THIS year (2017) marks the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra’s 124th year of bringing high quality live music to the south and south west. Last weekend, as part of their commitment to deliver music to rural communities in more intimate venues, their new music ensemble, Kokoro, returned to Bridport with a diverse programme entitled Fantasia – music…
I FIRST met Margaret Thatcher in the ballroom of the King’s Arms Hotel in Christchurch, the week before she became leader of the Conservative party in early 1975. The research chemist and barrister was a blazing light among the stodgily familiar Tory faithful. Interviewing her after her speech, she was direct, what we now call…
RAMIN Karimloo, in Yeovil? Surely not? Last year he sold out two iconic venues in Islington, Union Chapel and the Assembly Hall, and also the London Palladium, so those of us within an hour or so of the Octagon were very excited when this tour was announced towards the end of last year. Karimloo is…
AFTER the success of Hansel and Gretel last year, Bumblefly in collaboration with Forest Forge have been touring the region, bringing, as their publicity tells us, storytelling, magic and a splash of mischief, to their take on one of my favourite stories, The Elves and the Shoemaker. David Haworth’s adaptation of the Brothers Grimm story…
TRANSPORT Secretary Chris Grayling has announced that a tunnel is to be built to take the A303 past Stonehenge, to help to reduce the notorious traffic bottleneck on one of the major routes to the West Country. The tunnel would be 1.8 miles long, and would form part of a £2 billion programme for road…
Brahms: Tragic Overture Tchaikovsky: Piano Concerto No. 2 Sibelius: Symphony No. 5 BSO, leader Amyn Merchant Conductor James Feddeck Alexei Volodin, piano AFTER an exhausting schedule of Christmas concerts and New Year walzes, this was back to business for the hard-working BSO. The conductor was the young American James Feddeck, who has gained a wealth…
THE latest production of The Play that Goes Wrong starts its 29 venue tour at Bath with a sell-out week to open the 2017 season. Its reputation was enhanced by the televising of Peter Pan Goes Wrong (by the same team) over Christmas. Amateur theatricals provide a seemingly endless source of material for the professionals…
MATTHEW Maisey not only wrote and directed the Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs that Glastonbury and Street Musical Comedy Society are performing at Strode Theatre until Monday 2nd January, but also plays Weasel, half of the essential knockabout duo. So it’s only fair to hand the biggest slice of praise to him, for his…
ARMED with my lists, menus, timings, recipes, dietary requirement sheets and suitcase of red aprons I was totally ready for this job. Five days of feasting and festivities for 20 people, heading to the ice blue skies and rustic, rural, rolling landscape of South West France. I was prepared for the fast and furious few…
AUDIENCES at Salisbury’s Salberg Studio can turn the clock back to ther parlour entertainments of Victorian days with the evening show this Christmas. And it is devised and performed by the same versatile and talented quartet staging The Night Before Christmas in the afternoons for a family audience. The shows bring Glyn Kerslake back to…