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An awesome and ridiculous film that leaves you thrilled beyond the point of your natural endurance
2012
Theatre
The show has suddenly become quite wonderful, and the galvanising factor is the terrific stage debut of Melanie C
Blood Brothers
Music
The British pop music industry may be eating itself but if Muse are the pick of what it can offer the world in 2010 then British music is in rude health indeed
Muse
I was smitten by both Gilberts enormous luxuriant moustache and the intelligence and nuance of this highly entertaining play
I totally recommend Babbo to anyone who is looking for really good and traditional Italian food
Always been a fan but never seen them live. I was ecstatic to be part of this epic event. WOW!
London,
John Aizlewood's rating
Reader rating
Description: Solo performance from the Scottish singer-songwriter plugging his latest album, The Year Of The Leopard.
Phone: 0870998 8888
Trains: Tube: Chalk Farm 
Folky tinge: James Yorkston's band benefits from clarinet and violin
Tall, avuncular and with the reassuringly tweedy air of a financially insecure Kelsey Grammar, James Yorkston is the quietly rising future of folk-tinged British songwriters.
While still a member of East Neuk's Fence Collective, a loose conglomeration of songwriterly souls that also spawned KT Tunstall, King Creosote and The Beta Band, Yorkston's forthcoming album, When The Haar Rolls In, is the fifth of a fascinating career.
If the Roundhouse, with tables on the floor and curtains hiding the emptiness of the upper levels, was a challenging venue, Yorkston proved to be a wry old soul, blessed with a line in tall tales ("I recently stayed in a cottage with Robert Plant and Van The Man: oh, the laughs we had") and a tendency to giggle mid-song.
His songs may initially appear unassuming but they benefited immensely from a grandiose, widescreen approach. Indeed, so personalised is Yorkston's take on folk that the sparser and more "real" things were, the more he struggled to evade the ordinary. Lucky then, that clarinet (particularly the solo on Cheating The Game), violin and accordion helped add layers of loveliness to the drumless The Brussels Rambler and the more urgent Shipwreckers.
If these rich pickings were Yorkston's past remodelled, the new songs blossomed. The version of Lal Waterson's Midnight Feast was part sea-shanty, part punky singalong, but When The Haar Rolls In's title track was a lengthy trawl across what Yorkston does best: literary lyrics, a slow-burning start that evolved into something rather stately, followed by a clattering, skew-whiff climax.
For all Yorkston's likeabilty, his band's joyous musicality and their willingness to push the boundaries of what can be a staid genre, a potentially glorious spectacle was too often reduced to deluxe busking, leading to congeniality rather than passion.
Details are correct at the time of publication - please check with venue before booking.
