Miss Nobodies
2024-10-08 19:30 (Europe/London) | Braemar Village Hall, 33 Mar Road, Braemar, Aberdeenshire, AB35 5YL, United Kingdom
You’re in an ironmongers shop in Britain in 1919; then, as you look around, 100 years pass by. Let Ruth Cockburn and Keith Carter take you through a century of stories; the talkie movies of the ‘20s and the video nasties of the 80’s, the start of 50’s Skiffle and the birth of 90’s Britpop, class struggles in the ‘60’s and racial tension in the ‘70’s. Playing a host of characters, from the tragic to the comical to the lyrical and the animal, their stories, sketches, songs and verse, (there’s even a prize winning competition in the interval), will have you laughing, crying and singing up to the present day.
This two-hander play takes us through the history of the last 100 years in a shop in a Lancashire town. This funny, poignant and heart-warming story will resonate with all ages and will make you think about what the next 100 years will hold for us. Miss Nobodies was inspired by outreach done online and in the community of Great Harwood alongside research into local history and prominent figures of Lancashire. One such person is Ethel Carnie Holdsworth. A writer that worked in the mills in the early part of the last century. She is cited as the first working class, female novelist in the UK and parts of her poetry are used throughout the play to punctuate the stories. The show mixes poetry, storytelling and music, to tell the story of a local shop spanning 100 years from 1919 to present day. Telling of the women that have made up the shop’s history, whilst also showing how the lives of women have changed over the last century.
Black Liver, as heard on BBC Radio 4, seen on BBC 1 and Sky TV and toured all over the world, they bring their unique style of theatre making and comedy to connect to their audience and bring stories to life.

Support Your Local Library (Relaxed Performance)
2024-10-07 19:30 (Europe/London) | The Phoenix Centre, Newton Dee Village, Bieldside, Aberdeen, AB15 9DX, United Kingdom
A love letter to libraries, this two-hander celebrates the written word and the power it gives us. Combining songs, sketches and poetry, Ruth and Keith (AKA Black Liver) bring you a laugh-out-loud show of sentimentality, silliness and satire. You’ll never look at your local library the same after this!

Four Magicians
2024-10-06 19:00 (Europe/London) | Glenlivet Public Hall, Bridgend of Glenlivet, Ballindalloch, Moray, AB37 9BX, United Kingdom
Four Magicians brings together four of Scotland’s top magical entertainers for an evening of wonder and illusion.
Appearing on stage for the first time together, Smith & Burns, Eoin Smith and James Dickson – each an award-winning magician in their own right – present an ensemble magic show that takes the audience on a rollercoaster of stunning magic, big laughs and plenty of surprises along the way.
Minds will be read. Laws of nature will be defied. Dad jokes will be told.

About Smith & Burns
Fifth Dimension’s Smith & Burns are Ivor Smith and Jeff Burns. Their magic has taken them around the world – from Singapore to Las Vegas and Hollywood’s famous Magic Castle. Entertaining at corporate and private events, they captivate and inspire audiences. Combining humour, sleight of hand, mind reading, illusion and lots of audience participation, they bring their unique form of madness to the stage with style, sophistication and the occasional hiccup. They are also world-renowned presenters delivering magical keynote speeches on safety, leadership and working together at high profile business events and conferences.

About Eoin Smith
Eoin Smith is a multi-award-winning magician based in the north east of Scotland. Everyday items become objects of wonder in Eoin’s hands, in an act packed with original magic, quirky humour, mind reading and demonstrations of skills that cannot be explained. Eoin’s performances have taken him across Scotland to five-star hotels, comedy and cabaret clubs, and beyond – including the stage of the Tivoli Theatre, Aberdeen. He appeared twice on Live at Captain Tom’s – a live online TV show – as the only non-musical act in the show’s history.

About James Dickson
James is a designer of magic. Everything he performs has been created or developed by him. His interest in magic goes beyond traditional performance and he seeks to turn impossibility into art. Beyond magic, James writes short comedic songs and creates hand-drawn artwork (all with varying degrees of appropriateness). In performance, he combines his creative passions to deliver his own unique style.

