Recently by Catherine Jones

A one-day performing arts festival takes place at the Black-E this weekend.
The Young Performers Weekend will bring together young performers from across the Merseyside region for a day of dance, drama, film and live music.

They say familiarity breeds contempt, and maybe that's true so it was great at last night's Philharmonic concert to hear Elgar's Enigma Variations sounding so fresh.
I used the words "glorious Technicolor" in my review in today's Echo, and that's how it felt to me - as though the dulling patina of decades had been burnished to brightness again.

Hurrah - news has just come in that Monty Python gigglefest Spamalot is on its way to Liverpool this summer.
The hot-hoofing Arthurian spoof will be at the Empire for a week in August.

My Debbie Reynolds interview is set to be published in the Echo tomorrow ahead of her tour which is coming to the Liverpool Phil next month.
If her show is anything like the telephone chat I had with the Hollywood star then it should be a hoot.
As she says herself, nothing is off limits and everything is up for a bit of fun to be poked at it.

Leading British thesp Simon Callow is on his way to the Playhouse this summer.
The 60-year-old actor, who has previously scored worldwide success with his Mystery of Charles Dickens, has now teamed up with Shakespeare biographer Jonathan Bate to create The Man From Stratford: Being Shakespeare.

Good for Gemma and Karen, the enterprising pair behind the "In Conversation With" series of evenings due to start at Liverpool Cathedral this month with Janice Long.
I hear they've signed up Liverpool-born comedian/actor/writer/voice artist Peter Serafinowicz to take part later in the year.

It seems you can't move without stumbling across John Bishop at the moment.
The Liverpool comedian's rapid rise to funnyman fame, fuelled by numerous telly appearances - including a very credible performance on Jonathan Ross last month, seems to know no bounds.

I had a very interesting tour of the backstage at the Royal Court earlier this week.
It's not the first time I've been on a recce of the building (as a judge of the redesign competition we had a good look round), but it was the first time I'd seen things like the massive revolve stage from underneath.

I am so pleased for Karen Gallagher and the team from Merseyside Dance Initiative who are organising the Leap 2010 dance festival.
They used the first night of Matthew Bourne's Swan Lake (yes, the one I awarded only my FOURTH ever perfect 10 to) at the Empire to officially launch their year of dance.

Voices Across The Oceans come to The Black-E tomorrow.
The major international music collaboration is a touring a cappela theatrical production organised by The Centre for Music and Arts Technology (CMAT).