Arts diary: Want to keep hold of your pocket money? Go and see our mummies

Except on price, perhaps. The Picasso and Modern British Art show opens in London next month, showing at Tate Britain until July. It visits Edinburgh afterwards as the big summer show at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, with a stunning collection of Picassos.

It will cost you £14 to see it in the Big Smoke; the price in Auld Reekie is set to be £10, or £7 for concessions. Time for an art staycation, perhaps?

David Hockney’s roomfuls of landscapes at the Royal Academy in London would set you back up to £15.50. The V&A’s big survey of modern British design comes in at £13.50. The National Gallery’s da Vinci show, which ends early next month, is £16, but it’s a once in a lifetime exhibition and there’s rightly been a stampede for tickets.

Two Leonardo drawings, including one seen in the London show, feature in the Royal Collection’s big show in Edinburgh this year – Treasures from the Queen’s Palaces, at the Queen’s Gallery in the Palace of Holyroodhouse – which also includes works by Michelangelo and Raphael.

The gallery is on the small side, but tickets are a steal at £6, and that gets you back in as often as you like.

Buckingham Palace is also dispatching ten Leonardo drawings around the country this year, and the tour includes a visit to the McManus Galleries at Dundee, which will apparently have free admission.

The National Galleries of Scotland team pull off miracles on budgets far lower than their southern rivals, and the revamped Scottish National Portrait Gallery is a major free attraction. Putting together new headline exhibitions, with rising competition and costs of major loans, is a constant challenge.

The revamped National Museum of Scotland has moved into pole position as the biggest tourist attraction in Edinburgh, outgunning Edinburgh Castle (£15 at its summer peak).

General admission is free, and there were nigh on 1.5 million visitors in the second half of last year. Even the special exhibits are a relative bargain: Fascinating Mummies, should ancient Egyptians be your thing, kicks off on 11 February with a top price of £9.

Fun over the firth

Network Rail confirmed to Scotland on Sunday this weekend that it is examining the idea of a viewing platform for tourists 300ft (90m) up the Forth Bridge.

It’s surely a brilliant idea, but wags at Creative Scotland’s bash for its Creative Places awards went one further: why not go the whole hog and stick a giant roller-coaster on top?

Chilly Border crossing

ZOE Hunter of Unpacked Theatre, a touring company based on England’s south coast, writes regarding their upcoming tour of Scotland.

The company van is driving north from Brighton with their “fabulous, wintry” family show Robin and the Big Freeze, aimed at young children and featuring puppets, live music and birdwatching.

It was commissioned by the Brighton Dome, and kicks off at the Macphail Centre in Ullapool on 9 February, then wanders the country, from Skye to Carlops Village Hall.

“We are based in Brighton and London and are one of the few companies based in the south of England who tour regularly in Scotland outwith festival time,” she notes.

Owing to the way Creative Scotland and the Arts Council of England operate, she says, “touring the other side of the Border for both English and Scottish companies is almost impossible for most small to medium scale companies”

“However, being a Scot myself, there is so much importance to bringing the work my company makes to tour back home.”

Total Theatre magazine called the show “a snowy delight”, and Unpacked themselves quote an unnamed seven-year-old’s review: “I loved it, I want to watch it a hundred times more!”