MUSIC

The National:

WHAT’S HAPPENING?
TODAY sees Lau-Land, a mini-festival led by Scots-English folk trio Lau, above, come to Glasgow’s CCA for a day of workshops, talks and discussions as part of Celtic Connections. The day begins at 10.30am with three separate workshops from the musicians themselves, with multi-instrumentalist Martin Green speaking about traditional arrangements while guitarist Kris Drever and fiddle-player Aidan O’Rourke will talk on their own instruments. Karine Polwart will speak about her acclaimed theatre piece Wind Resistance and there’s a free panel discussion on the evolution of traditional music, as well as live sessions hosted by Drever, an informal concert from very special guests and Lau’s tenth birthday celebration of the release of their first album, Lightweights And Gentlemen.

Joining the trio for the live party at 9pm are Pictish Trail, American folk artist Sam Amidon, playwright and producer Jaimini Jethwa and Brighe Chaimbeul, the Skye piper who won the 2016 BBC Radio 2 Young Folk Award.

Today, CCA, Glasgow, various times and prices. www.lau-music.co.uk www.cca-glasgow.com www.celticconnections.com

WHAT’S HAPPENING?
ON Saturday February 17, fiddlers from across the country will join the Inverness Fiddlers to form an orchestra of around 100 players performing a varied programme of traditional music from Scotland and beyond. Joining the tartan-clad fiddlers will be acclaimed Shetland fiddle player Gemma Donald and folk singer Emily Smith, who last year celebrated 15 years of musical collaboration with her husband, New Zealand fiddle player Jamie McClennan.

Feb 17, Eden Court Theatre, Inverness, 7.30pm, £11 to £17. Tickets: bit.ly/FiddlersRally

THEATRE

The National:

WHAT’S HAPPENING?

GLASGOW theatre-maker David Leddy says his forthcoming production, The Last Bordello, above, will be the largest he’s ever made. Featuring David Rankine as Mitri, a young terrorist who must lose his virginity in the one brothel left in a brutal war zone, it’s described by Leddy as “the bastard child of Margaret Atwood and David Lynch” and is, as he recently told an interviewer, “about speaking the unspeakable”. Feb 13 to Feb 17, Tron Theatre, Glasgow, 7.45pm, £9 to £17. Tel: 0141 552 4267.

www.tron.co.uk Feb 21 to Feb 24, Traverse, Edinburgh, 7.30pm, £17, £9 to £14 concs. Tel: 0131 228 1404. www.traverse.co.uk davidleddy.com

WHAT’S HAPPENING?

ANOTHER production with challenging adult themes this month is The Match Box, the Scottish premiere of Irish Tony Award winner Frank McGuinness’s monologue about a woman’s journey through grief and revenge. Award-wining Borders company Firebrand present this new production in partnership with The Byre Theatre and Heart of Hawick, with actress Janet Coulson playing Sal, a woman living in exile on a remote Irish island.

Feb 7, Birnam Arts, Dunkeld, 7.30pm, £10, £8 concs. Tel: 01350 727674. www.birnamarts.com Feb 9 and Feb 10: 7.30pm, Feb 11: 2.30pm, Heart of Hawick, Kirkstile, Hawick, £14. Tel: 01450 360688. www.heartofhawick.co.uk Feb 13 to Feb 17, Traverse, Edinburgh, 8pm, £17, £9 to £14 concs. Tel: 0131 228 1404. www.traverse.co.uk Feb 20 to Feb 24, Citizens Theatre, 7.30pm, £16.50, £12.50 concs. Tel: 0141 429 0022. www.citz.co.uk www.firebrandtheatre.co.uk

VISUAL ART

The National:

WHAT’S HAPPENING?
SONGS For Winter is a celebration of the work of Charles Poulsen and Pauline Burbidge, above, two artists who have worked from Allanbank Mill Steading in the Borders for the past 24 years. While drawing is at the heart of each artist’s work, Poulsen makes large scale drawings on paper and sculpture which he describes as 3D drawings, while Burbidge’s textile work on fine silks and cottons reflects the growth and seasonal changes within the natural world and rural landscape. This exhibition, which showcases the diversity and parallels between their work, is a reflection of their open studio exhibition which takes place in their farm buildings for four days every year.

Until 4 Mar, City Art Centre, Edinburgh, free. www.edinburghmuseums.org.uk

WHAT’S HAPPENING?

OPENING on February 10 is Speaking Nearby, the first solo exhibition in Scotland by moving image artist Rehana Zaman. It brings together two of her recent films: Tell Me The Story Of All These Things, a collection of intimate conversations exploring how social conditioning affects how we analyse bodies, identities and relationships, and Some Women, Other Women And All The Bittermen, a six-part soap opera set in the Tetley Brewery, which incorporates footage from meetings of Justice For Domestic Workers Leeds. Also presented is Zaman’s new film Lourdes, developed from a residency in Tepito, Mexico City.

Feb 10 to Mar 25 (closed Mondays), CCA, Glasgow, free. www.cca-glasgow.com

MUSICALS

The National:

WHAT’S HAPPENING?

