Ready Ready Sauce, Inky Fingers, Hedda G and High Society...

Chances are, I'll be in something to do with manipulate at the time - in fact, one of the shows clashes with my sold out workshop at Summerhall. That's right, SOLD OUT. However, I am always pleased to give a shout to companies restaging a classic script, if only because it gives me the chance to research an important part of theatre history.

Hedda Gabler is being put on by Hailstones, and is one of those late nineteenth century numbers that addressed the growing concerns about the status of women. The heroine Hedda is just back from her honeymoon. When a former lover rolls up - a rival to her husband both sexually and academically, as they both are promoting books in the same are - a tragedy is set in motion, ending with enough off-stage deaths to satisfy Sophocles.

Thursday 7 - Saturday 9, 6pm
Adam House Theatre



Another classic - this time from the early twentieth century is Cole Porter’s High Society. Being toured around the UK by the Music and Lyrics Company. It's a bit lighter than Hedda: this time, the ex is just trying to win back his wife and although it all ends in a wedding, it's anyone's guess who will be joining the bride at the altar.

It began as the 1939 Broadway hit The Philadelphia Story, became a classic 1956 musical film: High Society has a few famous Cole Porter ballads (True Love, You’re Sensational and Did You Evah!) and was the last film Grace Kelly made before swanning off to become royalty.

Tuesday 5 – Saturday 9 March, 7.30pm
Festival Theatre Edinburgh

Fighting against the loving spirit of Valentine's Day, Inky Fingers have suggested I nip across to Edinburgh for Anti-Valentines! A Spoken Word Night, it stars Viv Gee, who has shared a stage with John Cooper Clark and Henry Rollins, former Scottish Slam champion Milton Balgoni and anyone who fancies having a shot on the open mic. 

Spoken Word has had a bit of a revival lately - possibly because writers as diverse as Bram Gieben (Black Lantern) and Alan Bissett (Moira Monologues) have been giving it a shot. It's a good place to find the writers and rappers and comedians of tomorrow, today. Plus it tends to be quickfire, like a literary YouTube.

Feb 13th, 7-11pm, Jewel Miners Club

I like Ready Ready Sauce. They are Scotland's only all female bgirl crew, and can usually throw down the moves, but still have plenty of flavour. I don't really like The Stylist, but RRS are up for an award from the magazine, and it would be good to give them some support.

Some props, I mean. So: vote for them here and they might win sponsorship from Adidas. I am pretty conflicted - Adidas is okay as a hip-hop brand (Run DMC wore it like it was going out of fashion. Which it was, until Run DMC wore it). But I don't like the idea of corporate sponsorship.

RRS are based in Edinburgh, and have been able to hold their place in the breakin' scene, while bringing on a bit of that new school contemporary choreography style. They are imaginative and fresh, and while this award is about equality in sports, equality in hip hop is worth shouting about.