PANTOMIME is a very English thing – you only have to try an American version and you would know what I mean. It is enormously versatile, and the fairy stories on which most pantos are based are open to almost endless interpretations and updatings. There are a few essentials, forming a sort-of skeleton without which…
THE Merlin Christmas show is traditionally a feast of fun and talent, featuring a huge number of performers, technicians and back stage supporters – and this year’s show, on until 13th December, is no exception, with a regular cast of 25 and two alternating teams of ten leading players and dancers as well. Roald Dahl’s…
SOUTHAMPTON’s Mayflower Theatre, which has one of the region’s biggest Christmas shows, welcomes glamorous star Alexandra Burke to head the cast as a swashbuckling villain in The Pantomime Adventures of Peter Pan, running from 13th December to 4th January. Neverland is full of intrigue, colour and adventure, with Dr Ranj as the Magical Merman, and…
CHRISTMAS as we know it was almost invented by Charles Dickens – and the festive theatre scene always includes more Scrooges than you can shake the proverbial stick at. But Cirencester’s intimate Barn Theatre always manages to add a special pizzazz to its Christmas shows, and this year is no exception, with an atmospheric Christmas…
PLAYWRIGHT Sir Tom Stoppard, who was born in the former Czechoslovakia in 1937, has died at the age of 88. He lived near Shaftesbury and, despite his international profile and long list of major stage, writing and film awards, was actively supportive of the arts, theatre and music in the area. There was an early…
FROM information overload in the rehearsal room to swashbuckling villainy on stage, Bath Theatre Royal’s 2025 pantomime team are hard at work, preparing for the big opening next week, still learning lines, routines, dance steps, songs and music … ‘You have information coming at you from every angle,” says Bath favourite, script-writer and comedian Jon…
AFTER what seems like centuries of watching and reviewing pantomimes, it is always a great thrill to spot a superstar performance on a local stage, and wait until the national critics and award-giving organisations put that name in their best-of-the-year lists. Salisbury Playhouse’s inventive, colourful, energetic and 100% fun version of Jack and the Beanstalk…
THERE is rich magic running through the Brewhouse Christmas show this year, and it seems to emanate from the mysterious rhynes and mumps around the county town, which can be surrounded in fast-rising water almost without warning, turning it into a different land. Sound a bit “woo-woo”? – well, maybe. Writer and director Sasha Wilson…
OLIVER Goldsmith’s 1773 comedy She Stoops to Conquer is said to have been based on an incident in his childhood, in which he was jestingly directed to a local manor house which he was told was an inn. Whatever the truth of the attribution, it resulted in a classic play that has stood the test…
CABARET should always have a frisson of wanton wit, a hint of burlesque, some risqué songs … and even a pinch of decadence. In the capable hands of Charlie Bicknell and Louise Innes it also has balls or claws – or Claus, if you will. The always in-demand duo have three dates before Christmas, on…