When Germaine Dulac premiered his film The Seashell and the Clergyman in 1928, playwright Antonin Artaud, who penned the half-hour short's original scenario, is said to have heckled the screen, going so far as to call its director a "cow". If such confrontational behaviour sounds like a precursor to punk's assault on culture half a century later, a new score to the film by former Siouxsie and the Banshees bassist Steven Severin is all too appropriate.
There's a laid-back, nuthin'-much-fires-me-up quality about Chuck Prophet's onstage persona that doesn't quite square with the music he creates. The Californian singer and guitarist, who shared a droll tale about the time he charted in the UK (in 1993, with 110 in the Shade), is clearly a roots music nut and delights in bringing rock's traditional values - tough guitar riffs, Bo Diddley's patented boogie, storytelling lyrics - into the modern day.
As its title suggests, this is not a show about the muddled China of western imagination. There's no work in defiance of political repression, no calligraphy or terra cotta warriors. Instead, the exhibit asks what these particular artists are up to, right now. The answer, in some cases, is not very much.
These days, the elephant is something of a TV celeb - closely observed in programmes about its own life in the wild but also, in a series about tigers, acting as a discreet "camera-spy" while going about the daily business of visiting water-holes. Clearly, these distinctive, enigmatic creatures exert an appropriately massive pull on our curiosity and our imagination, so when life-size elephants (including a very cute baby) drift through the mists in this Dodgy Clutch production, there's a gasp of surprised delight from adults and children alike. Yes, these body-puppets are beautifully and persuasively crafted; however, it's the way the performers move that really captures the elephants' solemn, swaying dignity, makes the mother and baby relationship so tenderly affecting and the act of unwarranted slaughter so heart-stoppingly appalling.
YESTERDAY it was the turn of the young bloods in the RSAMD's Plug Festival. Every year, Gordon McPherson turns loose the young second-year performers in his Style in Performance course, puts them together with the (mostly) younger musicians in the composition course, gives them an exotic name for the day and a stage on which to cut loose.
Two concerts into its programme, the International Jazz series at the Queen's Hall is playing a blinder. As strong as our home-grown jazz scene has become over the past decade, we need regular reminders on the big stage of what's happening in the outside world, especially when it's as good as this Italian trumpet and piano duo.
Review: The weight of expectation surrounding the fourth play in John Byrne's Slab Boys series is unavoidable. Paddy Cunneen's production begins 30 years after former likely lads Phil and Spanky last met, but they are still men behaving badly.
Review: When Michael Hurley sings, in On Top of Old Smokey, of losing his true lover for courting too slow, he's entirely believable. Indeed, the veteran hobo-troubadour gives every impression of never moving at pace under any circumstances.
Star rating: ****
Given the highly enthusiastic response to the star turn, and the fact that most of the serious money in the auction to raise money for Zambian orphans was spent by the same core group of people, it is perhaps fair to speculate that Sunday evening's fundraising concert at Oran Mor drew its audience largely from fans of top-billed Carol Kidd, rather than business folk who routinely go to fundraisers.
Star rating: *****
IN the early seventies, American minimalist guru Steve Reich and his musicians brought Reich's then-new epic composition, Drumming, to Scotland. It was an otherworldly affair, all white kaftans, long hair, long beards, ritualistic in its presentation and very much of its time.
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