CHRISTY Lefteri’s bestselling book The Beekeeper of Aleppo is a story of our times – a chronicle of the lives of a handful of Syrian and other refugees seeking asylum in the famously civilised and welcoming United Kingdom. Now adapted for the stage by Nesrin Alrefaai and Matthew Spangler, it is in Bath until Easter…
HIJINX Theatre, one of Europe’s leading inclusive theatre companies, is coming to Taunton Brewhouse on Tuesday 7th April and Dorchester Corn Exchange on Thursday 9th April, with Meet Fred. The company is marking the tenth anniversary of this darkly funny satire, following the experiences of Fred, a puppet fighting for his independence as his Puppetry…
SHERBORNE Travel Writing Festival has never felt more important than this year, when our international travel possibilities seem so fragile and risky. Over the weekend 10th to 12th April, speakers at the Powell Theatre in Abbey Road will take audiences on journeys of adventure, history, nature, deep into today’s fractured and dangerous world. Curated by…
IF you put the names Alan Bennett, Nick Hytner, Ralph Fiennes, Roger Album. Simon Russell-Beale … and Elgar … together and give them a good shake, you would probably come up with The Choral, a quintessential English film, with charm, music, love lost and found and a soul-stirring musical backdrop. Add in the First World…
RICHARD Brinsley Sheridan’s timeless comedy The Rivals was given the One Man Two Guvnors treatment by Richard Bean for the Royal Shakespeare Company, and now the updated version comes to Frome’s Merlin Theatre from 16th to 18th April. Frome Drama is celebrating its 80th anniversary this year, and the play by Bean and co writer…
HOW many of us have met someone on holiday who we have hit it off with? We exchange addresses or emails, and probably never hear from them again. Or perhaps you do go and visit them – and it all goes swimmingly and 30 years on, you are still good friends. That’s the positive story…
ALAN Bennett’s 1984 film A Private Function has become a icon of British comedy, delighting successive generations with its gentle but unflinching look at life after the war and petty small town cliques and jealousies. In 2011, Cameron Mackintosh commissioned George Stiles and Anthony Drewe to create a musical from the tale, and Betty Blue…
FOR many years, until 1989, an aunt and uncle of mine were the licensees of a pub in a small North Somerset village. Their regular customers were a microcosm of the local community – several farmers, the grave-digger, a farm labourer who was the local table skittles champion, the doctor and two hospital specialists, a…
COMPOSER Piers Kennedy has composed new works for Sarum Tenebrae: A Service of Shadows in Salisbury Cathedral on Wednesday 1st April at 7.30pm. This service with candles which are gradually extinguished, finishing in total darkness, is traditionally held during Holy Week. This year the service features a commission of nine compositions by Piers Kennedy, sung…
WATCHING Richard Harris’s cricketing farce Outside Edge 47 years after its premiere, and holding a programme that contains the message “Please be aware that Outside Edge is a classic late 20th-century comedy which reflects the language and attitudes of its time. Some audience members may find this content offensive,” I found myself asking exactly what…