A brand new pantomime written to celebrate Brunton Theatre’s 30th anniversary of professional productions begins on Friday 20 November and runs until Saturday 2 January: Sinbad the Pantomime featuring The Little Mermaid.

Deep beneath the Bass Rock lies the secret undersea paradise Atlantis – home to the Little Mermaid and the Pearl of Beauty, a jewel with magical properties.

When the evil witch Crabsclaw attacks the peace-loving Merfolk of Atlantis in search of the Pearl, the Little Mermaid is forced to swim ashore for help. Washed up on Fisherrow Beach she is discovered by Sinbad the Sailor, who lives on a ship in Fisherrow Harbour with his mammy Saucy Nancy and daft brother Swishee.

Together they set off on a quest to find the great Neptune, Lord of the Seas and the only being powerful enough to defeat the Sea Witch.

Sinbad the Pantomime follows on from its very successful productions of Dick McWhittington, Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty, also written and directed by Liam Rudden and produced by Brunton Theatre.

Tickets are available now from the Box Office on 0131 665 2240 or online at www.bruntontheatre.co.uk

The Christmas season starts with an afternoon of glamour and beauty at The Balmoral on Saturday 28 November at 12 noon.

A Christmas Fashion Show for 200 of Edinburghs most stylish is to be held in the magnificent surroundings of the five-star Balmoral Hotel.  Guests will be warmly welcomed with a champagne reception before sitting down to lunch with wine, followed by a fabulous fashion show.

The event is being held to help raise funds for Wish for Rwanda, a new charity founded by local businesswoman, Jackie Calder.

Jackie visited Rwanda earlier this year as part of a business exchange programme organised by The Together Partnership and was touched by the strength and courage of the people of Rwanda.

This trip was a life changing experience for Jackie and she returned to Scotland on a mission to raise one million pounds.  This is the first event to be held in aid of Wish For Rwanda before its official launch in the new year.

Rwanda is a beautiful country and its people are now living and working towards a future of reconciliation. They need our help a hand up, not a hand out and my wish for Rwanda is to provide sustainable solutions to projects that will help promote a stable environment and healthier population.

John Lewis will showcase their international winter collection highlighting the seasons colours and styles including glamorous cocktail and evening wear just in time to help you decide what to wear this Christmas and New Year.

Tickets cost £60 each or tables of ten at 600.  To book tickets visit www.wishforrwanda.com.

Wish for Rwanda is a charity registered in Scotland, which aims to fund community projects that will promote health, education and reconciliation in Rwanda. To find out more about Wish for Rwanda or to make a donation visit www.wishforrwanda.com.

Though I usually cover new films – and more than the occasional old one – on this site, this is a short shout out to any budding Spielberg’s or Meadows’ from the Edinburgh International Film Festival organisers who are looking to the future for submissions for the 2010 festival.

The 64th EIFF will take place from 16 – 27 June 2010 in Edinburgh. The Festival is internationally regarded as a focus for discovery, a celebration of cinema, a centre of debate and a catalyst for new films.

EIFF is committed to screening high quality new short and feature film and video work in all genres from around the world.

Please note all submitted films should be no more than 12 months old by June 2010 and EIFF requires at least UK premiere status.

Submission deadlines

• Earlybird: Monday 14 December 2009
• Regular: Monday 1 February 2010
• Late: Monday 15 February 2010

For further information on EIFF Rules & Regulations, Submission Fees and FAQs, visit the website www.edfilmfest.org.uk

To contact a member of the EIFF Submissions team please email submissions@edfilmfest.org.uk or call the office on 0131 228 4051.

To contact a member of the EIFF Programming team please email programme@edfilmfest.org.uk or call the office on 0131 228 4051.

In case the new M&S advert hasn’t tipped you off already, Christmas is coming once again and it’s time to prepare for the various festive entertainment on offer.

First up we have The Corstorphine Road Nativity, set in the fictional Corstorphine Road Primary School in Edinburgh where all the parts in the annual school nativity play are played by adults.

Based on real stories from actual nativity plays, Firth catalogues behind the scenes jealousy, teasing, blackmail and unrequited love as the “children” prepare to perform for their parents. The play is based on the 1999 TV drama The Flint Street Nativity by Tim Firth (Calendar Girls), this version building on the success of an earlier adaptation staged at Liverpool Playhouse.

