THE Marquise is a very unusual Noel Coward play, written in 1927 as a star vehicle for his friend, the singer and actress Marie Tempest, but set in 1735. Bookended by his smash hits Hay Fever and Private Lives, it is rarely performed, perhaps because it lacks the welter of wit and bon mots of…
PETER Talbot, the founder of the brilliant and always original Rude Mechanical Theatre Company, has been awarded an MBE in the King’s Birthday Honours for services to the arts. Pete founded the Rude Mechanical company in 1997 and spent the next 27 years building it into one of the country’s most distinctive touring open air…
IF you are a fan of the popular television series The Detectorists you will know that the curious and occasionally eccentric people who head out into the countryside with their metal detectors sometimes make remarkable discoveries. A Dorset detectorist discovered a beautiful Early Bronze Age mirror and another found an equally rare and exquisite crescent-shaped…
IF you were raised on hymns included in Hymns Ancient and Modern, you now have 847 to choose from in the latest edition – and whatever your choice, you can go and hear it played live on the organ of St Gregory’s Church in Marnhull over the weekend of 19th to 21st June. The Great…
HOW many actors does it take to perform Shakespeare’s The Comedy of Errors, dramatis personae of 15 plus extra? The answer is five – and you hardly miss a thing. The Festival Players, formed in 1986 and an all-male troupe since 2014, has chosen the hilarious play of identical twins, mistaken identities, lost love and…
WHEN Laura Wade decided to rework W Somerset Maughan’s highly successful 1926 play The Constant Wife and look at the story through modern eyes, whilst keeping the same storyline she based her script on Maughan’s concept rather than using the original text. Lyric Hammersmith’s associate director Nicholai La Barrie, who directs this joint production with…
A RARELY performed Noel Coward comedy is coming to Bath Theatre Royal – The Marquise, starring Juliet Aubrey, Simon Shepherd and Tristan Gemmill, is on a national tour and will be at Bath from Tuesday 16th to Saturday 20th June. This romantic comedy, originally set in 18th-century France and now given a 1930s updating, was…
WHAT makes chalk streams special? Running through Wiltshire and Hampshire are some of the most beautiful rivers in the country – perhaps in the world. They don’t cut through dramatic scenery or spectacular gorges, they run quietly through wildlife-rich tree and grass-lined banks. The water rises deep under the chalk downs that are the mountain ranges…
BADGER’S Drift will get a bit of a break from homicide when the curtain comes down on Midsomer Murders at Bath on Saturday 14th June – but not for long. The success of this first staging of the popular TV series on its opening UK tour, which started in November 2025, means it has 14 more…
CRIME and punishment, deportation and the consequences of artistic deprivation are all big news at the moment, in a way they perhaps weren’t in 1991 when Timberlake Wertenbaker wrote her iconic political drama Our Country’s Good. She was inspired by visits to Wormwood Scrubs prison, and the effects that exposure to theatre had on long-term…