Castle Gallery, Inverness, until 24 October 2009

An Talla Solais, The Ceilidh Place, Ullapool High School and Ferry Terminal, Ullapool, until 16 October 2009

Timespan, Helmsdale, until 25 October 2009

GEORGINA COBURN investigates an intimate production based on the correspondence between Anton Chekhov and Olga Knipper.

JOHN CAIRNS replies to Barry Gordon’s observations on Caithness dialect in George Gunn’s Fields of Barley.

JOLLY ROGER is appalled at the power of a single complaint to force the removal of a promotional gambit for the Inverness Winter Festival, and wonders where it will all end?

BRID McKIBBEN is the new director of the Inverness Book Festival, and reflects on her plans for her first festival since taking over from Jason Rose.

GEORGINA COBURN speaks to Highland Print Studio Director Alison McMenemy and Studio Manager John McNaught about their much-anticipated return to their newly refurbished premises in Bank Street

I BEGIN this month with an apology. In September, Northings ran a review of a reading of George Gunn’s play Fields of Barley in Thurso. I received an e-mail from John Cairns, writing on behalf of both Grey Coast Theatre and Caithness Arts, strongly objecting to what he saw as “an attack on the use of Caithness dialect”.

JOHN BURNS is sworn to secrecy, but reckons comedian Dave Gorman is a bit special anyway.