COMPOSER Helen Porter comes to Shaftesbury’s St Peter’s Church on Saturday 19th September with her Calstock Big Jazz Choir for a performance of her major new work Small Wonders, a musical celebration of the consolation of nature. Composed for choir, soloists and instrumentalists, Small Wonders had its premiere on the last night of this year’s…
THE history of theatre, film and TV is strewn with adaptations of famous works that have proved disastrous rather than successful. When in 2000 director/choreographer Matthew Bourne decided to marry the music of one of the world’s most popular operas, Bizet’s Carmen, with James M Cain’s novel and 1945 film noir The Postman Only Rings…
THE 2026-27 season for Amateur Players of Sherborne starts on 7th September with a production of The Good Doctor, a play based on short stories by Anton Chekhov. Directed by Richard Culham, the sold-out production is described as “an evening of laughter, longing and wonderfully human absurdity.” Neil Simon reimagines the Chekhov’s stories with wit,…
GLORIOUS, Peter Quilter’s play about the later life of Florence Foster Jenkins, comes to Ilminster Warehouse from 2nd to 5th September. Florence, an American socialite whose one ambition in life was to sing opera, had enough money to finance concerts at the great opera houses of the country, but little idea how to make one…
TAMSIN Waley-Cohen, one of the country’s finest violinists joins the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra for two concerts, at Weymouth Pavilion on Thursday 10th September and Queen’s Theatre, Barnstaple, on Monday 14th. The soloist, who is artistic director of Devo Two Moors Festival (1st to 11th October), will be playing Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto and Massenet’s beautiful Meditation…
NEWS that a sequel was planned for The Devil Wears Prada, the brilliant film that shed a glittering and unflinching eye on the fashion business, was a surprise for many people. Would stars Meryl Streep, Anne Hathaway and Stanley Tucci want to reprise their roles … how could the story be bettered? Reportedly Streep and…
IT is easy to underestimate Yeovil. It doesn’t have the historic buildings and picturesque narrow streets of Frome, the cathedral and medieval beauty of Wells or the ancient history and colourful eccentricity of Glastonbury. What it does have is talent – massive creative talent of all sorts, musical, theatrical, artistic, dance … The Somerset town…
PERFORMANCE poet Luke Wright has taken his own story of adoption and turned it into a show that is part stand-up and part poetry. Later Life Letter, an evening of warm and honest thoughts, with poems, jokes and some music, returns to the south west on 10th September at Bridport Arts Centre, 11th at Weston-super-Mare…
THIS juke box musical, based on the music of Queen, has one great fundamental problem to overcome – the fact that Freddy Mercury sang the vast majority of the numbers recorded or sung live on stage by the band. With his four-octave range, Mercury created a distinctive sound that is almost impossible to copy. Ben…
TRACY-Ann Oberman is a fearless actress – whether performing as one of the finest Tzeitels in the history of Fiddler on the Roof or wowing audiences with her audacious reimagining of The Merchant of Venice, where she played a female Shylock in the turbulent Fascist-inflamed East London of the 1930s, she clearly relishes a challenge….