IN the course of a summer, we reviewers get to see many plays in fields, on coasts, in the grounds of stately homes and in beautiful private gardens, performed by intrepid actors and singers who brave the elements to entertain their loyal and devoted audiences. The summer touring open air theatre season has evolved into an…
JOHN Le Carre was the king of gritty espionage thrillers, and his 1963 novel, The Spy Came In From The Cold, is widely considered not only one of the finest of the genre, but one of the greatest novels of the 20th century. Chichester Festival Theatre had a big critical hit with the premiere of…
BRIDPORT is celebrating the raucous, chaotic, energetic, musical blast that was punk and the infectious, joyful sounds of reggae with an exhibition at the arts centre featuring photographs by Adrian Boot, and a couple of punk rebooted gigs on 21st August, in collaboration with Clocktower Records. The two-band gigs feature Nasty Fishmonger, a folk-punk fivesome…
IT is ten years since the musical version of Adrienne Shelly’s film Waitress made its way to the stage, and during that time it has amassed fanatical audiences across the English-speaking world. At Bristol Hippodrome this week, theatregoers are able to see one of our leading musical performers, the delightful, unusually subtle, endearing and totally…
WOMEN’s hidden histories have become a fertile area for study, for musical and artistic discovery, and for theatre. Community playwright Stephanie Dale draws on the many women of Dorset who made remarkable contributions to the lives of women of their own time, and down to ours, to create a play that explores their legacy and…
“THE ship is in her trim; the merry wind blows fair from land*” – exactly the message you need as you’ve packed the picnic basket, stowed the chairs in the car, checked your tickets on the phone (?) and set off for an evening in the open air, surrounded by trees and hedgerows, all ready…
THE Commandery Players are returning to their summer retreat at Ansty, near Tisbury, to perform Shakespeare’s The Tempest, from 4th to 8th August nightly at 7.30pm. The company is an offshoot of Tisbury Arts Group, and has been staging plays at the beautiful Elizabethan banqueting hall since 2016. This year they have chosen the play…
THE Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen is not generally considered a barrel of laughs – “grim up north” would be the usual opinion, but when Cornwall’s inventive Miracle Theatre gets hold of a classic there is usually a comic twist or two, as Artsreach audiences will find when A Comedy of Terrors comes to Ibberton village…
AS Lord Mountararat informs us in Iolanthe: “When Wellington thrashed Napoleon Bonaparte, As every child can tell, The House of Peers throughout the war, Did nothing in particular, And did it very well.” Those last two lines could well be applied to the sterling work done in this play by three actors, Jo Patmore, Sophie…
THE psychological thriller The Late Edwina Black was first performed 77 years ago, a drawing-room play that followed the then-current fashion for isolated houses, moody weather and unexplained deaths, set in 1895 long before the days of DNA but as policing was already becoming increasingly scientific. Of course it is “old fashioned”, but the trick…