Revolting by Bryony Kimmings: A WonderFool Youth Board production at Traverse Theatre 22nd April. Bryony Kimmings has provided ‘a paint by numbers self-generating play’ and Youth Board have collaborated, explored and negotiated this piece through a series of workshops with a cast of young people from across Scotland. The actors sprung confidently onto the stage with examples of what they found revolting- from some bodily functions to global injustices. It was a piece of work that caught the audience’s attention and held it: as much due to the entire cast’s passion and energy as due to the content. There was lightness and silliness as well as serious concerns including poverty, capitalism, the environment, toxic relationships, and racism. However, the tone was one of optimism rather than despair. There was enough capering to balance the weight. Leo Shak’s initial comedy of ‘Cher- ing’ and the reasons why he wasn’t able to ‘Cher’ for a few days was a good example of this balance. T...

  Legend of the Sea Devils airs on BBC One and BBC iPlayer on Sunday April 17. Q&A with Jodie Whittaker The Doctor (Jodie Whittaker) What can audiences expect from this special? We’re a few centuries off where the Doctor was aiming for and we stumble across a period in history that is a first for the Doctor Who universe. The TARDIS knows that it's going to China so Yaz and the Doctor have prepared appropriately for it but Dan gets a bit of a bum steer and his costume is all wrong! It’s a Pirates of the Caribbean style sci-fi, action adventure that marries historical characters with Whovian characters with a really brilliant high octane Doctor Who adventure. Did you enjoy stepping onto set – we heard the ship was impressive? Yeah, it was amazing! The art department worked night and day to create a really extraordinary set and I think it's the biggest one that we've worked on. We walked into an incredible pirate ship - it has so many different levels, it was really epic. ...

  Our new award SAM LGBTQ Short Stories Awards. After last year's launch of The SAM LGBTQ Comedy Awards, which are back for this year's Edinburgh Fringe Festive, we have this new award for shorts stories of no more than 10,000 words written by an LGBTQ+ person living in Scotland. There will be 10 cash prizes, 9 awards of £250, and the top prize of £500. The stories will then be published as a collection . Submissions open on 11 April, the closing date will be July 15. send a submission to mail@scenealba.co.uk

  Q&A with Chris Chibnall Where do we find our core cast at the beginning of this special? This special sees the TARDIS crew landing in a coastal village in China, on the trail of the mystery of the treasure of the Flor de la Mar, which the Doctor has been meaning to find out about for a long time. When they get there, they discover some very strange events and a terrible evil being unleashed in this village! What was your inspiration for this episode and how did you come to work together with Ella Road on this script? We had been intending to do a piratey story during Flux and we didn't manage to make it work for all sorts of reasons. So when it came to thinking about the final specials that was one of things I really wanted to revisit, to do a big, thrilling Bank Holiday romp of an adventure for Jodie's penultimate story, featuring a warrior pirate queen. Ella (Road) then came to us with the idea of Madam Ching - this incredible character from history - and it all knitted...

  V&A Dundee opens ground-breaking Michael Clark exhibition V&A Dundee opens the first major exhibition on the pioneering and radical work of Scottish dancer and choreographer Michael Clark this Saturday (5 March), curated and organised by Barbican, London.    Michael Clark: Cosmic Dancer   runs from 5 March to 4 September 2022.   Tickets are on sale now at   www.vam.ac.uk/dundee  

  Tears For Fears - The Tipping Point ⅘ It's difficult to imagine what a 21st century Tears For Fear album would sound like, you may feel you’ve put the wrong record on when opener ‘No Small Thing’ begins. A folk-pop number more closely aligned with the likes of Eddi Reader not the huge synth kings of old, or even the Beatles bating later 80’s version of ‘Sowing the Seeds of Love’, Don’t be misled though, it sets a false tone for the album soon enough we hear the old magic again particularly on tracks like ‘Break the Man’ or  the ‘Woman in Chainsesque’ ‘Rivers of Mercy’. This is a rather mature Tears for Fears. The vocals deeper, less shouting more whispering for this album. ‘The Tipping Point’ is a warm and deeply personal album, ‘Please Be Happy’ feels like a confessional set to stirring music while ‘Master Plan’ is an unfolding biography carried along by an epic wave of orchestral sweeps and chirping keyboards. If you really need a blast of eighties then ‘End of Night’ is t...

  A Midsummer Night’s Dream Scottish Opera Glasgow – 22 February 2022  Kelvin Holdsworth  Scottish Opera’s covid-delayed production of Britten’s   A Midsummer Night’s Dream   is full of fun. Good singing and powerful stage magic make for an entertaining evening.  As the curtain rises, we are faced with a proscenium arch within a proscenium arch – presumably a nod to the play within a play that concludes the   Dream . We are drawn straight into director Dominic Hill’s comfort zone –a big open stage with wide open wings. Above and beyond the stage, large beds float in the air which will become part of the business later on and the inner arch forms the frame for a hall of mirrors – mirrors which were to become problematic as the evening unfolded.  Benjamin Britten’s version of Shakespeare’s play puts the territory of a fairies firmly at the centre of the action. The piece opens, not with Theseus and Hippolyta but with Oberon and Titania. It is thus s...