I went to the grand reopening of the Citizens Theatre in Glasgow - and there was an unexpected treat

It was also the 80th-anniversary week of when the Citizens Theatre company first performed in the venue on Gorbals Street.

I have to admit, when I heard the opener, written by Frances Poet, would be about Lockerbie and that it included musical numbers (albeit by Ricky Ross of Deacon Blue no less), I was a bit sceptical. There have been two TV series made in recent times tackling the 1988 terrorist attack on Pan Am 103 and I had to wonder how there was anything new to be said, especially through the medium of song.

I was absolutely wrong. It had a lot to say and it said it beautifully. The songs, performed by actors as they moved around the stage, were sometimes poignant and more often than not, acted as background music to set or costume changes as the actors slipped seamlessly from playing the people of Lockerbie to the American families who lost loved ones in the tragedy.

Please go and see it if you get a chance, it's on until October 4.

More funding woes and parliamentary privilege at its worst

Last week, I wrote about the problems blighting the Dunard Centre, Edinburgh’s newest concert hall in over 100 years - if it is built according to plan.

A meeting of the board of Impact Scotland, the charity behind the project, took place on Tuesday last week, yet no information has yet been released about whether or not a proposed contract with Balfour Beatty to start work on the project has been agreed. We'll let you know when we know.

Also raising funding issues in the past week was the National Galleries of Scotland, which was represented, alongside colleagues from the Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society, Historic Environment Scotland (HES) and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, at a meeting of Holyrood's culture committee.

The galleries warned that its renovation backlog costs had risen to £20 million and said that if more funding was not forthcoming, it may have to shutter entire galleries, or whole wings.

The same meeting saw Tory MSP Stephen Kerr give a quite forceful grilling to HES director of external affairs Alison Turnbull. Amid some turmoil at the top of the organisation - its chief executive is on long-term leave and its chairman has recently stepped down - there are undoubtedly questions to be asked. Yet the way he went about asking them fell short of ideal, demanding to know of the female external affairs director why the "money man" was not present.

Mr Kerr also raised an incident in which he alleged a senior representative of the organisation had taken advantage of a £12,000-a-night private dining room at Edinburgh Castle during August - before attending a performance of the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo. HES refuted this comprehensively in a statement to me, saying the member of staff and a guest, a wheelchair user, had eaten a meal in a bar area in the castle, which they had paid for themselves.

Despite there appearing to be a simple explanation for the incident, with parliamentary privilege in full swing, the story was already out there - and mud sticks.

With an investigation underway by the Scottish Government into allegations of a toxic working environment at HES, there may well be more to come out. But parliamentary privilege should be used carefully.

Lecture over.