STORYTELLER Tim Lowe will take his audience back to the 18th century in his performance of An Audience with George Chafin, at Chettle House near Blandford on Saturday 6th April a 2.30pm.
Lowe reimagines the life of George Chafin, an MP who was Head Ranger of Cranborne Chase. He talks about his family and local folklore, and discusses some of the key issues of the day from overzealous punishment for minor crimes, smuggling and poaching, to the slave trade and civil unrest.
Places are limited and booking is required, but the performance is free.
AN exciting partnership has been formed between the Theatre Royal Bath Theatre School and Mary Shelley’s House of Frankenstein in the city. The students and the museum will be producing a new production to explore the life and writing of Mary Shelley, the creator of the gothic horror story, Frankenstein.
Around 20 young people, aged between 16 to 18, will work alongside locally-based award-winning writer and director Stephanie Kempson and theatre maker Alice Lamb on the project.
The Creator is an immersive theatre experience, devised and performed by members of youth company, with performances, from Wednesday 10th to Friday 12th April at the House of Frankenstein. The young theatre makers will lead small audience groups around the museum. Each room will reveal fascinating insights into Mary Shelley’s remarkable life, and how she came to write Frankenstein.
The Creator is one of three plays featured as part of Danse Macabre: The Art of Darkness, a festival of gothic fantasy and horror created by Theatre Royal Bath’s Theatre School, running from 10th to 13th April. The three productions will explore gothic writers and the monsters they created. As well as The Creator, the festival also features Evermore, a devised play based on the writing of Edgar Alan Poe, in the Roper Room at The Egg on 11th and 12th April, and The Monstrum by Kellie Smith appearing at The Egg on 12th and 13th April.
Opened in July 2021, Mary Shelley’s House of Frankenstein is an award winning, multi-sensory museum where visitors can discover Shelley’s unconventionally tragic life and the lasting legacy of her infamous creation. The attraction features unusual artefacts, ominous soundtracks, bespoke smells and effects.
THE award-winning hit play The Full Monty is coming to the Theatre Royal, Bath, from 2nd to 8th April, with a star cast led by Danny Hatchard, Jake Quickenden and Bill Ward
The new tour of Simon Beaufoy’s award-winning play celebrates the 25th anniversary of one of the most successful British films ever made. At the time it was absolutely topical with massive social and economic upheaval following the closure of old industries like coal and steel. But this fast and funny drama still feels timely, as so many people across the country are suffering with the cost of living crisis.
Gaz (Danny Hatchers) and his mates are down on their luck, feeling as if have been thrown on the scrap heap. But they are determined to fight back – and the form that fight back takes is unexpected as the friends find themselves preparing to bare a little more than they ever thought they would have to!
There are no heroes in this heartfelt play by Simon Beaufoy, who also won the Oscar for the screen-play.
The other leading roles are played by Jake Quickenden (Guy), Bill Ward (Gerald), Neil Hurst (Dave), Ben Onwukwe (Horse) and Nicholas Prasad (Lomper). The director is Michael Gyngell.
TINY Clouds Hill, near Wareham, where TE Lawrence – Lawrence of Arabia – lived in the 1930s, is now open for the 2024 season. A previously undiscovered photograph shows one of the families who previously lived in the remote cottage – and gives an insight into its appearance before Lawrence.
One of the National Trust’s smallest properties, Clouds Hill has been open to the public since 1938 and is preserved as it was when Lawrence retired there in 1935, after 12 years having it transformed to his taste. Lawrence was a prolific letter-writer and there are many details of the alterations he made to the cottage, but few photographs. The oldest known photographs of Clouds Hill dated from the period after the major modifications had been completed.
That was until the recent surprise discovery of a family photograph from the 1890s. One of the Trust’s Clouds Hill volunteers, Martin Gething, has been researching the families who lived in Clouds Hill in the 19th and early 20h centuries. During his investigations he made contact with a number of descendants and recently traced a great-granddaughter of a woman called Bessie Pride, who was born in the cottage in 1874. Bessie’s great-granddaughter found that they had a photograph of Bessie with other members of her family, standing in front of Clouds Hill.
Clouds Hill cottage in the 1890s
Martin says: “The photograph dates from the mid- to late-1890s and is at least 30 years older than any other known photograph of the cottage. Previously, we were not aware of any photograph of the outside earlier than the 1930s. The cottage looks surprisingly like now, including the roof which looks identical (apart from a skylight window that Lawrence added) and therefore answers the perennial question of whether the roof was previously thatched. It wasn’t, at least by the 1890s.”
There is a tantalising glimpse of one distinct difference from the cottage of today. The eastern side had a sloping addition, whereas today the wall is vertical below the roof line. However, it is not possible to tell from this one photograph what the addition might have been.
Lawrence died in 1935 and the cottage was inherited by his younger brother. Realising its historical importance, the brother began talking to the National Trust and in 1937 the cottage came under the Trust’s care. It opened to the public in May 1938.
