From east to west, better to best What to see, hear and discover this week

EXHIBITION

East and West, Callendar House, Falkirk, until September 10

Barbara Rae is making something of a homecoming with this exhibition. Although she grew up in Crieff, Rae was born in Falkirk and retained links to the town. This exhibition features works inspired by Leith Docks (the east of the title) and the Atlantic coastline (providing the western input). Rae is a Royal Academician and this is her first exhibition for Callendar House.

Glasgow School of Art Degree Show, Glasgow, from Friday; Edinburgh College of Art Graduate Show, Edinburgh, from Friday

Your annual chance to spot the next big thing in Scottish contemporary art with degree shows in both Glasgow and Edinburgh opening at the end of the week. If you hurry, though, you can also still catch both Duncan of Jordanstone and Napier University’s degree shows this weekend (the latter runs until Thursday in fact), while the degree show at Gray’s School of Art in Aberdeen opens on June 10.

FICTION Conquest, Nina Allan Riverrun, £18.99

Rothesay-based novelist Nina Allan is one of the great overlooked writers of the early 21st century. Formally inventive and utterly readable (these two things don’t have to be mutually exclusive), her latest book Conquest takes in a disappearance, JS Bach, alien wars, London gangland and a trip to the Highlands. In a better world she’d be huge.

MUSIC

With a new

Best of Double Album to promote (entitled, cunningly,

The Best of Kris Drever),

the Scottish singersongwriter is hitting the road with a band that includes multiinstrumentalist Louis Abbott (of Admiral Fallow fame), double bassist Euan Burton and jazz singer Rachel Lightbody. Tickets for this week’s gig in Peebles are like gold dust but you may have more luck next month when the band play the Tolbooth in Stirling (June 17) and Cottiers Theatre in Glasgow

(June 18).

COMEDY

Tom Stade, King’s Theatre, Kirkcaldy, Thursday

The Canadian-born, Edinburghbased comedian, above, has a new Fringe show in the offing for August and here’s a chance to get a sneak peek in this Fringe Preview in Kirkcaldy on Thursday.

Stade is one of the most reliable and at times outrageous performers on the comedy circuit, so a good time is pretty much guaranteed. Gareth Mutch is this evening’s support act.

ALBUM I Thought I Was Better Than You, Baxter Dury, Heavenly Recordings, Friday

Ian Dury’s son Baxter has long since established his own musical identity and if the preview tracks are anything to go by, this, his seventh album, promises another slice of droll, oddball loucheness.