Jenni Ajderian

(originally published by The Student )      When it comes to improvised comedy, students are a tough crowd. We've studied transcripts of comedies or the effects of laughter on the brain or the best way to deliver a line, or we've just spent one too many afternoons watching Dave. In the twenty-five years of Bedlam's resident Improverts giving weekly shows to its student population, improvised comedy has grown and exploded, and to a certain extent, we've seen it all before. It's clearly a challenge, then, for the Improverts to put on show every Friday night with a good enough mix of audience participation and performer control, all structured around comedy games which showcase the performers both individually and in groups.      Clearly, some games work far better than others. Our Honoured Guest involved one performer acting as translator for another, who speaks gibberish on a topic of the audience's choosing. We chose Michael Jackson. In such ...

(originally published by  The Student )      It's hard to see the links between the gold-fronted screenplay, the video of a tapdancer and the severed arm in one corner, but this is all part of the art. Catherine Payton's one-room exhibition at Collective is focused on the relationships between seemingly ordinary objects and the possibility of warping these to create strange new situations.      Nestled halfway down Cockburn street, Edinburgh, the Collective gallery provides a space for new forms of visual art from new and international artists. As part of its New Work Scotland Programme, both Payton and Swiss-born Nicolas Party have a room to play with for the month.      Party's work makes the most of Collective's streetside windows with his Teapots and Sausages- an indistinct still-life which plays with shade and texture and is applied directly onto the wall. Party recently told The Skinny that his new drawings were d...