Brahms: Piano Concerto No. 1 Lyatoshinsky: Symphony No. 3 Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra leader Amyn Merchant Kirill Karabits conductor Sunwook Kim piano CONCERT-GOERS at Poole’s Lighthouse last night were greeted by the sight of a brand-new Steinway Model D grand piano centre stage wearing a fetching bright red bow which had been made by students at…
THE past few months have brought the plight of women in the entertainment industry to public attention, from the undue influence exercised by powerful casting producers and directors to the lack of work for women “of a certain age.” The Midlands-based Anonymous is a Woman theatre company, set up by actors Leila Sykes and Bips…
ON Saturday at the Nadder Hall the audience included a little boy attending (with some trepidation) his first pantomime, and a pensioner to whose eyes the story brought a tear … “It’s the first time I’ve been to a pantomime in more than 50 years, and this was the first one I saw,” she said. The…
SIMON Dormandy’s adaptation of EM Forster’s A Passage to India is informed by his father’s experiences of the sub-continent, and the combination of mysticism and surreptitious violence are perfectly suited to Dormandy’s physical theatre style. In a simple8 and Royal and Derngate, Northampton co-production, this swirling, intense and colourful version distils the essence of the…
THE unfolding drama of the Scottish Play is the perfect vehicle for dance, as packed Merlin audiences discovered in Frome this week. The occasion – heralded as the arts event of the week in the national press – was the opening of Mark Bruce’s new dance theatre piece, Macbeth, based on the familiar Shakespearean story…
THE decision to opt for a play instead of a pantomime this year has brought one of the very best things I have ever seen to the Shaftesbury Arts Centre stage. Director Rosie King chose American playwright Ken Ludwig’s multi-layered, literate and darky exciting version of Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island, often performed as a two…
TIME-travelling magicians and all round spiffing chaps Rhys Morgan and Robert West brought a magical extravaganza to Salisbury last night with a truly amazing show – as mind boggling as it was delightful. Celebrating their tenth year as a duo of deception, the intimacy of the Salberg Studio was the perfect venue for their brand…
THE versatile Swan Theatre company in Yeovil took a step into the unknown for their first show of 2018 – the first play written by local stalwart am dram soc member Adrian Harding, directed by fledgling director Judith Baker, with new members making their stage debuts. And it is a huge success. Whistleblower is set…
IN the first few days of 2014 , the eyes of the world focussed on North Somerset, where a number of remote villages were being engulfed by the rising water from the River Parrett and its tributaries and the courses that feed and underlie the Levels. Photographs and news footage of the floods brought aid…
IN 1977, folk singer Pete Bellamy, then a member of The Young Tradition, composed a cycle of folk ballads based on a true story of two petty criminals transported from Norwich Gaol to Botany Bay. It became The Transports, heralded as the first folk opera (presumably leaving The Beggar’s Opera aside) and the recording was and…