Hidden was the Young Lyceum's party piece and although I didn't always know what they were on about it provided a fascinating tour of the theatre building from under the stage to the gods.
Pictures at an Exhibition is one of my favourite pieces of music but I don't reckon much to the pictures that inspired it.
An afternoon spent helping to sort out the Grads costume store was as exciting as it sounds. Only marginally more exciting has been persuading audiences leaving the Lyceum and the Traverse to take a flyer advertising our production of Ayckbourn's Wildest Dreams that opened tonight.
I was caught out by the clock change and arrived at the Assembly Rooms an hour too early to hear Mary Beard promoting SPQR, her history of the Roman Republic. I whiled away the time with a glass and a snack so it wasn't too much of a pain and Ms Beard was worth the wait though I didn't buy the book.
The last A Play, a pie and a pint offering was an excellent little comedy in which we saw how Dr Johnson despite his avowed aversion to Scotland needed five Scottish assistants to put his dictionary together.
Red Army is an absolutely brilliant documentary about a soviet ice hockey team. Don't miss it. It's about much more than the game.
Sicario is typical Hollywood action movie fare. There's lot of blood and explosions and shoot outs and I really don't think anyone should bother to see it. What was I thinking of?
Tipping the Velvet at the Lyceum has been showered with five star reviews and it's very well done although the story didn't float my boat very high. It was nice to see the theatre set up for music hall, quite reminded me of Kitwe.
You'd think that advertising a world premiere would draw the crowds but concert audiences tend to like what they know so The Queen's Hall was half empty for an SCO evening that featured not only 12 minutes of brand new Finnish stuff but a 38 minute UK premiere of some obscure Sibelius. Maybe they knew and disliked the third work which was a violin concerto by Nielson but they missed a notably interesting evening.
The poster for Scottish Opera's Carmen featured her in a blood red outfit but that was nowhere to be seen on stage. Not much could be seen because they played the whole thing in semi darkness. I was disappointed.
I'm not sure what drew me to the launch of Alice Thompon's latest novel but I got a glass of wine out of it and a wee chat with my German teacher and her husband who happened to be there. I've never read any of her stuff and had only a vague memory of what I'd read about her work so I asked which book she'd recommend for starters and have since bought The Existential Detective. It's set in Portobello so I'm almost bound to enjoy it.
There's a French film festival in town and I saw three films at the weekend. SK1 is a not very wonderful police procedural based on real life events redeemed for me by an excellent performance by Adama Niane as the baddie. The Silence of the Sea probably deserves respect as a precursor of the Nouvelle Vague and for its various technical innovations but it wasn't very entertaining. The Lady in the Car with Glasses and a Gun on the other hand was super entertainment. The lady in question borrows her boss's car without permission and sets off to spend the weekend on the Riviera. We follow her progress into a weird chain of events that gets quite creepy at times. I loved it and was delighted to learn that the leading lady is not only an Edinburgh girl but James Bridie's great granddaughter.
In between films I enjoyed a non bonfire night party featuring food, drink and chat.
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