Critics’ choice: The Tempest | Blank City | Red Chalk | Opera North | Amy Macdonald

Published on 07/06/2012 05:40

THE Scotsman’s arts critics give us their pick of events over the next week.

THEATRE

THE TEMPEST

DUNDEE REP, UNTIL 23 JUNE

THE women of the Dundee Rep ensemble have always been a formidable group of actors, and now their new joint artistic director Jemima Levick puts them centre-stage, in a controversial and exciting new version of Shakespeare’s Tempest. In a rare piece of cross-casting, Irene Macdougall stars as Prospero, the deposed ruler exiled with her daughter Miranda to an island where she develops profound magical powers. Ann Louise Ross appears as her dark shadow and servant Caliban, bent on wrecking Prospero’s plans.

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JOYCE MCMILLAN

FILM

BLANK CITY

CAMEO, EDINBURGH, TOMORROW

Young French filmmaker Céline Danhier makes an intriguing debut with this documentary exploring the hitherto untold story of how the late 1970s New York punk scene spawned a rise in underground experimental movie-making. Dubbed “No Wave Cinema”, its punky anti-authoritarian stance gave rise to the likes of Jim Jarmusch and actors Steve Buscemi and Vincent Gallo, as well as showcasing bands such as Sonic Youth.

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ALISTAIR HARKNESS

VISUAL ART

RED CHALK: RAPHAEL TO RAMSAY

SCOTTISH NATIONAL GALLERY, EDINBURGH, UNTIL 10 JUNE

It IS YOUR last chance to see Red Chalk: Raphael to Ramsay at the National Gallery. Red chalk is a beautiful medium, especially for the figure and this show includes 35 works from the national collection by artists such as Peter Paul Rubens, Salvator Rosa, Jean-Antoine Watteau, Francois Boucher and David Allan. It also includes a number of drawings exhibited for the first time.

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DUNCAN MACMILLAN

CLASSICAL

OPERA NORTH: RUDDIGORE

EDINBURGH FESTIVAL THEATRE, TODAY UNTIL 9 JUNE

John Davies’ highly-acclaimed production of Ruddigore for Opera North, which has been successfully doing the rounds south of the Border since last year, updates this Gilbert and Sullivan satire from dark Victorian times to the even darker aftermath of the First World War, giving a whole new perspective on its satirical target – the criminality of the powerful. There are even more modern references to MP’s expenses, moats and duck houses, from the whimsical pen of Richard Stilgoe. All of which sound very Gilbert and Sullivan in spirit.

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KENNETH WALTON

POP

AMY MACDONALD

THE LEMON TREE, ABERDEEN; DUKE’S CORNER, DUNDEE; THE TOLBOOTH, STIRLING; THE CAVES, EDINBURGH; SWG3, GLASGOW, 12 JUNE

To MARK the release of her third album, Life In A Beautiful Light, and to raise money for the STV Appeal 2012 to lift children and young people out of poverty, Bishopbriggs songwriter Amy MacDonald, below, undertakes Five a Day for the Kids, a gigging marathon involving an acoustic set in five venues around Scotland over the course of a single day. She starts early next Tuesday at 8.30am in Aberdeen, before heading on to Dundee for 12.30pm, reaching Stirling by 4pm, moving on to Edinburgh by 8pm and finishing up in Glasgow at 11pm. Doors open for each gig half an hour before the performance time and there will be an after-party in Glasgow.

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FIONA SHEPHERD