“A FIDDLER on the roof, sounds crazy no?” are the opening words of Joseph Stein’s adaptation of three stories from Tevye and his daughters, short stories set at the turn of 20th century Tsarist Ukraine by the Yiddish author Sholem Aleichem. The story, that follows the life of poor milkman Tevye (Matthew Woodyatt) as he…

SHAKESPEARE’S blueprint doom-scroller, a character who has won the name of “melancholy” Jacques over the centuries, is getting a new look and a blindingly incisive interpretation at Bath Theatre Royal this summer. Harriet Walter, no stranger to gender-blind casting, proves again how potent it can be with her interpretation of the Seven Ages of Man…

HAVING made her West End debut playing Jenny in this play, Lily Allen, at present drawing capacity houses to Bath’s Ustinov Studio playing the neurotic, emotionally strangled Hedda in a reworking of Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler, must be tempted to slip across to the Bristol Hippodrome to see Stacey Dooley, who also made her West End…

THERE is something special about the sound of a period musical ensemble in an old church – the voices and the instruments seem to take on a special feel, and even if the acoustic is not perfect, the effect is always emotional and compelling. And so it was at the beautiful little St Mary’s Church…

IT is strange to think that today’s whooping, selfie-snapping theatre audiences have no idea what “summer rep” was all about. But freelance director and producer Sue Gilroy is determined to prove its value and attraction to new generations with a summer season at Lyme Regis’s historic Marine Theatre. This year she has chosen five plays and…

BECAUSE the word amateur is often used in a derogatory manner, many people, including those involved, shy away from it when referring to local non-professional productions. Decidedly not of that number are Sir Cameron Mackintosh and his Music Theatre International company. Sean Grey, managing director of MTI, described amateur theatre in these words, “Here at…

BACK in 1891, when Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler had its first performance, the central role was hailed as a tragic heroine, imprisoned in a loveless marriage, at the beck and call of ruthless men, and with no agency over her life. Her only recourse was suicide. The play’s scandalous denouement horrified critics and audiences. The powerful…

WHETHER you are a fan of Offenbach, Gluck or Natalie Haynes, Simon Butteriss’s new adaptation of the story of Orpheus, Euridice, Pluto, Jupiter et al for IfOpera is a delight. One of four operas performed at the opening season of the company’s new home at Church Farm in Wingfield south of Frome, this re-telling is…

THIS 250th anniversary year of the birth of Jane Austen must have seemed the perfect time to tour PD James’s murder mystery sequel to Austen’s most famous book, Pride and Prejudice. The James novel, published in 2011, was a pastiche in Austen style, and was very successfully adapted for television, getting a Christmas showing in…

THE Miracle Theatre summer show is a perennial favourite with audiences across the south and west, and this year’s production, an adaptation of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, is no exception. Now returned to its home county of Cornwall for the last 2025 performances, the final cross-border show was at Sandford Orcas on the perfect evening of…