IT’S hard to imagine sitting in the open air on a balmy summer’s evening after the winter and spring we have had, but that clearly hasn’t deterred any of the touring theatre companies from planning a 2024 season full of delights to suit all ages and most tastes. The post-COVID doldrums have receded, and new…
YANN Martel’s Man Booker Prize-winning novel, Life of Pi, was adapted as a sensational and five times Olivier Award-winning play, which is coming to Bath Theatre Royal, from 22nd to 25th May, direct from the West End, on its first ever UK tour. After conquering the West End and Broadway, Lolita Chakrabarti’s dazzling production brings…
THE Bath Festivals start on Friday 17th May, with the Party in the City – Bath’s biggest free event, so no need to book – followed by nine days of music and literary events, from peerless Renaissance choral music to Irish folk, from best-selling novelists to top broadcasters, historic walks and many other fascinating events….
THE World Cheese Awards, now in the 36th year, will take place in Portugal for the first time. The 2024 awards will be held in Viseu, from 14th to 17th November. The awards open for entries on Thursday 13th June, and close on Monday 16th September. John Farrand, managing director of the Guild of Fine…
AUDIENCES at Salisbury’s Studio Theatre in Ashley Road had a triple treat this May, when three of the company’s short plays were performed together. The show started with a return of the 2023 production of John Finnemore’s English for Pony Lovers, which was pipped to the post at the Western Area final of the All…
THE energetic and inventive all-female theatre company Scratchworks continues it tour of Hags: A Magical Extravaganza, at the Barnfield Theatre at Exeter on Friday and Saturday 17th and 18th May, and Poole’s Lighthouse arts centre on Thursday 23rd May. The action begins in Bideford in 1682, where the last witch trial in England took place….
AN acclaimed West End production of Tennessee Williams’ great play, The Glass Menagerie, starring Geraldine Somerville, comes to Bath Theatre Royal from Monday 13th to Saturday 18th May, following a week at Bristol Old Vic, until Saturday 11th. Geraldine Somerville, whose distinguished career includes leading roles in Cracker, Gosford Park and the Harry Potter films,…
IF you describe opera as being a story set to music which has virtually no spoken word, then this rap-style, sung through musical is an opera. Such a description would not be welcomed with open arms by the producers, because, whereas modern and classical ballet have, to the benefit of each, embraced each other, classical…
THE inaugural Mayhem Film Festival, celebrating music in film, takes place at Bridgwater over the weekend of Saturday 18th and Sunday 19th May. The programme of talks, films, workshops and live music is being held at Bridgwater Arts Centre, The Engine Room and Scott Cinemas, while, During the day, outside in the town, attendees and…
THE May screenings by Moviola around our region include Oscar-nominee The Holdovers and the period English comedy Wicked Little Letters, but two other films this month deserve a special mention – the acclaimed French drama Anatomy of a Fall, and the 2023 musical version of Alice Walker’s 1982 novel, The Colour Purple. Anatomy of a…
THE summer 2024 exhibition at Salisbury Cathedral explores our relationship with the earth at a time of environmental crisis and change. Opening to coincide with World Earth Day (22nd April), the exhibition runs to 6th October and includes works inside the cathedral, in the cloisters and on the lawns. The background to Our Earth, curated…
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…
THE programming at Messums West, the gallery and art centre in the ancient tithe barn at Tisbury, gets ever more adventurous, with a collaboration this year with Salisbury International Arts Festival and a two-month sound installation, created by Orlando Gough and Alastair Goolden, which draws its inspiration, in part from the river Nadder. Running from…
CHARLOTTE Jones’s astonishing first play Airswimming was inspired by a newspaper cutting announcing the “release” of perfectly sane women from decades of incarceration in hospitals for the mentally ill, better known at the time as lunatic asylums. The 1913 Mental Deficiency Act enabled angry, disappointed and embarrassed families to categorise their errant daughters as “moral…
AFTER a gap of two years, Somerset’s own resident Wassail Theatre is back on the road with a new show, Birthday Day, and it will be performed at farms and outdoor locations all around the county from 18th May to 1st September. Birthday Day is inspired by the short story A Notable Oak Tree, written…
TENNESSEE Williams’ semi-autobiographical play The Glass Menagerie was first performed in 1944, a year after his beloved sister Rose was subjected to a frontal lobotomy in an attempt to cure her schizophrenia. In the play, adapted from a short story, writer Tom Wingfield is trying to get away from the claustrophobic home he shares with…
MARLBOROUGH LitFest celebrates its 15th anniversary this year, from 26th to 29th September, and the first event has been announced – the festival’s patron, Sir Simon Russell Beale, will be talking about his memoir, A Piece of Work, on the evening of Sunday 29th September. The book, A Piece of Work, is due to be…
ONE of the most popular and critically successful films ever made about the world of high fashion, The Devil Wears Prada has been adapted into a musical, with a score by Sir Elton John. It makes its debut with a six-week, pre-West End season, this summer from 6th July to 17th August, at Plymouth Theatre…
BROTHERS Ben and Phil Drew fill the light and airy gallery at The Slade Centre in Gillingham with their exciting and vivid fabric and glass designs in an exhibition which runs to 18th May. Gallery owner Anne Hitchcock describes the show as “a conversation between works in fabric by Ben and glass by Phil. What…
FOLK quartet Dallahan’s founding member and frontman Jack Badcock releases his first solo album, Cosmography, early in May, and is heading out on a 16-venue UK tour to introduce his many fans to the new songs. He will be at Bridport’s British Legion Hall on Saturday 18th May, and at Ashburton Arts Centre two days…
THE iconoclastic Living Spit, led by Stu McLoughlin, now sadly without the late Howard Coggins, tackles one of the greatest stories of all – The Passion, in their latest show, touring this spring, with performances continuing at Plough Arts at Torrington in Devon on 17th May and Exeter’s Barnfield Theatre on 21st and 22nd May….