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To Glasgow's Cineworld, spruced up for the Scottish premiere of Quantum of Solace.

The event was for charity - raising £12,000 for Maggie's Centres - and there was no shortage of well-dressed people happy to sip a Martini, pose with an Aston Martin and do their bit for a good cause.

Shame the film was a bit of a disappointment - the credits rolled to a deadly silence followed by the shuffle of shoes as everyone filed out of the auditorium.

What went wrong? It had all the ingredients that made Casino Royale such a breath of fresh air: big set piece car chases, rooftop running, nerve jangling fight scenes, but none of it really made a lot of sense.

The baddies are disappointing - particularly the mundanely named Dominic Greene (Mathieu Almaric) whose act of evil is to force South American dictators to buy their utilities from him at vastly inflated prices.

What next? A row over supermarket developments? Whatever happened to the good old days of baddies who wanted nothing less than world domination?

Daniel Craig's grim-faced Bond is wearing a bit thin now. His first funny line - delivered in Spanish almost an hour in - wins a huge laugh from the audience who're just desperate for anything to lighten the atmosphere.

There are some truly impressive scenes - the opera scene in Austria in which Bond addresses the undercover baddies from the top of the stage, then sets about them offstage to the sound and visuals of the onstage Tosca.

Judi Dench is wonderful as M, gliding in and out of the film, never truly able to cut off her rebellious agent. And the MI5 software, virtual information which appears at the tap of a finger is both fascinating and unbelievable - much more likely that Bond would be put on hold while someone looked up the baddie's credentials on Wikipedia.

The Bond girls drag it down too. Jolly hockey sticks Gemma Arterton bounces around like a sugar-fuelled schoolgirl. Olga Kurylenko is beautiful but wooden, with a back story which neither convinces nor moves the audiences.

Still, it's a not unpleasant hour and three quarters - the shortest Bond film to date. And the Maggie's team have more Martinis to lift the spirits and an auction to boost their coffers.

One of the most popular lots is a last minute addition by Maggie's Media Manager, Anna Marriott. For weeks she's been trying to convince Daniel Craig to come to Glasgow to support the event.

Unfortunately he's out of the country but he sends her a lovely handwritten note explaining why he can't come and offering his best wishes for the Scottish premiere. She's had the note and the envelope framed, along with two tickets for the event and it soon sparks a bidding war in the Cineworld Bar.

"It's on his own personal notepaper," says the auctioneer. "A very personal gift."
One of Anna's colleagues points out that the envelope can also claim to have been licked by Daniel Craig which pushes the price even higher. It eventually sells for £470.

There's one final item to be auctioned. Scots artist Douglas Gordon has donated one of his Portrait of Me and You series - a picture of Morrissey - to the cause.

He's a regular in a pub where one of Maggie's fundraising assistants met him. She decided to chance her arm and ask if he had anything he could give to the charity auction and couldn't believe her luck when she landed a painting valued at £44,000.

Maggie's are now in touch with the major auction houses to arrange to sell it - and hope it will provide a massive boost to their Bond night funds.

The dispute over drama funding moves from the west to the east with an open letter signed by directors of Scotland's leading theatre companies.

Vicky Featherstone, director of the National Theatre of Scotland, James Brining, of Dundee Rep, Dominic Hill, of the Traverse, and Mary McCluskey, of the Scottish Youth Theatre, are among those calling on the government and the Scottish Funding Council to intervene in the crisis which has closed one of Scotland's two conservatoire-level acting courses.

The funding anomaly which means drama students in England and Wales are worth more than their counterparts in Scotland is once again at the root of the problem.

The National Council for Drama Training - which accredits such courses - has already withdrawn QMU's official status.

That means only one such course remains in Scotland - at the RSAMD in Glasgow.

To the various directors and the actors' union Equity, that's unacceptable.

In England, there's a conservatoire-level course for every three million people, leaving Scotland extremely under-resourced at a time when its profile in terms of Scottish contribution to the world of acting has never been higher.

Actor Brian Cox has already spoken out about his concern - tipped off in an e-mail by fellow actor James McAvoy, who of course lobbied the government on the RSAMD's problems.

Could this salvo begin a new war of words between Scottish actors and Alex Salmond?

Open letter

Dear Sir

We, the undersigned, write with deep concern following recent negative developments affecting the training of actors and stage managers in Scotland.

Queen Margaret University, one of the country's leaders in performance and production training, will no longer receive accreditation from industry regulator the National Council for Drama Training.

NCDT accreditation ensures that chosen courses and "conservatoires" meet the relevant professional needs and standards required by the theatre industry. Until recently QMU and the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama were the only institutions in Scotland to hold this 'gold standard' accreditation.

Now provision for professional and vocational drama training has effectively been halved - threatening the long-term future of Scottish theatre, film and television production and performance.

