Edinburgh
Dazzling – if you ignore the music: Beyoncé, at Murrayfield Stadium, reviewed
Scheduling open-air concerts in mid-May in northern Europe is a triumph of hope over experience. I last spent time with…
The death of the Edinburgh Fringe
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…
Ruth Davidson's diary: Why I hid behind a pillar on election day
On Thursday morning I’m woken by day three of a tension headache firing tentacles up the back of my neck…
From Jekyll back to Hyde: the changing face of Begbie
Irvine Welsh’s 1993 debut novel Train-spotting flicked a hearty V-sign in the face of alarm-clock Britain. ‘Ah choose no tae…
Part bijou Kiefer, part woozy Vuillard: the paintings of Andrew Cranston
The ten vignettes that punctuate the white walls of the Ingleby Gallery invite us to step into the many-chambered mind…
Sensory overload: Paul Neagu, Anthony Caro and Bernat Klein reviewed
‘The eye is fatigued, perverted, shallow, its culture is degenerate, degraded and obsolete.’ Welcome to the Palpable Art Manifesto of…
Where comics find their Edinburgh comfort food
Mum’s, or to use its full title, Mum’s Great Comfort Food, is a restaurant in Edinburgh designed to soothe itinerant…
Bob Monkhouse, John Lennon and prostitution: Lloyd Evans’s Edinburgh Fringe picks
In the clammy shadows of Cowgate I was leafleted by a chubby beauty wearing all-leather fetish gear. ‘Hi! Want to…
Should we fear a Mugabe-style land grab in rural Scotland?
Are estate owners to be nationalised?
James Runcie’s diary: A Willie’s shock at the SNP
I am writing a play about Dr Johnson and his Dictionary. It will be performed in Scotland later this year.…
Taxi ride to the dark side: a thrilling blast of full-strength Irvine Welsh
Irvine Welsh, I think it’s safe to say, is not a writer who’s mellowing with age. His latest book sees…
Rhubarb has the loveliest, craziest dining room I have ever seen
The Edinburgh Fringe Festival: the city is full of glassy-eyed narcissists eating haggis pizza off flyers that say Michael Gove:…
I salute the wisdom of young Scots on independence (they’re voting No, by the way)
It’s a constant theme of this column that today’s young need to stop whingeing about their prospects and get on…
Scots and English are the same people, with different accents. Why pretend otherwise?
The Scots and the English have far more in common than the SNP likes to admit
It’s time that Scotland’s timid posh folk spoke out
I took part in a documentary about Scottishness a few weeks ago, and it wasn’t bad at all. I mused,…
