Don’t be freaked out by the shabby door and dodgy looking close which leads up to the theatre and gallery, hold your nerve. Once in, the lights will fade and the dark melancholy Russian music will begin, now is the time to freak out.  Sharmanka, Russian for hurdy gurdy, is the genius of sculptor-mechanic Eduard Bersudsky and theatre director Tatyana Jakovskaya from St.Petersburg. They’d been mesmerising audiences around the word for years before making Glasgow their base ‘96. An incredible 100,000 folk came to Germany alone to see them on their last tour there. Hundreds of tiny carved figures and pieces of old scrap perform an incredible choreography to haunting music and synchronised lighting, telling the funny and tragic stories of the human spirit struggling against the relentless circles of life and death. Both ghoulish and fascinating, an absolute must see.