THE Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen is not generally considered a barrel of laughs – “grim up north” would be the usual opinion, but when Cornwall’s inventive Miracle Theatre gets hold of a classic there is usually a comic twist or two, as Artsreach audiences will find when A Comedy of Terrors comes to Ibberton village…
WOMEN’s hidden histories have become a fertile area for study, for musical and artistic discovery, and for theatre. Community playwright Stephanie Dale draws on the many women of Dorset who made remarkable contributions to the lives of women of their own time, and down to ours, to create a play that explores their legacy and…
“THE ship is in her trim; the merry wind blows fair from land*” – exactly the message you need as you’ve packed the picnic basket, stowed the chairs in the car, checked your tickets on the phone (?) and set off for an evening in the open air, surrounded by trees and hedgerows, all ready…
AS Lord Mountararat informs us in Iolanthe: “When Wellington thrashed Napoleon Bonaparte, As every child can tell, The House of Peers throughout the war, Did nothing in particular, And did it very well.” Those last two lines could well be applied to the sterling work done in this play by three actors, Jo Patmore, Sophie…
THE psychological thriller The Late Edwina Black was first performed 77 years ago, a drawing-room play that followed the then-current fashion for isolated houses, moody weather and unexplained deaths, set in 1895 long before the days of DNA but as policing was already becoming increasingly scientific. Of course it is “old fashioned”, but the trick…
PHIL Beer, multi-instrumentalist and best known as half of the hugely popular folk duo Show of Hands, is currently pursuing his own musical thing, with gigs in the south and west between now and late October. Phil is at Sixpenny Handley village hall, from 7th to 9th August at Dartmoor Folk Festival, Friday 25th September…
WAITRESS – the musical comes back to Bristol Hippodrome on 4th August as part of its tenth anniversary tour. Dorset residents were the first in the country to see the 2007 film on which it is based, written by Adrienne Shelly and previewed at the late lamented Screen Bites food film festival. Shelly, who also…
CHARLES Dickens was only 24 years old when he started writing the first instalment of what is now known as The Pickwick Papers. Samuel Pickwick and his friends, failed lover Tracy Tupman, would-be sporting gent Nathaniel Winkle and nervy poet Augustus Snodgrass, set forth from London to discover life around England (Manchester was not mentioned)….
ON the evening of 16th December 1912, Bristol Hippodrome opened its doors for the first time with the spectacular production of The Sands O’ Dee, featuring a 100,000 gallon water tank, diving horses and a variety bill headed by Eugene Stratton singing his signature song, Lily of Laguna. The costs of mounting a modern production…
THE multi-talented actor, artist, playwright and adaptor Clive Francis has turned his pen to Graham Green’s comic novel Our Man in Havana to create a fast and furious visit to the Caribbean where the world’s most unlikely spy is recruited to help the British intelligence service in the time following the second world war and…
IFORD Opera – now If Opera – celebrates its 30th anniversary this year, from 6th to 16th August, returning for a second year to Church Farm, Wingfield, near Bradford-on-Avon, with a programme which combines wit, tragic drama, Viennese sparkle, baroque boozing and the golden age of jazz and swing. The opening night, Thursday 6th August,…
THE two top films for Moviola screenings in this region in July and August are both serious – H is for Hawk and Hamlet. H is for Hawk is a biographical drama, directed by Philippa Lowthorpe, who co-wrote the screenplay with Emma Donoghue, based on the 2014 memoir by naturalist Helen MacDonald. It stars Claire…
THERE is nothing light and humorous about Shakespeare’s tragedy Othello, and its overt racism poses a problem for some theatre companies. So it might not be seen as the ideal choice for an open air play, where the audience wants action, fun and laughter to go with their picnics and (in this heatwave) increasing consumption…
THE summer 2026 exhibition at Salisbury Cathedral is Joyful Noise, contemporary art works by internationally renowned artists, on show until 25th October. The show brings together painting, sculpture, text, video and sound artworks to explore how joyful noise can affirm presence, belief, community, and care. The exhibition includes works by Denzil Forrester, Christine Sun Kim,…
HOW many actors does it take to perform Shakespeare’s The Comedy of Errors, dramatis personae of 15 plus extra? The answer is five – and you hardly miss a thing. The Festival Players, formed in 1986 and an all-male troupe since 2014, has chosen the hilarious play of identical twins, mistaken identities, lost love and…
THE Commandery Players are returning to their summer retreat at Ansty, near Tisbury, to perform Shakespeare’s The Tempest, from 4th to 8th August nightly at 7.30pm. The company is an offshoot of Tisbury Arts Group, and has been staging plays at the beautiful Elizabethan banqueting hall since 2016. This year they have chosen the play…
THE third summer rep season at the Marine Theatre, Lyme Regis, begins on Thursday 23rd July, with the thriller The Late Edwina Black. Meanwhile, about 25 miles west along the Jurassic Coast, Sidmouth’s Manor Pavilion Theatre is already well into its three-month summer season. The repertory theatre programme, often in a seaside theatre, used to…
PAST and present staff, trustees and village partners of Artsreach, Dorset’s rural touring arts charity, gathered at Buckland Newton village hall to bid farewell to Yvonne Gallimore, who retired from the organisation at the end of July, after nearly 30 years. Former director Ian Scott led the tributes, praising her “massive contribution to Artsreach and…
FOR the first time in 30 years, there has been a confirmed sighting of a puffling on the vertiginous Purbeck cliffs. The news of the puffin fledgling gives hope for Dorset’s dwindling puffin colony, says the National Trust, which manages the Dancing Ledge area. The sighting follows monitoring by 13 volunteers who spent 150 hours…
YEOVIL’s young star choreographer James Bamford has a busy few weeks – at the end of July he will be working with the Covent Garden Dance Company at the schools day at the Walled Garden at Hatch near Tisbury, and on 27th and 28th August he brings his own Project Dance Company back to Westlands…
FOR the first time in more than 140 years, bitterns have bred at the RSPB reserve at Lodmoor, near Weymouth. It is the first breeding record for Dorset since 1883. The female bittern has been seen making regular feeding flights across the reserve, providing strong evidence that chicks are being successfully reared. Although the fledglings…
PICTURESQUE Sidmouth is not only a delightful seaside resort and home to the country’s oldest folk festival, it also has the longest-running traditional summer rep season, at the Manor Pavilion theatre, this year continuing to Saturday 19th September. For three months, with a week out for Sidmouth Folk Festival, the theatre has a weekly professional…
IF you know anything about the early years of rock’n’roll, the names Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins and Elvis Presley will be top of anyone’s list of performers. Add in the unmistakeable voice and charisma of Johnny Cash and you have a recipe for … Million Dollar Quartet, returning to Cirencester’s Barn Theatre for a…
A PAINTING by John Constable, which has been unseen in Salisbury for more than 60 years, is finally going on show at the Salisbury Museum in a landmark moment for the institution. View of Salisbury from Harnham Ridge, a major discovery in the artist’s catalogue that has been hidden away in a private collection since…