Rating: 5/5. Verdict: History recorded

A knockabout Kiwindian comedy with a light seasoning of pathos, this self-funded project does not exceed the expectations raised by its modest origins.

Rating: 4/5. Verdict: More absurd fun from Georgia's most colourful, camp and clever band

Based on Posy Simmond's graphic novel, originally serialised in the Guardian's Review supplement, Tamara Drewe is a light and frothy satire on life and lust in a quiet English country village.

Rating: 4/5. Verdict: Setting their controls to the heart of the sun

Deep in the Forest is subtitled a Cautionary Cabaret and punters should be cautioned to exercise a certain amount a scepticism when viewing the show's promotional material.

One of the pleasures of reading an essayist as eclectic as Geoff Dyer is that one can go within a few pages from regarding him as a fount of wisdom (when his opinions match yours) to thinking he's a pretentious phoney (when they don't).

For women of a certain (or uncertain) age, remembering nothing is not difficult. Remembering something is more problematic. Thus, women of a certain age will be enchanted by Nora Ephron's take on memory, or lack of it.

I began this book when a William Lobb rose was in its first flowering in my garden. Every time I went out to get the mail the perfume hung in the air and I breathed it in and felt good about being alive.

Lynch fans will delight in her latest offering of love and heartache in the Italian hills. Sarah-Kate Lynch even helped smooth the reviewer's own path to love.

K Rd's Whammy Bar has hosted more than its share of full and sweaty nights over the last few years, a bit of communal congestion being something that regulars of this underground live music institution never seem to mind too much.

The avant-garde end of Fringe Fest spectrum finds an appropriate niche with a free event held at the base of the stairs that link Saint Kevin's Arcade with Myers Park.

Before they'd even put a toe in the water this week, the Wet Hot Beauties were the media's feel-good, sold-out hit of the summer.

One of the many funny lines in the profanity-strewn satirical film In The Loop came from the character Jamie Macdonald, the senior press officer in 10 Downing St and the "angriest man in Scotland".

Rating: 4/5. Verdict: An implosion of influences force-fed turpentine wine and turned up loud.

Tricky is still high on the 90s, stalking about the stage to the pounding bassline of Eurythmics' Sweet Dreams before throwing himself at You Don't Wanna, hissing like a reptile and boxing the air.

There's something special about playing the first song off your first album as the opening number at a concert. It takes you right back to where it all began.

The Queen of Scream, PJ Harvey, reconnects with her folk-blues roots on her eighth album, Let England Shake.

It's been more than five years since Grammy Award-winning R&B singer Faith Evans put out her last album, the chart-topping First Lady, which spawned the hit Again.

Rating: 3/5

Rating: 4/5

Rating: 4/5