UP and down the country, people (often with no particular connection to Scotland) gather to celebrate the birthday of Rabbie Burns – but Dorset has its own dialect poet, and this year the annual Tea with William Barnes on Sunday 22nd February coincides with what would have been Barnes’ 225th birthday. For the past nine…
THERE are dozens of suggestions as to where the saying ‘Once seen never forgotten’ comes from, but which ever one you subscribe to, the truth of the saying throws up a great problem for director Matthew Dunster as he brings Danny Robins’ thriller out on a tour to areas where it has already been seen….
KLEZMER, the music of Jewish Eastern Europe and the Balkans, is haunting and poignant, but it can also be infectiously energetic, urging you to join in with its fast and furious dance rhythms. Catch the Zeffe klezmer band at the Beehive Centre at Honiton on Saturday 31st January at 7.30pm. It’s just the thing to…
WE all know the identity of Sherlock Holmes’s arch-nemesis, don’t we – but what if the real “killer” was the great detective’s creator? Find out more when Sherlock Holmes: The Death and Life comes to the Ustinov Studio at Bath Theatre Royal on Friday 30th and Saturday 31st January. The premise of this witty one-man…
THE creative ferment of Frome, Somerset’s most artistically active town, has produced a new play which draws on the writer-performer’s own experience as a taxi driver. Rank, by Dan Gaisford, is coming to Bath Theatre Royal’s Ustinov Studio on 2nd and 3rd February and the Bay Theatre at Weymouth College on 5th February. The play…
THE Boxer Rebellion is remembered as a frightening episode in China’s history – but partisan Western reporting means we have a very one-sided view of the insurrection. An unusual solo show, Chinese Boxing, coming to Bath Theatre Royal’s Ustinov Studio from 27th to 29th January, gives the Chinese side of the story. The play, written…
YES, we know, it’s mid-winter – but right now we all need something to look forward to, and we’re looking ahead to the end of July when Poole Harbour Festival celebrates its tenth anniversary, and the Kaiser Chiefs headline the main stage. So, in this gloomy, cold, wet January, let’s try to imagine long summer…
HOWARD Coggins was a comic genius, a versatile actor with a vivid, surreal imagination, and in their company Living Spit, he and Stu McLoughlin created something uniquely funny, charming, wacky and endlessly entertaining – reinventing history with their two-person take on the lives of Henry VIII or Elizabeth I, telling the story of real life…
THE new exhibition at the Somerset Rural Life Museum at Glastonbury is Legacy in Making, running until 10th May. Presented by Somerset Art Works in partnership with the South West Heritage Trust, it celebrates the legacy and future of the Somerset Craft Guild. It shows the remarkable breadth of contemporary and historic craft in Somerset,…
MANY of us would love to have paintings, drawings or limited edition prints, but can barely afford them in these cash-strapped times – well-known Wiltshire artist Nick Andrew is offering work from some of his drawing projects at reduced prices on Saturday 7th February. On view at Nick’s Bull Mill Studio at Crockerton, near Warminster,…