ONE of the advantages of reviewing a pantomime at a schools matinee, rather than the official press night, is that you really get a feel for how children enjoy the show. For many youngsters it will be their first experience of live theatre – and if it’s a good one, they may come back, not…
CIVIC Players return to the Swan Theatre in Yeovil for their traditional pre-Christmas show, this time Ken Ludwig’s A Comedy of Tenors, on until Saturday 2nd December. It is the follow up to the writers popular Lend Me a Tenor, a play performed by Civic members in November 2022. The cast includes Andrew Meadows, Lucy-Ella…
BRISTOL’S Old Vic Theatre is transformed into a magical city state in Arabia this Christmas. There’s a palace, a prison and a house where some of the “ordinary people” live, as well as sea monsters and a marvellous flying horse. And Schere is telling her stories to the petulant and babyish king. This brilliant retelling…
A MAN whose career has spanned a seat at the Cabinet table, a love of ballroom dancing and a passion to help Britain reach net zero, Sir Vince Cable is coming to Dorchester Arts at the Corn Exchange on Friday 1st December at 7.30pm. It is easy to see politicians as one-dimensional, walking egos, ambitious…
ONE of the all-time favourite Christmas films is Polar Express, and this year there’s an invitation to take a festive journey in historic style on the Swanage Railway, a heritage steam train that runs from Swanage to Corfe Castle. For this special festive trip, the train, with its excited complement of children and their families,…
THE Dorset Museum at Dorchester is presenting a major exhibition of sculptor Dame Elisabeth Frink’s life and work, from 2nd December to 21st April 2024. The works are drawn from the collection that Dorset Museum acquired from the Elisabeth Frink Estate in 2020, featuring sculptures, prints, drawings, and personal possessions. Many of these items, including…
THERE is avant-garde … and there is avant-pop, and it doesn’t get more avant-pop than the Penguin Cafe, making a return to the Marine Theatre, Lyme Regis, on Friday 1st December with music from their most recent album, Rain Before Seven, which was released in July. Avant-garde pushes back the boundaries of contemporary classical and…
TELEVISION scriptwriter Reginald Rose was called to serve on a New York jury in 1954, and his experiences in the locked jury room inspired him to write what became his best-known play, performed countless times on stages across the English speaking world and famously filmed with Henry Fonda in the lead. It is a timelessly…
THE November event in the Tollard Talks series at Tollard Barn in Tollard Royal, on Thursday 30th November, is a serious look at the arguments for and against a plant-based diet. The speaker, Jayne Buxton, poses the question, “What if removing animal foods from our diet was a serious threat to human health, and a…
STUDENTS from Bristol Old Vic Theatre School are turning their backs on the traditional Christmas theatre fare and heading Into the Woods at the Redgrave Theatre with Stephen Sondheim from 28th November to 7th December. Atri Banerjee directs the show, with musical direction by Jon Beales. Sondheim’s brilliant show conflates familiar fairytales as he takes…
CORNISH theatre company Owdyado Theatre comes to Dorset and Devon with Twisted Christmas, a series of darkly comic tales, With Artsreach in Dorset from 1st to 3rd December, the show is also at Stockland village hall in Devon on Sunday 17th December. The show is a series of macabre mini plays, all with a festive…
OLIVIA Hewitt-Jones was born to play pantomime. Her father Brian was a successful pantomime producer and her mother, actress Amanda Bairstow, starred in them. Now Olivia makes her professional debut at Salisbury Playhouse as the heroine Alice Fitzwarren in this year’s panto, Dick Whittington, running from 25th November to 7th January. “I literally grew up…
THE Arborealists, the group of artists who specialise in depicting trees in paint, print, photography and other media, are celebrating their tenth anniversary this year, and their last show of 2023 is The Tree of Life at ACE Arts at the Old Town Hall in Somerton, from 18th November to 23rd December. There is no…
