IT is hard to believe it is 30 years since the first Purbeck Film Festival, but in those three decades the rural celebration of film has become one of the country’s most interesting and varied events, this year running from 16th October to 1st November, with an astonishing mix of classic, recent and new releases….
A much-respected local music critic, with a deep knowledge of opera and classical music, had one great blind spot – he hated Mozart’s music, one his operas, Don Giovanni in particular. Despite the fact that ever since its first, rapturously received 1787 production in Prague, it has been constantly named as one of the worlds…
THE beautiful gardens of Stoberry Park at Wells are a joy in themselves. Their views of Wells Cathedral and across to Glastonbury Tor are inspiring. And an exhibition of work by West Country sculptors brings a magical and exciting extra dimension to this lovely setting. Beyond Horizons: Where Art, Nature and Community Meet – a…
BATH Children’s Literature Festival continues until Sunday 4th October, with a packed programme that ranges from a free Party at the Holburne Museum to a chance to discover the latest How to Train your Dragon adventure. Among the leading children’s writers (and illustrators) taking part will be Katherine Rundell, Michael Rosen and MC Grammar, Dame Julia…
ROMESH Ranganathan, star of countless television comedy series and and presenter of The Weakest Link, is back on the road from November with a new show, and a massive list of dates and venues, including Yeovil’s Westlands. In this new stand-up show Romesh Ranganathan promises to “Change Your Life.” He is here to help, he…
ANTHONY Jay and Jonathan Lynn are immortalised in the television Hall of Fame as creators of Yes Minister and Yes, Prime Minister, which together ran for 37 episodes between 1980 and 1988. Jonathan Lynn took up the parliamentary quill again in 2023 for a “last hurrah” originally entitled I’m Sorry, Prime Minister, I Can’t Quite Remember,” and…
FROM 8th October to 19th November you can join in with the 75th anniversary celebrations of The Archers. And 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…
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,…
AMONGST my most treasured long-playing records is a box containing two LPs of the January 1954 BBC Third Programme broadcast of Dylan Thomas’s Under Milk Wood originally described as a play for voices. Some 30 actors, led by Richard Burton and Richard Bebb as the narrators, combined to bring the 60+ named characters who inhabited…
WELLS Festival of Literature returns for its 35th year, following last year’s most successful event, with a packed programme of talks and book-related events at Cedars Hall, from Friday 16th October to Saturday 24th October. From popular novelists to leading journalists, including Jonathan Dimbleby, historians, cultural commentators, archaeologists, biographers, activists and campaigners, the 2026 Wells…
DORSET Museum & Art Gallery is launching a fundraising campaign to enhance and expand its forthcoming Mary Anning – Fossil Hunter exhibition, which will run from 30th January to 2nd May 2027, celebrating the life and legacy of the pioneering palaeontologist 180 years after her death. This landmark exhibition, which will have a programme of…
NEWS that a sequel was planned for The Devil Wears Prada, the brilliant film that shed a glittering and unflinching eye on the fashion business, was a surprise for many people. Would stars Meryl Streep, Anne Hathaway and Stanley Tucci want to reprise their roles … how could the story be bettered? Reportedly Streep and…