NIGHT Must Fall, by Emlyn Williams, is one of the classic British thrillers, a real chiller that builds and builds until the tension is almost palpable. It is the story of an unpleasant old woman, Mrs Bramson, who lives at Forest Corner, a house in the woods, with her frustrated and poor niece Olivia as…
STEPHEN Jeffreys’ play The Libertine, the scurrilous story of John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, has its first major revival in a production by Terry Johnson, now on stage in Bath before a season at the Theatre Royal, Haymarket from 22nd September to 3rd December. Set in the court of Charles II, it’s the story of…
UTAH, the 45th state, is known for various things – the Church of Jesus Christ Latter-day Saints, copper, gold and silver mining, the 2002 Winter Olympics, a staggering collection of dinosaur bone finds, Jell-O, particularly of the green variety and our destination (Sundance) and the talented Robert Redford. When we arrived at the airport at…
IT wasn’t the hills that were alive in Bristol last night as much as the Hippodrome, as song after song in The Sound of Music had people making almost as much noise off stage as on. In most musicals there are a few hits, a few standards that have made their way into the Great…
IBSEN’S epic play Peer Gynt, based on a Norwegian folk tale, has been described as “the story of a life based on procrastination and avoidance” and certainly introduces its audience to an anti-hero. At Salisbury, the Youth Theatre director Dave Orme saw it as a chance to create a modern play for a large cast…
by Simone Sekers RAISE a glass to the ever-increasing range of alcohols around at the moment. It started with gallant wine makers, bravely making the best of the then British weather (I’m thinking of 30 years ago now) and producing often tongue-raspingly acidic white wines that cost more than a premier cru white Burgundy. How…
OPERA in Oborne returned with sell-out performances of Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro in St Cuthbert’s Church in the picturesque little village near Sherborne. There were enthusiastic audiences for the Mozart on the Friday and Saturday, with a cast of young professional singers from Latvia, the US, France and the UK. On the Sunday the…
ALAN Ayckbourn loves a good idea, such as playing with location, as in RolePlay, a former choice by Dramatic Productions one of three otherwise-unrelated plays set in the same Docklands apartment, or with character, as in last year’s new work Roundelay with five main characters in their own half-hour play, whilst all featuring in the…
IT’S quite a coup for Bath Theatre Royal to get Phill Jupitus in his first Shakespearean role for the summer season, but in Laurence Boswell’s stylish production the charismatic comedian is one of a strong ensemble rather than the star turn. New audiences, drawn by the promise of the Jupitus Bottom, walk into the beautiful…
CORN not only grows tall, as Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Curly sings in Oklahoma!, it is also big business in the USA. Private chef Philippa Davis from Shaftesbury has been working on the millionaires’ summer resort of the Hamptons, north of New York and learning about this multi-billion dollar staple of American food and farming ……