Edinburgh
Landscape designer Tom Stuart-Smith on mistakes, sand and weeds
If you’re looking for an early example of Tom Stuart-Smith’s work, you’d have to go to a car park to…
‘I secreted a venom which spurted out indiscriminately’ – Muriel Spark
Frances Wilson’s mesmerising biography of one of the past century’s most singular writers is especially enlightening on the ‘domestic savagery’ often required of a great artist
Echoes of Tom Brown’s School Days: Rabbits, by Hugo Rifkind, reviewed
When 16-year-old Tommo moves to an elite, brutish boarding school, he longs to fit in and even manages to join the inner circle. But can he ever really become ‘one of them’?
The pleasure of reliving foreign travel through food
Russian hand pies, Polish chlodnik, Turkish fruit compote and a Latvian trifle are among the many dishes recreated in Edinburgh by the globetrotting Caroline Eden
Hoists, HD and horses
Scheduling open-air concerts in mid-May in northern Europe is a triumph of hope over experience. I last spent time with…
Still life
Lloyd Evans finds the newly returned Edinburgh Fringe quieter, more low-key — and all the better for it
Why are so many operas by women adaptations of films by men?
Opera’s line of corpses — bloodied, battered, dumped in a bag — is a long one. Now it can add…
Where are the art fans in Edinburgh? Getting their eyes frazzled by Bridget Riley
The old observatory on Edinburgh’s Calton Hill may be the most favourably positioned art venue in the world. Recently resurrected…
A mesmerising retrospective: Victoria Crowe at City Art Centre, Edinburgh, reviewed
This mesmerising retrospective takes up three floors of the City Art Centre, moving in distinct stages from the reedy flanks…
Three of the best faces, and six of the best hands, ever painted: the pick of the Edinburgh Art Festival
The Rembrandt show at the National Galleries of Scotland (until 14 October) has a problem. A mighty haul of Rembrandt…
Nolde was giddily optimistic about the Nazis – they rewarded him by confiscating his works
The complexities of Schleswig-Holstein run deep. Here’s Emil Nolde, an artist born south of the German-Danish border and steeped in…
Prue Leith: Everyone’s waiting for me to make another Bake Off gaffe
Edinburgh is a peach of a city, is it not? Last week, I walked up to the castle on a…
Notebook
To Skibo Castle for a four-day wedding, a dream of super-luxury and great good fun. I was struck by how…
London calling
What is the Edinburgh Fringe? It’s a sabbatical, a pit stop, a pause-and-check-the-map opportunity for actors who don’t quite know…
Classy and classic
The Edinburgh International Festival began with a double helping of incest. Curiously, Greek — Mark-Anthony Turnage’s East End retelling of…
Show up and show off
The Edinburgh Festival was founded as a response to war. The inaugural event, held in 1947, was the brainchild of…
Diary
On Thursday morning I’m woken by day three of a tension headache firing tentacles up the back of my neck…
More blood and tears
Irvine Welsh’s 1993 debut novel Train-spotting flicked a hearty V-sign in the face of alarm-clock Britain. ‘Ah choose no tae…
Internal affairs
The ten vignettes that punctuate the white walls of the Ingleby Gallery invite us to step into the many-chambered mind…
Touchy-feely – not
‘The eye is fatigued, perverted, shallow, its culture is degenerate, degraded and obsolete.’ Welcome to the Palpable Art Manifesto of…
Comic relief
Mum’s, or to use its full title, Mum’s Great Comfort Food, is a restaurant in Edinburgh designed to soothe itinerant…
Northern lights
In the clammy shadows of Cowgate I was leafleted by a chubby beauty wearing all-leather fetish gear. ‘Hi! Want to…
The SNP land grab
Are estate owners to be nationalised?
Diary
I am writing a play about Dr Johnson and his Dictionary. It will be performed in Scotland later this year.…
Scabrous lyricism
Irvine Welsh, I think it’s safe to say, is not a writer who’s mellowing with age. His latest book sees…
