TRACY-Ann Oberman is a fearless actress – whether performing as one of the finest Tzeitels in the history of Fiddler on the Roof or wowing audiences with her audacious reimagining of The Merchant of Venice, where she played a female Shylock in the turbulent Fascist-inflamed East London of the 1930s, she clearly relishes a challenge….
A LIGHTHOUSE is a symbol of hope and safety, light in sometimes frightening darkness, a welcome hint of hope if the ship is foundering or there is a man overboard. In her debut play, The Light House, coming to Somerset’s Take Art rural touring charity in September, writer-performer Alys Williams explores a real life story…
EVERY year more people look out for those little black stickers with one, two or three gold stars – Great Taste Awards from the Dorset-based Guild of Fine Food. This year’s West Country results include 27 products gaining the top three-star status, and a finalist from the region for the overall national Golden Fork awards….
PURBECK, with its dramatic coastline, is inextricably linked to the sea, and this is the theme of this year’s Purbeck International Chamber Music Festival, from 3rd to 6th September. Artistic director, and internationally acclaimed cellist, Natalie Clein has chosen this theme because the sea connects and separates, carries memory and myth, and reflects the depths…
THE Billings, a dedicated community venue at the heart of the Theatre Royal Bath, will open in spring 2027. This will be the fourth and final public and performance space within the theatre’s historic city centre site. The project, funded with support from more than 4,200 donors, has been fully approved, and work is now…
YEOVIL’s extraordinary record of producing brilliant young performers and choreographers – including Christopher Wheeldon – continues with James Bamford, who brings his Project Dance company to Westlands on 27th and 28th August with his new work, Things I’ve Never Said. James’s fourth annual touring production, set to an original live score by Charles Harrison, is…
SOME years ago, the campaigning environmental charity Common Ground published a booklet exploring the idea of souvenirs and the difference between trinkets and geegaws – nylon tartan, plastic scallop shells – mass-produced on the other side of the world, and locally produced crafts that carried a connection to their place. If you are in Devon…
“THE ship is in her trim; the merry wind blows fair from land*” – exactly the message you need as you’ve packed the picnic basket, stowed the chairs in the car, checked your tickets on the phone (?) and set off for an evening in the open air, surrounded by trees and hedgerows, all ready…
CHARLES Dickens was only 24 years old when he started writing the first instalment of what is now known as The Pickwick Papers. Samuel Pickwick and his friends, failed lover Tracy Tupman, would-be sporting gent Nathaniel Winkle and nervy poet Augustus Snodgrass, set forth from London to discover life around England (Manchester was not mentioned)….
PICTURESQUE Sidmouth is not only a delightful seaside resort and home to the country’s oldest folk festival, it also has the longest-running traditional summer rep season, at the Manor Pavilion theatre, this year continuing to Saturday 19th September. For three months the theatre has a weekly professional rep, which continues with one of the perennially…
THE two top films for Moviola screenings in this region in July and August are both serious – H is for Hawk and Hamlet. H is for Hawk is a biographical drama, directed by Philippa Lowthorpe, who co-wrote the screenplay with Emma Donoghue, based on the 2014 memoir by naturalist Helen MacDonald. It stars Claire…
IF you are old enough to remember the tragic death of Grace Archer in a fire in the stables at Brookfield (in 1955), you have been a fan of the world’s longest running soap for most of its existence. This year marks the 75th anniversary of The Archers, and there are two ways you can…
AN artists collective who originally got together in 2021 with a touring exhibition across the south west are reconvening in August with an exhibition reviewing their five year journey and beginning another in Bath and Bruton between 24th August and 27th September. Travelling to eight locations over the summer of 2021, Inch by IN:CH took…
THERE’s precious little “season of mists and mellow fruitfulness” as Poole’s Lighthouse arts centre heads into autumn. Rather, the arts centre is ripping it up with a short season of cult films that explored and celebrated different aspects of youth rebellion. Since the 1950s, youth culture in this country has a wide and varied history,…
WHEN the great Martin Carthy unexpectedly retired, as he was due to go on tour with his daughter Eliza, she decided to continue the tour as a tribute to her father, and will be one of the major draws at this year’s Lyme Regis Folk Weekend, from Friday 28th to Sunday 30th August. Eliza Carthy…
SMALL but mighty in its reach and influence – that would be a fair description of the Barn, the tiny independent theatre in Cirencester, which has announced the London transfer of its hit show, Million Dollar Quartet. Following an extended summer run at its Cotswold home, the show, with a cast led by Darren Day,…
NON-professional musicians and instrumentalists across the UK are invited to enter for the BSO Music-Making Competition, which returns for a second year, sponsored by Lark Music, part of Howden. Entry is free and the closing date for applications is 3rd September. The panel of industry judges includes broadcaster and writer Tom Service, guitarist Dagan Wilkin…
FOR the first time in 30 years, there has been a confirmed sighting of a puffling on the vertiginous Purbeck cliffs. The news of the puffin fledgling gives hope for Dorset’s dwindling puffin colony, says the National Trust, which manages the Dancing Ledge area. The sighting follows monitoring by 13 volunteers who spent 150 hours…