WHEN St Stephen's Church in Edinburgh's Stockbridge district was sold last year, it was feared that its days as an Edinburgh Festival Fringe venue, fondly remembered for its programmes by Aurora Nova, the Arches and the Traverse were numbered.

With the building's new owners keen to keep it as an arts space, however, it has just been announced that this year's programme will be operated by those behind the ever-expansive Sell A Door theatre company in association with Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts. Under the banner of Momentum Venues, St Stephen's will have three performance spaces, the 450-seat Grand, dedicated to musical theatre, the 200-seat Playhouse, which will house a new writing programme, and a more experimentally-inclined fifty-seat Studio. Well known for touring such shows as Avenue Q and The History Boys as well as their collaborations with Scottish venues, Sell A Door was founded by LIPA graduates David Hutchinson and Philip Rowntree.

momentumvenues.com

CANADIAN singer-songwriter Bonnie Dobson has pulled out of her Celtic Connections concert on Wednesday, January 28 to be with her husband, who has been diagnosed with terminal cancer. Dobson hopes to reschedule the UK tour that was due to bring her to Glasgow at a later date. Singer-actor Gerda Stevenson, who recently released her first album and was to support Dobson, will now headline the concert, which has now been moved to the National Piping Centre at 8pm.

celticconnections.com