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

THE Scotsman's arts critics round up their must-see films, theatre and concerts for the next week

BMX Bandits

THEATRE: The Strange Undoing of Prudencia Hart

It’s been on tour almost continuously, at home and abroad, since it first opened in 2011; and now it’s back, for a 19-date swing round pubs and halls across Scotland, from Banchory to the Borders. It’s David Greig’s wonderful 21st century rhyming ballad of Prudencia Hart, academic expert on Border ballads, who finds herself trapped by a snowstorm in Kelso, and caught up in her own uncanny encounter with the dark forces of life, death and eternity; and by some measures, Wils Wilson’s wonderful pub production, above, is the most successful show created by the National Theatre of Scotland, in its first ten years. Joyce McMillan

At Blairgowrie, Montrose, St Andrews, Crieff and Alyth next week, and on tour until 12 June, www.nationaltheatre.org.uk

ART: Charting New Waters: Recent Acquisitions to the City’s Permanent Collection

Frances Walker has made a very generous gift to the McManus Gallery in Dundee of several major paintings. Long a chronicler of Scotland and the northern landscape, a few years ago she travelled to Antarctica at the opposite end of the earth. The result was a truly remarkable series of paintings of Antarctic land, sea and ice-scapes. It is to this series that the pictures belong, now on view as part of the gallery’s recent acquisitions. Duncan Macmillan

McManus Gallery, Dundee, until 23 October, 01382 307200

CLASSICAL: Kozhukhin plays Brahms

Last week he gave us Brahms One. This week, crack Russian pianist Denis Kozhukin turns his trenchant thoughts to Brahms’ Piano Concerto No 2, this time under the baton of outgoing BBC SSO maestro Donald Runnicles, who bows out with Mahler’s visionary First Symphony. Ken Walton

City Halls, Glasgow, 19 May, 0141-353 8000

POP: BMX Bandits

Here’s another opportunity to celebrate the 30th anniversary of one of Scotland’s most idiosyncratic and influential indie pop bands, above, who came breezing out of Bellshill in the summer of 1985, and released their debut single, the exuberant E102, in the summer of 1986.

Over the decades, the line-up of the BMX Bandits has featured a revolving cast of talented collaborators – Teenage Fanclub’s Francis MacDonald, Pearlfisher Davie Scott and Soup Dragon Jim McCulloch for three – but the band mainstay remains the immaculately presented MC Duglas T Stewart. Fiona Shepherd

CCA, Glasgow, tonight, 0141-352 4900