Coffee-Table Notes

When Iain Finlay Macleod moved part time to the Stockbridge district on the cusp of Edinburgh New Town, it was as far spiritually from the playwright, novelist and tweed-maker's Lewis birth-place as it was geographically. Macleod had decamped to the capital to take up his post as the 2013 Institute of Advanced Studies for the Humanities (IASH) Edinburgh University/Traverse Theatre Fellow, and the original plan was to write something loosely based around the nineteenth century Enlightenment which begat the thinking of David Hume and Adam Smith. Yet, s he spent more time in the area, Macleod became increasingly drawn towards the not always enlightened world of the legal profession. Then, when a friend told him a story about someone looking after a dog which subsequently died, forcing its minder to put its body in a suitcase to take it across town to the vet's on the underground, it became something else again. The result of such a disparate set of inspirations is The Devil Master

Cumbernauld Theatre Four stars “Don't go messing with cosmos,” says the operator of a celestial helpline to big bad Abanazer in Tony Cownie's pocket-sized take on this most magical of pantomime favourites, “or the cosmos will mess with you.” This is something Abanazer eventually learns to his cost  as he manipulates peasant boy Aladdin into leading him to the magic lamp and the genie that will sate his greed. Lovestruck Aladdin, meanwhile, has his sights set on the beautiful Princess Jasmine, even if it means trampolining his way over the palace walls with his best pal Karif to get her. A bored king is the initial impetus for the yarn to unravel, as his loyal subjects scramble around in desperation to find one more story to keep him interested. Only when the oldest and wisest member of the tribe lays bare a tale closer to his heart than he lets on does the gang leap into the dressing up box to act it out. As dramaturged by Ed Robson and Roderick Stewart, this makes the most of

Citizens Theatre, Glasgow Five stars Don't be fooled by the pasty-faced jug-band who strike up a jaunty version of Silent Night as a curtain-raiser to Dominic Hill's seasonal look at Charles' Dickens' festive classic. Aside from an audience sing-along to The Twelve Days of Christmas and Ebeneezer Scrooge's closing conversion, that's pretty much as cheery as things get. Such over-riding solemnity is by no means to the show's detriment, however, as Hill and his creative team take full advantage of Neil Bartlett's marvellously pared-down script. Fused throughout with an epigrammatic musicality that allows for much playfulness, it allows an inherent theatricality to burst onto the stage with an ensemble cast of eight led by a pop-eyed Cliff Burnett as the old miser himself. From the off, even the quill-scratching labours of Scrooge's employees are choreographed to perfection by movement directors Benedicte Seierup and Lucien MacDougall before things vee

Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh Four stars Be careful not to quaff too many flagons of frobscottle before going to see the Royal Lyceum Company's festive take on Roald Dahl's over-sized yarn about a kindly but flatulent giant. If you do indulge in the make-believe beverage, Andrew Panton's production of David Wood's stage version might well end up with so much whizzpopping, as Dahl would have it, that it could resemble an exercise in odorama, not to mention adding assorted off-kilter pumps and parps to Claire McKenzie's already energetic live soundtrack. Wood opens up Dahl's pages by way of a magician's birthday party no-show, which inspires young Sophie to put herself centre-stage as she acts out her favourite present along with her pals, while also giving her mum and dad the starring roles. On a life-size wooden doll's house flanked by little fluffy clouds designed by Becky Minto, Robyn Milne's Sophie transports her puppet self into the clutches of

Dundee Contemporary Arts until January 25th 2014 Four stars The light and a whole lot more besides pours out of the seven pieces in Chicago-born LED auteur Jim Campbell's first ever UK solo show from the moment you set foot into the DCA's foyer, where a digital clock behind the reception desk displays the night and day of things rather than time itself. If this is a precision-perfect image of a retro-future relic, it's soporific fusion of low-lit high-tech isn't trying to be cute, but comes fused with an intelligent and quietly personal poetry. Outside Gallery 1, 'Motion and Rest 5' (2002) may at first glance resemble a traffic sign, but is actually footage of a person walking on crutches. Inside, similar optical effects are writ ever larger. 'Explode View (Commuters)' (2011), the self-explanatory 'Home Movies 1040-3' (2011) and 'A Fire, A Freeway and A Walk' (1999-2000) capture bodies in rest and motion, en route to work, rest or play. &

Pitlochry Festival Theatre Four stars Imagine what might happen if a shop store Santa Claus started to advise the cash-strapped mums of the pre-schoolers he promises the world to to go somewhere cheaper. Today, just as in Meredith Willson's 1963 stage musical of the 1957 feel-good film, chances are the white-bearded anarchist would have his mental health questioned before being sent for trial. Especially if the old man actually believed he was Santa Claus, real life facial hair and all. Such may be the way of capitalism at Christmas, but John Durnin's lavish production for Pitlochry Festival Theatre's ensemble make it clear that, at this time of year, at least, suspension of disbelief is paramount to overcoming seasonal cynicism no matter how extreme. This is certainly the case with thoroughly modern middle manager Doris, who's been unceremoniously dumped and left to bring up her equally jaded daughter Susan on her own. Enter ex military man and would-be lawyer Fred to

When it was announced last week that Rupert Thomson had been appointed as one of three specialist programme associates at the state of art Lowry centre in Salford, it probably wasn't because of how Thomson looked. Even so, clad in a vintage raincoat and cap with a neatly hipsterish v-neck, tie and skinny jeans ensemble beneath, one can't help but notice Thomson's resemblance to one of the back-street dwelling 'match-stalk men' painted by the artist that gives the Lowry its name. The fact that Thomson was born and partly raised in the neighbourhood a stone's throw from the centre - “South Manchester, not Salford,” he's careful to note,” - built in the city's formerly run down docklands area lends Thomson an even more striking frisson of post-modern cool. It's an all too appropriate image too for a man who will flit between the rough and not always ready expanse of Summerhall, where Thomson will remain in post, and the Lowry's bright