THERE is a concert with a difference at Lady St Mary Church at Wareham on 24th May, as part of this year’s Purbeck Art Weeks. The early music collective Parnassus Ensemble will be joined by artist Jeremy Queyras for a programme of cantatas by Pachelbel, Kuhnau and Bach, with the painter responding to the music…
SIXTEEN days of visual arts celebration, exploring the galleries, studios and arts centres of Dorset, begins with the return of the biennial Dorset Art Weeks, this year from 23rd May to 7th June. More than 290 venues, from Highcliffe to Monkton Wykd, will have work by painters, potters, printmakers, photographers, sculptors, textile artists, makers and…
SMUGGLERS, hidden treasure and ghostly apparitions – what more evocative glimpse of coastal Dorset in the 18th century. J Meade Falkner’s gothic novel was adapted for the stage in 2009 by the ever-compelling Angel Exit, and this year the company’s co-director Tamsin Fessey was invited to recreate the production with students from Arts University Bournemouth’s…
THE world premiere tour of Single White Female comes to Bath Theatre Royal from 19th to 23rd May, and promises dark humour and suspenseful storytelling as it updates the 1990s story to the age of social media. It is all about ambition, obsession and the desperate need to belong in an increasingly isolated world Starring…
“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…
BATH Literature Festival has a powerful programme with thoughtful speakers tackling a vast range of subjects from the big issues of the day to characters from ancient myths. This year’s festival runs from Saturday 16th to Sunday 24th May, and brings some of today’s leading writers to the city. Along with the bestsellers and the…
PRIMARY school aged children in around the south west have a chance to experience live music, when the BSO’s Explore the Orchestra tour visits Poole Lighthouse on 19th and 20th May. With the addition of a digital concert, broadcast live from Poole’s Lighthouse arts centre in May, the project enables thousands of young people to…
COMING to Swindon’s Arts Centre on 20th May, Emily Davis will be taking her audience on a journey through original songs, sharp satire and a Welsh woman’s take on everything from spreadsheets to self-discovery. Following her success at the Edinburgh Fringe, Emily sets sail with her funny, uplifting one-woman musical comedy, Blodwen Rocks the Boat,…
FORTY years ago, actors Roger Rees and Rick Elice wrote the “romantic-thriller” Double Double, in the same year that the film Down and Out in Beverley Hills was released. Both feature a rough sleeper who comes into a family home and upends the status quo. But Double Double, revived at Cirencester’s Barn Theatre until 28th…
PHIL Beer, multi-instrumentalist and best known as half of the hugely popular folk duo Show of Hands, is currently pursuing his own musical thing, with gigs in the south and west between now and late October. Phil is in our region on Friday 22nd May at Bridgwater Arts Centre, Saturday 23rd May, at Sixpenny Handley…
ANYONE who has visited the great Tisbury tithe barn, now home to the Messums West contemporary art gallery, will understand why the word “cathedral” comes to mind – and the new installation, Forest Cathedral, takes this as its inspiration, creating a powerful experience for visitors to the 700-year old building, with its awe-inspiring, soaring timber…
PAULINE Eyre was a line judge at Wimbledon for 20 years. Now as a stand-up comedian she takes her experiences on the road, coming to Shaftesbury Arts Centre on 27th May, Bridport Arts Centre on 28th, Swanage’s Mowlem There on 29th. In her new show, Anyone for tennis?, Pauline spills the Pimms on tennis gossip,…
IN these days of (anti)social media, it is possible to “unfriend” someone who has committed some minor act of disparagement – but if you have issued a cocktail-fuelled “come and visit” invitation to friendly stranger you meet on holiday, it’s not so easy. When Peter and Debbie meet the effervescent American Elsa on a cruise,…
A FALCON, a contemporary take on a Shakespearean tragedy and a celebration of one of the greatest singer-songwriters provide the picks of spring and early summer for Moviola audiences. Laden with awards, the film adaptation of Maggie O’Farrell’s 2020 acclaimed novel, Hamnet, focuses on William Shakespeare’s wife Agnes, an unconventional Tudor woman, with a mysterious…
JUST a year on since the first beavers were released into the wild at Studland, the natural eco engineers have been transforming woodland, dramatically reshaping part of the local landscape and turning a previously dense area of woodland into a thriving wildlife-rich wetland. The pair have built an extensive dam which has slowed the flow…
ROGER Fry, painter and member of the Bloomsbury Group, is celebrated in a new exhibition at the Museum of Somerset,Taunton, on until 4th July. A Life in Art: Roger Fry is a major new exhibition exploring the life, work and influence of one of the most important figures in 20th century British art. The exhibition…