The Moira Monologues Double Bill
2024-10-05 19:30 (Europe/London) | Johnshaven Village Hall, Mid Street, Johnshaven, Montrose, Angus, DD10 0HB, United Kingdom
After a popular performance of The Moira Monologues in February of this year, Alan Bissett is returning to Johnshaven with more Moira!

The Moira Monologues 2 – More Moira Monologues
Moira’s back in this Fringe First-winning sequel. She’s a gran, but still delivering home truths about cleaning posh folk’s hooses, meeting her estranged sister, and the return of her ex.

The Moira Monologues 3 – Moira in Lockdown
In this third and final instalment of what is now The Moira Trilogy, Falkirk’s hardest woman, Moira Bell, faces her toughest challenge yet: surviving a pandemic with only vodka, fags and her BFF Babs on Zoom. Take that, Bear Grylls!
Journey through the highs and lows of lockdown with Moira, as she lusts after Joe Wickes, rages at Cummings and grows her own weed (might as well, seeing as the f**kin world’s ending, eh Babs?). She’s ‘the most charismatic character to appear on a Scottish stage in a decade’ (The Scotsman) but this time she canny even leave the hoose!

Written and Performed by Alan Bissett
Directed by Sacha Kyle

Tales of Ancient Egypt - Magic of the Mummy
2024-10-05 14:30 (Europe/London) | The Little Theatre, Nairn, King Street, Nairn, Moray, IV12 4NP, United Kingdom
Returning to Nairn for a third time following the success of Elves and the Shoemaker and Myths of the Vikings, we’re delighted to welcome back highly acclaimed Clydebult Puppet Theatre to our Little Theatre with a show for the younger ones (Aged 5+)
Join our Explorer as he enters the tomb in search of the story of the first Mummy!
Egyptian Mummy cases are fascinating for children – just how and why were the first ‘Mummies’ created?
This is a story of sibling rivalry – only one brother can be Pharaoh…. and how the other brother tries to stop him…. by putting him into a Mummy case and sending him down the Nile!
This wonderful show weaves together the elements that illustrate this incredible time in Ancient History, a time that brought us the Pyramids of Giza and the, beautiful artefacts that illustrate stories from so long ago brought to life with the beautiful storytelling and masterful puppetry of Clydebuilt Puppet Theatre

The Moira Monologues Double Bill
2024-10-04 19:00 (Europe/London) | Aberdeenshire
After a popular performance of The Moira Monologues in February of this year, Alan Bissett is returning to Peterhead with more Moira!

The Moira Monologues 2 – More Moira Monologues
Moira’s back in this Fringe First-winning sequel. She’s a gran, but still delivering home truths about cleaning posh folk’s hooses, meeting her estranged sister, and the return of her ex.

The Moira Monologues 3 – Moira in Lockdown
In this third and final instalment of what is now The Moira Trilogy, Falkirk’s hardest woman, Moira Bell, faces her toughest challenge yet: surviving a pandemic with only vodka, fags and her BFF Babs on Zoom. Take that, Bear Grylls!
Journey through the highs and lows of lockdown with Moira, as she lusts after Joe Wickes, rages at Cummings and grows her own weed (might as well, seeing as the f**kin world’s ending, eh Babs?). She’s ‘the most charismatic character to appear on a Scottish stage in a decade’ (The Scotsman) but this time she canny even leave the hoose!

Written and Performed by Alan Bissett
Directed by Sacha Kyle

We Are Together
2024-10-03 19:00 (Europe/London) | MacRobert Memorial Hall, The Square, Tarland, Aberdeenshire, AB34 YL, United Kingdom
Tells the moving and inspiring story of 12-year-old Slindile and her remarkable friends at the Agape orphanage in South Africa.
Watch Trailer Here
Information
Running Time: 83 Minutes
Language: English
Genre: Documentary
Director: Paul Taylor
Starring: Lorraine Bracco, Alicia Keys, Mbali, Mthobisi Moya, Nonkululeko Moya, Sifiso Moya, Slindile Moya, Swaphiwe Moya

This screening is part of the Tarland Food & Music Festival. More details can be found here.

