FOR the first time in more than 140 years, bitterns have bred at the RSPB reserve at Lodmoor, near Weymouth. It is the first breeding record for Dorset since 1883. The female bittern has been seen making regular feeding flights across the reserve, providing strong evidence that chicks are being successfully reared. Although the fledglings…
THE Rocky Horror Show, Blood Brothers and Salad Days have two things in common – they all had modest beginnings, before going on to enormous success. Rocky Horror began in the 60-seater Royal Court Theatre, Upstairs. Willy Russell’s play Blood Brothers, re-written as a musical, only met with modest success in Liverpool’s Playhouse. Salad Days,…
LAURA Wade’s colourful satirical play Home, I’m Darling comes to the stage of the Swan Theatre in Yeovil from 20th to 25th July. Judy and Johnny live in 50s bliss in their carefully-curated dream home. She has given up a lucrative job to become a perfect housewife in a house (almost) free of modern technology,…
THE traditionally pantomime and comedy company Sturminster Newton Amateur Dramatic Society (aka SNADS) has been growing a reputation for new, challenging and experimental works in recent years, largely thanks to the Taboo company and Toby Greenfield. This July the company takes a further step, producing two striking and uncompromising works by dancer, comedian and pioneer…
COVENT Garden Dance this year celebrates its 20th anniversary of presenting world-class ballet and dance. Since 2009 it has produced Ballet Under the Stars, the “Glyndebourne of dance”, a highly anticipated date in the south Wiltshire calendar, in the beautiful 17th century Dutch walled garden at Hatch House near Tisbury. This year’s Ballet at Hatch,…
THE 2026 Dorset Opera Festival brings one of the great tragic dramas of the repertoire to the stage of the Coade Hall at Bryanston School, and the return of a favourite comic opera from 21st to 25th July. There are performances of Saint-Saens’ Samson et Dalila on Wednesday 22nd and Thursday 23rd at 7pm, and…
IFORD Opera – now If Opera – celebrates its 30th anniversary this year, from 6th to 16th August, returning for a second year to Church Farm, Wingfield, near Bradford-on-Avon, with a programme which combines wit, tragic drama, Viennese sparkle, baroque boozing and the golden age of jazz and swing. The opening night, Thursday 6th August,…
CERNE Abbas, with its (in)famous chalk giant, has for 35 years been the setting for one of the region’s most delightful boutique chamber music festivals. This July, founder, Dorset-born clarinettist Richard Hosford brings a group of internationally renowned musicians back to the village for three concerts in the historic St Mary’s Church. Originally based around…
RENOWNED folk singer, cellist and viola player, a founder member of folk big band Bellowhead, Rachael McShane brings her own band, The Cartographers, to Dorset for three dates, 18th and 19th July and 23rd August, at Studland, Marnhull and Buckland Newton village halls. Hailing from the north east of England, McShane rose to prominence with…
WHITCOMBE Manor hosts the annual Dorchester Arts summer party with music, on Sunday 19th July from 1pm, with star performer Liza Pulman providing the entertainment. The beautiful 300-year old manor is the home of best-selling crime and historical novelist Minette Walters, and her husband Alec. Liza Pulman returns to Dorset after a sold out appearance…