Gregory Doran was today named the incoming artistic director of the Royal Shakespeare Company, where he will succeed Michael Boyd in the post later this year. The announcement came as no surprise given Doran's longstanding commitment to an organisation that he first joined as an actor in 1987, before shifting careers to rise up through the RSC ranks as director (and occasional writer, as well).

I spent a fair chunk of last Sunday evening at Douglas Adams' 60th birthday party. This was a bit of a curve ball, not only because I'd never met the author of The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - but also because he's been dead for nearly 11 years. But there he was, all the same, selling out the Hammersmith Apollo with a little help from Stephen Fry, Clive James, Jon Culshaw, a couple of thousand nerds in dressing gowns, and a posse of dancing rhinoceroses.

In how many categories is it possible for a show to be nominated for this year's Olivier Awards? Answer: 10. The producers of Matilda the Musical will be smiling from ear to ear after the nominations for next month’s awards were revealed, with the RSC’s Roald Dahl adaptation nominated in all 10. Tim Minchin is in the running for best score, and the four young actresses who share the lead are also nominated.

The Southbank Centre has announced that musician/visual artist Antony  will be curating the 19th Meltdown Festival this August. The avant-garde performer and lead singer with Mercury Award-winning Antony and the Johnsons follows in the footsteps of previous directors including Jarvis Cocker, Robert Wyatt, Laurie Anderson, Patti Smith, Ornette Coleman, David Bowie and, most recently, Ray Davies.

Phone rings, door chimes, in comes Company, this time sporting surround sound and high definition and at a cinema near you. Tonight marks a rare opportunity to see a New York gala - the sort of event that proliferates in Manhattan even as the actual volume of Broadway openings decreases - with an assemblage of names that you could never get to commit for an extended run. All that and Broadway diva Patti LuPone at her most pungently acerbic?

In answer to the desperate need for humanitarian relief for the Syrian people inside their country as well as in Syrian refugee camps in neighbouring countries, Mosaic Initiative for Syria has announced a fundraising gala taking place this Saturday, 17 March. It will support Syrian artists and showcase Syrian culture at Kensington Town Hall, as part of the Reel Syria 2012 festival which runs 15-18 March.

Boy George will be in a live line-up of singer-performers for the latest Royal Ballet premiere by Wayne McGregor. Mark Ronson's cycle of nine love songs, orchestrated by Rufus Wainwright, will be performed by the former Culture Club New-Romantic (he's now 50), alongside Alison Mosshart of The Kills, Jonny Pierce of The Drums, Hero Fisher, Andrew Wyatt of Miike Snow, and rappers Wale and his protégé Black Cobain during the six-performance run next month.

Put your hand up, please, if you’ve seen the multi-award-winning movie Blood Car. No? Fair enough. It was ostensibly released about two weeks ago – “in selected cinemas” – but you can be forgiven for not having tripped over any posters.

Robert Sherman, who has died at the age of 86, was three years older than his brother Richard, and much quieter. Indeed, on the two occasions I interviewed the songwriting brothers – once in person, the other time on the phone from California – his personality felt intriguingly at odds with the benignity of their songbook, mostly consisting of the cheery children’s anthems they wrote for the likes of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and Mary Poppins, The Jungle Book and The Aristocats.

John Charles Gunn’s Orkney: The Magnetic North was published in 1932 as a guide to the islands and their history. Now, along with a dream, it’s inspired The Magnetic North’s album Orkney: Symphony Of The Magnetic North. With former Verve member Simon Tong, his collaborator in Erland & the Carnival, and solo artist and orchestrator Hannah Peel, the Orcadian singer-songwriter Erland Cooper has created a tribute to his roots.