Scotsman critic's choice: Four must-see shows on this week

Anohni, a transgender British-born US singer, will be performing at the Playhouse. Picture: AFP/Getty Images

POP: Anohni

The artist formerly known as Antony Hegarty, right, collaborates with electronica composer/producers Hudson Mohawke and Oneohtrix Point Never in what is sure to be one of the highlights of the Edinburgh International Festival’s covetable contemporary music programme. Their show Hopelessness backs Anohni’s distinctive, beseeching tenor with a compelling patchwork of experimental electronica and striking visuals of female oracles lip syncing along to Anohni’s moving, cathartic meditations on gender and green politics. Fiona Shepherd

• Playhouse, Edinburgh, 17 August, 0131-473 2000

CLASSICAL: Bach’s St Matthew Passion

How will Bach’s sacred masterpiece, the St Matthew Passion, square up tonight in the Usher Hall? With Sir John Eliot Gardiner and his Monteverdi Choir involved, evidence suggests it will be a knock-out wherever it is performed. Joining them are James Gilchrist as the lynchpin Evangelist and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra. Ken Walton

• Usher Hall, Edinburgh, 13 August, 0131-473 2000

THEATRE: This Happy Breed

As the theatre world beats a path to Edinburgh, it’s well worth making a detour north, to see the sixth show in this year’s Pitlochry summer season. Noel Coward’s 1942 play This Happy Breed, above, about an ordinary Clapham family in the years between the wars, is now mainly associated with David Lean’s patriotic wartime film of the same story. But Pitlochry director John Durnin believes there’s a powerful drama about the tensions of a changing society hidden beneath that flag-waving veneer; and in his new production, with design by Adrian Rees, an impressive 14-strong ensemble from this year’s Pitlochry company will be setting out to prove him right. Joyce McMillan

• In repertoire at Pitlochry Festival Theatre until 15 October, 01796 484626

ART: Donovan & Siegel

Matt Donovan and Hallie Siegel, known as Donovan & Siegel, are a Canadian artistic partnership. Their show History Machines at Edinburgh Printmakers reflects in various ingenious ways on what is happening to the printed word as digital processes replace traditional physical forms of printing. Clearly in their view this is not a simple exchange, or without consequences. Concurrently too they have created Rust Garden in Fountainbridge, at the site of what is to be Printmakers new home. Duncan Macmillan

• History Machines is at Edinburgh Printmakers until 22 October; Rust Garden is at Castle Mill Works, Gilmore Park, Fountainbridge, until 28th August, www.edinburghprintmakers.co.uk