AROUND TOWN

Join Edinburgh’s Collective as they welcome the warmer weather with two days of creative, kid friendly activities and performance art in their Play Weekend (Saturday 11 & Sunday 12 May).

Scotland’s biggest coffee party Glasgow Coffee Festival (Saturday 11 & Sunday 12 May) are celebrating their tenth anniversary this year with a caffeine-filled weekend of tastings, talks, stalls and workshops. Find them at The Briggait.

And the Blackheart Market (Saturday 11 May) will be unveiling its wicked wares at its new home, the Wellgate Shopping Centre in Dundee. This popular horror, goth and alternative market brings together a carefully curated range of merchandise, art, crafts, and more.

MUSIC

An iconic 80s star will be revisiting some old favourites when Thompson Twins’ Tom Bailey (Sunday 12 May) swings by The Queen’s Hall in Edinburgh to perform the band’s 1984 album, Into the Gap, in its entirety, alongside some other hits. Supported by Prefab Sprout’s Martin McAloon.

Glasgow’s own Camera Obscura (Saturday 11 May) will be returning to the city’s Barrowland Ballroom this weekend with their delightful brand of indie pop. They’re promoting their recently released sixth album, Look To The East, Look To The West.

While the biggest gig of the week is over at Glasgow’s OVO Hydro where Elbow (Saturday 11 May) will be appearing as part of their first arena tour since 2018. Expect singalong moments in spades as they bring out the back catalogue, alongside tracks from their latest, highly acclaimed album, Audio Vertigo.

STAGE

Julian Clary: A Fistful Of Clary (Saturday 11 May) finds the comic icon and ‘renowned homosexual’ back on the road for a western-themed stand-up show involving fun, games and innuendo aplenty. The Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh, hosts.

Following a successful run in London’s West End, Irvine Welsh’s PORNO (Friday 10 & Saturday 11 May) returns to The King’s Theatre, Glasgow. This stage adaptation picks up with Renton, Sickboy, Begbie and Spud 15 years after the events of Trainspotting.

In the critically acclaimed show Jack Docherty: David Bowie & Me – Parallel Lives (Sunday 12 May) the Scottish comic and presenter discusses everything from meeting the titular music icon to first love, AI, culture wars and mortality. Catch it at Glasgow’s Oran Mor.

SCREEN

One of the highlights of the cinematic year thus far, La Chimera is a magical and masterful blend of comedy and tragedy from Italian director Alice Rohrwacher, which finds man-of-the-moment Josh O’Connor getting into scrapes in Tuscany as leader of a gang of graverobbers.

Directed by the Maze Runner trilogy’s Wes Ball, Kingdom Of The Planet Of The Apes belatedly follows up 2017’s War For The Planet Of The Apes. Owen Teague, Freya Allan, William H Macy and Kevin Durand star.

Wrapping up this weekend, is the 10th instalment of Folk Film Gathering (until Sunday 12 May). It screens films celebrating the lived experiences of communities worldwide, whilst exploring the relationship between cinema and other artforms like storytelling and folk song. Check it out at Edinburgh’s Cameo Picturehouse and the Scottish Storytelling Centre.

PODCASTS

Featuring the original cast of the hit, spectacularly silly sitcom, Audible podcast Green Wing: Resuscitated revives the show in audio form, as it finds the staff of East Hampton Hospital as comical and chaotic as ever.

With women’s football continuing to thrive, best pals and footie favourites Ella Toone and Alessia Russo will be chatting ‘everything and anything’ in The Tooney & Russo Show. Presenter Vick Hope asks the questions and does her darndest to keep the pair on track.

In Intrigue: To Catch A Scorpion BBC journalist Sue Mitchell and aid worker Rob Lawrie go on a dangerous hunt for people smuggler Barzan Majeed. Codenamed Scorpion, Majeed is a central character in the transport of migrants from the European mainland to the UK.

VISUAL ART

Kicking off this weekend in Edinburgh is the highlight of the Royal Scottish Academy’s annual exhibition programme. The RSA Annual Exhibition (Saturday 11 May – Sunday 16 June) provides a fantastic platform for the best in contemporary painting, sculpture, film, printmaking, photography, installation and architecture.

Group exhibition Reassembled (until Wednesday 29 May) brings together new works by JFK Turner, Laura Jane Scott and Derek Wilson, three artists who work with a restricted colour palette, allowing them to emphasise form and structure.

And finally, ending soon is Andy Warhol: The Textiles (until Saturday 18 May), the first exhibition in Scotland exclusively dedicated to the commercial textile designs of the iconic pop artist, with more than 35 of his stunning textile patterns on display.