WELLS Festival of Literature returns for its 35th year, following last year’s most successful event, with a packed programme of talks and book-related events at Cedars Hall, from Friday 16th October to Saturday 24th October. From popular novelists to leading journalists, including Jonathan Dimbleby, historians, cultural commentators, archaeologists, biographers, activists and campaigners, the 2026 Wells…
RICHARD Thompson was 18 years old when he and Simon Nicol, Ashley Hutchings and Shaun Frater formed Fairport Convention in 1967, “inventing” – as he told the Poole Lighthouse audience – a new musical genre. Now he is 77, and still going very strong, as is the band he left in 1971, with the seminal…
LATE in life, the by then sadly neglected composer and arranger Max Steiner, was asked by an interviewer what he thought of modern film scores. Steiner, arguably the most prolific, most famous and best composer of more than 300 film scores, including Gone with the Wind and King Kong, replied: “I never comment on things…
THE beautiful gardens of Stoberry Park at Wells are a joy in themselves. Their views of Wells Cathedral and across to Glastonbury Tor are inspiring. And an exhibition of work by West Country sculptors brings a magical and exciting extra dimension to this lovely setting. Beyond Horizons: Where Art, Nature and Community Meet – a…
IT is often a bit of a mystery to English audiences holding back the tears from performances of Three Sisters or Uncle Vanya to be told that Chekhov plays were intended as comedies. Even an attempt to perform The Cherry Orchard as broad comedy can come over as uncomfortably clunky. Back in 1973 Neil Simon…
IN 2003, Carl Grose and Anna Maria Murphy set about adapting the Cornish-based Celtic myth Tristan and Yseult and its later manifestations into a play for Kneehigh. Directed by Emma Rice, it was first staged at Restormel Castle, and continued (in the Kneehigh way) to tour in various theatres and outdoor settings until 2017 –…
THE country’s favourite poet, Pam Ayres, comes to Dorchester Arts at the Thomas Hardye School theatre on Sunday 20th September at 5pm, Tiverton Community Arts Theatre at 7.30 on Friday 25th, Taunton Brewhouse on Sunday 27th at 3.30pm, and Weston super Mare Playhouse on Sunday 21st November, with her latest collection, Doggedly Onwards – a…
LANDSCAPE and river painter Nick Andrew is working on four panoramic seasonal drawings, a commission for Dorset County Hospital, Dorchester, to be installed in the new critical care unit, which is due to be opened next year. On Friday 4th September, Nick, whose studio is at Bull Mill, Crockerton, near Warminster, will be showing work…
THE Dorset Monochrome Collective has its second exhibition in the community room at Dorchester’s Borough Gardens, from 14th to 20th September. Founded in 2018 by Alison Webber, the collective consists of a group of friends who share a passion for monochrome photography, whether that is digital or film. Members include the distinguished portrait and landscape…
THAT is not just an alliterative play on words – it is the underlying theme of a fascinating solo play by Anglo-German theatre company, Fish in a Dress, which has four Dorset dates on its autumn national tour, starting at the Bay Theatre at Weymouth on Tuesday 15th September. The City for Incurable Women will…