Fittin' In or Faan Oot?
2024-09-28 19:30 (Europe/London) | Aberdeenshire
Reenie is inviting you, her work colleagues, over to her flat for drinks. Her flat is going to be demolished in the morning, so she is having one last party to celebrate!
Although she desperately tries, Reenie is not the ideal party host. She has lived a lonely life. In an attempt to connect with her guests, she continually implicates them into participating in activities that she thinks will uplift the party.
Reenie implies that her life has been exciting and fulfilling but, gradually, the guests will come to realise that Reenie has had to continually alter her identity and suppress her Doric dialect to fit in and she is now in a state of crisis.

Cracked Tiles
2024-09-21 19:30 (Europe/London) | The Little Theatre, Nairn, King Street, Nairn, Moray, IV12 4NP, United Kingdom
Powerful, real-life-inspired, one-man play about a son searching for his father…in a fish & chip shop.
‘His father seemed like an ordinary, hard-working man but Riccardo knows that somewhere in the grease-stained walls of his crumbling inheritance – a run-down fish and chip shop- the truth is hidden. However, time is against him, the shop is about to be sold and it won’t give its secrets up easily. Battling demented customers, family curses, and supernatural agents of the state, join him on his tragicomic journey as he excavates the ruins of the family business and revisits the past to uncover the truth about his mysterious father.’
Lorenzo is a solo creative. He studied Writing for Stage and Screen at the University of Strathclyde in 2013 and has written work for himself ever since. His shows have featured at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, The Scottish Mental Health Arts & Film Festival, MagicFest, Carlisle Fringe, Brighton Fringe, Crossroads Multicultural Festival in Pisa, and the West End Festival.
His work spans the genres of Storytelling, Theatre and Magic: as well as being an Equity-registered Actor, Lorenzo is also an accomplished Magician and member of the Magic Circle.
He began writing Cracked Tiles, a theatrical monologue, in 2015, several years after the death of his father, and admits that the show was initially ‘a vehicle of catharsis’.
Since then Cracked Tiles has been intermittently staged around the UK and recently had a NEAT-funded tour in the North of Scotland. It returns for a schedule of performances in the UK and abroad over 2024 and 2025, with a view to reaching a wider audience and a production company who will facilitate its development for TV.
The play is inspired by the author’s experience as a teenager when his father’s strange behaviour led to suspicion that he may be hiding dark secrets. These episodes were framed as psychotic breakdowns, but at the time, the notion that his father was fragile, broken and out of touch with reality was an equally difficult pill to swallow. In this sense, Cracked Tiles is about the mystery of a father and the confusion of a child.
It’s been described as ‘Bitterly honest, powerful and moving’ (The Scotsman) but it’s not without levity: the central story is moved along with farcical comedy inspired by many of the colourful characters Lorenzo encountered during his time working in his family’s real-life fish and chip shop. Cracked Tiles is a tale imbued with authenticity: both its tragedy and its comedy.

Written & performed by Lorenzo Novani

Cracked Tiles
2024-09-20 19:30 (Europe/London) | New Deer Public Hall, Church Crescent, New Deer, Turriff, Aberdeenshire, AB53 6WD, United Kingdom

