STORYTELLERS Mike Maran and Philip Contini tell the tales of their own families, who, alongside many Italians, left their sunny hillsides to start new lives in Scotland at the beginning of the twentieth century in Italia in Caledonia at The Nuffield Studio from Monday to Wednesday.

By the time of the Second World War there was an ice cream café or fish and chip shop run by an Italian family in nearly every town and village in Scotland – a door opening onto a southern Mediterranean culture in almost every Scottish high street. But this cheerful success story came to an abrupt end when Mussolini declared war on Britain. Overnight the Italians became ‘enemy aliens’.

This heart-warming tribute is a celebration of Italians and Scots and the influence of the Italian community in cities, towns and villages throughout Scotland.

n THAT’S followed, in the main house, by Boys.

It’s finals day for the Class of 2011. Benny, Mack, Timp and Cam are due out of their five bedroom flat tomorrow morning; five bedrooms, five chairs, four boys – and one big party.

Stepping into a world that doesn’t want them, these boys start to wonder if there’s any point in getting any older. How will they find the flight to make it as adults?

Boys opens on Wednesday and runs until May 26.

n The Edinburgh Fringe sell-out show, The Vanishing Horizon, comes to theatre Royal Winchester, in a highly physical piece of devised theatre that charts the progress of the aviation business and links it with a modern woman’s journey of self-discovery on Tuesday.

The show is very filmic in style and uses maps, paper airplanes and over 40 suitcases to depict the roaring twenties, when taking a flight was an exciting, new experience for the masses.

n ACTORS’ Touring Company hits the road this spring with a rare revival of Sarah Kane’s modern classic Crave and the English language premier of Illusions by Russia’s foremost contemporary playwright, Ivan Viripaev.

Crave and Illusions are poetic studies of the human heart, of the ambiguity of relationships and the fragility of the individuals who inhabit them.

The plays are at The Point in Eastleigh on Thursday.