Dunbar the playwright

COMEDY actor and writer Karen Dunbar has turned playwright with her very first production being staged next week at Glasgow’s Oran Mor, as part of the Play, Pie and a Pint season.

#71 tells of three old friends in their Seventies who’ve known each other for years. Or do they?

Dunbar appears as one of the OAPs, not surprisingly given her ability to convince as an older lady, which she revealed in her BBC Scotland sketch show.

Dunbar appears in the play alongside Maureen Carr and Clare Waugh, who also age-up, all very Still Game-like.

Oran Mor, Monday to Saturday.

Video release next month

DEAR Esther Live is an innovative live staging/ performance of development studio The Chinese Room’s celebrated video game.

The live staging launches in Glasgow as part of Sonica festival before heading across the country to venues including Liverpool, Brighton, Edinburgh and Newcastle.

The work explores a haunting, deserted, island shrouded in mystery. The play-through of the game takes place on-screen, accompanied by live narration and a live performance of BAFTA-winning composer Jessica Curry’s powerful score.

The Tramway, Glasgow, November 3.

International art comes to Glasgow

Glasgow International Festival of Visual Art is pleased to announce details of the programme for its eighth edition, opening on April 20, 2018.

Under the new direction of Richard Parry, the 2018 programme comprises new works, site-specific commissions, exhibitions and events across over 70 venues and spaces in the north, south, east and west of the city.

As one of the UK’s largest and most influential art festivals, it showcases Glasgow as an important location for the production and display of contemporary visual art.

The festival includes solo exhibitions by international artists including Mark Leckey, Lubaina Himid, Urs Fischer, and Duggie Fields and Glasgow-based artists including Stephen Sutcliffe, Graham Eatough, and Michelle Hannah.

Diverse new venues used across the city for festival programming including Film City and Platform Swimming Pool, Easterhouse.

Elvis is back in the building.

A new Elvis production, The World Famous Elvis Show, is set to come to Scotland.

Chris O’Connor, who has been voted the Best Elvis Performer Worldwide, stars as the man from Memphis who set the world rockin’.

There have been thousands of Elvis impersonators over the year and many have offered a close approximation.

However, Joe Esposito, who was Elvis’s best friend and road manager is convinced O’Connor is the real deal.

He said after watching Collins perform, “Wow, that boy is good, he looks like Elvis, with the same energy.”

Glenrothes, Rothes Hall October 26, Glasgow Royal Concert Hall,October 27 and Dundee Whitehall Theatre, October 28.