The Bookroom at Clouds Hill, Dorset. The tiny woodsman’s cottage was the rural retreat of T.E. Lawrence.
If you have any old photos of Clouds Hill, the Trust would love to hear from you. Please email: elizabeth.flight@nullnationaltrust.org.uk
Note: Bessie Pride is third from the right in the photograph, next to her husband James Honeybun. This is an extended family group, and they would not all have been living at Clouds Hill at the time.
APRIL marks the 80th anniversary of Exercise Smash at Studland, a dress rehearsal for the D-Day landings, which took place at Studland Bay, and many other points along the south west coast, in 1944. The event will be marked with a series of commemoration events on 3rd, 4th and 5th April, including a display of Second World War Valentine tanks at Knoll Beach, guided walks and an exhibition at Studland village hall.
Studland Bay was chosen for Exercise Smash because it was similar to the beaches in Normandy – with long shores and sandy dunes.
Damage at Studland Bay, Dorset, following Storm Ciaran
Thousands of men took part in the exercise and it was here that the British tested their amphibious duplex-drive Valentine tank. These were designed to be launched in the sea where big naval carriers couldn’t dock.
However, on 4th April 1944, the exercise took a tragic turn when the tanks were launched too far out from the shore. When the weather turned, they started taking on water and seven sank, with six soldiers dying. The wrecks of the tanks still lie on the seabed at Studland Bay. Their final resting places are honoured as war graves.
The exercise was watched by the Prime Minister, Sir Winston Churchill, by King George VI and the American General Eisenhower from Fort Henry at Middle Beach, a concrete bunker which can still be visited today.
The National Trust is marking the anniversary with events including a visit by the last remaining duplex-drive Valentine tank of the type used in the exercise. It will be at Knoll Beach on Thursday 4th from 12.30 to 4pm, and Friday 5th from 10am to 3pm.
World War II defences and beach huts at Middle beach, Studland Bay, Dorset
The exhibition and talks in Studland village hall are being held in association with the Isle of Purbeck Sub Aqua Club. The exhibition of photographs, original pathe reels, physical ordnance and apparatus from the tanks will be on view on Wednesday 3rd and Thursday 4th from 10.30am to 3pm, and on Friday 5th from 12.30 to 3.30. Members of the Sub Aqua club and the National Trust will be available to answer any questions.
Fort Henry, WW2 viewing structure at Studland Bay, Dorset
The guided walks on Wednesday 3rd and Thursday 4th, starting at 2pm, will be led by local historian Pam White.
On Friday 5th at 10am, there will be a talk in the hall by Major Graeme Green about the regiment and Exercise Small, by John Pearson about the restoration of the Valentine tank, and by Nick Reed from the Sub Aqua Club about diving at the site.
JAPAN is famous for its cherry blossom season, when people flock to admire the ethereal and transitory beauty of the trees in full bloom. This spring, the National Trust team at Mompesson House in Salisbury’s Cathedral Close is launching a Festival of Blossom, with a trail around the Close from Easter Monday, 29th March, until 4th June.
You can pick up a free blossom activity trail and map from Mompesson House and go on a sensory walk to enjoy the blossom and nature around the Close. The festival is supported by players of the People’s Postcode Lottery, with a commitment to accessibility for those with special educational needs and dementia, so the trail activities have been designed to be enjoyed by everyone. The maps will be available at the entrance of Mompesson House, at Salisbury Cathedral and at the Tourist Information Centre.
Jenny Grene, the Trust’s visitor experience officer, says: ‘”We want to help everyone to feel welcome not just at Mompesson House, but in our wider community as well. We hope that the Festival of Blossom will give people the chance to enjoy nature on their doorsteps.”
For more information, please visit www.nationaltrust.org.uk/visit/wiltshire/mompesson-house
IT is great news to welcome back Cinema Obscura, the always-adventurous film society based at Wiveliscombe on Exmoor. Screenings at The Shambles Cinema – Wiveliscombe Town Hall – resume with a double bill over the weekend of 5th to 7th April.
A Life on the Farm, being shown on Friday 5th at 7pm and Sunday at 7.30, is a documentary, which is described as “a strange story from Somerset, about a filmmaking farmer and the inspiring legacy of his long-lost home movies … a moving and laugh-out-loud document of a vision of rural life in danger of being lost to history.”
When filmmaker Oscar Harding’s grandfather passed away, his family inherited an extraordinary video tape – a feature-length home movie from neighbour Charles Carson. Charles was an inventor, an outsider artist and a pioneer of death positivity, to name just a few of the filmmaking farmer’s unusual achievements. Charles’ life and work are examined by those who knew him best, as well as a whole new generation of fans who have been inspired by the legacy he left behind.
The second film is The Nettle Dress, hugely praised for its delicate beauty, as “a modern-day fairytale and hymn to the healing power of nature and slow craft.” It is being shown on Sunday at 4pm.