FOLLOWING Aberdeen Arts Centre’s 2016 smash hit production of Cabaret, the team returns with a new production of the Broadway musical Company. With music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and book by George Furth, Company’s original 1970 run was nominated for a record-setting fourteen Tony Awards and won six. Now directed by Aberdeen-born Derek Anderson (Cabaret, The Pillowman), this strictly-limited run in Aberdeen only sees actor Oliver Savile, above, in the part of Bobby, a 30-something unwilling to give up his bachelor lifestyle.

Today until Feb 10 (not Sun, Mon), Aberdeen Arts Centre, 7.30pm, Sat mats 2.30pm, £24 and £26. Tel: 01224 641122. www.aberdeenartscentre.com

WHAT’S HAPPENING?

AFTER a sell-out run last year, Hairspray, the 1960s-based musical based on the 1988 John Waters film of the same name, returns to Inverness for a run this month before continuing on a UK tour which stops at Edinburgh Playhouse from March 12 to March 17 and Aberdeen’s His Majesty’s Theatre from March 19 to March 24. Newcomer Rebecca Mendoza stars as Tracy Turnblad, the big-haired teenager determined to dance her way on to national TV, fight for equality and get the local heartthrob Link Larkin (Edward Chitticks) along the way. Also starring is Norman Pace as Tracy’s dad, and former X Factor contestant Brenda Edwards as Motormouth Maybelle.

Feb 6 to Feb 10, Eden Court Theatre, Inverness, 7.30pm, mats Feb 8 and Feb 10, 1.30pm, £14 to £32. Tel: 01463 234 234. www.eden-court.co.uk www.hairsprayuktour.com

FILM

The National:

WHAT’S HAPPENING?
GUILLERMO Del Toro’s new film The Shape Of Water previews for two days at the DCA on February 14 and 15, before going on wider release. Set in early 1960s’ Baltimore, Sally Hawkins, above, stars as the plucky cleaner working at a government laboratory who falls in love with a sensitive water creature, played by Doug Jones. Jones played the Pale Man in Pan’s Labyrinth, and some are saying it’s the Mexican director’s best work since that 2006 masterpiece.

Feb 14 and Feb 15, Dundee Contemporary Arts, various times, £7.50. Tel: 01382 432 444. www.dca.org.uk

WHAT’S HAPPENING?
ALSO at the DCA will be Near Shore, a collection of silent film work presenting perspectives on Scotland and Ireland, with musical accompaniments from Irish folk trio Patrick Carayannis, Rodney Lancashire and Seamus Hernon, and free-improvisational pianist Paul Smyth. The night is the only other staging of the event outwith the Glasgow Film Festival.

Feb 26, Dundee Contemporary Arts, 6pm, £7.50. Tel: 01382 432 444. www.dca.org.uk

WHAT’S HAPPENING?
TAKING place from February 21 to March 4 is the fourteenth Glasgow Film Festival, with more than 330 events and screenings taking place across the city in what is now one of the UK’s biggest film festivals. This year the GFF will screen 13 world and European premieres, 77 UK premieres and 52 Scottish premieres, including the first screening in Scotland of Lynne Ramsay’s You Were Never Here, her new thriller starring Joaquin Phoenix. Ramsay is expected to attend the screening, as is Karen Gillan for the world premiere of her directorial debut The Party’s Just Beginning and Hollywood star Bill Pullman for the UK premiere of western The Ballad Of Lefty Brown, as well as a look back on his career.

See the full programme and book tickets at glasgowfilm.org/festival

TALKS

The National:

WHAT’S HAPPENING?
MOUNTAINEER, TV presenter, former international long jumper, prolific author, Scottish independence campaigner and Bella Caledonia magazine contributor Cameron McNeish, above, talks with BBC Scotland’s David Harron about 40 years of walking and climbing in Scotland, and will sign copies of his latest book There’s Always The Hills.

Feb 15, Waterstone’s, Princes Street, Edinburgh, 6.30pm, free but ticketed. Tickets: bit.ly/CMcNeish

WHAT’S HAPPENING?
SENIOR archivist at the Mitchell Library Dr Irene O’Brien gives a free talk on Irish applicants for poor relief in Glasgow and the west of Scotland in the years before the welfare state. Using original materials such as posters advertising the commercial routes between Glasgow and Ireland, it will be of special note to family historians and those with an interest in the development of social policy.

Feb 15, Blythswood Room, Mitchell Library, Glasgow, 6pm, free but ticketed. Tel: 0141 287 2999

WHAT’S HAPPENING?
CHAIR of social anthropology at Aberdeen University Tim Ingold hosts Search and Search Again, a talk on the meaning of research in art and the devaluation of truth in an era of “alternative facts”. When the meaning 
of research has become so corrupted, he asks, can art restore it to its proper vocation as the pursuit of truth?

Feb 14, CCA, Glasgow, 6.30pm, free. Tel: 0141 352 4900. www.cca-glasgow.com