NON-professional musicians and instrumentalists across the UK are invited to enter for the BSO Music-Making Competition, which returns for a second year, sponsored by Lark Music, part of Howden. Entry is free and the closing date for applications is 3rd September. The panel of industry judges includes broadcaster and writer Tom Service, guitarist Dagan Wilkin…
“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…
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…
ANDY Morton, the director of this year’s Dorset Opera Festival production of L’Elisir d’Amore, was born and brought up in Sherborne, where his father was a teacher. It was as a teenager at Sherborne School he first came into contact with opera, joining the chorus of Dorset Opera then run by Patrick Shelley. After studies,…
WHITCOMBE Manor hosts the annual Dorchester Arts summer party with music, on Sunday 19th July from 1pm, with star performer Liza Pulman providing the entertainment. The beautiful 300-year old manor is the home of best-selling crime and historical novelist Minette Walters, and her husband Alec. Liza Pulman returns to Dorset after a sold out appearance…
PETER Talbot, the founder of the brilliant and always original Rude Mechanical Theatre Company, has been awarded an MBE in the King’s Birthday Honours for services to the arts. Pete founded the Rude Mechanical company in 1997 and spent the next 27 years building it into one of the country’s most distinctive touring open air…
IF you are a fan of the popular television series The Detectorists you will know that the curious and occasionally eccentric people who head out into the countryside with their metal detectors sometimes make remarkable discoveries. A Dorset detectorist discovered a beautiful Early Bronze Age mirror and another found an equally rare and exquisite crescent-shaped…
MATILDA Temperley, an accomplished professional photographer who now runs Somerset Cider Brandy and Burrow Hill Cider, the businesses her father Julian founded, is the new patron of Somerset Art Works. This year the visual arts festival in September will be celebrating Somerset’s rich history and diversity under the theme of “cultural connections.” Matilda knows the…
ONE of this country’s most distinguished and critically acclaimed actresses, Dame Harriet Walter is coming to the Marine Theatre, Lyme Regis, for a fund-raising evening on Sunday 14th June. A star of stage and screen for 40 years, Dame Harriet has a long and illustrious relationship with both the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National…
DORCHESTER has a record-breaking history of community plays … and now the work is starting on number eight. What will its theme be? The Dorchester community play phenomenon began in 1985 with Entertaining Strangers. In the ensuing 40 years, local residents, with professional writers including Ann Jellicoe, David Edgar and Stephanie Dale, have created an…