THERE have been a few compilation shows featuring the music of Stephen Sondheim over the years, including Putting It Together, featuring Carol Burnett, and Sondheim at the Sheraton, at Edinburgh in 1995, but the most famous of these shows is surely Side by Side by Sondheim, originally conceived as a fund-raiser for Cleo Laine and…
RELATIVELY Speaking is the seventh play that Alan Ayckbourn wrote, some 52 years ago, and although it was his second West End transfer, this was the one that made him an overnight success as soon as the reviews were published. The play is very cleverly constructed, with economy of language to help introduce confusion, but it has a simple structure,…
ALAN Franks’s viscerally intimate Looking at Lucian, in which the small auditorium at Bath Theatre Royal is transformed into the Kensington studio of portrait painter Lucian Freud, could be described as fly-on-the-wall. But as the painter and his unidentified sitter work together over ten months, each moment of Freud’s reminiscenatory conversation is as precise as…
FOLLOWING the huge success of the 1992 film and the 1993 sequel, Sister Act was prime material to be adapted for the stage, with the Motown classics of the film replaced with new songs by Glenn Slater and Alan Menken, a book by Cheers writers Cheri and Bill Steinkellner, and with the plot ensuring that the action…
FLANN O’Brien’s posthumously published novel The Third Policeman takes its readers into a parallel universe of non-sequiturs, obsession and very peculiar people (reminiscent of the current encumbrance of the White House.) It’s a story that might seem impossible to adapt for the stage, but that’s without the skills of Miracle Theatre’s Bill Scott and his…
CHILDREN from a south Dorset primary school have helped to develop a new interactive walking trail to attract people of all ages to explore the magnificent sights of the South Dorset Ridgeway. Hosted by Bincombe Valley Primary School, and led by Dorset Youth Association with the support of Artsreach and the social and ethical house…
A FORMER United Reformed Church chapel at Avebury has been purchased by the National Trust as a space to highlight conservation work and explain the special landscapes within the World Heritage Site. Jan Tomlin, the trust’s general manager for the Wiltshire Landscape, explains: “Our vision is to develop this unique and beautiful building into a…
MANY visitors to the southern Spanish region of Andalusia head straight for the coast, in search of the predictable trilogy of sun, sex and sangria. They may find what they are looking for, but they experience little of the history, architecture, landscape and food that make this one of the most exciting and fascinating parts…
A RESTAURANT with rooms that welcomes sandy feet, windswept dogs and weather-beaten walkers who have worked up an appetite is now tempting visitors and locals with a new cliff-top ice cream bar. The Seaside Boarding House in Burton Bradstock is a foodie destination with a timeless feel, and an amazing location with the dramatic panorama…
FROM pansies to parsley, roses to rosemary, the summer menu at the award-winning Queens Arms in Corton Denham, near Wincanton, is blooming with fresh flavours and floral flourishes from the pub’s kitchen garden. New head chef, Steven Mesher, is working closely with the gardening team, visiting the plot on a weekly basis with owners, Jeanette…