Dates: 11th to the 20th of June

The Leith Festival will host 150 events at 50 venues all within a 1 mile radius in Leith. 

THERE is more than one map of the city of Belfast. As Alistair Little drives, he's reading from one which is invisible but lies just beneath the surface, imprinted collectively on minds and memories. Here: a pub where a bomb killed seven. There: a bookmakers where five men were shot.

WARMTH 

My show is based on my family. It’s like I’m inviting my audience into my house to sit around the dinner table while they’re all chit-chatting. It’s a very lively place. There’s always something going on – music, laughter, cooking. You’ll meet my mum, my little brother, who’s an aspiring musician although not the most talented in the world; my grandma, who’s a very old-school West Indian lady who takes no crap from no-one; and my auntie, who’s very philosophical – and a bit wild and crazy.

When in Edinburgh, have a drink in the Jinglin' Geordie, says Nicola McAuliffe

IN THE mid-1960s Charles Maclean – an Eton schoolboy with a family seat in Argyll, future clan chieftain and scion of one of the best-connected families in post-war Britain – was on the road in the United States with a flat-picking cowboy guitarist named Rambling Jack Elliott.

LEE BREUER’S eyes fill with tears when he speaks about his late friend and collaborator, Scottish musician Johnny Cunningham, who died suddenly in New York in 2003. “It was such a tragedy,” he says. “Johnny was only 46 years old. He was such a charismatic man, a force of nature, cherished by audiences across the world. We all miss him so much. Boy, is he ever missed by so many people.”

SPEND quality time at the Mansfield Traquair garden, says Shappi Khorsandi

THESE days, all the doors are open for David Simon. That's what happens when you make a TV series like The Wire, which changes the way we watch the medium and sets new standards about what we expect from it.