Budapest Cafe Orchestra
2024-09-18 19:30 (Europe/London) | New Deer Public Hall, Church Crescent, New Deer, Turriff, Aberdeenshire, AB53 6WD, United Kingdom
Budapest Cafe Orchestra play a blistering barrage of traditional folk and gypsy-flavoured music from across the Balkans and Russia, Klezmer laments, Romanian Doinas, Hungarian Czadas and their own unique re-imaginings of some of the biggest tunes ever written by the classical greats. The Budapest Café Orchestra was established in 2009 by British composer and violinist, Christian Garrick, and led by him, have won legions of fans with their magical and infectious performances.
A small but impeccably formed orchestra of just four players, the BCO combines violin, guitar, accordion, double bass, saz & balalaika to dazzling effect, creating an awesome aural alchemy normally only characteristic of far bigger ensembles. Two of the country’s celebrated international soloists revel at the heart of proceedings. Accordionist exemplar Eddie Hession is a supreme accordion champion of Great Britain. In his illustrious career, he has accompanied Luciano Pavarotti, Placido Domingo, Jose Carreras and Chris Rea. Christian Garrick is one of the world’s most celebrated jazz violinists. He has played with the likes of Dame Cleo Laine & Sir John Dankworth, Wynton Marsalis, Nigel Kennedy, Bireli Lagrene and Caro Emerald. Another member of the Orchestra is one of Russia’s most enigmatic musical exports. The Sultan is played expertly by Adrian Zolotuhin, a master of the strummed strings of domra, balalaika, guitar and saz. Veteran bass-man Kelly Cantlon has been in the business of laying down the low notes for many moons. Kelly found fame as a Vagabond with northern soul sensations Jimmy James and the Vagabonds.
Evoking vivid images of Tzigane fiddle maestros, Budapest café life and gypsy campfires – plus a few surprises along the way – hugely entertaining, immense skill and profound musicianship, a show by the BCO is good enough to make you want to book that holiday down the Danube!

Wicked Little Letters
2024-09-08 14:30 (Europe/London) | New Deer Public Hall, Church Crescent, New Deer, Turriff, Aberdeenshire, AB53 6WD, United Kingdom
When deeply conservative English local Edith Swan and fellow residents begin to receive wicked letters full of unintentionally hilarious profanities, her rowdy, foul-mouthed, Irish migrant neighbour Rose Gooding is charged with the crime. The anonymous letters prompt a national uproar, and a trial ensues. However, as the town’s women—led by Police Officer Gladys Moss—begin to investigate the crime themselves, they suspect something is amiss, and Rose may not be the culprit after all.
Watch Trailer Here
Information
Running Time: 100 Minutes
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Mystery, Crime, History
Director: Thea Sharrock
Starring: Olivia Colman, Jessie Buckley, Anjana Vasan, Timothy Spall, Gemma Jones, Malachi Kirby, Alisha Weir

Hebridean Treasure: Lost & Found
2024-09-07 08:00 - 17:00 (Europe/London) | Aberdeenshire
Hebridean Treasure: Lost & Found captivatingly blends song, dance and storytelling with live Scottish and South Asian music to conjure up the landscapes of the ancient Scottish Isles and the inhabitants’ deep connection with the rhythms of nature. A universal story of exile, suffering and the loss of age-old wisdom, the piece moves through grief and tragedy to bring a message of hope for a new way of life that cherishes our Celtic cultural heritage.
The words of John Phillip Newell and the music of critically acclaimed composer and Gaelic singer Mischa Macpherson weave around the compelling performance of Bharatanatyam dancer Kirsten Newell as they invite you into a world that was once lost but is being found once again.
The production is based on the work of Alexander Carmichael (1832-1912), a Scottish folklorist whose writings and data were brought together in the Carmina Gadelica, a compendium of prayers, hymns, and folklore gathered from the Gaelic-speaking regions between 1860 and 1909.
The use of Bharatanatyam dance, oral storytelling, songs in Gaelic, Tamil and Hindi, and the combination of Celtic and Carnatic music, reflects the many parallels between ancient Celtic and Vedic culture, not only with regard to language but also the similarities in social and folk customs, mythology and traditional musical form.

Photo credit: Mark Richards-AuroraFindhorn

Hebridean Treasure: Lost & Found
2024-09-06 19:30 (Europe/London) | Tullynessle & Forbes Hall, Suie Road, Alford, Aberdeenshire, AB33 8QN, United Kingdom

Perfect Days
2024-09-05 19:00 (Europe/London) | MacRobert Memorial Hall, The Square, Tarland, Aberdeenshire, AB34 YL, United Kingdom
Hirayama is content with his life as a toilet cleaner in Tokyo. Outside of his structured routine, he cherishes music on cassette tapes, books, and taking photos of trees. Through unexpected encounters, he reflects on finding beauty in the world.
Watch Trailer Here
Information
Running Time: 124 Minutes
Language: Japanese with English subtitles
Genre: Drama
Director: Wim Wenders
Starring: Kôji Yakusho, Yumi Asô, Tokio Emoto, Arisa Nakano, Aoi Yamada, Sayuri Ishikawa, Tomokazu Miura

