L-R: Ed Harcourt, Baby Gramps, Sandy Dillon, Gavin Friday When Hal Willner takes the stage dressed as a pirate to introduce wily mountain man Baby Gramps, the show ahead is guaranteed to be out of the ordinary. After the third or fourth performer, the artists got tired of calling "ahoy!" and growling "arrrrgh," but it made the evening no less nautical. Running nearly four hours with no interval, the show was something of a test......

Enjoy a night of pirate-themed revelry without the risk of scurvy. On Monday, 28 July, the Barbican will be hosting Rogue's Gallery -- Pirate Ballads, Sea Songs and Chanteys as part of their Only Connect series. The evening will feature songs from the two disc compilation of the same name, the brainchild of Johnny Depp and Pirates of the Caribbean director Gore Verbinski and produced by Hal Willner. Some songs maintain a more traditional,......

In the first of several upcoming book competitions, we've got five copies of this little gem to give away, courtesy of Snowbooks. "How Very Interesting: Peter Cook's Universe And All That Surrounds It" lives up to its wordy, quote-derived title with over 500 pages of reminiscences and interviews with the great satirist. According to the blurb on Amazon (cos we haven't read it yet): A raft of figures from Cook's life, from colleagues to......