WIMBORNE’S festival of stories and story-telling, Sting in the Tale, returns this year, from Saturday 27th July to Saturday 3rd August, with a packed programme of tall tales, puppet shows, street theatre and more, for all ages. The festival open with a flourish with Field of Stories, a full day of free family storytelling, crafts…
SCOTTISH academic Phillip Mallett is coming to Kingston Maurward College near Dorchester on Thursday 25th July to give a talk called “Love, praise, indifference, blame: Hardy’s Emma Poems.” The talk will look at some of the 120 or so poems which Hardy wrote about his first wife, Emma, after her death in 1912. It begins…
THE winning entries for the inaugural Thomas Hardy Young Poetry Prize were celebrated with an awards afternoon at Hardy’s home, Max Gate. The six winners came from across Dorset, and were all aged between 13 and 18. This is the first year the National Trust has run the competition, with the support of the Thomas…
VISITORS to the Museum of Somerset at Taunton can discover more about the county’s animals, plants and birds in a playful exhibition opening on Saturday 20th July and running to 26th October. The exhibition is based on the book Wild Hares and Hummingbirds: The Natural History of an English Village, by the naturalist Stephen Moss,…
DORSET Visual Arts has an exhibition, Drawing on Dorset, at the Fine Foundation Gallery at Durlston Country Park, Swanage, until Wednesday 17th July, coinciding with the publication of a book of the same name. The exhibition and book feature work “in Dorset, of Dorset, about Dorset,” with 36 selected drawings in the book, and the…
PETER Gill comes to The Exchange at Sturminster Newton on Friday 12th July with The Wit and Songs of Noel Coward. The pianist and entertainer, pays tribute to the extraordinary talents of The Master, who used his verbal wit and catchy melodic musicality to create a catalogue of songs to entertain, stir the heart and…
SOME of the biggest names in children’s literature – including Jacqueline Wilson, Cressida Cowell, Michael Rosen and Chris Riddell are coming to Bath for the children’s literature festival, running this year from Friday 27th September to Sunday 6th October. The 13th annual celebration of the written word, which is Europe’s largest dedicated children’s literature festival,…
SOMERSET-based author and botanist Sally Morgan is coming to Castle Gardens at Sherborne on Tuesday 9th July at 6.30pm, to talk about her new book, The Climate Change Garden. Sally, who lives at Templecombe, will be sharing some down-to-earth horticultural advice, ranging from soil improvement and water saving measures to resilient vegetable patches and robust…
THIS year’s Frome Festival, from 5th to 14th July, is as always an exciting mix of visiting performers and companies and a celebration of local talent and creativity. Local dramatists are making their mark with Where The Fault Lies, a quartet of quirky morality plays at The Cornerhouse, Nikki Lloyd’s Turtle Doves at the Town…
THIS year’s Tolpuddle Martyrs Festival, the annual memorial to the Tolpuddle Martyrs, celebrating radical thought, trade unionism and socialism takes place this year from 19th to 21st July. The weekend will be the familiar mixture of talks, radical films from around the world, folk and protest music, comedy and political speeches, all culminating in the…