador. Niamh Parsons/Hook! Stakis City Hotel. 8pm. £7.50 (£5.50). Debut album Loosely Connected brought Dubliner Parsons to the roots world; while Flook! incorporate the ever-popular Uillean pipes. flutes and whistles. The Danish jigs of Suleskaer open the evening.
MONDAY 13
Botella Papel Lemon Tree. 12.30pm. free. See Sun 12. lazybed Lemon Tree. 7.30pm. £8 (£6). World premiere of lain Crichton Smith’s Oblomovian tale of Murdo. directed by Philip Howard for Edinburgh‘s Traverse Theatre Company. with music from Anna Mhoireach. See preview. Tom Russell Lemon Tree. 7.45pm. £6 (£4). Nanci Griffith and lris DeMent both turn up on Russell’s latest release. The long Way Round. a seventeen-track retrospective on his beautiful career in country. Price includes admission to the Festival Club. David Baddiel His Majesty's Theatre. 8pm. £10. Baddiel is back on the stand- up circuit after a successful period of sitting on a couch talking football with his mate Frank Skinner — and getting paid for it (see feature. page 17). Expect lots of New Laddism. anti-New Laddism.
m and the beautiful game. iiiink No Evil Of Us - My Life With Kenneth Williams Arts Centre. 8pm. £7 (£5). David Benson‘s critically acclaimed portrait of the Currv-On star unlocks the secrets of fame and obsession. BT Scottish Ensemble Cowdray Hall. 8pm. £9 (£5). Mozart. Joe Strauss and Schubert are covered as William Howard tinkles the ivories. Mike Scott Music Hall. 8pm. £10 (£8). A musical wheel rotating in full circle as former Waterboy Scott gets back to full- on rock 'n‘ roll with second solo album. Still Burning.
- TUESDAY 14
The Elves And The Shoemaker Arts Centre. 2.30pm. £2 (children) £1 (adults). See Mon 13.
Emmylou Harris His Majesty‘s Theatre. 7.30pm, £13.50/£15.50/£19.5O (£11.50/£l3.50/£17.50). Grammies. gold albums and top ten smasheroonie hits are just a few of the things Ham's can tell her grandchildren about. if she ever has any. Her last album. Wrecking Ball. brought her to a wider audience due to the production work of Daniel Lanois. but her heart still lies in the country.
Holly Slater Lemon Tree. 7.45pm. £6 (£4). Former winner of the UK Young Jazz Musician of the Year Award. 24-year old sax blower Slater has resided at Ronnie Scott’s and NY's Blue Note Club. Mark Little Arts Centre. 8pm. £8.50 (£6.50). The comic formerly known as Joe Mangle ‘has more punch than Skippy.’ ou know.
Spirttua ized Music Hall. Union Street. 01224 641122. 8pm. £8 (£6). The songwriting genius of Jason Pierce has yet to bring world domination for this four-piece from Rugby. but as lucky Granite City types are set to discover. it‘s only a matter of time.
Lazybed Lemon Tree. 8pm. £8 (£6). See Mon 13.
WEDNESDAY 15
Emmylou Harris His Majesty‘s Theatre. 7.30pm. £13.50/£l5.50/£19.50 (£11.50/£13.50/£l7.50). See Tue 14. Christine Collister Lemon Tree. 7.45pm. £8 (£6). One of contemporary Britain’s finest blues/folk singers has recently gone solo.
Mark Little Arts Centre. 8pm. £8.50 (£6.50). See Tue 14.
THURSDAY 16
Baby Love Arts Centre. 10.30am. £3 (children) £2 (adults). Harry becomes an older brother — will his world change for the worse or better? A play for younger folk.presented by Quicksilver Theatre. Traditional Songs of the North-East Cowdray Hall. 7.30pm. £6 (£4). An exploration of the depth and breadth of Scots song through. well. song and story. Armando lannucci Arts Centre. 8pm. £8 (£6). The Glaswegian-born writer/performer behind The Friday Night Armistice and Knowing Me, Knowing You . . . discusses everything from politics to his bad knee.
loe Zawinul Syndicate Music Hall. 8pm. £9 (£7.50). Ex-Weather Report lynchpin now has his own Syndicate with their sound steeped in the tradition of European and African folk. funk and polkas.
Horse Stakis City Hotel. 8pm. £10 (£8). Scots songstress Ms McDonald has recently branched out into the dance genre but her voice remains her strongest suit.
guide on the Microsoft Network.
Wed 1S-1'ue 21
October
Finley Quaye Edinburgh-born reggae star promotes new album Maverick A Strike in Glasgow and Edinburgh. D.A.R.E New show about disabled people's right to exist, by Edinburgh’s Theatre Workshop company.
Bushl3 Colours Red English Nirvana- a-likes Bush are already huge in the States and getting bigger here. Support comes from punky Creation signings 3 Colours Red.
I Licked A Slag's Deodorant Scottish premiere of a recent play by Jim Cartwright, author of Road and Two.
Electric Thistle update
This fortnight’s highlights on Electric Thistle, The List's Scottish events
Wed 22-Tue 28 October
A Life Less Ordinary Ewan McGregor and Cameron Diaz on the latest film from the makers of Trainspotting.
Sean Hughes The Irish comic shows us his dark side on tour.
Sleeper Louise Wener talks about her new songs.
Roni Size The drum ’n' bass god and Mercury Music Prize winner brings jungle to Glasgow.
