This is the set of The Stornoway Way which has been playing to packed houses at the Festival Theatre Studio.  I was there yesterday afternoon.  As well as being attractive to look at it was cleverly designed.  The slatted wooden structures were used to create variously a bed, a supermarket checkout, an Edinburgh pub and more.  The rear wall performed as a video screen from time to time.

All that was grand and maybe the second half was a revelation but I left at the interval since the first half consisted of not much more than three actors expatiating on the subject of drink.  They walked, they talked and they drank.  I won't deny that what they did they did well but I found the story less than riveting and it didn't inspire in me any curiousity about how the story would turn out.  I daresay the nickname of chicken for the Famous Grouse will stick with me though.

I've been a bit bored at two other shows recently - Black Men Walking at the Traverse and Solaris at the Lyceum, though I did watch them both all the way through.  I admired their sets too but neither their narratives nor their metaphors held my interest.  I fear I am out of step with critical opinion, not for the first time and surely not for the last so here's what the unbored thought about the latter and the former.

Shows I did enjoy were A Taste of Honey at The Kings and Clybourne Park at The Traverse.  Ewan came to the Kings with me.  He was here for a few days on his way back to Houston after his holiday jaunt around Europe which had given him many pleasures but one disppointment - no trace of a birth certificate for my father that could have supported an application for an Irish passport.

The film The Farewell about the overseas resident members of a Chinese family gathering in China ostensibly to celebrate a marriage of a couple of the younger members but in reality to say farewell to their matriarch from whom the knowledge that she is dying of cancer has been withheld was very good and quite funny in parts.  In our society we don't withhold such information and give no value to the idea that ignorance of an oncoming death may indeed be bliss but it's something to reflect on.

Based on what the credits called "an actual true lie" the final reveal was that the old lady lived on for another six years, a period untroubled we may suppose by thoughts of death.   

One of the first classical records that I ever owned was a recording of the Brandenburg Concertos and I heard Number 3 played by the SCO under the direction of the charismatic Pekka Kuusisto.  I enjoyed it but preferred a modern piece called Bach Materia by Hillborg.  It was inspired by the Brandenburg and if my ear were better tuned I might have caught the references.  It has a tremendous beginning.  The band start what appears to be tuning up but before you know where you are you realise that the piece is in full swing.  It was very much to my taste.

At Greyfriars I had the unusual opportunity of hearing three alpenhorns in a concert featuring  Edinburgh Concert Band and a visiting group called German Winds.  It was an excellent concert and the piece played by the three horns and an oboe was great.  Unfortunately I didn't manage to take a picture of the horns in action but I've pinched one of them at rest from the ECB Facebook page.

The German Winds conductor had written two pieces, Greyfriars Bobby and The Royal Mile.  The band played them and the scores were presented to the Lord Provost. 

The concert I've enjoyed most in the last couple of weeks was the SNJO with Bill Evans.  They played Evans' music in arrangements by different people including several SNJO members.  It was a fabulous evening of saxophone playing (there were other instruments I admit).  I absolutely loved Paul Towndrow's solo in a piece that he had arranged.  I'm delighted to see in this review of the gig that he's been nominated as best alto player for the British Jazz Awards.  I'll be hearing more from him next weekend at Gallus.

The rugby world cup - no comment.