I watched a musical about William Wallace over a pint in Scotland - it was anything but glamorous

Produced by Raw Material and written by Rob Drummond, the slick show about Sir William Wallace has been more than ten years in the making. The only downside was that I spent most of my pie-eating time before the show helping a fellow arts journalist mop up her pint, which she'd emptied all over the floor minutes before curtain up. The glamour.

Go and see it in Glasgow this week, or in Edinburgh ​from September 9. Just don't take any messy arts journalists with you.

London run for Ballad Lines

Good news for Scottish musical Ballad Lines, which has secured a London run at Southwark Playhouse next year. Featuring original songs and re-imagined traditional Scottish, Irish and Appalachian ballads, the musical was created by Glasgow songwriter Finn Anderson and theatre director Tania Azevedo.

More than a decade in the making, the musical began life in 2014, commissioned jointly by the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and Northwestern’s American Music Theatre Project. An earlier iteration, under its former title A Mother's Song, received its world premiere in 2023 at Macrobert Arts Centre in Stirling.

Music from the show will be released as a new 17-track studio album on September 12, with a live concert at Cottiers Glasgow, three days later.

Funding for Scottish arts projects

A primary school on the Isle of Barra in the Outer Hebrides offering bilingual storytelling and art workshops to children with complex additional needs and an Edinburgh-based poetry festival are among Scottish projects awarded money by a new foundation remembering a tech entrepreneur who died two years ago aged 51.

Hugo Burge was a supporter of the arts in the Borders, where he owned the Marchmont Estate in Berwickshire.

The Hugo Burge Foundation has handed out grants to four Scottish projects in its initial funding round, also including Scottish Chamber Orchestra scheme Vibe, a three-year creative music programme for S1–S3 pupils across the Scottish Borders.

The September window for artists/creative organisations to apply for the next tranche of funding opened earlier this week.

And finally...

Culture secretary Angus Robertson has described showing Frankenstein director Guillermo del Toro around Edinburgh during filming last year as "probably the most surreal experience" he had ever had as culture secretary.

Apparently reliving the wild days of his youth, Mr Robertson showed the director the highlights of the High Kirk of St Giles' Cathedral.

"It is one of the best kept secrets on the Royal Mile, and was a firm favourite when I worked as an Edinburgh tour guide during student days," he says.