TOP Hat started life as one of those classic Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers films in the years leading up to the Second World War, only being adapted for the stage seven or eight years ago. As might be expected, the plot line is pretty thin, but with its host of (mostly) memorable tunes by…
MY main source for knowledge of the life and works of the Bronte sisters is a chart-topping single by Kate Bush, so I was looking forward to learning more about this literary family this evening, in the safe hands of the company at The Swan. I have said before that I would happily watch them…
ARTSREACH, Dorset’s rural arts charity, picked an absolute winner once more with Clown in the Moon, a dramatic portrait of Welsh poet Dylan Thomas’ chaotic, frequently hilarious and all too brief life. Written by Gwynne Edwards, directed by Gareth Armstrong and starring Rhodri Miles as the poet, this one-man show, located, in part, in a…
DIRECTOR Michael Boyd and translater Rory Mullarkey have taken one of the best known and greatest plays in European literature and given it an extraordinary fresh energy and warmth in the new production of Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard, on at Bristol Old Vic until 7th April. They have reconfigured the country’s oldest theatre into an…
MANY productions of Terence Rattigan’s The Winslow Boy had left the impression of a stilted, worthy, period piece, peopled with conventionally unbending Victorian patriarchs. So Rachel Kavanaugh’s new production for Birmingham Repertory Theatre comes as a breath of fresh air. It’s a new approach to Rattigan’s greatest work, creating a warm and believable Winslow family….
ARTSREACH, Dorset’s rural touring arts charity, has developed an annual celebration of the county’s finest dialect poet, William Barnes, and this year’s event took place at Portesham hall, with Dorset food and music. The William Barnes Supper has been devised as Dorset’s answer to Scotland’s Burns Night, and a Blue Vinny cheese is“piped” around the…
Haydn: The Creation Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, leader Amyn Merchant Bournemouth Symphony Chorus (Chorus director Gavin Carr) David Hill: Conductor Lucy Crowe: Soprano Benjamin Hulett: Tenor Christopher Purves: Baritone You’d struggle to think of a piece of music which is more upbeat and affirmative than this great crowning of Haydn’s life’s work: The Creation. Written in…
THE launch of a new company is always exciting. And the Tobacco Factory company, based in the arts centre in the old Wills factory in Bedminster, hits the ground running, making its debut with a striking Macbeth. Shakespeare’s darkest tragedy is so full of famous phrases and quotes that it makes huge demands on the…
SHAKESPEARE’S early play The Taming of the Shrew is one of the most difficult for modern audiences, and never more so than in these post-Weinstein, equal pay, equal opportunity days. Bill Alexander’s sparkling production for Bristol Old Vic Theatre School at Circomedia (the 18th century former St Paul’s Church) doesn’t duck away from the story….
BATH-based theatre company New Old Friends is heading out on a lengthy tour with the new comedy murder mystery Crimes Under the Sun, and it starts at the Ustinov Studio. Written by company founder Feargus Woods Dunlop, it is set on a sun-soaked island off the English riviera, where famous Belgian detective Artemis Arinae is…