MASS tourism is a hotly contested issue these days, with some major cities – including Barcelona – taking drastic steps to curb it, while many popular destinations in this country are looking at taxing tourist accommodation. Jack Brownridge-Kelly has another and more radical plan – find out how this imaginative performer does it in his…
IMAGINE a heady and provocative blend of Tom Waits, Leonard Cohen, Jacques Brel and Eartha Kitt … an Eastern European jazz club in the dark decades after the Second World War and the Cold War … That’s the aura created by the brilliant Moscow Drug Club, who have several local dates on their autumn tour,…
JAZZ by the Sea has a French twist on a Latin American favourite style when Bossa Definitiva comes to the Marine Theatre, Lyme Regis, on Sunday 8th November. The trio, led by Paris-born vocalist Véronique Joly, with Canadian saxophonist Terry Quinney and guitarist Rob Palmer, celebrate the cool Bossa Nova sounds of Stan Getz and…
EVEN in these days of social media-inspired hyperbole, it is rare for a player to be praised for her revelatory performance, but violinist Fenella Humphreys’s playing of Sibelius solo works was praised by BBC Magazine as “a genuine revelation in the way it brings out the music’s dark and introspective qualities.” No Sibelius but plenty…
AS the clocks go back and we head into winter, the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra brings sunshine into the concert hall at Poole’s Lighthouse arts centre with Sunshine Symphonies, on Wednesday 4th November. The event is supported by Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra’s new Corporate Patron, Paris Smith, one of the largest regional full-service law firms in the…
THE autumn colours are still gorgeous, but there is a real chill in the air and winter is fast upon us. Top Moviola choices for local villages and arts centres for November and December are The Christophers and My Mother’s Wedding. The Christophers, starring Sir Ian McKellen and Michaela Cole, is a black comedy directed…
MAGIC can happen when the stars align, the gods unite and the time is right. That fickle chance beamed down on King Street in Bristol at the moment when writer Max Porter, director Nancy Medina, adaptor Bea Roberts and designer Rebecca Jane Wood agreed to adapt Porter’s 2019 book for the stage. The result is…
EDWARD Bond described his 1973 play The Sea as a tragicomedy, and certainly, in Jonathan Munby’s new production for Bath Theatre Royal, there are strong elements of both the epically tragic and the hilariously comedic. And there are elements of lots of other theatrical tropes, too. The puzzled audience can look out for moments of…
BRISTOL Old Vic Theatre School, which this year celebrates 80 years since it opened at the suggestion of Sir Laurence Olivier as a training arm for the Old Vic theatre, has an exciting end to 2026. Former student Gregory Doran returns to the city to direct current students in Romeo and Juliet, on the floor…
ADAM Lanfranchi has a theory about Samuel Beckett’s legendary absurdist play Waiting for Godot – that attempting a definitive explanation is a mug’s game. So when the chance came to direct the play for Street’s Strode Theatre, Adam chose his own cast from actors from around the region, gave them the scripts and sent them…