Critics’ choice: The Primevals | Sco: New Year’s Day Viennese Gala | Cinderella | Lawrence of Arabia | Turner in January

Published on 27/12/2012 00:00

What to watch this week.

VISUAL ART

Turner in January

scottish national gallery, edinburgh, 1-31 January

IF YOU are looking for something to do on New Year’s Day, everything else might be closed but the National Gallery is open. Time to visit the Turners. For more than a century, in January – and only in January – the remarkable Vaughan Bequest of Turner watercolours is put on show.

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DUNCAN MACMILLAN

THEATRE

Cinderella

King’s Theatre, Glasgow, until 6 January

IT’S a close-run thing: but if you want to see the Scottish panto tradition at its very best, this Christmas, then the King’s Theatre in Glasgow is the place to be. This luscious version of Cinderella is a long show, at almost three hours, but it offers everything anyone could wish for from an evening at the panto, from a glorious transformation scene complete with little white ponies, to beautifully crafted versions of some of panto’s best-loved comic routines. The music is gorgeous, so are the costumes; and Karen Dunbar presides over it all, as a delicious Fairy Godmother.

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JOYCE MCMILLAN

FILM

Lawrence of Arabia

Filmhouse, Edinburgh, today until 30 December, Glasgow Film Theatre, 30 December.

THE very definition of epic cinema, David Lean’s mammoth four-hour masterpiece is the sort of film that really does deserve to be seen on the big screen. This digitally restored print makes every shimmering shot of Peter O’Toole in the desert fairly jump out at you and provides the sort of immersive experience 3D can’t hope to replicate.

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ALISTAIR HARKNESS

CLASSICAL

SCO: New Year’s Day Viennese Gala

Usher Hall, Edinburgh, 1 JanUARY

Vienna comes to Edinburgh on New Year’s night in the form of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra’s annual Viennese Gala Concert. Thomas Rösner conducts a programme of wall-to-wall Strauss – such perennial favourites as The Blue Danube, the Tritsch-Tratsch Polka and the Radetsky March – with a little bit of Suppé and Léhar thrown in for good measure. Also features soprano Sarah-Jane Brandon.

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KEN WALTON

POP

The Primevals

Stereo, Glasgow, tomorrow

THIS veteran Glasgow rhythm’n’blues crew are well respected on the European garage rock scene but remain a well-kept secret at home. New album Heavy War, out now on Brian Guthrie’s Twenty Stone Blatt Records, is as good a place to start as any, with the band on simmering form and frontman Michael Rooney sounding more soulful with age.

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FIONA SHEPHERD