Hebridean Treasure: Lost & Found (Relaxed Performance)
2024-09-04 19:30 (Europe/London) | The Phoenix Centre, Newton Dee Village, Bieldside, Aberdeen, AB15 9DX, United Kingdom

The Cheviot, The Stag and the Black Black Oil
2024-08-30 19:30 (Europe/London) | New Deer Public Hall, Church Crescent, New Deer, Turriff, Aberdeenshire, AB53 6WD, United Kingdom
In their songs, comedy and exuberant music, a travelling theatre company give a fiercely polemic account of Scottish history, from the aftermath of Culloden to the oil boom. Their production before a live audience is intercut with filmed reconstructions of the Highland Clearances and the Victorian obsession with hunting stags.
Information
Running Time: 90 Minutes
Language: English
Genre: Documentary
Director: John Mackenzie
Starring: John Bett, David Maclennan, Elizabeth Maclennan, Dolina Maclennan, Timothy Martin, Bill Paterson, Alex Norton, Allan Ross

One Life
2024-06-30 19:30 (Europe/London) | Aberdeenshire
British stockbroker Nicholas Winton visits Czechoslovakia in the 1930s and forms plans to assist in the rescue of Jewish children before the onset of World War II, in an operation that came to be known as the Kindertransport.
Watch Trailer Here
Information
Running Time: 109 Minutes
Genre: History, Drama, War
Director: James Hawes
Starring: Anthony Hopkins, Helena Bonham Carter, Romola Garai, Johnny Flynn, Lena Olin, Alex Sharp, Jonathan Pryce

Four Magicians
2024-06-25 19:30 UTC | Portgordon Village Hall, Cross Street, Portgordon, Buckie, Moray, AB56 5QW, United Kingdom

Climate & Environmental Films
2024-06-09 14:00 - 15:30 (Europe/London) | MacRobert Memorial Hall, The Square, Tarland, Aberdeenshire, AB34 YL, United Kingdom
We are proud to support these fantastic groups and volunteers in delivering this amazing action for our planet! 🌍

Tarland Climate Crisis Group with Tarland Film Club and Cromar Future Group invite you to an afternoon of short climate & environmental films (some made by local children).

MacRobert Hall, Tarland
Sunday 9th June
2:00 -3:30pm
Free event
All welcome – families, children, everyone
Refreshments – ice cream, tea & cake
Climate tree activities for kids of all ages

Caramel
2024-06-06 19:00 (Europe/London) | MacRobert Memorial Hall, The Square, Tarland, Aberdeenshire, AB34 YL, United Kingdom
In a beauty salon in Beirut, the lives of five women cross paths. The beauty salon is a colourful and sensual microcosm where they share and entrust their hopes, fears and expectations.
Watch Trailer Here
Information
Language: Arabic with English subtitles
Running Time: 96 Minutes
Genre: Drama, Comedy, Romance
Director: Nadine Labaki
Starring: Nadine Labaki, Yasmine Elmasri, Joanna Moukarzel, Gisele Aouad, Adel Karam, Sihame Haddad

The Regalettes
2024-06-02 19:30, 2024-06-01 14:30 UTC | Aberdeenshire
Badapple Theatre takes us back to the 1930’s, the cinema decade spanning Hitchcock noir and classic Technicolor showstoppers.
Celebrity and rural life clash head-on when a new movie is set to premiere at the tiny Regal Cinema in Bottledale.
Comedy and intrigue ensues as our intrepid heroines The Regalettes, suddenly find themselves at the heart of a very silly mystery.

