LAKE District sheep farmer and author James Rebanks makes a welcome return to Bridport Literary Festival this year, and first-time novelist Richard Osman makes his debut at the Dorset event, which is due to run from Wednesday 4th to Saturday 7th November. BridLit director Tanya Bruce-Lockhart has been working hard to bring some much-needed light…
THIS EVENT HAS BEEN POSTPONED IN LINE WITH THE MOST RECENT COVID-19 RESTRICTIONS WHAT does the river mean to you? A place to walk, fish, boat, swim, think? To celebrate World Rivers Day 2020, on 27th September, Wimborne Community Theatre (WCT) would like to hear your memories or thoughts about living near the rivers Stour…
CRESSIDA Cowell, best-selling author of How to Train Your Dragon and The Wizards of Once, is headlining Bath’s Reading Is Magic Festival, a digital celebration of children’s literature, from Sunday 27th September to Friday 2nd October. The festival will be hosted by TV presenter, broadcaster and Strictly Come Dancing finalist, Karim Zeroual, and other writers…
A FESTIVAL dedicated to ideas, based on beautiful farmland in the Cotswolds, returns this month, as the world‘s first socially-distanced, digitally-blended festival. The theme of the ALSO festival, now in its seventh year at Park Farm, Compton Verney, from 28th to 30th August, is “A Place in the Country.” Known as “the small festival with…
WIMBORNE Community Theatre is planning a site-specific community theatre production in 2021 performed in, on or near the River Allen (one of the purest chalk streams in Europe) or the River Stour, which both flow through Wimborne. To launch the project WCT is inviting people to share their memories of visiting the river with people…
A NATIONAL Lottery Heritage Fund grant will enable Windrose, the rural media charity known for its film archive of Dorset, Somerset and Wiltshire life, to begin work on new community projects. All the current Windrose projects had been cancelled or postponed because of the Covid19 pandemic, says director Trevor Bailey: “It left very little to…
THE annual International Agatha Christie Festival won’t be happening this year, but the organisers have launched a competition for young writers in Devon who are hoping to follow in the footsteps of the queen of crime, the world’s favourite crime writer who was born and raised in Devon. The IACF 2020 Mystery Short Story Competition…
TEN artists and groups in Dorset have won funding for micro-commissions as part of Creative Communities in Quarantine, a project to create engaging work to help beat isolation during lockdown. In May, Dorset-based arts organisatioln Activate promoted an opportunity for artists and theatre makers to submit their ideas for ways to engage communities through the…
FORMER Foreign Secretary David Miliband, president of the International Rescue Committee, is heading an online panel discussion examining the impacts of Covid-19 on developing countries. The event on Thursday 2nd July is being hosted by BBC chief international correspondent Lyse Doucet. Others taking part are film-maker Waad al-Kateab, Dr Hamza al-Kateab, Syrian doctor and director…
IT is brave to open a new business in the middle of the pandemic – but Carlee Wakefield hopes that it is the right time for her new Warminster town centre shop, Iris and Olive. She is focusing on products that are sustainable, many by makers and artisans from the south and west, plus selected…