SHAFTESBURY bookshop FOLDE Dorset, which specialises in nature writing, has been named as the best independent book retailer in the South West for a second time, just two years after taking the regional prize in 2024. Affectionately known as The Nibbies, the awards are organised by The Bookseller magazine and judged by a prestigious panel…
RICHARD Harris’s comedy Outside Edge is next on stage at Studio Theatre’s base in Ashley Road, Salisbury, from 23rd to 28th March. Directed by Colin Hayman, this very English story is all about summer, the sound of leather on willow, cricket teas, assembling a team each week, the constant threat of rain, and of course,…
INSPIRED by the great swing bands of the 1930s and 40s, Swing From Paris bring vintage gypsy jazz to three Dorset village halls from Thursday 19th to Sunday 22nd March at 7.30pm. Swing from Paris is a UK‑based all‑string jazz quartet whose Parisian‑flavoured sound has been delighting audiences for more than 15 years and are…
A WEST Dorset choir specialising in music that Thomas Hardy sang has just launched a new website and is keen to attract more singers and instrumentalists to join. Broadwindsor Gallery Quire is a community ensemble dedicated to exploring and performing the rich tradition of West Gallery music – vibrant hymns and anthems that once filled…
WHEN audiences gather for Hurn Court Opera’s La Traviata on 16th April at Christchurch Regent Centre, 18th at the Coade Hall at Bryanston School and 20th at Winchester Theatre Royal, they will see striking and original costumes designed by students at Arts University Bournemouth. The new creative partnership between the opera company, a Dorset-based arts…
WEST End stars Lisa Pulman and Joe Stilgoe bring movie musical magic to Bath Theatre Royal’s Ustinov Studio from 23rd to 25th March. The two versatile and popular performers have put together a delightful mix of some of the best-loved songs of our movie-musical lives– from The Wizard of Oz to Wicked, West Side Story…
TORBEN Betts’ latest comedy thriller, Murder at Midnight, is a clever, often hilarious, conflation of Jacobean revenge tragedies with all their gory relish and 21st century attitudes. It all starts as the familiarly-suited SOCOs and an insensitive Met cop chat over the blood-bath left in an Kent super-home when the bodies have been removed. It’s…
PHOTOGRAPHER Lucy Sewill has exhibited and published widely and has work in the National Portrait Gallery. Her portraits of leading actresses are currently on show at Dorset Museum and Art Gallery in Dorchester, until 28th April. Visible Women is a striking and timely series including Juliet Stevenson, Dame Harriet Walter, Dame Meera Syal, Julie Graham,…
ROBERT Louis Stevenson spent some years living in Westbourne, then an affluent suburb of Bournemouth, and it was here that he wrote the novella The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. So it is appropriate for the town’s Palace Court Theatre to be the venue for a striking reimagining of this famous thriller,…
HIJINX Theatre, one of Europe’s leading inclusive theatre companies, is coming to Bristol Old Vic from 17th to 21st March, Taunton Brewhouse on Tuesday 7th April and Dorchester Corn Exchange on Thursday 9th April, with Meet Fred. The company is marking the tenth anniversary of this darkly funny satire, following the experiences of Fred, a…