Don’t just see it – be it! So read the G&S4U publicity for Saturday’s HMS Pinafore at Salisbury Playhouse. Under the energetic direction of Ian McMillan, we, as members of the audience, were being invited to become a vast chorus of sailors, sisters, cousins and aunts and, clutching union jacks, to set sail on the…
THE Sally Cookson directed, company-devised adaptation of Jane Eyre, first seen at Bristol two years ago in its two-part, four-and-a-half-hour version, has been abridged to three hours plus, and has been enthralling audiences at the National Theatre in recent months. Now it is back in Bristol until 6th February, and those with good memories and…
JET lag? Ha! After a 13 hour flight, when I had planned to snooze but managed to turn it into a movie marathon I landed in time to see Singapore in the midst of waking up and swinging into life. Singapore is the ultimate melting pot, with food and other cultural influences from Malaysia, Indonesia…
CHEESE expert Charlie Turnbull has given his Shaftesbury business a makeover, redecorating and converting the cafe area to a bistro while keeping the deli/cheesemongers side of the enterprises. Charlie, who was born on a farm in Surrey and trained as an accountant before realising he had a nose (and an appetite) for cheese, opened Turnbulls,…
Dutilleux: Tout un monde lontain Tchaikovsky: Manfred Symphony Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, leader Amyn Merchant Kirill Karabits: Conductor Jean-Guihen Queyras: Cello THIS year the centenary of the French composer Henri Dutilleux is being commemorated in a series of events on Radio 3, and this concert was the BSO’s contribution. Dutilleux died three years ago at a…
JACQUELINE Wilson’s story Hetty Feather, originally published in 2009, has been a hit with young readers ever since, spawning several sequels one of which is about to be published. The Bath born writer was delighted when producer Mark Bentley suggested bring Hetty to the stage, and from its earliest outings at The Rose in Kingston,…
JUST less than a year ago, Amy Kemp (pictured right) was playing the lead in a youth theatre production of Spring Awakening at the Swan Theatre. Now she’s back as director of David Auburn’s play Proof, and kicking the Swan into a new era of experimental production. It is an astonishing achievement, visually and intellectually….
THE Schmoozenbergs are a Bristol based group of musicians with a lively passion for gypsy swing and jazz. Back for a second season with Take Art, Somerset’s enterprising arts charity, this quartet of supremely talented young men promised to recreate the swinging sounds of Paris in the 30s and 40s, bringing us irresistible rhythms and…
A PACKED Colston Hall enjoyed an insider’s look at Mozart’s three last symphonies before John Eliot Gardiner’s English Baroque Soloists played them “in earnest.” The atmosphere of a “classical” concert has undergone a sea change in recent years. While the rigorous conductor, who is also an organic farmer in Dorset, wouldn’t dream of some of the…
CHEF Philippa Davis spent a fun New Year cooking in a chalet in Val d’Isere, and despite the lack of snow she made sure there was no lack of cake … Cooking for ski parties is another one of those jobs, like the shooting ones, that allows you to be fairly liberal with the butter…