STEEL Magnolias is how Americans describe strong, gritty and indefatigable Southern women, and playwright Robert Harling knew all about them. He was born and brought up in Dothan, Alabama, and studied law in Natchitoches, Louisiana, the town in which he based his most famous play and where he still lives. His inspiration came from his…
ANTHONY Jay and Jonathan Lynn are immortalised in the television Hall of Fame as creators of Yes Minister and Yes, Prime Minister, which together ran for 37 episodes between 1980 and 1988. Jonathan Lynn took up the parliamentary quill again in 2023 for a “last hurrah” originally entitled I’m Sorry, Prime Minister, I Can’t Quite Remember,” and…
THE problem with reviewing a wholly-new interpretation of a very familiar play is comparison – what would a new audience make of a play you know, and they don’t? So it is with the extraordinarily versatile and inventive Tracy-Ann Oberman’s version of Noel Coward’s 1939 play Present Laughter, opening at Bath before an eight-venue UK tour….
BEYOND Horizons, at Stoberry Park Gardens, overlooking Wells Cathedral, coinciding with this year’s Somerset Art Weeks and running from 5th September to 4th October, is the first of what is planned to be an annual open air sculpture exhibition, a month-long event bringing together more than 70 sculptors from across Somerset, UK and beyond. Described…
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…