PICTURE pink mist … tiny droplets of blood and flesh filling the air … shot to smithereens, we used to say. The definition of the title doesn’t come until late on in poet, novelist, presenter and teacher Owen Sheers’ first play, currently back where it started at Bristol Old Vic for a third time, at…
SOON after my sixth birthday, way back in the year when Prince Charles was invested as the Prince of Wales and when the first decimal coins were in circulation, I was taken to the old cinema in Shaftesbury, with mum, dad, and four-year-old sister, to watch a magical film, where a car flew and people…
Prokofiev: Violin Concerto No. 2 Shostakovich: Symphony No. 8 Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, leader Amyn Merchant Kirill Karabits: Conductor Valeriy Sokolov: Violin DURING his time at the helm of the BSO, we have seen Kirill Karabits expand his repertoire enormously, but conducting the works of Prokofiev and Shostakovich, the twin giants of Soviet-era Russian music, has…
HIJINX is a professional theatre company based at the Wales Millennium Centre. What makes them just a bit different is that their productions involve actors with learning difficulties working alongside those who face no such challenges; they pioneer, produce and promote inclusive theatre, making much use of the skills and raw talent of people who…
25th January FOR years I have wanted to visit Canada. As a child I awaited the arrival of a magazine called Beautiful British Columbia, every season every year, from a Canadian airman my mother had met in the war. Awesome really was the right word for the huge mountains, stunning sunsets, glistening seas and plunging…
WILLIAM Hooker Gillette was America’s foremost actor-manager at the turn of the last century, and when Arthur Conan Doyle was looking to extend his own income from Sherlock Holmes by transferring him to the stage, Gillette was an obvious choice for a collaboration, as writer and actor. The resulting play, Sherlock Holmes, ran for many…
by Simone Sekers TRYING to play the glad game about leaving Brexit, I wondered whether, instead of all those smug Wrecksiteers going on about “getting our country back,” it might be possible to think about getting France back instead. This would restore the magic of that descent from the ferry in to the very heart…
“Welcome to Scotland, Its -6 °C”! the cheerful staff at Enterprise car hire chirped. I think if they had looked closely at my five layers, hat, gloves, fur lined boots, hunched shoulders and hopping around moves, they would have been well aware that I had totally sussed that part of the situation out. Winning top…
THE revolving set for the Regent’s Park Theatre production of Simon Reade’s adaptation of Jane Austen’s best-loved book might look a little like the ironwork of New Orleans rather than Regency rural England, but it cleverly frames the action in this beautifully choreographed show. Neither as deconstructed as the current Jane Eyre tour, nor conventionally…
AMERICAN writer Amy Herzog’s 4000 Miles play had its UK premiere in Bath four years ago, and now Peter Fernandez brings the four hander to the stage of the Swan in Yeovil. There is nothing easy or comfortable about this four-hander, set in the New York apartment of nonagenarian Vera Joseph. She’s a card-carrying Communist…