Uncensored Life: A Celebration for John Calder @ Traverse

Another celebration of a Scotsman comes to the foreground. On 18 and 19 April, John Calder visits the Traverse. Still writing at the age of 87, it makes sense the Traverse – home to new playwriting for Scotland – is hosting nights in his honour, as Calder has been a champion of radical and hugely influential writers including Beckett, Miller, and Burroughs. 

The first night sees Scotland's premier chamber music collective, the Hebrides Ensemble performing Arnold Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire with young mezzo soprano Anna Huntley in honour of Calder's love and patronage of opera. If opera isn't your thing, it's still possible to see and hear the great man speak about his work – on the afternoon of 19 April, Alan Taylor discusses John Calder's life and work, writers, publishing, music, progressive art, freedom of speech and the avant garde with the man himself. A little later in the day, John Calder and Derek Watson read a selection of prose and poetry from authors Calder published.

And finally, as Calder is a fan of Beckett's work, Ireland's greatest Beckett interpreter Barry McGovern, fresh from his acclaimed performances of I'll Go On at the 2013 Edinburgh International Festival and in Los Angeles returns to Edinburgh for this special night to perform an homage to Beckett. McGovern will interpret a selection of texts from Samuel Beckett's prose works interspersed with some of his less known but extraordinary poems. [Eric Karoulla]