Arts & Entertainment >

Fri May 15, 2026 2:17 pm

There's not a lot you can't say about legend, Benny Brucebar, Jazz pioneer, scat backer, marquee salesman.

This album, recorded live at the Smokehouse in Benny's native Chincinago 6 years after his death, manages to capture the essence of a man who could never be pigeon-holed. Borrowing from his earlier recordings and using an elaborate system of wires, producer Jack 'The Lemon' Squeezer has made an album that is both timeless and of it's time, that exists in space and outside of it, that burrows through the gaps in the mind and slips down the back alley of consciousness into a warm bed of decaying flesh, and out the other side into a farmyard full of crying animals waiting to meet their maker.

The second track on the album, the eponymously named 'Eponymously', encompasses the full range of Brucebar's work in a single, delirious 35 minute extravaganza, syncopated blues rhythms melting sonorously into free-jazz, swiping sidelong with back of the fag-packet free-form algebra, before returning back to its origins with a full rectal-reentry.

In a word: Frequently.

1/5

Tue May 12, 2026 1:41 pm

Gitench performance artist, Michel Pappinion, has crossed the channel to bring us his latest piece entitled "Pappinion boulez j'ai bouccet mon hesuit".

Pappinion, clad in gold paint, bores down through the planet's crust to retrieve giant diamonds as big as your head, returning to the surface in vapour form ; a gas filtering through sedimentary rocks. With giant papier-mache wings attached to all three legs, he commences a dance 'tres exotic', as they say in Gitance, staged onlookers soon join, naked except for their clothes and wearing masks to cover their expressions of glee/boredom.

When the dance completes air is trapped inside and is set alight, a bright blue flame surrounding the audience until we are all slightly charred, backlit up until about the start of christmas, but warm and confident thanks to Pappinion's pulsating rhythms.

We are transfixed with PVA for most of the performance, Pappinion splurging from side to side and rarely touching the ground, and then its all over, just like it began.

Pappinion will be performing daily outside the capital's North Bank theatre through December. Tickets are free.

Sun May 10, 2026 2:16 pm

Mainstream broadcaster IBTV has a hit on its hands with its new reality show that uses the latest time travel techniques to confine a group of famous philosophers in a modernist designed house for 8 weeks.

During the first episode we watched Descartes conclude that everything is ultimately real, insisting that he must exist because something has to exist in order to do that questioning, sitting in a big plush armchair and smoking. Plato meanwhile, after a brief tryst with Schrodinger in the hot-tub, repeated his assertion of two realms of reality, physical and spiritual - forcibly trying to convince his housemates (and the viewing public) of the imperfection of the physical realm waving a half-empty bottle of white wine at the hidden cameras.

As we've come to expect, Neitzsche put a minor downer on the episode by denying everything, insisting its all wrong and generally just being a dick about it all, but thankfully was the first to be voted out by his other housemates.

Expect fireworks in next week's public vote as Socrates goes up against Russell in the weekly 'trial' to earn extra food for the house.

Fri May 08, 2026 12:45 pm

This week, after a long period of acclimatisation and gradual weaning from their surrogate breast-host, six cinemas have been released into the wild in the marshy peatlands just north of Dumplank. All six cinemas were seen gamboling joyfully before disappearing into the dense undergrowth.

The release comes after years of patient care and training by the volunteer group who discovered the cinemas in a disused mineshaft 8 years ago. It is believed the cinemas were left there after being captured by a rogue gang of confused horse bandits who completely lost track of time.

It is hoped the successful release of the cinemas will encourage the eventual release of other rescued buildings, including a multi-storey car-park that has been hand-reared since being found in a discarded bin-bag when it was just a baby.

Mon May 04, 2026 5:08 pm

By the time the Mudpickers arrived on stage, most of the small audience were already well gone, having taken advantage of the bar's special 180-minute long 'Happy Hour' offer during the sound-check and not looked back since.

Lead singer Bruce Wickson sauntered unsteadily to the microphone to a ripple of friendly applause and a mild, joyful heckle from close friend Mickey Saunderson (sitting near the back with an extra pint of Amstel, just in case) who ironically suggested that the band should "Get off".

Unfazed, the Mudpickers leapt deliberately into their opening standard "Why won't you let me bury you in the garden?", with its surprisingly melodic guitar riff (ably replicated by stand-in guitarist Jerry Frison, who had managed to learn most of the band's repertoire in the afternoon rehearsal) and its plaintive chorus, "I ain't done nothing wrong // and hey i promise it won't take long // come on babe give me a pardon // why won't you let me bury you in the garden?".

The rest of the set was somewhat less polished, and by the second half of the epic 45 minute, psy-jazz freakout that is "Purge in D minor", most of the audience had moved to the quieter half of the bar where they could drink shots and chat about the recent behaviour of their sexually adventurous friend, Kenny Bootson.

2.5/5

Thu Apr 30, 2026 5:04 pm

Daniel Copperson's return to the Old Nick is a triumph of form over factor, of space over spending and reputation over reason.

You wouldn't necessarily expect an actor of Copperson's calibre to appear in a role and at a location such as this, with the Old Nick's aching halls still clinging to the vapours of recent performances by lesser actors such as Bridleson and Cartier. But irrespective of the setting - and forgetting Copperson's much publicised recent tabloid troubles - it doesn't take long to realise that this is an actor, on a stage, and you're just gonna have to sit there and listen to him going on and on and on.

Copperson's rendition of the famous opening monologue is like a breath of stale wind through a dusty closet, revealing subtleties of stench that would never be apparent reading the text alone, with no voice in your head but that of the author, and it is this ever present reek that refuses to leave you even days after your visit.

Please, god, never again.
1/5

Tue Apr 28, 2026 5:29 pm

On second episode basis, ITC's humdinger 'Broken Armchair' wakes the primal spot in leopardskin, tight, morning show coverage.

Blown open covering supports under welcome arches, made sure by celebrity ghost appearances, unlikely though that may seem. Shing brightly in this second episode, beacons of respectability in the dark underbelly of exchange tone, no line signal, no boat - its what we expect.

Underworn models beckoning, as usual, the second episode denies it all where most viewers will be expecting sheepskin not leopard, in recitals most choral, almost catholic, but with darker more satanic coverage. It's a star turn by Japsuit Tuttinson, that saves the whole flotilla.

2/5