Author Archive
The Edinburgh Fringe and the Great Beyond
The Fringe Festival has been in existence for just as long as the Edinburgh Festival proper. Both inceptions are inextricably knitted together and began life bound up way back in 1947. Our story begins when what can only sufficiently be described as a mob of eight theatre companies turned up uninvited to the newly formed […]
David and Goliath: Glastonbury vs. Boutique festivals
A variety of explanations have been put forward including the traditional Glastonbury mud-bath caused by repeated bad weather, the festivals uncharacteristically lack lustre 2008 line-up, the sharp rise in British festivalgoers defecting to European festivals and the surge in smaller, more intimate festivals popping up across the UK.
It is certainly possible that repeated bad weather […]
Tezcatlipoca and Princess Diana: The Timeless Cult Of The Celebrity
Countless people enjoy these magazines and the reality TV shows that provide a steady stream of willing victims, preferring them to art, theatre or literature. The snobs would have you believe our society is crumbling around our ears, with the likes of David Beckham as our idols what hope could civilised society possibly have? In […]
Celebrity Obsession A Stage Too Far?
Author, director, comedian, physician and all round polymath Jonathan Miller has been all over The Times and the BBC this week running the West End into the proverbial square ditch. Miller insisted that because his version of Hamlet was cast by relative unknowns he couldn’t get a gig in the West End. “Producers might have […]
The iPhone 3G - It’s Not Perfect But It’s Close
The improved gadget was demonstrated to an audience of over 5000 elite techies and die hard Apple fanatics the ranks of which included Al Gore, forty-fifth vice president of the US.
The new model, named the iPhone 3G boasts browsing speeds up to 36% faster than the Nokia N95 and Treo 750, the brushed aluminium […]
The Apparent Rising Cost of UK Attractions
The main point of the article was “the unadvertised extra costs… that add up, sending the price of the a day out spiralling.” The cost of visiting attractions on their own is not, however, so crushing. If one looks hard enough, family breaks can be found for as little as 125 GBP for a family […]
The Shell Ladies Of Margate
It is only when you get close enough do you realise that despite their deeply out of place appearance these ladies are more a part of Margate than any other resident, they are in fact a part of the town, they are made from it. Painstakingly crafted from shells, primarily those of the local scallops […]
Independents Day: The Rise And Rise Of Independent Music
The Association of Independent Music (AIM) is holding a special event to celebrate 50 years of successful independent music which will include a gig, a five part television series, a one off auction on ebay and the release of a double CD full of “independent” covers. Artists including The Prodigy, The Charlatans and Maximo Park […]
Digital Ash In A Digital Urn: Does The Digital Age Mean The Death Sentence For Live Theatre?
With so much content beaming freely across the web, consumers have never had such unfettered access to entertainment. Dilating bandwiths have meant data transfers have shrunk to infinitesimal speeds and, as entire fleets of pirate P2P websites and media data streamers career off all over the place, the notion of actually paying for entertainment is […]
What Happened To Dance Music?
What is the first thing you hear when when you switch the radio on? If you are lucky enough to tune-in in time to actually catch some music, the chances are it’s the latest breed of new-wave-new-rave-alternative-shouty-vocalised-indie-rock. (I call it guitar music for short.) Such has been the case for a number of years now, […]
