THIS week's Post Culture supplement, inside the Liverpool Post from today, includes 50 unmissable cultural highlights - from this weekend's Music on the Waterfront concerts to a Rolf Harris-themed workshop at the Walker Art Gallery.

Columnist Jamie Bowman remembers the heady days of Stock Aitken and Waterman, I ask how true to life on Broadway is the NBC series Smash and Peter Spaull takes a look at the RLPO's Summer Pops season.

In the meantime, why not check out some of these features from last week's edition of Post Culture:

INTERVIEW: Arlene Phillips on choreographing Starlight Express for a new generation at the Liverpool Empire

INTERVIEW: Conductor Stephen Bell on bringing the Hallé to Tatton Park Picnic Concerts

INTERVIEW: Curator Ine Gevers on the DaDaFest exhibition Niet Normaal at The Bluecoat

INTERVIEW: The Alif Ensemble's Khyam Allami on his Philharmonic Hall concert

LAURA DAVIS: Who wants to reopen Garston's Empire Theatre?

JAMIE BOWMAN: Post music columnist picks over the nation's favourite number ones

PAULINE DANIELS, Alan Stocks and Ged McKenna will star in the Playhouse Studio's next premiere.

Held, the debut play by Joe ward Munrow, tells the tale of a mother and her two sons, the stories they tell, their memories and the stories those memories belie.

Daniels, who will play the mother to Stocks and McKenna's brothers in Held, is renowned for her role in the award-winning Unprotected, which began at the Everyman in 2006 before touring to the Edinburgh Fringe where it won the Amnesty International Award. She has taken to the Playhouse stage numerous times, including memorable performances in Shirley Valentine and Breezeblock Park. Her other theatre credits include A Saint She Ain't (King's Head/Apollo Theatre) And The Beat Goes On (Liverpool Everyman), Misery (The Brindley, Runcorn).

SOME news from LIPA ahead of its graduation ceremony next week...

THE celebrated choreographer Matthew Bourne and the musician and music video director Kevin Godley will become LIPA Companions during The Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts' graduation ceremony on Wednesday, 25 July 2012.

They are among seven luminaries who will be presented with the award by LIPA co-founder Sir Paul McCartney.

REMEMBER John O'Shea from last year's AND Festival - who demonstrated how to make a football from a pig's bladder in an empty shop on Bold Street and help a match with it in Arthouse Square?

Well, he's back for this year's AND Festival with the world's first bio-engineered football.

This year, AND is being hosted in Manchester and O'Shea's football - grown from live animal cells - will be documented at CUBE (Centre for the Urban Built Environment) from August 30 to September 2.

Picture: Jason Roberts

THIS week's Post Culture supplement, inside the Liverpool Post, has interviews with Arlene Phillips on Starlight Express, curator Inge Gevers on Niet Normaal at The Bluecoat, The Alif Ensemble on their Philharmonic Hall concert and Halle conductor Stephen Bell.

There's also a competition for a Post reader to get to conduct the Halle at the Tatton Park Picnic Concerts and a two-for-one offer on tickets for Starlight Express at the Liverpool Empire.

In the meantime, why not check out some of these features from last week's edition of Post Culture:

INTERVIEW: Liverpool artist Anthony Brown on creating Living Art, a live studio at Mann Island

INTERVIEW: Paul Heaton makes nightmare an inspiration for new soul opera The 8th

INTERVIEW: Jordanian actor Nadim Sawalha on his play Rest Upon the Wind at Liverpool's Unity Theatre

THEATRE REVIEW: Chicago, Liverpool Empire

THEATRE REVIEW: Reds and Blues, Royal Court

EXHIBITION REVIEW: The Humble Market, FACT

THE Royal Court may be all about football fanatics this summer, with Dave Kirby's new play Reds and Blues making its premiere in the newly revamped auditorium, but in September it'll be moving away from bums on seats comedy to host the Liverpool Shakespeare Festival.

Here's a trailer for Macbeth, which is being produced by Lodestar.

While exploring the Royal Court's YouTube channel, I also came across this timelapse film of the backstage team changing between the sets of Snow White and Little Scouse on the Prairie, which ran in rep last Christmas. It's a bit out of date now but still worth a look.

IF YOU'RE planning to go along to Liverpool's Brazilica festival this weekend, you should find this route map for its Rio-style carnival parade.

Hundreds of performers will weave their way through the city centre with glittering costumes, floats and samba.

The bejewelled samba dancers, Brazilian-style drummers and spectacular floats will start their journey through the city at 8pm on Saturday (July 14), leaving Abercrombie Square before leading down Mulberry Street, turning onto Oxford Street, past the Cathedral of Christ the King, then moving down Hope Street.

From here, the carnival will dance down Hardman Street, passing St Luke's "bombed out" Church before making its way along Bold Street, stomping through Church Street and ending at the Main Stage Festival site at Williamson Square, where a number of acts will take to the stage to perform until 11pm.

Brazilica is a three-day festival, running from Friday to Sunday.

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DAVID GEST has been announced as the star of the Royal Court's Christmas show A Nightmare On Lime Street.

He will play the specially adapted role of Frankenstein's monster in the new comedy-horror stage production by Fred Lawless (Merry Ding Dong, Scouse Pacific, Little Scouse on the Prairie).

It will run for nine weeks from November 23 to January 12 and includes a special star-studded Charity Gala performance of the show on December 2with guests to include Katherine Jackson, mother of David's close friend the late "King of Pop" Michael Jackson, as well as the superstar singer's siblings, Tito Jackson (David's best friend since childhood) and Rebbie Jackson.

LIVERPOOL Art Prize 2012 winner Robyn Woolston, Liverpool band The Wombats and fashion designer Kirsty Doyle have all contributed to an exhibition of imaginatively designed and skillfully decorated ping-pong paddles.

The exhibition Spin! is on display at Camp and Furnace until July 26 and the paddles will be auctioned on eBay to raise money for the charity CALM.

Click here to watch a slideshow of the paddles.

The event is being run by local company Really Now in conjunction with Ping! England. Ping! is a Ping! is a three-year street ping pong project which provides people with opportunities to play social and competitive table tennis, free of charge. Its aim is to get as many people as possible across the whole of the UK playing - to bring about a sense of community spirit and get more people playing sport on the run up to the Olympics.

There are currently ping pong tables all over Liverpool that you can play on free of charge.

BIZARRELY I had just finished watching Mike Leigh: In Confidence on Sky Arts and decided to check out Tate Shots latest videos and there was this one of the director talking about Turner for Tate Liverpool's Turner Monet Twombly exhibition. He's planning to make a feature film on the artist's life.

Nicholas Serrota, Tate director, and painter Fiona Rae also share their views.

I've written quite a bit about this exhibition for the Liverpool Post. Here are a few links for you if you're interested to read them.

INTERVIEW: Claude Monet's Maghull-born gardener James Priest at Giverny

INTERVIEW: Curator Jeremy Lewison on the Turner Monet Twombly exhibition at Tate Liverpool

EXHIBITION REVIEW: Turner Money Twombly - Later Paintings, Tate Liverpool