WHEN David Mamet’s play Oleanna first appeared back in 1992, 14 years before the “Me Too” movement saw the light of social media day, it was so divisively controversial that it was even blamed for the break-up of marriages. Interestingly, as the current Lucy Bailey production in Bath proves, it has lost none of its…
Yeovil Octagon until 3rd January FOR anyone who is interested in live performance, pantomime (whether you like it or not) is synonymous with Christmas, and when theatres around the country went dark for even longer than the first lockdown, received grants from the government, reopened and then were closed again, it seemed as though…
THE worldwide effects of the Covid-19 pandemic are incalculable, and perhaps the sector worst affected in the UK is the live entertainment industry. Closed two weeks before the start of the first lockdown, and remaining closed when other businesses opened, the rules left managements scuttling for solutions to make their communal, intimate and essentially social…
– the first in a new series by nutritionist Daisy Ilchovska DAISY Ilchovska is an MSc level educated and registered nutritional therapist and founder of Optimal Health Nutrition (www.optimalhealthnutrition.co.uk) She re-trained as a nutritional therapist after her own health quickly deteriorated in her mid-20s when she was diagnosed with a debilitating autoimmune condition. Nutrition and…
A TEAM of carpenters, tilers and scaffolders have rescued Bere Marsh Farm’s barn owls from winter homelessness in the nick of time. Just a few months after the Countryside Restoration Trust purchased the farm near Shillingstone, an appeal was launched to raise funds to repair the building which has been the barn owls’ home for…
AUDIENCES at Iford Opera in 2018 arrived to find parts of the Manor gardens cordoned off and obvious signs of film crews in the narrow lanes, but curiosity was met with stony, and contractual, silence. Iford Manor owners, staff and all those involved with the festival were sworn to secrecy, and it was only later…
RURAL media charity Windrose Trust has a new website – windroseruralmedia.org – where you can view old film, listen to audio and order DVDs. All Windrose’s projects were cancelled or postponed because of the pandemic, but a grant from the National Lottery Heritage Fund has enabled the charity, which was set up in 1984 under…
SEVEN months ago, en route to Bath Theatre Royal to review Band of Gold and New Old Friends, we were telephoned with the news that the theatre had closed until further notice following government instructions. What an exciting relief to be back, albeit masked and distanced, in the beautiful theatre for the first of three…
TEN years of planning and maturing in the barrels have come to fruition with the release of Dartmoor Whisky, the ideal Christmas gift for any fan of single malt. Distilled and aged in the West Country’s first whisky distillery, at the gateway to Dartmoor the former in Bovey Tracey Town Hall, this whisky is firmly…
DEVON-based farmhouse cheesemaker Quicke’s has unveiled the line-up for its first ever British Farmstead Cheese Board, hand-picked to be at their best during the Christmas festivities. Partnering with other artisan cheesemakers across the region, who craft their cheeses from milk produced within metres of the dairy, Mary Quicke has curated a winter cheese selection that…