ANDREAS Scholl, one of the world’s greatest counter-tenors, is coming to St Mary’s Church, Dorchester, on Monday 5th February, for one of only two UK concerts next year. He will be accompanied by his wife, Israeli harpsichordist, pianist, musicologist and composer Tamar Halperin. Their previous recital in 2020 was a memorable concert and, predictably, a…
RED Rope Theatre is staging a new version of Sherlock Holmes: The Hound of the Baskervilles, in the Anglican Chapel of Arnos Vale Cemetery in Bristol, from 15th November to 1st December. Written by Matt Grinter and adapted from Arthur Conan Doyle’s spine-chillingest mystery, it tells the story of age-old fears. The locals whisper of…
WHEN artist Alexander Hollweg and his family moved from London to Exmoor 40 years ago, he said they “sold a house and bought a way of life”. A new exhibition at the Museum of Somerset in Taunton celebrates his Journey in Art, with paintings and sculptures from throughout the six decades of his career. The…
A RARE early medieval brooch has gone on display at the Museum of Somerset in Taunton. This exceptionally well-preserved and beautiful piece, which is more than a thousand years old, is one of the most important objects found in Somerset. It comes from a time when the survival of Saxon Wessex was in doubt and…
“SHAKESPEARE has left us nothing so joyful and nothing so lovely,” says director John Crabtree of the dark comedy, Twelfth Night, which is being staged by Amateur Players at the Sherborne Studio Theatre from Monday 4th to Saturday 9th December, at 7.30pm with a Saturday matinee at 2.30. But it is a play with dark…
THERE is little in the way of festive cheer in Benjamin Britten’s opera The Turn of the Screw, but it is a brilliant and thrilling stage version of Henry James’ famous novella – and we all love a good ghost story at Christmas, don’t we! A new production opens at Bath Theatre Royal’s Ustinov Studio…
ANYONE who has ever watched a child or a grandchild perform in the school nativity play will want to see Salisbury Studio Theatre’s Christmas offering this year. The Flint Street Nativity this Christmas, written by Tim Firth and directed by Paul Chalmers and Sally Marshall, will be on stage at the Ashley Road venue from…
FROME is certainly a buzzy place these days, and alongside its vibrant and varied food scene, increasing numbers of book and vintage shops and general feeling of community spirit, the theatre scene continues to thrive. This Christmas, the Merlin Theatre’s traditional seasonal show, Elf – The Musical, sold out almost before the booking opened, and…
DOMINIC West, one of the country’s finest and most versatile actors, is coming to Bath Theatre Royal’s Ustinov Studio in February, starring in a new production of Arthur Miller’s A View From The Bridge, directed by Lindsay Posner. Miller’s 1956 drama is set in the close-knit Italian-American community in 1950s New York. Eddie Carbone is…
IT’s murder at Shaftesbury in December! From Agatha Christie short plays to a fairy in a microwave and teenagers lost in a magical wood, the arts centre’s talented actors are putting on some surprising festive entertainment. It all starts with Murder in the Studio, from 30th November to 2nd December. This is a collection of…
THE Christmas and New Year exhibition at Sladers Yard gallery at West Bay features work by gallery regulars including Vanesa Gardiner, Martyn Brewster, Alex Lowery and the gallery’s resident furniture designer-maker Petter Southall. The exhibition, Radiance, continues to 21st January. The title indicates the theme, celebrating light in the landscape, which seems welcome at this…
BARBENHEIMER comes to the West Country courtesy of Moviola in November and December! The portmanteau word was coined for the cultural phenomenon of two vastly different blockbuster films being released at the same time in high summer. Barbie has, in the current jargon, absolutely smashed it at the box office. Oppenheimer has been slightly less…
BATH’s favourite double act is back again for Christmas – and this time comedian and writer Jon Monie and lovable “Dame” Nick Wilton are joined by East Enders “bad boy” Neil McDermott as a dashing prince. Jon, into his 21st Bath pantomime season, and Nick, for his sixth festive period in the country’s prettiest theatre,…