The Regalettes
By Kate Bramley with music by Jez Lowe

Wicked Little Letters
2024-05-26 19:30 (Europe/London) | Aberdeenshire

Behold Ye Ramblers
2024-05-26 18:00 UTC | Braes of Glenlivet Hall, Chapeltown, Ballindalloch, Moray, AB37 9JS, United Kingdom
From the voices of ramblers and campaigners to the songs and poetry inspired by past and current struggles, “Behold Ye Ramblers” is a new play about The Clarion newspaper and the organisations formed by its readership, including the famous rambling club, The Sheffield Clarion Ramblers. Along with the Clarion Cyclists, these early Edwardian pioneers promoted healthy outdoor pursuits, organising expeditions across open moors and mountains whilst campaigning for the right to roam, bringing them into conflict with landowners’ hunting and shooting activities and laws that prioritised private property over the wellbeing of others.

Cardboard Carnival - The Carnival of the Animals
2024-05-26 14:30 UTC | Tullynessle & Forbes Hall, Suie Road, Alford, Aberdeenshire, AB33 8QN, United Kingdom
Trunk, Tail, Ears or Wings?
Carnival creates itself from all sorts of things!
This is “Carnival of the Animals”, but not as we know it. Dissected for body part potential to create the “ultimate animal”, we take inspiration from the music by Camille Saint-Saëns, a little help from Charles Darwin and a whole lot of cardboard to mash up a show full of puppet possibility.
Inspiration and delight for everyone from 4 to 104.
With their own inimitable style Lempen have taken the fantastic music by Camille Saint-Saëns, and an exploration of the material of cardboard, to make a fun, visual production with no text, refreshingly focused on the simple magic of puppetry to leave audiences inspired by both the animal theatricality of the music and the creative potential of the simple cardboard box.

Coppers & Gold
2024-05-25 19:30 UTC | Johnshaven Village Hall, Mid Street, Johnshaven, Montrose, Angus, DD10 0HB, United Kingdom
Coppers and Gold!

A double bill of short comedies from veteran performers Kate Stafford and Nicholas Collett, based on the infamous Brinks-Mat robbery of 1983 when £26 million was stolen and never recovered.

‘Coppers’ is set in a fictional Home Office, where the Minister and the Chief of Police grapple with the embarrassment of having rings run round them by a criminal gang. How to manage the press and huge public interest in the heist, and pressure from the Prime Minister who wants instant results? Political speeches go horribly wrong, press conferences descend into chaos and the secrets which they have been hiding for years threaten to reveal themselves with hilarious consequences.

The second part of the evening is ‘Gold!’, a sharp new comedy with a big heart and loads of cracking pop hits from the 1980s. Julie and Dave are a normal suburban middle-aged couple living a quiet life but hiding a big secret: a huge stash of gold bars stolen from some very bad men four decades ago.

Now their daughter wants an expensive Instagram-worthy wedding, and the elderly gangsters are out of jail and looking for their gold. What are they going to do?

Behold Ye Ramblers
2024-05-25 19:30 UTC | Aberdeenshire

The Moira Monologues & More Moira Monologues Double Bill
2024-05-25 19:00 UTC | Woodside Fountain Centre, Marquis Road, Aberdeen, AB24 2QY, United Kingdom
The Moira Monologues
Meet Moira Bell, cleaner, single mother, and the hardest woman in Falkirk. Whether defending her wee dog Pepe from the local rottweiler, attempting to seduce a teacher, or belting out Diana Ross for the Scotia karaoke night, Moira is hilarious, hypnotic, frightening and heart-warming company.
Based on the stories and characters Alan encountered growing up in the Hallglen area of Falkirk, where The Moira Monologues first premiered, Moira, her long-suffering pal Babs, her neighbour (Bawface), her laddies (they’re gid laddies, but they canny take their hash) and her wee dug Pepe, have left audiences all over the country weak with laughter.

Moira Monologues 2 – More Moira Monologues
Moira’s back in this Fringe First-winning sequel. She’s a gran, but still delivering home truths about cleaning posh folk’s hooses, meeting her estranged sister, and the return of her ex.

Written and performed by Alan Bissett
Directed by Sacha Kyle

Coppers & Gold
2024-05-24 19:30 UTC | Braemar Village Hall, 33 Mar Road, Braemar, Aberdeenshire, AB35 5YL, United Kingdom
