PANTOMIMES come in many different guises – glitzy and heavy with celebrities (some of whom you may have heard of), beautifully costumed with lavish sets, clever and funny, warm-hearted, full of local jokes and music catering to every taste from grandparents to toddlers … Some have a special place in their community, and that is…
IF pantomime is all about larger than life traditional characters, audience participation, local references, current memes (of course 6-7 is everywhere this year), love, goodies, baddies, singing and dancing, lots of great songs and a happy ending, then Poole Lighthouse is the place to go this Christmas. Chris Jarvis, the man behind the Poole panto…
COMPANIES across the FTR core area have taken the top awards in this year’s Rose Bowl contest, and leading the way was Claudia Pepler’s astonishing production of Come From Away (pictured right) at the Merlin Theatre in Frome in July, which took the Bristol Evening Post award for best musical production. Sarah Nias (right) won…
THOUGHT the dastardly Captain Hook had met his watery fate at the end of Peter Pan’s adventures? … think again. Perhaps unsurprisingly he found a way to stay alive in the water at the end of the plank he was forced to walk, and, after desolate years of fury and plotting, HE’S BACK! And when…
THE inventive and funny New Old Friends are at Frome’s Merlin Theatre, from Wednesday 17th to Sunday 28th December over (not Christmas Eve and Christmas Day) with a revival of their popular comedy thriller, Crimes Against Christmas. Loosely inspired by Agatha Christie’s Then There Were None, the story follows a group of strangers summoned to…
OLIVIER Award-winning actor Guy Masterson comes to Bath Theatre Royal from Monday 15th to Friday 19th December with his tour-de-force solo performance of A Christmas Carol. This acclaimed version of Charles Dickens’ famous fable is directed by Nick Hennegan, who has also adapted Dickens’s original performance text for the production, which also includes original music…
BRISTOL’s historic Old Vic breaks with its usual non-celebrity tradition this year, bringing in local star, comedian, actor and singer Jayde Adams to lead a terrific cast of actor-musicians in a musical retelling of a story that started its life at the Llandoger Trow, just yards down the street. It’s 15 years since King Street…
JUST across the road from the stage door of Bristol Hippodrome is a public house which until recent times was called The Bunch of Grapes, where you would very often encounter stars appearing in the Hippo enjoying a pre, or post show, drink. With the pub’s change of name to Smoke and Mirrors, those days…
WHEN a novel is adapted for the stage, then a TV film and finally for the big screen, there are bound to be arguments about which format the story is best told in. Having seen them all, and with the support of most of those who have all seen or read the story in all…
THE children whose first view of live theatre was watching Little Bulb perform Antarctica at Bristol Old Vic in 2013 are in their late teens now, but possibly are still theatregoers, thanks to that magical experience. Now a new generation is watching a new cast perform the play again, and it is just as enchanting…