The documentary by Dylan Howitt is the story of textile artist Allan Brown who spent seven years making a dress by hand, using fibre from locally foraged stinging nettles. It is “hedgerow couture” – green slow fashion – and also a healing process for Allan, surviving the death of his wife, and finding a uniquely beautiful way to honour her memory.
PERFORMERS and writers are invited to submit applications to Villages in Action, Devon’s rural touring arts organisation, to take part in this year’s From Devon With Love, the annual scratch festival in September.
The festival is open to Devon-based artists working in live performance with a new piece of work they are ready to test out in front of a friendly audience?
The VIA team wants to hear from performers making original work, including theatre, dance, circus, storytelling, spoken word, puppetry and poetry. Ten artists will receive support including time with the VIA producing team, up to £400 performance fee and a 30-60 minute slot at the festival.
For the first time, the festival organisers are also making additional support available for previously excluded, neurodivergent and global majority artists in the application process.
If this sounds like you, you can find out more about the From Devon With Love festival on the website https://villagesinaction.co.uk/fdwl/
AT 9pm on Wednesday July 20th 2011 BBC three put out a documentary directed and produced by Jenny Popplewell entitled Jamie: Drag Queen at 16, which to put it mildly raised more than a few eyebrows. Narrated by Jill Halfpenny it followed the story of County Durham schoolboy Jamie Campbell, who after coming out as gay two years previously decided to attend the school prom in a dress.
It took six years from the screening of that documentary to, with the help of writer and lyricist Tom MacRae and composer Dan Gillespie Sells, for the story, based very much on true life, to find its way onto the stage as a musical. After a successful opening at Sheffield’s Crucible Theatre the show had to do battle with homophobic opposition, and the Covid epidemic as it tried to establish itself in London’s West End.
Not only has it won those battles but now as it embarks on a second countrywide tour, you can see it this week at Bristol Hippodrome and at Plymouth’s Theatre Royal from 1st to 6th April,, it has acquired a large loyal following as supportive of Jamie’s efforts to best the school authorities and become a Drag Queen, as his determined loving single-parent mother, played in this production in a heart-wrenching manner by Rebecca McKinnis. To add to a excellent dramatic input she delivers He’s My Boy in show stopping style, and even makes palatable the over-sentimental duet with Ivano Turco’s Jamie, My Man, Your Boy.
The overly sweet ending to the show, after some very strong action about homophobic bigotry, and racial prejudice, especially from Akshay St Clair as Jamie’s viciously rejective Dad, and Jordan Ricketts school bully Dean, did not bother the excitable audience one iota. They cheered Jamie’s every stand against, authority, poor head teacher Miss Hedges, a lovely study of an old-fashioned teacher out of step with modern youth from Sam Bailey, her chances defeating the students as they gathered to support Jamie attending the Prom in a dress were nil.
And Ivano Turco delivered a Jamie worthy of that support. From the moment he put on those bright red six inch high heeled platform shoes, to appearing in full drag, Ivana made Jamie who was going down this road not just to show off, but because he loved doing so as much as other 16-year-olds dreamed about playing for Manchester City, Liverpool or the Arsenal. He made telling contributions to the eight numbers he was involved in and moved in those shoes as easily and elegantly as if they were the latest flat trainers.
Which begs the question why was Strictly Come Dancing’s Kevin Clifton, who stylishly combined the roles of cross dressing shop owner Hugo and drag queen Loco Channelle, not given more opportunities to show off his undoubted dance talents.
Two of Jamie’s greatest supporters on stage, both underused vocally, were Sejal Keshwala as mother best friend and ever-bargain-hunting neighbour Ray, and Talia Palamathanan’s traditional Muslim student fighting religious as well as chauvinistic prejudice in her determination to study as a doctor.
Talia was also the show’s Dance Captain, helping the tremendously energetic ensemble to make the most of Kate Prince’s hard-hitting choreography. With resident director on hand to keep the production up to scratch, and MD keyboard player Danny Belton and his onstage band ensuring that the musical energy level also never dropped, this production, which promised so much to start with never disappointed its enthusiastic audience.
A SPRING exhibition at Durlston Country Park’s Fine Foundation Gallery features spectacular photographs by Kevin Ferrioli. Landing Among The Stars, at the Swanage gallery from Wednesday 27th March to Sunday 14th April, is a celebration of Dorset’s dark skies.
The exhibition takes a different look at the natural beauties of Dorset and the night-time sky around them. It not only highlights the picturesque values of night-time photography but also explains how to capture and preserve them.
From stunning constellations, to the Milky Way core, each photograph is a testament to the ethereal wonders of the night sky. Whether you’re a seasoned stargazer or someone who simply appreciates the magnificence of the night sky, these images will fill the viewer with a real sense of awe.
Shannon Dugdale of Durlston Country Park says: “Kevin’s work showcases the beauty of the night sky and with Durlston being a registered Dark Skies site, I feel it will be a perfect addition.”