Compared to England and Wales, where there is one NDCT-accredited conservatoire for every 3 million of the population, Scotland will suffer a substantial disparity in professional training provision. This is not only culturally damaging - it is a lost opportunity to the Scottish students who will now be forced to seek training south of the border.

This loss cannot be made up simply by doubling the intake to RSAMD, even if such an alternative were feasible. In a country of our size, the diversity of training represented by two leading drama institutions, each with its own strengths and priorities, is critically important.

In 1971 the Government chose to retain two drama conservatoires in Scotland when it saved the financially troubled Edinburgh School of Speech and Drama by merging it with QMU. The case for retaining a second accredited institution is even stronger today - not least due to the internationally recognised development of the dramatic arts in Scotland over the past few years.

We therefore ask that the Scottish Government and the Scottish Funding Council provide adequate funding to maintain two Scottish conservatoires. This is the only way to ensure that the future of drama training in Scotland is maintained on an equitable international basis.

Yours faithfully,

Signed by the following:

Lorne Boswell- Scottish Secretary, Equity
James Brining- Artistic Director and Chief Executive, Dundee Rep
Ian Brown- Chair, Highlands and Islands Theatre Network
Eric Coulter- Head of Drama, STV Productions
John Durnin- Chief Executive and Artistic Director, Pitlochry Festival Theatre
Vicky Featherstone- Artistic Director and Chief Executive, National Theatre of Scotland
Alison Forsyth- Administrative Producer, Visible Fictions
Sarah Gray- Producer, Wee Stories
Ian Grieve- Creative Director, Perth Theatre
Mike Griffiths- Administrative Director, Traverse Theatre
Dominic Hill- Artistic Director, Traverse Theatre
Douglas Irvine- Artistic Producer, Visible Fictions
Charlotte Jones- Chief Executive, Independent Theatre Council
Mary McCluskey- Artistic Director, Scottish Youth Theatre
Colin McCredie- Actor
John McVay- Chief Executive, Producers' Alliance
Richard Pulford- Chief Executive, Theatrical Management Association
Gill Robertson- Artistic Director, Catherine Wheels
Donald Smith- Director, Scottish Storytelling Centre
John Stalker- Chair, Creative & Cultural Skills Scotland
Gerda Stevenson- Actor and Associate Director, Communicado
Jeremy Raison- Artistic Director, The Citizens Theatre
Mark Thomson- Artistic Director and Chief Executive, The Royal Lyceum Theatre

Peter Howson has many fans.

Madonna, David Bowie and Bob Geldof are among those who own his work.

But it's a fan closer to home who has brought him his latest commission - Glasgow's Roman Catholic Archbishop Mario Conti.

"I came to judge a children's art competition at the cathedral two years ago," Howson says.

"I got talking to the archbishop and he started talking about John Ogilvy with me and that meant something to me at that time in my life."

John Ogilvy is Scotland's only post reformation saint.

Born in 1579 into a respected Calvinist family in Keith, Banffshire, he went abroad to become a Jesuit priest, returning to Scotland to conduct clandestine services for the handful of remaining Catholics in the early 17th century.

He was arrested, tortured and then hanged, just a stone's throw from St Andrew's C
Cathedral at Glasgow Cross.

It's that scene of his martyrdom that Howson intends to paint.

And it won't be a small scene.

The finished work, which will adorn the newly renovated cathedral when it reopens in 2010 will feature no less than 600 people, his biggest crowd scene to date.

"The idea of the 600 was my idea - that's typical of me to be so stupid as to decide on 600 people.

"The archbiship said he loves my work because it has so many people in it, he particularly liked the St Andrew paintings I did a few years ago which had so many people in them, so that was part of the reasoning.

"Obviously it was a true event in history but in some ways it's timeless. So I'll probably set it today.

"People haven't changed that much so it should be fun. Half the time I'm scared out of my wits about it, and half the time I'm very excited. It's a big job, it really is."

There is a slightly brighter closure to John Ogilvie's tortured end.

In 1976, he was made a saint - the first since the reformation - after a Glasgow man, John Fagan prayed to him and found his advanced cancer had vanished.

The commission is the latest by the Catholic Church in Glasgow - an attempt says its spokesperson to revive its role as a patron of the arts.

Earlier this year, they launched a small arts festival called Lentfest.

This, they claim rather grandly, is the most important commission for a Scottish Catholic Cathedral since the 16th Century Reformation.

The costs are being met by a group of private benefactors.

And it could be the start of a fruitful relationship between Peter Howson and the Catholic Church.

He's already working on a series of works based on the Irish disapora who arrived in the West of Scotland in the 19th and 20th centuries.

It's hoped he'll stage a major exhibition of the work in Glasgow next year.

Meantime, an exhibition of his current work will open at his London gallery Flowers East on 23 October.