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Brave
This year’s Edinburgh International Film Festival closed with the UK premiere of Brave, the latest film from Pixar studios. Set across the Highlands and Islands of medieval Scotland, Brave is Pixar’s first costume drama. It’s also their first film to feature a female lead – flame-haired tomboy Princess Merida, who likes nothing more than riding horses and firing arrows. When her mother tries to arrange a marriage, Merida seeks supernatural help to secure her freedom – with disastrous results. The cast includes Scottish stars Kelly Macdonald, Robbie Coltrane and Billy Connolly. The film opened strongly in the States but will it be a hit closer to home?
Brave -
2008: Macbeth
The Edinburgh International Festival’s contribution to the many productions of Macbeth in the city this August comes from Polish company TR Warszawa. 2008: Macbeth directed by Grzegorz Jarzyna sets the play in a contemporary Middle Eastern conflict, with Macbeth as a brutal military commander in the occupying forces. The split level set incorporates multimedia screens, projections, pyrotechnics and a multi-layered soundscape to bring this free adaptation to life.
2008: Macbeth -
Political Theatre
This year’s Fringe is stuffed with shows analysing contemporary politics and poking fun at political figures, with everything from a death-metal setting of George Osborne’s recent budget to a silent slapstick show charting an election campaign. Two shows chart the downfall of once-promising political leaders Set in 2014, as the current term of government draws to a close, COALITION satirises the situation of a fictional Liberal Democrat leader and deputy Prime Minster, played by Thom Tuck, with a supporting cast of comedians including Jo Caulfield and Phill Jupitus. And from the pen of Rab C Nesbitt creator Ian Pattison comes I, TOMMY, a tragicomedy which traces the trajectory of Scottish socialist Tommy Sheridan’s career - from his early campaigns to the courtroom and Celebrity Big Brother, with comedian Des McLean inhabiting the role of the man himself.
Coalition is at the Pleasance Dome until 26 August.
I, Tommy is at Gilded Balloon Teviot until 27 August.
Coalition Photo: Idil Sukan -
Scandinavian Comedy
What with Wallander, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and The Killing, it would seem our appetite for Nordic Noir is insatiable and, if the storylines are to be believed, our northern neighbours live in a world of darkness with sadistic murderers lurking round every corner. But on the Fringe this year there's a chance to see another, perhaps unexpected, side to the Scandinavian psyche. Review takes a look at three comics: Sweden’s Magnus Betner and Carl-Einar Häckner and Norway’s Daniel Simonsen.
Daniel Simonsen : Champions at the Pleasance Courtyard Attic until 27 August
Magnus Betner at The Assembly Rooms until 26 August.
Carl-Einar Häckner : Handluggage at the Gilded Balloon until 27 August. -
Julie Fowlis
Leading Scottish musician Julie Fowlis is renowned for her interpretation of traditional Gaelic repertoire, and a request from Pixar to perform two tracks for the soundtrack to their movie BRAVE offered the chance of a lifetime. Tonight Julie performs the track Tha Mo Ghaol Air Aird A Chuain (My Love’s on the High Seas) – as featured in film’s trailer – live in The Review Show studio.
Julie Fowlis
Credits
- Presenter
- Kirsty Wark
- Participant
- Mark Thomas
- Participant
- Natalie Haynes
- Executive Producer
- Andrew Lockyer