Using real stories from actual nativity plays, Firth catalogues behind the scenes jealousy, teasing, blackmail and unrequited love as the “children” prepare to perform for their parents.

Backstage nerves take hold as the trembling narrator tries desperately to learn his lines and the wise man struggles to overcome his lisp and pronounce the word Frankincense.

Playground politics come into force as the school bully attempts to steal the role of Mary from the teacher’s pet and a deadly innkeeper refuses to let anyone in – apart from Mary herself of course. And with fluffed entrances, forgotten lines, brazen upstaging and distractions of excited parent-spotting, the nativity performance itself soon descends into a chaotic but hilarious charade.

The production will be directed by Joanna Read, former artistic director of Salisbury Playhouse, with set and costume designs by Nancy Surman.

The impressive cast includes: Shabana Bakhsh (Waterloo Road), Jimmy Chisholm (Take The High Road), Sara Crowe (Four Weddings & A Funeral), Ryan Fletcher (River City), Gordon Kennedy (Robin Hood), Jane McCarry (Still Game), Steven McNicoll (Legit), Colin McCredie (Taggart), Julie Wilson Nimmo (Balamory) and Gail Watson (Sunshine On Leith).

For full details head over to the Festival Theatre website.

*****

Mabuse. That name, pronounced Mab-ooz-a, may not resonate with present-day moviegoers, but in the 1920s it struck fear into the hearts of those lucky (or should that be unlucky?) enough to witness the two-part German epic Dr Mabuse, The Gambler (Dr Mabuse, Der Spieler) and the birth of a criminal mastermind.

It was in 1922 that young German director Fritz Lang, perhaps best known today for directing the seminal sci-fi classic Metropolis, brought his version of Norbert Jacques’ novel detailing the exploits of criminal mastermind Dr Mabuse (Rudolf Klein Rogge) to the screen.

Made at a time of great upheaval, both politically and socially, in Lang’s home country, the two-part Der Spieler was a visually hallucinatory attempt to tell the story of a man determined to destroy the economy and legal system of Germany in various dastardly ways.

Using mind-control, violence, con tricks and illusion, this master of disguise would stop at nothing to ensure dominance of the criminal underworld.

Lang’s singular vision, much copied but rarely equalled, ensured that audiences of the time were treated to visually stunning set-pieces and camera tricks the equivalent of today’s computer generated effects,  generating gasps in auditoriums as Mabuse’s head detaches itself from his body in one standout sequence.

Clocking in at nearly five hours for both films, originally released a few months apart in cinemas, these are epic in more ways than one.

The story of Mabuse continues in the 1933 sequel The Testament of Dr Mabuse (Der Testament Des Dr Mabuse), in which Lang brought him – and by this time Mabuse was a legend rather than a person – back to a Berlin waking up to the full terror of the rise of Nazism.

This time made with sound, Mabuse has been driven insane following the events of the first film, yet his power manages to transgress the walls of his prison cell into the alleys and dens of Berlin. The strongest, certainly the creepiest, of the three films in this set, Der Testament may be more accessible than its predecessor but it’s equally dramatic.

Lang would return to Germany thirty years later for the final part of his Mabuse trilogy, The 1000 Eyes of Dr Mabuse (Die 1000 Augen Des Dr Mabuse), a prescient look at a surveillance society in which once again the spirit of Mabuse is alive and well in the Cold War era.

Goldfinger’s Gert Frobe takes on the role of the lawman faced with the return of a name from the past as new technology clashes with superstition in 1960s Germany, in what would be Lang’s final film.

Dark, multi-layered and historically important, the films in this set are accompanied by some near-perfect audio commentaries from film historian David Kalat which entertain and illuminate in equal measure – if any finer yack tracks have been laid down on DVD this year then I’ll be amazed.

Other extras include 90 minutes worth of video essays, an interview with the star of 1000 Eyes Wolfgang Preiss and three in-depth booklets discussing the significance of the films to both audiences and film scholarship.

A truly stunning DVD set, this is certainly one of the most important releases of the month and perhaps even the decade.

The Complete Fritz Lang Mabuse Boxset is out now from Masters of Cinema.

*****

Blood, high-heels and heartache form the basis of Rona Munro’s new adaptation of Federico Garcia Lorca’s 1945 play, sun-baked rural Spain swapped for rain-sodden East End Glasgow as a matriarchal family comes to terms with the death of the man in their lives.

