A two hour ukulele workshop in the hands of cabaret diva Tricity Vogue was a tempting proposition at the weekend but I plumpted for Madeleine Smith and Seamus Heaney instead.

I Promise I Shall Not Play Billiards opened with three women circling a seated fourth.  All were dressed in similar mid Victorian costumes of crinoline skirt and voluminous blouse.  The similarity didn't end there because each of them took the part by turns of Madeleine Smith, accused of murder in mid 19th century Glasgow.

It was an interesting presentation but failed to tell me much more than I already knew about the case, which was damn little.  So even now I am scurrying to Wikipedia to find out more including I hope the significance of the title.

In A While with Seamus Heaney we were led gently through the poet's life and works by an Irish actor whose mellifluous voice had an unfortunate soporific effect on me so that I am unable to properly report on the show.

No-one could have dozed off during David Mamet's highly charged and loudly argued Race.  This 2009 play is set in a lawyer's office where the multi-racial partnership is approached by a rich white man seeking to be defended against an accusation of raping a black girl.

It has all of Mamet's clever plotting and linguistic virtuosity as the characters collide against one another at high velocity and the story twists and turns.  The complexity of race relations, of how to deal honestly and fairly with one another without prejudice, special pleading or special treatment from one side or the other is expertly, humanely and wittily explored.

The context is the post civil rights America of today but this South African company no doubt seized upon the play as a vehicle with which to reflect on relationships within their own post apartheid  society.

Back in Britain meanwhile the European debate goes on and Anthony Giddens at the Book Festival gave an interesting talk that got away from our perennial preoccupation with perfidious Brussels laying down anti-British rules about straight bananas and the like, to reflect on Europe's place in the  context of today's highly connected and highly interdependent world.

He has of course written a book putting forward his ideas and it seems to me that it would be a good idea to have a copy of Turbulent and Mighty Continent delivered to every home in the land in time for the citizens of the UK (or perhaps by then it will be just the rUK) to reflect on the bigger picture before they cast their votes in favour of or against straight bananas.