Virtue And Vice The late Helen Chadwick is among the artists featured in this Fotofeis show.
100 THE lIST 10 Oct—23 Oct 1997
New PLAY Lazybed
Aberdeen: Lemon Tree, Mon 13 8: Tue 14 Oct.
Edinburgh: Traverse Theatre, Tue
4—Sun 16 Nov. Preview Fri 10 Oct.
lain Crichton Smith, author of best- seller Consider The Lilies, poet, playwright, and, at 69. grand old man of Scottish literature, unleashed the anarchic Murdo upon an unsuspecting world in 1993. In his novel Thoughts Of Murdo. the eponymous hero offers comment upon society in his own ridiculously literal fashion as he introduces the bizarre into everyday situations.
Now Smith has brought Murdo, if not quite to life, at least into being in his new play Lazybed, to be presented by the Traverse Theatre Company on a tour of the Highlands. opening in Aberdeen. Murdo is beset with existential angst about the meaninglessness of it all and refuses to leave his own bed, much to the consternation of his mother and a few somewhat more exotic interlopers. Happily. Smith is himself still managing to get up each morning.
'Half past eight, every day.’ he confesses. 'Mind you, I have difficulty. I think it must be true of lots of people. They must find it hard getting up in the morning. going to jobs which are fairly meaningless. I think it was this kind of ‘
thing that hit Murdo’.
The new play was actually born out of an encounter at the Traverse, when Smith was asked after a successful reading from Thoughts Of Murdo to develop the character for the stage. ‘At one time I was obsessed with the island from which I came, Lewis, which is strongly religious and religious in a very extreme way,’ explains Smith. ‘And I had to work my way through that. and at the time I made the mistake, I think, of tackling these ideas which I didn’t like in the form of argument or poetry. But I think maybe the best way of tackling these kind of ideas is by comedy really'.
Smith's daytime job was that of schoolteacher, but was there a Murdo lurking subversiver within? 'l do feel an affinity with people like Murdo. who are in a sense powerless, but use their humour as a form of power.’ he says. 'Murdo thinks of himself as a kind of metaphysician, I think, and he philosOphises a great deal in an absurdist kind of way. But he probably thinks
he's brighter than he really is.’
And is Smith the same? ‘Oh I don't know,’ he laughs. ‘Maybe I did when l was young. but not at 70.’ (John McNally)
FRIDAY 17
The Elves And The Shoemaker Arts Centre. 10.30am. £2 (children) £1 (adults). See Mon 13.
0501 Lemon Tree. 7.30pm. £7 (£4). The world premiere of a work inspired by the sorrow and passion of Shostakovich's tribute to the victims of war. A collaboration between the Yggdrasil Quartet ofAberdeen. Theatre Cryptic's director Cathie Boyd and choreographer Andy Howitt.
The Bible - The Complete Word Of God (Abridged) His Majesty‘s Theatre. 8pm. £7.50—£12.50 (£5.50—£10.50). The Abridgement Boys are back with their 90-minute take on the Good Book. Did Adatn and live have navels'? Was Moses really a dead-ringer for Charlton Iieston'.’ Apparently. right. they will put the fun back into fundamentalism.
The Suicide Arts Centre. 8pm. £7.50 (£5.50). Communicado Theatre‘s adaptation of Nikolai lirdman‘s savage Russian satire from the Stalin era is the tale ofa man plotting his death. only for others to plead for his demise to be in the name of their own cause.
SATURDAY 18
Fiddlers Rally Music Hall. 7pm. £6/£8/£10(£4/£6/£8). Argyll's Anne Lorne Gillies is joined by fiddlers Carmen Higgins and Graham Dickie for the festival's traditional celebration of Scots music and song.
DSCH Lemon Tree. West North Street. 01224 642230. 7.30pm. £7 (£4). See Fri 17.
The Bible - The Complete Word Of God (Abridged) His Majesty's Theatre. 8pm. £7.50—£ 12.50 (£5.50---£l0.50). See Fri 17.
Old Blind Dogs/Deaf Shepherd Stakis City Hotel. 8pm. £7 (£5). A double bill of two of Scotland‘s top folk combos. with jigs. reels. ballads and cracking fiddling guaranteed.
The Suicide Arts Centre. 8pm. £7.50 (£5.50). See Fri 17.
lazybed: dream
r
Festival club
Lemon Tree, Thu 9—Sat 18 Oct. 10.45pm—1ate. £5 (£4). Festival Club Passes at £30 (£25) allow access to the club every night .
While The Lemon Tree can hardly be described as an empty vessel of nothingness outwith the month of ()ctober. it fairly gets set alight when the Festival Club gets moving. Highlights include:
lah Wobble (Sat 11. 11.30pm) The bass-player. composer and East End mystic. possibly fired by his Inspiration ()j' William Blake album. will read from his own poetry.
Nigel Clark Trio (Tue l4. 10.30pm) Virtuosic jazz guitarist. who has drawn inlluenccs from all over the wide spectrum of popular music.
Duncan McLean (Fri 17. l().30pm)The north-east-born novelist and playwright sings bluegrass and western swing with his own band The Smokin Stones. Budapest Cafe Orchestra (Fri 17.
1 1.45pm) Wild and romantic sounds from liastern liurope. featuring Bosnian singers Mirella and Tea l-lodzic.
ABBA Experience (Sat l8. 1am)A glittering tribute to the Swedish foursome who dominated the intermttional pop scene in the 70s and still haunt the world's dancelloors.