THERE IS no doubt that the festival season hits with a vengeance this month. Consider this list:

The Isle of Bute Jazz Festival. Highlands & Islands Music and Dance Festival (Oban). Strathspey in May (Grantown-on-Spey). Shetland Folk Festival. Inverness Beltane Festival. Loch Shiel Festival (Glenfinnan). Spirit of Speyside Festival, with major concerts starring Wolfstone in Elgin and Donnie Munro in Aviemore. And that’s just the first week of May.

Still to come in the course of the month are the Ullapool Book Festival, The Sound of Rum Festival, the Six Cities Design Festival (taking in Inverness), the 25th Orkney Folk Festival, the enlarged Skye Music Festival, the Boat of Garten Summer Festival, and the Islay Festival of Malt and Music.

And that is just a prelude to a summer full of festival action, large and small, all across the Highlands. It’s a bit like popping a cork out of a bottle and unleashing a massive surge of arts-related activity.

May will also see the conclusion of the Big Willow Project on the Brahan Estate, with a finale event scheduled for 26 May that will feature the Edinburgh-based te POOKa arts group and Blazin’ Fiddles.

While May ushers in the festival season, it will more or less see the end of Eden Court Theatre’s In Exile programme. The final scheduled event is Arches Theatre’s production of Eugene O’Neill’s ‘Hughie’ on 9 June, after which the theatre will close down its out-of-house promotions for the summer.

When it will re-open remains a matter of conjecture at this stage. The recent discovery that additional work is required on the structure of the building has not yet brought an official change of plan from the Autumn target, but it seems entirely possible that it may push that date back.

Not too far, we hope. Scottish Opera have already announced a return to Eden Court in November, with Sir Thomas Allen making his directorial debut in the UK in a production of Rossini’s ‘The Barber of Seville’. Meanwhile, Inverness’s John Doyle makes his own debut with Scottish Opera this month, directing ‘Lucia di Lammermoor’, although you will have to travel to Glasgow, Edinburgh or Aberdeen to see it.

Having the Highland’s principal theatre out of action for much of Highland 2007 has always looked like unfortunate planning, in what were presumably independently arrived at decisions on timing.

On the other hand, it might be argued that the fact that Highland 2007-funded events are around to help fill in some of the gaps over the summer months might be seen as an advantageous way of covering the theatre’s absence. In any case, we await developments.

Our main interview this month is with Inverness-born Matthew Zajac, co-director of Dogstar Theatre, who premiere Henry Adam’s new play in his native Caithness this month to launch a substantial tour.

The Walking Theatre Company provide our HITN profile. Having gone through two rounds of articles, we felt that the current format for our ArtsFolk feature had run its course, and Wendy Sanders’ piece explaining the recent changes to the Arts Officer structure seemed a natural resting place for it.

However, I have indicated to all of the Arts Officers that their contributions remain welcome on a less formally scheduled basis, and ArtsFolk will return with a new format later this summer.

Kenny Mathieson
Commissioning Editor, Northings

Kenny Mathieson lives and works in Boat of Garten, Strathspey. He studied American and English Literature at the University of East Anglia, graduating with a BA (First Class) in 1978, and a PhD in 1983. He has been a freelance writer on various arts-related subjects since 1982, and contributes to the Inverness Courier, The Scotsman, The Herald, The List, Times Educational Supplement Scotland, and other publications. He has contributed to numerous reference books, and has written books on jazz and Celtic music.