Five Things To Do In Edinburgh: Thursday 27 September

Your pick of the city’s nights out

• FILM: The Sweeney (15). Nick Love’s script, co-written by John Hodge, follows Flying Squad hard man DI Jack Regan (Ray Winstone) and sidekick George Carter (Ben Drew) as they hunt a gang of wily European thieves led by slippery Francis Allen (Paul Anderson). After apprehending Allen, the team cannot find sufficient evidence to charge him and they are forced to let him go after hours of intense questioning. “The ramifications of your actions are going to have serious repercussions,” Allen warns Regan with an icy stare. Tensions within the department explode when Internal Affairs officer Ivan Lewis (Steve Mackintosh) embarks on a personal crusade to bring down Regan, who just happens to be bedding Lewis’s wife Nancy (Hayley Atwell). Section chief Frank Haskins (Damian Lewis) protects his boys and girl in the Flying Squad as much as he can, but Internal Affairs clearly has a vendetta and will stop at nothing until the team is disbanded and Regan languishes behind bars. General release, various cinemas, times and prices.

• EXHIBITION: Expanding Horizons Giovanni Battista Lusieri (1754–1821) was hailed during his lifetime as one of the most gifted of all landscape artists and his exquisitely crafted works were eagerly sought by collectors. But within a few years of his death his reputation descended into an obscurity from which it has only recently begun to re-emerge. Lusieri was one of very few Italian artists to have adopted watercolour as their favoured medium. His work exhibits meticulous detail, precision and faultless perspective, combined with a panoramic breadth of vision and an astonishing ability to render brilliant effects of light.

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Scottish National Gallery, The Mound, 10am-5pm, £7, 0131-624 6200

• MUSICAL: The Phantom of the Opera Cameron Mackintosh presents a spectacular new production of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s The Phantom of the Opera. The Edinburgh Playhouse, Greenside Place, 2.30pm, 7.30pm, £19.50–£56, 0844-871 3014

• MUSIC: Volitantes GOL. Douglas Kay, Tom Reed and Paul Gilbody. The Voodoo Rooms, West Register Street, 8pm, £6, 0131-556 7060

• COMEDY: The Gong Show. Gong show madness featuring up-and-coming talent in live stand up. The Shack, Rose Street, 8pm £3 (£2), 07584-468 989

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