Last chance to view Japanese prints display

Last chance to view Japanese prints display

THIS week is the last chance to see Kabuki: Japanese Theatre Prints at the National Museum of Scotland, an exhibition that has attracted over 20,000 visitors. The show displays the highlights of NMS's collection of Japanese woodblock prints which depict Kabuki, the form of traditional, all-male, Japanese theatre which combines drama, music, dance and acrobatics.

NMS holds approximately 4000 Japanese woodblock prints acquired in the 1880s. The collection focuses on the 19th century, the period of greatest expansion of the medium. The last day of the exhibition is February 2, and admission is free.

l www.nms.ac.uk

Potter magic at National Library

A FIRST edition of the first Harry Potter book, with notes and drawings by author JK Rowling, is to go on display for a week. The book sold at auction last year for £150,000 and is to go on display at the National Library of Scotland (NLS).

On the title page of this copy of Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone, the author wrote that this book "changed my life forever".

It will be on display at the library in Edinburgh for one week only from this Thursday, as part of the winter exhibition Wha's Like Us? which celebrates ideas and inventions that originated in Scotland.

The sale of the book raised £150,000 for the English Pen writers' association and for Rowling's charity, Lumos. Rowling's annotations cover more than 40 pages of the book. Entry is free.

l www.nls.uk

Success for Big Burns Supper

THE Big Burns Supper in Dumfries is celebrating success after its three days of festivities. The 1000-lantern Homecoming Carnival, which wound through the streets of the town on Saturday evening, drew large crowds to watch the parade of 2000 performers, dancers and musicians along with floats and huge puppets.

Graham Main, Big Burns Supper director, said: "The festival has gone brilliantly. What's really blown me away is that it's not just the household names like Fred MacAulay and Big Country that have sold out, but also our own home-grown alternative productions."

There were around 125 events and performances, and some 7000 people attended paid-for shows, with thousands more at the free events.

l www.2014.bigburnssupper.com

Project explores McLaren's work

THIS year marks the centenary of the birth of Scottish filmmaker, artist, musician and award-winning animator Norman McLaren. The Centre for the Moving Image (CMI), in partnership with the National Film Board of Canada (NFB) and partners across the UK, is producing the McLaren 2014 Programme, celebrating McLaren's life and work.

This project - part of the Glasgow 2014 Cultural Programme and the Year of Homecoming Scotland celebrations - explores McLaren's life and work through a programme of events, exhibitions and workshops across Scotland and the rest of the UK from April to August 2014.

Born in Stirling in 1914, McLaren went on to study Interior Design at Glasgow School of Art in the 1930s.

l www.mclaren2014.com