At the Imperial War Museum North, photographer Don McCullin currently has a major retrospective called Shaped by War. The 75-year-old, not to be confused with Manchester’s own Don McPhee, is best known for his war-time coverage – and in fact in 1968 his Nikon camera stopped a bullet intended for him. The exhibition’s free, and if you fancy doing some pre-visit research, check out the q&a, preview and video interview on CreativeTourist.com.

Then at Mosi, it’s the final weekend of Da Vinci – The Genius, which has been running since November last year. One of the major parts of this exhibition is Secrets of Mona Lisa, containing ‘25 startling revelations’ about his most famous work – and that’s just one of over 200 items on show. Admission here is £7.50 for adults and £5 for concessions, and unless the exhibition’s final weekend is over-run with visitors, you should be able to buy from the Mosi box office on the day.

If you’re after something a bit more… live, this month is also your last chance to see Manchester’s Library Theatre in its current form. Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest was the first ever production in the theatre way back in 1952 – and it’s also going to be the last. The library is closing for a major overhaul from July, with the Library Theatre Company relocating to Peter Street’s Theatre Royal in 2012. The Grade II listed building, which is Manchester’s oldest surviving theatre building, dating back to 1845, has previously been the Royal Cinema and Royal Bingo, and until recently was a particularly unregal nightclub. Glad to see it’s finally being restored to (hopefully) its former glory.

Photo: Auditorium of the Theatre Royal in 1980 while being used for bingo. Courtesy of Ted Bottle

I was just at the Royal Exchange buying tickets for True Love Lies when the box officer asked if I was 25 or under. Though I couldn’t lie (I did consider it), he told me about A Night Less Ordinary, a nationwide scheme that launched on Sunday.

They have 50 completely free tickets to give away for each performance of Brad Fraser’s play until 20 February, and then for whatever’s on in the Theatre every Friday – that works out at 10,000 tickets available over the scheme’s two-year duration. And there are two further initiatives: The Guestlist, which is offers a season ticket plus talks, workshops and tours, and The First Stage education programme. The deadline is Thursday so visit the Royal Exchange site now.

A Night Less Ordinary also covers the Library Theatre, Contact, Oldham Coliseum, The Met in Bury and the Bolton Octagon in our immediate area – plus theatres in Halifax, Huddersfield, Liverpool, Stoke-on-Trent. Here’s the full list.

Nope, not of the soppy variety. And in fact I’m bypassing the whole event myself by heading out to Hebden Bridge to see Denis Jones play at the launch a new quarterly folk night. If you’re in Manchester, however, there are a couple of interesting things going on tomorrow…

The first is at the Royal Exchange, where Brad Fraser’s True Love Lies is in the middle of its world premiere run. The play – ‘think Six Feet Under meets My Family’ – is gaining nothing but very favourable reviews. It’s on until 21 February and tickets are priced £8.50 to £29.

The other is taking place at Nexus Art Cafe on Dale Street in the Northern Quarter. From 10am right through to 7pm, the place is being transformed into a ‘Wagamama-esque banquet hall’ in order to create ‘a space to meet brand spanking new people and make brand spanking new friends’. I read somewhere that they’re also getting a piano in, for one night only.

The other hugely important Valentine’s Day-related news is that over at Rainy City Stories we’ve picked a winner for our love story contest! It’s called The Shortest, The Coldest and it’s written by first-time writer Craig Melville. There were five finalists in total – and I’m very pleased because my three favourites (from the 56 stories and poems submitted) made that shortlist. Check them out here.

[Lovely badges courtesy of www.koolbadges.co.uk]

So how will the festival’s second coming in summer 2009 compare? If the first three commissions – announced last Thursday – are anything to go buy, the scope will be equally wide, with MIF again taking arts to the masses:

J S BACH/ZAHA HADID ARCHITECTS – Zaha Hadid Architects create a unique environment within Manchester Art Gallery for Bach’s solo works for piano, violin and cello; sublime music in a sublime space. Soloists are Piotr Anderszewski (piano), Jean-Guihem Queyras (cello) and Alina Ibragimova (violin).

EVERYBODY LOVES A WINNER – A new theatrical experience created by acclaimed director Neil Bartlett with Simon Deacon and Struan Leslie. The Royal Exchange theatre becomes a Bingo hall, immediately familiar and strange. With added music, dancing and quite possibly a chance to win some cash…

PRIMA DONNA – Rufus Wainwright’s debut opera. A portrait of a fading opera singer; set in Paris and sung in French. Directed by Daniel Kramer, conducted by Pierre-Andre Valadé and designed by Antony McDonald. Soprano Janis Kelly takes the lead role, Madame.

The Wainwright opera was originally commissioned by New York’s Met Opera – but the partnership fell apart following his decision to write it in French and the company’s inability to schedule it during 2009. New York’s loss is clearly Manchester’s gain, and this promises to be one of MIF’s headline events.

It’s also great to see that the festival has ditched Ticketmaster and appointed The Lowry-based Quaytickets as its ticketing partner. All profits generated by Quaytickets go towards funding the venue, so at least those booking fees are staying in Greater Manchester this time round.

These three commissions are the first of 21, which will all premiere next summer. The rest of the programme will be announced in March 2009.

It’s bewildering to watch – particularly the first half, when the dialogue is twice the speed of any other play I’ve seen and when you’re still getting used to the multimedia format. By the interval I’d just about caught up with the plot, and during the slower, shorter second half I finally felt on top of things.

Perhaps most impressive is the quality of the film – a combination of both the actors’ talent and discipline and that of the technical team up in the gallery (themselves well worthy of applause). The sound creativeness is also unlike anything I’ve witnessed before as every action’s noise is imitated and amplified by actors out of ’shot’.

I’m no theatre reviewer but I’d recommend catching it while you can – and I’m not the only one, with the flyer boasts five-star reviews in The Times, the Financial Times and Time Out. A Mancubist reader told me yesterday, ‘We weren’t quite sure if it was more clever than good or good than clever… or if one of those options was better than the other. We’re still talking about it.’ Sounds about right.

There are only three more performances of Waves at the Lowry: Friday at 8pm and Saturday at 3pm and 8pm. Tickets are £18-£22 (it’s worth paying the extra) – click here to book.

UPDATE: Here’s a promo video on YouTube, which gives a little bit more indication of what Waves involves.

The synopsis sounds entertaining:

In a bid to become Europe’s Capital of Cooking, the power-crazed Lady Mayoress has banned all-day breakfasts in Bury and forces black puddings to be re-branded as Les Puddings Noir. Revolt is in the air…

And the big-budget trailer is cryptic if nothing else:

Les Puddings Noir is only on for three days – from Thursday through to Saturday (including a Saturday matinée performance). Tickets are just £10 (£8 concessions) plus a 50p booking fee and I hear that some are available for each performance, though the opening night may sell out on the day.

A few interesting things are building up again so here’s a quick link dump…

One for you literary types first: Ar’ Back Yard is a triology of books by Anwar Dharma, giving a fictional account of 1980s Manchester. Or at least it will be when it’s published in the next few months. For now, however, you can read extracts – uploaded monthly – on the book’s very stylish website.

And here’s one for you history buffs: Ciara Leeming wrote an article for the MEN about this book by Keith Warrender. It’s fascinating stuff – a theme I’ve touched on before here, here and here – and the book already has plenty of fans here. Definitely one for the Amazon wishlist…

Finally, The Rehearsal, which I saw and actively participated in at the Temple of Convenience during Manchester International Festival, is showing at the Library Theatre tomorrow, Wedneday, at 7pm. Highly recommended if you’re looking for something to do.