Dance: Entity
Dome Weds 2nd – Thurs 3rd
As anyone who’s been transfixed by Random Dance company’s previous visits to the Dome will tell you, Wayne McGregor is probably the most powerful choreographic mind in the country. For Entity, Brian Eno and Massive Attack collaborator Jon Hopkins have written an electro soundtrack to fit McGregor’s vision of 10 dancers being moved by computer software in a utopian take on theories of evolution. In turns unsettling, balletic and fierce, it’s a long way from your average four to the floor. (BM)
Theatre: Post Show Party Show
The Basement Thurs 3rd
The Lincoln stage where Michael Pinchbeck’s parents met in 1970 was an unlikely love scene – his father was playing a Nazi and his mother was a nun in an amateur production of The Sound of Music, and one of the guitarists died during the performance. The actor has enlisted his folks for a re-enactment of the events of that fateful evening in this witty, nostalgic comedy which has steadily established a growing reputation on the fringe circuit this year. (BM)
Event: Grit Lit
Red Roaster Thurs 3rd
A literary night choosing blood and guts over sentiment, Grit Lit is returning with nine writers – most of them award-winning – following their sold-out show at the Fringe. Their headliner is Isabel Ashdown, whose debut novel Glasshopper took on the story of a teenager growing up with his alcoholic mother in 1980s Portsmouth, and the salacious theme continues through tales of drugs and gangsters at the Marina, possessed mothers, prison cells and missing persons. (BM)
Talk: The Space
Latest Music Bar Thurs 3rd
Another real coup for The Space this month, luring three big names to the Latest cavern again. Everyone’s favourite gold-jawed drum and bass gangster, Goldie, will be discussing conducting operas in the Royal Albert Hall, cameo roles in Bond films and going on Big Brother, presumably in preference to any talk of his musical implosion in the late 90s. Bestselling crime writer Ian Rankin – the Deputy Lieutenant of Edinburgh, no less – and Arts Foundation Songwriting Award winner Emily Baker also star. (BM)
Theatre: The Lying Kind
New Venture Theatre Fri 5th – Fri 12th
Anthony Neilson’s The Lying Kind is one of the stranger pieces of recent years. It kicks off with a pair of inept policemen informing an elderly couple of the death of their daughter, and goes on to depict a vigilante anti-paedophile parent group and a cross-dressing vicar in a work of pure farce. The relentless dark comedy has often ended in mixed results for companies who attempt it, but New Venture’s penchant for surrealism should justify their choice. (BM)
Theatre: Chicago
Dome Weds 16th – Sun 20th
Part of the appeal of this production, which has been running for the last 12 years, has been its ability to attract some wildly disparate names to its ranks, from Jerry Springer to Justin Lee Collins. The Brighton leg of the current UK tour brings musical veteran and all-round proper nice guy (we met him once) Gary Wilmot to the starring role of Billy Flynn. It might not be the most discerning theatrical experience around but this is entertainment painted with broad strokes and its longevity should be quality assurance enough. (NC)
Art: 1-2-3-4
Fabrica Fri 18th
Courtesy of the typically imaginative Grey Area Gallery, this explosion of art and music is putting some decidedly unholy artists in front of the Fabrica altar and letting them run with it. Among the names involved are Turner Prize winner Martin Creed, the artist known as Bob and Roberta Smith and David Blandy, who was last seen messing around with kung fu figures at Grey Area. Further weirdness comes from Masked gatecrashers Plastique Fantastique and burlesque rock band The Coolness. (BM)
Art: Eine and Zeus
Ink_D until Thurs 24th
Ben Eine threw in his job working for a city bank to spend his days making huge, typographical works of art – often covering entire walls with one word – on the surrounding streets. He’s rumoured to have painted some of Banksy’s rats, so this Crimes and Punishment show with 3D obsessive and sculptor Zeus is, as the gallery puts it, a clash of “urban art heavyweights”. Upstairs, Modern Toss’s Shit Nak Shop is promising to cure any seasonal hangovers. (BM)
Film: Cinema Paradiso
Duke of York’s Tues 29th
The programme at the Duke’s this month is dominated by the excellent CineCity festival (see last month’s SOURCE), but this Oscar-winning romantic classic about a boy whose formative years are transformed by a tiny cinema in post-war Italy is comparable with anything on the bill. Suitably enough, this screening will raise funds for a charity formed by DOY manager Jon Barrenechea to save a single-screen cinema threatened by demolition in the Nicaraguan mountain town where he spent his early movie-going years. (BM)
Film: The Wizard Of Oz
Duke of York’s Sun 20th
As much a part of Christmas as bitter family altercations, suicidal loneliness and dumping unwanted puppies, The Wizard Of Oz arrives to the big screen to instil some festive cheer in our icy, black hearts. Join your fellow friends of Dorothy for this lunchtime showing, which promises lots of participatory audience cackling and caterwauling. The lovely bar at the Duke’s might have something to do with this, and all the better for it. (NC)
WORDS BY NICK COQUET, BEN MILLER