Returning home from the funeral of her gangster husband Tony, Bernie (Siobhan Redmond) and her five daughters are given little time to grieve as reporters surround their home and a film crew are given exclusive coverage of the family as they appeal to be left alone.

Aware that she’s unlikely to ever be free from her daughters, all of whom still live with her, there is still some hope that the relationship between Agnes (Julie Wilson Nimmo) and rival family offspring Peter Romanov could save them from financial difficulty if it all goes smoothly.

When youngest daughter Adie (Vanessa Johnson) shares her feelings for Romanov with older sister Marty (Louise Ludgate), who also carries a torch for the man, it looks like Bernie’s stranglehold on her brood might, for once, not be strong enough to stop things from taking a turn for the worse.

By taking the bare bones of Lorca’s play and setting it in present-day Glasgow, Munro has very much put her stamp on the piece, her attempt to make it relevant to a modern audience successful in that its references never appear forced.

An early appearance from Myra McFadyen as Bernie’s lifelong friend Penny promises much, her bawdiness pitched at just the right level, larger than life rather than OTT.

With such a large cast of siblings to establish, the difficulty here is keeping track of who’s who and each one’s motivation, the personalities of Jo Freer’s Maggie and Carmen Pieraccini’s Melly suffering the most.

The double act of Adie and Marty is perhaps the strongest, though there’s not enough done to explain quite what is so impressive about Romanov to make him the object of so many women’s desires. Adie is prone to spout less than believable dialogue, though it’s hard to tell if this is an accurate translation of the original, an attempt to show her naïveté, or both.

At the heart of it all is Siobhan Redmond as the determined Bernadette Alba, her morals and attitudes clearly shaped by her years as the wife of a violent and thuggish man. Claiming to want rid of her daughters one moment, only to calmly ensure they don’t leave her sight the next, Bernie is as bankrupt as her finances are soon to become.

Unfortunately Bernie isn’t in enough scenes, never quite the force of nature she’s built up to be. Redmond does well with the part but it’s the humour that makes more of an impression, her scenes with McFadyen always sparkling.

In the end, though the play is always entertaining, the production never has enough depth to ensure it’s taken as seriously as it perhaps wants to be.

The House of Bernarda Alba runs until 7 November, visit the King’s Theatre website for full details.

Following a run at Edinburgh’s Traverse during the Fringe Festival with The Doubtful Guest, Hoipolloi returns from Wednesday 11 – Saturday 14 November with Story of a Rabbit.

Hugh is asked to look after his neighbour’s rabbit, but soon finds it dead in his back garden. Oops! He temporarily puts it in a plastic bag in the shed to decide what to do with the dead pet, but comes back to it, only to find it gone.

This leads Hugh to consider more about what else disappears once we die.

The play is a humorous yet moving story that mixes theatrical sections, direct addresses to the audience, film and live music.

According to the Traverse, if you enjoyed any of Daniel Kitson’s recent shows you’ll enjoy this.

Head over to the Traverse website for full details.

Returning to Edinburgh’s Filmhouse for a second year, the Diversions Film Festival (Friday 6 – Sunday 8 November), aims to provide an educational introduction to historical works and a glimpse into ongoing dialogues at the edge of moving image production.

This year’s programme has been curated by distinguished filmmakers, distributors and researchers both local and from around the world.

On November 7, Finnish filmmaker Sami Van Ingen will present his 35 mm found footage narrative, Just One Kiss – The Fall of Ned Kelly (2009), with a live electronic musical accompaniment.

On November 8, the Filmhouse will host The Sublime Is Now, an intimate evening with New York-based filmmaker Jeanne Liotta. The event will trace her development as one of the most innovative artists working in the medium today.

A screening of Liotta’s work, which explores the cosmic landscape at the intersection of science, art and natural philosophy, will be followed by an extended conversation with the artist.

Other highlights include the screenings Pleasing Ourselves: Artisan Films in Scotland, comprised of works from the 1950s through today, Experimental Films and Videos from Finland, which spans the 1960s to the present, and The Gentle Art of Superimposition which maps the practice over the course of 80 years in a series of films curated by David Curtis, author A History of Artists’ Film and Video in Britain.

Full details can be found over on the Filmhouse website.

