SIXTEEN days of visual arts celebration, exploring the galleries, studios and arts centres of Dorset, begins with the return of the biennial Dorset Art Weeks, this year from 23rd May to 7th June. More than 290 venues, from Highcliffe to Monkton Wykd, will have work by painters, potters, printmakers, photographers, sculptors, textile artists, makers and…
ANYONE who has visited the great Tisbury tithe barn, now home to the Messums West contemporary art gallery, will understand why the word “cathedral” comes to mind – and the new installation, Forest Cathedral, takes this as its inspiration, creating a powerful experience for visitors to the 700-year old building, with its awe-inspiring, soaring timber…
PAULINE Eyre was a line judge at Wimbledon for 20 years. Now as a stand-up comedian she takes her experiences on the road, coming to Shaftesbury Arts Centre on 27th May, Bridport Arts Centre on 28th, Swanage’s Mowlem There on 29th. In her new show, Anyone for tennis?, Pauline spills the Pimms on tennis gossip,…
SMUGGLERS, hidden treasure and ghostly apparitions – what more evocative glimpse of coastal Dorset in the 18th century. J Meade Falkner’s gothic novel was adapted for the stage in 2009 by the ever-compelling Angel Exit, and this year the company’s co-director Tamsin Fessey was invited to recreate the production with students from Arts University Bournemouth’s…
THE world premiere tour of Single White Female comes to Bath Theatre Royal from 19th to 23rd May, and promises dark humour and suspenseful storytelling as it updates the 1990s story to the age of social media. It is all about ambition, obsession and the desperate need to belong in an increasingly isolated world Starring…
THERE is a concert with a difference at Lady St Mary Church at Wareham on 24th May, as part of this year’s Purbeck Art Weeks. The early music collective Parnassus Ensemble will be joined by artist Jeremy Queyras for a programme of cantatas by Pachelbel, Kuhnau and Bach, with the painter responding to the music…
IN these days of (anti)social media, it is possible to “unfriend” someone who has committed some minor act of disparagement – but if you have issued a cocktail-fuelled “come and visit” invitation to friendly stranger you meet on holiday, it’s not so easy. When Peter and Debbie meet the effervescent American Elsa on a cruise,…
“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…
OTHELLO is not one of Shakespeare’s most frequently performed plays, and in recent years it has been condemned as racist, colonialist and generally suitable for 21st century audiences only with a black actor in the title role – and all about the men in it. American playwright Paula Vogel has taken the three women in…
EMMA Rice’s musical adaptation of Enid Blyton’s Malory Towers was one of the victims of COVID, opening in Bristol in autumn 2019. After a stop in Devon, the planned tour was scuppered. Now, happily, it is back on the road – refined, framed and better than ever, starting a new nine-venue tour at Bath. The…