Mike Higgins pays tribute to former IoS film critic

Once upon a time, this book was considered ideal for every child's bedroom.

Doug Lang was one of the leading players in an intensely creative period of Scottish climbing during the 1960s and 1970s.

If Nigel Molesworth had been more literary-minded, he might have selected the cricket team pictured here, including EV Hornung (of Raffles fame), PG Wodehouse, Arthur Conan Doyle and AEW Mason (of The Four Feathers).

The new Harry Potter film may have proved divisive. But there's one thing everyone from bored critics to fanatical bloggers seems to agree about, and that's the brilliance of the shadow-puppet interlude that gives the back-story of the titular Deathly Hallows. Looming up out of the main narrative as if cast by the light of a campfire on a prehistoric cave wall, its flickering shapes have caught hold of so many imaginations that the director of the sequence, Ben Hibon, has been signed up to direct Pan, a dark spin on Peter Pan once intended for Guillermo del Toro.

Johnny Depp loves him, but Freddie Highmore still isn't sure about acting. With a BBC blockbuster on the way, he tells Gerard Gilbert how he's avoided becoming another child-star casualty

A new biography of Roald Dahl throws light on the private life of one of our best-loved writers. But why are so many children's authors such damaged human beings?

Peter Pan in May? It sounds counter-intuitive, like the thought of being propositioned under the mistletoe on midsummer's day. Exciting, with its aerial, bungee-jumping battles, and piercingly persuasive about the emotional pain at the heart of this myth, the National Theatre of Scotland's splendid new version of J M Barrie's great prototype proves, however, that Peter Pan is a play for all seasons.

A staging of 'Yes, Prime Minister' updates Margaret Thatcher's favourite sitcom – complete with hung parliament, misbehaving foreign politicians and an unhealthy dose of cynicism

If you think about it," says playwright David Greig of the new version of JM Barrie's classic fairy-tale he has authored for the National Theatre of Scotland (NTS), "Peter Pan is the story of a very middle-class girl on the cusp of adulthood. In through her bedroom window climbs a runaway boy, a feral child, who says to this girl, 'come with me to an underworld, run away from home and join me in another land.' He's attractive, he's magical, but she isn't allowed to touch him. Yet still she chooses to follow. Now when I think of how I would cast and play that story, it wouldn't be Bonnie Langford in tights."

The Week In Books

You wouldn't have picked her out as the ideal holiday companion. Yes, she was pretty and petite, with soulful eyes and beguiling eyelashes. But Salomé was also narrow-minded, with a strident voice, crooked teeth, a curious body odour and a broad, hairy backside.

Tierra del Fuego, at the southernmost tip of South America, is now accessible on a guided three-day trek with Journey Latin America (journeylatinamerica.com) which passes near to the Beagle Channel.

As a riveting take on J M Barrie's classic prepares to take flight at the O2 this Christmas, Paul Taylor looks at how different adaptations of the tale have found hidden depths – and not a little tragedy