*****

Making his cinematic debut with 2006’s The Gigolos, a story about relationships in modern Britain told in a uniquely sensitive manner, director Richard Bracewell returns with a variation on the theme in new film Cuckoo.

Opening with a stark close-up of Polly (Laura Fraser) as she travels to her work as a medical researcher in an unnamed city, we’re soon introduced to her world of  science experiments, tight budgets and odd colleagues in the shape of Simone (Tamsin Greig) and her boss, Professor Greengrass (Richard E Grant).

As Polly begins to doubt that her current job is really for her, a feeling compounded by the obsessive nature of Greengrass, she also finds her home life somewhat lacking.

With her live-in boyfriend Chapman (Adam Fenton) barely in the house at night thanks to his work as a singer, and sister Jimi (Antonia Bernath) hardly the most compassionate of siblings, when Polly starts to hear things in her bedroom it seems that events are finally getting on top of her.

Determined to discover the source of the sounds, Polly begins searching both her surroundings and herself for an answer, a search that will bring her close to the edge of sanity and her own moral judgement.

Setting-up Polly’s situation in relatively few scenes – at work she’s unhappy with her manager’s methods, at home her boyfriend is there and then he’s not – we’re soon into classic thriller territory as her world starts changing.

For much of the film it’s unclear whether what we’re watching is supernatural or a result of Polly’s neuroses, further confusion thrown in to the mix when it seems that we might even be in sci-fi territory.

Visually it’s hard to place the film in any particular time or location, cassettes being used to record voices instead of digital equipment and no defining landmarks telling us whereabouts in the country events take place.

Darkness permeates Cuckoo, low-lighting casting shadows upon Polly’s flat and workplace as she searches for answers. Rather than simply being shorthand to depicting the various characters’ potentially shadowy motives, the lack of light is justified, particularly when Polly hears most noises while in her bed.

Just as important as the look of Cuckoo is the soundtrack, the noises heard by both Polly and the viewer part of the puzzle with Andrew Hewitt’s haunting music complimenting the action throughout.

Character-wise, Polly may not be the most alluring of leads as she becomes increasingly distant from those around her, but she’s made bearable thanks to a strong performance from Fraser.

Crucially, the interaction between Fraser and Bernath is always believable, little touches helping to cement their relationship even when it seems to be damaged the most.

Another double-act, albeit a largely non-comedic one, comes in the shape of Tamsin Greig and Richard E Grant.  Simone’s interaction with Greengrass, and the realisation that his attempts to mentor Polly might not be a one-off occurence, ensures further depth to the pair.

As with any thriller, pacing is crucial if the tension is to be maintained.  Cuckoo may rattle along as new questions are raised – and with an 80 minute run time it needs to pack in a lot of plot – but there’s still enough time given over to ensuring that nothing is too rushed.

With an ending which impresses almost as much as it confuses, Bracewell continues to demand his audience’s attention long after the credits role, seemingly throwaway lines and comments made by incidental characters falling into place only once they’ve been digested and ruminated upon.

A hugely satisfying slice of British drama which provides no easy answers, Cuckoo is a film which offers much on its first viewing but which should also improve with repeated screenings.

Jonathan Melville

Cuckoo currently has no UK release date. Visit the Cuckoo website for more information.

My Secret Sky

Africa in Motion (AiM), the UK’s largest African film festival, returns to Edinburgh’s Filmhouse for its fourth year from 22 October to 1 November.

Providing a platform to challenge, engage with and explore issues surrounding the African continent and its films, the festival includes a range of over 50 classic and contemporary films – long, short, fiction and documentary.

AiM 2009 will launches on Thursday 22 October with the UK premiere of My Secret Sky (Izulu Lami). Hailed as South Africa’s answer to Slumdog Millionaire and acclaimed for the brilliant acting of its main child characters, themselves from an impoverished background, My Secret Sky is a poignant tale of suffering and redemption.

The closing night film, Jerusalema, offers a realistic and unwavering look into the gritty underbelly of crime, corruption and transgression in the new South Africa.

In recognition that 2009 is the United Nation’s International Year of Reconciliation, the opening weekend will focus on filmic representations of conflict and reconciliation.

There’s also a complementary photography and painting exhibition in the Filmhouse café bar entitled A Truth in Black and White.

Find out more on the Africa in Motion website or over at the Filmhouse site.